Equilibrium
by lamardeuse

Rated:  NC-17

Pairing:  Jim/Blair

Warnings (highlight to view):  explicit sex, violence; case concerns hate crimes


Author’s Note:  This was originally intended as a nice little post-TS-by-BS first time story, an easy intro into the fandom—and ended up as a novel-length monster with plot that took seven months to complete.  It’s not as though this particular storyline is new territory, but I’m hoping it contains at least some elements of originality.  Thanks to all the people who gave me such wonderful support and advice as I reeled it out as a WIP—I am grateful for their patience and willingness to stick with the story.  And thanks in particular to doll, who introduced me to the roller coaster ride that is Jim and Blair.  I'm hangin' upside down and having the time of my life.

Archiving:  Please do not archive anywhere without my permission.

~ I ~

Every muscle that Blair Sandburg owned was threatening to leave his body and attach itself to the next couch potato who walked by.

Blair didn’t blame them one bit. He’d never fully appreciated how completely out of shape he was until he’d started the PT at the police academy. Sure, he’d never been a mass of quivering, gelatinous flesh, and he exercised—sporadically—but there was no doubt he’d always tended toward the weedy side. He was a classic ectomorph, without the height to carry it off.

But the rigorous physical regimen was finally yielding some results after two long months; besides the pain, he could actually notice a “before” and “after” when he checked himself out in the bathroom mirror. His subcutaneous fat had pretty much disappeared, which meant swimming the English Channel anytime soon was out of the question, but also meant he’d lost the last traces of a resemblance to a selectively furry chipmunk. In addition to that, his endurance was way up. From panting through a mile in about seven minutes, he could now manage five without undue effort.

However, the one area that still needed a big improvement was his muscle mass. The situps and the pushups weren’t cutting it, because let’s face it, lifting Blair Sandburg or part thereof was not much of a strain. It annoyed him that the minute he attempted a task requiring real strength, his arms and legs seemed to turn into big, wet noodles. Combat training started in three weeks, and odds were that he’d spend most of the course flat on his ass if he didn’t start shaping up.

So he’d bitten the bullet and bought a membership to the cheapest gym he could find, which was way the hell over on Beaton, but it wasn’t like the extra expenditure of gas to drive him half an hour would eat in to what he was saving. He could’ve worked out at the gym at the station for free, but he didn’t want to punish his po’ ol’ body in a fish bowl. The Major Crimes yahoos were already laying five to three that he wouldn’t graduate next April; the last thing he wanted to do was lengthen the odds by showing them his lack of prowess in lifting heavy metal objects.

Sitting sprawled on the living room floor, he tried one last time to stretch his aching leg muscles, but they screamed at him so loudly he wondered if some of Jim’s abilities had rubbed off on him. Giving up, he flopped back onto the hardwood and closed his eyes.

Dimly, he registered the sound of the key turning in the lock, but he couldn’t make himself care. Crisp, even footsteps echoed in his ears, then:

“Sandburg? Blair? Oh, my God!”

Weakly, he raised a hand, both to let Jim know he was all right and to fend him off. Whenever the other man worried that Blair was injured, he tended to do stupid things like touch him to check if he was still alive. Blair was sure that if Jim laid a hand on him he’d turn into one huge, convulsing spasm.

“’Malright,” he muttered, opening his eyes to meet Jim’s clear, pale gaze. “Gym.”

Jim stared at him, waiting.

“Oh. I mean, I just came from the gym,” he said stupidly. He tried to lever himself up, but his body had other ideas. A pained groan escaped his lips, and he subsided into wet noodle state again.

“What the hell did you do there?” Jim asked, more fear than reproach in his voice.

“Went too hard at the weights, I guess,” Blair managed. “They guaranteed me I could go from 98-pound weakling to Ahhnold in a month, but I figured out their evil scheme—nobody survives the first week.”

Jim frowned. “How much did you stretch?”

Blair grunted. “Not enough, obviously. My entire body is seizing up—in another few minutes I’m gonna be curled up like a dead cockroach.”

Instead of the smart crack or the jovial mano-a-mano whack on the shoulder, Blair was surprised to find Jim’s expression was now radiating concern. He felt the fingers of his right hand enclosed in the bigger man’s strong, sure grip, and instead of pain, only registered warmth.

“Listen,” Jim told him softly, “I know it’s going to hurt, but you need to get into the shower, all right? Get yourself under a hot shower and just stand there until you drain the tank.”

Blair suddenly remembered why he’d raced home from the gym, thus foregoing the requisite stretching. “Aw, shit, man, it was my night to cook, I’m sorry—”

“Forget about it. I’ll order some Chinese, okay?” The grip on Blair’s hand tightened, and he steeled himself. “You ready?” Jim asked him, still in that gruff but gentle voice. “Come on, I got you.”

Trying his best to ignore the outraged cries shooting into his brain, Blair allowed the hand to pull him to his feet. Jim lifted him as though he weighed no more than a toy poodle, but then the guy had enough muscle mass to rate his own gravitational field.

“Hey,” Blair said, while Jim steadied him on his feet, “if this workout thing doesn’t produce any more muscle, can you spare me some of yours?”

Jim took him by the shoulders and turned him in the direction of the bathroom.

“I get it, I get it,” Blair grumbled, forcing his feet into a shuffle worthy of a Georgia chain gang.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

If he had to collapse, why the hell couldn’t he have done it in a normal place, like a bed?

Newsflash: because Blair Sandburg is about as far from normal as Mars is from my left butt cheek.

Jim was glad the kid wasn’t a Sentinel, because his heart rate still hadn’t returned to normal after he’d spotted Blair lying flat on the floor.

And suddenly he’d had a flash of the younger man, hair and clothes dripping wet, lips turning blue, body still and unmoving—

Fuck. Don’t think about that.

There was no reason to believe that Blair would have been attacked here in the loft—at least, no immediate reason. There were no crazed serial killers or Yakuza mobsters or evil Sentinels gunning for him at this particular point in time. But nevertheless, since that terrible day, Jim couldn’t stop his heart from tripping into overdrive the minute he thought the other man might be in danger.

And considering he wasn’t exactly the poster boy for discussing his feelings, he hadn’t mentioned it to Blair. Hell, he hadn’t even done much to try to sort it out in his own head. He knew there was caring, and protectiveness, and deep friendship in there, but he was also aware that a huge helping of it was guilt, pure and undistilled. He’d eaten his share of that dish over the years; he recognized its flavor as easily as he did the spices Blair put into his Pad Thai noodles.

The hell of it was, it wasn’t just Blair’s near-death experience that was tying him up in twisted knots, because the feeling had intensified exponentially the day of the press conference. Yeah, that press conference. The one where Sandburg threw away every hope he had of an anthropology career, everything he’d ever wanted professionally, for the sake of—

—of saving Jim’s ass. An ass that probably would’ve been shot off a long time ago without the kid’s help, so what the hell difference did it make if the whole thing blew up in his face now?

It still confounded him, that he had treated Sandburg so shamefully. When he thought back to those days, it was like he was watching somebody else saying those things, pushing the other man away at every opportunity, pouting like a spoiled brat who hadn’t gotten what he wanted for Christmas.

Behaving like—like some jilted lover in a bad play.

I just thought we agreed I’d get to read it first. What the hell was that, anyway? It sounded perilously close to something Carolyn had thrown at him in the last, mine-field days of their marriage.

And the best consolation prize he could come up with, after he’d guilted the kid into giving away his entire life? Hey, why don’t you come play in my sandbox as a reward for your troubles. It’s not anything like what you’ve always wanted, but at least it’s a chance for you to get shot on an even more regular basis. Oh, and did I neglect to mention that I’m scared shitless every time you so much as get a hangnail?

Should make for an interesting partnership, shouldn’t it?

Jim started at the sound of the shower roaring into life, and realized he’d been zoning in a perfectly normal way for once, lost in his own head as his thoughts chased round and round like a dog after its own tail.

Shaking his head to clear it, he strode over to the phone and hit the speed dial for Fong’s.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“You want me to what?”

“Geez, Sandburg, it was just a suggestion,” Jim said testily. “I thought you could use it.”

“Yeah, I could, sure, but in all the years we’ve known one another, you’ve never offered—”

Jim shot him an eloquent look that Blair recognized as the patented Ellison will you please shut the fuck up about this look.

“Maybe because I never actually saw you exercise enough to need one,” the older man returned. “Christ, I’m not asking you to marry me, you know? It’s only that the food isn’t gonna be here for another twenty minutes, and I thought—”

Blair reached up to snag a sweater off a hanger and his shoulders cracked. He let his arm drop and favored Jim with an expression he hoped resembled contrition. “Yeah, uh, actually, that’d be great. I mean, what the hell am I doing, turning you down?” He glanced at Jim’s huge, square hands for an instant, then jerked his head at the bed. “You want me, ah—”

Jim followed the line of his gaze, and nodded sharply. “Yeah. It’d be better there.”

As Blair walked—at least it was now more of a walk than a shuffle—over to the futon and stretched out on it face-down, it occurred to him that he should alert the media, because Hell had now officially frozen over.

Jim Ellison had offered him a back rub.

He hadn’t actually used the words, “back rub”—the words had been mumbled, though he’d picked out “limber” and “knots” and a lot of awkward hand gestures, then he’d had to ask for clarification, which had pissed Jim off from the start. Sorry, buddy, not always psychic, though I try. It’d be a lot easier on both of us if I were.

Okay, Jim was right sometimes when he accused him of trying to talk everything to death, but there were certain subjects that needed precise communication, such as one man offering to fondle another guy’s bod, however platonic the intention may be.

Whoever’s version of reality prevailed here, the upshot of it was that he was sprawled out, clad only in a pair of track pants, waiting for—

Warm hands. Hot, even. Strong fingers digging into flesh, a sudden, bone-deep pressure, gouging the heat into his—

“Oh! Ohhhhhhh. Oh, fuck.”

Jim’s hands, lifted from his shoulders. “Hurts?”

“Yeah, I mean, no, not in a bad way. Hurts so good, you know, man? Don’t stop.” Blair wiggled a little on the mattress, astonished to find the kneaded muscles already felt slightly better.

Above him, Jim snorted. “You make the same sound for pain or happiness.”

“Jim, quit quoting Walter Matthau and just—aaaaah, God—”

For the next few minutes or few hours, Blair thought he experienced what it was like to lose himself in sensory input the way Jim did. There was no reality outside of the sure, heavy touch of Jim’s hands, no part of Blair that lived outside their immediate sphere of influence. Eventually, however, the restorative power of those healing hands radiated outward, traveling beyond the confines of his back and neck and arms and shoulders, enveloping him in their lifegiving warmth, awakening parts of him that were nowhere near the point of contact…

Like his dick.

Head flopped down over his bunched pillow, Blair stared unblinkingly at the wrinkled white sheet two inches in front of his nose.

Sweet motherfucking Buddha.

Okay, okay, think. He’d never gotten a massage from a man before, only women, and women with whom he’d been intimate, so it was only natural that his lizard brain would associate receiving a massage with the horizontal mambo. And he was tired, and he’d just been through an intense physical experience, and he hadn’t been with a woman in at least three weeks, and he hadn’t whacked off in—

Okay, this line of thought wasn’t helping.

“You want me to do your front?”

Blair twitched. “Hmmph? What? Oh…uhh…”

“Did I wake you up?”

“No, I wasn’t—” stall, shit, stall, “—uh, where did you learn to give back rubs like this, man? ‘Zat a course at the Academy, because I don’t recall seeing it on the syllabus.” Return to the here and now, Blair admonished his nether regions. This is not a woman. This is Jim Ellison. Jim’s hands, Jim’s fingers, Jim’s leg pressed up against your—

Why wasn’t this helping?

Jim gave him a whack on the shoulderblade. “Very funny. Look, it’s a simple question—”

“I’m just curious. It must be a Special Forces thing, then, huh? Out there in the jungle, no day spas in sight, guys need some way to loosen the ol’ musculature, right? So did that come before or after the training on How To Blow Shit Up?”

“Sandburg, what the hell—”

A pause.

The sound of an indrawn breath.

Oh, God, oh, Godgodgod, why hadn’t he thought about it? Jim could smell him.

Was smelling him.

Blair’s dick got harder.

Suddenly, the warmth was gone from his side, and the hands left his back where they had been resting comfortably. Jim had stood up—like a guy shot out of a cannon, Blair would be willing to bet.

The doorbell sounded.

Blair remembered how to breathe.

“Food’s here,” Jim said inanely.

“Yeah,” Blair grunted.

“I’ll, ah, get it.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Okay, then.” Blair listened to him pad out of the room and open the front door.

And then he sprang to his feet and hastily pulled on his tightest, dick-strangling jeans, and further covered the evidence with the longest shirt he could find.

He glanced at himself in the mirror on the way out the window, and was faintly surprised he recognized the guy looking back at him.

 ~ II ~

“Hey, Megan, can I ask you something, uh, a little personal?”

Inspector Megan Connor lifted her gaze and eyed Blair over her computer monitor. “You can ask,” she drawled.

“Well,” Blair began, picking at a thread on his shirt sleeve, “have you ever, ah, had occasion to question a fundamental part of your identity?”

The woman regarded him with a puzzled expression. “How d’you mean?”

“Well, I mean like a major life choice—you know. Your career, your sexuality, your self-image.”

Megan raised an eyebrow. “I might have,” she said archly. “Why do you ask?”

Blair debated with himself for a moment or two. Megan was anything but a gossip; for half a year now, she’d kept her own counsel about Jim’s Sentinel abilities. He cast a surreptitious glance at the other cops milling about the bull pen, sitting at their desks, shooting the breeze casually. None of them were close enough to hear their conversation, and Jim had been called away to a meeting across town, so he knew he was safe there.

“Because I’m looking for pointers,” he said heavily.

“Oh, Sandy,” Megan said, her eyes instantly filled with sisterly concern. “Are things not going well at the Academy? Are you regretting your decision to become a cop?”

“No! I mean,” Blair stammered, his face growing hot, “it’s, ah, it’s not that. Well.” He frowned, considering. “That could be part of it, I suppose. The upheaval of the past couple of months. The all-consuming desire to finish the dissertation, contradicted by feelings of loyalty and friendship. The ambiguity I feel about joining the police force, which is represented in my mind by…” Suddenly, his face lit into a grin as all the puzzle pieces slammed into place. “Yeah, that makes a lot of sense!”

Megan blinked at him. “What does?”

Impulsively, Blair leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “Thanks. I’m glad I could talk to you about this.”

Her expression rueful, Megan shook her head at him. “Anytime, Sandy.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Earth to Jim!”

Jim abruptly realized the man across the desk from him had been asking him a question for some time, but he hadn’t heard a word. Come to think of it, his mind had been wandering all through this meeting.

Unfortunately, considering the man across the desk was a shrink, and Jim was undergoing his yearly psych evaluation, letting his mind wander belonged in the category of Really Stupid Ideas.

“Sorry, doc,” he said, passing his hand over his eyes. “I, uh, think I’m coming down with something.” Another stupid idea. With his luck, this guy’d check out the results of his physical—which he’d undergone this morning—and find out there was nothing wrong with him. Psychosomatic illnesses did not look good when you were trying to convince someone you were normal.

He should’ve brought Sandburg along, or at least told him about it. Blair had helped him prepare for every psych evaluation since they’d met. The trouble was, this time Blair was the problem, not the solution.

“Well,” the shrink was saying with a smile, holding up both hands, “don’t give your germs to me. I just got over the ‘flu and I’m not looking for a fresh infection.”

“Sorry,” Jim muttered again, automatically.

The doctor frowned. “It’s okay, Jim. I was kidding. Look, are you sure there’s nothing going on that you’d like to talk about with me?”

Jim fought to keep his expression neutral. “No. Everything’s great.”

The other man blew out a breath. He was a young guy, and he’d done the evaluation on Jim last year. Used to judging people by instinct, Jim had figured him as a good egg from the first, but the fact still remained that he worked for the police force, and anything Jim said here could and would be held against him. As in the Special Forces, the minute a cop admitted he needed counseling, he might as well flush his career down the toilet.

“Look,” the shrink—Doctor Bellini—said quietly, “I can tell there’s something wrong, Jim. And I want to help. How about this: you can tell me what’s bothering you, I can—hopefully—help you to come to terms with it, and then we both can forget the conversation ever took place. Okay?”

Jim narrowed his eyes. “Why would you—”

Bellini waved a hand. “Because I’m tired of going through the motions. Every cop comes in here with problems, because, hell, they’re human, and this is one of the toughest jobs you can have, and I play dance around the goddamned maypole with them every year, pretending nothing’s wrong.” He sighed. “Oh, I’m not saying I haven’t had to pull a couple of people because of evaluations—the ones who are really in trouble aren’t able to hide that from me—but I know that’s not what’s going on here. I just—I just want to help.”

Jim focused in on his hearing and sight, trying to detect any signs that would tell him the other man was lying: elevated heartbeat, nervous sweat, a tiny twitch in a muscle. He found nothing. Pulling back, he studied Bellini’s earnest, open face, then blurted out the question that had been consuming him for days.

“How do you know if you might be gay?”

Bellini showed no signs of shock or revulsion, merely interest. He cocked his head. “You mean usually? Usually, the indications occur about the same time as they do for heterosexuals, in pre-adolescence.”

Jim closed his eyes briefly. “No. I mean, you’re going along through life, convinced you’re straight—you’ve always been straight, you can’t conceive of ever wanting another guy—and then something happens that makes you wonder if you weren’t fooling yourself all along.”

Bellini leaned back. “Well, first of all, sexuality isn’t a case of black or white. There’s a continuum of varying shades of gray, and just because you’re not usually attracted to a particular gender doesn’t mean it’s never going to happen. But let’s come back to your situation. What kind of ‘something’ are we talking about here? What exactly happened that made you doubt your orientation?”

Jim blinked. What kind of ‘something’ was he talking about? “It’s not like anything actually happened,” he clarified. “It’s mainly been—I don’t know, considering the possibilities, maybe. Dreams, mostly.” Never mind that the memory of the heady scent of Blair’s arousal would hit him like a blow to the gut at the most inappropriate times, like when he was sitting across the table from the guy eating breakfast. Never mind that most of the time he’d considered it as he slept, he’d woken up stuck to the sheets. Never mind that his dreams involved a scenario where the Chinese food never showed up and Jim started by peeling those Academy track pants off and running his hands over Blair’s ass, which was so unbelievably smooth he just had to lean forward and—

“Jim. Jim.”

Jim shook his head. “Sorry, sorry. I—I just don’t know what to do about it.”

“What would you like to do about it?”

“I’d like it to go away,” he admitted, then cringed when he realized this had been his first reaction to his Sentinel senses as well. And look what happened there.

Bellini smiled enigmatically. “Funny, I wouldn’t have pegged you for a homophobe.”

“I’m not!” Jim protested, then leaned forward, elbows propped on knees. “Look, I, ah, I was in the military, right? I knew there were guys in my outfit who were gay, guys who in an aesthetic sense were pretty damned nice to look at. So why the hell didn’t I notice anything then?”

Bellini glanced at the file lying on his desk, then back up again. “Maybe a buff body is not all it takes to attract you, Jim.”

Oh, shit. Shit.

Of course. Everything the Department knew of his life was in that personnel file. Like the fact he’d been living with another guy for over three years. Like the fact he’d fought off several cops to bring Blair back to the land of the living. Jim straightened slowly, prepared for flight.

Bellini shook his head. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to be naming any names. I know the Department policy, and between you and me, it’s bull. If you don’t love your partner in at least a platonic sense, you can’t be half of a truly effective team.” He paused. “It’s perfectly natural that a few of those partnerships would develop into something more.”

Jim gritted his teeth. “I don’t want it.”

“Why not?” Jim hesitated, and the other man jumped in. “Don’t think about it, just spit out anything that comes to mind.”

“Because—because it’s complicated. It’s always been complicated, from day one. He’s—he’s—we’re like oil and water. It’s as if he sees the world backwards and upside-down. He drives me nuts on a regular basis. He gets himself into stuff because of me—he’s been shot, he’s fucking died, and he just keeps coming back—and now he’s in the Academy, and I don’t even know if it’s what he wants. If he gets hurt again, I don’t know what I’ll do. It’s just—oh, hell—” Jim scrubbed his hands over his face.

“Yeah,” Bellini said gently. “Sounds like love to me.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Hey, loverboy!”

Blair closed his eyes briefly before turning around. He could do this; he’d faced down terrorists, bullshitted crazed psychopathic killers. What was one no-neck trainee with a single-digit IQ?

Okay, he thought as Hardy’s beefy body came closer, filling his vision, a really big no-neck trainee with a single digit IQ.

“What can I do for you?” he said, with as much manly bluster as he could manage.

Hardy frowned, as if he hadn’t expected the question. “What can you do for me?”

“I believe that’s what I said, yeah.”

“What can you do for me?”

“See, now,” Blair said, unable to resist, “I didn’t put exactly that emphasis on ‘do’, but you’re getting the hang of it. Keep trying.” And with that, he turned to go.

“Hey! Where you think you’re going?”

“I think I’m going home,” Blair explained wearily. “I think it’s been a long week and I want to put my feet up and forget about the proper procedure for handling domestic violence and the proper procedure for approaching people about to commit suicide in messy ways and just chill, you know? Come on, man, don’t you want to take a break?”

Hardy frowned. “From what?”

Oh, Jesus. Blair gave this guy another week at the most before he was washed out. “Look, it’s been real, but I really have to go.” He scanned the parking lot, looking for Jim’s truck. It was still a little early, though, so he didn’t expect to find it. Why did the Volvo have to be in the shop today of all days?

“Looking for your boyfriend?”

Blair sighed; this was so old, it was growing a beard. His patience exhausted, he rounded on the muscle-bound young man and snarled, “Yeah, Hardy, you guessed it. Your brother is right; Jim and I are fucking like rabbits every night and twice on Sundays. Of course, your brother is also a bigoted prick who will I pray to God never make detective, and is not fit to lick Jim Ellison’s boots, never mind contemplate his sex life—”

That did it, Blair thought as he was seized by the lapels of his coat and pulled up onto his toes. I was wondering what it would take to penetrate that thick skull.

“Take your hands off of him. Now.”

The growl that vibrated through the air came from behind him, but Blair didn’t have to see him to recognize that voice.

“Jim, I’d like you to meet a prince of a guy, Rob Hardy. His friends call him ‘Two by Four’.”

“Did you hear me, recruit?” Oh, man, now Jim’s tone had descended into the Scary Special Forces Mofo range.

This was a really, really bad time to be getting turned on.

“I heard you,” Hardy said, his eyes never leaving Blair’s face. “Fag.”

Blair sighed and shook his head. “I almost feel sorry for you,” he muttered.

It took him a few seconds to realize that everything seemed to have stopped. Jim didn’t say anything. Hardy didn’t say anything, just kept his hands fisted in Blair’s lapels. Then a slow, evil grin broke out on Hardy’s face, and Blair wished he could turn around and figure out what the hell had happened to his partner.

“Uh, I hate to break this up,” he said finally, “but you’re twisting my coat out of shape. And we fags really hate when you mess with the duds, so—” Grabbing his own fistful of Hardy’s coat for leverage, Blair drew back his right foot and aimed a vicious kick at the bigger man’s leg.

He heard a snap and a howl, and suddenly he was stumbling backwards as Hardy crumpled inelegantly onto the sidewalk. Strong hands gripping his shoulders from behind kept him from falling as he regained his footing on shaky legs.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Hardy was wailing, clutching his leg, “you broke it, you fucker, you broke it.”

Blair knew that he should’ve been horrified, but all he could manage was a strange sense of feeling partially outside his own body, divorced from it, as though it no longer belonged completely to him.

“Not bad for a cocksucker, huh?” he said, in a tone easily as dangerous as Jim’s.

~ III ~

Blair was beginning to wonder if Jim had gone into permanent zoneout.  They’d been back in the loft for a full fifteen and a half minutes, and he hadn’t shown the slightest signs of wanting to tear him into small, even strips.  This after a long and draining session with the Academy officials and the cops, giving statements, answering questions, and promising not to injure any more of his classmates before the whole matter came up for review.

Thankfully, Hardy had been an equal opportunity asshole, and within about a half hour they’d rounded up six other people, most of them women, who’d either experienced his wit and charm first-hand or seen it happen to someone else, including Blair.  That had to help his case.  The other bonus was that it didn’t look like Hardy was going to press charges.

“You want something to eat?”

Blair looked over at Jim, who was leaning on the kitchen island, looking more than slightly out of touch with reality.  “Depends.  What’ve we got?”

Jim pushed himself off from the counter and strode over to the cupboard, then opened the door and peered inside.  “Uh…soup.”

“That’s it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Oh, shit, was it my week to shop?”

Jim closed the cupboard door, then waved a magnanimous hand.  “Don’t worry about it.”

Don’t worry about it?  It was getting to be Invasion of the Body Snatchers time in here.  “Okay, well, I’ll go get some takeout.  Wonderburgers on me.” Blair propelled himself up off the couch and grabbed his coat off the rack.

“Your car’s still in the shop.”

Blair banged his head against the door.  “This is so not my week—”

“I read the witness statements.”  Jim’s voice was dull, lifeless.

“And?” Blair asked warily, face still pressed against the door.

“And one of them said that Hardy has been harassing you since the first day of classes.”

“Yeah?  What’s your point?”

“My point,” Jim said, still in that quiet, flat voice, “is that you never said anything.   To—you never reported it.”

Blair pushed back from the door and met Jim’s gaze.  “I kind of figured it went with the territory.”

That got a reaction; Jim’s brows drew together in a scowl.  “Went with the territory?  The territory of what?”

“Of becoming a cop.  Or to be more precise,” he continued, holding up a hand to forestall Jim’s comment, “of becoming a short-assed cop with way too much hair for most other cops to be happy with.”

Jim shook his head.  “Why the hell would you think that?  Has anyone on the force ever harassed you?”

Blair’s gaze drifted to Jim’s left shoulder.

“Jesus, Blair,” Jim breathed.  “Who?”

Blair shook his head.  “It doesn’t matter who.”

“It goddamn well does.  Was it that asshole Hardy’s brother?  I’ll call the precinct—”

“Hardy’s brother is one step above meter maid. He’s got the brain capacity of a termite.  I don’t know how either of those idiots even made it as far as they did—”

Jim blew out a breath.  “Their dad’s a Lieu down at the 27th Precinct.  But that doesn’t matter; we can still have a complaint—”

“Look,” Blair said, holding up his hands, “can we please forget about this?  I’m not going to be filing harassment charges, and I’ll only press for assault if Hardy decides to do the same.  I’ve never gotten any grief like that from anyone in Major Crimes, and they’re the only people I care about anyway, because they’re the ones I’ll be working with.  Yeah, I’ve been called fag a few times by cops, Jim, but I’ve been called that off and on since junior high, either because I got better marks than 98% of the class, or had long hair, or both.  It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It does,” Jim insisted.  “It’s harassment, Sandburg, and we can’t just—”

“Jesus Christ!” Blair exploded suddenly, surprising both of them.  “I broke another human being’s leg today, Jim.  I only wanted to make him let go, but something took over and I—I don’t know what the fuck happened.”  He pressed his hands into his eyes, fighting a wave of dizziness that swamped him.  “I can still feel it, feel the crack of my boot hitting the bone.  I swear to God I forgot I was wearing the steel toes, I swear to God. Jesus, I can’t believe I—”

At the first attack of nausea, his hands moved swiftly to cover his mouth.  Fuck, fuck, he thought, and then he was moving toward the bathroom as fast as his feet could carry him.  He barely made it to the toilet in time.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jim spent a couple of minutes listening to Sandburg puke, then picked up the phone and ordered some Indian food from that new place over on Maynard.  Blair would have to eat something, and hopefully a good curry and a few poppadums would restore his appetite.

After that, he flopped down on the couch and waited for him to clean up.  It wasn’t long before Blair emerged, face pale and blotchy; seeing him like that caused something inside Jim to twist unpleasantly.

Bellini had advised him to face his fears, to open up to Blair, but there was no way in hell he could lay any of that on him tonight.  And besides, he didn’t have the first clue how to open up even if he wanted to.  Was there a special tool for that, like an attachment on a Swiss Army Knife?  If so, Jim suspected he hadn’t been outfitted with that model.

Blair sank into the chair, in deference to Jim’s sense of smell, no doubt, though the kid must’ve brushed his teeth about half a dozen times, because Jim couldn’t pick up much of anything besides the overpowering scents of mint toothpaste and soap.  “You okay?”

“I will be,” Blair murmured, head upturned toward the ceiling.

“I’m sorry for pushing it.  I won’t bring it up again.”

“S’okay,” Blair said.  “I understand.”

Do you?  Then explain it to me, will you?  He prepared to apologize again, this time for the unconscionable sin of not backing his partner up when he needed him.  The epithet that Blair took in stride had never been leveled at Jim in his entire life, and the timing of it had frozen him in place for crucial seconds, seconds in which Blair was forced to take matters into his own hands.  Part of the younger man’s anguish—no, all of it—could be laid at Jim’s feet.

Jim opened his mouth to say this, but what actually came out was, “I, ah, ordered some Indian.”

Blair nodded absently, then sat up and leaned forward, his gaze pinning Jim like a bug.  “Jim, could you teach me some fighting techniques?”

Jim frowned.  “Don’t you start a class in combat soon?”

“That’s just it, man,” Blair said wearily.  “After today, I’m scared of what I might do.”

“Sandburg,” Jim began, “that was an extraordinary situation.  I hardly think you’re going to be—” he trailed off, unwilling to refer to it directly and risk making Blair sick again.  “I mean, you don’t have to worry.  They’ll take you through the basics in a controlled way.”

“And I’ll end up screwing up one way or the other.  You know that saying, ‘I don’t know my own strength?’  Well, I’ve been feeling like I wasn’t ready for this course, that I didn’t have the power to carry it off.  Now I don’t know what’s going on with me.  I feel like I don’t have control over my own body.”

The irony of that statement was not lost on Jim.  Aloud, he said, “A successful fighter isn’t always the most powerful one.  You know that.  You have to use what you’ve got, and also learn to turn your disadvantages into strengths.”

Blair’s mouth twisted.  “You mean like the fact I’m at least a head shorter than most of the goons out there?”

“The best fighter I ever saw was a skinny sergeant in the SAS who barely made 5’8”.  He could flatten guys twice his size.”

“So teach me,” Blair pleaded.  “I can’t fuck up again, Jim.  If they don’t kick me out over this—”

“They won’t,” Jim said roughly.

“Will you?”

Jim took a deep breath, let it out.  “Where would we practice?”

“The gym I go to is pretty deserted a couple of nights of the week.  I can probably rent a room there cheap.”

The last obstacle gone, Jim admitted defeat.  “Okay.  Sure.”

Blair blew out a sigh of relief, grinned at him.  “Thanks, man.”

As they drifted onto safer topics of conversation, Jim wondered whether either of them would survive to see Blair’s graduation from the Academy.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Blair knew as much about hand-to-hand combat as he did about the latest Madonna CD, but even he could tell this wasn’t working.

They’d been going at this for almost an hour, and Jim had been treating him like he was made of china.  Sure, okay, some of that was introduction—how to fall, how to deflect a blow, how to twist out of a hold.  But now it was starting to become obvious that Jim wasn’t giving it one hundred percent, which admittedly would probably kill him, but there wasn’t even fifty percent there.

“Look, ah, Jim,” he began tentatively, after the twentieth repetition of the same move, “d’you think maybe I’ve got the hang of this by now?”

Jim straightened and blinked at him; it pissed Blair off a little that while he himself was practically dripping over here, the bigger man hadn’t even broken a sweat.  Must be a trick he’d picked up in the jungle or something—conservation of moisture.

“Uh, sure,” Jim said, seemingly caught off guard.  “You want to review the other block?”

Blair’s jaw clenched.  “I was thinking maybe we could move on to something more advanced,” he offered.

Jim blinked again.  “I was going to save that for the next time.”

“Okay, okay, that’s fine, but could I maybe get a preview here?” Blair asked, realizing he was whining but not caring.  “See, I’m kind of nervous about this whole thing, fear of the unknown’s never exactly been a problem for me, you know, but this is killing me here.  I want to have an idea of what to expect.”

Jim stared at him, frozen again, and suddenly it occurred to Blair that he’d been doing that a lot lately.  “Jim, are you zoning?  God, man, I’m sorry, I haven’t been paying enough attention to your—”

“Sandburg.  I’m fine.”

Blair shut up.  Waited.

“C’mere.”

Blair hesitated for an instant, then jerked forward as though he was being pulled by an invisible string.  When he was close enough to feel Jim’s breath on his overheated face, he stopped.

“Okay,” Jim murmured.  “Remember what I was showing you about falling?”

Blair frowned.  Cripes, not that again.  “Jim…”

“You’re going to do the same thing to me.”

Blair stared up at him.  “I’m going to drop you?”

“Do you remember the moves?”

“Sure, sure,” Blair said.  “But—”

“Don’t think.  Just do it.”

Blair’s hands came up of their own accord, curling around Jim’s biceps, at the same time his right foot swept to knock Jim’s feet out from under him.   Jim toppled obediently, almost gracefully for such a big man.  It was beautiful.

And completely fake.

Blair opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Jim was on his feet again.  “Good,” he said approvingly.  “Try it again.”

After the third time, Blair couldn’t hold back any longer.  “Jim,” he said slowly, hands curling into fists.  “You can take off the kid gloves, all right?”

The other man regarded him steadily from his place on the mat, and remained stoically silent.

“Look, man, I know what you’re doing.”

“So do I,” Jim growled.  “You can’t learn everything you need to know about combat training in an hour.   You have to start slow.”

“Slow, yeah, slow is fine, but this is glacial, here.”  Blair ran a frustrated hand over his damp hair.  “On the one hand, you’re telling me I can do this, I can take on guys bigger than I am, and then when we get down to it you treat me like I’m this eighty-year-old grandmother with a bad hip.  Tell me the truth:  can I do this or can’t I?”

Jim pushed himself into a sitting position.  “You can do this,” he said evenly.

Blair spread his hands in a Well? gesture.

“But it’s gonna take time—”

“Goddammit!” Blair exploded.  “I don’t have that kind of time, okay?  I have to pick up this stuff now, or I’m sunk.  I’m going to fail this combat course, Jim, it’s like I’m getting one of Naomi’s premonitions or something—”

Blair wasn’t even sure how he ended up flat on his ass.  All he knew was that one second, he was babbling and frothing at the mouth, and the next second, he was lying on the mat, legs sprawled, the air forced from his lungs—

—because Jim’s big, heavy, solid body was pinning him to the ground.

“You think this is a fucking game?” Jim growled in Blair’s face.  “You think knowing how to react in a life-threatening situation is easier to learn than the burial practices of the Maori?”

Blair shook his head; it was about the only part of his body capable of movement.

Oh, wrong.  Not the only part.  Silently, Blair thanked God for the protective cup that hid a multitude of sins from the man currently pressing every ounce of flesh he owned against Blair’s helpless body.  One of these days, he’d have to find a way to deal with these inconvenient hard-ons.  Maybe elecroshock therapy?

“Good,” Jim was saying.  “Because it’s not easier.  I was trained for one thing in the Rangers, you understand?  Not how to subdue someone without injuring them, not how to fight someone and cause the minimum damage.  I was trained to kill.  And when I started my combat course at the Academy, I was scared shitless that the instincts I’d developed would kick in, and suddenly I’d be standing over a guy with a crushed windpipe or a nasal bone jammed into his brain.”

Blair winced.

“Yeah.  So in a way, I know where you’re coming from.  I know what the problem is.  But the thing is, if you’re in a fight for your life or the life of someone else, you can’t always moderate the amount of force you use.  It’s not always possible.  And you have to face the fact right now that one of these days you may have to kill someone in the line of duty.”

Blair fought to hold Jim’s gaze.  “You think I haven’t thought about that?” he croaked.

“No, Chief, I don’t think you have.  Intellectually, yeah, I’m sure you’ve acknowledged the possibility.  But emotionally, I don’t think you’ve faced it.”

“Look who’s talking about getting in touch with his emotions,” Blair muttered.  “How do you know I haven’t?”

Jim’s gaze held his for another moment, and then he pushed himself up and off Blair’s body.  “Because if you’d thought about it, you wouldn’t still be at the Academy.”

The words hit Blair harder than he’d hit the mat.  “You—you mean you’re just waiting for me to—wash out?”  He shook his head.  “Then why did you even ask me to do this?  Why did you want me to become your partner?”

Jim hauled himself to his feet and offered a hand to Blair, who waved it away impatiently.  His skin felt too small for him, like he was about to pop.  “Answer me, dammit!”

“I was being selfish, all right?” Jim rasped.  “I admit it.  I—liked having you as my partner, and I didn’t want it to end.  But that doesn’t mean it’s the way you should go.”

“It’s what I want,” Blair muttered, aware he sounded childish.

“Since when?” Jim demanded, chuckling bitterly.  “Since two months ago?  Since the day you threw your entire life down the toilet?”

“I did that for you!” Blair yelled, aware that he was having possibly one of the worst conversations of his life in a skanky practice room in a skankier gym that stank of human sweat.  It was not a congenial setting, as it were.

“Yeah, well,” Jim muttered, contemplating an unidentified stain at the corner of the mat, “maybe that wasn’t the greatest decision.”

“It was the only decision,” Blair gritted.  “The only decision that felt right to me.”

“All I’m saying is that this whole incident with Hardy, your concerns about what happened, might be a sign of something bigger.  It might be an indication that you’ve got doubts about becoming a cop.  Which would be perfectly natural; I mean, the first time I met your mother she called me a pig.”

As quickly as he’d been primed to explode, Blair now felt deflated, hollow.  “You seem preoccupied with labels these days, man.”  He met Jim’s clear blue gaze.  “Is that all I am to you?”

Jim’s jaw clenched spasmodically.  “It doesn’t matter what you are to me.”

Blair cocked his head, conscious of a tiny alarm bell ringing in his head.  Unfortunately, he was too tapped out to try to decipher what it was trying to warn him about.  “You really think that, don’t you?” he murmured.  “You really think the equation should be reduced, rendered down to simplest terms, unemotional, cold figures.  Like three million.”

Jim pursed his lips.

“I swear, Jim, if you say right now that I should have taken it, I will try that windpipe trick.”

“I wasn’t going to say that.  But there are other alternatives, and I never even gave you a chance to think about them.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the private sector.  Such as a hundred other things you’d be suited for.”

Blair smiled ruefully.  “You underestimate me.  I thought about my options.”

“And?”

Blair held Jim’s gaze without faltering.  “And here I am,” he said softly.

Jim looked a little wobbly on his feet for a moment, as if Blair had sucker-punched him.  “I, ah, I—”  He rubbed a hand over his eyes, wiping away the sweat that had formed on his forehead.  Blair wanted to laugh until he burst.  Now he was sweating.  That was Jim, sure enough.  Give him the choice between running around Cascade five times or talking about his feelings, and he’d have his sneakers on and be out the door before you could blink.

“Never mind,” Blair murmured, suddenly overwhelmed by the maelstrom of hurt and affection and anger spinning around in his gut.   “Let’s just—call it a night, huh?”  He struggled to his feet, wincing at the pain as he tried to unkink his legs.

Suddenly, strong hands were pulling him up; unprepared, he stumbled and fell forward, smack into Jim’s broad chest.  The hands instantly moved to bracket his shoulders, and he looked up to see—

—pale blue eyes, the only ethereal thing about the man, the only physical indication that there might be something of the spirit world about him.  A mouth that was slightly open, as though breathing had become difficult.  High cheekbones covered by skin tinged with blood flowing scant millimeters under the surface.

Blair was aware of the heat of Jim’s chest where it burned against his, the pressure of Jim’s hands on his shoulders, the tilt of his head as he leaned forward—

—Holy.  Shit.

Blair’s pulse leapt at the thought that Jim was about to kiss him, which was outrageous, insane, fucking impossible.

“Jim,” he breathed, and they were so close that he could feel the breath from that word rebound off Jim’s skin.

That broke the spell; as if he’d been treated to some of that electroshock, Jim’s hands convulsed on the other man’s shoulders and released him, and he took two steps back like they’d been playing a really weird version of Mother May I.

“Yeah, Chief,” he said, and his voice was old, like he’d aged fifty years in a few seconds.  “Let’s get out of here.”

~ IV ~

Jim stood up from the table and extended his hand. “Thanks for agreeing to meet me, Doc.”

Bellini smiled and took his hand in a firm grip. “Richard, please. I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to call me.”

Jim rubbed the back of his neck as he sat down again. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Still, I feel bad dragging you out on your day off.”

The psychiatrist waved a hand. Today, he was much more casually dressed, in jeans, a charcoal sweater and a leather jacket that made him look even younger than he had in his office. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got a date later on, and I’m nervous as hell; this’ll keep me distracted.”

Jim chuckled. “Blind?”

The other man grinned. “As a bat. A mutual friend set us up.” He studied the menu. “So what’s good here?”

After they had ordered and gotten their drinks—beer for Jim, a glass of wine for Bellini—Jim tried to initiate conversation a couple of times, then realized he hadn’t the faintest idea of what to say.

“So, is this where we talk about the weather?” Bellini said, smiling over the rim of his glass.

Jim shook his head. “This is harder than I thought.”

“Why don’t you start with the impetus for your call Thursday morning. You said something had happened the night before, and you didn’t know what to do. Did you talk to Blair?”

Jim took a swig of his beer. “Sort of,” he hedged.

Bellini raised an eyebrow. Jim sighed.

“Not really,” he admitted. “It started out pretty typically: he wanted to go one way, I wanted to go another, we argued. I told him that maybe he would have been better off not going to the Academy. That there were other jobs he could have considered.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He, ah, he—” he blew my mind “—he said he’d considered them. And that he’d decided to join the force anyway.”

“And did you believe him?”

“Yeah,” Jim murmured, “but I know he hasn’t thought about it enough. He’s capable—I’m not saying he isn’t. He’s fearless when he needs to be, and he’s had a lot of experience with working cases. But he’s not prepared for the possibility that he might have to kill someone in the line of duty.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“No. But I know it’s true.”

Bellini caught and held Jim’s gaze. “Were you prepared the first time you killed someone?”

Jim’s eyes widened, and the thunder of his heartbeat blotted out every other sound for a few seconds. “No,” he croaked finally.

“Nothing can prepare you for that, I would imagine. Not intelligence, or reason, or training.”

Jim focused on the edge of his beer mug. “Yeah.”

“So that wasn’t the real reason you argued with him, was it?”

Jim’s jaw clenched. “I guess not.”

“What’s the real reason?”

Jim wiped his suddenly-damp palms on his jeans. “You tell me.”

Bellini chuckled and took another sip of his wine. “Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. You have to walk the path with me, Grasshopper.”

Jim closed his eyes briefly. “How much do you know about Blair?”

“I might have taken a peek at his file after you called me,” Bellini said easily.

“Then you saw that he was declared dead at the scene by paramedics about five months ago.”

A shadow crossed Bellini's features before his sympathetic expression reasserted itself.  “Mm-hmm. And that he made a miraculous recovery, thanks to you.”

Jim shook his head. “It’s because of me he was almost killed. I was responsible. I’ve been responsible for everything bad that’s happened to him since we’ve met. If it wasn’t for me, he’d be leading the life he always wanted. He’d have his doctorate, and he’d be happy.”

“He’s not happy now?”

“He can’t be!” Jim snapped, keeping his voice as low as possible.

“Why not? Because he’s with you?”

Jim stiffened, feeling as though the other man had just clotheslined him. He was lying on the pavement, wondering how the hell he got there.

“How long were you married, Jim?”

Jim’s brain reeled at the change of subject. But it wasn’t a change, was it? No wonder this guy had a diploma on his wall. “Not long enough,” he gritted.

“Maybe not for some things,” Bellini said quietly. “Long enough for you to doubt yourself, though. Long enough for you to wonder why the hell anyone would want to remain loyal to you, through thick and thin.”

Jim’s fingers dug into his thighs hard enough to leave bruises.

“You think that might have some resonance in your relationship with Blair? You ever question his dedication to you, and realize later that maybe you shouldn’t have? You ever wonder when he’s going to just say, ‘enough, already’ and take off?”

Jim met the psychiatrist’s understanding brown-eyed gaze. “Yeah, yeah, and yeah,” he breathed. “So many times I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Three for three? So you’re telling me I can skip dealing with your no doubt equally traumatic childhood, right? Because I don’t think that’s gonna go well with the salad you ordered.”

Jim smiled ruefully. “Next time, I’ll get the soup.”

“Smart choice.”

“So now that I know where it comes from, what do I do about it?” Jim asked.

“Start by talking to him, Jim,” Bellini answered, his voice gentle. “Tell him you don’t have all the answers yet. It’s not a crime, and you might find out he’s got some for you.”

Jim snorted. “Yeah. I can hear it now. ‘Jim, just let me try this root used by the Hopi Indians to induce visions, man. We’ll have the answers for you in no time.’”

Bellini laughed.

Jim drank about half his beer in one gulp. “I, ah, I almost kissed him Wednesday night,” he blurted.

The psychiatrist’s smile didn’t fade. “Well, good for you. I saw his picture in the personnel file, and I have to say, if my date tonight is half as gorgeous as he is, I’m going to be very grateful to my friend.”

Jim’s eyebrows rose for his hairline, which was a long way to go. Bellini just kept grinning.

“Yeah, Jim,” he said. “You never can tell, huh?”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Sandburg, I am not in the mood.”

Great. Nobody wants to talk to me. “Simon, man, I just need a couple of minutes, all right?” Blair knew that he was groveling, but he didn’t give a shit. The past couple of days, he felt like he’d been living at right angles to everybody else. He was desperate to return to the vertical.

Simon Banks blew cigar smoke at him. The fact that Simon was smoking and therefore defying the ban was an eloquent indication of the way the Captain's day was going.  “Sandburg,” he said again, “I’m here on a Saturday, a Saturday when I should have been taking my son to the Jags game, because the higher ups could not wait another forty-eight hours for paperwork they won’t look at until Monday anyway. I’m pissed off. I’m ready to throw something out this window. If you stick around much longer, that something might be you.”

“I just need to ask you one question.”

Banks glared at him, then glanced at his watch. “You have thirty seconds.”

“Do you think I have what it takes to be a cop?”

Simon scowled at him. “Yes. Now get lost.”

Blair strode forward and planted himself in one of the chairs on the other side of Simon’s desk. The big man’s scowl deepened. “Come on, man, I need something here. I feel like everything’s falling apart.”

“I thought you were cleared by the board. Jim told me they expelled Hardy.”

“Yeah, yeah, I was, and they did, but that’s not all of it.”

“Then what? You’re not failing a course.”

Blair spread his hands. “Simon, hey, this is me we’re talking about. I’m at the top of my class.”

“So what, then?” Simon demanded, clearly way past the end of his patience.

“Jim doesn’t—ah, I mean, I don’t think he wants me to become a cop. I don’t think he believes I have what it takes.”

Simon shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. It was his idea in the first place.”

“And you backed him up?”

“Of course I did.” Simon blew smoke and slumped in his chair. “Look, you know I’m no good at this ‘nurturing’ crap…”

“Has he said anything to you? Anything that might explain why he’s changed his mind?”

“How do you know he has?”

“He as good as told me!” Blair exclaimed, leaping to his feet and beginning to pace. “I—I don’t know what’s going on with him. One minute it’s all, ‘Hey, Chief, you’re the best partner I’ve ever had,’ and then it’s, ‘Maybe you should’ve gone to work for McDonald’s—’”

“Sandburg—”

“—and I realized this has been getting worse since my first day at the Academy. He’s been getting more and more distant, and he doesn’t do that male bonding shit with me like he used to—”

“—I really don’t want to know the details of what you two—”

“—no more pats on the back, or slaps on the cheek. You know, those really used to drive me nuts, because I never knew when they were coming, but it’s funny the things you miss when they’re gone—”

“SANDBURG!”

Blair jumped. “What?”

Simon hid his face in his hands. “If I beg you to go away, will you? At this point, I’m willing to pay.”

Deflated, Blair nodded. “Yeah, okay. Sorry. I’ll—” he pointed at the door “—quit ruining your weekend.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Simon sighed from behind his hands. “It was ruined before you showed up.”

“Okay, that’s, ah, that’s—great. Well, not great—I mean—oh, fuck.” He turned to go. “See you.”

“Blair.”

He turned around and met Simon’s piercing gaze. “Talk to him. You’re good at that.” He paused. “And you’re good at being a cop. You have been for a long time now.”

“Thanks,” Blair said softly. And to spare Simon more pain, he left without another word.

As he drove the Volvo out of the parking garage and headed for home, he felt a lot less horizontal than he had been. He still wasn’t fully upright, but he was getting there. A weekend of studying stretched in front of him, and while the subjects may not have been familiar, the process was comforting. He’d hit the books, and maybe try to think up a way to approach Jim that wasn’t going to result in having his head bitten off.

Hey, Jim, I wanted to ask you about Wednesday night, at the gym. I was wondering, you know, if you were putting the moves on me, or if it was just gas.

Hey, Jim, have you been considering any major changes in sexual orientation? Because I’ve been getting spontaneous erections around you lately, and I thought it might be more scientifically valid if we compared notes. You show me yours, I’ll show you mine, whaddaya say?

Hey, Jim. I think I’m losing my mind. How about you?

The light changed, and Blair turned onto Maynard, a quaint little commercial street near the loft. The block was crammed with intimate restaurants and small shops, and as if on command, Blair’s stomach growled. Man, it was past one, and he hadn’t eaten a thing all day. He scanned the street for a parking space and pulled over; a lamb dhansak and Naan bread from that Indian place would be just the ticket to see him through a long afternoon of studying.

He climbed out of the Volvo and looked up and down the street, checking the traffic. He lifted his eyes to the opposite sidewalk and saw—

—Jim leaving the Italian restaurant next door with a guy.

Jim. With a guy. A guy he hadn’t told Blair anything about.

A really good-looking young guy with an expensive leather jacket and a smile that could power New Mexico.

As Blair stood there against the side of the Volvo, frozen, he watched Jim return the smile, then give the guy a friendly pat on the shoulder before turning and heading for his truck.

Blair didn’t get those kinds of pats anymore. But this guy did.

Some rational part of his brain tried to take over, to tell him that it wasn’t a big deal, that the guy was probably an old Army buddy or a cop Jim knew who’d transferred to another precinct. It didn’t mean anything. He sure as hell shouldn’t be standing here in the December cold, shivering and feeling like he’d been kicked.

He wasn’t jealous, dammit. He just missed Jim touching him.

He just wanted Jim to touch him.

Blair watched the truck pull out into the traffic and drive off in the opposite direction, oblivious to his presence.

Taking a deep breath, Blair checked the street once more, then headed for the Indian restaurant, filled with a new determination to be noticed.

~ V ~

Jim was this close to strangling him.

“Sandburg,” he growled, as Blair brushed past him in the kitchen for about the hundredth time, whacking his elbow and making him lose his grip on the wooden spoon he was using to stir the sauce.

“Hmm?”  The younger man had been bopping around the loft all afternoon like a monkey on crack, which had actually become an unusual state for him since he’d enrolled at the police academy.  Not that Blair was now the poster boy for gravitas, but he’d settled some, become more—normal.

Or maybe Jim had gone in the opposite direction, so that it averaged out.

“You’re driving me nuts, here,” Jim said irritably, immediately regretting it when Blair’s little monkey face got this serious boo-boo look about it.  There was even a slight pout in that full lower lip, a pout that made Jim want to close the distance between them and run his tongue—

Down, boy.  Talking first, pout-licking later.

Richard’s advice was no doubt the best way to go.  He’d always been what you might call a man of action, but if ever he needed to sit down and discuss something, he recognized that this was it.  Hell, he was contemplating a whole new life, here, a whole new direction, and he’d be asking the same of Blair.  You couldn’t just about-face and hope it worked out; you’d end up marching over a cliff.

“Sorry, Jim,” Blair was saying, only his apology was accompanied by the gentle stroking of fingers on his offended elbow.  His naked elbow, because Jim had discarded his sweater in favor of a worn t-shirt that he didn’t care about messing up.  He did this because Blair had come home with an armful of groceries from the Asian market and a jones to try some “authentic Indonesian cuisine,” and he’d merrily dragged Jim into a crazy afternoon of cooking enough dishes to feed six people.

“’S’okay,” Jim rasped, distracted by the glide of Blair’s fingers against his skin.  Shit, he wasn’t even dialed up, here, and he could’ve picked out every ridge and valley of the kid’s fingerprint if somebody had wanted him to.

“Hey,” Blair said softly, his face close to Jim’s now, his expression radiating concern.  “You okay?”

Jim swallowed.  Resisted the urge to shake his head and yank the smaller body up against his until he could feel every millimeter of him. 

Talk to him.  Just start talking.

“Fine, Chief,” Jim muttered, belatedly picking up the spoon and setting it in motion again.  “You told me to stir, I’m stirring.”

He felt the weight of Blair’s gaze on him long after he’d narrowed his focus to the pot in front of him.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

This wasn’t getting him anywhere. 

Upon reflection, the theory that a companionable evening spent cooking and kibitzing in the loft would fix whatever had gone wrong between the two of them was, well, dumb.  He supposed he’d wanted it to be a reminder of the couple of hundred other evenings they’d spent cooking and kibitzing together, and hence would magically fix the mysterious, unknown something that had fucked everything up and made Jim not want to be his partner any more.

But magic solutions were obviously not on the menu tonight. 

Blair felt awkward, totally out of touch with his own body, and he hadn’t been this spastic since he’d gone to his first junior high dance and spilled punch all over Mary O’Rourke, who he’d been desperately in love with for five whole weeks.   It was pathetic, really, because if there was anyone who knew the subtle science of using body language to accomplish a goal, it was Blair Sandburg.   For example, he knew twenty places on a woman’s body that it was perfectly acceptable to touch in polite society, but when the right pressure or caress was applied?  Look out, baby.  Of course, there was an escalation sequence involved, too—the crest of the shoulder before the elbow, the elbow before the back of the…

Oh, hell, what did it matter anyway?  His vast experience and skill were useless to him, because he was no longer dealing with the same territory.  Jim Ellison’s body was an alien landscape to him, full of hidden pitfalls and locked-up secrets.  The knowledge of feminine anatomy was definitely non-transferable, and Blair was ready to run up the white flag and admit defeat.

It didn’t help that there was so much of the bastard.  True, it had never escaped Blair’s notice that Jim was a big guy, complete with a musculature that would have sent Gray running for his sketchpad.  But when confronted directly with the evidence, especially when it was wrapped up in a faded gray t-shirt that was so worn out it looked painted on his perfect pecs—well, it was more than a little daunting.  It made Blair start thinking about what exactly he was hoping to have happen here, and what he’d do with that body if it were ever put on offer. 

Because what was the ultimate goal of this elaborate display of body language, assuming he managed to get it right?  Was he hoping for a reconciliation of sorts, a return to the old days of BlairandJimness, the pats, the slaps, the easy way they had with each other when everything was in the groove?  Or was he aiming for something newer, more complicated, and maybe more than a little terrifying?

That would explain the awkwardness, right there.  On the one hand, his brain was commanding him to Stop!   Look!  Listen!  Slow the fuck down!  and on the other, his dick was exhorting him to Go!  Hump!  Now!   No wonder he was acting like a twelve-year-old with his first boner.

Thankfully, the food preparation was finally over with, and they were sitting down to eat—

—enough food to last them a week and a half.

Blair attempted an ingratiating smile, but figured he probably just looked constipated.  “Guess I went a little overboard, huh?” he ventured, waving a hand over the multitude of dishes and bowls piled between them.

Jim’s gaze flickered over the table, then up to his face.  “I hadn’t noticed,” he said, and the tone was drier than the Mojave, but there was a spark in those sky blues that made Blair’s pulse sit up and take notice.

He hadn’t seen that spark in forever, he realized.  He’d give anything to know what had made it go out.

Their gazes caught and held for a long moment, and then Jim cleared his throat and said, “So, I guess we’d better sample the fruits of our labor, huh?” and began spooning out portions of jasmine rice and fish curry.  A slightly stunned Blair followed suit a few seconds later.

The first forkful was halfway to his mouth when he heard a groan from across the table, and every nerve ending in his body went on alert.

“Wh—” he began, afraid something had happened to Jim’s senses, but the words died in his throat when he registered Jim’s expression.

So that was what bliss looked like on Jim.

His eyes were closed, his expression utterly serene, as if he’d just been handed the secrets of the universe courtesy of the Look Ho Ho Market.

Or as if he’d just come his brains out.  Twice.

Blair returned his attention to his own plate, but it was way past too late.  His jeans were officially three sizes too small, and he was careening down the slippery slide at Fantasy World.   Desperately, he began to shovel food in his face, heedless of the taste.

Eat, chew, swallow.  Eat, chew, swallow.

That worked for a few minutes, until Jim helped himself to another dish and made a new noise somewhere between a moan and a whimper, and then Blair was off on another X-rated ride.  Another round of Eat, Chew, Swallow, then another groan, another ride.  This was getting to be a bad habit, he mused.

Okay.  Try conversation.

“So, ah, who was that guy I saw you with earlier?”

Okay.  That sucked.

Jim’s head snapped up, and his eyes narrowed slightly, not enough that anyone but Blair would probably notice.  “What guy?”

“The, ah, the guy in the leather jacket.  Young guy.  You were coming out of La Trattoria?”

Jim’s gaze slid from Blair’s face and settled on his shoulder.  “That was, uh, a guy I know from work,” he said.   “I’ve known him for a while.”

“Oh.  That’s good.”  Blair frowned at himself.  “I mean, good you keep in touch.”

“Yeah.”  Jim spooned out some more rice onto his plate.

“He a good friend?”  Blair heard himself say.

Okay, you can shut up anytime now.

Jim shifted in his seat, like it had suddenly grown too warm for him.  “Not really.  I don’t know him all that well.”

“You just said—”

“I said I’d known him for a while,” Jim said, voice low and slow, “not that I knew him well.”

“Right, okay, sorry,” Blair murmured.

“You preparing for your exam in Interrogation Techniques?” Jim said, attempting levity.  It sailed off the cliff and landed flatter than Wile E. Coyote.

“No, I was just curious.”

“Well, you heard about the curious cat, didn’t you, Chief?”  Jim cracked.

Blair didn’t answer.  Suddenly everything on his plate looked rubbery and inedible.

“Sandburg?”  A pause.  “Blair?”

Blair’s eyes rose to Jim’s face, startled.  His given name wasn’t a moniker Jim used often, so it grabbed his attention when it did.

“I was only kidding.  You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Blair managed tightly.  “I know.”  He regarded the food, then waved a hand.  “You done?”

Jim opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again.  “Yeah, I guess.”  He wiped his mouth and stood.  “What do you want to do with the leftovers?”

Throw them out, Blair wanted to say, but what came out was, “I guess I’ll dig up the Tupperware.  They’ll make good lunches through the week.”

Jim chuckled.  “We’ll be the envy of the whole department,” and Blair looked up at him, searching for signs of sarcasm, but saw only approbation and a tentative kind of warmth in the other man’s face. 

It was like a punch to the gut, and he’d had a few of those since hooking up with Jim, so he ought to know.

Together, they cleared the table, and then there were a couple of minutes of foolishness while Jim hauled container after plastic container out of a drawer, until Blair laughed and held up his hands and said, “All right, already, I think that’s enough!” and Jim grinned back at him, and it was just like old times.

And not, Blair thought as his traitorous body responded to even that small mark of favor from his friend and partner.

Partner.  The word had sharp edges that cut into his brain as he turned it over in his mind.  So many meanings to that word, but were any of them true?

He dumped the last of the rice into a container and sealed the lid, then leaned back against the counter and looked up at Jim.  “I dropped by the station today to see Simon.”

“He call you about a case?” Jim asked, still spooning curry.

“No.  I—needed a little confidence boost, I guess.”

Jim chuckled.  “Yeah, Simon’s a real confidence booster,” he drawled.

“On the contrary,” Blair murmured.  “I wanted an honest opinion, and I got one.”

Jim’s smile faded.  “An opinion about what?”

“About whether or not I was cut out to be a cop.”

A dozen emotions flickered across Jim’s face, but they moved too quickly for Blair to be able to pin any one of them down.  “Of course you are,” he gritted with surprising vehemence.  “If anyone’s been telling you different—”

“You’ll defend my virtue?” Blair said, suddenly seized with a desire to shake the man standing beside him until his teeth rattled.  “That’s very chivalrous of you, Jim, but you’ll have to joust with yourself on that one.”

Jim blinked, and Blair was treated to another twelve emotions, or maybe the same ones backwards, he couldn’t be sure.  “Jesus,” Jim said.

“Yeah,” Blair agreed.

“I never meant to—you have to believe me—”

“It’s okay, I mean, I don’t—”

“—It’s not you, I swear to God—”

“—clue how this happened or what I did to convince you I couldn’t—”

“—all me, I’ve been screwed up for a while, I think, only I didn’t know it, but I’m trying to get it sorted—”

“—handle it, but I want you to know I’m determined to stay with—”

“—that guy you saw me with, see, he’s a shrink, and he’s been helping me with some stuff.  I know that doesn’t sound like me, but—”

“—whatever it takes, whatever I need to do to prove it, I’m just hoping you’ll—”

“—not sure who ‘me’ even is any more, Chief.  But none of that matters right now, because more than anything I want you to know—”

“—tell me what the hell went missing along the way, because I want it back, and—”

“—that you’re the most important consideration in all of this.”

“—because you’re number one, man, you always have been.”

Blair stared at Jim.  They were both breathing as though they’d just run a marathon; Blair didn’t need super senses to see the pulse leaping crazily in Jim’s neck.

“What did you say?” Blair asked.

“You didn’t get any of it?” Jim returned, exasperated.   Blair shook his head, and Jim slammed his hand against the counter, making the dishes rattle.  “That’s great, that’s fabulous.  I finally get up the balls, and you’re not even listening!”

“Whoa, now, there, Secretariat,” Blair said, as Jim began to pace, “let’s look at the photo finish.  You weren’t listening to me, either!”

“Well, I’m the one who started first!”

There was something surreal about this whole thing, but Blair couldn’t be bothered to try to put his finger on it.  “Okay, so, give it to me again,” he said, folding his arms.  “I’m listening now.”

Jim stopped pacing and stared at him, stonily silent. 

Blair watched as the other man’s expression went through those lightning-fast changes once more, only this time he imagined he recognized some of them. 

But that couldn’t be right.  And that one—that one there.  That definitely wasn’t—

Jim’s expression turned Sphinx-like, and he took a step toward Blair.

Blair tried to move back, but he’d forgotten he was pressed up against the counter.

“You’re listening,” Jim said finally.

Blair nodded, kind of weakly.  “All ears.”

Jim’s stare shifted to his ears, exposed by the ponytail.  Blair felt them turn pink.

Jim took another step—half-step really, because at that point he couldn’t move without walking through Blair.  And he didn’t look like he wanted to walk through him.

He looked like he wanted to—

Jim reached up and placed his hands on either side of Blair’s face.  Blair sucked in a breath, and froze, and got impossibly hard all at once.

“Funny,” Jim said slowly.  The tips of his fingers brushed Blair’s earlobes, making them tingle.  “I would have sworn you were all mouth.”

The mouth in question opened on a gasp as Jim’s thumbs stroked over his lips.

That internal debate Blair’d been having with himself earlier about whether he wanted the old, comfortable relationship or a new, scary one?  It just became academic, because with or without his consent, the relationship was now headed toward scary at full speed.  To employ a metaphor, it was sailing into shark-infested waters.  Jaws was on their tail, ready to swallow their asses.

And the scariest thing of all was that Blair no longer gave a damn.

Jim’s thumbs barely had time to get out of the way as Blair surged upward.  When their mouths met, it wasn’t like any first kiss he’d ever had, because before this he’d always teased and gentled and seduced.  Mister Sensitive, that was his style. 

No style here.  This first kiss was one of a kind, hard and intense and sloppy and unbelievably exciting, not that he hadn’t been a little excited to begin with, but this was hurricane strength.  Jim was a force of Nature, he’d known that from the first day when he got himself slammed up against a wall, but this was a whole new kind of force, because they were both in on it now, whipping up the waves, sending the tsunami crashing against the peaceful fishing village until there was nothing left but a lot of sticks. 

Dimly, Blair registered the feel of Jim’s corded arms encircling his back, and he experienced a moment of panic, because while he’d dated women taller than him, he’d never gone near one with twice his muscle mass.  But there was an electric thrill under the flight response, a heretofore unrecognized desire to soak up that power, just rub up against it and let it ooze into his pores.  Of course, it was also fun to test it a little, push and pull and twist and demonstrate some power of his own, so he gave it his best shot.  Acting on instinct, he tried some of that fancy footwork Jim had shown him, and the next thing he knew their positions were reversed, with Blair now grinding the bigger man into the counter.

Jim broke away from the kiss long enough to let out a groan, and Blair was startled to realize that there was a hard ridge pressing into his belly, and that this hard ridge probably belonged to Jim Ellison.  Jesus, he was as turned on as Blair was, and really, Blair should have been able to deduce that from the way Jim had just tried to mine his tonsils, but there was nothing like a big, solid erection to hammer the fact home. 

Blair’s eyes slammed shut and he shuddered.  Okay, putting ‘hammer’ and ‘erection’ in the same sentence had a peculiar effect on him.  Must file that tidbit of information away for later.

Wait a minute.  Something was wrong here.  The arms were gone; strong hands were moving to his shoulders and propelling him backward. 

Blair’s eyes opened.

Jim was looking winded and messy and half-debauched, and Blair decided he wanted to start debauching the other half as soon as possible.  He grinned lasciviously and took a step forward—

—only to be stopped dead by the hands still on his shoulders.

“Sandburg.”

Oh, shit, Blair thought.  “I have this rule,” he said, not allowing his smile to fade.  “Once a person has had their tongue in my mouth, calling me by my last name is definitely out.”

Jim’s jaw tightened.  Double shit.  “I, ah, I’m s—”

No.  No way are you going to do this now.  “You say you’re sorry, I’ll break your leg.  I can do that, you know.”  Starved for contact already, Blair’s hands rose to press against Jim’s chest. 

Jim flinched.  His eyes focused on a point somewhere past Blair’s shoulder.

“Don’t you dare look away,” Blair growled, suddenly angry.  The flight response was gone, leaving only fight.  “You can’t kiss me like you want to eat me alive and then say it shouldn’t have happened.”  Once the words were out of his mouth, Blair realized he sounded like a whiny teenage girl, but it was too late to unsay them.

“It shouldn’t have,” Jim said stubbornly.

Blair’s hands clenched into fists.  “Goddammit!” he exclaimed, whacking Jim’s pecs once for emphasis.  “You’re the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever met!  Why can’t you just admit—”

“Admit what?  I don’t even know what the hell this is!” Jim exploded, setting Blair away from him and moving out of range of Blair’s hands. 

“Neither do I,” Blair said quietly, “but I’m willing to try to find out.”  God, there she was again.

“Yeah, well, I’m sick of experiments,” Jim said heavily.  “I want to know where I’m going for once.”

Blair opened his mouth to answer—

—and the phone rang.

Like a drowning man reaching for a life preserver, Jim dove for the phone and picked it up before the second ring.  “Ellison,” he said, his voice scratchy as an old 78.

There was a long pause, in which Blair watched his expression darken.  “Who is this?”

Another pause.  “What?” Blair mouthed, but Jim only made a chopping motion with his hand.  He listened a little longer, then every muscle in his body seemed to tense.

“Listen to me, you sick fuck,” Jim snarled into the phone,  “you do not want to play games with me, do you understand?  Because I will make sure—”

Even without enhanced senses, Blair could hear the click at the other end of the line. 

“What the hell was that?” he breathed.

Jim jabbed the speed dial, then handed the phone to Blair.  “Tell the station you want them to run a check on our number, see if they can get a record of the number that just called.”  He strode over to the windows and yanked the curtains open, then peered into the night.

“What the hell—” Blair started again, but then Rafe picked up, and he never got a chance to finish his sentence, because by the time he was done Jim had slipped on his coat and was out the door.

~ VI ~

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

Jim drove the truck like he was chasing a perp, not even registering the street lights.  He thought he heard a couple of horns behind him, but he was focused on two goals, to the exclusion of all else.

Going after the bastard who’d made that phone call.

And getting as far away from the loft as he could.

An argument they’d had months ago about Sandburg’s dissertation came back to haunt him.

Jim, I said that most of your life choices are fear-based.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” he muttered to the Blair-voice in his head.  Just because he didn’t like to dissect himself under a microscope didn’t mean he wasn’t at least partially aware of his own failings. 

Maybe when it came to baring his soul, he was a coward.

Lost in his own head, he almost drove right by the place he was headed.

Cursing, he pulled the truck over abruptly, almost getting rear-ended in the process.  He flipped his cell phone and hit the speed dial for the station.  Rafe answered on the second ring.

“Jim, where the hell are you?  Sandburg’s been calling for you every two minutes to see if you’ve showed up here yet.” 

Peering through the windshield, Jim focused on the windows in the low-rise across the street.  The one he was looking for was on the third floor, but he didn’t know any more than that.  Half of them were dark.  “Any word on the call?”

“Nada.  You weren’t on long enough.  You know that,” Rafe chided.

Jim scrubbed a hand over his face.   “Yeah, I thought so, but I hoped…”

“What the hell was it about?  Sandburg didn’t know.”

“It was Hardy,” Jim growled.

“The one that assaulted Blair?  You recognized his voice?”

“No.  He had a distorter on the line.” 

“Then how do you—”

“I just know, okay?” Jim snapped.

“Okay, okay,” Rafe said.  “You don’t have to bust my balls.”

“Sorry.”  Jim closed his eyes.  The words were burned into his brain, playing on an endless loop.

You and your boyfriend better stay awake twenty four seven, Ellison.  ‘Cause I’m watching you.

Maybe next time you’re fucking him, you’ll get fucked.  Only not the way you like, faggot.

Is his tight little ass worth it, Ellison?

On the other end of the line, he heard Rafe draw in a breath. “You’re outside his place now, aren’t you?”

“Two points,” Jim muttered.

“Don’t even think about it.  We haven’t got any evidence yet.”

“We won’t get any.”  Because I’m going to twist his thick fucking neck until it snaps.

“Jim.  Jim, listen to me.  Don’t fuck this up.  Get a grip.”

“I think he’s watching our apartment,” Jim growled.  “I’m not gonna sit around—”

“You’re not gonna sit around.  We’re not, okay?  We look after our own.  You know that.”

Jim closed his eyes.  “I want to bring him in for questioning.”

“Fair enough.  But let’s wait until tomorrow, okay?  Give you a chance to cool off.”

Jim’s hand tightened on the wheel until he thought the knuckles would pop off.  “Yeah.  Okay.  You’re right.”

“I’m always right.”

Jim shook his head.  “I’ll remember that the next time I’m looking for the secrets of the universe,” he cracked, then closed the phone. 

He sat in the dark watching the third floor for a while longer, then turned the key in the ignition, put the truck in gear and pulled away from the curb.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Blair came awake with a start when a hand shook his shoulder gently.  He raised his head and stared blearily at the man leaning over him in the semi-darkness.

“Jim, are you okay?”  Jesus, he’d been worried.  He blinked a couple of times and Jim’s face hove into full focus, the strain lines between the eyes and around the mouth more visible than usual.

His hands itched to smooth those lines away, and he wondered how he had moved so effortlessly from the place he had been to the place he stood now.

"Yeah, I’m—good,” Jim said softly.  Blair searched for some shift in expression, some indication that this homecoming was different from all the others—

—and found none.

Well.  That was—great.

“What was that call about?”

Jim stared at him for a second, and Blair could tell he’d been hoping that question would just go by the wayside.  “He was disguising his voice, and I didn’t keep him on long enough for them to do a successful trace, but I have reason to believe it was Hardy.”

Blair frowned.  “Whoa, hang on.  Are you saying he made a threatening phone call?”  Jim nodded, once.  “How threatening are we talking here?”

Jim paused, then said flatly, “Death threat threatening.”

Blair sat all the way up, every nerve ending suddenly on high alert.  “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Before Blair could offer him a spot on the couch, Jim sat down heavily in the chair beside it.  “I wish I was.”

Blair swung his legs onto the floor and put his head in his hands.  “Jesus Christ.  What can we do?”

“I’m going to haul him in for questioning in the morning.  Put the fear of God in him.”

Despite the situation, Blair felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth.  “Or the fear of Jim Ellison.”

Jim didn’t smile at that; instead, the creases around his eyes and mouth deepened.  “I’m sorry, Chief.”

Blair’s heart was suddenly shot through with adrenaline. “Sorry?  What do you have to be sorry about?”  But even as the words left his mouth, he knew the answer.

Jesus.  Jim was going to tell him it had been a mistake.

“This is my fault. If I hadn’t provoked him—” Jim trailed off, shrugged.

Tired as he was, it took Blair a second to process the unexpected words.  “You mean—you blame yourself for that?  But that’s just—it wasn’t—”

Jim shrugged again, and stood abruptly, looking exhausted and angry and more than a little lost.

“Hey,” Blair murmured, softly.  His hand reached out and brushed down over Jim’s arm.  He stopped at the wrist, touched the warm skin there.  That was safe, right?

Under his fingers, he felt Jim stiffen.

Apparently nothing was safe right now.  And Blair had two choices:  he could do his thang, get up in Jim’s face at one in the morning and demand they talk out the fact that only a few hours ago they’d been kissing one another stupid, or…he could let Jim sleep.

Against his will, his mind conjured up an image of the two of them sprawled in Jim’s big bed, Blair draped over the other man like a blanket as they slept.

God, Blair thought, suppressing a moan.  Get a grip.

Aloud, he stuttered, “I, ah, I guess we’d better turn in, huh?  I mean, you turn in—where you usually turn in and I—turn in down, uh, here.”

Oh, brilliant.  Why don’t you draw him a sketch of the loft, complete with stick figures labeled “J” and “B”?

“I…yeah.  I’m pretty worn out.”  Jim paused for a moment, his pale blue eyes roaming over Blair’s face.  “Thank you.”

Blair wasn’t sure why he was being thanked—was it thanks for being considerate, or thanks for not slicing open Jim’s guts with the rusty knife of ‘let’s-talk-about-this’ discussions?

The other man gave Blair one last tight-lipped smile and then disappeared into the bathroom.  Before he could emerge again Blair retreated to his own room, where he flopped onto his bed and stared sightlessly up at the ceiling.

He lay awake for a long time, wishing he were somewhere else.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Jim!”

Jim resisted the urge to smash his head against the wall.  He’d almost made it.  Assuming his best bland expression, he turned around to face his Captain.

“Hey, Simon,” he said, trying for casual, “what are you doing here?  Thought this was your day off.”

The bigger man’s scowl told Jim succinctly that he was not bullshitting anybody.  “Thought it was yours, too,” he said, folding his arms.

“I, ah, had to come in and check a few figures.”

“Where’s Sandburg?”

He shrugged.  “Still asleep when I left.”  You mean when you slinked out of the loft at six in the morning, a small and annoying voice corrected in his head.  “I didn’t need him to come along.”

Simon’s eyebrows threatened to climb clear off his forehead.  “Oh, no?  You didn’t need him to help you put the screws to Robert Hardy?”

Jim flinched.  “Rafe called you.”

“Damn right, Rafe called me,” Simon growled.  “Why the hell do you think I’m here at eight-thirty on a Sunday morning?  You think I like giving up my weekends, which I give up way too damned often, I might add?”

Jim clenched his jaw.  “I’m sorry,” he said, simply.  “Rafe shouldn’t have told you.”

Simon snorted.  “Oh, yeah, it would’ve been a lot better to come in tomorrow and find out you were up on charges with IA for smoking the son of one of the most kiss-ass Lieus in the city.”  He darted a glance around the mostly quiet hall and then jerked his head in the direction of the interrogation rooms.  “C’mon, let’s go somewhere without an audience.”

Once they were safely shut up in an unoccupied room, Simon gracefully eased his tall frame into a chair and sighed.  “Okay.  Why don’t you fill me in on a few details before I go in there and question Hardy.”  It wasn’t a request.  Jim knew better than to argue it should be him in there doing the questioning, because it shouldn’t be, and they both knew it.

“How much do you know?” he asked instead.

“Pretty much everything, except for the details of the call last night.  Rafe implied you had some secret method for knowing it was Hardy, which remained mysterious to him.” 

“Did you read the report I filed on the incident at the police academy?”

Simon locked gazes with him.  “Yeah.”

“Let’s just say the message was similar.  Only this time, he threatened to kill me, and possibly both of us.  He said we’d better stay awake, which led me to suspect that he might be watching the loft.”

Simon pursed his lips.  “We can check on the buildings with visual access to your place.  See if there have been any new renters or suspicious activity.”

“Yeah, I got Rafe following up on that for me.”

Simon hesitated, and Jim tensed automatically.  “Between us, Jim…would there have been anything he could’ve seen?” 

Oh, Christ, Jim thought.  He hadn’t been anticipating the question, but he should’ve.  Caught off guard, he was sure everything showed in his face.  He forced the words past a suddenly tight throat.  “Yeah.  He might’ve seen…something.”  That made it sound like more than it was, so he added hastily, “Last night.  That was the only time.  I mean—”  He trailed off, feeling like he’d been called before the principal for whacking off in the boys’ locker room.

Simon nodded once, and his gaze flicked away.  “You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.  And I’m not going to do anything with the information.”

“You should,” Jim rasped.  “It’s fraternization.”

“To be honest with you,” Simon said blithely, “my hunch was that the two of you had been—ah, together—since Peru.  If not sooner.”  He held up a hand.  “Not that I spend my free time thinking about the details.”

“Jesus Christ, Simon,” Jim huffed, the revelation like a punch to the gut.  If Simon thought he and Blair were fucking, how many other people thought the same?  And what had they been doing all this time to give them that impression?

“My point is, I don’t really give a shit what you two do,” the bigger man snapped.  “You’re the best team I’ve ever seen.  That’s all I care about.  And now, the subject is most definitely closed.”  He pushed himself to his feet and aimed a finger at the wall.  “Next door, right?”

Jim nodded. 

“I’m sure I can’t stop you from listening in,” Simon said, “but if you come into that room I will kick your ass from here to Portland.”

“Understood, sir.”

Simon shot him one last scowl to hold him in place, then left the room.  Jim sank into a chair and dialed up his hearing; he gripped the wooden table in front of him in the hopes it would keep him anchored.  He couldn’t go barging in there and screw this up right at the beginning.

Blair’s life might be at stake.

He heard the sound of a key turning in a lock, then a rustle of footsteps.  A chair squeaking. 

“Finally!” Hardy’s voice, so loud it made him wince.  “Would somebody mind telling me what the FUCK I’m doing here?  A coupla uniforms haul me out of bed at the crack of dawn—”

Simon’s deep voice cut across Hardy’s ranting.  “The sun rises at six-twenty.  The officers rang your doorbell at eight o’clock.”

“Fucking smart-ass—”

More sounds of movement, then, “That’s Captain Smart-Ass to you, you little prick.  Now shut up and let me get this over with.”

Silence.

“You are here on suspicion of uttering death threats, as the officers would have informed you.  And considering the threat was directed at one of my detectives, I take this matter very seriously.”

“I didn’t utter nothing!” the other man wailed.  “I want my lawyer!”

“You mean your daddy’s lawyer, don’t you?  How is Mike these days, anyway?  He pissed his little boy washed out?”

Hardy’s voice turned low and nasty.  “I didn’t wash out.  That cock—”

“Watch your mouth, boy.”  Simon’s voice was lower and nastier. 

Jim’s fingers dug into the tabletop.

“That Sandburg had me kicked out,” Hardy finished sullenly.

“And you resent him, don’t you?” Simon said calmly.  “You want to make him pay.”

Silence, except for a heartbeat—doubtless Hardy’s—pounding at a breakneck pace.

“I know my rights,” Hardy said. 

“Where were you last night at seven-thirty?”

“Home.”

“Anybody with you?”

“Yeah.  My girlfriend.  Some of us have ‘em, you know.”

Jim shifted in his chair.

“She willing to testify to that?”

“Sure.”

“You’d better be sure, boy.  Because we’re not messing around here.  This is not some fag joke you can laugh off.  This is hard time—and I do mean hard, sweetheart.  Prison life would not agree with you, I can guarantee it.”

A muffled scrape, probably a chair being pushed back.  “We done?”

A pause.  “For now.  Don’t leave town.”

Jim was up and moving before he realized what he was doing.  He opened the door to the room just as Hardy was emerging from the one next door.

Hardy’s beady, piglike eyes flickered over him nervously.

“Jim.”  A warning.  Simon.

The blood roared in his ears, blocking out all other sound.

Hardy was saying something, but he couldn’t tell what it was.  He took a deep breath and willed himself to calm.

“—him away from me, man.”

Jim took a step forward. 

“I’ll be watching you, too,” he growled.  “Twenty-four seven.”

And then he was amazed to see genuine, honest terror bloom in the kid’s face, along with a vast, bottomless confusion.

He didn’t have a clue what Jim was talking about.

He wasn’t the one.

As the kid turned and fled down the hall, Jim leaned back against the wall, the easing of the adrenaline rush making him dizzy.

“Dammit,” he breathed, as Simon stared at him.  “Why couldn’t it be simple for once?”

~ VII ~

“Your time is up.  Please put down your pencils and stay seated until your booklet is collected.”

Blair stretched his arms over his head, wincing as he heard the crack.  The last exam of the semester, and he was ready to collapse.  Oh, the tests themselves were a breeze compared to the ones he used to write at Rainier; he’d finished this one a half hour early.  It wasn’t the workload at the police academy that was draining his energy.

It had been six full days now since the phone call, and they were no closer to finding the culprit than they had been when they started.  Well, Jim was no closer to finding a culprit—Blair had made several attempts to get involved in the investigation, but had been rebuffed every time. 

“You need to get ready for your exams, Chief.”

Blair refrained from telling Jim he could do the exams with his eyes closed and both hands tied behind his back, because they both knew it, and Jim probably had a hundred other excuses lined up if that one fell through.  The truth was, Jim didn’t want Blair anywhere near this case, and while it pissed him off immeasurably, there wasn’t a lot he could do about it. 

Or, to be more precise, there wasn’t a whole lot he wanted to do about it.  The call had burst the bubble he’d been floating in for the last couple of weeks, taking his new, exhilarating feelings and tainting them, changing them subtly.  It wasn’t that he now thought those desires were wrong, exactly, but there was an undeniable sense of—not-rightness—that plagued him every time he looked at Jim.  He hated the homophobic bastard for doing that to him, for making something that should have remained private into fodder for a police report.

It appeared he wasn’t alone in feeling that way.  Jim had been radiating ‘keep back fifty feet’ vibes ever since Sunday, and while that normally wouldn’t deter Blair for more than two minutes, they were no longer navigating in the land of the normal.  No, they were solidly in the country of Holy-Shit-How-Did-We-Get-Here, and there were no maps or compasses to guide them.  And for the first time in his life, instead of plunging ahead into the unknown without heed to his direction, Blair found himself standing at the edge of the jungle, terrified of losing his way.

It wasn’t the fact that Jim was a guy that had him scared.  While Blair had always thought of himself as ninety-nine percent hetero, there was a small part of him that had wondered.  He’d been egged on by a number of gay friends he’d accumulated over the years, a couple of whom had overtly offered to lead him down the garden path.  True, he’d be lying if he said he’d never been tempted, but in the end, there’d never been anyone who’d raised it above the level of an experiment for him.  And despite his tomcat ways, Blair maintained an idealistic belief that joining with another person should at least strive for the transcendent.  The thought of engaging in sex just so that he could measure his responses on some sort of meter stick left him cold.

Jim, Blair now realized, had never had a chilling effect on him.  From day one, he’d been dragged along on the roller coaster of being Jim Ellison’s partner, friend, shaman and guide; his body had cycled so much adrenaline in the past three and a half years, he was surprised it was still functioning.  Apart from the shooting and the jumping and the running and the drowning, there was the minefield of Jim’s psyche to deal with, the boy who grew up under the lash of his father’s slights hiding under the surface, waiting to explode.  Despite Jim’s tentative reconciliation with his family, Blair had no doubt the scars of Jim’s formative years—the loneliness, the fear of rejection—still informed his choices as an adult.  Anyone who tried to get past the shield Jim put up around himself as protection from the world encountered that history sooner or later.  Blair had butted his head against that barrier more than once, and as a result had glimpsed the inner sanctum on a few occasions, much to his surprise and delight.  It sounded goofy as hell, but there was something about Jim’s honest, open smile that was worth all the bruises.  That was when the roller coaster really picked up speed, did a loop that stopped his heart, then jump-started it again.

Blair’s heart raced now as his mind began making connections.  At least in part, wasn’t that a large component of his own fear?  If he pushed on ahead, succeeded in stripping away all the defenses around Fort Ellison, would he be able to handle the truths he found inside the temple?  Would he revel in the beauty of the artifacts, or be overwhelmed by them?

There was no getting around the fact that Jim was the single most important person in his life, surpassing even Naomi at this point.  It was a relationship that had taken him from boy to man in more ways than one, that had completely changed his life’s path.  And now he was pursuing a course that would entwine his life with Jim’s permanently.  Until death do us part—hell, yeah, that was a real possibility.  When he graduated from the academy next spring, they’d be partners in every sense of the word except one. 

Maybe the idea of crossing that one final line was more than either of them could wrap their heads around.

“Blair?”

Shaking his head dazedly, Blair looked up to take in his surroundings.  He was sitting like a dork in a rapidly emptying exam hall while Brandy Morris, a pretty blonde cadet he knew from his weapons training, hovered over him with a concerned look on her unlined features. 

He’d turned thirty in May with nary a whimper, but as soon as he hit the Academy, he felt like the Old Man in the Hemingway novel.  There was something about the athletic, fresh-faced openness of the women here that brought out some previously dormant paternal instinct.  He wanted to take them out to toss a football around, or play one-on-one with them on the court.

Man.  That was just sick.

“Hey, Brandy,” he said, trying his smile on for size and surprising himself that it still fit.  “How’d your exam go?”

The willowy girl rolled her eyes expressively.  “Please.”

Blair chuckled, then shuddered when he realized he sounded like Mr. Cleaver.

“I, uh,” Brandy murmured, lowering her voice and leaning closer as Blair stood, “I wanted to tell you I was glad I could help with the—the situation.  Uh, with Rob Hardy.”

Blair froze for a moment, processing, then relaxed.  Right.  She’d been one of the witnesses to Hardy’s behavior, and had sworn an affidavit.  “Yeah.  I meant to thank you for that—”

“Oh, there was no need to,” Brandy added hastily.  “He would have made a terrible cop.  And besides,” she said, her voice growing in confidence, “it was so obvious he was completely wrong about you.”

Blair frowned; his normally sharp brain was too fried to—

Waittaminute.  “Wrong?”

“Yeah,” the girl enthused.  “In my opinion, it’s not right for someone to say things like that when they’re not true.  You’re not—” she waved a hand at him in a gesture designed to indicate his all-American, apple-pie straightness.

“Queer?” he supplied helpfully.

Brandy wrinkled her perky nose.   He would’ve found that cute a year ago, but it only irritated the hell out of him now.

“Brandy,” Blair began slowly, “how do you know he was wrong about me?”

“Well, it’s obvious, I mean…”  The young woman’s mouth, which obviously had a habit of racing ahead of her higher mental functions, trailed off. 

“Oh,” she breathed after a long pause.

“Yeah,” agreed Blair.  “Oh.”  As he watched the confusion play across her face, the ninety-nine percent hetero voice in his head screamed at him from the depths of its confused, straight little soul.  For Chrissakes, take it back!  Just because you kissed one guy doesn’t mean you have to buy a rainbow flag and march in the next Pride parade!  Think about your rep, man!

He silenced it with a firm backhand.   Even if her statement hadn’t possessed an element of irony, he reflected, he still would’ve done it.  Giving the noogie to complacency had always been one of his favorite pastimes, after all. 

“Still glad you testified?”  Blair asked sweetly, showing his teeth. 

Brandy’s eyes widened.  “Of course!  I mean, it’s not, I would’ve done the same no matter…”

She nattered on a while longer, and Blair just let her run.  It was cruel to do this to her, but the teacher in him argued he was imparting a valuable life lesson that would prove useful in her future career.  A habit of making assumptions could be extremely dangerous when you were a cop.

“Well,” Brandy was saying, finally winding down, “I, uh, that’s wonderful, I mean, wonderful for you.  You must be…”

“Color-coordinated?” Blair offered helpfully.

“No!” Brandy gasped, covering her mouth.  “I mean…I should get going.  I’ve got another exam this afternoon.  See you—around.”  And without waiting for a response from him, she fled the hall.

Blair grinned for the first time in what felt like forever.  Okay, he was headed down a completely new road, but that didn’t mean he had to leave everything behind, now, did it?

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Blair was playing air guitar.

Jim let himself into the loft without gaining the attention of the other man, though his Ranger-honed stealth didn’t play a factor.   An elephant could’ve stomped into the place and Sandburg wouldn’t have noticed.

He was gyrating around the living room in his bare feet, his eyes closed, the hair that wasn’t restrained by the headphones bobbing and weaving like Muhammad Ali.  As Jim watched, he plucked at the unseen guitar, his mouth working like Hendrix, then stuck out his pouty lips à la Mick Jagger. 

Jim shut his own eyes and concentrated on picking up the sound leaking from the headphones.  Santana; Jin-go-lo-ba, if he wasn’t mistaken.  Blair was lost in the rhythm of the song now, his feet nimbly tapping out the beat as he danced like a man possessed.

Idly, Jim remembered the first time he’d seen Blair’s feet.  It was one of the first mornings he’d spent in the loft, and he’d been making pancakes—pretty good ones, actually.  Poised at the top of the stairs, Jim had zoned momentarily on the delicious scent, and picked an image to distract himself, settling oddly on the place where Sandburg’s naked feet intersected the tile of the kitchen.  They were surprisingly well-formed—the feet, not the tile—but big for his body, as if there were a few drops of Hobbit blood in his family tree.

There was something comforting about those feet, Jim reflected.  Something real.  And after a week of chasing a ghost, he needed something real.

He pushed away the logical conclusion to that line of reasoning.

“Jim!  Holy shit!”  Blair’s eyes nearly popped out of his head and one hand clutched at his heart dramatically as he spotted Jim standing by the door.  The younger man yanked off the headphones.  “You scared the crap outta me!” 

Jim countered with his best scowl.  “Yeah, and I’m glad it was me and not the psycho who called the other night.  Where’s the piece I gave you?”  He’d given Blair his backup gun on Sunday, which the other man had accepted without comment.  Technically, he wouldn’t have his permit to carry until he graduated, but Jim didn’t really give a shit, and neither of them bothered to bring it up.

“It’s in my nightstand drawer,” Blair answered, a little defensively.  “You really think we have to be worried about this asshole at five-thirty in the afternoon?”

“It’s dark,” Jim growled, stalking toward the windows.  “That’s all the opportunity he might need.” 

Behind him, Sandburg huffed out a breath.  “Yeah, okay, I’m sorry, I forgot we were still at Def Con Four here.” 

Jim stopped in front of the doors to the balcony, hands reaching out to finger the new, heavy curtains he’d installed Tuesday. 

Damn.  It wasn’t Blair’s fault this whole thing had blown him sideways, made him remember how cranky and bitter and scared he was deep in his gut.  He turned back around.  “Sandburg…” he began, then hesitated when he saw the look on the other man’s face.

Right.  Blair, not Sandburg.  He willed himself to speak, but as usual was too late.

“My night to cook, right?” Blair said, voice flat.  “I’ll get started.”  But before he headed for the kitchen, Blair paused, a sudden, fragile smile blooming on his too-open face. 

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey what?”

“I just realized—five-thirty.  You haven’t been home before eight all week.” 

Jim kept his expression as neutral as possible while he scrambled for an explanation.  He’d hoped Sandburg wouldn’t notice the late nights he’d been putting in the last few days, but apparently he had.  The reasons were complex, but cowardice had played a large part.  Tonight, Simon had finally sent him home early after privately telling him he was becoming a major pain in the ass.

Choosing bluster over honesty, he griped, “Yeah, I’ve been busy looking for the guy who wants to kill us.  Any objections?”

Blair’s face fell like a ton of bricks.  “No, no objections,” he said softly, turning away. 

Feeling like a complete and utter bastard, Jim stood motionless, eyes scanning the apartments across the street for signs of activity.  As a guilty pleasure, he listened to Blair’s feet as they padded across the floor.

“Jeez, that tile’s cold!” 

Jim’s gaze shifted from window to distant window as each passed his rigorous inspection.  Clear…clear…clear…

Shit.

He snapped back to awareness at the clanging sound of a pan hitting the stove.  When he turned around, Sandburg’s feet were encased in a pair of thick wool work socks.

He shoved away the feeling of disappointment as he crossed the living room, heading for the stairs.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Blair came instantly awake when he registered a soft noise coming from above him.  A couple of years ago, he’d have gone into spastic flail mode, arms and legs tangling in the sheets as he tried to free himself.  Now, he lay stock still, listening intently.

Another soft thump, and a low sound that could be Jim’s voice.

Oh, boy.

Without thinking, Blair stretched out and smoothly slid out the drawer of his nightstand.  He flung the blankets off his body with one hand, while the other retrieved the revolver Jim had given him.  The dull gunmetal glowed in the faint light seeping through the French doors. 

Okay.  Slow, and silent.  Or as silent as you can be.

He opened the door cautiously, wincing as the hinge squeaked faintly.  A peek through the crack he made revealed no activity, so he opened it further, just enough to squeeze through.  Holding the gun in the two-handed grip he’d demonstrated on his exam yesterday, he inspected the quiet living room and kitchen.

Another groan—definitely a groan—from upstairs had his heart hammering triple-time.  Blair stayed flattened against the lower wall as long as he could, then leapt out beside the stairs, the gun angled upwards.

Nothing. 

Blair felt relief wash over him as the odds suddenly tipped toward “bad nightmare” and away from “crazed gay-bashing killer.”  Staying on full alert nevertheless, he climbed the stairs steadily, watching and listening for any signs of movement. 

When he reached the top of the stairs, he lowered the .38 and breathed out a brief prayer of thanks. 

Jim was the only occupant of the bedroom, though he was tangled up in his sheets and blankets more thoroughly than a mummy.  As Blair watched, his body jerked as if electroshocked.  In the next moment, he threw back his head and shouted out to the night.

“Blair!” 

The younger man nearly dropped the gun at the shock of that—no, not the word itself, but the undertones of pain and fear and rage woven into that syllable.  Before he knew it, he had laid the gun gingerly on the floor and was kneeling beside the bed.

“Jim, wake up,” he murmured, one hand reaching up to touch a trembling shoulder.  He made contact—

—and Jim’s own hands shot out to wrap around Blair’s throat.

“Jim.  Let. Go,” Blair croaked. 

Jim’s eyes snapped open at that, and with his own dimming vision Blair could make out the dilation in the Sentinel’s pupils.  His hands released their grip immediately as he returned to full awareness.

“Jesus, Blair, Jesus,” he breathed.  “I’m sorry, did I hurt—”

Blair tested his neck muscles with a brief roll.  Both men winced as one of his vertebrae gave a sharp crack.  “S’okay,” Blair assured him.  “It’s nothing a good chiropractor can’t fix.”

“Fuck,” Jim spat, only now realizing his predicament.  He sat up with difficulty and began tugging savagely at the bedding that confined his legs.  “How did I—”

“Here, you’re making it worse,” Blair murmured, turning on the bedside lamp and settling on the edge of the mattress.  “Let me.”

“Sandburg, I can—” Jim husked, but was silenced by the younger man’s piercing glare.  He sighed and leaned back while Blair untangled him with brisk efficiency.

When he was done, Blair turned back to the other man. Jim's blue eyes were still haunted by the shadows he'd just seen. “Now, what was that about?” Blair asked softly. When Jim hesitated, he shoved him gently with an elbow. “Tell Auntie Blair.”

Jim shook his head, his gaze fixed on a faraway point.  “Just a nightmare,” he said.

A surprising anger welled in Blair, and before he could suppress it, it burst forth.  “Dammit, Jim,” he growled.

Jim’s gaze, open and raw, locked with Blair’s.  “You were dead,” he said flatly.

Blair sucked in a startled breath. 

Jim shook his head again.  “And there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.”  His voice dropped to a whisper, and his eyes seemed to look right through the other man.  “Pale.  You were so—”   His jaw clenched and he scrubbed a hand over his face.

“Okay, okay,” Blair soothed, already having heard more than he wanted to hear.  His hand, he realized, was now stroking slowly over Jim’s bare shoulder and upper arm.  Under his fingers, he felt Jim’s taut muscles relax.

“Listen,” Blair murmured, “I want to get in on this investigation.”

Jim’s biceps tightened again.  “Your new semester starts Monday.”

“Yeah, and apart from the combat, it’s going to be a breeze, just like the first one.  I can handle both and you know it.”

The bigger man shifted on the bed, away from Blair’s calming hand.  “I’ve got it covered.” 

Blair resisted the urge to do a little throttling of his own.  “You don’t have it covered, Jim; that’s just my point.  This thing is eating you up, can’t you see that?  Blackout curtains on the goddamned windows, long days, nightmares—”

“The nightmare wasn’t about that,” Jim snapped.

Blair frowned, confused.  “What do you mean?  You’re not dreaming this guy kills me?”

“No,” Jim rasped. 

“Then who?  Who’s responsible?”

Jim’s tortured gaze lifted to Blair’s face.  “I am.”

Blair’s heart did a backflip.  “You—what the hell are you talking about?”

Jim hesitated as though gathering himself for a deep dive, then released the words in a rush.  “It’s the same nightmare I’ve been having since Alex Barnes first came to Cascade.  It’s night, I’m in the jungle, and I see a wolf.  I take out one of my arrows and shoot; the wolf falls, and when I come closer…it changes.  Into you.”

Holy sweet mother of Astarte’s tits.  “I, jeez, Jim, that’s…”  Blair frowned, finally pulling everything together.  “Wait a minute.  You’ve been having this nightmare since…since May?”

Jim started to pull those walls around him.  “Off and on.”

“My God,” Blair breathed.  “But how come I never noticed before tonight?”

Jim shrugged.  “This one was worse.”

“Worse how?”

Jim shook his head, more a childish I’m-not-telling than a negation.

“Jim,” Blair insisted.  “How was it different?”

This time, when Jim looked at him, Blair could see the walls crumble, stone by stone, and he got one of those rare, cherished glimpses of the man inside the fortress.

It scared the bejesus out of him.

“The nightmare wasn’t different,” Jim growled, his voice hoarse and frayed.  “I’m different.”

And before Blair could figure out what that meant, Jim was kissing him stupid again.

~ VIII ~

This was a bad idea. 

But God help him, he couldn’t make himself stop. 

Jim felt Blair’s whole body shudder against him as Jim hauled him close and kissed him, rough and hard.  To be honest, he’d been running on adrenaline all week, and the reoccurrence of the nightmare after over a month of peaceful dreams had been the final straw.  Every time it’d happened in the past, he’d had to get up and go downstairs to reassure himself that the other man was still whole, still breathing.  To wake up and find him right there, alive and well, was more than his overloaded nervous system could guard against, especially after last Saturday.

Last Saturday—Christ.  He’d thought about that kiss all week, about the way Blair had responded.  Just like everything else they shared, the kid gave as good as he got.  When he’d used the lessons Jim had taught him to gain the upper hand, Jim had almost come in his jeans.  Blair might be smaller, but he was surprisingly strong, and unbelievably smart, and a damn sight tougher than he looked.

Jim wrapped an arm around Blair’s back, pulling him closer, and the younger man followed his lead, struggling until he was stretched out beside him on the mattress, his legs tangling with Jim’s.  Moaning, Blair deepened the kiss, his tongue plunging lewdly into the depths of Jim’s mouth.  Jim countered by pulling back slightly so that he could nip at the other man’s full lower lip.  When that move earned him a soft groan, Jim soothed the same spot with the tip of his tongue.

God, Blair’s mouth was more addictive than Golden and twice as dangerous.  When Jim had first laid eyes on him, he’d noticed the mouth, simply because it was one of the kid’s more striking attributes.  Women paid plastic surgeons big bucks to get themselves lips like that.  But if you’d told him then that one day he’d be trying to eat them off Blair’s face, he’d have laughed his ass off.

Who’s laughing now, Ellison?

His hand slid from Blair’s back, since the other man was now eagerly pressing against him without his help, and trailed around to his front, where it slid under the rumpled long-sleeved shirt Blair had obviously been sleeping in.  He felt a little jolt of strangeness as he registered the feel of dense hair under his palm, but soldiered on gamely, pulling away slightly so he could run that hand up his chest.  When his fingertips skated over a nipple, Blair broke away from him, panting harshly.

“No ring?” Jim murmured, the sound of his own voice unnaturally loud in his ears.

“No,” Blair managed between pants.  “Though if I’d known we were going to be doing this, I would’ve, ah—oh!”   Blair’s body jerked convulsively as Jim scratched the nub with a nail.

 “You like that?” Jim whispered.

“‘Like’ isn’t the word, man,” Blair breathed, surging forward to attack Jim’s mouth with ardent, if slightly sloppy, passion.    Jim’s hand moved blindly to undo the buttons on Blair's shirt, then splayed across Blair’s newly exposed chest, absorbing the cacophonous beat of his heart.

Alive.  Alive.  Alive.

Blair twisted against him, one hand pushing at his shoulder, and the next thing Jim knew, he was flat on his back, the younger man straddling his belly.  Curly, fragrant hair tumbled around Jim’s face, enveloping him; with a growl, he plunged his hands into that unruly mane, one hand collecting it and holding it against Blair’s nape.  The other man gazed down at him with wide, dilated blue eyes, his lips swollen with kisses, his chin raw with beard burn.

Beautiful, Jim thought, and the realization startled him, made heat and pressure collect in his chest. 

What were they doing?  What in God’s name was this?

As if reading his thoughts, Blair stroked Jim’s face and neck with his fingertips before kissing him again, this time with a breathtaking gentleness.  “Don’t,” he murmured.

“Don’t what?”

“You know what,” Blair countered, teeth grazing Jim’s jawline. 

“We should talk about it,” Jim said, planting small, absent kisses on whatever part of Blair’s face was easily accessible.

Blair’s incredible mouth hovered over Jim’s again, open and teasing.  “Yeah,” he agreed.  “We should.”

“Mmm,” Jim said, having completely forgotten the topic of conversation.  The hand holding Blair’s hair captive gripped the back of his neck and pulled him down for another deep kiss that left them both gasping.

After a few moments’ recovery, Blair drawled, “If I’d known you could kiss like this, I would’ve jumped you a lot sooner.”

“I didn’t know I could kiss like this either,” Jim murmured, pausing to suck strongly on Blair’s lower lip.  “I must be inspired.”

 Blair’s low chuckle went straight to Jim’s groin.  “I’m inspirational, huh?” he asked, returning the favor to Jim’s lower lip.  “Cool.” 

Then Blair shifted, and Jim felt something hard press into his lower belly. 

Jesus God.

He looked up and was caught by Blair’s gaze.  There was lust and need there, but there was also understanding, concern, and a few other ingredients Jim was too afraid to catalogue at this moment.

Breaking Jim’s hold on his neck, Blair levered himself to a sitting position, being careful not to rest his full weight on Jim’s stomach.  From his new vantage point, Jim could see him scoping out the terrain, his gaze sweeping over Jim’s chest, arms and shoulders.  Jim felt a blush steal over his skin at the scrutiny.

“You gonna stare at me all night?” he said irritably, after a few seconds.

Blair started as though he’d been doing a little zoning of his own.  “I might,” he returned smoothly.  “I’m a pretty visual guy.”  Then a small smile curled those bruised lips, and Jim bit back a groan.  “Or I might experiment with some of the other senses.”  This time Jim did groan as Blair’s left hand brushed over his chest. 

“Christ, Jim,” Blair breathed, taking his hand away.  “You dialed up?”

Awash in sensation, Jim could only gasp, “I don’t know.”  He closed his eyes and tried to even out his breathing.

“Should I stop?” Blair asked, worry in his voice, and for some reason hearing that emotion pumped Jim up more than anything they’d done so far tonight.  It was odd, for him to feel…well, cherished, cared for…in bed.  Not that the women he’d been with had lacked the capacity, but he’d always felt it was up to him to do the cherishing.  Deep down, he had an old-fashioned attitude toward his role as a man, the attitude that he was ultimately responsible for everything that happened—or didn’t happen—in the bedroom.  A woman’s satisfaction was, among other things, a duty to him.

Now, his duty had gone out the window, because Blair had been cherishing and caring for him since day one, and he thought he’d allowed it because he didn’t have a choice if he wanted to stay sane.  But here they were, in bed together, and suddenly Jim realized he’d grown accustomed to that feeling, gotten to the point where he needed it, craved it. 

You’re vulnerable.  You’re weak.  Voices shouted in his head:  his DI back in Basic, his high school football coach, his dad.

Jim shook his head to clear it.  No.  That’s not what this is.  It’s not like that.

“Jim?” Hands stroked over his face.  “Talk to me, will you?”

Blindly, not allowing himself to think, Jim turned into one of those hands and kissed the fingers.  Above him, he could hear Blair’s soft intake of breath.  The fingers traced his mouth reverently; Jim parted his lips, and they slipped inside.

Blair groaned his name as Jim’s tongue swirled around the pad of his index finger, the whorls and swirls of Blair’s fingerprint rough against his taste buds.  Meanwhile, Jim’s hands began pushing the open shirt off Blair's shoulders.  With a reluctant sigh, Blair pulled his fingers from Jim’s mouth so that he could free his arms from the sleeves.  When Jim heard the shirt land on the floor beside the bed, he opened his eyes.

Blair stared down at him, hair even crazier than usual, hands fisting and releasing restlessly on his thighs, chest heaving, eyes shadowed and wild. 

Jim’s gaze slipped lower, and registered the noticeable bulge in the gray sweatpants the other man wore.  He licked suddenly dry lips.  “You okay?” he rasped, one hand settling in the thatch of hair covering Blair’s left pec.

Blair laughed, a machine-gun burst.  “I’m scared shitless,” he confessed, placing his own hand over Jim’s.  “How about you?”

Ignoring the voices clamoring for his attention, Jim smiled up at him.  “Pretty much the same,” he admitted.

As Jim watched and listened, Blair’s breathing evened, his heartbeat calmed. 

“Well, hell,” Blair breathed, “I guess I’m okay, then.”  And leaning forward, he captured Jim’s mouth in a hard, bruising kiss that silenced Jim’s doubts.  

With a feral growl, Jim pulled the other man tight against him and rolled them, pinning Blair’s lithe body under his.  The younger man gasped and shuddered as Jim licked and sucked his way down Blair’s neck, over his collarbone.  When his tongue flicked out to taste a nipple, Blair arched and shouted.

Jesus, the kid wasn’t even a Sentinel, yet he was so incredibly responsive.  But then, Blair rarely held anything back, so it wasn’t surprising that he would make a gift of his body like this, just open himself up and let Jim see everything.

His hand strayed to the waistband of Blair’s track pants.  Blair gasped and clenched his jaw when Jim slid one fingertip under the elastic.

“Can I?” Jim demanded, voice rough.  “Blair, can I?”

“Fuck, yes,” Blair gritted, squirming under Jim’s hands. 

Gingerly, Jim eased the pants down, careful of Blair’s arousal.  The scent of pheromones and Blair struck him like a two-by-four, but he didn’t stop until he’d finished his task.  Crawling back up Blair’s body, he was startled—well, that he wasn’t more startled.  The kid might have long hair and a mouth most women would kill for, but nothing about that body was the least bit feminine.   Nevertheless, there was no getting around the fact he was hard enough to cut diamonds, and it was all thanks to one hairy anthropologist.

Deciding he’d worry about the implications of that later, Jim kissed him softly, then pulled back so that he could watch Blair’s reactions.  He reached down, and without giving him any warning, experimentally trailed one finger up the underside of Blair’s thick erection.

“Oh, God!” Blair shouted.  He stiffened as if shot, his hands scrabbled against Jim’s back and yanked him down, and then Jim almost had a heart attack as he felt Blair Sandburg come in four quick spurts against his belly.

“Oh, God, oh, fuck, sorry, sorry, sorry,” Blair was chanting as he trembled, still wracked by aftershocks.  “It was your eyes, man, your eyes, your eyes—”

“Shhh,” Jim whispered, silencing him with reassuring kisses.  “It’s okay, everything’s okay,” he added, even though his body informed him that everything was most definitely Not Okay.  His nostrils were full of the astonishing scent of Blair’s come, his own arousal was practically vibrating with need, and his emotions had just spiked off the goddamned charts. 

Blair began to struggle beneath him, and Jim rolled obligingly to the side.  He closed his eyes and tried to regain some sort of equilibrium as Blair grabbed a few tissues from the nightstand and did a quick cleanup job on himself.

When he felt the tissues gently swabbing his own belly, those pesky feelings crept up behind him and walloped him all over again.  His hand shot out to still Blair’s.  “I’ve got it, Chief,” he said.

“But it’s my…uh, fault,” Blair protested lamely.   Wrestling his hand free, he accidentally brushed Jim’s still-very-much-interested arousal.  Jim’s eyes flew open and he groaned.

Blair’s eyes sparked with mischief.  “On second thought…” he drawled, scrambling up onto his knees and surveying the length of Jim’s body, “maybe I could find something else to occupy my hands.”  And before Jim could think of a smart-assed retort, Blair had taken his palm and pressed it to the front of Jim’s boxers.

Tissues abruptly forgotten, Jim’s world narrowed to the rhythm of that strong, sure hand.  His own hips responded, lifting to meet each stroke as the sensations took him higher and higher.  Nearing the precipice, Jim looked up at Blair pleadingly, his need and the honesty of Blair’s earlier display making him reckless.  As if reading his mind, Blair leaned over him and gave him his mouth to shout into as he flung Jim off the cliff.

Heart jackhammering in his chest, Jim felt every ounce of strength leave his body as he oozed boneless onto the mattress.  Dimly, he registered the light going off, then felt Blair snuggle up beside him, settling into the crook of his arm as though it were something he did every night. 

“Blair,” he murmured when he could trust his voice again, “what the hell did we just do?”

His only answer was a soft snore, and the even, reassuring beat of Blair’s heart.

~ IX ~

Blair was dreaming of the jungle.

He was in one of those semi-aware fugue states where the dreamer’s mind is capable of making pithy comments about the dream itself. Nothing profound, just odd observations such as What the hell? or Is that even anatomically possible?   Strangely enough, these editorial asides never seemed to interrupt the dream or move him to wakefulness.

For instance, there was the inevitable question of what a timber wolf was doing in the Peruvian rainforest. Blair asked the question, but the wolf just kept on truckin’, weaving effortlessly through the undergrowth as though it belonged there. He—the wolf—whatever—was headed toward some destination that was clear to the animal but not yet revealed to him.

And then he saw the black jaguar standing on the stone altar, and he thought, Well, duh. Of course it’s all about sex.

The thing was, he’d never been a fan of bestiality, so he wasn’t keen to know what happened next. Reluctantly, he bore witness as the wolf approached the altar, then sniffed at the big cat with predatory interest. Emitting a low, piteous yowl, the jaguar flopped down onto its side, exposing its belly—

Okay, definitely weird—

—and then lay there, a willing sacrifice, as the wolf proceeded to tear out its throat.

“Holy fuck!” Blair sat bolt upright in bed, every nerve ending shorted out, his body shivering in terror. He stared about him wildly, taking in his surroundings. Sunlight streaming through the skylights above his head. Big bed; Jim’s bed.

Currently empty of Jim.

Memories of the previous night flooded his consciousness, filling the vacuum left by the dream. Another shiver ran through him, but there was an entirely different emotion behind it.

Well, no, actually; it was still terror. Terror mixed with lust, though.

If he’d ever bothered to contemplate the topic, he would’ve guessed that Jim was fairly intense in bed, with or without the super senses. But even if he’d spent weeks on end theorizing on the Ellison Love Machine, the raw, elemental power of the experience would have eluded him completely. Feeling all that muscle and skin and bone and heart under your control was incredible enough. Holding onto it as it came apart under your hands was—shattering.

As his heart rate returned to normal, Blair registered the sound of running water. Jim was taking a shower.

Jim. Shower. Water. Wet. Naked.

Blair shook his head to clear it. Since when had he morphed into one of the guys from Quest for Fire? This newly-discovered caveman side to him was hard to stuff back in the id box even in the cold light of morning.

Blowing out a breath, Blair swung his legs over the edge of the bed and padded over to the chair against the wall, where Jim had folded his track pants and shirt and left them on the seat. This time, the thought of his partner’s obsessive neatness only brought a surge of affection. Donning the sweats hastily, he padded down the stairs and over to the bathroom door, then raised his hand to knock.

And stopped. What the hell was he doing? He’d never interrupted Jim in the shower before; did one night of—of whatever the hell that had been—give him the right to invade the man’s privacy? What did it entitle him to, exactly? Jim wasn’t exactly an easy guy to navigate; there were plenty of hidden booby traps built into those sturdy defences. Walk the wrong path to the target, and—kaboom.

And then he remembered the look on Jim’s face as the older man lay there and—God, just watched him come, and he realized he didn’t give a damn how many explosions he had to survive for a chance to be looked at like that again.

Blair rested his head against the closed door. Man, he was so far gone it wasn’t even funny.

“You okay, Chief?”

Blair started at the sound of the gruff question coming from inside the bathroom. Hell. In his fugue state he'd momentarily forgotten Jim could pick out the sounds of his breathing, of his heartbeat, knew how close he was, always.

The thought warmed him and frightened him at the same time.

“Yeah, I’m fine. You, ah, you gonna be a while?”

There was a pregnant silence, then: “Almost done.”

“‘Kay. Want coffee?”

“Sure.”

And that was that. Blair shoved off from the door and ambled to the kitchen, where he watched his hands go through the morning ritual. Filter, fine grind Kenyan, spoon, water, hit the switch, done. A pang of hunger arrowed through his gut at the scent of the coffee, and he placated it with a glass of OJ, which when swished and gargled like Listerine was also useful for dispelling the worst of the morning breath.

Now what? Feeling as though every one of his highly developed and expensively educated brain cells had deserted him, he looked down at his state of dishabille and decided it behooved him to put on something that at least smelled clean. No doubt he reeked, but a cleanup in the kitchen sink was out of the question.

He’d almost made it to the safety of his bedroom when he heard the bathroom door opening. Helpless to do anything but stare, he leaned back against a pillar for support as Jim emerged accompanied by a cloud of fragrant steam, like one of the gods descending Olympus for a little nookie with a fortunate mortal.

Jim was wearing a small towel wrapped tightly around his narrow waist, and Blair swore he must’ve borrowed some of those senses, because even from several feet away he could count every drop of water still clinging to Jim’s skin. There were eight, and Blair wanted to lick them all off. One by one.

“Uh,” he said intelligently, when Jim seemed inclined to just stand there, looking several astral planes beyond perfect, “coffee should be ready—soon.”

Jim blinked. “Yeah. That’s—good.” He took a step forward, toward Blair, then stopped.

That was when Blair finally registered the look on the other man’s face.

Uncertainty. Apprehension. Maybe—dare he hope—a bit of desire mixed in with it?

Jim took another, surer step, and this close Blair could tell Jim’s eyes were doing a little appreciating of their own. Blair felt a flush spread over his chest, up his neck, everywhere Jim’s gaze touched down.

Then he treated Blair to one of those open, vulnerable little-boy smiles. It was gone in a flash, but that didn’t stop Blair’s internal organs from melting together into one big, inconvenient puddle.

“Jim—” he began, then cut himself off when he realized he didn’t have a clue what to say next.

That crease between Jim’s eyebrows deepened. “Yeah?”

Blair tried for a smile, shook his head. Tell me, he pleaded silently. Tell me what the hell to say to you. “I feel like I’m in the Three Bears’ house,” he blurted.

The crease deepened further. “What—”

Blair threw up his hands. “You know. Too hot, too cold, just right? How do I find the middle ground without scaring you off or disappointing you?”

The frown eased infinitesimally. “Say what you think,” Jim said gruffly.

“What I think?” Blair chuckled. “I think this is crazy. How about what I feel? You want to hear that one?”

Jim assumed the air of a man in front of a firing squad. “Sure.”

“I feel too hot, too cold, just right,” Blair whispered. “Everything. God, Jim—” because the other man was coming closer, slowly, as if he were being pulled by some invisible string, as if he didn’t want to come but didn’t have any more control over his actions than a puppet.

Jim’s hand shook as it grabbed a fistful of Blair’s hair, belying the smartass smirk on his face. “You don’t look much like Goldilocks,” he drawled, and his fingers were sinking deeper, sliding against Blair’s skull, and Blair’s brain started packing its bags for a long vacation.

“Don’t—I must stink—” he croaked out.

And then Jim leaned in and pressed his nose right up against Blair’s neck, and he inhaled deeply.

Okay, that was it, final call for the flight to Fiji, and Blair’s cerebellum was handing over its boarding pass. He groaned aloud and tipped his head back, inviting further exploration.

And then he heard Jim murmur into his jugular, “Yeah, you do kinda stink.”

He pulled back and patted Blair’s cheeks. The ones on his face.

Brainless, Blair sagged back against the pillar. “Wha—”

Jim grinned.

“You—b—bastard!” Blair spluttered, lunging forward.

Iron hands caught him by the shoulders and held on.

“Hot and cold, Chief,” Jim said calmly, but this time there was no mischief in his expression, just honest, raw emotion, and the pit of Blair’s stomach joined his brain.

Jim lowered his head until his mouth was brushing Blair’s.

“Just right,” Jim whispered, and kissed him.

Oh hell yeah, Blair agreed, wrapping his arms around that solid, damp body and hanging on for dear life. Jim’s lips teased his, tasting, sampling, suckling. It hadn’t escaped him last night that Jim really seemed to enjoy kissing him; luckily for Blair, this appeared to have the makings of a lasting obsession.

After an eternity, Jim released his mouth, wandering west to bite and nibble at Blair’s earlobe. Then his tongue began trailing a path eastward again—

“Ow!” Jim recoiled as if he’d been shocked.

“What’s wrong?” Blair asked, pleased he could still string at least two words together.

“That’s, ah, some stubble you’ve got there, sweetcheeks,” Jim said, that smartass smile in full force once again.

Blair grinned back. “What can I say? I’m a manly man, bursting with testosterone.”

“Uh huh.” Jim yanked playfully on a strand of hair. “I noticed.”

Grabbing Jim’s hand, Blair tugged it lower. He had the satisfaction of seeing Jim’s eyes widen as he pressed the older man’s hand to his now rather obvious erection. “Notice this, Ellison,” he growled.

Just like that, Blair was flattened up against the pillar, and six-foot-some of horny cop was grinding into him. He wasn’t sure who reached for whom, but once they were kissing again Blair didn’t much care who started it. His hands glided lower, down the muscled back until they were stopped by the barrier of the towel.

What the hell, Blair thought, sliding his right hand around to Jim’s side and working the knot free.

The other man responded with a surprised grunt into Blair’s mouth. Undaunted, Blair continued his explorations, pausing to caress the astonishingly smooth skin of Jim’s hip before arriving at his final destination. He experienced a brief moment of heretofore-straight-guy panic as it hit him that this would be his first time touching a dick that didn’t belong to him. There was an accompanying jolt when if further occurred to him that given their relative proportions, chances were that Jim was more gifted in that department. Not that he was lacking, you understand; only that—

—just do it already, for the love of—

Laying his misgivings firmly aside, Blair finally made contact. Okay. Definitely bigger, but not by much. The same heat and hardness, the same silky feel, and if he wasn’t mistaken they were both cut, so the mechanics were—

Jim broke away from the kiss and threw his head back, gasping as though emerging from deep water. “Jesus, Blair—”

Without pausing to think about it, Blair took advantage of the bigger man’s moment of weakness by shoving off from the pillar and pushing him backward until he was pressed up against the kitchen island. “Yeah?” Blair asked, painting on his—no pun intended—cockiest smile. His hand wrapped around Jim’s length and began a ragged but ruthless rhythm. After a few successful strokes, he risked a glance down.

Wow. That was—his hand. His hand on—

Jim groaned again, and his own hands left Blair’s body so that he could grip the edge of the countertop for support. “You’re—shit, the coffee’s gonna get stale—” he ground out, trying for a matching cockiness and failing miserably, because he was on the edge of coming, and man, that was definitely a good look for him.

Blair’s right hand gained speed, while the left wandered up to pinch a nipple. Jim shuddered like Dorothy’s house in the tornado, and Blair grinned at the thought that at least some of the geography was familiar.

Leaning as close to Jim’s ear as he could get, he growled, “Fuck the coffee.”

“Oh, Christ,” Jim gasped, and came all over Blair’s still-moving hand.

It took Blair a few seconds, but it finally struck him that he’d just given Jim Ellison a hand job before the poor bastard even had a chance to drink any of his morning Kenyan roast. Standing up. In the middle of the apartment.

On the up side, Jim certainly didn’t seem to mind, judging from the way he leaned in and kissed Blair once he’d stopped hyperventilating. It was deep and sloppy and unexpectedly sweet, and something inside him rolled over and stuck its paws up in the air.

Right. That pesky wolf.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Jim managed, resting his forehead against Blair’s.

Blair released Jim’s dick, giving it a final pat before wiping his hand on his sweats. “Hey, when I start a new project, I’m nothing if not enthusiastic,” he drawled.

Jim pulled back and frowned at him. “New project?”

Oh shit, Blair groaned inwardly. Way to kill the mood, Sandburg. “That’s not what I meant—it’s only that—well, I mean, this is new territory for me. I’ve never—” he waved a hand lamely between them “—with a guy.”

“Yeah,” Jim said, looking away. “I hear that.”

Blair chuckled. “Oh, man, do not make me think of Naomi at a time like this.” Before Jim could pull one of his patented disappearing acts, he closed the distance between them and pressed their groins together, letting Jim feel his erection. “‘Cause this will not survive extended reference to my mother.”

Jim still wasn’t looking at him. “Can’t have that, now can we?” he muttered, and inside Blair’s brain the puzzle pieces came together with an audible clunk.

“Hey, look at me,” he ordered. Jim’s lips thinned but he obeyed. “What do you think this is? More to the point, what do you think I think this is?”

Jim shook his head. “Sorry, that’s too much psychology for a Saturday morning.”

Blair ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I’m not sure what the hell we’re doing here, Jim, but if you’re thinking I’m going to go in there and notch my bedpost—” Suddenly angry, he stepped back a pace, putting cold air between them. “Jesus, do you even know how much you mean to me? Do you even get it after all this time?”

Jim blinked and remained silent. Blair resisted the urge to pummel him senseless. “Okay,” he breathed. “This has been a pretty intense few hours, here, and maybe we need some time to process. It’s not like this has to be figured out in the next five seconds, right? You go ahead and have your coffee, and I’ll go in there—” he pointed at the bathroom “—and whack off in the shower.”

Jim’s features softened slightly. “Blair—”

“What?”

The older man’s cheeks reddened as he gestured at Blair’s sweats. “I can—”

Blair shook his head. This beautiful, buff man was standing there naked, less than five minutes after a mind-blowing orgasm, and an oblique reference to sex was making him blush. How could you stay mad at a guy like that?

Aloud, he sighed, “No reciprocation necessary, man. This wasn’t about that. And it never will be. I don’t get a lot about what’s happening with us, but I know that much.”

And before Jim could think of anything else to say, Blair had escaped into the safety of the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He knew from experience that the other man wouldn’t try to invade his privacy.

~ X ~

Carolyn had always been too much of a lady to call him a prick. 

Too bad.  Maybe if she had, he would’ve gotten a clue sooner than this.

Do you even know how much you mean to me? Do you even get it after all this time?

“No, Chief,” Jim breathed into the silence of the empty elevator, “I don’t have a goddamned clue.”

The doors opened and he stepped into the hallway outside Major Crimes, feeling like he had I am the worst kind of bastard  tattooed across his forehead.   He’d cleaned himself up in the kitchen sink, dressed and run out of the apartment as fast as his coward’s legs would carry him—again.  This was getting to be a bad habit, one he’d have to remedy as soon as he got himself outfitted with a new personality. 

For a moment, he debated calling Bellini, then vetoed it.   That would be great—having a conversation about his sexual orientation crisis in the middle of the bullpen.   Even if Bellini agreed to meet him, and he knew he would, he didn’t think the man would be able to tell him anything Jim couldn’t figure out for himself. 

Hey Doc, just thought I’d let you know Blair and I rubbed each other off, and it was about the hottest sex I’ve ever had.  Problem is, if we ever do anything more than that, I think the top of my head will go sailing across the room. 

But God help me, I want more.  He held up a hand, his Sentinel vision easily discerning the tremor in the fingers.  Look at that, for Christ’s sake.  All I have to do is think about him, and I start shaking like an addict craving his next fix.

Bellini’s mellow voice spoke in his head.  That’s fascinating, Jim.  Why don’t you tell me what you think that means.

“I think it means I’m royally fucked,” Jim muttered under his breath, reaching for the door to the bullpen.

“Talking to yourself is the first sign of an unstable mind.”

Jim started at the sound of Megan Connor’s annoyingly chipper voice coming from directly behind him.  Tossing a glare at her over his shoulder, he bit out, “I wasn’t aware you were a practicing shrink, Connor.”

The woman smirked and shrugged her shoulders.  “Call me a student of human nature.”

“I’ll call you a—”

“Careful, Jimbo,” she said, chuckling, then sobered.  “Seriously, what are you doing here?  You don’t have a shift today, remember?”

Momentarily caught off-guard, Jim schooled his features to his best stony mask look.  “Yeah, well, I wanted to see if Rafe had found anything last night…”

“About your caller?”  She shook her head.  “That trail’s gone cold, I’m afraid.”

“Glad to have your expert opinion,” he growled, rounding the corner of his desk and settling himself into his chair.  A feeling of safety instantly enveloped him.  Maybe he could stay here for a few months.  The chair wasn’t so uncomfortable, and if sleeping became a problem, he could always stretch out on one of the interrogation room tables.  They were sturdy enough—

“Jim.  Jim?”

“What?”

“Bloody hell, you need a tranquilizer dart this morning,” Megan huffed, plunking down in the seat next to him.  Sandburg’s—Blair’s—seat.  “You have a bad date last night or something?”

“What makes you say that?” he snapped.

Megan cocked her head and pursed her lips, then pointed at his neck.  “Oh, I don’t know…maybe the massive love bite right…there?” 

“Where?  Oh, man!” Jim sprang to his feet, desperate to find a mirror.  How could he have missed that?  Unless Blair had marked him this morning—

“Gotcha,” Connor said softly.

Jim stared down at her.  As realization dawned, his gaze must have turned more than a little murderous, because she blanched slightly and held up her hands in a placating gesture.  “Just kidding?” she offered weakly.

Jim clenched his fists, closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  Inhale.  Hold.  Exhale.  Again.

“I wish you’d go home,” Connor said, not unkindly.  “Whatever’s got you trussed up like a Christmas goose, you need to take care of it before you can hope to do anything here.”

Jim opened his eyes, aware something akin to desperation must be showing in them.  “I—” can’t go home, he almost said aloud.   “No.  It’s okay.  I’m good.”  He sat abruptly, earning a speculative frown from the woman beside him.  “So, have we got anything new?”

Megan watched him for another moment before responding.  “Actually, we do,” she admitted, leaning across to her own desk and plucking a file from the top.  “Came in about an hour ago, though the last incident happened Thursday.  It’s been kicking around the beat cops for a while, and someone finally noticed there might be a pattern, so they sent it up to us.”

Jim took the file from her and opened it.   There was a series of black and white photos inside it, and he flipped through them slowly.  "Assault victims?”

“Yeah,” Megan breathed.  “They’re all male prostitutes from Southtown.  Most of them pre-op transsexuals, though there are a few who aren’t.”

Jim flipped to the next photograph, showing a severely battered African-American woman, and scowled.  “Oh, no.”

Megan glanced over her shoulder.  “You know—her?”

“Yeah.  Sam Washington—I guess by now she’d be Salome.”

“Good choice of name.  I’d definitely go biblical.”  Megan perused the report.  “Says here she checked out of the hospital and disappeared.  Bet she’s not the only one.”

Jim hadn’t even reached the bottom of the photos.  “God.  How many are there?”

“Twenty-two,” Megan said calmly. 

Jim scanned the report.  “The first one was over four months ago,” he said.  “And they never saw a pattern before this?”

The woman shook her head.  “You know how it is.  It’s not uncommon for prossies to be the victims of violence.  And when they’re men…”

Jim raised an eyebrow.

“Come on, Jim,” Megan said softly.  “Don’t tell me things are different in the great democracy.”

Jim clenched his jaw.  The only other person who knew all the details of what had gone down with Blair and Hardy was Simon, but even though he knew her comment was unintentionally ironic, his gut churned anyway.  Aloud, he said, “Neither I nor any detective in this department ever treated a victim with anything less than the respect they deserve.”

“I’m not implying anything about this department.  But not every cop has had the benefit of the sensitivity training.  And from what I’ve seen in the report, that seems to be the problem with these cases.”  She tapped the file with a fingernail.  “No one is talking to us on this one.  The police aren’t popular in Southtown to begin with, and these men come from a part of Southtown that most Southies won’t even go near.  It’s a kind of demilitarized zone between Southtown and the gay village—”

“They call it Vaseline Alley.”

Megan’s eyebrows climbed skyward.

“Yeah, I’m familiar with it,” Jim said, his tone defensive.  “I worked in Vice before I came to Major Crimes.”

“Right,” Megan murmured.  “Your experience there is probably why this ended up in our laps, then.  But I don’t think the case is going to be easy, even if you still have connections down there.”

Jim laid the file on his desk and sighed.  “It never is.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Blair wasn’t surprised to find Jim’s truck parked in the underground garage when he got to the police station around three in the afternoon.  He’d been mad enough to spit nails when he emerged from the shower to find Jim gone, but after an hour-long run and a punishing session with the weights at the gym, he had to admit it was typical Jim behavior.  He’d offered the guy space, and Jim’s interpretation of that was to put as much space between them as possible.  Upon reflection, it was kind of surprising the other man hadn’t ended up in Canada.

You want this, you have to buy all the territory that comes with it, a nagging voice inside him shrilled. 

Sighing, Blair leaned back against the wall of the elevator, ignoring the glance from the uniform sharing the car with him.  It was all well and good to tell himself he knew better, that he was headed for trouble, that this could end up being a bigger disaster than the Johnstown Flood.  But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shut out the memory of Jim, open and wanting, needing Blair’s hands on him like he needed his next breath. 

Man, the price of that territory might be sky-high, but the real estate was prime-fucking-grade-A, wasn’t it?

He grinned stupidly, marveling at the fact he was now an equal-opportunity pig.  The uniform was staring at him openly now, obviously ignorant of the rules of Elevator Etiquette; Blair waved a hand at him, his grin continuing unabated.  “Don’t mind me, man,” he said breezily.  “Just got laid and feelin’ fine, you know?”

The guy pursed his lips in a disapproving gesture and turned back to the contemplation of the doors.  God, some of these cops needed the pole removed from their asses—but that was true of most people, wasn’t it?  You got used to traveling along one track, and after a while it never occurred to you to try a different route.  He’d always made a point of changing trains whenever possible, but this new thing with Jim, coupled with the career change, added up to the biggest derailment of his life.  It was shaking him up, sure, but ultimately it wasn’t such a departure from his normal pattern as he’d originally thought.

For Jim, though, this had to be a major deal.  Blair might not fully understand the other man’s perspective, but he had to respect it.  There had been hundreds of times over the course of his relationship with Jim that he’d had to weigh just how far to push, and when to pull back and retreat.  He hadn’t always gotten it right, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.  So what if he’d have to try harder with this?  It was just a variation on a theme.  He could do this. 

The doors opened on the Major Crimes floor, and Blair nodded at the beat cop one last time before exiting, striding forward with a new confidence.  Reaching the door of the bullpen, he pulled it open and walked through.  Jim was sitting at his desk, his focus on the computer screen, but as soon as Blair walked through the door, the pale blue gaze rose and pinned him like a bug.

Blair froze.  They both did, actually; the younger man catalogued Jim’s reactions one by one, as no doubt the Sentinel was for him.  The difference was that while all Blair could do from eight feet away was read body language and expression, Jim could probably smell the samosa he ate for lunch.

He didn’t know if his choice of takeout was telling Jim anything, but Blair was getting zip from his perusal of the older man.  It was like he’d been transformed into one of those stone statues outside the Moche temples.   Silently, he willed the other man to smile, frown, yell, fucking do something.

When that didn’t work, he tried to get some reaction out of his own body.  No luck there, either.

Suddenly Megan stepped in front of Jim’s desk, severing the connection between them.  “I called over to the two-seven,” she said to Jim.  “The guy who worked the last case isn’t on duty again until Monday night.”  She paused.  “Jim?  You alive in there?”  Then she turned, as if following the line of Jim’s gaze, and spotted Blair.  “Oh, hi, Sandy,” she said, smiling.  “What’re you doing here?”

Blair opened his mouth, but no sound came out.  Megan frowned at him. 

“I called him.”  Jim rose to his feet and snagged his three-quarter coat off the rack in one smooth motion.  “Figured he could help us out.”

Liar, liar, pants on fire, thought Blair, and as if Jim had just read his mind, he shot the younger man a warning glance over Megan’s shoulder. 

“Uh, yeah.  He, ah, called me,” Blair said.  “But he didn’t fill me in on any of the details,” he added testily.

Jim waved a hand.  “Connor, bring him up to speed, will you?  The two of you can head over to the hospital and interview the latest victim while I check out some of my old contacts in Southtown.”

Blair’s brain tried to process several pieces of information at once.  Latest victim.  That meant whatever this was, it didn’t have anything to do with Hardy or the threatening call.  The two of you.

The two of you.  As in Blair and Megan, not Blair and Jim.

Jim was heading out alone. 

Jim was coming closer.  His body filled Blair’s vision, and Blair’s eyes raked from the top of Jim’s head, down the column of his neck, over the tense line of his shoulders…

His hands twitched with the urge to reach up and ease that tension away.  He clenched them into fists instead.

“We’ll meet back here later and compare notes, okay?” Jim said, loud enough for Megan to hear, but there was something in his eyes that was just for Blair.  In the couple of seconds before he brushed past, Blair read an apology mixed up with a jumble of other emotions he couldn’t begin to decipher. 

That would have to be enough for now. 

He could do this, he reminded himself.  Turning toward Megan, he painted on his best professional-cop look.  “So, what’s the scoop?”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Nothing.  Fucking nothing.

After three hours scouring every dive and bath house in and around Vaseline Alley, Jim had come up empty-handed.  He’d lost a lot of his best contacts down here—informants in this neighborhood were not exactly the most stable residents—and the few he’d been able to dig up were closed up tight.  They’d seen nothing, they’d heard nothing, they knew nothing. 

Darkness fell early this time of year, and the garish lights of the strip were making his head pound as he walked along, slightly hunched against the sharp wind that had sprung up in the last hour.  The young hustlers were out already, shivering in their tank tops and cutoffs.  Down near the corner, a queen in fishnet stockings was leaning into a Mustang, smiling and gesturing at the driver.  After a few more moments, she opened the passenger door and climbed in.  Another successful sale.

“Hey, sugar, you looking for someone special?”

Jim took in the sashay of slim hips and the scent of way too much cologne as the hustler walked up to him.  Probably a trannie, but if she was, the transformation wasn’t complete, because Jim could discern a definite overlay of male hormones.

Or maybe that was just the leftovers of the last guy she’d been with.

“Yeah, actually, I am,” Jim admitted.  “Salome.”

The carefully plucked brows knitted together.  “What do you want with her?”  Protective tone, almost fierce.  Good.  At least there was someone sticking up for her.

Jim smiled.  “She’s an old friend.”

“Yeah?  Well, I’ll pass on you were looking for her.  What’s your name?”

“Jim.”

“Well, Jim, if she wants to see you, she’ll be here tomorrow night, same time.  Okay?”

“Okay,” he returned, knowing he probably wouldn’t see either of them tomorrow night.  Salome had been one of his best informants, but if she was a victim, he doubted even she’d be willing to come forward.  Especially since there was a rotten smell to this whole thing, a smell that bugged the hell out of him.  The street was too quiet, and there was an undercurrent of fear that hadn’t been here when he’d worked Vice. 

Jim sighed and headed for the truck.  He and fear were getting to be old buddies.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Care to tell me what that was all about?”

Blair jerked the wheel of the Volvo at Megan’s unexpected question, nearly driving the car into a column of the hospital’s indoor parking garage.  “What what was all about?” he asked, a sinking feeling hitting him in the solar plexus.

Megan sighed.  “Back at the station, between you and Jim.  You two have a quarrel?”

Blair chuckled.  “When are we not quarrelling?” he shot back, trying to keep it light.

But Megan was too sharp for his attempt at diversion.  “You know what I mean.  He couldn’t get out of there fast enough when you showed up.”

“Yeah,” Blair acknowledged, before he could stop himself.  He pulled into a spot and shut off the motor.  “Look, ah, it’s not anything you have to worry about, okay?  We’re sorting it out.”

“Fair enough,” Megan said, shrugging.  “I just want you to know I’m willing to lend a sympathetic ear whenever either of you needs it.”

Blair winced, feeling like a heel.  “I appreciate that, Megan.  Thanks.”  They exchanged friendly smiles, but Blair still breathed a sigh of relief when she turned away and opened the car door.

Upstairs, the nurse at the station led them to the room, and she made the introductions, which eased the way somewhat; obviously the victim, Lana Turner, had been well treated at the hospital.  However, as soon as the nurse was gone, Lana’s bruised face twisted into a scowl. 

“I got nothing to say to you,” she husked. 

Blair pointed to a chair, waited for Lana’s slight nod before sitting in it.  “I wish you would,” he said softly.  “Because we’re committed to going after the guy who’s been doing this.”

“Guys,” Lana snorted.

“More than one?” Megan asked.

Lana shot her a dismissive glance.  “Honey, I may be a woman trapped in a man’s body, but I can bench-press two hundred easy.  You think one guy could do this to me?”

“Two hundred?  You’ve got me beat,” Blair chuckled.   “I just made it past a hundred.”

Lana pursed generous lips.  “Keep working on it, chicken.”

Megan stepped forward.  “If you can identify these men and agree to testify, we can offer you protection.”

Lana eyed Megan appraisingly.  “I like your style,” she said, waving a hand to take in the Inspector’s green tailored suit and high heels.  “It’s more rock star than cop chic, but everybody has to march to the beat of their own personal drummer.”  She raised an eyebrow at Blair, then reached out to finger one of his curls.  “And you are delicious enough to eat.  If I didn’t have this broken leg, I’d offer you a freebie.  The rock star could even watch.”

“I appreciate it,” Blair said smoothly.  Digging one of Jim’s cards out of his wallet, he passed it over to Lana.  “Listen, if you change your mind, we’re here for you.”

“To protect and serve, huh?” Lana murmured.  “That’s what they all say.”

A chill climbed Blair’s spine at the words, and the meaningful look in Lana’s eyes as she spoke them.

Oh, man, he thought.  Unless I’m out in left field, things just got a whole hell of a lot more complicated.

~ XI ~

With a final sound of frustration, Megan closed the file before her with a decisive sound.  “I’m going home,” she announced to the nearly deserted bullpen.  “Crikey, I’m getting old.  Saturday night and all I want to do is crawl into bed.”

Blair’s mouth thinned.  “Yeah, well, seeing this kind of case would make anyone want to go hide under the covers.”

The Australian woman blew out a breath.  “You want me to come in tomorrow?”

Jim caught the furtive glance from Blair, and his pulse leapt.   Going to chicken out again? the younger man seemed to be asking.  

Well, are you? Jim asked himself.

“Nah,” he said, faintly surprised at his own response.  “I think we’ll check out Blair’s contact, then start up full tilt on Monday.  All right?”

Connor smiled.  “You’ll get no argument from me.  See you Monday, gents.”  And with a final wave she was gone, leaving the two of them staring stupidly at one another.

As he’d expected, Blair broke the silence first, but not in the way he expected.  “I think there might be cops involved in this,” he said abruptly, after Megan had left the bullpen.

Jim frowned.  “What makes you think that?”

“Something in the latest victim’s statement.”

“Megan said she didn’t tell you anything.”

Blair huffed out a breath.  “Not in words.  But she told me nevertheless.”

A muscle in Jim’s jaw leapt.  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Hardy’s father commands the precinct that includes Vaseline Alley, would it?”

Blair’s voice deepened.  “What are you saying?  That I’m seeing stuff that isn’t there?”

Jim shook his head.  Fuck.  He was always making things worse.  “No.  I’m only saying that this is pretty early on to be drawing those kinds of connections.  You don’t know these people like I do.”

“‘These people?’”

Jim threw up his hands.  “Gimme a break.  I’m talking about hustlers, petty crooks, con artists, men and women living at the edges of society.”

“Like Sentinels?” Blair cracked.

“Like people who are not predisposed to trust cops!”  Jim exploded.   Pitching his voice lower, he continued.  “This is not some tribe lost to modern civilization that will eventually make you a blood brother.  The trannie you talked to tonight will never see anything but a cop when she looks at you.  I got about as close to some of the street people as anybody in Vice ever did, but when it came right down to it I knew I would never fully gain their trust.”

Blair ran a frustrated hand through his hair.  “All right, all right, point taken.  Maybe I don’t have cop instincts—”

“You’ve got great instincts,” Jim interrupted.  “I’m not saying you’re wrong.  I’m just giving you the big picture.  Let’s take it one step at a time, try your contact tomorrow, and keep your idea on the back burner for now, okay?”

Blair’s gaze rose to meet his, the expression in those blue eyes wary yet approving, and Jim sucked in a breath.  The connection between them had always been there, against all rules of logic, but now it was—God.  It was almost too strong.  Maybe that’s why the urge to run like hell assaulted him every time he was reminded of its power.

You weren’t running last night, when you lay there for an hour watching him sleep, a nagging voice reminded him.

“Jim?”

Jim shook himself like a wet dog.  “Yeah.  Sorry.”

Blair cleared his throat.  “Well, ah—”  he jerked a thumb toward the door.  “Think I’ll head home.”

Jim stood up.  “I’ll drive you.”

Blair cocked his head.  “I got my car.”

Jim clenched his hands at his sides, feeling big and awkward.  “Right.”

Blair stood, faced him.  If Jim tilted his head up a little, he could fit Sandburg’s head under his chin.  If he tilted down, his lips would easily brush the other man’s forehead.   

“I can pick it up tomorrow,” Blair was saying.

Jim shrugged.  “Whatever you want,” he murmured, only realizing afterward how that sounded when the glint in Blair’s eyes sparked into flame.

Oh God, this was a mess.  He was three inches from kissing Sandburg in the middle of the bullpen.

“Or, ah—” he heard himself say.

Blair’s expression hardened.  “Yeah?”

“I forgot I wanted to check out one of the old forensics reports,” he lied.

Blair stared at him for an endless moment, then nodded.  “Yeah.  Well, you mind if I…?” He completed his question with a gesture of his hand toward the door.

“No, that’s—fine.”

“Okay, then.  See you later.”

Jim watched him go, the anger boiling up until it hazed his vision.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Meditation just wasn’t cutting it tonight.

Blair leaned forward and blew out the last of the candles, his emotions still a knotted tangle.  The promise of space hadn’t been forgotten, but hell, the guy’d been putting out more gravity than the sun back there at the station, so you couldn’t blame him for straying a little too close, for getting his hopes up.

It surprised the hell out of him to realize he had hopes, and for a few minutes he lost himself in contemplation of what it would be like to sleep every night in that big bed, with Jim lying beside him or over him or under him, radiating heat and gravity.  

To be with him twenty four seven.  

To love him.

The last candle stubbornly refused to die.  Blair licked his thumb and forefinger, then felt the brief, sharp sting as they pinched the still-glowing wick.  He tracked the curl of smoke that had managed to escape, fondly anticipating Jim’s sneezing fit when he came home.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the couch.  Who the hell was he kidding?   Apart from the bed part, he wasn’t contemplating anything new.  

Save for the one with his mother, this relationship was the longest one he’d ever maintained with any level of intensity.  Roommates, lovers, mentors, even friends—they’d all parted ways, broken up, lost touch.  Even Naomi had been a distant, if loving, presence for nearly half his life now.  When he thought about the same fate befalling his relationship with Jim, he felt a chill shoot straight through to his bones.

Losing Jim would be like losing a limb.  No, worse; like losing himself.

Jesus.  When had that happened?  Not after the first kiss, or even after the events of last night.  Blair suspected this had been a gradual process, like fossilization, the substance of it seeping into the calcium and marrow of his bones so slowly that he never noticed their transformation.

Over the last three years, he’d become a new creature, a stronger one, but one that also craved a certain connection, a certain touch.  For someone who’d always prided himself on his independence, this was a radical change.  But tonight, he couldn’t imagine being anywhere but smack dab in the middle of Jim Ellison’s life.

The thing was, how deep would Jim allow him to get?

Sighing, Blair pushed himself up off the floor and padded toward the bathroom.  When he emerged a few minutes later, he was marginally cleaner, though no more enlightened.  A few minutes after that, he was rapidly descending into sleep when he heard Jim’s key turn in the lock.

Blair listened to the efficient cadence of Jim’s shoes against the floor, while his heart leapt in his chest.  

Space, his inner voice admonished.  Give him what he needs.

“Blair?”

Blair willed his pulse to slow down, afraid Jim would hear it.  Lying turned toward the outside wall, he felt the hairs at his nape prickle, and knew that Jim was on the other side of the door.

“You still awake?”  Jim whispered.

Blair’s blood surged again, and he twitched convulsively and rolled over.  “Mmmm,” he groaned, then lay still.

Jim paused for another breathless minute.  Finally, Blair heard those measured footsteps walk away.

He told himself he had done the right thing, but sleep was still a long time coming.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“So how well do you know this guy?” Jim asked, steering the car around a double-parked delivery van.

Blair shrugged.  “Fairly well.  When I was living in the dorm—” he shuddered expressively “—he was about the only guy I could put up with.”  He flashed a grin.  “We were both total dorks.”

Jim returned his attention to the road, trying to ignore the effect of that smile.  “I didn’t know you lived in the dorm.”

“Yeah, it was kind of iffy, me being sixteen when I started.  A couple of seniors agreed to take me under their wing, watch out for me—”

“Let me guess: female seniors?”

Blair shot him a glare.  “They were like surrogate mothers to me.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Anyway.  Terry was dating one of the women at the time, and we struck up a friendship, since he was in Anthropology before he switched to social work.”  Blair chuckled.  “Said he wanted to work with people a little closer to home.”

“Community-minded?”

Blair shook his head.  “Fear of flying.”

Jim stared at him.

“Yeah, well, he was also community-minded, I suppose.”  He pointed at a storefront on the next corner.  “There it is.”

Sighing, Jim eased the truck over into a free space—one of many on this war zone of a street.  “Wait a minute…you said he was dating one of the women?”

When Blair didn’t answer right away, Jim threw the truck into Park and looked over at him.  “Yeah.  He changed his mind, I guess.”

The silence fell like a heavy curtain between them.  Jim’s mind escaped the awkwardness in a daydream, speculating about what might have happened if Blair had been awake when he came home last night.  In an easier, simpler universe, the younger man would have launched himself into Jim’s arms the moment he got in the door, thus neatly taking the decision-making process out of Jim’s clumsy hands.

But Blair was a human being, not an animated sex toy, and he couldn’t keep getting the cold shoulder without catching a chill.

His mind leapt unwillingly to memories of Carolyn’s last words to him in their last, terrible fight.  It’s like I’m frozen.  Trapped under a mile of  ice.

Finally, Blair opened his door and slid out of the truck; feeling like an idiot again, Jim followed suit a few seconds later.

The building was one of the brick storefronts that lined the street.  Most contained pawn shops and laundromats, though several weren’t much more than abandoned hulks.  Their dark, dusty windows watched the pair’s progress along the street with malevolent intent.

“Hell of a place to work,” Blair breathed, and Jim thanked God for the younger man’s inability to stop talking for more than five minutes.

“I did it for three years, and that was it for me,” Jim confessed.

“Had enough, huh?” Blair questioned.  

Jim nodded tersely.  “Yeah.  It was a lot of stuff, but the kids…well.  There was this one—she was fourteen, and when I met her she'd already been on the street for a year and a half.”

Blair swore quietly.

Jim’s pace slowed as he lost himself in the memory.  “She was starting to trust me, you know?  I almost had her convinced to go back to her parents.  She’d talked to them once, and I thought she was finally going home.”  He sucked in a breath, suddenly feeling as though someone had hit him in the gut with a two-by-four.

“What happened?”  Blair’s soft voice, the brush of a hand on his arm, swiftly removed.

“She went home,” Jim grated.  “In a box.  The pimp got wind of her plans and decided to rough her up a little to scare her.  But she fought him, and he got pissed off.”

“Oh, man.”

“Yeah.”  He passed a hand over his face, and was astonished to find his fingers came away damp.  “Look, can we, uh—”

“Yeah, okay,” Blair said, understanding his unspoken request.   

Jim stared down the evil eye plate glass window in front of him for a few moments, thinking about everything and nothing.   Finally, he turned and headed for the corner, Blair practically jogging to keep up.

The Phoenix Center was a cheerily painted structure, its bright colors a stark contrast to the rest of the block.  As Jim and Blair opened the door, a young African-American queen stepped out, his chocolate eyes giving them both the once-over as they passed.    Inside, what would have once been the main room of the store had been transformed into a cozily lit, welcoming space with overstuffed armchairs and sofas, a thick area rug, and shelves piled with books, magazines and knickknacks.  Along the back wall, a couple of men were busily working at computers.  They turned and looked at the newcomers, but made no comment.

“Uh, hi,” Blair offered, raising a hand.  “Terry around?”

One of the men gestured down the hall that led from the back of the room, and Blair nodded.  “Thanks.”   Jim followed him down the narrow passageway to a small office near the end.  Blair peered into the room, then released a wide grin.  “Hey, old man,” he said affectionately.

A deep voice burst from the room.  “Blair!  How the hell are you?”  There was the sound of chair legs scraping, and then a pair of well-muscled brown arms wrapped around Blair’s body and squeezed.

Jim felt something rearrange itself in his gut.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch,” Blair grunted, and the other man laughed and let him go.  

“I thought you were almost a cop now,” he huffed.  “You gotta be tougher than that.”

“The operative word being almost,” Blair shot back.  “Until they pin the badge on me, the macho act is optional.”  Stepping aside, he added, “Oh, ah, Terry Jones, this is Jim Ellison.”

Jim extended a hand, wondering if he should tack macho cop onto that introduction.

“Hello,” Jones said, returning the handshake.  “Rafael and Mike still out there?”  Jim nodded.  “Then we’d better talk in here.  Sorry, there isn’t much room—”

“No problem,” Blair said airily, settling himself against a bookcase.  Jim squeezed into the small, cramped space, staying close to the door.  

“Okay.  You’re here about what happened to Lana, right?”

“Not only Lana,” Blair said.  “It looks like there’s a pattern.”

Jones nodded grimly.  “I was wondering when somebody besides us was going to make the connection.”

“Who’s ‘us’?” Jim demanded.

The big man waved a hand.  “The community.”

Blair and Jim both paused.  After a moment, Jones smiled.  “Yeah, Blair.  I’m not an objective observer any more.  I live here.”
 
Blair flicked a glance at Jim.  “Yeah, I, uh, know what that’s like.”  

Jim’s face heated.

“Well,” Jones murmured.  “So, you’re not with the local boys, are you?”

“No,” Blair said.  “Major Crimes, downtown.”

Jones pursed his lips.  “Good.  But I still don’t think you’ll get anywhere.”

“Why not?” Jim asked.

“Because the trannies are used to having the shit kicked out of them.  It’s sickening to say it, but it’s nothing new to them.  That’s part of it.  The other part is, I think they have a vested interest in keeping quiet.”

Jim frowned.  

“Stemming from fear?” Blair asked.

“Not only that.  It’s—I don’t really understand it myself.  But if this were a regular bashing, there’d be more talk—on the streets, in here.  They’d share with one another and with me, let me know the unsafe places, descriptions of tricks to watch out for, so that I could pass them on to others.  But they’re not talking to me this time.”  Jones sighed.  “It’s like they know no place is safe.”

“Have you heard anything or seen anything that might be significant?” Jim demanded.

Jones shook his head sadly.  “I wish I had.”

“Do you know of anyone else that might?”

“Besides the victims themselves?  No.”

Jim jerked his thumb in the direction of the main room.  “Mind if we have a look around?”  He recalled taking in some brochures and business cards on one of the shelves, ads for doctors and counselors and various health and employment services.  Maybe one of them might have heard of something, seen someone connected with the victims.

“Sure,” Jones said easily.  “But I’d prefer if you didn’t question any of the people out front.   This place is a safe haven; for some of them it’s the only place that has ever fit that description.”

“I—understand,” Jim said.  Cripes.  He’d almost said I hear that.  Sandburg was getting under his skin in more ways than one.

After Jim squeezed out the door again, Terry enfolded Blair in another bear hug.  “God, it’s great to see you again,” Jones said.

“You, too,” Blair said.   

Jim turned away and headed for the front, trusting Blair to give Jones his card.  The two young men glared at him when he emerged, as if he’d killed and eaten Jones out back and had just emitted a loud, satisfied belch.

Ignoring them, Jim strode over to the bookcase and began studying pamphlets.  As he stuffed a few in his pocket, he wondered idly when he would begin feeling comfortable in his own skin again.

~ XII ~

“Okay, that was pretty good.  Let’s try it again.” 

“Again?”  Blair croaked. 

Above him, Brandy Morris was taking a moment to re-tie her ponytail, and he was grateful for the few extra seconds to lie there on the mat like a landed marlin.

Man.  He was getting killed, here.

With a grunt and a sickening crack of his spine, he pushed himself to his feet and faced the eager young cadet for the—what?—tenth time?  He’d lost count the last time his skull had bounced against the mat, which was harder than advertised, by the way.   And fine, so she was supposed to be dropping him, the way he and Jim had done to one another in the gym a couple of weeks ago.  But did she have to be so goddamned enthusiastic about the process?

“Try it again,” the instructor repeated, and Brandy went into what Blair now called her Crouching Tiger Stance of Imminent Pain.  Not very Zen, but then this was about as far from tai chi as you could get.

In another ten seconds he was looking at the ceiling once more, studying the water stain in one of the fiberglass tiles like it was a cloud with a particularly interesting shape.  Looks a little like the Sphinx, he thought.   Only the paws are too big…

The view reminded him of last night.  They’d gone home after visiting the Center and eaten dinner, as domestic as ever.  Jim had prepared the meal, so Blair stacked the dishwasher.  They watched a hockey game, and then got ready for bed.  Then, Blair almost collided with Jim as the older man left the bathroom.   Jim grabbed him around the shoulders to steady him on his feet, and their gazes had locked like they were the hero and heroine in a bad romantic comedy. 

And for a split second, Blair had thought, maybe he’s ready now.  Maybe.

But the look in Jim’s eyes faded, and his hands dropped to his sides, and he muttered an apology and a good night as he fled to the stairs.  And Blair spent the next three hours staring up at the damned ceiling again, knowing Jim could tell he was still awake and not caring.

“Blair?  Are you all right?”  He shifted his gaze to take in Brandy’s sweat-sheened face, which had transformed itself from predatory to concerned in an instant.  He immediately felt badly about his nasty thoughts about her earlier.  Okay, so she was human.

Or maybe she was just worried he was going to sue her perky little ass.

“I’m good, I’m cool,” Blair breathed, shaking his head to clear it and rolling to his knees.  He felt a hand grip his arm as he gathered himself to stand.  Everything was going fine until he decided to bring his right leg around, and then a cacophony of stars exploded behind his eyes, heralding an intense jolt of pain that was actually on a par with getting shot.  He collapsed like a rag doll, dimly registering Brandy’s startled cry as he clutched his aching ankle.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jim followed the orderly through the corridor of St. Anne’s emergency ward, resisting the urge to yell at him to move, already, because the guy was not walking fast enough.  But then, if they’d been traveling in the damned Shuttle, it wouldn’t have been fast enough.

After what seemed like a century, the big man paused at a curtain and peeked inside before yanking it back on its track.  “Here he is,” he announced cheerfully. 

Jim strode forward, expecting a white-faced Blair on the edge of death, only to be confronted by—

A standing, fully dressed Blair, rosy of cheek and insane of hair, looking angrier than Jim had ever seen him.

“Hey,” Blair said tightly.  “They called you, huh?  I told them not to.”

Jim opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.  What the hell was he going to say?  You’re not dying.  How come you’re not dying?

“Jim?”

“They—” Jim started, then swallowed.  “They, ah, they only said you’d been taken to the hospital—”

“Man, are you okay?  You’re white as a sheet—”

“—stupid, I guess, to think, that you were, but I thought—”  Jim was aware that he was babbling now, but he didn’t care, not with the relief washing over him like a tidal wave.

“Hey, c’mere, sit down, will you, I’m sorry about this, I told them not to call—”  Blair’s square hands closed around Jim’s upper arms and steered him toward the bed.  Jim felt the backs of his thighs collide with the mattress and sat abruptly.

“—should’ve just asked them, but as soon as they said ‘hospital’ I jumped in the truck and I was moving, you know?  Stupid, huh?”

“—just my ankle, I twisted it getting up, but it’s gonna be okay, it doesn’t even hurt any more and they told me I didn’t tear any ligaments, I just need to keep it wrapped for a day or two—jeez, Jim, I’m sorry—”

Jim was aware his hands were gliding over every inch of Blair he could reach, fingers mapping him, finding pulse points and warm skin, cataloguing the fine hair on the backs of his hands and the ever-present stubble on his cheeks.  “Stupid, stupid…” he whispered, like a broken record.

“Stop saying that, will you?” Blair growled.  His own hands were still on Jim’s arms, sliding up and down in a reassuring motion.  “I feel stupid enough for the both of us.  Christ, I can’t even get up properly, how am I going to pass this course?”

I hope you fail the course, Jim nearly said aloud.  I hope to hell you wash out.  This isn’t right.  It never was.

“Jim?”  The sound of his name spoken in Blair’s soft baritone startled him back to reality.  He registered the fact that he was sitting on a hospital bed in the middle of a busy emergency ward while his hands were engaged in caressing Blair’s face like—a lover.

Which you are, Jim thought helplessly.  You are Blair Sandburg’s—

Blair’s full lips quirked.  “Want me to, uh, close the curtain?”

Jim’s hands dropped to his lap.  Blair’s expression betrayed flashes of confusion and hurt before finally closing up shop.  He stepped back to let Jim stand.

“You get anywhere on the case today?” Blair asked, his tone flat.

Jim rose to his feet, ignoring the brief bout of dizziness.  “No.  All my old contacts have gone to ground or disappeared.”  Including Salome, which was the biggest disappointment in two disappointing days on this case.  If he could only get in touch with her, he knew he’d be able to find some answers.

“So what’s next?” Blair said. 

Jim shrugged.  “I think I’ll check out some of those brochures I snagged from the Phoenix Center.  Couple of counseling services, self-help groups, doctors.”

Blair reached for his jacket where it lay draped over the back of a chair.  “I’ll come with you.”

The steel in Blair’s voice brooked no argument, but Jim still had to put up a token protest.  “Don’t you have to go back to the academy?”

Blair waved a hand.  “Brandy felt so bad she’s taking notes for me this afternoon and tomorrow.  I should be good to go back on Wednesday.  I’m guessing the laughter will have died down by then.”

Jim jerked his head toward the hallway.  “So, ah, you wanna—”

“Yeah, sure.  Let’s get out of here.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Blair had told Jim once that leaving the excitement of being a police observer to return to the university life  full-time would be like giving up a roller coaster ride in favor of a merry-go-round. 

To extend the analogy, life with Jim period was pretty much a gut-twisting roller coaster these days, to the extent that right about now he was ready for a nice, safe little horsie, with bells and a nice leather bridle you could hold onto for dear life.

God.  Many more rides like the one this morning at the hospital and he’d be ralphing his cotton candy all over the midway.  This being in constant short-circuit mode whenever Jim was around had to stop, or even his fairly youthful heart would collapse under the strain.   He could still feel the stroke of Jim’s fingertips over his skin, raising goosebumps wherever they strayed.  Talk about a bona fide erotic moment, which was incredible considering how pissed off he’d been, and considering they’d been in a hospital emergency ward, of all places.  Blair did not find the stench of hospital antiseptic and the groans of people in pain to be particularly conducive to romance.

But then, if you’d told him a few weeks ago that merely being in close proximity to Jim Ellison would be a more powerful aphrodisiac than a truckload of oysters, he would’ve laughed himself silly.

And now, here they were, two guys in a pickup, doing their detective thang, without a single mention of what had gone down earlier, or anything else that wasn’t work-related.  Jim had called Megan and split the workload with her, giving her a share of the addresses and keeping some for himself.  So far, the interviews had yielded exactly zip—a few of the victims were known to the psychologists and social workers they’d talked to—but none could offer any significant leads.  Yes, some of them had seemed scared.  No, they hadn’t revealed anything specific that might offer an explanation or point to a possible suspect.  Like Jim had said, the hustlers of Vaseline Alley played it pretty close to the vest—or the sequined mindress, whichever the case may be.

As they rode the elevator to their last destination of the day, a doctor who specialized in sex change operations, Blair watched Jim’s tense reflection in the mirrored glass of the car’s walls and wished for a mirror that would show him the inside of the other man’s head.  This come-here-go-away routine couldn’t last without causing serious internal damage to one or both of them. 

“How’s your ankle?” Jim murmured, startling Blair from his contemplation of Jim’s profile.

“Fine, great,” Blair answered, eyes meeting Jim’s in the reflection of the brushed steel doors.

“I’ll drive you home after this one,” Jim said. 

Blair checked his watch—it was almost four.  “What about you?”

“I’m gonna try looking for Salome again.”

Blair frowned.  “I can—”

“You’ve walked enough,” Jim said gruffly.  “You need to rest that ankle.”

“Yes, Mom,” Blair snapped, regretting the words the instant he saw Jim’s reflection stiffen.   He raised a hand, dropped it.  “Sorry.”

“Forget it,” Jim said woodenly.

“You really think you’re going to find her?”

Jim shrugged.  “I don’t know.  But she’s about the only hope I’ve got now.”

Blair cocked his head at the odd statement.  Something buzzed in the back of his brain whenever Jim mentioned this Salome, but it wasn’t anything he could identify.   He filed it away for later contemplation as the elevator doors opened and the two men strode forward.

Doctor Saunders had been expecting them, so they only had about a five-minute wait while he saw to his last patient.  The waiting room was spacious and airy, with up-to-date magazines and a sunny receptionist who offered them coffee.  Blair’s doctor spent half his time working at a free clinic in Southtown, so his office had more in common with a shoebox than it did with this place. 

Doctor Saunders himself was a smiling, well-preserved man in his fifties who offered them coffee again, then took them to a well-appointed office equipped with one of those calming tabletop fountains.  Blair’s hackles immediately went up at the fake New-Ageyness of it all. 

Hey, he lived the real thing.  If he couldn’t pass judgment, who could?

After the pleasantries were exchanged, Jim dug out the folder again and started showing pictures.  Like the others before him, the doctor showed the appropriate amounts of distress and horror at the bruised and battered faces in the photographs. 

Unlike the others, he recognized every single suspect.

Blair’s hackles rose to cornered-wolf level.  “You know them all?” he demanded.  Jim shot him a look but said nothing.

The doctor looked startled at Blair’s tone, as though no harsh words were ever spoken in this atmosphere of serenity and gently trickling water.  “Oh,” he said softly.  “I suppose that looks bad, doesn’t it?  I never thought—”

“Doctor Saunders,” Jim interrupted smoothly, “we’re not here to accuse you.”

The older man blinked.  “Well, now that I think of it, it’s not so strange that they would be my patients, considering I’m the only doctor in Washington State who performs these operations.  I get referrals from other parts of the Northwest as well.  Not to boast, but my practice is very successful.”

“We gathered that,” Blair muttered.  He felt the weight of Jim’s gaze on him again, but ignored it.  So what if he wanted to play Bad Cop once in a while?  This guy got on his nerves.

And since when had he morphed into Clint Eastwood?

“Is there anything I can help you with?” the doctor said, still annoyingly pleasant and courteous.

“Did any of them ever mention being harassed or attacked by anyone?” Jim asked.

The doctor leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his spreading midsection.  “Many of my patients are very comfortable with me.  They have to be; it’s a very emotional process, the commitment they’ve undertaken when they first visit my office.  In many cases they’ve left behind their families and friends to make this decision.  It’s an extremely painful life choice, but for each one, it’s the only one they can make.

“Yes, as a result of this journey they're on, they often confide in me.  To them, I’m the person who’s helping them to realize their dreams.  I don’t encourage them to depend on me, but by the end of the process, I’m often closer to them than another surgeon would be.”

“Taking out an appendix just doesn’t give them the same warm feeling, does it?” Blair heard himself say.

“Blair,” Jim warned.

The doctor chuckled and waved a hand.  “No, it’s quite true.  It’s not the same.  And so they do tell me things, much as others might a priest.  I take those confessions in the strictest confidence, gentlemen, and you must trust me when I say nothing that was said could help you, or them.”

“Why don’t you let us be the judge of that?” Blair snarled.

A muscle in Jim’s jaw twitched.  He cleared his throat and rose to his feet, extending his hand as he did so.  “Thank you for your time, Doctor.  We’ll be in touch.”

Saunders smiled and took Jim’s hand.  “You’re welcome, Detectives, any time.”

As they walked past the sunny receptionist and the happily dripping coffee machine, Blair could tell by the set of Jim’s shoulders that he was definitely in deep shit trouble.

Too bad he didn’t care.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jim was proud that he made it to the truck before letting loose.

“Exactly what the hell did you think you were doing up there?” he demanded, rounding on Blair.  The parking garage was fairly deserted, but he kept his voice low nevertheless.

“Questioning a suspect,” Blair shot back.  “What the hell were you doing?”

Jim blinked.  “Sandburg—”

“He knows every one of the victims.  Don’t you think that’s a little incriminating?”

Jim blew out a breath.  “What’s his motive?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe he’s botching the operations.”

“He’d hardly be as successful as he is if he were doing that.  Try again.” 

Blair threw up his hands.  “There could be lots of reasons!”

“That a successful physician is beating the crap out of trannies in Southtown?  His own patients?”

Blair’s expression turned murderous, but he remained silent.

“Blair—” Jim began, then gave up, all the fight suddenly deserting him.  “Let me drive you home, all right?” 

“Is that your answer for everything?” Blair asked softly, as Jim turned the key in the ignition.  “Putting as much space between us as possible?”

Jim stopped cold, his mind frantically flailing for a lifeline like a drowning man in the North Atlantic.  “It’s—not the same thing,” he managed finally, knowing it sounded lame even to his own ears.

“Maybe it is,” Blair countered sadly.  “Maybe you don’t want me as your partner any more than you want me in your—personal life.”

Somehow Jim knew he’d been about to say in your bed, just as he knew Blair had changed the wording to protect Jim from embarrassment.

“I—I want—” Jim began.

“What?  What do you want?” Blair asked.  Jim was suddenly aware of the heat from Blair’s body—the kid was a friggin’ furnace—and wondered how he’d missed the fact that Blair was so close.  He looked into clear, open blue eyes and thought of deep water.

He’d always been afraid of deep water.

“I want you—not to get hurt any more,” he said simply, amazed he sounded so calm.

Blair snorted.  “Then I’m in the wrong line of work,” he muttered.

Jim held his breath.

“Oh, no,” Blair breathed.  “Jesus, no.  Don’t start with that again.  Not now.”

“I’m not starting anything,” Jim protested.

“Because this is—God, I don’t even know what to say next, you’ve got me so tied up in knots.”

“I’ve got you—?” Jim choked, incredulous.  Blair’s heat was a palpable presence between them now, like radiation from a chunk of uranium.   If he put out his hand, he’d be burned clear through to the bone.

“Why do you think I tripped over my own damned feet today?” Blair demanded hotly.  “I’m completely distracted by this—this thing—”

“Thing?  What are you—”

“Yes, thing, fine, you want it in plain English?  I’m distracted by the fact that I go through the day thinking about you, about what we did, about how much I want to do it again, and, and you, Jesus, Jim, I know I said I’d give you space, but isn’t this doing anything to you, this silence, this ignoring the elephant in the fucking room?  Doesn’t it make you crazy, wondering—”

Blair stopped talking abruptly, because at this point two of Jim’s fingers pressed over Blair’s lips, stilling them.  The burn began cutting through his flesh, but it no longer mattered, because it was worth it to be touching him again.

“You make me crazy,” Jim said hoarsely, grimly gratified when Sandburg’s eyes went wide.  “You always have.”

Blair made a soft noise in the back of his throat, like a wild animal unused to begging.  Jim put him out of his misery when he replaced his fingers with his mouth.

~ XIII ~

He’d be lying if he said he’d never thought about it.  ‘It’ being the viability of Jim’s pickup truck as a makeout location.  Any American male who claimed that his choice of vehicle didn’t have something to do with this particular factor was either a) over the age of eighty, or b) so busy ferrying his kids to soccer practice in the minivan that he no longer had time to think about sex.  So yeah, Blair had thought about it, just like he’d thought about the Corvair and the Volvo’s potential before signing the papers. 

Okay, so maybe he should’ve thought harder about the Volvo.  Anyway.  Back when the pickup truck was a new commodity, he remembered asking Jim whether the Bubba F-150 was a babe magnet.  Did he get a wide variety of women with this ride, or was it mainly gals in ten-gallon hats who knew the Boot Scoot Boogie?  Jim had responded with a growled invitation to bite him, and that had been the end of that.

Until now.  Now—well—there hadn’t been any biting.  Yet.  But things were, ah, getting very interesting—

“Man, and I’ve never even been to a shitkicker bar,” Blair gasped, in between kisses.  Jim made a questioning noise that might have been a word if his lips hadn’t been pushed up against Blair’s jugular vein, and then raised his head to take Blair’s mouth again.

The three still-functioning brain cells in Blair’s head put up a token protest, something along the lines of hey, you’re making out in a parking garage, dumbass.  Apparently, while they were functioning, they weren’t particularly interested in being polite.  But whatever their mood, Blair couldn’t find the strength to listen to their advice, especially when Jim was doing that sucking thing on his lower lip again, and damn, how had he lived thirty years without having somebody do that to him at least once a day?

Nevertheless, he felt he should make some sort of an effort.  “Jim, hey, don’t you think, ohhh,” and that was as far as he got, because Jim swiftly put the remaining three brain cells out of commission when he laid a heavy, hot palm over the front of Blair’s jeans.  At that point, Blair figured that hell, if the real cop in this pickup wasn’t worried about a public display of sex, why should he?

Or was that ‘why should he be?’  He never could figure out which one was more grammatical—

Jim’s fingers were undoing the button on his Levis. 

Holy shit.

“Jim.”  No answer but the rasp of a metal zipper.  The other man’s head was bowed, staring at his hands and what they were doing, and Blair suppressed a moan.  Jeez, Jim was zoning on his dick in the middle of a public place.  How mind-blowing was that?

Summoning the last shards of his fractured willpower, he placed his hands on either side of Jim’s face and forced his head up.  “Jim.  C’mon.”

Jim’s normally laser-sharp blue gaze was hazy, unfocused; his nostrils were flared like a big cat in rut.  Blair decided that willpower was a vastly overrated commodity, and leaned forward—

“Fuck,” Jim swore softly, removing his hands from Blair’s pants.

Blair sighed.  “Almost, man, almost.”

Jim scrubbed a hand violently over his face, and when it came away his eyes were back to laser-beam strength.  “Sorry,” he muttered.

Blair reached out to stroke Jim’s arm, but pulled back before he could connect.  “Nothing to be sorry about.”  He paused, took a deep breath.  “Unless you’re going to try to pretend it didn’t happen.”

Jim tensed, then met Blair’s gaze steadily.  “No.  I’m not.”

Blair’s heart did a backflip in his chest.  “So, ah,” he managed, “we’re actually gonna talk about this?”

Jim winced.  “I guess we have to,” he said, like Blair had just insisted he had to drink six algae shakes in rapid succession.

Blair barked a laugh.  “That’s my Jim,” he murmured, though the words ended up sounding more affectionate and possessive than he’d intended.   Jim’s eyes widened, startled; then they turned hazy once more, and Blair’s heart started a tumbling routine.  Athletic little bastard.

They breathed together in the stuffy cab of the pickup for another few seconds or few hours, and then Jim broke eye contact.  “I, uh, I’ll take you home,” he rasped. 

“Yeah, okay,” Blair nodded.  Right; he’d forgotten.  It was still four-thirty in the afternoon and Jim had work to do.  Jim started the motor of the truck, and Blair silently resolved to stay awake until Jim came home, no matter how late it was.  He wasn’t going to give him that out again.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Do you actually get laid with this cowboy Porsche, sugar?”  The trannie leaned into the darkened truck cab, her appraising gaze taking in Jim’s appearance.  “Oh.  Guess you do,” she amended, her voice turning husky.

“Remember me?” Jim asked, and the manicured brows drew together in a frown.  “I was looking for Salome the other night.”

The frown deepened.  “Yeah, I remember you,” she told him.  There was a breathless pause.  “So does Salome.”

Jim kept his face as expressionless as possible given the relief coursing through him.   The trannie jerked her head to the side.  “Park this thing around the corner and I’ll take you to her.”

Five minutes later, Jim was climbing up the rickety back stairs of a building that should have been condemned a decade ago.  He steeled himself for what he’d find; Salome wouldn’t have been caught dead in a place like this when he knew her.

The apartment was surprisingly well-kept, which helped him to breathe easier.  Whatever trouble she’d landed in, Salome was still in control, as much as she could be.

“That you, Mona?” The brown sugar voice emerged from the kitchen, and then Salome herself appeared.  Jim watched her expression change as she took him in.

“Jesus,” she said finally, with a small, husky laugh.  “You still look fine as hell.”

“You, too,” Jim answered warmly.  She took a step toward him, and Jim noticed the way she favored her right leg.  He zoomed in on her face and noted the faint bruises, nearly healed yet still visible under the layers of heavy makeup.

Damn it.  She didn’t deserve any of this.  But then, none of them did.

He stepped forward to close the distance between them, careful of her ribs as he hugged her, because he’d memorized her medical report.  She was a lot thinner than he remembered.

A small sound from the other transsexual—Mona, he assumed—broke up their reunion.  “You gonna be okay?” she demanded gruffly.

Salome regarded her friend over Jim’s shoulder.  “Yeah, honey, I’ll be fine.  Go on.  I’ll see you later.”  Once Mona had left, she turned and motioned toward the dingy but clean couch.  Jim sat, and she joined him.

“Sorry about this,” she told him, indicating the apartment.  “Mona’s a great friend, but her taste is shit.”

“S’okay,” Jim allowed.  “I have a roommate who makes her look like Martha Stewart.”

Salome raised an eyebrow.  “So,” she said, after a time, “what you want to know?”

Jim’s answer was automatic.  “First of all, whether or not you’re okay.”

Salome waved an expressive hand.  “I might get pulled under now and then, but they never drag me down for long.”  Her dark, shadowed eyes hinted at a different story, but Jim didn’t question it.  “You ridin’ in on your white horse again?”

Jim blew out a breath.  “Something like that.”

Salome pursed her lips.  “‘Course you are.  ‘S what you do.”  She paused, her gaze turning inward.  “Only this time it ain’t gonna work.”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause this time you’re rescuin’ us from ourselves, Prince Charming.  And some of us don’t want to be rescued.”

Frowning, Jim brushed a hand over Salome’s bruised cheekbone, light enough that it wouldn’t hurt.  “Is this who you are?” he said softly.

She flinched away from his fingers.  “Don’t fuck with me.  Don’t pretend you—”

“I care, Salome,” Jim insisted.  “I know I disappointed you, but I thought you believed that, at least.”

Salome’s eyes widened; then, the shadows suddenly fell away, revealing every inch of her fear and fatigue.   

“Let me help you,” Jim urged, taking advantage of the silence.

Salome closed her eyes and sighed.

Jim’s gut churned when she shook her head, slowly.

“I can’t do that, sugar.   I’m sorry.  If it was just me…” She trailed off.  “Yeah, well, you’d know the answer to that one, wouldn’t you?”

Jim felt the familiar wave of sadness and guilt wash over him.  Reaching in his pocket, he pulled out one of his cards and a pen, scribbled his home and cell numbers on the back, and handed it to her silently.  What was the point in telling her he would protect her, keep her safe, do what a cop was supposed to do?  She’d never asked him for any of those things.  And the one thing she’d asked of him had been impossible for him to give.

The pad of Salome’s thumb brushed over the smooth surface of the card as she watched him go.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Blair woke up with a start at the sound of the front door creaking on its hinges.  His head snapped up from its awkward resting place on his chest, and overstretched neck muscles immediately protested the sudden change.  Okay, doing the several hundred sit-ups and push-ups had not been the brightest move, but he had to try to make up for the lost training time somehow.

Never mind that exercising himself into a stupor was also an effective way to shut off his brain.  The problem was, it had worked too well; he’d fallen asleep on the couch in front of the TV, and there was a damp spot on the front of his shirt where he’d drooled on himself. 

Perfect.  Now all he needed were a few artfully placed food stains, and Jim’d never be able to resist him.

Wiping at his mouth, he managed a sleepy smile when Jim appeared before him.  Praying he wasn’t too obvious, he shifted on the couch to give Jim more room.  The other man hesitated for a split second, then accepted the unspoken invitation, settling beside him, close but not touching.

“How’d it go?”  Honey, how was your day?  Man, now he was Mrs. Cleaver.

A muscle leapt in Jim’s jaw.  “I found her,” he murmured.

“And?” Blair prompted, when he didn’t continue.

“And nothing,” Jim huffed.  “She said I couldn’t help.”

Blair frowned.  “Why not?”

“Because she says I’m trying to rescue them from themselves.”

“What does that mean?”

Jim expelled air in a rush between his teeth.  “I’m not sure yet.  It could mean a lot of things.  A pimp who’s threatening them, or maybe a gang.”

“What about that doctor?” Blair heard himself demand.

“What about your touchy-feely buddy down at the Phoenix Center?” Jim retorted.

Blair reeled back from that, his already muzzy head spinning.  He opened his mouth, then shut it again.  And then he looked down at Jim’s lap, where tense hands gripped his kneecaps with such force they had to be ready to pop them off his legs.

That’s my Jim, he thought, a surge of affection creeping up behind him and thwapping him on the skull.

“You trying to start a fight with a poor cripple?” he asked, voice low.

Jim’s head jerked up.  Those too-sharp eyes bored into Blair and not for the first time, he wondered what Jim saw when he looked at him.   Was it all close-up and impersonal, like a microscope, or was he forever searching for the hidden meanings in the minute changes in his skin temperature, the dilation of his pupils, the rhythm in the carotid and the jugular?  Blair had always thought of himself as an open book, but what was he to Jim Ellison?

What were they to each other?

Jim was shaking his head, slowly; without thinking, Blair touched the back of one of those clenched hands with a fingertip, suddenly needing that connection.  “What?” he asked softly.

The other man took a deep, shuddering breath.  “Do you want to be a cop?”

Blair stared at him.  The question was a non sequitur to him, but he knew it was vitally significant to Jim.  And so it was equally vital that he answer it as honestly as he could.

After a few moments’ introspection, he answered, “Yeah.  I think I do.”  Jim shifted, obviously less than thrilled with the lukewarm answer.  Blair’s fingers slid over Jim’s hand, pressing against the skin.  “No, wait a minute.  It’s—just weird, you know?  I spent so long thinking of you guys as the ‘other’, it’s still strange to imagine myself part of the club.  When I started, I was this nebbish who got to hang out with the Defenders of Virtue, The Seekers of Truth, the Shooters of Really Big Guns—”

Jim snorted.

“—and some days it was like I’d fallen between the pages of an adventure novel.  But one day, I looked up and I was one of those guys—maybe not in name, but in spirit, right?”

Jim was frowning, confusion written on his features.  “When did that happen?”

Blair waved a hand.  “I don’t remember, exactly.  It wasn’t some glamorous moment.  We’d been researching some case, and you and I were briefing Simon, and about halfway through I realized we were trading off lines, because we’d each done an equal share of the grunt work, and—there it was, right in front of me.”

“But you didn’t want to become a cop then.”

“No, I always figured that it would all end when my dissertation was finished.  But it wasn’t something I examined too closely.”

Jim’s gaze fell to their hands; Blair felt the other man’s relax under his own.

A rueful smile curled Blair’s mouth.  “You mind telling me why that issue was uppermost in your mind at this point in time?”

Jim hesitated for a few moments, and then the words tumbled out in a rush.  “I don’t want you to feel obligated to do this.  You don’t have to do this for me.”

Jim’s softly spoken words roused Blair more swiftly than an air raid siren.  Suddenly, about a hundred things made sense, and Blair was blindsided by the force of the revelation.  Jim’s distance since May, the conversation at the gym, maybe even some of his whole come-here-go-away routine—all could be explained in one fell swoop.

And then Blair did something quite extraordinary considering his preferred M.O.  He shoved his insight aside and decided to say not one damned word about it.

At least not until much, much later.

Instead, he leaned closer to the other man, gratified when Jim’s gaze lost its perfect focus.  “Do what?”  Blair’s hands rose to cup Jim’s jaw and tilt his head.  “This?” 

“Bl—” Jim began, but that was all that emerged before Blair kissed him.  The younger man exerted only a gentle pressure at first, knowing instinctively that Jim needed coaxing.  Sliding one hand to Jim’s neck, he settled his thumb over the steady beat of his pulse, compensating for his impoverished senses.

Slowly, the pounding of Jim’s blood intensified, sped up.  Blair silently cheered when he felt the artery leap under his fingers right before Jim groaned into his mouth, surrendering.

When they broke apart, Blair’s own blood was roaring in his ears.  “‘Cause I have to tell you, man,” he panted, “I’m not only doing that for you.”

“Okay,” Jim said, his own voice ragged, “I’ll take your word for it.”  Strong arms wrapped around Blair’s torso and tugged him closer as Jim dove for his mouth again.

Don’t think he needs any more coaxing, Blair reflected, as Jim’s tongue pushed past his lips.  Strange how much he really enjoyed the whole Frenching-with-Jim thing, considering Jim’s tongue felt twice as big as any other tongue that had ever paid a visit to his oral cavity.  But he supposed you had to consider the level of talent involved, and Jim was very talented in the art of the kiss.  Who would’ve thought he knew precisely how to press and lick and tease and nibble and glide and—oh boyohboy, suck—to deliver the maximum payoff?

Mmm, yeah, he thought as Jim pulled strongly on Blair’s lower lip, definitely…got…that…sucking… thing…down…cold.

And then his mind started free-associating on the topic of “Other Things Jim Could Suck,” and heat bloomed over every square inch of skin Blair owned. 

He must’ve produced some sort of noise that could be interpreted as distress, because Jim drew back suddenly and looked into his eyes.  “You OK?” he murmured.

Blair tried to remember how to produce words.  “Yeah,” he grunted finally.  “Great, beyond great.” 

Debating with himself for a split second, he swung his right leg over and around until he was straddling Jim’s lap.  The bigger man’s hands automatically went to his ribs to steady him, his expression now oozing worry.  “What about your ankle?”

“Doesn’t hurt a bit,” Blair rasped, and then his own tongue decided to do a little tasting on Jim’s neck, and that was the end of the scintillating conversation for a while.

This was good, this was fantastic, because now he was right where he needed to be.  Jim’s body was hard, only a small pun intended, and he’d known that in theory, because he’d seen the guy’s bod often enough, but a hand on a chest wasn’t the same as full frontal contact.  Dimly, he wondered how his own body felt to Jim, whether he was too flabby or too skinny or just right, Goldilocks.  And then he gave up wondering about much of anything, because with large portions of him in close proximity to large portions of Jim, a brain was just extra baggage,  like a suitcase full of thermal socks on a Caribbean vacation.

“Mmm,” Blair hummed as he bit down on that tempting cord of muscle joining Jim’s neck to his shoulder, “very large portions.”

“What?” Jim choked out, his hands now burrowed under Blair’s shirt and sliding up his back.

“Isnmportant,” slurred Blair, reluctantly putting enough space between them so that he could start on Jim’s shirt buttons.  In about three seconds, he had them undone to Jim’s navel, but then he got stuck on the last one.  He swore expressively under his breath, and Jim joined him.

“Here,” Jim growled, one hand coming up and tugging impatiently at the cloth.  Obediently, the button flew off and rolled along the floor.  They stared at one another in shock for a moment, and then began to laugh.

“You must be hard up,” Blair said.  “Because you’re not even interested in picking that up, are you?”

Jim didn’t answer in words; instead, he took Blair by the shoulders and maneuvered him to his feet, all the while peppering him with light, teasing kisses to jaw and eyebrow and hairline.  Once he had them both upright, he shrugged out of his shirt and then set to work on Blair’s own clothing, until Blair looked down and realized he didn’t have a stitch on.

“How the—” he demanded, outraged at his own apparent zone, but his expression of surprise was cut off by Jim’s mouth. 

On his belly.

Blair watched, helpless, as Jim settled back on the couch again, his eyes level with Blair’s navel.  Which was perilously close to Blair’s—

No, no way, Blair’s brain babbled to itself, don’t even think about it, do not even go there, because no way is it going to happen—

Jim’s big hands bracketed Blair’s waist, fingers digging into his flesh, and Blair realized he was being braced. 

And then Jim leaned forward and touched his lips to the tip of Blair’s cock.

“Jim, hey, you don’t have to—” he gasped, unwilling to believe the visual or tactile input that told him Jim Ellison, Sentinel of the Great City, Cop of the Fucking Year, was about to go down on him.

“I owe you one,” Jim husked, and the vibrations of sound against Blair’s groin made him even harder, if such a thing were theoretically possible.  “And I always pay my debts.”

“That’s really, ah, honorable of you, but, holy shit, you—” and the rest trailed off into a deep, throaty groan as Jim sucked him in. 

Then, to his utter embarrassment, his knees buckled. The muscles in Jim’s arms tightened immediately, keeping him from crumpling to the floor in a heap, and after a few seconds Blair regained enough motor control to help him out. 

Staring at the wall—or in fact at any part of the room besides Jim—seemed like a good idea for the time being, so Blair focused on the exposed brick with a level of concentration that would have done any Sentinel proud.  You’d think that someone with Blair’s level of experience would’ve gotten more blow jobs in his life, but oddly enough, it hadn’t been something he’d actively encouraged, and most of the women he’d dated hadn’t offered.  That was fine with him—after all, there were dozens of other pleasures to be had, if you knew what you were doing, and Blair had known what he was doing from a fairly early age.

But this—this was huge, and it wasn’t simply because there was a mouth on his dick.  It wasn’t only the carnal, slightly taboo pleasure of it that had him reeling.  It was the fact that this was Jim, that this was the two of them together, and although sex with Jim was a relatively new concept, it now seemed inconceivable that he could’ve done without it all this time.  It was rapidly becoming one of those ingredients essential to his well-being, like food or water or the occasional ticket to a Jags game.  That alone should have been enough to scare the living shit out of him, because food and water and even basketball were easy enough to procure, but the supplies of Jim could dry up at any time, and then where would he be?  Would he dry up too, until the remaining dessicated pieces of him simply blew away in the wind?

Blair was startled out of his reverie when one of Jim’s hands grabbed at one of his own, which was currently clenched, white-knuckled, at his side.  He looked down, startled, just in time to see his cock slip out of Jim’s mouth.  The cool air battered his damp flesh and he bit down on a whimper as Jim guided Blair’s hand to his own erection.

“Make yourself useful, willya, Chief?” Jim ordered, wrapping Blair’s fingers around the base.  When he was satisfied he released the hand with a reassuring pat and promptly went to town again, this time using not only his lips and tongue but also the occasional scrape of teeth.  As the neurons of Blair’s brain began disintegrating at the sensations that produced, Jim’s own hands glided back until they were gripping the globes of Blair’s ass.

And that was just— “Oh, God,” Blair moaned, torn between wanting to push back into those strong hands and push forward into that incomprehensible mouth.  Luckily, or unluckily depending on your viewpoint, the issue was resolved before the conundrum drove him insane when one of Jim’s fingers stole into the crease between his buttocks.  The orgasm whipcracked through him suddenly and without warning, and an undignified sound—a scream tangled up with a prayer—ripped from his startled throat.

An earthquake shuddering through his unresisting body, he fell bonelessly to his knees, where he was immediately wrapped in warmth, Jim’s arms around his shoulders, Jim’s nose pressed against his hair.   When he could finally summon enough energy to think, it occurred to him that he was ignoring something important, if he could only remember what it was.

Oh.  Right.  There was somebody else in need of a little consideration.

One shaking hand rose to Jim’s trousers, but was stilled before he could undo the button.

“Too late,” Jim told him gruffly, his voice rumbling against Blair’s ear where it was pressed to the bigger man’s bare chest.

It took Blair a couple of seconds to process this.  When he did, he sucked in a startled breath.  “Jeez.  You mean—”

“Yeah,” Jim bit out, and the syllable was strangled, small.  Blair tipped his head back and saw Jim’s face was flushed with embarrassment.  This incredible, smart, sexy, self-assured man was blushing like a teenager.

That’s when it hit him, as hard as the boulder landing on Wile E. Coyote.

He was in love.  God help him, he was in love with Jim Ellison.  Sentinel of the Great City.  Cop of the Fucking Year.

Best friend he’d ever had.

Blair’s hand left Jim’s pants and settled over his heart.  Jim’s pulse beat strongly under his fingertips.  “Hey,” he said softly.

Blue eyes reluctantly met his.  Blair swallowed, his mouth suddenly gone dry.  A tiny voice in his head sounded a warning.

Not now.  Not yet.

He swallowed again.  “Your place or mine?”

Jim’s gaze studied him for a breathless moment.

“Mine’s bigger.”

The deadpan comment startled a laugh out of Blair.  Pushing himself to his feet, he stood looking down at the other man with an expression he was sure had to be goofy as hell.  “I’m gonna make you eat those words,” he drawled, grinning.  “Again,” he added.

Jim shook his head as he rose from the couch.  “If this is a sample of your afterglow conversation, Chief…” he began, his tone mock-exasperated.

“You started it,” Blair pointed out, his arms wrapping around Jim’s back and pulling him closer.

“Then I’ll finish it,” Jim growled, hands sinking deep into Blair’s hair and tilting his head up. 

Fine by me, Blair thought, graciously allowing him the last word for a change as Jim took his mouth once more.

~ XIV ~

“Hey, Rafe!  Looks like my man Jim got himself laid last night!”

Jim’s head snapped up at the raucous shout from Henri Brown across the bullpen.  He felt all eyes turn to him and fought to keep his expression neutral.

He heard the distinctive clicking of Rafe’s expensive Italian shoes on the linoleum as he approached.  “Evidence, Detective, evidence,” he chided, leaning in to examine Jim like a freshly discovered corpse.  “What have you observed?”

“First, the suspect appears to be smiling more than usual,” Brown offered.  “Which means, twice in as many hours.  A new record, I believe.”

“A telling sign, but inconclusive,” Rafe said.  “There could be other causes.  Such as:  the donut gal having his favorite kind of bear claw.”

“True, true,” the other man allowed.  “Well, there’re the dark circles under the eyes, indicating a lack of sleep.”

Rafe bent down for a closer inspection, and Jim resisted the urge to pop him in the mouth. He took a sip of coffee instead.  “Also inconclusive,” he countered.  “Sandburg could’ve kept him up playing with his South American rain stick.”

Jim nearly spewed coffee all over his monitor.

“Gents, gents, please.”  Jim did wince as he watched Connor insinuate herself into the proceedings, her eyes flashing with an evil merriment.  “I believe I have the clincher.”  She paused dramatically, waiting for the attention to shift to her.  “He was whistling as he left the elevator this morning.”

Rafe held up a finger.  “Tune, please?”

Megan folded her arms.  “Close to You.”

The bullpen let out a collective gasp. 

“Sweet baby Jesus in the manger,” Rafe breathed.  “Proof positive.”

“Alright, alright,” Jim drawled, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender as the wave of laughter swept through the room.  “Now that you’ve proven I actually have a life outside of this place, could we please get back to work?  You do remember work, right?”

“Vaguely,” Rafe admitted, treating Jim to that toothy, annoying grin of his. 

Satisfied, Jim set his features into a more severe line, then returned his attention to the screen in front of him.  Gradually, the laughter died, and his ears quit ringing.

Which made it easier for him to hear…the whistling.

Close To You.  Some asshole just couldn’t let it go.

“Hey, would you comedians—” he started, then stopped abruptly as he watched Sandburg practically bounce into the bullpen, as wound up and happy as Tigger on a sunny summer day.

The whistling was coming from him.

Fuck.  Fuck.  Fuckfuck.

Ten pairs of eyes, in various stages of shock and startlement, were trained on Blair as he came to a stop beside Jim’s desk.  After a moment in which he basically stood there and mooned goofily at Jim, he realized he was surrounded by a wall of silence, and took in the situation.

“Hey, guys,” he offered, still grinning like a crackhead.  “How’re they hanging?”

Megan opened her mouth, but no sound came out.  “Uh, lovely, thanks,” she managed to croak finally.

Rafe arched an eyebrow.  “Jim was just about to tell us why he’s so—chipper—this morning.”  He shot a look at Jim.  “Why you both seem so chipper.”

Blair’s grin didn’t diminish.  “Oh, yeah?  Those twins certainly do put a spring in your step, don’t they, Jim?”

“Twins?” H asked, his beady eyes lighting up.

“Oh, yeah,” Blair said with a leer.  “Janice and Gina.  Gorgeous doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

“How’d Jim make out?” Rafe asked.

“Well, you know Jim; he doesn’t kiss and tell,” Blair allowed.  “And he’s teaching me to be a gentleman, so I guess I won’t either.”  He winked at Rafe, who shrugged away his evident disappointment before returning to his desk.  Gradually, the rest of the bullpen’s denizens subsided into something resembling work.

Jim sat back, his heart pounding.  It appeared the famous Sandburg charisma had saved them from being outed on their first real morning after, but holy Christ, that had been close.  Obviously, they were going to have to be a lot more careful at hiding—

Sandburg settled into his chair, only inches away.  Jim could hear the rustle of his clothing against his skin, the steady rhythm of his pulse.  He turned to find Blair’s magnetic blue gaze appraising him.

“What?” he snapped.

“Smile,” Blair said, sotto voce, “you’re on Candid Camera.”

Jim glanced around, relieved when he saw no one was watching.  “No shit.”

“So,” Blair persisted, “you’re ‘chipper.’  Any particular reason?”

“Sandburg,” Jim growled, mortified to feel his face heat again.  What was he, fourteen?  He’d done more blushing in the past couple of weeks than a nun at a Chippendale’s show.

Blair leaned closer, though not so close that it might arouse suspicion.  “‘Cause, you know, I’m chipper as hell.”

“I’m thrilled,” Jim muttered, his tone indicating he was anything but.

Blair leaned another inch closer.  “And right now about all I can think about is how I’d rather be in bed.”  He paused.  “And not with Gina or Janet.”

“Janice,” Jim gritted, throat tight.

“Whatever.”  Blair stretched and yawned, his leg brushing against Jim’s under the desk.  Jim recoiled in horror at the electrifying contact. 

“Jesus.  Would you—”

“God, it was great to wake up like that,” Blair continued blithely, his voice hushed but still slightly throaty.  “At first I didn’t know if anything still belonged to me; it was like I’d subsumed into you.  Not a bad way to start the day.”

“Shut.  Up,” Jim croaked, while below the level of the desktop his nether regions started showing a definite interest in Blair’s words.  He remembered the sensation of awakening with a warm body draped over him like a blanket, his skin tickled by Blair’s riotous curls sprawled over his chest and neck.

He remembered his fingers stroking gently through those curls for several minutes, before the clock radio went off and Blair woke with a start and a slow grin that had set Jim's already fried nerve endings on fire.

Jim risked a glance over at Blair to see him smiling, though the amusement didn’t make it to his eyes.  Right.  Jim had told him to shut up.  He took a deep breath, unsure of what to say to mollify the other man.

“I, uh,” he began, then stopped.  “Sorry.”

“S’okay,” Blair said, too quickly.  “You’re right.  Not the place.”

Jim scanned the room once more, then took a deep breath and plunged ahead, determined to give Blair something, though not quite knowing how.  Finally, he managed, “It’s—the same for me.”

“Yeah?” Blair said, voice still shaded by uncertainty.

Jim held his gaze.  “Yeah.”

Blair shook his head slowly, and a fond smile escaped its bonds to appear on his face.  “But do you know how it is for me?” he asked softly. 

Jim stared at him, shocked into silence by the emotion he thought he could read in those expressive eyes.  But—that wasn’t—Blair couldn’t—

“Hey, you two done being chipper?”

Both men jumped at Connor’s question.  Jim looked up and realized she was standing right in front of the desk.  Right in front of them, and he hadn’t even noticed.  How the hell had that happened?

He looked up to see Sandburg’s grin had frozen to his face, stuck there like a clay mask. 

Oh, right.  That was how.

“Yeah, I think so,” Jim rumbled, and the sound of his voice seemed to shake Blair out of his stupor, because he jerked again and his face lost its rigidity.  Megan shot him a speculative look, then shrugged.

“Well, I think we might have a lead on the case,” she offered, plunking a folder down on Jim’s desk.

Jim peered at it, recognizing the blue manila.  “This is a personnel file.”

He felt Blair lean closer.  “Hardy?”  He turned the file sideways.  “Lieutenant Hardy, of the two-seven?”

Jim frowned.  “How the hell did you get ahold of a personnel file?”

Connor waved a hand.  “I know somebody who knows somebody.  Turns out Hardy's a doozy.  Investigated three times by IA for conduct unbecoming.”

Blair reached for the file.  “What kind of conduct unbecoming?”

“It doesn't specify, but I have a suspicion it's sexual harassment.  Nothing ever proven, of course, which is how he stayed a Lieu, but he’s also never made Captain, so that should—”

“Wait a minute,” Jim said, low and slow.  His hand shot out and pinned the file to the desk, thwarting Blair’s efforts to open it.  “Since when did we become IA?”

Blair was looking at him, the sharp focus of his gaze like a knifepoint, but Jim met that stare and matched it.  He couldn’t say it in front of Megan, but there was no need to speak it aloud; it was an old argument.

You’re letting it become personal, Jim heard himself say.

Blair’s sarcastic drawl sounded in his head, as real as if the other man were speaking.  And this would be the pot calling the kettle black.

Tearing his gaze away from Blair, Jim’s eyes rose to Connor’s frowning face.  “Listen,” he said calmly.  “This case is frustrating the hell out of us, and it’s tempting to want to bend the rules.  I understand that.”  Blair shifted beside him, and Jim acknowledged the unspoken.  “Yeah, I’ve done that.  But I think you’re grasping at straws here.  Whatever this is, it isn’t some vast, organized conspiracy.”

“How can you be so sure?” Megan demanded.

Jim shook his head.  “I don’t know.  Mainly because conspiracies are too neat and tidy, and this is a damned mess.  It doesn’t feel organized to me.  It feels like it’s complicated, yeah, but it also feels like it’ll fall apart with one good kick.  And right now we can’t take the chance of kicking the wrong thing.  We need the help of the local guys at the two-seven, and we need to keep our heads down until we know which direction to go in.  All right?”

He watched the tension bleed out of Connor’s statuesque frame.  “Yeah,” she sighed, suddenly looking tired.  “You’re right.”

“You might be right, too,” Jim allowed, picking up the folder and handing it back to her.  “Just—give it a little more time.”

“And what if we run out of time?” Blair asked softly.

An image of Salome, her bruised face hardened against him, rose in front of him.  Jim shoved it aside.  “We can’t think about that,” he gritted.  “We just have to work as fast as we can.”  And with that, he rose from his chair and snagged his jacket off the rack. 

“Where are you going?” Blair asked, though it seemed a formality, seemed like he already knew the answer.  The idea that the younger man was so in synch with him that he could read Jim's thoughts fed his flight response. 

“I’m going to go talk to the investigating officer at the two-seven,” Jim answered, shrugging into his coat. 

“Alone,” Blair said.  It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah.  The fewer of us there, the better.  I don’t want them to think we’re invading their turf any more than we already are.”  He paused, looked at Connor.  “What’s your plan?”

Megan sighed.  “Not that I think it’s going to do much good, but I thought we could hunt up some more of the victims.  With Sandy along I might have a bit of luck getting them to open up.  He’s more empathetic than I am.”

Blair started at the unexpected compliment.  “That’s really kind of you to say, Megan, but I don’t think that’s true—”

Connor waved a hand.  “That, and you’ve got a nicer arse than I do.”

Blair grinned.  “Well, that’s definitely true,” he drawled, shooting a quick glance at Jim as he did so.  Jim suddenly found his keychain infinitely fascinating.

“Come on then, sweetcheeks,” Connor snorted, giving the ass in question a playful swat as she left the bullpen.

“Hey!  I think I feel harassed,” Blair called after her, his grin freezing on his face as he caught Jim’s eye.

Jim nodded solemnly, hoping Blair could understand the unspoken message.  “Catch you later, Chief,” he said.

“Yeah,” Blair answered, the warmth in his voice enveloping Jim like a blanket.  “Later.” 

Jim stood there in the middle of the bullpen and watched him go, and it was only after the elevator doors closed that he realized he was displaying all the traits of a lovesick teenager.  He scanned the faces of his coworkers, each one of them concentrating hard on their own projects, their eyes on anything but him.

Christ.  They hadn’t fooled anyone.

Squaring his shoulders, Jim walked out without a backward glance.  He dialed down his hearing so that he wouldn’t pick up on the inevitable murmur of gossip as soon as the door closed behind him.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“D’you think he can still hear us?” Megan asked.

Roused from his contemplation of the street whizzing by the car window, Blair shook his head to clear it.  “Who?”

The detective rolled her eyes. 

“You mean Jim?  Megan, we’re three blocks from the station.”

“Well, you never know,” she sniffed, speeding up as the light ahead turned yellow.  “After all, you two have a special—”  She waved a hand, and Blair’s heart rate sped to match the pace of the car.  “Well.  You know.”

Blair waved his hand, mocking her gesture.  “I know—what?”

Megan pursed her lips, her eyes resolutely on the road.  “I’m sorry.  It’s none of my business.”

Blair sighed.  “Just spit it out.  You know you want to.”

The Australian woman slowed the car as the next light turned an unforgiving red.  “No, really, I—”

“Megan, for the love of—”

“It’s just that you’re my friends, and I thought—”

“We are friends, so would you—”

“—can talk to me, if you want to, but I don’t want to force—”

“Would you just get it over with!”

“All right!” Megan screeched, fingers gripping the wheel with bruising force.  “Are you?”

“Yes!”

They stared at one another for a moment, until a horn sounded behind them, reminding Megan she was supposed to be driving.  She applied the gas and the vehicle jerked into motion. 

Silence reigned for several seconds, until Blair heard her speak softly.  “You might’ve told me.”

“I just did,” Blair muttered, anger rising in him unexpectedly on the heels of a surprising wave of shame.  Goddammit.  Why did he feel like he had to hide this from the light of day?  Why did they have to enact that painful scene in the bullpen, playing the happy, swinging bachelors for everyone’s benefit?  Why did he feel like he had to justify himself even to his friends, that he had to apologize to this woman because for a few minutes several months ago, he’d considered the possibility of—
 
“Look, I’m sorry,” Megan said, her voice uncharacteristically soft.  “I’m making a hash of this, when I really meant to tell you that I’m happy for you.  For you both.” 

Blair smiled at her in spite of his mood.  “I appreciate that.  Thanks.”

She hesitated, then added, “And you can count on me to be discreet.”

Blair snorted at her unconscious echo of his own thoughts.  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t worry about discretion,” he murmured.  “Something tells me Major Crimes now has a betting pool going on how long it’ll take Jim and me to announce our engagement.”

Megan frowned.  “I don’t think—”

This time it was Blair’s turn to wave her off.  “I know.  I’m just being cynical.  The past couple of weeks have been kind of crazy, what with our relationship changing so suddenly, and this case—”

“Do you mean…” Megan trailed off, the wheels obviously turning.  “That you two…this is new?”

Blair shut his eyes briefly, feeling the first spike of a major headache lance through his brain.

One of these days, maybe he’d learn to keep his mouth shut.  But he didn’t hold out great hopes of it ever happening.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Lieutenant Hardy was as much of an asshole as he’d been six years ago. 

Back then, they’d both been detectives, only Jim had been in Vice and Hardy an up-and-comer at the 14th.  The guy was good at his job, but even at that time he’d been caught up in the politics of promotion, his eyes firmly fixed on the brass ring of captainship.  Those kind of cops pissed Jim off even more than the plodders who punched their time cards, because a man like Hardy had the potential to do some real good, but threw it away kissing butt and country-clubbing his way to the top.  Simon, on the other hand, was still a cop, laying it on the line every day.  The complete opposite of Hardy, he hated the political bullshit that went with his job.  There was never a question as to whom Jim would rather be working under.

Right at this moment, there was no question that Hardy was just as happy not to have Jim on his roster either.  The man’s squarish, pit-bull face was twisted into a scowl, and it occurred to him that he should’ve sent Megan on this job.  Hardy thought women belonged on the force only slightly more than homosexuals, and it was pretty clear that he considered Jim a member of the latter category.

Which he supposed he was. 

Jim clenched his jaw, berating himself for his lack of focus.  Now was not the time to be contemplating his sexual identity.

Jim leaned back against the sofa in Hardy’s office, deliberately relaxing his muscles, trying to project a non-threatening appearance.  Over by the window, the investigating officer on the cases, a Detective Atkins, was standing, his pose slouched and defeated.  But then, Hardy tended to have that effect on people.

“Lieutenant, I’m not hounding anybody,” Jim said, straining to keep his voice mild, spreading his hands in response to Hardy’s latest accusation.  “I’m only trying to find answers.”

“Answers,” Hardy mocked, spitting the word back at him.  “Answers, he says.”

Yeah, that’s what I said, Jim thought, reminded of Hardy the younger’s brilliant repartee at the station.  Dammit, why hadn’t he checked to find out when this numbnuts would be out for one of his power lunches with the DA before coming down to the precinct?

What had started out as a simple talk with Atkins about his investigation had degenerated into a tension-filled pissing contest as soon as Hardy had hauled them both into his office.  The kid was young, and inexperienced, and Jim figured he honestly had not made the connection between the beatings until recently.  The cops in this precinct were overworked and stressed to the max, and it wasn’t surprising that occasionally they were a little slower on the uptake than they might be.  It was possible Atkins harbored certain prejudices just like large portions of the population, but if he did it wasn’t proof of some malicious plot, simply evidence that cops weren’t necessarily a better class of human being than the average man on the street.

And sometimes, Jim reflected, studying the man before him, they were worse.

“You come down here like God’s gift to cops, telling my detectives how to do their jobs…”

Atkins flinched at that and sent Jim an apologetic glance, while Jim tuned him out.  Christ.  This was turning out to be a dead end, just like all the other dead ends.  There was no point to diplomacy or tact with this guy; he was blind to anything but the main chance. 

Shoving himself to his feet, he had the pleasure of watching Hardy’s eyes widen slightly as he drew himself to his full height.  In addition to his other shortcomings, the Lieutenant was a little touchy on the subject of his own stature.  Jim figured he was about the same height as Blair, but there was a vast difference in the size of the person inside the frame.  Inside, Blair was Wilt Chamberlain. 

This guy was Tattoo.

“It’s obvious we’re not going to come to an agreement, so there’s not much point in my wasting any more of your precious time,” Jim said.  He nodded at Atkins, who nodded back with the apology still in his eyes.  Maybe he’d wait a day or two and call the kid sometime when Hardy let him off the leash.  He proffered a card to the Lieutenant, knowing it would end up in the trash the minute he walked out the door.  “If you think of anything that could be helpful to the investigation, give me a call.”

“Yeah, I’ll be sure to do that,” Hardy drawled, a nasty smirk lighting his features.  Jim resisted the urge to push his face in.

One of the other detectives poked his head in the door.  “Uh, Sean?” he asked, looking at Atkins, then nervously glancing at his boss.  “Phone call on three.  Can you take it?”  At Hardy’s nod, Atkins practically bolted for the door.  Jim sighed and took a step toward the exit himself.

“Ellison.”

Jim turned back slowly.  Raised his eyebrows.

“You ever come after my family again, you can kiss your pension goodbye.”

Jim took a step forward, then another.  Hardy stared up at him, his pig eyes widening crazily.

Jim cocked his head slightly and smiled.

Hardy took a step back.

“Here’s the thing,” Jim murmured, low enough that nobody on the other side of the open door would be able to hear him.  “I don’t respond to threats like that.  Because I could give a rat’s ass about my pension, or my ‘career’, or any of that other crap you think is so important.  But I do respond to threats that affect the people I care about.  Those I will respond to swiftly.  Count on it.”

Hardy attempted a dismissive snort, but Jim could pick out the minute jerk in the muscle just under his left eye.  “You should be more choosy about the people you care about, then,” he blustered.

Jim’s smile faded as swiftly as his body moved to loom over Hardy’s.  His voice dropped an octave.  “Don’t. Say.  Another.  Word,” he snarled, each staccato burst seeming to make the Lieutenant shrink a couple of inches, as though he were being pounded into the ground with a sledgehammer. 

Hardy flushed, then blanched, then opened his mouth.  No sound came out, so he closed it again.

Jim’s short nails dug painfully into his palms as he strode out of Hardy’s office, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling under the weight of a dozen astonished stares.

~ XV ~

Blair found him exactly where he thought he would.

Whenever Jim needed to blow off excess steam, he usually ran along the boardwalk near the West Bay marina.  If he was really pissed, Blair knew, he’d run all the way to the Harbor Market and back, which was a good five miles easy.   Tonight, after Megan dropped him off, he got in the Volvo and drove straight for the Market.

The November night was cold and yet Jim, macho supercop, was wearing a thin t-shirt that was no doubt soaked with sweat.  Blair fought the twin waves of frustration and affection that accompanied the thought.

Pulling alongside the boardwalk a little ahead of Jim, Blair yanked up on the parking brake and sounded a couple of sharp beeps on the horn, knowing it would irritate the hell out of the Sentinel. 

Served him right. 

A few seconds later, Jim’s head poked in the open window, his irritation evident in the sharp groove between his eyes.  “Something I can do for you, Chief?” he barked.

And that stunned Blair, because it was weird to think that the Jim he’d known a month ago and the Jim he knew now, the one who’d ended up naked and sweaty with him last night, were actually the same person.  Comprehension whacked him in the face, and it was like that Star Trek episode with the two Captain Kirks split by the transporter beam.  A shimmer of Sixties special effects and suddenly they were inhabiting the same body again.

But this was the same Jim he’d known for three years, and Blair was—well, jeez, maybe he’d been half in love with him for a hell of a long time, thinning hair, crappy mood swings, goofy boxer shorts and all.

“Yeah,” he said, pretending just as hard to be the Blair he'd been until the sci-fi kicked in and split him apart.  “You can get in the damned car before you catch pneumonia.”

Jim blinked, and then his head disappeared.  Blair held his breath.

He closed his eyes in silent gratitude as he heard the car door open.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Fuck, he was no good at this.  Carolyn had always told him—

Jim pushed the thought away as he stuck his head under the punishingly hot water.  Same old, same old.  He’d given Blair the silent treatment the whole way back to the apartment, apart from the occasional grumble about not being allowed to run in peace.  The kid had refrained from commenting when Jim started shivering, merely turned up the heat on the dashboard and increased their speed a little.

Serves you right if he decides to pack it in—

Jim backed away from the shower head and shook like a dog.  No need to go there, either.

He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he didn’t even hear Blair approach the bathroom, only registered the sound of the doorknob turning.  Man, he was so distracted he was almost normal.   What a concept.  If he could only dwell on what a fuck-up he was in his personal life, he could finally be human again.

And then the shower door was pulled open, and Blair was smiling in at him as though he hadn’t been treated like shit for the past half hour.  “Move up a little,” he said, shooing Jim toward the other end of the stall. 

Jim’s eyes widened as a naked Blair stepped into the shower with him and closed the door behind him. Sure, it was big enough, but he hadn’t showered with another human being since Basic.  It was…weird. 

He’d never showered with Carolyn.  Not even after—

“Pass the soap, willya?” Blair said, pointing.  Jim obeyed, dumbstruck, but instead of applying it to his own body, Blair turned him with firm hands and began to soap his back.

“I already—” Jim began.

Blair shushed him, and then a groan rent the air as Sandburg’s shockingly strong hands began kneading the muscles of his back.  The slick soap made them glide effortlessly over his skin, but he could still feel every minute change in pressure as the younger man’s fingers pressed and kneaded.

“Jesus,” Blair breathed, “it’s just like I thought.  You’re one huge knot of muscle.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Jim grunted, and received a shove for his trouble.

“Just relax.  And while you’re at it, shut up,” Blair admonished, fingers digging in deeper, as if he were trying to massage Jim’s spine. 

For a minute or three, Jim complied with the second request, and tried his damnedest to go along with the first.  Gradually, he felt the tension gathered in his shoulders and lower back begin to ease under Blair’s skilful hands, and he leaned forward, lowering his head and bracing his arms against the wall.  The water pounded down on him, washing away the soap, and Blair’s fingers gentled. 

“Thanks,” Jim sighed, relishing the near-painful tingling in his muscles. 

A hand stroked softly down his back.  “Any time.”  He paused, fingers settling to cup Jim’s hip in reassurance rather than innuendo.  “Rough day, huh.”  It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah,” Jim acknowledged.  Still immersed in massage-induced bliss, he allowed the next words to escape without the consent of his brain.

“What’d I do to deserve you, huh?”

The sentence seemed to reverberate against the tiled walls, and Jim sucked in a breath at the echo he knew was only in his head.  He straightened, gathering the strength to turn around, searching for some line of bullshit that would cover his ass with the smokescreen of sarcasm—

—when he felt Blair’s lips press against his shoulder blade.

“I—” he started, but Blair shushed him again.

“Try not to worry too much about where it comes from, or who deserves what more,” Blair murmured between soft kisses that branded Jim’s flesh.  His arms wrapped around Jim’s chest from behind, and the bigger man leaned back into the hug.
 
“Just—let it be what it is.” 

What is it? Jim wanted to ask.  But he had a strong suspicion that he already knew the answer.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

This time, there was no jungle, no wild animals, only a dark, trash-filled alley in the middle of a rainstorm.  He walked in there alone, not really knowing what he was searching for, only knowing it was important.  It occurred to him about halfway through that he had to be dreaming, and he tried to pull out of it, but his dream self just kept on walking.  Over in one corner, he found a pile of old boxes and scrap wood and began digging through it with his bare hands, starting out slow, then moving faster and faster.  The rain was trickling down the back of his neck and the splinters were making his hands bleed, but he didn’t care because he had to reach the bottom.  God, there was a smell now, and for the first time he started to panic, because that didn’t seem like a dream smell, that seemed like a real smell…

And then he lifted up the last sheet of plywood and found—

“Hey, hey,” Jim was saying sleepily, one hand stroking his arm.  “S’okay.  Hey.”

“Oh, Christ,” Blair moaned, hauling himself up in bed and staring down at Jim.

Jim.  Alive.  Breathing. 

Concentrate, dammit.

“Blair,” Jim said more clearly, sitting up.  “What is it?”

Blair shook his head.  “Nothing.  Just a nightmare.”

One warm arm settled around his shoulders, and Blair realized he was shaking like a leaf.  “Doesn’t feel like nothing,” Jim said gruffly.

Blair scrubbed his face with his hands as if he could dispel the image of Jim lying dead in that alley, sightless eyes staring into the downpour.  “It’s this case, man, this damned case,” he said at last, because that was what it was probably about, and so it wasn’t really a lie, merely a generalization.  “I feel like I’m working on instinct on this thing, only I don’t know what my instinct is trying to tell me.”

Jim’s hand stroked over Blair’s hair.  “Developing that cop intuition, huh?  And here I thought you were going to be the intellectual member of this partnership.”

Blair sighed as some of the tension drained away at Jim’s touch.  “Nah, I’m just the pretty one,” he quipped, and Jim chuckled softly. 

“If it’s any consolation, I know how you feel,” he murmured.  “There’s something here we’re missing, and it’s so simple I know I’m going to kick myself when we finally figure it out…”

“It’s not easy when no one will talk to us on this,” Blair muttered, remembering the events of the afternoon and evening, the fruitless tour of Southtown with Megan.  “But jeez, Jim, there was this one kid, and he reminded me of that girl you told me about…he was so young, and under it all he was so scared.  This whole thing makes me…”  He huffed out a breath, aware that he was sounding like a petulant teenager off to crusade for Greenpeace.

But obviously Jim didn’t take it that way, because the arm around his shoulders tightened, and then Jim was pressing his lips against Blair’s temple.  “You’re not going to get much sleep until you’ve hashed this out,” he said quietly.  “Why don’t we brainstorm a little here, try to get around this mental block we have?”

Blair nodded, leaning into the gesture of comfort as Jim had absorbed his hug earlier, and then it was the most natural thing in the world to tilt his head up and capture Jim’s mouth with his own.  The kiss quickly turned carnal as Blair’s need to experience Jim alive and whole temporarily overrode his newly developed cop instincts.

“Easy, tiger,” Jim managed after a long moment, one hand bracing against Blair’s chest and holding him gently but firmly at bay.  “Brainstorming, remember?”

Blair frowned in annoyance, because damn, he used to turn women’s convictions to mush with that technique.  He had to be getting old, or Jim had to be better at self-control than the average coed. 

Well, hell.  Never let it be said that Blair Sandburg couldn’t rub his belly and pat his head at the same time.  He put on his best contrite face and let it stay there until Jim was lulled into a false sense of security—

—and then he pounced.

“Okay, so,” he murmured, once he had Jim flat on his back again and was peppering his neck and collarbone with kisses.  “What do we know?”

Jim’s hands went to his shoulders as though to pull him off, then dropped away.  “Who are our suspects?” he husked.

“Pimps?” Blair offered, planting another kiss on Jim’s chest, then moving to straddle him.

“Nope.  Megan checked them out already.  And besides, not all the guys work for the same operator.  There’s no common factor there.”

“Cops?” 

Jim’s body tensed under his briefly, then relaxed.  “I don’t think so.  Not at the two-seven, anyway.  I didn’t get that vibe, even though Hardy is a homophobic prick.”  He sank his hands in Blair’s hair and tugged him up for a kiss.  “Dammit.  It’s two in the morning.”

Blair returned the kiss with abandon.  “Gangs?”

Jim shook his head, his tongue darting out to trace Blair’s lower lip.  “Another dead end.”

“That leaves the doctor.”

“What’s the motive?”

“I don’t know,” Blair huffed against Jim’s neck.  “Why would he want to beat up the people who are providing him with a steady income?”

“They can’t be threatening to go somewhere else, because there is no one else,” Jim murmured.  “According to him, they come from far and wide to see him.”

“That bugged me, that New Age, my-patients-worship-me crap,” Blair bit out.  “I think I’ll talk to Terry about him tomorrow.  Maybe he can tell me something about the good doctor.”

Jim’s hands were making slow circles on Blair’s back now, and the younger man arched into his touch like a cat.  “You get ‘em, tiger,” he murmured.

Blair’s thighs tightened on Jim’s hips, and he leaned forward, placing his hands on either side of Jim’s head.  “Anybody ever tell you you’re a sarcastic shit?” he growled against Jim’s mouth. 

“Every day,” Jim growled back.  “And twice on Sundays.”

Blair closed the final inch between them—

—and the phone rang.

Pulling back from the kiss and resting his forehead against Jim’s, Blair took a moment to curb his raging frustration, then reached for the phone.  “This better be Ed McMahon,” he muttered into the receiver.

“Not exactly.”

The voice was tinny and mechanical and sent a chill up Blair’s spine.  “Who is this?”

“Well, if I told you that, there wouldn’t be much point in me using this fancy electronic shit, would there?”  Even through the voice processor, Blair could pick up the sarcasm in the tone.  He sat up, and Jim frowned at him.

“Did I interrupt you fucking your boyfriend?” the voice demanded.

Blair swiftly decided the best defence was a good offence.  “Yeah, actually, you did,” he said blithely.  “I was just about to give him the best rim job of his life.” 

Over the line, he thought he heard something like a splutter.  “Oh, you don’t know what rimming is?  Well, see, first you take your tongue, and then you—”

“Shut up!”  Blair winced and pulled the receiver away from his ear at the screech, and Jim plucked it neatly out of his hand.

“What do you want, you bastard?” he snarled into the phone.  Blair strained to hear the response, but without Sentinel hearing, he couldn’t pick it up.  After a moment, Jim said, “When I get my hands on you, I’ll—”

Blair sighed as he heard the click on the other end of the line.  “So much for keeping him talking,” he murmured.  He took the phone from Jim’s fingers and laid it back in the cradle, where it sat quietly for about five seconds, then began ringing again.

“Jeez!” Blair grabbed at the receiver again.  “What now?” he barked, his nerves beyond frazzled.

“Oh, not much,” Simon’s voice drawled on the other end of the line.  “Just thought you’d like to know there might be a break in your case, that’s all.  But I can talk to you in the morning and let you get your beauty rest.”

Blair took a deep breath and let it out.  “Sorry, Simon.  Go ahead.”

“Your buddy Jones’ place?  The Phoenix Center?  The CFD is at the scene now, but they don’t think they’re gonna be able to save the building.  It was a three-alarm from the beginning—doesn’t look like anything but arson.”

The CFD—“Oh, man.  Was anyone inside?”

Simon’s tone was grim.  “They don’t know yet.”

“Okay,” Blair murmured.  “We’ll be there in a little while.”

“Take your time,” Simon allowed.  “You won’t be able to get anywhere near it for at least a couple of hours.”

After he hung up the phone, he turned to Jim, who was staring up at the skylight with sightless eyes. 

“Jesus,” he said quietly.  “That bastard knew.”

~ XVI ~

The Phoenix Center wasn’t much more than a smoldering ruin by the time Jim and Blair made it down to Southtown.  The fire had burned hot and quickly, though luckily the rainstorm that started around dawn had prevented its spread to neighboring buildings.  It wasn’t much consolation for Terry Jones, who stood like a statue in the early morning light, rainwater beading on his face.

“Terry, man,” Blair said softly, laying a gentle hand on the big man’s arm.  “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, well,” Jones said, his voice broken.  “That and a buck’ll buy me a cup of coffee.”  Blair drew his hand away quickly, but before he could retreat, Jones had seized it in a desperate grip.  “Sorry, sorry.  It’s just—”  He waved helplessly at the blackened storefront.

“Yeah, I understand,” Blair said, squeezing the other man’s fingers reassuringly.  “Hey, at least nobody was hurt.”

Jones nodded.  “Thank God,” he acknowledged.

“Anyway, it won’t take long to rebuild.  Insurance’ll take care of it, right?” Blair offered cheerily.

Jones’ fingers stiffened under his and he freed himself from Blair’s grip.  “Donations dried up the last few months,” he said softly.  “I barely had enough to pay the light bill, let alone insurance.  You know how much they charge to insure a place in Southtown?”

Blair scrubbed a hand over his face.  “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Jones agreed. 

“Look, I know it’s kind of soon, but you, ah, have any ideas who could’ve done this?”

Jones snorted.  “I got about a hundred.”

“Anyone making a lot of noise recently?  Threats, phone calls, mail?”

The tall man shook his head.  “Religious groups sending ‘repent ye sinners’ pamphlets.  Nothing that stood out.”

“You save any of it?”

Another shake of Jones’ head.  “I might’ve had a couple of them, but whatever there was—” He indicated the Center with a wave of his hand.

Blair shifted from foot to foot, feeling stupid.  “Yeah.  Right.”  He blew out a breath and surveyed the scene.  Over by the main pumper truck, Jim and Simon stood conferring with one of the firemen.  A few curious onlookers were being held back from the scene by police barriers and uniforms.  Not for the first time, he wished for a dose of Jim’s Sentinel senses to help him nail the bad guys.

Only it seemed that the bad guys weren’t going to be so easy to find.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jim rubbed at his temples, willing the headache that had threatened since early this morning to leave him the hell alone.  It wasn’t obeying his requests.

“You okay?” Simon’s rumble cut through the fog surrounding his brain.

“No,” Jim replied testily.  He glanced back at the fire chief, now a safe distance away.  “The smoke is killing me.“

Simon inclined his head to the right, where Blair stood with his buddy Jones.  “Get Sandburg to loosen you up.”

Jim’s jaw clenched, and color rose to his cheekbones.

Simon waved a hand.  “I didn’t mean—oh, hell.”

“I know you didn’t,” Jim said tightly.  “I’m just—we got another call last night.”

Simon frowned.  “Same guy?”

“I think so.  I didn’t hear too much.  But he knew about this fire, Simon.  He knew.”

“When did the call come through?”

“Just before you called us.”

Simon shook his head.  “That doesn’t mean anything, then.  Guy could’ve picked it up on the police band.”

Jim contemplated the blackened building.  “Yeah.  Could have.”

“But you’re right.  Somebody’s trying to make this personal.”

“It’s worse than that,” Jim said quietly, still not looking at Simon.  “It’s like—he’s inside my head, like he’s using my own—doubts—against me.”  He blinked, not quite believing he’d said that aloud, and to his Captain, of all people.  To Banks, Jim’s psychosexual problems definitely fit under the heading of Too Much Information.

But to his surprise, Simon only sighed.  “Yeah, well, maybe we can use that.  Start thinking about guys who might have some kind of grudge against you, who might have access to personal information about you. “  He paused.  “You piss off any of our brothers in blue lately?”

Jim raised his eyebrows.  “Hardy.”

“The Lieu or the uniform downstairs?”

“The Lieu.”

“Hm.”

Jim frowned.  “Hm?  Something you want to tell me?”

Simon took out a cigar and chomped on the end.  “I got a call from him yesterday.”

“About me?”

“No.  That’s just it.  He didn’t mention anything about you, even though I knew you were going down there.”

“He knew I was there too,” Jim asserted.  “I tried to talk to the investigating officer on the beatings, and he shut us down.”

Simon shot him a glance.  “You failed to mention that to me.”

Jim sighed and ran a hand through his hair.  “Yeah.  Sorry, I’ve been kind of—out of it.”  Simon nodded, and Jim pressed on.  “So why’d he call?”

“It was basically a social call, which I knew right away was a bunch of bullshit because Hardy and I have never been social.  We can barely be civil when we run into each other.”  Simon scowled.  “When I told him to cut to the chase, he hung up on me.  You get anything out of him?”

“Nope,” Jim admitted.  “He went on the offensive from the moment he saw me.”

Simon shook his head.  “Guy’s always been an asshole, but he’s been worse ever since he was overlooked for promotion three years ago.  Those IA charges a few months back were the end of his shot at Captain.”

“What’s the story on that?”

“One of his female uniforms lodged a complaint.  A week later she withdrew it, but the damage was done.”

“You know her name?”

Simon chewed on his cigar some more.  “No, but I can find out.  If you think it’s relevant to this case.”

Jim took a deep breath, let it out.  “No.  No reason to believe it is.”

“Jim, you’re gonna let me know if this whole—“ Simon waved a hand “—thing with Sandburg is messing with your head, right?  Because Connor can take over for a while, and you two can take a week off and—”

Jim winced.  It was almost painful how earnest Simon was being, how eager he was to show his support.  “Thanks, but it’s—we’re—okay.”  I think.  I hope.  “And besides, Blair’s going back to classes tomorrow.  He can’t miss any more time.”

Simon nodded crisply.  “Right.  Yeah.”  Frowning, he took the cigar out of his mouth and stared at the badly mangled end, then stuck it in a pocket.

Jim resisted the urge to yell at the top of his lungs:  I haven’t changed.  I’m still the same.

But they’d both know it was a lie.

His gaze swept over the street, cataloguing small objects and large.  It had become a habit in the past few years at a crime scene, so much so that he could now use his sight to look for evidence and carry on a conversation at the same time.   Finding nothing in the immediate vicinity, he widened his search radius, piggybacking scent on top of vision in an effort to get past the range of the smoke.

He was inspecting the alley across the street when he saw her leaning against a brick wall.  She was wearing a simple black cloak that hid most of her face from view, but when she turned slightly, he recognized her instantly.

Salome.  She was holding a cell phone to her ear and speaking into it rapidly, her expression pinched and angry.

Hastily he added hearing to the mix and tuned her in.

“—too much, it’s too much.  I’m not—no, you listen to me, hotshot, I never signed up for this shit.”

A pause, then:  “No.  No.  Read my fucking lips.  No.”

“Jim?  You seein’ something?”  Simon’s voice pulled him back into his own body, and in the next second he was moving, jogging toward the alley, dimly aware of the Captain running to catch up.  He saw Salome stab a button on the cell, then shove it into her purse; she turned and stalked off toward the back of the alley, and he lost sight of her as she turned a corner.   Casting all of his senses ahead, he picked up the roar of a car engine.

Shit, shit, shit—

Jim broke into a sprint, but it was too late.  By the time he reached the alley, she was long gone.   He skidded to a stop, and Simon cursed as he nearly plowed into Jim’s back.

“Christ, give a guy some warning,” the big man panted.  “You mind telling me who the hell we were chasing?”

“One of my—contacts,” Jim gritted.  He picked up the sound of sneaker soles hitting concrete, and turned to see Blair rushing toward them.

“Hey, you guys okay?”

Jim sighed.  “Yeah.  You have any luck with your friend?”

Blair shook his head.  “He can’t think of anyone in particular who might’ve been responsible.”

Jim turned to Simon.  “I’ll check out the insurance angle when I get back to the station.”

Blair frowned.  “He said he didn’t have any.”

“It’s SOP, Sandburg,” Simon began, but Blair’s eyes were on Jim.

“He’s not a suspect, is he?”

Jim resumed scanning the street and the onlookers as they headed back toward the center.  “Chief, right now everybody who’s involved is a suspect.  You know that.”

Blair fell into step beside him, tension written in every muscle of his body.  “Yeah, but wouldn’t our time be better spent—”

“There they are!”

Jim’s head turned as about five reporters and nearly as many videocameras rounded the corner and advanced with microphones drawn.  Muttering an oath, Simon stepped forward with his hands extended in a pacifying gesture.

“Listen, we told you guys the press conference would be at two,” he began, but Jim could see instantly that the reporters weren’t focused on Simon.

They were gunning for him.  And Blair.

“Detective Ellison!” one woman shrilled, shoving the microphone past the boundaries of his personal space.  “This case has special meaning for you.  Would you care to tell us your feelings at this time as you look upon this hate crime against Cascade’s gay and lesbian community?”

Jim stared at the mike as though it were an alien form of life.  “My feelings?  What—”

“Mister Sandburg,” a middle-aged man blustered, “as Detective Ellison’s partner—“  the word had a leer in it  “—are you concerned for his safety as an ‘out and proud’ police officer?”

“Jesus Christ,” Jim heard Simon mutter. 

“I have nothing to say on that issue,” Blair said stonily, his gaze unwavering as he faced down the reporter.   Jim’s hand had half-risen to the younger man’s shoulder before he yanked it down again.  Suddenly, a gesture he’d made a hundred times before in public seemed—wrong. 

If that’s wrong, then what the fuck do you call what you’ve been doing with him every night? his inner voice commented sarcastically.

As the other reporters joined in the fray, Jim caught Simon’s eye and looked a question at him.  The other man nodded, giving silent permission.

“Come on,” Jim said to Blair, turning on his heel.  Behind him, he could hear Simon’s deep voice rising above the drone of the journalists, and Blair’s hurried steps as he struggled to catch up.

~ XVII ~

“Jim, c’mon.  Shut off the TV for a few seconds and come eat, willya?”

Jim’s gaze remained riveted to the set as he sat on the couch.  “Can you bring it in here?”

Blair’s jaw dropped open.  “In there?  You want me to bring food into the sanctum sanctorum, the temple of cleanliness?”

Jim made an impatient noise.  “I let you eat chips and drink beer in here all the time.”

“During Jags games.  That’s a ritual, man, which allows for certain—”

“Blair, for Christ’s—” Jim began, then cut himself off.  “Shh, here it is, here it is,” he hissed, reaching for the remote and turning up the sound for Blair’s benefit.

The younger man set down the plate of takeout pizza and padded over to the couch, his own gaze now fixed on the TV set, on the images of the burning Phoenix Center and the firemen fighting the blaze.

And then the picture changed.  Blair was confronted by his own image staring stonily out at him, and felt his skin prickle.

“Detective James Ellison of the Cascade Major Crimes Division was at the scene, accompanied by Captain Simon Banks and trainee officer Blair Sandburg.”

“’Trainee?’”  The woman made him sound like a toddler who’d just upgraded to the next level of Pampers.  “What the hell—”

Jim made a sharp chopping motion with his hand, and Blair subsided into grumpy silence.  The reporter droned on:

“Mister Sandburg, a former anthropologist, has been unofficially teamed with Detective Ellison for over three years.  Recently, Sandburg switched from Rainier University to the Police Academy—”

They make it sound like I was changing shirts, Blair thought testily.

“—so that he could be partnered officially with his long-term companion.”

Jim swore under his breath. 

“The two men refused to make any public statement as members of the gay community, but Captain Banks had this to say about the matter:”

Simon’s face appeared on the screen, expression fixed in permanent scowl.  “The personal lives of any members of this force are irrelevant.”  He flung an arm at the smoldering building behind him. “In case you’ve forgotten, we’re here to investigate a potential crime.”

The picture changed back to the talking head Barbie doll who had been at the scene this morning.  “Certainly a tragedy for the gay community, and one which the police and fire departments seem to be treating as an arson case.  The Phoenix Center had no insurance, and so rebuilding appeared hopeless until well-known surgeon and philanthropist Doctor Medford Saunders spoke to KWAC news this afternoon.”

Blair jerked to attention as the sex-change doctor’s bland, benevolent face filled the TV screen.  “Together with the director, I will be leading the efforts to rebuild the Phoenix Center.  The Center provides counseling, medical assistance, and retraining to street youths who desperately need a helping hand.  I believe that the good people of Cascade have the generosity to make a new Phoenix Center rise from the ashes—”

Blair unleashed a derisive snort.

“—one that will also offer a way for these young people to leave the streets behind once and for all.”

“And how do you propose to accomplish that, Doctor?” the Barbie doll asked, a concerned expression plastered to her carefully made up face.

“By building an expanded Center that works as a residential facility as well.  I’ve already spoken with an architect, and he’s promised to donate his services to this cause.”

“Something’s rotten here,” Blair huffed.  “Nobody moves that fast.”

When the next news item—a piece about child car seats—blared across the screen, Jim switched off the set with a vicious flick of the remote.  “You still convinced he’s the villain?” he muttered.

“I was never convinced,” Blair amended, “but I hate not being able to figure him out.”   Running a hand over his hair, he added, “I mean, come on.  The guy looks like Captain Kangaroo and probably has two Mercedes in his garage.  What the fuck does he know about street kids?” 

“Probably about as much as I do about being a spokesperson for the gay community,” Jim muttered.

Blair snorted.  “Yeah, what was up with that?  Who would’ve leaked that to the press?”

Beside him, he felt Jim shift uncomfortably.  “I don’t know.  But I have theories.”

Blair raised an eyebrow.  “You think Hardy was involved?”

Jim sighed.  “Maybe.  It would certainly fit his agenda.  With one rumor, he’s landed both of us in the shit.”

Blair looked at Jim sharply.  “What are you talking about?  I admit it’s a little annoying to have your personal life splattered all over the news, but what’s the big deal?”

Jim’s expression turned incredulous.  “Are you kidding me?  You’ve been around cops for three years.  You tell me what the big deal is.”

Blair frowned, not liking the flinty edge in Jim’s tone.  “You’re worried about the fallout at work?  You honestly think that Simon, Megan, Henri, Joel, that they would treat us differently—”

“Of course they’re going to treat us differently!” Jim exploded, springing to his feet.  “Christ, Simon and I—it’s already like walking on eggshells.”

Blair held up a hand.  “Whoa, hold up.  When did Simon find out?”

Jim shook his head.  “It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, Megan kind of—figured it out, and she hasn’t batted an eyelash.”  Blair attempted a chuckle.  “In fact, she kind of thought we were already, ah—“ He made a fist in preparation for one of his patented hand gestures, but aborted the move when he saw the set of Jim’s jaw.  “Yeah.  Well.  You get the point.”

Jim’s scowl deepened.  “The point is, you know how cops can be.  It’s a closed society, Chief; you said so yourself.  And gays aren’t a part of it.”

“I don’t believe that.  Sure, there are a few assholes—that type is never hard to find anywhere.  But think about it—thirty years ago, people of color were outside the circle.  Twenty years ago, it was women.  Now look at where they are.”

Jim stayed silent, merely shook his head again.

“What’s really going on here, Jim?” Blair asked carefully. 

Jim’s head snapped up and his eyes narrowed.  Blair’s heart rate spiked—that Ranger Look of Death still had the power to knock him sideways, in spite of the fact he’d long been able to see past it.  After a deep breath, he patted the sofa beside him.  “C’mon.  Sit down and let’s talk about this, huh?”

Jim’s gaze softened for a split second as it followed the movement of Blair’s hand, then hardened again swiftly.  “There’s nothing to talk about.  You want to think everything is sweetness and light, go ahead.  Maybe nothing’ll ever happen to us.  Or maybe Hardy’s brother will cook up some half-baked idea that the fag—”  here he stabbed his own chest with an index finger “—got the promotion he should’ve had, and he’ll get in the elevator one day, punch the button for six instead of three, and shoot us at our desks.”

Blair sucked in a breath, but all the oxygen suddenly seemed to have left the room. 

“I gotta go,” Jim said shortly, moving toward the door.  “I have to try to find Salome again, talk to her.”

“I’ll come with you,” Blair offered, his voice leaden.

“No, you have to go back to school tomorrow.  I don’t know how long I’m gonna be out.”  Jim was already putting on his coat and opening the door.  “See you in the morning.”

Like I’m going to get any damned sleep, Blair thought, his eyes fixed on the door long after it had closed.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jim returned home well after four a.m., his entire body aching with cold and exhaustion.  He’d walked the streets of Southtown for hours, but Salome had gone to ground, vanishing without a trace.  His best lead on the case had disappeared, his career had taken a sharp right turn with murky repercussions, and he was in the doghouse with the one person who could help him make sense of it all.

The one person who could help him make sense of his whole damned life.

Beyond caring about cleanliness, he began shedding clothes the moment he walked into the apartment, climbing the stairs clad only in his boxers.  He hadn’t checked to see if Sandburg was sleeping in his old bed, wanting to delay the knowledge as long as possible.  It was both a shock and a relief to see the younger man curled up on Jim’s king-sized mattress, the covers tucked up around his chin like a child.  For several moments Jim stood there, drinking in the sight of that tousled mop spread over his pillow, and felt a fierce desire wash over him:  a desire to simply stay here, watching over this man, keeping him safe, keeping him whole.

You’ll never be able to do that, an inner voice taunted.  He’ll never be safe as long as he’s with you.

“You find her?”

Jim started.  “I thought you were asleep.”

“Dozing, off and on,” Sandburg admitted, stretching and pushing the covers down a little, revealing a rumpled t-shirt rucked up to his ribs.  “So?”

“No,” Jim answered.  “She’s disappeared.”  He took a deep breath, unsure of what he was going to say next.  “Chief, I—”

“Before you apologize, or beat yourself up, or nail yourself to the cross, I want to tell you I get it.”

Jim sat heavily on the edge of the bed, finally giving in to his fatigue.  “You get it.”

“Yeah.  I do, because I’ve had a little of that feeling myself.  That ‘what the hell am I doing’ feeling, you know?  And sure, I’m the poster boy for expanding your horizons, but when you spend your life with a certain label stuck to your forehead, it’s kind of tough to trade it in for a new one this late in life.”

Jim couldn’t resist raising his eyebrows at that, and Blair sighed, propping himself up on an elbow.

“Yeah, okay, thirty’s not all that late, but I lost my virginity at fourteen, man.  I have had a long and varied career.  My point is, it’s going to be different.  It’s going to be different when you go to work, and when I go to school, and the next time we go out with the guys for a beer.  We’ll have to deal with that, and so will they.  We might have to deal with worse, I don’t know.  But what’s really important is how we feel about it.   That we’re okay with it.”

“And what if we’re not okay with it?”  The question left Jim’s lips before his brain realized it, and in the next second he wished it could be unsaid, because in that moment Blair actually flinched, and something in Jim’s gut twisted.

“Uh, yeah, that had occurred to me already,” Blair said, his voice shaky but his features surprisingly stoic.  “I kind of hoped—” He shook his head, then pushed himself to a sitting position and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.  “Whatever.  If that’s how it is—”

His stomach roiling, Jim grabbed onto Blair’s arm as though it were a lifeline for a drowning man.  “Don’t go.”

“What do you want from me?” Blair hissed, twisting in Jim’s grasp so that they were face to face.  “I’m on this roller coaster, Jim, and dammit, it’s going to kill me, because it’s too much and not enough and man, you don’t even know—”

Jim’s other hand buried itself in Blair’s hair, fingers scraping against his scalp.  “Know what?” he husked, but the younger man only groaned and breathed, ”Please, please,” and then Jim was kissing him, inhaling him as though Blair were essential to his continued survival.

You are.  God, you are, Jim thought, lips breaking free after a moment to roam over nose and ears and the shadowed V of collarbone revealed through the neck of the t-shirt.  His hands swiftly divested Blair of his clothing until they were lying side by side, skin against skin, the hair on the younger man’s chest scraping against his smooth one with a sensation akin to pain.

Suddenly he was on his back and Blair was hovering over him, eyes laser-sharp, hair wild, legs astride his hips, erection jutting proudly from his body.  Despite his confession about his misgivings, it was hard for Jim to imagine Blair confused or reluctant; he seemed to simply dive into life without worry or second-guessing.  Sure, he got scared, but he never let his fear keep him from anything he really wanted or needed to do.

Maybe it was simply impossible for Jim to believe that he could be something Blair wanted or needed. 

Before he realized what was happening, Blair had seized Jim’s wrists and hauled his arms above his head, pinioning them to the mattress in an iron grip.  They both knew that Jim could break the hold if he wanted to, but for now it seemed important for Jim to accept the restraint.  Blair’s face loomed closer, his drooping hair enveloping them both in a shadowed intimacy.

“You are…” Blair breathed against Jim’s lips.  “…one of the smartest people I know.”  Jim jerked at the unexpected compliment and frowned.  “So how come you’re so dumb about this?”

Jim’s hands clenched involuntarily into fists; his pulse jumped like a rabbit’s, and it occurred to him that Blair could easily pick up the rhythm of it through the thin skin of his wrists.  “I don’t know,” he whispered.

“Does it really matter?” Blair murmured, mouth at his ear now, tongue caressing the lobe.  “Does the wrapping really matter?”

Jim wriggled his hips slightly, allowing Blair to feel the hardness pressed against his own.  “Doesn’t look like it, does it?” he quipped.

“’M not just talking about that,” Sandburg said, his mobile lips leaving a trail of fire everywhere they touched down.  “I’m talking about all of it.  The whole enchilada.”

Jim’s pulse pounded in his ears now, making Blair’s voice sound distant and lost.

“I keep waiting for the right time,” Blair was saying.  “Last night I thought, maybe now…but then I changed my mind at the last minute.  Because I’m scared you’re gonna run.”

Jim shook his head slowly, but Blair stopped him with a swift kiss. 

“Stop that,” he breathed.  “You know you want to, you know it’s true.  God only knows how much time you’ve spent trying to figure out ways to run, or better yet, to scare me off.  Blair can’t want to become a cop, can’t want to change his whole life because of me.  Can’t want to change his whole damned identity—” 

Jim squeezed his eyes shut like a petulant child.  “Don’t—” 

“—Can’t be so crazy in love with me that he’s lying naked on top of me at a quarter to five in the morning, pouring his fucking guts out.”

“Jesus,” Jim whispered.  He was sweating, he was shaking, it was worse than having a fever—

“Well, believe it, Jim,” Blair rasped, pressing his wrists a little harder into the bed for emphasis.  “Man, I’ve wanted to have your sight for years, wanted to know what the world looks like through your eyes, just once.   But now I wish more than anything that you could see the world through mine.  Because then you’d understand why.”  He kissed Jim softly, so softly Jim shivered.  “You’d understand in a heartbeat.”

“Blair—” Jim began, but the other man silenced him with a longer, deeper kiss.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, finally releasing Jim’s wrists and pulling back.  “It’s not the right time to get into this.  I just—wanted you to know.  Sounds corny, but I couldn’t keep it in any longer.”

As the blood rushed back into his hands, making his fingers tingle, Jim reached up to explore Blair’s face like a blind man.  Blair turned his head, burying his nose in the palm of Jim’s hand, and Jim smiled in spite of himself.

“Your nose is cold.”

“Yeah,” Blair agreed.  “What do you think I’m doing?”

“I thought it was an ancient Aztec gesture of affection.”

Blair sighed as the fingers moved into his hair.  “Jim—” he groaned, but then Jim pushed himself up on one elbow and surged to meet Blair’s extraordinary mouth, and that was the end of talking for a long while.  Jim gladly surrendered speech and even coherent thought in favor of sensation:  the varied scents of Blair’s skin, the musky taste of his cock, the primitive sounds wrought by his pleasure.

Later, as they were finally drifting off to sleep, Jim murmured into his hair, “I love you more than my life.”

“Yeah, I know,” came the reply.  “That’s what scares me.”

~ XVIII ~

Jim recognized the grate of Hardy’s voice and the stench of the Captain’s cigar the second he got off the elevator.

“—don’t think I don’t know what’s going on here, Simon.”

There was a sound of agitated puffing; the fact Simon was smoking with a vengeance was not a good sign, because he only forgot the ban when he was furious.  “Since when are we on a first name basis, Lieutenant?” he shot back.

Jim approached Major Crimes with a lead weight in his gut that grew heavier with every word exchanged between the two men.  Sure enough, when he reached the bullpen, the blinds were shuttering Simon’s office from sight, and the room was eerily quiet, a sure sign that the detectives were engaged in some advanced eavesdropping.  Or at least attempted eavesdropping.  Jim dialed down his hearing to normal, and the sounds of conversation emanating from the Captain’s office disappeared.   The two men were obviously aiming for discretion.

Megan’s gaze sought his the moment he walked in, and the look on her face sent that lead weight plummeting toward his shoes. 

“What’s up?” he said briskly, assuming the mask he wore so well.  “Somebody’s dog die?”

A dozen heads whipped toward him like those of guilty children caught with their hands in the cookie jar.  Henri was the first to speak.  “Naw, man, just—workin’,” he said feebly.  Rafe shot him a pointed glance, but said nothing.

“That’d be a first,” Jim muttered, and H grimaced and flipped him the bird.  Taking his seat, he pretended to occupy himself with the paperwork stacked in front of him.  The words danced over the page, blurring into illegibility as he dialed up his hearing again.

“—the rules are clear on this—”

“This?  This what?  This bullshit rumor?”

“It’s not a rumor and you know it.  They’ve been living together for three goddamn years—”

“—you okay?  Jim?  Jim!”

Megan’s voice sliced into his incipient zone, bringing him out of it with a jerk.  He looked down and saw his hands had curled into fists, crumpling several sheets of the topmost report in the process.

“Look, you—” Megan was saying, but Jim was already on his feet and moving toward the closed door at the opposite end of the room. 

“That’s really not a good idea,” Megan said to his back, but Jim ignored her and pushed open the door without knocking.  He had the satisfaction of watching Hardy’s eyes widen with surprise—and a hint of fear—when he came in.

“Jim,” Simon warned, stopping Ellison in mid-loom.   Jim settled for standing just inside Hardy’s personal space, so that the bastard would have to crane his neck up and back to look at him.

“You got something you want to say about me?” Jim gritted.  “Say it to my face.”

“This is a matter for senior staff—” Hardy croaked, but Simon cut him off.

“Lieutenant Hardy is threatening to have you and Sandburg investigated for fraternization.”  Simon caught Jim’s eye, and Jim saw the message in those eyes.  “I told him there are no grounds.”

And Jim knew, knew from the second he’d touched Sandburg that the time might come when he’d have to lie to keep them from being split up on the job, but he didn’t expect it to feel so much like a betrayal, to himself and to Blair.  He took a deep, calming breath before he spoke. 

“That’s right,” he affirmed, turning to Hardy with an expression carved of pure stone.

“Then how did the press get the story that you two are—” Hardy waved a hand “—an, ah, item?”

Jim wanted to say, Yeah, I’d like to know that, too; instead, he unleashed a snort of derision.  “How long you been a cop?  You’re telling me you never heard of the press getting wrong information?”

Hardy’s piglike eyes narrowed.  “How do you explain the two of you living together all these years?”

“I don’t.  It’s none of your fucking business who my friends are, or how I choose to live my life.”  Jim put on his best scowl; Hardy backed up a step.    “Get this straight, Lieutenant:  I’m not jumping through hoops for you or anyone else.   You want to piss around and waste your time, and by extension the taxpayer’s money, in trying to paint a target on my ass, that’s fine.  Do whatever you have to do.  In the meantime, I’m going to be doing real police work, and when he graduates in three months, so is Sandburg.  We’ll take up the slack.”

Jim turned on his heel to go, but was stopped cold by Hardy’s next words.

“Don’t be so sure of that.”

He spun back around.  “What did you say?”

Simon stubbed his cigar into an ashtray.  “Sure of what?”

Hardy paused dramatically; Jim resisted the urge to wring his neck.  “Sandburg’s graduation. “

A spike of pure adrenaline zinged through Jim.  He took a step forward, then another.  Stop, he tried to tell himself, he’s just trying to get you wound up, but his body was no longer accepting instructions from his brain.

“Just spit it out, Hardy,” Simon growled, trying to keep a lid on the powderkeg.

Hardy shrugged, though he darted nervous glances at Jim, who was now in full loom mode.  “I’m just saying there’s a fifty-fifty chance he’s going to wash out, just like all the rest of the cadets.”

“Like your baby boy?” Simon said innocently.  Hardy flinched but did not respond.

“Sandburg’s not washing out,” Jim said slowly, instilling his voice with all the confidence he could muster on the subject.  “He’s been doing a cop’s job for a long time now, and he knows what to do.”

“And the minute he graduates he’ll get the fast track to Major Crimes, even though he’s a rookie,” Hardy sneered.  “You expect me to believe there isn’t any preferential treatment going on there?”

Jim took a deep breath, let it out.  “You’re right, Lieutenant.”

Hardy blinked.  “What?”

Simon goggled.  “What?”

“I said, he’s right,” Jim told him calmly.  “Come on, Simon, there’s no point in denying it any more.  He’s got us dead to rights.”

“Jim—”

“The truth is,” Jim said, assuming a conspiratorial air as he leaned closer to Hardy, “Sandburg and I are fucking.”  He heard Simon’s indrawn breath but ignored it.  “But we’re not doing each other.  We’re fucking the Chief of Police.”

Hardy’s mouth opened and tiny, inarticulate sounds came out of his throat. 

“Yeah.  Seems the Chief likes variety.  So Sandburg blows him on weeknights, and I screw him bowlegged on the weekends.  It’s been the best career move we could make.”  He ran a finger up the right lapel of Hardy’s sports jacket.  “You ought to consider it.  He’s always on the lookout for new talent.”

The noises now emanating from the Lieutenant were sounding more and more like whimpers, to Jim’s eternal satisfaction. 

Simon’s phone rang then, and the big man dove for it like a lifeline.  “Yeah?” he snapped.  “Sorry, Rhonda…okay.  I’ll tell him.”  He replaced the receiver and turned to Hardy.  “Your precinct needs you, Lieutenant.”

Hardy shook himself from his stupor like an overfed bear, then walked out of the office without another word to either of them.  After Jim shut the door behind the frazzled man, Simon sat back on the edge of his desk and skewered Jim with a glare.

“Jesus, Jim,” he growled.  “Nobody can ever accuse you of being subtle.”

Jim’s jaw muscles convulsed.  “Yeah, well, it wasn’t in the best of taste, but it did accomplish the goal.”

“Which was?”

“To get him out of this office before I shot him.”

“Hmm.” Simon dug out another cigar and stuck it between his teeth.  “Good goal.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Walking down the corridors of the Academy made Blair feel a little like Jim, with that constant prickle of awareness the Sentinel had once told him he carried around with him wherever he went.  Blair told himself he was being paranoid, that he was imagining the looks and the whispers, but after he’d caught the pointedly lingering glare on one instructor’s face, he knew it was all too real. 

Yeah, he wanted to say to the world at large, so I’m fucking my partner.  Is there a problem?

He knew the answer to that question, of course, and that was why the words remained unsaid.   Like it or not, the relationship, just like Jim’s special gifts, would have to be kept secret—or as secret as possible, given the gossip mill that churned twenty-four seven in police stations.  As long as Jim and Blair didn’t start humping each other on top of the donut cart or sporting matching cock rings, chances were they’d be left alone, with only the occasional giggle behind their backs.

Giggles he could live with.  He told himself that over and over again as the day wore on, and by the afternoon he was even starting to believe it.

Warming up before the combat class, Blair was reaching for his toes when Brandy Morris hove into view.  He stared at her through his legs; upside-down, she was just as pretty and young as she was right side up.  Again, he experienced a wave of paternal affection that nauseated him.  He wondered if it was simply the fresh-faced naiveté of some of the women here that inspired these feelings, or if all women had now morphed into variants on the daughter/mother/sister theme. 

“Hi, Blair.  How are you doing?”  Her gaze touched on his flushed face, then darted to the bright red mat beside him. 

Blair straightened and turned to her.  “Good, better, great,” he babbled.  “Really good.”

“I’m glad.  I felt so terrible about your—injury.”

He shook his head violently.  “Wasn’t your fault.  It was just a stupid move on my part.  I was, ah, kind of distracted.”

Bright spots of pink emerged on Brandy’s cheeks, and Blair gritted his teeth at the sudden, swift conviction she’d seen the news last night. 

“Yes, I imagine you…” Brandy trailed off and waved a hand.  “Well, I wanted to say something to you about—that. I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for being insensitive to you and your—lifestyle.  I—”

“Brandy,” Blair interrupted, “you don’t have to say any more—”

“But I want to tell you how wrong I was!” Brandy protested.  Blair groaned as several pairs of eyes swiveled their way to take in the show.  In a hushed voice, she added, “I just want to apologize.  Please let me.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” he told her firmly.  “You’re a good person, and you’ll make a good cop.  Probably an excellent one, with a little experience.”

“You think so?” she said ruefully.  “I have days when I’m not so sure.  But then I remember what brought me here, and it gets easier.”

“What did bring you to the Academy?” Blair asked.

“Wanting to help people,” Brandy said automatically.  “I’m going to go to work for the sheriff’s department back in my home town when I graduate.”

Blair heaved an inward sigh of relief; there was something about the young woman he’d always feared would be extinguished by the harsh realities of the big city.  “Where’s that?  Upstate?”

“Yeah,” Brandy said.  “Small town police work sounds Pollyanna, I know, but there are problems there, too.  Domestic violence, delinquency…” She trailed off, and her gaze grew shadowed.  “My little brother—he didn’t make it through middle school.   He fell in with a tough crowd, and he ended up overdosing at fourteen.”

“My God,” Blair breathed.

“I suppose I could’ve become a psychologist or a social worker, but in towns like mine the police are everything to everyone, or they could be.  The new sheriff really believes in community policing, and when he came to speak at our high school, I was bitten by the bug. I want to make a difference to kids like my brother.”  She smiled faintly, evidently embarrassed.  “You didn’t need to hear all that, did you?”

Blair squeezed her arm briefly.  “I’m glad you felt you could tell me.” 

Brandy cocked her head.  “What about you?  How are you so sure this is what you were meant to be?”

Blair frowned at the odd phrasing.  “I seem that way to you?”

Brandy nodded.  “The other students see it, too.  You can tell this is something you really want to do.”

He suppressed a snort of laughter at her words.  “They’re just saying that because they can’t believe such an old fart is going to school with them.”

“So what brought you here?” Brandy asked, smiling.

Blair opened his mouth, but nothing came out.  The weight of Jim’s secret, their secret, obscured the truth he could have told her.

Because he needs me.

Because I need him.

Because there are days when I feel like I was born to be this.

Aloud, he said, “Because I was bitten by the bug too.”  And he realized as he spoke the words that they, too, were the truth.  He liked being one of the good guys, one of the Defenders of Virtue, as he’d told Jim.  Along with the Shaman of the Great City, it was another role he never could have predicted for himself four years ago, but it felt right, in a way that continued to surprise him.

The instructor blew his whistle, and Blair smiled.  “Come on.  Let’s get one step closer to the brass ring.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Megan’s eyes were starting to burn a hole in Jim’s right temple.  Pretty soon he’d be leaking gray matter all over the pickup’s bench seat.

“What?” he barked.

“Just wondering if this is part of the investigation,” Megan said coolly, “or something else.”

Jim pulled up outside the tidy bungalow and shoved the truck into park.  “What do you think?”

Megan shrugged.  “Hey, I’m easy, Jimbo.  You know I’m not averse to a little vendetta now and then—”

Jim snorted.

“—but I just like to know what I’m getting into.”

Jim opened the door of the truck and climbed out.  “Well, when I figure it out, Connor, I’ll be sure to pass it along to you.”

Jennifer Johnson was a pretty African-American woman with a confident handshake and a pleasant, though wary, manner.  She offered them coffee, and Connor took her up on it with thanks.

“Ms. Johnson,” Jim began once they were seated.  “I understand you retired from the force five months ago.”

“I did.”

“You were working at the two-seven, and before you left, you lodged a complaint against your superior officer, Lieutenant Hardy.”

Johnson nodded and took a sip of her coffee.  “We can skip over everything that’s in the file,” she said brusquely.  “You and I both know what’s in it.”

“What’s not in the file is the exact reason behind the complaint,” Connor interjected, leaning forward.  “Nor is the reason why you left.”

The other woman’s gaze flickered over them both.  “You told me you’re not with IA.  So why is the Lieutenant under investigation?”

“He’s not, officially,” Jim admitted.  “But we’re conducting an investigation that started in his precinct, and we’re concerned about the—level of diligence—he’s exhibited.”  God, that sounded even more like bullshit when he said it aloud.  Blair would’ve come up with a better line, but there hadn’t been time to call him.

Let’s face it, Jim’s inner voice said.  You didn’t want to call him and have him talk you down, talk you out of this.

“Diligence,” Johnson said slowly, regarding her coffee cup.  “Yes, well, the Lieutenant is diligent about many things, and not terribly diligent about others.”

“Ms. Johnson,” Connor said softly, “if there’s something you can tell us that will help us understand the, ah, situation better…”

“You want to know why I left,” the woman sighed.  “I guess it’s no big secret.  Everyone at the precinct had it figured out when I quit.”  She shook her head sadly.  “And if it weren’t for Bobby’s family, you would’ve seen my face screaming on every news program in Cascade.”

“Bobby?” Connor asked.  Jim saw the surprise evident in her face; she’d been convinced the charge was sexual harassment.

“My partner.”  She took a deep breath.  “He was killed.”

Jim’s heart leapt; this hadn’t been what he was expecting, either.  “Are you saying that Hardy—”

“No, I’m not saying Hardy or anyone else at the two-seven killed him.  Not directly.  But they might as well have.”  She took another breath, and began to speak in a flat, mechanical voice.  “I was in Portland for the week, visiting my folks, and Bobby was taking a vacation too, here in town.”  She looked up, her gaze roaming over their faces as she spoke the next sentence.   “He wanted to go to the mountains, but his boyfriend couldn’t get away.”

Jim’s expression remained unmoved, but inside, his gut was churning.  He knew what was coming, knew because a similar scenario had ruled his nightmares these past couple of weeks.

“Truth be told, I didn’t really need to visit my parents, but Bobby needed some down time, and I knew he wouldn’t take vacation without me.  He’d been my partner for about eight months, and they’d never accepted him.  Not that I had it easy starting out, but eventually even the older cops—the ones who knew me, anyway—they treated me with respect.  Bobby was as deserving of their respect as I was, but it didn’t matter to them.   He might as well not have been there.

“I talked to him about getting a transfer, about us getting one together, but he wanted to stick it out.  He lived in the precinct, in the gay village, you know?  He wanted to work in his community.  While I was away, he, uh…”   She trailed off, her hands tightening around the coffee cup; when she spoke again, her voice was rough with emotion.  “Sorry, this is still—hard. 

“He was going out to pick up a bottle of wine, and through the window of the store, he saw a robbery in progress.  He called it in on his cell, then—I don’t know what the fuck he was thinking—he went in.  The clerk said Bobby was trying to talk the guy down.  She said in the report that she’s sure Bobby saved her life.”

“Oh, my God,” Megan breathed.  “The backup didn’t come in time.”

Johnson looked up, her eyes glittering with unshed tears and fathomless rage.  “The backup didn’t come at all.  Dispatch claimed the call was too garbled for them to understand, and Hardy backed them up.  There was no investigation.”

Jim’s fists clenched, but he said nothing. 

“When I filed the complaint, every cop at the two-seven stopped talking to me because I’d brought IA down on their asses.  But it didn’t matter, because I couldn’t prove anything.  There was no evidence, there were no tapes, there were no witnesses.  Finally, I had to let it go.  Bobby’s family begged me to stop pursuing it; they didn’t want his memory to be ‘tarnished’—their words—by his homosexuality.”  She shook her head.  “They didn’t even want his lover at the funeral.  But Hardy was there, shaking hands and offering condolences.”

For a fleeting moment, Jim wondered if his father would forbid Blair the same privilege, if he knew.

Jesus.  His mind was traveling down paths he no longer recognized.

“What about you?”  Megan asked Johnson gently.  “How are you making out?”

Johnson’s jaw clenched.  “Hardy told me my career was over, which I already knew because I couldn’t force myself to come to work any more.  My husband convinced me to quit, and now I’m back in school, studying psychology.”  She barked a laugh.  “Maybe I’ll end up as a sensitivity trainer.”

“And his—lover?” Jim heard himself say.  “What happened to him?”

Johnson shook her head.  “He fell apart,” she said simply.  “Wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Jim murmured, and the next thing he knew, he was standing outside his truck, staring at his cell phone as it rang, wondering what the hell had happened in between.

“Are you planning to answer that?” Megan asked, but her soft tone belied her words.

Jim flipped the phone open savagely.  “What?” he snapped.

“And a good afternoon to you, too,” Simon shot back.  “Where the hell are you?”

“I’ve been interviewing—a witness,” Jim answered.

“You get anything?”

“Maybe,” Jim hedged.

“Yeah, well, I’ve got you beat.  We just got a witness who came in and identified two suspects in the Phoenix Center fire.  I sent a couple of uniforms to pick ‘em up.  They should be back within the hour.”

“How do you know their whereabouts?”

“The witness owns a diner on Vaseline Alley.  Seems they always stop in for an early supper before their evening shift.” 

Jim’s mind whirled.  “They’re—”

“Hustlers, yeah.  And coincidentally, two of the victims in your bashing case.”

“That’s no coincidence,” Jim growled.

“You think?” Simon drawled.  “I knew there was a reason the city paid you the big bucks.”

“I’m on my way,” Jim said, closing the phone.  He leaned briefly against the truck until Megan gave him an odd look. 

It occurred to him that in a perfect world he’d be heading back to the station to interrogate Hardy right now. 

“But it isn’t,” he muttered, earning another look from Connor.  He ignored it and shoved the truck into gear.

~ XIX ~

Blair bopped into the station like Muhammad Ali.  He floated, he glided, he spun, he punched the air until it surrendered.  When he saw Taggart approaching him from the other end of the hallway, he weaved and ducked and feinted until the other man laughed and aimed a playful cuff at his head.

Blair dodged the mock-blow with ease.  “Gonna have to do better than that, man.  I am on fire.”

Taggart grinned.  “Don’t think much of yourself, do you?”

“I’m too good for modesty.  I have seen the elephant, and I have emerged triumphant.“  He paused dramatically, then leaned in and murmured, “Today, I whupped Brandy Morris’ ass.”

Taggart frowned.  Blair spread his hands.

“I’m telling you, she may look like a sweet, mild-mannered country girl, but she is pure evil when you get her in a combat class.  She offers no mercy, gives no quarter.”

The other man began shaking his head.  “Oh, man.”

Blair laughed.  “Hey, I gotta start somewhere, right?  And she is actually pretty fast.”  He winced at the memory of Brandy’s knee missing his groin by a hair.  Literally.

“No doubt, no doubt.  In no time you’ll be tackling goons twice your size.  You’ll need a ladder to hit ‘em, but—”

“Bite me, man,” Blair said, chuckling.  He peered in the windows that separated Major Crimes from the hallway.  “So where’s Jim?”

Taggart’s face acquired what could best be described as an uncomfortable expression.  “He’s in with a couple of suspects in your arson case.”

Blair started.  “Geez, when were they brought in?” 

“’Bout two hours ago.  Listen, man—”

“Two hours?” Blair repeated stupidly.  That didn’t make any sense.  Jim knew Blair’s classes ended early that day.  Why hadn’t he called?

“Yeah.  Listen, the guys and I have been talking, and we wanted to—that is, we wanted you to know something.  Weren’t sure how to say it to Jim, so we figured we could tell you, and you could pass it on to him, maybe.”

“Sure, Joel, sure,” Blair answered, preoccupied with thoughts of the case and the reason behind Jim’s reticence to call him in early.

Taggart leaned closer, his voice pitched for only the two of them to hear.  “Well, we just wanted to tell you that it doesn’t matter to us whether you and Jim are—well, whether you’re—”

Blair finally snapped to attention at the sound of a man drowning in his own words.  He turned to Taggart, pasting on his best shocked expression.  It wasn’t that much of a stretch.

“I, uh, that’s great, Joel, really,” Blair managed, avoiding the temptation to chew off his own tongue.  “But you know, that story wasn’t, uh accurate.  Just TV sensationalism.”

Taggart frowned.  “But we thought—oh, hey, I’m sorry, Blair.  I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay, I’m not offended—”

“—only that we all kind of figured the two of you were—well, you know—for a while, but then somebody would always say, nah, you’re just really good friends—”

“—just good friends, right, but sometimes people jump—”

“—to conclusions, yeah, and so that’s why we thought we’d say it to you first, you know, because Jim’s kinda touchy sometimes—”

“I understand totally, oh, and by the way, did Megan have anything to do with this?”

Joel blinked at the rapid change in subject.  “Megan?  No.  In fact, she told us to leave her out of it.”

“Hmm.”  Blair pursed his lips; so much for that theory.  Apparently the Major Crimes detectives were perfectly capable of solving a mystery on their own.  The fact that both Megan and the guys had been able to come to the same conclusion independently did not bode well for keeping Jim’s and Blair’s relationship hush-hush.  “Well, I appreciate the vote of support, man.  If I ever do sleep with Jim, I’ll pass along your—uh—congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Taggart said, his smile rapidly fading as he processed Blair’s last statement.  “Uh.  Yeah.  Well, Jim’s in Interrogation Room Three.”

Blair nodded at Joel, turned and made his escape.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Lana Turner and Greta Garbo.  Man.  Jim didn’t know if he should interrogate them or interview them for Screen Idol.

After two hours of so-called interrogation, he was ready to try the latter.  At this point, a poolside photo spread would probably garner more information than his tactics so far.  He’d met guys who’d done hard time who were easier to crack than these two.

“Listen,” Jim said, rubbing his forehead with the tips of his fingers.  “Let’s begin the beguine again.  You cooperate, tell us who’s really behind the arson, and we can cut a deal for you.”

Lana leaned forward in her chair.  “Sweetie, you look like you’re getting a headache.  Why don’t I give you a nice massage, make you forget your troubles, hmm?”

A soft knock sounded on the door, and Jim rose to open it.  Blair was on the other side.

“Hey,” Blair said quietly, his mouth turning up at the corners slightly.  “How’re you doing?”

“Peachy,” Jim growled.  Blair’s gaze moved past Jim, and his expression lit with recognition.

“Hey, Lana,” he said conversationally.  “How’s it goin’?”

Lana’s face erupted in a grin.  “Hey yourself, chicken,” she drawled, one hand giving a sultry wave.  “I’m trapped in a scene from The Postman Always Rings Twice.”

“You will play the bad girls,” Blair answered easily, moving past Jim to take another chair at the table.  Jim sighed and leaned back against the wall. 

“So are you the Bad Cop?” Greta enquired, the long fingers of one hand trailing over Blair’s bicep.  “Because Detective Ellison here has been very, very good.”

Blair reached up and lifted Greta’s roving hand to his lips for a kiss.  “Honey, I’m the best there is.”

Lana chuckled.  “Well, darling, we’ll have to request a second opinion on that one.”  Her gaze rose to Jim, who fought to keep his expression neutral.  “Ask someone with firsthand experience of your…technique.”

“Fair enough,” Blair allowed, releasing Greta’s hand with a final squeeze.  “So I hear you’ve been playing with fire.”

“Rumors are funny things, aren’t they?” Lana returned, unperturbed.  “For instance, I’ve heard rumors about you lately.”

Blair only smiled.  “Yeah, well, some rumors have more truth to them than others.  How true is this one?”

“You tell me,” Lana said, sounding bored.

Blair turned to look at Jim.  “Witness saw them near the building just before the fire broke out,” Jim told him, responding to the unspoken request.  “And he’s willing to testify.”

Blair mouthed at him silently, That’s it?  Jim nodded curtly and Blair frowned, then turned back to the suspects.

“Sounds pretty conclusive to me,” Blair said.  “Of course, if you were willing to testify yourselves in our case…”

Jim shifted uncomfortably at that.  Blair wasn’t in a position to be making deals; hell, neither of them was.  “Chief…” he warned.

Blair ignored him, leaning instead into Lana’s personal space.  “Give us some names, Lana.  Or if you don’t have a name, a description.  Or if you won’t give us a description, a fucking shoe size.  What do we have to do to convince you we want to help you?”

And then Jim was astonished to see Lana’s cynical mask slip for a moment, allowing them a glimpse of the scared human being inside.  It was comforting, in a way, to know that he wasn’t the only one Sandburg affected like that.

But for Lana at least the effect was short-lived, because the mask swiftly fell back into place.  “Sorry.   You’d have to stop being a cop to convince me of that.”

“Why?  Because you were bashed by cops?”

Blair whipped around in his seat to stare at Jim, and Jim suddenly realized he was the one who’d spoken those words.

Lana remained unruffled, though Greta’s gaze darted nervously from her companion to Jim and back.

“What about the fire?  Is there something you’re not telling us?”  Jim took a step forward, placed his hands on the table.  “We can protect you if you testify.”  He blinked.  Had he just said that, too?  Who the hell was in charge of his vocal cords?

Greta opened her mouth to speak, but Lana silenced her with a vicious glare.  “We’ll have to think about your offer,” she said pointedly, her eyes never leaving Greta. 

Fighting to regain his composure, Jim straightened.  “Don’t wait too long,” he growled.  “You’re still the ones who’re facing prison time right now.”

Lana’s mouth curled up at the edges.  “Honey, getting fucked by horny inmates is one of my favorite fantasies,” she purred.

Jim breathed a silent prayer of thanks when another knock sounded on the door.  He opened it to see one of the uniforms standing there, looking nearly as nervous as Greta.  “Captain wants to see you, Detective.”

Jim jerked his head at Blair, who said his goodbyes to the film stars before following Jim out into the hall.

Blair nudged him with an elbow.  “What the hell prompted that?” he demanded.  Jim didn’t have to ask what he was talking about.

“Found out something today about Hardy, Senior,” he said. 

“Related to the beatings?”

“Might be,” Jim murmured.  “Might not be.  I think Hardy looked the other way after a gay cop under his command didn’t get backup when he needed it.”

“What happened to the cop?”

“He’s dead,” Jim said curtly. 

“Oh, my God,” Blair breathed. 

“Yeah,” Jim agreed.  “Now you know why I’m not so eager to hang a rainbow flag fluttering on the fucking balcony.”

Blair stared at him, mouth open.  “I don’t think I ever said—”

“Look, I’m sorry, all right?” Jim sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.  “It’s been a rotten day.  And I have a strong suspicion it’s about to get worse.”

“Why?”

“Because I just heard your friend Jones in there arguing with Simon,” Jim said as calmly as he could manage, “and there’s a—”

The reporters surged around the corner like a tidal wave, battering the two of them with an ocean of mikes and cameras and harsh, eye-wounding lights.

“—shitload of press swooping in for the kill?” Blair finished for him.

“Something like that,” Jim muttered, diving into the crowd and battling the undertow of questions.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

As they walked in the door, Blair noted that Simon had managed to chew his cigar nearly in half.  That was never a good sign.  Terry and Blair exchanged nods as they came in, but it was clear he was playing second fiddle to the power-suited woman squaring off against Banks.

“You don’t have a case, Captain, it’s as simple as that.”

“Well, why don’t we let the courts decide that?”  Simon said smoothly, though there was a brittle undertone to his words.  Blair watched the woman stiffen.

“We can, certainly.  We can also let them decide the harassment suit I intend to bring against the department on behalf of my clients—”

Simon bit down viciously, and the end of the cigar snapped off and fell to the floor.  The big man emitted a soft curse as he tried—and failed—to catch it. 

“Mimi, this is the friend I was telling you about,” Terry said, motioning toward Blair.  “Blair Sandburg, Mimi Ohanaka.  She’s with Lambda Legal Defense.”

The woman smiled and extended a hand, which Blair shook.  He then introduced Jim, giving Simon a few moments to recover.

“I take it you’re representing Lana and Greta?” Blair said, making an attempt at conversation.  Ohanaka only looked him up and down and nodded. 

“Detective Ellison and Blair are heading up the investigation into the bashings,” Simon informed Ohanaka.  “They’re trying to help the situation.”

The woman remained unmoved.  “Just another case of too little, too late, Captain.  We’ve got enough material to take this issue to the next level, and we intend to do so.”

“Material?  Material on what?” Blair asked.

“On the two-seven,” Jim murmured.  “You’re preparing a class action suit against Hardy and several of the officers and detectives there.”

 Everyone turned to stare at him, Blair with a pointed look that made Jim blush. 

“How did you know that?” Ohanaka demanded.

Jim jerked his head.  “The reporters are howling about it out there,” he snapped, folding his arms.  “Looks like you’ve got a leak in your organization, Ms. Ohanaka.”

Blair bit his tongue to keep from grinning.

“You’ve got several of the victims willing to testify that they were bashed by cops,” Jim continued calmly.  “And once this story gets out, you’ll probably have all of the victims in our case file lined up to finger Hardy and some of his officers.”

Ohanaka inclined her head in silent acknowledgment. 

“Tell me,” Jim said calmly.  “Are you also going after him for the death of Bobby Strickland?”

Terry started.  “How do you know about Bobby?” he demanded.

Jim arched his eyebrows; this time it was his turn to remain silent.

Ohanaka pursed her lips, then seemed to relax a small portion of her formidable defenses.  “No,” she admitted.  “Though his death was a catalyst for this suit.”

“Listen,” Jim said soothingly, “I know it might be hard for you to believe this, but we’re on your side.  We’ve been working day and night to crack this case, but we can’t do anything without the cooperation of the community.  If you get the victims talking, we can see that the culprits—civilians or cops— get the punishment they deserve.”
 
Ohanaka regarded him for a moment, then shook her head.  “I’m sorry, Detective.  Salome’s told me you mean well, but there’s—”

“Salome?”  Jim’s tone was urgent.  “You’ve heard from her?  Where is she?”

Everyone blinked at the fervor of Jim’s reaction; after a moment, Ohanaka answered, “She’s okay.”

“And who’s determined that?  You?  Dammit, we need to have her in protective custody,” Jim insisted.

“Why does she need to be protected?” Blair asked. 

“The last time I saw her, I—overheard something she said.  She’s—” Jim’s gaze flickered over Terry, then away.  “I have reason to believe she’s in danger.”

“Jim—” Simon began.

“Take me to her,” Jim insisted.  “Please.”

“I’ll—tell her you’re eager to see her,” Ohanaka said finally.  “That’s the most I can do without her consent.  I’m sorry.”

Blair watched a muscle in Jim’s jaw leap under the skin, but he said nothing else. 

“So is this what we’ve come to?” Blair said quietly.  “You won’t even let us do our jobs.”

Ohanaka stiffened at that, but it was Terry who spoke.

“It’s not your fault, or ours,” he said, equally quietly.  “Hardy was the one who should’ve done his job, and he didn’t.”  He shook his head sadly.  “I’ve worked for nearly five years to build the Center, to find ways to strengthen the community, only to have the police tear it down at every turn with their casual neglect.  How are we supposed to build a community if we don’t even feel safe on our own streets?”

“And dragging these people into a long, drawn out lawsuit is going to help the situation?” Blair demanded, surprised at the vehemence in his own voice.  “You’re only going to succeed in breeding more hatred and  mistrust between the cops and the gay community.  We can get the results you want, but we need your cooperation to make it happen.”

“Maybe we should all sit down and share the information we’ve gathered so far,” Simon offered.  “There’s still the outstanding issue of the arson, and the fact that our witness has picked those two suspects out of a lineup.  You and the DA’s office could get locked in a battle royal over this.  Is that really what you want?”

“There’s not going to be a battle, because Lana and Greta are innocent,” Terry interjected.  “I refuse to believe they were involved in the fire at the Center.”

Simon spread his hands.  “Anything’s possible.  But we’re obligated to investigate all the same.”

“Well, you’ll do what you have to do, and I’ll do what I have to do,” Ohanaka said calmly.  “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but we have nothing more to say.  May I see my clients now?”

“By all means,” Simon answered wearily.  Striding to the door, he opened it and beckoned for the nearest uniform, then directed him to serve as escort.  Terry aimed a last look at Blair, and then they were gone.

“Shit,” Simon muttered, after the door had safely closed behind them.  “That should have gone better, but I have no clue how we were supposed to accomplish it.”

“Like she said, the damage has already been done,” Jim said heavily.

“What the hell was that about Bobby Strickland?” Simon demanded, moving around the back of his desk to pour himself another cup of coffee.  Blair opened his mouth to remind him of the dangers of excessive caffeine intake, then decided against it.

“That was the interview I went to this morning—his ex-partner, that is,” Jim answered. 

“And you went to see her because?” Simon intoned.

“You know damn well why,” Jim flared.  “Because I was looking for dirt on Hardy.  Because I’m starting to wonder if he’s behind this whole thing—the beatings, the phone calls, even the witness we have sitting out there!”  He scrubbed a hand over his face. 

“Jesus,” Simon breathed.  “Jim, I hate to pull the thin blue line routine, especially with Sandburg here hanging on every word I say, but—you’d better be damned sure before you start accusing cops.”

“I know,” Jim sighed.  “Why do you think I kept my mouth shut around Ohanaka?  I’m still wondering about Jones—”  Blair felt a cold fist clench in his stomach, but Jim’s hand shot out, palm upraised, before Blair could open his mouth.  “And don’t say it, Chief, just don’t.  I know what your stand is.”

Blair huffed out a frustrated breath and tried to marshal his churning thoughts.  “Okay, all right,” he said finally.  “So what’s the plan right now?”

Jim shot a look at Simon, who made an after-you gesture.  “I say we follow those two to see if they’ll lead us to Salome.”

“You really think she’s that crucial to the case?” Simon said, but his voice suggested he knew the answer to that already.

Jim nodded.  “She knows who’s behind this.  I’m sure of it.”

Simon blew out a breath.  “Fine.  Go.  But if you get caught tailing a human rights activist who’s involved in a high-profile case…”

“—we never had this conversation,” Jim finished for him.

It occurred to Blair that Simon enjoyed very much having an ex-black ops captain for a detective. 

Once out in the hall, Jim stood for a moment, listening, then took off in the direction of the interrogation rooms.  “They’re going to be in there for a while,” he murmured.  “I’ll poke my head in, then do some paperwork until they leave.”  His gaze darted to Blair.  “You don’t have to stay if you’ve got other things to do.”

Blair blinked at him for a moment before replying.  “I’d like to come with you,” he managed, voice steady.

Jim’s gaze fixed on a point at the end of the hall.  “It could get late.  You’ve got school—”

“If you don’t want me there, just say so,” Blair heard himself say.  No, not say; more like snap.  Where the hell had that come from?

Jim’s jaw tightened, and he shrugged.  “Whatever you want, Chief.  You’re over twenty-one.”

Blair opened his mouth, unsure of what would come out of it next, but before he could speak, Jim said, “Richard?”

Blair followed the line of Jim’s gaze to the frazzled-looking man hurrying toward them.  At the sound of his name, the man stopped and looked around distractedly.   When his eyes focused on Jim, his expression went completely blank for an instant before settling for a jovial grin.

“Jim!” he exclaimed, stepping forward to shake Jim’s hand.  “How are you doing?”  He turned the grin on Blair as Jim made awkward introductions, and the pit of Blair’s stomach gave way.

Holy shit.  The really good-looking young guy with the expensive leather jacket and the smile that could power New Mexico.

Something Jim had just said registered with him belatedly.  “Doctor Bellini?”

“I’m a psychiatrist,” Bellini explained.  “I work for the PD.”

Blair seemed to remember Jim saying something about a shrink—oh.  Right.  That first kiss had pretty much obliterated his memory of the conversation, but he could recall bits and pieces.  He added it to the mental list of Stuff To Ask Jim About As Soon As They Were Alone, a list that was growing longer by the minute.

“Yeah, well, I imagine you had your hands full with Jim,” Blair said airily, regretting the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.  Beside him, Jim shifted on the balls of his feet, poised for flight. 

Bellini’s smile didn’t abate, but he glanced at Jim.   “Jim’s a good cop, and a good man.  You’re lucky to have him for a partner.” 

Blair nodded, trying to keep his expression neutral.  “Yeah.  Yeah, I am.  Thanks.”

Bellini laid a brief hand on Jim’s arm.  “I’d love to talk longer, but I have to run.  See you later, Jim.”  He inclined his head at Blair.  “Nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” Blair replied, but Bellini was already halfway to the elevator.

Jim stared after him for a few moments, a frown deepening the furrow between his eyes.  Blair resisted the urge to ask him what was up, figuring he’d just be blown off again.  Instead, he added it to the list, and resolved to get his hands on a couple of Advil before they left the station.  Something told him he was going to need them.

~ XX ~

Blair was about three seconds from popping a gasket.  Jim wasn’t sure which one of his senses was responsible for knowing this, but he knew it all the same. 

“Anything yet?”

Jim sighed.  Maybe he was developing a sixth sense where Blair was concerned.

“No,” he sighed.  They’d been parked down the street from Terry Jones’ apartment for over an hour, and the man showed no signs of attempting to contact Salome.   In fact, he’d shown no signs of any remotely nefarious activity, unless you classed a really painful shower rendition of Superfreak as nefarious activity.
 
“Hm,” Blair grunted.

“Don’t say it.”

“What?”

Jim rested his head against the back of the seat.  “You’re going to say we should’ve tailed Ohanaka instead.”

There was no reproach in Blair’s tone when he answered.  “No.  But I am curious as to why you thought Terry was the better bet.” 

“Just a hunch,” Jim said, shrugging.  He sat up and stuck the key in the ignition.  “Guess we should head over there, huh?”

A hand covered his before he could turn the engine over; Jim looked at Blair with surprise. 

“Wait a while longer,” the younger man said gently.  “Your hunches are usually good.”

The warmth of Blair’s hand seeped into his own as Jim stared stupidly at him, and even though they’d been on stakeouts dozens of times just like this, Jim had certainly never had the overpowering desire to kiss Blair in the middle of one.  Before he could figure out whether he liked the change, Blair solved the dilemma for him by reaching up and hooking an arm around the back of his neck.  Jim went with the pull, leaning sideways until they were nose to nose.

“The thought of getting turned on by you looking about twelve should bother me a lot more than it does,” Blair breathed, right before their mouths met.

Before it had seriously begun, however, Blair pulled back—albeit with obvious reluctance.  “Bad shaman,” he chided himself.

“No treat for you later,” Jim murmured into Blair’s hair.

Blair chuckled low in his throat.  “Shit, don’t even joke about that.”  With one last caress to Jim’s arm, he moved to his usual spot on the other side of the cab.  Jim felt the cold return.  He focused once more on his eavesdropping duties, but the mellow sound of low jazz music was all he could pick up from Jones’ apartment.

“You want to find Salome pretty badly, don’t you?” Blair said casually a couple of minutes later.

There was a hint of—something—in Blair’s question, but Jim couldn’t quite determine what it was.  “Yeah, I do,” he admitted.  “I think she’s important to the case.”

“You also think she’s in on the fire.”

“I think she knew about it,” Jim corrected.  “But I have no direct proof of her involvement in the actual crime.”

“She could still be an accessory,” Blair persisted.

Jim felt a sensation that someone else might have labeled uneasiness.  “Something on your mind?” he demanded.

Blair regarded him steadily.  “A few things,” he replied, voice soft.

Jim looked away.  “Shoot,” he said.

He was surprised to hear Blair chuckle.  “You know, I sometimes think you’d rather face a firing squad than talk about your personal life.”

Jim turned back to Blair and frowned.  “Personal life?”

Blair took a deep breath, let it out.  “I was wondering about your connection to Salome.”

Jim’s skin suddenly felt two sizes too small.  One part of his brain was screaming at him to play it cool, while another was exhorting him—in Dr. Bellini’s voice, no less—to open up, to share.

To spill his guts for someone else to read, interpret, judge.  Condemn.

No, not someone, he reminded himself.  Blair.  He wasn’t sure if that was supposed to make it harder or easier.

“She was one of my informants when I worked in Vice,” Jim began, his tone without inflection.  “I was one of a new crop of pretty good detectives, and we were going to kick butt and take names, clean up Cascade.”  He stared at a car antenna waving in the wind somewhere in the next block.  “You could say I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder after Peru.”

Blair said nothing, only nodded encouragingly.  Jim continued.  “After transferring to Vice, it didn’t take me long to lose that cockiness.  I still acted like a hardass, but it was just that—an act.  I figured if I could keep that up, I could stay ahead of it, keep things above board.  I was watching some of the other guys falling by the wayside, turning to booze, using.  I didn’t want it to happen to me, but there were days when it closed in on me, and I could tell it wouldn’t take much to tip me in the wrong direction.

“Salome—Sam at the time—I don’t really know how it happened, but he became someone I could call a friend.   Some people might say it was a sign of how desperate I was, but I never thought that.  He was damned intelligent, and he—well, maybe it was because he was used to wearing masks, but he saw through all the bullshit I put on.  I could relax around him, be myself, at a time when I was still trying to figure out what the fuck I was.”

Jim could feel Blair shift beside him.  “I’m surprised you let anyone in that far,” he said softly.

Jim snorted, though he knew there had been no recrimination in Blair’s tone.  “Yeah, I’m not exactly the poster boy for getting in touch with my inner self, I know.  But Sam—Sam and I were a lot alike.  We were both raised by fathers who didn’t act like they gave a damn about us, although I don’t think Sam’s did, period.   We were both feeling something was missing from our lives, only Sam knew what was missing from his, and I didn’t have a clue.

“The night we found that girl—the one I told you about—” Blair nodded, “—I went out and got royally soused.  I ended up on Sam’s doorstep at two in the morning, because I felt like he was the only one who’d get it, that he was the only one who’d understand this fourteen-year-old girl was worth something, and the next thing I remember I was crying and he was holding me—Jesus—” Jim’s vision had suddenly clouded over, and the antenna was nothing more than a blur.

Blair laid a tentative hand on his arm.  “Jim—” he began, but Jim shook his head vehemently.

“I was a mess, a fucking mess, and I was drunk but I wasn’t so drunk I didn’t remember he was in love with me, but I guess I figured, what the hell, if I couldn’t save her, why couldn’t I fuck this up, too, and so when he kissed me, I let him, hell, I kissed him back.”  He stopped abruptly, feeling like he’d come to the edge of a cliff and was perched with his toes hanging over the edge.

There was a silence punctuated only by the sounds of their breathing, and then:  “But I thought you said—earlier, when I asked you if you’d ever—”

Jim laughed harshly.  “I wouldn’t call what happened sex.  We kissed, I passed out, and I woke up on his couch the next day with a headache the size of New Jersey.”  He leaned his head back against the bench seat.  “Anyway, Sam never thought of himself as a man.  He made it clear that he was attracted to me as a woman.  He used to joke that I’d like him once he got his new tits, but I think we both knew it wasn’t only that.  I wasn’t ready for that kind of—responsibility.”

“Responsibility?”

“Yeah,” Jim breathed.  “He tried to keep it light, but I knew he had me pegged as some kind of knight in shining armor.  I couldn’t live up to that.  Most days I didn’t even recognize myself in the mirror.”

Blair said nothing for a while, only stroked his hand lightly over Jim’s shoulder and upper arm.  Jim focused on that soothing, repetitive touch, letting it calm him.

“After I left Vice, I lost touch with him.  I hadn’t seen him as Salome, but I recognized him—her—the second I saw that picture in the file.”   Jim passed a hand over his face, remembering how her left eye had been swollen nearly shut—

—remembered how when he’d hauled Danvers, his sergeant, out of the wreckage of the chopper, the guy had been missing the whole left side of his face.  The eye was gone; it pissed Jim off, so he’d started looking for it—

“Jim.  Hey,” Blair’s hand was shaking him gently now, and when Jim turned toward him once more, Blair said gently, “It’s not your fault.”

Jim stared at him, then realized Blair wasn’t shaking him.  He was shaking, without any outside assistance. 

“Jim?”

“—do you mean, you’re sorry?”

“Jim—” Blair persisted, but Jim made a sharp cutting motion with his hand. 

“Jones is talking to somebody.”

“No one went up,” Blair whispered.

“—my fault you got into this.”  The voice was tinny and garbled, but Jim could make it out if he dialed up all the way.  The voice was—

Holy shit.  It was Salome.  Jim shoved the searing flashes of memory aside as he struggled to regain his composure.  He was on a job here.  He didn’t have the luxury of falling apart now.

“Phone,” he mouthed, then strained to hear again.

“—do anything hasty,” Jones was saying.

There was a short laugh from the other end of the phone.  “Too late for that, sweetie.  Much too late.”

“Listen, why don’t you come over?  Or I could come over there?”

The satisfaction in being right about Jones knowing Salome’s whereabouts was short-lived.  “No.”  The phone line crackled with the vehemence of the word.  “I’m not gonna be here long.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m leaving town for a while.  Tonight.”

Jones’ voice rose in proportion to his agitation.  “But what about the press conference tomorrow?  You’re our most important witness!”

A sound that resembled laughter emerged from the phone receiver.  “Listen to me.  I haven’t witnessed shit, and neither has anyone else.  The only thing I witnessed was your place burning to the ground.”

Jim’s heart raced.  “You know who set the fire?” Jones was asking.

“Yeah.”  The word was more of a sigh.  “Me.”

“Jesus,” Jim breathed.  It wasn’t actually a surprise, but he’d been hoping to be proved wrong.

“Why?” Jones was asking.  “I don’t understand why—” 

“We thought you had insurance.  We thought the insurance would cover it.  Build you a new place even better than the one before.”  Salome’s voice was weary.  “Everything’s fucked up.  Everything.”

Jim shook himself, then reached for the door of the truck.  “Let’s go,” he murmured to Blair, and then he was moving, jogging toward Jones’ apartment building.  As he took the stairs two at a time, he cursed himself for waiting so long.  He tracked the conversation as he went; Jones kept pressing for answers, and Salome kept dodging him. 

Finally, as he reached Jones’ door, he heard Salome say, “I gotta get my head together.  I might be back, I might not.  Listen.   Lana and Greta—they were coverin’ for me.  The cops got nothing on them.  Don’t worry.”

“Jesus, Salome, please tell me what you got yourself into—”

Jim knocked on the door, praying Jones would keep Salome on the line.  His prayer was answered; Jones didn’t mention the knock to Salome, and when he swung the door open, he seemed unsurprised to see them.  Obviously, he must have suspected he’d be under surveillance.  He stepped aside to let them enter and raised his eyebrows at Jim, indicating the phone with a tilt of his head.  Jim nodded, and Jones proffered the receiver.

“Salome?” Jim said softly.  “It’s Jim.”

Salome fell silent, but Jim easily picked up the rhythm of her breathing on the other end of the line.  “How you doin’, darlin’?” she drawled finally, but Jim could hear the faint tremor in her voice.

“Not so good,” Jim answered.  “I keep trying to help you, but you won’t let me.”

Salome snorted.  “You can’t help me now.”

“You’re wrong,” Jim said firmly.  “I can do a lot for you, and I will.”

“If I give you all the ‘bad guys’ on this case?  The evil masterminds?”   Salome chuckled.  “I got news for you.   We’re all the bad guys—and the good guys—put together.”

“Then talk to me.  Tell me your side of this.  Help me to understand.”

“Who’s helping who here, sugar?”

Jim’s fingers tightened on the phone.  “I—you were more help to me than you ever knew.”

“That’s a sweet thing to say.  I needed that.  Thank you, baby.”  Jim could hear the smile in her voice as she said, “It’s nice to know I was the heroine once upon a time.”

“Salome.”  Jim spoke her name into the receiver, but the line went dead before he could repeat it.  He handed the phone back to Jones.  “Tell me where to find her.”

A muscle jerked in Jones’ strong jaw, then relaxed.  “She’ll be gone before you can get there.”

“I know,” Jim snapped, reaching for his own phone and flicking it on.  “That’s why I’m putting out an APB on her.”

“Jim,” Blair murmured, “are you sure that’s such a good idea?  Every cop will be after her, including the ones at the two-seven.”

Jim's fists clenched at his sides.  “Don’t you think I figured that out?” he gritted.  “I don’t have a choice here, Chief.  I’ll tell them she’s wanted for questioning, not the arson.  That’ll keep it as quiet as possible until we have her in custody.”  He turned back to Jones, and this time took a step forward into the big man’s space.   “Tell me,” he growled.

Jones held his gaze for a breathless moment.  Then he told Jim the address.

~ XXI ~

Blair staggered into the bullpen just before nine in the morning.  As he collapsed into his seat, Megan gave him a sympathetic appraisal.

“Jesus, Sandy.  You look like twenty pounds of goanna shit in a ten-pound bag.”

Blair attempted to focus on her with his one semi-functioning eye.  “I’ve never actually told a woman to bite me before—”

“Not on the first date, at any rate,” Connor quipped.  “I take it you didn’t have any luck?”

“Nope,” Blair sighed.  “She was long gone.”

“Rafe and Brown just went home,” Megan said.  “They figured Salome’s on her way to Seattle, or perhaps even California.  You heard about the woman matching her description at the bus station.”

“They stopped that bus in Portland.  It wasn’t her.”  Blair shook his head.  “I don’t think she’s left town.”

Megan frowned.  “She said she was.”

“That’s the problem.  And besides, she’s got too much of a stake in this press conference.  I don’t think she’s going anywhere until she sees that.”

“Well, in that case, you’ve got—” Megan consulted her watch “—five minutes to find her.  Get cracking.”

Blair flipped her the bird.

“Bet you’ve never done that to a woman, either,” Megan said tartly.

“Only the ones I really like.”

At that moment, Jim returned from his trip to the break room, bearing huge cups of strong black coffee.  Blair felt the first smile in hours curl his lip.

“Oh, man, I love you,” he sighed, only realizing the implication of what he’d said when he saw the color rise to Jim’s cheeks.  Megan smiled maternally down on them both, then pulled up the nearest chair and sat down.

“What did you find out?” Jim asked her.

“That your Salome has had a long and varied career,” Megan answered, reaching for a file on the desk and spreading it open.  “But I imagine you knew that.”

“Yeah,” Jim snapped.  “She’s a hustler.  A lot of transsexuals don’t have a hundred grand lying around to pay for the operations and the hormone treatments, so some of them end up on the streets.”

Megan sighed.  “Yes, Jim, I know that.  What I was going to add is that she’s been pursuing a rather different path in the last year or so.”

Jim frowned.  “What kind?”

“Well, for one, she’s been employed by the Phoenix Center as a counselor.  And she’s been going to night school.”

Jim swore under his breath.  “How did you—?”

“Lana and Greta,” Megan said, smiling.  “I took them out for drinks after they were released last night.  We had a grand time.”

“Isn’t that a little unethical?” Blair asked, feeling a grin threatening to split his features.

Megan shrugged.  “Not in the Outback.  There’s another thing:  she’s been quite politically active during that time as well.”

“How active?” Jim demanded.

Connor pursed her lips.  “She’s known to the FBI.”

“I’m not even gonna ask how you know that one,” Jim muttered.  “Okay, so she’s a shit-disturber.  It doesn’t surprise me.  But what significance does it have for the arson case or the beatings?”

“The beatings could be an attempt to silence activists,” Megan allowed.  “I won’t know until I check that angle for all of the victims.  But what if the arson was a form of—protest?”

“Why would she burn down the one place that was making a difference to the community?” Blair asked.

“To call attention to the community?” Megan suggested.  “You told me she thought the Center was insured.  What if she cooked up the scheme to have a better Phoenix rise from the ashes?”

“There’s a problem with that theory,” Jim said.  “It wasn’t her idea.  She might have lit the match, but someone else was behind it.”

“So it’s a team effort,” Megan conceded.  “It’s still a possibility.”

Jim grunted but made no other reply; Blair took this opportunity to sip coffee.

Jim turned to him after a moment.  “Hell.  When’s your first class?”

Blair swallowed, savoring the bitter burn of cop Columbian roast.  God, he was headed down that slippery slope; he was even beginning to crave the coffee.  “Started half an hour ago.  Don’t worry about it.”

“You should—” Jim began.

“Be here,” Blair finished for him.  “I could take those damned exams now and pass with flying colors.”

“Even combat?”

Blair’s jaw tightened.  “A bit of help from you and I will.  Can we get back to the case?”

Jim spread his hands in surrender.  “Okay, boss.”

A snicker from Megan brought them both out of their reverie.  Jim gave her the signature Spec Forces Stare of Death, but the woman didn’t so much as wince.  Instead, she batted her eyelashes at them sweetly.

“You two are so bloody adorable.  I want to go right home and knit you matching jumpers.”

Jim growled, “Connor—” but before he could complete the sentence, she sprang to her feet and sauntered over to the television. 

“Should be about time for that press conference,” she said blithely, switching it on and moving it closer to Jim’s desk.

Blair leaned forward and tried to keep his eyes open as the talking heads on the news went through their introductions and speculations.  Yah ta ta yah ta ta significant day in Cascade human rights history, yah ta ta yah ta ta alleged police involvement, yah ta ta yah ta ta class action suit.

It startled him to realize that five years ago, he’d have been rooting for the other side in this case.  Today, however, the whole thing left him feeling vaguely sick.

It’s not that you’ve changed your opinion, Blair reasoned.  It’s that you finally understand how complicated all of this is.  It’s that you realize cops are human beings, just like everyone else.

Which sounded stupid until you remembered that Naomi had raised him on talk of ‘the Establishment’ with a capital E, as though policemen and politicians and soldiers somehow turned into robotic servants of the State as soon as they took on the job.  He’d seen his mother struggling with that preconceived notion when she first met Jim, and although she’d come a long way since then, their relationship was still prone to miscommunication on both sides—

Jeez, Blair thought suddenly.  What the hell am I going to tell Naomi about me and Jim?  How am I—

“You zoning there, Chief?”

Jim’s soft question brought him back to the here and now.  Shaking his head to clear it, he forced a smile.  “No, s'okay.”  He redirected his focus outward, eyes fixing on the TV screen, where Mimi Ohanaka was delivering her opening statement.   On her left sat Terry Jones, looking as haggard and sleep-deprived as Blair and Jim, and on her right sat another man in a suit, presumably a colleague.  At either end of the table, huge blow-ups of Salome and Greta, their pretty faces beaten and bloodied, were displayed on easels. 

“—are not here seeking revenge, or publicity.  We are simply here for justice.”

Blair heard a disbelieving snort and whipped his head around, searching for the source of the noise.  Taggart and a couple of the other cops had gathered around the set, and although the remaining denizens of the bullpen appeared to be working, Blair could tell their attention was also on the press conference.   At that moment, the door to Simon’s office opened, and the Captain made his scowling presence known.

“The only people who should have their eyes or their ears glued to that set are Ellison, Connor and Sandburg.  It has to do with their case.”

“It has to do with all of us, Simon,” Taggart contradicted softly.  “There are cops involved in this.”

Blair looked around at the quietly determined and faintly rebellious faces surrounding him, and felt a strange mixture of emotions run through him.  Closed society, indeed.  He wondered if he’d ever be completely a part of this world.

He wondered if he wanted to be. 

Christ.  Where had that come from?

Simon’s jaw clenched convulsively, but he didn’t offer a rebuttal to Taggart’s uncharacteristic contradiction.  Instead, he sighed and stepped up behind Blair so that he too could get an unobstructed view of the screen.

“Lambda Legal Defense does not undertake this case lightly.  We have worked long and hard to bring these crimes to light, and we understand that the consequences will be complex, not only for the victims, but for the police department and Cascade as a whole.  But we cannot allow silence to prevail simply because it will be easier to remain silent, because fear and hatred sometimes seem too strong to fight.  And it is for that reason that we intend to file a class action lawsuit on behalf of twenty-two victims of violence.  We are filing this suit not only against the individuals responsible, but against the Cascade police department, and the city of Cascade—”

“Jesus,” someone spat. 

The press went wild at Ohanaka’s words, drowning out the last part of her speech.  Flash bulbs popped in her face as the questions flew.

“When is the case going to trial?”

“Are the victims going to be making any statements?”

“Who are the accused?”

Ohanaka raised her arms for silence, and after a few moments the reporters obeyed.  “A trial date hasn’t been set yet, but we hope it will be within the next two months.  The victims will not be making any public statements.  The defendants are all from the Twenty-Seventh Precinct.  They are:  Lieutenant Michael Joseph Hardy, Detective First Grade Wendell Petersen, Detective Second Grade Marshall Stevens, and Officer John G. Allen.”

The crowd on the television erupted at the same moment as the members of Major Crimes.

“That’s bullshit!”

“She shouldn’t be releasing—”

“No way, man.  No way.”

“All right, people,” Simon growled, punching the Off button on the TV set with determination, “that’s enough entertainment for one day.  Let’s get back to the jobs we’re all supposed to be doing.”

One by one, the bullpen residents reluctantly returned to their duties; after a few moments, a mollified Simon headed back toward his office.  “Jim, I want a status report no later than this afternoon,” he called over his shoulder.

“You’ll have it,” Jim assured him, passing a weary hand over his face that Simon couldn’t see.  Exhausted as he was himself, Blair nevertheless felt a protective pang go through him at Jim’s gesture.  The older man rarely showed any sign of weakness, and he had to be ten times as frustrated and worn out as Blair was to betray even that much of himself.

Blair wanted to pat him on the back, squeeze his hand, but knew it was out of the question.  Even simple displays of support were off-limits to them, at least until they could stop feeling as though everyone was watching them.

Of all the cops, only Joel still stood there, shaking his head.  “It doesn’t make sense,” he muttered, frowning at the blackened screen.

“What doesn’t?” Megan asked.

“I don’t know any of the other guys, but I know John Allen.  He’s just—no way could he be involved in this.”

“He a friend?” Blair asked.

Taggart shook his head.  “I wouldn’t say that.  He’s a bigot, and not much of a cop.”

“Then why are you defending him?” Blair demanded.

“I’m not defending him,” Joel said.  “I’m saying he couldn’t have beaten anybody.  For one thing, he must be pushing fifty by now.  He’s a good forty pounds overweight, and since he got shot in the leg about five years ago, he’s been working a desk, which I suppose is just as well.  Dispatch is all he’s good for.”

Jim’s head jerked up.  “Wait a minute.  He’s a dispatcher?”  Joel frowned and nodded, and Jim immediately yanked his jacket off the stand behind him and dug out his notebook. 

“What is it?”  Megan asked.

“I don’t know yet.”  Jim found what he was looking for and reached for the phone, then punched numbers and waited anxiously.  “Come on, come on—Hello?  Ms. Johnson?”  A pause.  “It’s Jim Ellison.  I was by to see you yesterday with Inspector Connor?  Right.  Oh, you saw it, too?  What did you think?”

There was a pause while Jim listened and Blair cursed his ordinary sense of hearing.  “Yeah?  So no surprises there.  Listen, I just have one other question for you.  Can you tell me the name of Bobby’s partner—his life partner?”  Blair watched Jim’s expression shift into confusion; obviously he hadn’t heard the name he expected to hear.

“Right.  No, it’s not necessarily important.  I’m just—gathering information.  Thanks for your time.  Yes, yes, I’ll do that.  Thanks.  Take care, now.”  He hung up the phone slowly, his eyes on his task.

“Well?” Megan breathed, after a thick and heavy silence. 

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Jim said slowly.  “If we assume that Allen is being falsely accused, then that calls all of them into question.  Only Ms. Johnson says that those four were the worst homophobes at the two-seven.”

“But if someone was trying to get rid of them, it would make sense to accuse them of something like this,” Megan mused.  “Their careers would be ruined.”

“Exactly," Jim said.  "And Allen is the one who’s directly responsible for Bobby Strickland’s not getting the backup that might have saved his life.  So you start to wonder if there might be a connection.”

“You thought it would be Terry and it’s not,” Blair blurted.  “That’s why you looked surprised just now.”

Jim raised his gaze to Blair’s face, then nodded.  “Yeah.  I thought it would be him.  Or Salome.”

Blair leaned forward.  “So if it’s not either of them, who is it?”

Jim took a deep breath, let it out.  “It’s Richard Bellini.  The PD shrink.”

~ XXII ~

Stupid, stupid, stupid, Jim told himself, though he knew deep down that it wasn’t entirely his fault he hadn’t seen the signs.  Bellini’s agitation yesterday could have been the result of a dozen sources, and there was no reason to think he knew Greta and Lana simply because they were all gay.  But when Jim stopped to rewind yesterday’s events, he realized that Bellini could have been coming from the direction of the interrogation rooms, his heart had been pounding like a triphammer, and there had been a fine sheen of sweat on his upper lip.

“All of which does not add up to one damned thing,” Blair protested when Jim shared this with them, but he dutifully started making calls anyway while Jim went downstairs to check out Bellini’s office and Megan romanced her friend in Personnel.  Jim wasn’t surprised to find out from the Employee Wellness secretary that Bellini had called in sick today, and had asked her to cancel his appointments for the next three days.  He was equally unsurprised to find that Bellini wasn't answering his home phone.

When he returned to the seventh floor, he found Megan and Sandburg going through Bellini’s personnel file.  He suppressed the twinge of conscience and stepped up behind them to read over their shoulders.

“I don’t know, Jim,” Megan said after a moment.  “He’s clean—not a single blemish on his record.”

Jim pointed to a line on the file.  “He volunteered at the Phoenix Center as a counselor.”

Megan nodded.  “Both he and Bobby Strickland volunteered there regularly.  Says here he received a commendation last year for raising the public perception of the Cascade Police.”

“Didn’t do much good in the end, did it?” Blair muttered.

Jim turned the page.  “He was off duty for a month after Strickland’s death.  Stress leave.”

“That’s not a crime,” Blair said quietly.

“Think how you’d feel if San—I mean…” Jim watched the tips of Connor’s ears turn red as she realized what she’d almost said.

Jim consciously fought to relax tensed muscles, then spoke slowly, deliberately.  “My point is, we know from this that he probably was acquainted with all of the victims, and that Strickland’s death hit him hard.”

“So what are you saying?” Blair asked, turning around to face Jim.  “He went out and beat up twenty-two transsexuals?”

Jim shook his head.  “I’m saying he had every reason to want to see Hardy—and the other cops who’d treated his lover like shit—pay for what they’d done.”

Blair chewed on this for a minute.  “You’re saying the lawsuit isn’t real?  That this is some kind of vast conspiracy on the part of the gay community to frame honest cops?”

“Jesus, Blair, I’m only trying—” Jim cut himself off, realizing it sounded ridiculous even to himself.  “Never mind.”

“No, I’m—” Blair sighed.  “I’m sorry.  Sleep deprivation, you know?  I just can’t wrap my head around this.”

“Neither can I,” Jim agreed.  “That’s why I want to find Bellini—and Salome.  Between them, they’ve got all the answers.”

“All right then, where do we start looking for them?” Megan said, closing the file and tucking it under her arm. 

Jim thought about it for a moment.  “First, I think I need to go back to talk with Jennifer Johnson.  She might know something about Bellini and her partner’s relationship.  Same goes for Jones.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Blair volunteered.

“Good,” Jim said.  “And Connor, I need you to track down your new girlfriends, Lana and Greta.  See what you can find out.  They’re directly involved in this, and they might have some information we can use.”

“Hm,” Connor pondered.  “I’m thinking a couple of bottles of pricey chardonnay.”

“At least,” Blair grunted.

“You think Captain Banks will sign off on the expense report?”  she asked.  A quick glance at both men, then:  “Yeah.  Didn’t think so.”

Once Megan had departed, file in hand, Blair turned to Jim and said, “You missed something when you left to go downstairs.  Right after the press conference, the talking heads followed up with some ‘late-breaking local news’:  the APB on Salome.”

“Shit,” Jim breathed.

“Yeah,” Blair agreed.  “If Hardy wasn’t clued in before, he is now.  And they’ll be getting tips from civilians.”

“If she’s still in the state.”

“She’s still in town,” Blair said, earning a sharp look from Jim.  “Don’t ask me how I know, I just know.”

Jim stared at him for a moment, looked into Blair’s tense yet eager face, and wondered when the younger man had become a real, honest-to-God cop.  Suddenly, he was swamped by a tide of emotions—fear, guilt, and a fierce, consuming pride that surprised the hell out of him.  It probably happened a long time ago, he thought, when you weren’t looking.  But he was looking now, and damn, how he loved what he saw. 

Jim stepped a little closer.  Not caring that they were standing in the middle of the bullpen, he cupped a hand over the curve of Blair’s shoulder, savoring the way it fit perfectly under his palm.  “Your hunches are usually good,” he said quietly.

Blair’s smile, usually blinding in its intensity, was small and private, intended only for him.  His hand slid toward Blair’s neck, heading for Blair’s face; it was only by summoning all his willpower that Jim managed to force himself to remove it.

“I’ll call you as soon as I find out anything,” Blair said, voice rough.

Jim nodded, and then he turned on his heel without a backwards glance and left before he could make a complete fool of himself.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Upon reflection, this hadn’t been the smartest plan, because Megan was reaching the bottom of her third glass of wine.  Hopefully one of the boys would be able to swing by and pick her up, because she was in no shape to drive.  And how to explain that to Simon?

“Look,” Megan said, aware of a slight slur in the final k, “it’s only that we’re worried about Salome.  We think she’s in danger.”

Lana, who despite having consumed an equal amount of alcohol appeared none the worse for wear, said, “We know she’s in danger.  But she’s gotten herself out of worse scrapes before.”  Smiling, she topped up Megan’s glass, then Greta’s.

Bloody hell.  There was no more time for finesse; she’d have to play her trump card before she became too sloshed to register its effect.  Leaning back into the couch cushions, she said casually, “My friend Richard asked about her this morning.”

Greta’s gaze darted nervously to Lana, who remained cool as a cucumber.  “Richard?” Lana asked.

Megan waved a hand.  “Richard Bellini.  He said he knew her from the Phoenix Center?  They used to work together there?”

Greta’s chest rose and fell with greater effort, and Megan silently crowed in triumph.  She might not be a Sentinel, but she could pick up on physical cues like any copper worth her salt.  There was something here, something important; no amount of wine could blind her to that.

“I’m not sure I know him,” Lana said, still calm.

“Oh?”  Megan cocked her head and assumed an innocent expression, then steeled herself for the bluff.  “That’s odd.  Because you had a lovely chat with him yesterday at the station, didn’t you?”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“I told you all I know,” Terry said irritably.  He sat at his kitchen table, which was piled high with papers and plans for the new Center.  “I don’t know where she’s gone.”

“She hasn’t contacted you at all since last night?” Blair asked, as gently as he could, trying to keep the suspicion out of his voice.  Dammit, he knew Terry, knew and trusted him.  Still, the thought that Jim might be right kept nagging at the back of his brain.   Maybe the Terry he knew in college had been changed by his experiences in the inner city, changed to the extent that he was willing to take the law into his own hands to benefit what he saw as his community.  Anthropologists no longer used the politically incorrect term “going native,” but the phenomenon still happened.  Blair only hoped it hadn’t happened here.

“I’d call you immediately if she’d contacted me,” Terry said, sighing.  “I don’t want her to be hurt any more than you do.”

Blair frowned.  “So you think she might be hurt?  By whom?”

Terry rose to his feet.  He moved to the fridge and rested his back against it.  “By some of your beat cops out to make a flashy arrest.  Who else?”

“I don’t know.  Richard Bellini, maybe?”

Terry’s expression registered shock, then genuine confusion.  “Richard?  Why would Richard want to hurt her?  He convinced me to hire her on at the Center in the first place.”

“Really?” Blair said, at the same time his heart was soaring with relief.  It’s not him, he thought joyously.  Whatever else may be true, Terry’s not involved in this.

“Yeah.  Not that it took much convincing—Salome was already going to night school by that point—but he was her biggest fan, that’s for sure.”  He took a deep breath.  “Bobby’s death hit us all pretty hard.  Hit the Center hard, too; he was probably our most important volunteer, along with Richard.  Afterwards, Richard started spending a lot more time here, like he didn’t want to go home, maybe.  He worked harder than any of us.”

“Did he know about the beatings?”

“Yeah.  We all did.  He tried to get the attention of the news media when it first started, but nobody was interested in hearing about accusations against cops, not when the victims were a lot of trannie hustlers.  He was the one who called in the Lambda legal team when we didn’t get anywhere with the publicity angle.”

Blair kept his tone casual.  “I didn’t see him at the press conference this morning.  Was he there?”

Terry shook his head.  “No.  But he called me late last night and told me he wouldn’t be able to make it.  Something about an important appointment with a cop who needed his help.”

Blair fought to maintain a neutral expression.  “Did he know all of the victims?”

“Sure.  They’re regulars at the Center.  He set up extra counseling sessions for them, individual and group meetings.  It was amazing for him to do so much, especially since he’d just lost Bobby.”

Blair’s blood chilled.  “So, uh, the first beating happened after Bobby’s death?”

Terry frowned at the strange question.  “Yeah.  Not long after—less than a month, maybe?  Why?”

Blair shook his head.  “No reason.  Just figuring things out in my head.  You ever sit in on any of those counseling sessions, hear what they were talking about?”

“No.”  This time Terry’s tone was wary.  “Blair, what the hell’s going on?”

“I wish I knew, man,” Blair said wearily.  “I wish I knew.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Richard and Bobby were—” Jennifer Johnson took a deep breath before continuing.  “They were each other’s life.  When Bobby died, I thought Richard…” She shook her head and wiped at her eyes.

“You thought maybe he’d try to end his own life,” Jim said quietly. 

Johnson nodded.  “We were so different in the ways we reacted.  With me, I screamed, I cried, I shouted my rage to anyone who’d hear me.  But Richard—well, you’ve met him.  He always seems so in charge of himself, so—centered.  So when it happened, he didn’t fall apart.  He just got more—in charge. “

“Of what?”

“Of himself, of everything.  He was everyone else’s Rock of Gibraltar.  The funeral—well, I told you it was a joke—Richard wasn’t even invited—so he organized a wake at the Center.  He held me when I fell apart over the tray of egg salad sandwiches, because those had always been Bobby’s favorite—God.  He was everybody’s shrink, you know?  Everyone’s but his own.  I suggested he take some time off, and he did—a few weeks—but as far as I know he never got any—professional help.”  She snorted.  “They say doctors make the worst patients—it sure was true with him.”

“What did he do?  Do you know?”

Johnson sighed.  “He spent a lot of time at the Phoenix Center.  Practically became his whole life.  I used to call or stop by to see him every night to make sure he hadn’t—well.  I panicked one time when I dropped by his place and he wasn’t there, but when I got home