Rite of Passage by lamardeuse

Warnings (highlight to view): explicit sex

Written for the TS Ficathons Cliché challenge

Jim could deny himself a lot of things, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop watching Blair.

In a week, Blair would be finishing his weapons training course, and the week after that he’d finally be Jim’s partner for real. Which meant Jim had been watching Blair—hell, ever since the dissertation fiasco, ever since Blair’s life went straight into the crapper.

What exactly he was looking to find, Jim couldn’t really say; all he knew was that it was his not paying attention to Blair that had brought everything crashing down on their heads, and he wasn’t about to let it happen again. So for a long time after Sandburg started at the academy, Jim would spend 99.9% of their time together looking at Blair when he was in Jim’s sight and listening to him when he wasn’t. He’d drop him off at the academy (Blair having sold his car to pay off some of his student loans), then sit there and push his hearing past the cab of the truck, past the sound of the idling engine, past the knot of students talking outside the building, and focus on the sounds Blair made as he walked away. For the first three weeks, Blair’s heart always sped up when he entered the building, and his breathing developed this funny, quiet little rasp on the exhale that Blair probably couldn’t even detect.

For the first three weeks, Jim felt like the worst son of a bitch on the face of the earth.

About halfway through the two-month course, they went to another one of those pain-in-the-ass awards banquets, although thankfully it was Simon receiving the award this time. Seemed that some pencil pusher at the Mayor’s office had finally clued in to the fact that Simon deserved about ten awards by now, and so was kind of overdue for one. Darryl was there, looking ready to pop all of his buttons with pride, and nearly every member of Major Crimes past and present was in attendance to honor the best damned captain most of them had ever had.

In spite of the happiness of the occasion, though, Jim couldn’t help thinking back to the disaster of the last award ceremony they’d been to, and so when he took a look around and couldn’t locate Blair right away he got a little panicky.

Okay, maybe more than a little.

Jim told himself sternly to calm down, that Sandburg was allowed to go to the bathroom if he wanted to, but when five minutes turned into twenty, Jim’s Sentinel instincts went on autopilot. Extending his hearing into every nook and cranny of the crowded room, he strained to pick up the low, distinct sound of that familiar voice.

When he didn’t find it, he started systematically searching the room, walking from one end to the other and back again in a grid pattern. And when that didn’t work, he just stood there for a few seconds listening to the sound of his blood roaring in his ears.

And then he caught it. Over by the exit to the balcony, he detected a faint trace of the aftershave Blair had put on earlier. The aftershave Jim had kidded him about, because usually Sandburg didn’t wear any in deference to Jim’s senses, though Jim had told him a hundred times this stuff didn’t bother him. It was mild, from the same manufacturer as the hemp oil soap Blair used, and Jim had never told Blair it reminded him of the first day they met, because that would have sounded…well, intimate. And whatever else he and Blair were to one another, they weren’t that. Even after all they’d been through over the past three years, there were parts of Blair he knew he’d never seen, just as there were huge expanses of his own inner landscape that he kept walled off. Their deepest feelings were expressed in actions, in gestures, in looks exchanged between them. Evidence that was intangible, easy to deny later, to themselves, to everyone.

Shaking his head at his own bizarre thoughts, Jim headed for the balcony. The night was cool, an onshore breeze dispelling the residual warmth of the midsummer day. Blair was standing over by a potted cedar, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slightly hunched as he leaned against the sturdy railing.

“What’s the matter, Chief? You get shut down by the girl serving the hors d’oeuvres?”

Sandburg turned and looked up at him as he approached, his expression difficult to read. “Nope. Just wanted a little alone time.”

“Uh,” Jim said intelligently, suddenly feeling like his hands and feet were too big for his body, “sorry. I’ll—”

“No, no, hang on,” Blair said, and Jim felt strong fingers wrap around his wrist and hold tight. “I didn’t mean you.”

Jim snorted to dispel the awkwardness. “So being with me is as good as being alone?”

“Something like that,” Blair said, patting his arm before letting go. Jim figured that was his cue to keep his mouth shut, even though there were a hundred questions running through his head. It seemed like too much of a coincidence that Sandburg, after several weeks of training to be a cop, had turned melancholy at a cop function. Jim was desperate to know what the hell was going on, but he didn’t have the first idea of where to start, so instead he leaned against the railing beside Blair and contemplated the night sky, or what he could see of it through the light fog blowing in off the water. After a couple of minutes he turned his attention to Blair again, because he was still revved up from his search earlier, and filling his senses with Blair always calmed him, grounded him, brought him…

…home.

Jim’s heart started racing again. Mouth dry, palms sweaty, he kept his body still and his gaze riveted on the horizon while he fought a full-blown panic attack that would’ve kept Blair’s analyst busy for weeks.

Jesus Christ, Jim thought. If Blair was home, where the hell was Jim going to live when the kid finally woke up and decided he didn’t want to do this any more? What sights and sounds and smells would be strong enough to bring him back to himself then?

He risked a glance at Blair, who, as if sensing his gaze, looked up at him and gave him a smile. Jim couldn’t tell what kind of smile it was, so he smiled back as best he could and tried to keep his heart from beating its way out of his chest, tried to store up the sound of Blair’s breathing and the faintly spicy scent of him for the time when he wouldn’t have them any more.

After that—well, actually, after he’d caught himself standing in the bathroom a couple of times with Blair’s aftershave bottle in his hand—Jim resolved to back off, to get some fucking perspective before he caught himself licking Sandburg’s neck in public places, or worse, in private places. He dialed down everything when he wasn’t actively working a case, and he limited himself to only tracking Blair with his sight. Sight he could handle, sight was normal. Listening for the rhythm of your best friend’s heartbeat in the middle of the night or inhaling the tang of his sweat after a pickup game was not normal.

So he did it, he shut down and backed off and sometimes he caught Blair looking at him oddly, like he’d noticed, although how he could have noticed Jim had no idea. Jim was particularly careful to treat him the same way he always had; okay, maybe a little better than he’d been doing lately, but still. There was nothing in his behavior that should have given away the fact that he was dying inside.

And then two weeks before the end of his course, Blair bounded out of the academy like Tigger on speed. Jim bit his tongue until they’d returned to the apartment.

“So, what?” he’d demanded, while he was trying to make lasagna and Sandburg was still bouncing around. “You find the really good crack today, Mr. Hefner?”

“Nope,” Blair said, smug smile adorning his goofy mug as he came to semi-rest beside Jim. He picked up a block of parmesan and started grating enthusiastically.

“Then you mind telling me what’s got you running at triple tempo?” He paused, suddenly feeling like a moron. Of course. “That self-defense instructor—Natasha—she finally agreed to go out with you.”

“Nice try, but no cigar.” Another grate, another bounce. “I have finally figured out what I need to do.”

“You’re gonna quit,” Jim said, his stomach doing a credible imitation of one of the Flying Wallendas, because he’d known it was coming, but that didn’t make it any less painful. “And that’s okay,” he added hastily, not wanting to appear pathetic now of all times, “I mean, if it’s what you want.”

Blair stared at him, a crease appearing between his brows. “Uh. No. You really suck at this guessing thing, you know that?”

“Then why don’t you tell me and put us both out of our misery?” Jim was proud of the fact that he sounded like he was mildly pissed off, not like he’d just had all of his internal organs rearranged.

Sandburg smiled at him again, though this time it was a little guarded. “All in good time, my friend. All in good time.”

Jim gritted his teeth and took shallow, even breaths and focused as much of his attention as he could on stirring his sauce.

“This is what you need to do?” Jim asked incredulously.

Blair stood with his head tilted back and his feet planted firmly, a huge, open grin on his face. “Yeah.”

Even dialed down as he was, the rattle and whoosh of the cars overhead nearly deafened him. He watched them crest the top of a rise and heard the cacophony of screams as the riders picked up speed on the descent.

“You need to go for a ride on a roller coaster,” Jim said slowly, still unable to process that this was the big event Sandburg had been building up to for the last eight days. Days in which Jim had lost countless hours of sleep trying to figure out what Blair was so crazy to do, stared at the skylight above his bed for hours as if the moon could tell him what had happened to his life that the prospect of losing Blair made him feel like he was losing a limb, a vital organ, his fucking heart.

And now it turned out all he wanted was to ride on a roller coaster. Jim didn’t know whether to laugh or bang his head against the nearest wall.

“Jim, I don’t think it’s been any secret that I’ve been having a little trouble processing my sudden change of career. It’s not that I don’t want to become a cop—but the fact that I had the other choice taken away from me kind of sucked, you know? The path I’m on now might have been something I would have chosen for myself eventually, but I’ll never know that. Sure, I know I should reconcile myself to the capriciousness of fate, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still be pissed.”

Sandburg paused, searching Jim’s face for some kind of answer that Jim didn’t have the faintest idea how to give. After a moment, Blair sighed and continued. “Anyway. The point is, suddenly I’m on this path, right, no control, no fanfare, no nothing, and it’s—there was a transition there that needed to be marked by some kind of ritual. Also, when I went to see my analyst—” Jim narrowly avoided rolling his eyes “—and he asked me what I thought was the real problem here, I told him it was that, well, I was scared shitless, really.” Jim looked at him sharply, and Blair held up his hands. “No, not so much of the guns or the bad guys or the blood or any of that—hey, I got over that a while ago—but of not being good enough to back you up when you needed it. That scares me, Jim. And so I figured, hey, I’m an anthropologist, right? And every anthropologist knows there’s nothing like a good ceremony for purging the demons.”

Jim pointed a finger skyward. “And the roller coaster fits in how, exactly?”

“That object in front of us was my biggest childhood fear,” Blair explained. “As you can imagine, when the other kids in my grade were hitting the ‘you are now tall enough to ride this ride’ bar, I was still under it by a few inches. Not only was I younger than the other kids, I wasn’t exactly at the top of the growth curve. Seventh grade—” He shot a look at Jim, who remained stoic “—I’m trying to impress this girl, and she saunters up to the roller coaster and on she gets, no problem. I, on the other hand, am rejected like a guy in a plaid leisure suit outside Studio 54.

“The humiliation, you would think, would be enough, but oh no, I am up for more. When the fat guy at the gate isn’t looking, I sneak on. The roller coaster starts up, and by the time we’re heading into the first loop, I am beginning to understand why they have such silly rules.”

Jim frowned. “You didn’t—”

Sandburg nodded. “I did. Almost. I feel myself start to slip out from under the bar, and my whole life flashes before my eyes. Eleven years—it was boring as hell, believe me.”

“How did you stay on?”

“Wrapped my arms around that bar and held on so hard I think I dented the iron. By the time we stopped, I think I’d sweated out every ounce of water in my body and peed the rest. Suffice it to say the girl did not consider me boyfriend material after that. And I haven’t been on a roller coaster since.”

“Never?”

“Never, until today. Right now.” Holding up a hand, Blair displayed several amusement ride tickets. “Time to purge.”

Hell of a choice of words considering what happened the last time, Jim thought. “Uh, look, Chief,” he began. “Are you sure this is such a good idea?”

“It’s a great idea. I’m not saying it’s going to magically fix all of my hangups, but it’s a start, a cathartic event. It’s what I need to make me realize I’m headed in the right direction.”

“Then let me go with you,” Jim blurted. He was getting caught up in this too, which was totally ridiculous. After all, it wasn’t like Sandburg was going off to war or certain death; an amusement park ride was not a big deal.

And then Blair looked up at him and it hit him that yeah, it was a big deal, because for whatever reason Blair had built this thing up in his head, made it some kind of weird initiation rite, his final qualification before becoming a cop. If he didn’t perform well on this test, maybe he’d tell himself to go out and get himself another fate. Maybe he’d pack his bags and move off to some place where they’d never heard of him and he could finish his doctorate without having all that Sentinel shit hanging over his head.

Oh God, Jim thought, as his life flashed before his eyes. Without Blair, it would be as boring as hell.

“Sorry, Jim,” Blair was saying, “but some things a man’s gotta do alone.” And then he tipped an imaginary cowboy hat at Jim and turned toward the ride. Jim stood there and watched him go, all of his senses shutting down one by one.

It would be easier that way.

In the end, Jim had to leave at least one sense up and running; he was afraid he’d go into some kind of reverse zone right there on the midway, turn to stone until somebody noticed and they carted him away.

So he turned down everything but sight, down so far they were almost off, and it was cool for a while, like a silent movie reeling out before his eyes. Blair was Charlie Chaplin with a hippie twist, loping stride taking him up to the carny to hand over his tickets, then into the narrow car in the middle of the train, where he sat alone. As the guy strapped him into the safety harness, Jim zoomed in on the place where Sandburg’s hands gripped the side of the cart. He studied the chipped paint, worn by years of use, covering the dingy metal, his sight taking him into every groove, every rust-laden pit in the surface. Widening his scope, he took in the other passengers; directly ahead of Blair, there was a skinny, long-haired kid who made Jim think of the boy who’d gotten on a roller coaster almost twenty years ago to impress a girl. To make himself visible, to make himself heard.

Try as he might to shift his focus, Jim kept coming back to Blair, his gaze cataloguing the grim set of his mouth, his rigid posture as he waited, the widening of his eyes as the car jerked into motion. The temptation to dial up his hearing then was almost too much—he needed to measure the pace of Blair’s heartbeat, to listen for that rasp, to gather evidence that this ritual was leading in one direction or the other. But he fought it, because he couldn’t afford it, couldn’t take the risk of getting lost in Blair this late in the game.

Sandburg’s mouth was open slightly as the coaster cranked its way up its first climb, like he was concentrating on not hyperventilating. Getting in closer, he could see the sweat beading Sandburg’s upper lip.

He backed off immediately, because God, that was way too close, that made him imagine—

Blair under his hands, mouth open and gasping his name as Jim slid into him, as Jim took him slowly, rocking with deliberate, reverent care. Blair gritting his teeth and urging him to move, for Christ’s sake move in a voice that was strained with need—

Blair needing him, needing him—

And Jim leaned forward and licked the sweat from Blair’s upper lip, the salt tang exploding on his tongue like the most exotic spice, and Jim’s next thrust was a lot less careful, the urgency flowing from Blair and into him, powering the deep, pistoning movements of his hips—

Jim plummeted back into reality as Blair began his first descent. Body throbbing and emotions careening into one another like bumper cars, he stood helplessly as the coaster picked up speed. He tried to keep from watching Sandburg too closely again, but it was a nearly impossible task, because every sense was screaming to be let loose on Blair, to see him smell him hear him touch him taste him—

Blair was definitely breathing harder now; his mouth was open in a tight O and Jim could see his chest rising and falling, rapidly but not quite to the point of full-blown panic. The first car slammed into the bottom of the curve and nosed skyward again, and Sandburg was pulled along, hair flying behind him.

Jim knew this experience was worse for Blair, but right at this moment he couldn’t imagine how much worse it could get. He was standing on a dirty, dusty midway in late July with stray popcorn and dried puddles of Coke under his feet, getting jostled by cotton-candy-crazed passersby and watching his partner sacrifice himself to the gods of personal growth while he tried to keep his senses from spontaneously generating a fantasy so vivid he was close to embarrassing himself in public.

To distract himself, he dredged up some of the old resentment, not that it was particularly hard to uncover. He hadn’t asked for this Sentinel thing, hadn’t asked Blair to seek him out, and in the end Blair was as responsible for his own actions as anyone. It wasn’t Jim’s fault Sandburg had decided to get on this roller coaster, just like it wasn’t his fault Blair had gotten on the ride three years ago. He could’ve gotten off at any time, after he’d been held hostage or kidnapped or shot or a hundred different times when Jim had pushed him away, but no, he had to keep coming back for more. He had to stay, had to worm his way deeper and deeper into Jim’s life until Jim was standing here like a dick waiting for the fucking axe to fall and his life as he knew it to end.

When you thought about it that way, standing here seemed like a damned stupid thing to be doing. Blair might choose to walk out on him the moment he got back on solid ground, but Jim didn’t have to be around to witness it. Where the hell did Sandburg get off asking him to be a part of this, anyway?

He was about to turn around and head for the truck when he heard a loud, joyous whoop pierce the air, so loud it registered even on his dialed-down hearing.

Or maybe he heard it because the sound was coming from Blair.

Jim raised his head just in time to see Sandburg hanging upside down, centripetal force battling the pull of gravity in a spectacular show of defiance. The kid ahead of him looked green, but Blair was laughing, yelling, triumphant, his expression wild, glorious.

Jim would never be sure how the transformation had happened, but somewhere between Jim’s Technicolor fantasy and figuring out he was royally screwed, Blair had sorted himself out. Blair was fine, Blair was good, Blair was gonna be a cop.

Terrific.

Slowly, carefully, Jim dialed up his other senses one by one, until the stink of stale beer, fried foods and sweat was hovering just below the threshold of nausea and the clang-crash-clatter of the midway’s mechanical beasts duked it out with the bleats and whimpers of the ones scurrying around on two legs. It was another form of defense against Blair; this time, instead of silencing him, he’d let the world drown him out.

Hell, he reflected. This Sentinel thing turned out to be useful after all.

And then the ride was over and Blair was leaping off the roller coaster like he’d discovered the Fountain of Youth while he was hanging in mid-air, and Jim wanted to grab him and taste the triumphant glow on his skin, make sure he wasn’t faking, convince himself that the fear had finally been purged from Blair’s pores for good.

“Did you see me?” Blair’s enthusiasm was that of a kid who’d managed a grownup task all on his own. “Man, I have to tell you I was just about ready to jump off after that first run, but after that it was like—” he smacked his hands together “—wham! Gone! Disappeared! I don’t mean to get all Tammy Faye Baker here, but I am healed, Jim!”

He looked up at Jim expectantly, still grinning, and Jim felt a sudden wave of cold, unreasoning fury, because what the hell was Sandburg expecting, he’d never given Jim any clue that he expected anything from him, how was he supposed to—

Dimly he realized he had wrapped his fingers around Blair’s wrist. They both looked down, and Jim watched his own hand tug hard. Startled, Blair took a couple of stumbling steps toward him before righting himself and digging in his heels. His smile faded abruptly.

“Jim, what the—”

Jim glared down at him as Blair’s gaze rose again, and something in Jim’s expression must have made sense to him, because he stared at Jim for a moment, then nodded once, as if giving permission. This time when Jim pulled him, Blair let himself be pulled. Jim led him away from the roller coaster, across the midway and down a narrow alleyway between a fast food restaurant and the Wacky Fun House, a low building painted in psychedelic colors that made Jim’s eyes hurt.

The only other person out back of the buildings was a heavyset guy in a hair net standing by the restaurant’s back door with a cigarette in one hand and a hot dog in the other. He gave Jim and Blair a cursory once-over, then returned to his dinner.

Jim hauled Blair over behind a maintenance shed, blocking Hair Net’s view of them, and pushed him gently but firmly against the cleanest of the available walls. Blair stared up at him, obviously pissed but willing to let Jim have the first word.

The fact that he was so Zen about being dragged around like a toddler annoyed Jim even more. He wanted a shouting match, dammit, wanted fireworks and yelling and shoving, something to make this choice real, a ritual of his own. So he leaned into Blair’s space and growled, “Yeah, I saw you, Sandburg. Now what?”

Blair scowled. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, great, congratulations, you passed your fucking rite of initiation. So is this it? Are you done, here?”

“I don’t—”

“Because I’ve been waiting,” Jim said, shocked both that the words were coming out of his mouth so easily and shocked that they were true, “for something. I didn’t have a clue what I was expecting—a couple of stone tablets, a burning bush, a roller coaster—but I was.” He leaned in closer, one arm bracing against the wall above Sandburg’s head. “So I’ll ask you again: is this it?”

Then he finally let himself open up a little and read Blair’s heartbeat, and he wasn’t surprised to hear it running at double speed, a strong, steady thumpthump thumpthump thumpthump you could dance to if you wanted.

Blair’s clear blue eyes bored right into him, searching for something, and Jim wondered if they were looking for the same thing.

To know, finally. To be sure that neither of them was going to run tomorrow, or the next day, or at some point in this lifetime. That this was it, for both of them.

“And if I say it is?” Blair murmured, and oh, Christ, they were, they were. “Will you believe me?”

Jim’s answer was to raise one shaking hand to Blair’s lips and gently swipe the pad of his thumb across Blair’s upper lip, gathering the half-dried and slightly sticky sweat there. Jesus, it felt like his skin could taste the salt it found, like all of his senses were melding together, like his whole body was becoming one big receptor for Blair.

Blair sucked in a breath and Jim’s thumb cooled at the rush of air. Blair’s heart sped up, its rhythm missing at odd intervals like an engine with faulty timing.

“Don’t, just please don’t do this if you’re gonna take it away again,” Blair was saying fervently, head shaking, dragging Jim’s thumb across his lips as he moved. “Because I really, really couldn’t handle it if you did that, Jim. What you said to me after the diss, the way you were, man, it fucking gutted me—”

Jim shut his eyes and leaned his forehead against Blair’s, pressed his thumb against his mouth to quiet him. “I won’t, I won’t, don’t you get it was the same for me, God, Blair—” And then Jim’s hand slid sideways, cupping Blair’s jaw and freeing Blair’s mouth, and Jim wasn’t sure which one of them moved first but suddenly Blair’s mouth was pressing against his, then sliding wetly and oh fuck it felt fantastic.

Blair made a low noise in his throat, the sound vibrating against Jim’s lips, and Jim suddenly went a little crazy. He pressed the whole length of his body against Blair’s, trapping him against the side of the building; yeah, he knew he wasn’t going anywhere, but it didn’t hurt to have insurance, right? Then Blair pushed back and for a moment Jim’s heart stopped, but Blair had just been trying to get his arms free so he could grab Jim’s hips and pull him in closer. In relief and gratitude, Jim dipped his head lower and licked the length of Blair’s neck.

“Nnnnnng,” Blair said, arching his head back, offering as much skin as he could to Jim’s questing mouth. Blindly, his hands left Jim’s hips and burrowed between them, then went right to work on Jim’s fly. Some small part of Jim’s brain reminded him that sex in a semi-public place wasn’t a really smart thing for a cop and an almost-cop to be doing, but the larger part told it to shut the fuck up and told Jim’s cock to push against Blair’s hands, which it did, happily.

Then Blair’s fingers stilled. Jim nearly bit his own tongue off as his jaw clamped around the groan of frustration.

“Oh, shit, oh, shit,” Blair hissed. “I can’t—we can’t—some kid could walk by here any second, Jim.” When he raised his head, his expression was both apologetic and lust-fogged, and Jim couldn’t keep from kissing him one last time, hard and fast.

“Yeah, okay, okay,” he murmured, trying not to sound as desperate as he felt.

Blair stayed propped against the wall after Jim released him, as though his legs needed the support. Jim could feel his gaze on him as he zipped and buttoned himself back to respectability.

“How long do you think it’ll take us to get home?”

Jim’s head snapped up. “I’ll use the siren.”

Blair grinned. “Cool.”

Jim spent the whole ride home—all thirteen and a half minutes of it—on the ragged edge of arousal. Keeping his hormones at bay so he could focus enough of his attention on driving was about the hardest thing he’d ever tried to do, because every one of his senses was pushed to the maximum and clamoring for Blair. If he gave in to them he’d end up wrapping the truck around a lamppost, though, so he kept his eyes forward, his ears trained on the sounds of the late afternoon traffic, and his hands at ten and two.

Walking into the apartment building was like flipping a switch. As soon as the elevator doors closed, Blair shoved Jim up against the back wall and pulled his head down to kiss him, and Jim felt himself open wide, finally allowing himself the luxury of experiencing Blair properly. It was like falling into deep water and expecting to drown, then discovering you could breathe underwater. Jim pulled Blair close and kissed him like he was breathing him, like every kiss was oxygen, was life.

When the doors opened on the third floor, Jim registered a small sound on the outskirts of his awareness, but since it hadn’t come from Blair, he didn’t care.

“Jim. Uh, Jim.”

Reluctantly, Jim let Blair leave his arms. He looked up to find Mrs. Wanamaker from 301 staring at them from the hallway like they’d been caught violating sheep in the lobby.

“Hi, Mrs. W,” Blair said, wrapping one hand around Jim’s waist and waving the other one feebly. “Beautiful day.”

Jim and Mrs. Wanamaker said nothing. She stepped aside to let them pass, and Jim put an arm around Blair’s shoulders, fingers making themselves at home on the nape of Blair’s neck.

“That’s too bad,” Blair mused as the doors closed on her thin-lipped disapproval. “She made great bundt cakes.”

“I’ll make you bundt cakes,” Jim growled. “I’ll bake you fucking French pastries if you want, but not now.”

Blair grinned up at him evilly. “Getting a little frustrated there, big guy?”

Jim leaned in and molded his hand over Blair’s dick. “Aren’t you?”

Blair closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “Hell, yeah,” he agreed, nodding fervently.

And then they just started moving and didn’t stop until they were standing by Jim’s bed, flushed and panting and clawing at one another’s clothes. Jim kept trying to undo Blair’s belt and failing miserably; his brain couldn’t summon sufficient power to figure out how to do it backwards, which was either a sign he was completely turned on or about to have a stroke. Blair, who was doing much better with Jim’s shirt buttons, glanced up at him and muttered, “Sometime this century, Ellison,” which made Jim pick him up bodily and throw him onto the bed.

“Holy shit,” Blair gasped as he bounced, staring up at Jim wide-eyed. “That was fun, we gotta do that again.”

“Don’t worry, Chief,” Jim growled. “I think I can come up with a few other fun things.” He shrugged his shirt off his shoulders and started on his pants while Blair took care of his own clothes. When he finished tugging off his socks, he looked up and saw Blair lying naked and sprawled on his bed, his gaze hot and avid on Jim’s body.

Jim shivered, although it had to be at least eighty degrees in the loft.

“There are times I wish I had your sight,” Blair said huskily, as if he’d read Jim’s mind. “I wish I could see things the way you do. But right now, I think if I could see you any better my head would explode.”

Jim sat on the edge of the bed and Blair rose to meet him in a kiss that started out hot but ended gentle. Jim never had a kiss do that before, and it staggered him. Obviously Blair hadn’t either, because when they parted he had the same stunned look Jim imagined was plastered on his face.

“God, we’re really going to do this, aren’t we?” Blair breathed.

Jim stroked along Blair’s jaw line with one finger. “If you want.”

“I want,” Blair confirmed, kissing Jim again. “Boy, do I want.” He leaned over to lick Jim’s earlobe, and Jim shivered again. A soft, teasing bite, another shiver.

“Is that me? Am I making you do that?” Blair demanded, voice full of wonder, like he’d discovered a new continent.

“What do you think?” Jim growled, trying to decide whether to get annoyed or aroused. He shoved Blair onto his back and crawled on top of him, decided the second option was probably the better one, and proceeded to set about making Blair shiver.

And shake. And yell. And curse. And plead.

Eventually, because he’d never really been good at staying in the truck, Blair insisted on reciprocating, and pretty soon they were reciprocating all over one another, and then Blair leaned down and, without any prior indication he was going to do it, sucked the head of Jim’s cock into his mouth. It was right about that time that Jim figured it would be a great idea to shiver and curse and yell and come.

So he did, in approximately that order.

When Blair had finished licking him clean—Jesus, just the sight of him doing it was enough to make Jim hard again—he straddled Jim, shoved Jim’s thighs together and pushed his dick between them. Then he started rocking, slowly, and Jim watched his face tighten and the urgency build in him. Dialing down everything as fast as he could, he left sight alone up and running, because if he let himself feel the brush of Blair’s cock, the press of his hands as they wrapped around him, if he could hear the racing of Blair’s heart and the soft, urgent sounds he was making, he wouldn’t last another five seconds.

As it was, he managed to hold out until he saw Blair’s eyes snap open and stare at him, until he felt the weight of that gaze on his, and then it was too much, that too-sharp connection sliced him open and laid him bare and he surrendered to Blair’s hands and Blair’s cock and Blair’s blue, blue eyes.

Afterwards Blair lay sprawled on top of him in a messy, sticky heap, finally brought down by gravity.

“M’I too heavy?” he mumbled into Jim’s left nipple.

“Nope,” Jim said, wrapping his arms around Blair’s back and holding on tight. “You’re just right.”

Blair’s lips brushed over Jim’s chest. “So is this it?”

Jim buried his nose in Blair’s hair and smiled. “Yeah," he said, getting on the roller coaster and strapping himself in. "This is it.”

End

July 2005