Something to Talk About
by lamardeuse
Rating: NC-17
Warnings (highlight to view): explicit sex
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Written for Bluebrocade and the 2006 Moonridge Auction.
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Despite what some people might have thought upon first meeting him, Jim Ellison did have a certain helping of self-awareness. He knew, for instance, that he had finally forgiven his father. He knew that his feelings for his ex-wife were complicated by his history with his mother. It took him a long time to get comfortable with losing his hair, but he was actually pretty okay with it now. And he understood that he had a severe weakness for women with long hair, spike heels and a tendency toward criminal behavior.
All of this was pretty little-league compared to the moment of epiphany he reached on September 28, 1998, when he realized that he was jealous of Blair Sandburg’s current girlfriend.
He didn’t even know her name, so it was kind of crazy to him at first; it wasn’t as if Sandburg was serious about her, because Jim always heard “Tiffany this” and “Rosalita that” if he was bent out of shape over some doe-eyed grad student. He’d hear every detail of how they met at the fucking Anthro mixer or the World Music Festival, and her measurements, and her preferred sexual position, and by then Jim would make a big show of sticking in his white noise earplugs, and Sandburg would throw up his hands and whine about how we never share any more.
But ever since Blair had been dating what’s-her-name – Jim figured it had been about two weeks now, because that’s when it all started – he’d been coming home late every night, once or twice not at all (and Jim did not fall asleep on the couch waiting for him to come home), and he would be full of smiles and wisecracks in the bullpen but when they got home there was nothing, and Jim didn’t know what this woman was doing to mess with Blair’s head but he wanted the old Blair back, thank you very much.
And so one day he turned around while they were cooking supper and backed Blair against the fridge and growled, “Why won’t you tell me her name?” which considering the last thing they’d been talking about had been the correct amount of turmeric to put in the curry was kind of whacked, but once he was close to Blair he found it was really hard to back away.
Blair lifted his chin and looked him in the eye – Jim realized he hadn’t been doing that for a while, either – and said, “Who says it’s a ‘her’?”
Jim actually stumbled; his heel caught as he was stepping back and he almost tripped, and he had no idea what to do with this. Not with what Blair had just said – after the nipple ring, it wasn’t such a big surprise that he was bi – but with the cold, flinty look in Blair’s eyes, like Jim had fucked up in some important way and missed the memo about it. At the same time, dimly, he realized he’d been stupid; he always made an extra effort not to smell Sandburg after his dates, but he should’ve at least picked up on the fact that the body rubbing up against Blair’s lately wasn’t female.
And every second he spent not saying anything was making it worse, he knew that, but he couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be like dropping a nuclear bomb in the middle of the lamb korma, so he just held up his hands in a pacifying gesture, the way he did with jumpers poised on the edge of tall buildings, and turned back to the stove without a word.
It took Blair about three hours of meditation to realize he’d been a dick, which was way too long even for him. He sighed and flopped back onto the mattress, contemplating the ceiling overhead and wishing he had some kind of freaky superpower that would let him see through steel I-beams and hardwood floors, that would let him know if Jim’s heart rate had nosedived into a sleeping rhythm or whether it was still quick and agitated.
This thing with Tyler – it wasn’t anything he was willing to explore too closely. It had started off as a little no-strings mutual satisfaction, but had since evolved into something that was more than an experiment and less than an affair. He had no idea what Tyler thought it was. They’d been friends for a long time, and Blair hated to think he might be using him, but then it wasn’t like he didn’t have a precedent for it.
And then last night Tyler had looked at the pictures in Blair’s wallet – Naomi, his cousin Tracey, Jim – and said, “You have a picture of your roommate in your wallet?” and at that point Blair didn’t have the heart to keep deluding either of them – himself or Tyler. And a little over twelve hours after they’d agreed to stop seeing one another (Tyler with his eyes everywhere but on Blair, and shit, shit) Blair had wigged out on Jim in the middle of making supper. Well, all right, maybe the wigging had been mutual, but still.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thought, banging his head gently against the pillow, hoping the sound was muffled enough to avoid detection. He was so fucking tired of this, of everything, of being this close to thirty with the same attitude toward relationships that had pertained when he was eighteen.
You’re getting too old for this. Everybody’s getting too old for this.
“Hey, Jim?” Blair said softly, knowing Jim would hear him if he was awake. “I’m – uh, I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to drop it on you like that.” He opened his mouth to tell him it didn’t matter, it was over, but for some reason he checked himself. Too much information, he thought; Jim sure as hell wouldn’t want the details, and Blair was pretty sure he didn’t want to give them. “Look, if you – if this is a dealbreaker for you, I understand. I’ll move out if you want me to.”
He lay in the dark with his eyes closed for a couple of minutes, and then his cell phone rang, nearly stopping his heart. Fumbling around, he thumbed it on. “Yeah?”
“Asshole. I don’t want you to move. Now go to sleep already.”
Blair held the warm weight of the phone in his hand long after Jim severed the connection.
“I love you too, man,” he whispered.
All right: when he’d been in college, Jim had traded hand jobs with a couple of guys here and there. Hey, he’d worked his way through – ROTC didn’t cover every last dime and he sure as hell wasn’t asking his dad for any help – and when you barely had enough money to keep yourself fed, most girls wouldn’t look at you twice. Guys tended to be easier on the wallet, and easier all around. Emotional commitment was the last thing he’d been looking for when he’d walked out of his father’s house the day of his high school graduation.
After that came the Army, and contrary to popular belief, G.I. Joes – at least those on the fast track to command in the Special Forces – didn’t jerk off with other G.I. Joes for the hell of it. If you were serious about that kind of thing, fine, you might risk it, but Jim had never been serious about it, and so to him the idea of risking anything to have another guy’s dick in his hand was ludicrous. Besides, he’d acquired enough money, rank and self-confidence at that point to date his gender of choice, and that had turned out –
– well, in retrospect, it hadn’t turned out so wonderfully, considering his failed marriage and his present living arrangements. But at the time, he’d been on top of the world.
None of this explained why Jim couldn’t stop thinking about Blair with that guy (still nameless, though it was now less of an annoyance and more of a blessing) just about every other second of every goddamned day. It was starting to really piss him off. And it wasn’t just that he was now making an effort to sniff Sandburg after his dates (just to confirm the gender, of course – anything else would be weird). But he’d be in the middle of typing an arrest report, Blair across town at the university, and he’d get this flash of not-memory, as vivid as if he’d experienced it with his dials cranked up to eleven: Blair, sweat beading on his tanned skin, the harsh sawing of his breath filling Jim’s head, the sharp tang of that hemp shampoo he used settling deep in his lungs –
“Fuck,” Jim growled, shoving his chair back and squeezing his eyes shut.
“Headache?” Jim opened his eyes to see Simon standing over him, concern written on his features.
“Yeah,” Jim lied.
“Sandburg around?”
“No,” Jim gritted.
“Too bad. He usually helps you with these things.”
“Yeah,” Jim said again. Simon stood there for another second or two before taking the hint and moving away. Jim rested his forehead on his folded hands and cursed softly and repeatedly.
Despite what Jim said that night, Blair knew damn well he wasn’t fine with it, because Jim was being nice to him. Jim offered to cook on one of Blair’s nights when Blair had a lecture to write; Jim had done the laundry without complaint and left his socks and shirts and – Christ, underwear – neatly folded in careful stacks on his bed. Jim never once bitched about his towels on the bathroom floor (he’d left one and run to pick it up as soon as he’d remembered, but Jim had to have seen it) or his CDs clogging up the 5-disc player (he’d forgotten to take them off the night before, but Jim hadn’t said a word, just put them back in their cases and snapped the lids shut and put on his Zep and Hendrix).
And then Friday night he sat down beside Blair on the couch after supper and held out two tickets. “I, uh, I don’t know if this is his kind of thing, but I thought I’d offer. I can’t make the Jags game tomorrow – Simon needs me on a stakeout – so I figured you might want to take your, uh, your friend.”
Blair blinked; it took him a second or two to realize which ‘friend’ Jim was talking about, and then he felt his face heat and looked away. “I – Tyler and I – we aren’t seeing each other any more. Well, uh, not like that.” Not in any way at all, but Jim didn’t need to know that; he couldn’t take any more ribbing about his tomcat ways, not now.
Jim stared at him, the tickets still clenched in his fingers, arm half extended and frozen, reaching toward Blair. “You broke up.”
Blair massaged the back of his neck. “Uh, well, there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to break up, but yeah.”
“You’re not with him any more,” Jim said, and considering that was a re-hash of what had just been said, Blair didn’t feel any obligation to affirm it. There was something stunned in Jim’s expression, a fragility that reminded Blair of a zone, and without thinking he touched Jim on the arm that was extended toward him.
He’d forgotten how quickly Jim could move, which was stupid, but he didn’t have time to chastise himself because suddenly his own wrists were being held in Jim’s iron grip as he pressed them back against the couch. Jim’s face was about six inches from his own, and Blair was getting a little cross-eyed trying to focus on him.
“Okay, uh, Jim? You’re kind of freaking me out here.” He tested Jim’s hold on his wrists, and wow, it had been a while since Blair had experienced the Jim Ellison brand of physical intimidation.
Jim’s grip eased right before the hands moved again: this time one gripped the back of the couch, while the other tangled in Blair’s hair, short nails grazing his scalp, and okay, from creeped out to seriously turned on in two seconds flat had to be some kind of new record for him. Jim was entirely focused now, no zoning here, no sir, he was awake and alert and watching Blair like he was waiting for the answer to life, the universe and everything to scroll across his forehead like the price of pork bellies on those marquees at the Stock Exchange. Blair opened his mouth to tell him how likely that was to happen when Jim leaned in and kissed him.
It was – okay, it was a pretty good kiss, a damned good one in fact, and so it wasn’t surprising that Blair went from half-shocked, tentative arousal one moment to clenching his fists into Jim’s shirt and holding on the next. He wanted to do a hell of a lot more than that, but first he wanted to give his full attention to kissing and being kissed; that was enough to occupy him for a while right there, and the last thing he wanted to do was take it too quickly and cause Jim to –
Jim pulled away abruptly, leaving Blair with a damp mouth cooling in the air. Keeping his eyes closed, he mentally replayed the past couple of seconds.
Oh. He’d tried to introduce The Tongue there. Bad strategy.
“Look,” Jim grated, and Blair opened his eyes to see Jim looking – Christ – well-kissed and really, really sexy – “I’m sorry. That was – that won’t happen again.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Blair agreed, though his hands stayed right where they were on Jim’s shirt; he was probably pulling the material out of shape but he couldn’t care less. “Probably a bad idea, huh?”
Jim licked his lips and looked down. “Yeah.”
Uh-oh. Jim was back to monosyllabic, and that was never good. Holding Jim’s shadowed gaze, he released Jim’s shirt and slid his hands upward to Jim’s shoulders, then lifted up and swung his leg around, and voila: Jim Ellison now had a lapful of Blair.
“Sandburg – ” Jim warned.
“I said probably,” Blair reminded him, hands roaming over the planes of Jim’s chest, teasing the strong column of his neck. “I’m not prepared to reject the theory just yet.”
“I’m not in the mood for your theories. You’re not Boaz patronizing the natives, here.”
Blair groaned and put his mouth on Jim’s jugular. “Okay, you realize that making an anthropology reference is only going to make me hotter at this point, right?” He raised his head in time to see Jim shoot him a glare, which he answered with a grind of his hips into Jim’s more-interested-than-he-let-on lap.
“Are you even listening to me?” Jim demanded peevishly.
“Mm-hmm,” Blair said, kissing Jim again, keeping it careful and slow, deliberately trying to avoid spooking him. Jim stood for that for about ten seconds, and then he groaned low in his throat and opened his mouth and oh, God, his tongue was stroking strongly past Blair’s lips and all right, time to stop thinking for a while.
Blair steadfastly ignored the small voice in his head that reminded him that not using his brain was usually what got him into trouble.
“Told you so,” Jim muttered, one arm flung over his eyes.
Beside him, Sandburg flopped to the mattress, making it wobble. “This was not a bad idea,” he grumbled. “It just needs some – tweaking.”
Jim took his arm away and rolled over to stare at him. “‘Tweaking’?”
Blair flapped a hand at him. “Yeah. You know – tweaking. Adjustment.”
Jim ignored the hollow feeling that spiraled in his gut, the sixteen-year-old girl that wanted to whine, if it’s right, it shouldn’t need any tweaking. “I think it would be better to forget this ever happened,” he said aloud.
“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute!” Sandburg rolled to face him and placed his hand on his arm, and Jim concentrated on keeping his breathing even. “Look, just because the earth didn’t move, that’s no reason to – ”
“Sandburg,” Jim gritted, “we almost crippled each other on four separate occasions, and that was just when we were getting undressed. When I zagged, you zagged, when you zigged, I zigged. It’s not a good combination.”
Sandburg had the balls to shrug. “That’s nothing we can’t work on. After all, it was your first time with a guy, right? Things were bound to be a little awkward.”
Jim was up and off the bed before he knew he was moving. “Hey, come on! Can’t we talk about this?” Blair called after him, but he didn’t answer; he grabbed his clothes, hopping into his pants as he headed for the door, buttoning his shirt in the elevator.
A half hour later, he was sitting on the sea wall, watching the breakers slam against the shore in the bright moonlight and wondering if he was losing his mind in his old age. He’d just fucked Blair Sandburg, and it had been a disaster, not to mention more than a little weird, but it had also been strangely close to combat, with all the anticipation, uncertainty and barely controlled terror that fighting for your life engendered. You were never more alive in the moments when there was a damned good chance of dying; at least that’s what Jim had always thought until now. He’d never experienced anything like that with another person – well, not when they were both naked and trying to get one another off, anyway. He thought he’d been pretty clear on how good sex could be, but he hadn’t known anything; he was thirty-eight years old and he was practically a virgin.
And Sandburg thought the only problem was that Jim didn’t know what to do when there were two dicks in the bed. Jesus.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to run as fast as he could in the opposite direction, or go back home and crawl inside Sandburg until he finally clued in. In the end, he went to an all-night coffee place and kept drinking until the sun came up, then drove to work early and finished all his outstanding paperwork. At least Simon would be happy.
The next day was torture. Blair had to take on extra lectures because one of the other TAs was sick, and when he called to let Jim know he wouldn’t be able to make it in to the station, Jim couldn’t get him off the phone fast enough. Obviously Jim was still pissed about the sex thing, and needed time to process.
Okay, and Blair realized that thinking of it as ‘the sex thing’ probably meant that he could do with some alone time to think about the whole incident himself. It was just that – well, he’d been fantasizing about sex with Jim – oh, pretty much since the morning he’d moved into Jim’s apartment, when Jim had come down the stairs in a pair of boxer shorts and nothing else, and holy shit there was just no way that purple-and-green-striped underwear should look that hot. It was a disappointment to find out they weren’t as good together as he’d imagined in his head, especially since he was sure he could do better. It wasn’t fair that Jim seemed about as inclined to give him a second chance as Blair was to turn Republican, because he knew he could work magic if he ever got his hands on that body again.
Beyond the whole physical attraction, though, it became clear to Blair a long time ago that he was developing feelings for his subject that went beyond the bounds of a normal buddy relationship. Sure, Jim was irritating sometimes, uptight and regimented and way too into the patriarchal power structure; when he thought about those aspects of Jim’s personality, it was easy to forget he had a crush on him the size of Idaho. But other times it wasn’t so easy, like when they’d play pickup with the kids at the Southtown community center and Blair would watch him float down the court like he had wings, or when he’d wake up to a feta and tomato omelette after he’d been up half the night grading papers.
It had really hit home about four months ago, when Blair had dragged Jim off to a multicultural festival down at the waterfront. Jim had bitched about going at first, and then he’d fallen in with a group of Peruvian musicians and talked with them for hours, the Quechua turning his normally flat voice lilting and musical as they sat and drank together long into the night. Blair had understood about one word out of five, but he hadn’t cared; he’d just followed along, hypnotized and more than a little in love.
Of course, he’d assumed at the time that Jim was Straight with a capital S, and so infatuation had swiftly spiraled into intense frustration. He’d been primed for an encounter with another guy, and Tyler played a lot of volleyball and was just buff enough to bear a superficial resemblance to Jim, and…yeah. Blair still felt about two inches tall whenever he thought about that little detail.
It was when he tried to work out Jim’s motivations, however, that things started to get really weird. Jim had been the one to kiss him, after all, not the other way around; what the hell had been going through his head? Blair tried to zero in on his memories of that night. Without the benefit of Jim’s Spidey senses, it was tough to sort out specific events in the tangled jumble of sensation and desire. He remembered inadvertently elbowing Jim in the stomach as Jim’d tried to help him remove his t-shirt; he remembered Jim nearly taking his eye out as he made to roll him over onto his back; he remembered wrapping his hand around Jim’s cock as they kissed, the angle clumsy because Jim was holding him so tightly Blair thought his ribs would crack.
He remembered opening his mouth to say Jeez, Jim, let a guy breathe, and then he’d felt as much as heard Jim’s hoarse whisper against his left ear, his name on Jim’s lips sounding like it physically hurt Jim to let it leave his body, and suddenly there hadn’t been any oxygen left in the room, but hey, who needed to breathe anyway?
This led Blair to form the hypothesis that it was indeed possible Jim harbored some reciprocal feelings for him; however, the method by which he might gather evidence to back up his theory eluded him for the rest of the day. He knew that for Jim Ellison, talking about his feelings was right behind “root canal” and “barium enema” on the list of least favorite activities, and even if he hadn’t, Jim’s disappearing act last night was a dead giveaway. If Blair made the mistake of cornering him about it, he could end up with his ass on the pavement, not to mention without the best friend he’d ever had.
No, as much as he hated to admit even temporary defeat, he’d have to back off on this one for now, though there was no doubt he’d keep an eye out for weaknesses in the defenses. After all, he could be considerate of Jim’s feelings and still be a guy. Right?
“Are you crazy?” Jim demanded, practically vaulting up off the couch.
Blair blinked up at him; Jim’s shove had thrown him back against the cushions, where he lay half-sprawled, legs wide, jeans pulled taut over his –
Jim shook his head as if to clear it. Fuck.
“I’m sorry, I thought we were – ” Blair made a back-and-forth gesture with his hands. “Uh. On the same wavelength.”
Jim passed a swift hand over his face. “I think you need to retune your radio there, Chief. We were watching the game.” Blair stared at him again. “Like we’ve always done.”
“Yeah, but you – touched me,” Blair murmured.
Jim shook his head again, this time in confusion. “What?”
Blair sat up straighter and pulled his plaid shirt down in an almost affronted manner. “It was a classic move, Jim. You put your arm over back of the couch and – ”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. I wasn’t – ” Jim faltered, trying to replay the moment in his head.
Then again, maybe he was. He didn’t know anymore.
When he looked up again, Blair was making a wry face at him. “Yeah, it’s kind of tough to figure out which way is up, huh?”
“Yeah,” Jim agreed heavily, gut clenching.
Blair rested his head against the back of the couch. “So what do we do?”
“I don’t know.” Jim glanced at the television. The final score was showing on the bottom of the screen.
“Shit,” Blair muttered. “We missed the end of the game.”
Jim grabbed the remote and switched the TV off. “Well.”
“Yeah,” Blair said, getting the message. He rose to his feet. “Good night, Jim.”
“Good night.” Jim stared at the blank screen until Blair had retreated to his room, then climbed the stairs heavily and took off his clothes before collapsing on the bed.
If he imagined Blair’s hands on him the whole time, slowly stripping away every last barrier, every last defense…well. That was nobody’s business but his.
After that, they settled into a fairly normal pattern, all things considered. Jim went back to bitching about Blair’s towels on the floor, and Blair went back to ignoring him. They still took turns cooking dinner and doing laundry; Blair helped Jim work a case involving a string of assaults on senior citizens and stayed up all night grading finals to make up for it.
But Jim didn’t cook him breakfast the next morning, and when they sat together in the living room, Jim took the chair whenever Blair was on the couch, and within two weeks Blair was so fucking sick of all of it. He was bursting with things to say to Jim, but it never seemed to be the right time to say it, especially when Jim was broadcasting keep back signals loud enough to be heard in Canada. If nothing else, it made Blair painfully aware of how much they’d been in one another’s space before this, and by extension how much he missed the physical contact now that it was gone.
When it became an itch under his skin, he found himself staying later on the campus, using every excuse he could find to avoid the loft, because being that close to Jim without being able to touch him only made it worse. And so when his buddy Jeff gave him a call inviting him to double date with a couple of hot exchange students, he ended up sitting in a club three hours later with a beautiful Italian girl who bore more than a passing resemblance to Sophia Loren. Following his old pattern, he encouraged her to do most of the talking while he did most of the listening, and by eleven she was smiling at him in a way that meant what it always meant. Figuring out what was in her head was effortless, almost instinctual; he remembered this. It was simple.
She invited him up to her swanky harborfront condo – in addition to being stunningly beautiful and intelligent, it appeared she had money to burn – and he made it all the way to her front door before the wrongness of it hit him.
He didn’t want simple anymore. And it wasn’t just that he was approaching a point in his life where this whole mating ritual would soon begin to appear ridiculous when observed from the outside; it was that for the first time in his life, there was someone out there who was worth a little effort.
Predictably, she was not terribly impressed with his about-face, though she was too classy to do anything more than smile sadly and kiss him goodnight. She put just enough into it to show him exactly what he was passing up, enough to make him bang his head gently against the wall of the elevator all the way down from the twelfth floor. He hailed a cab and when he got home the loft was pitch dark, as though Jim had forgotten Blair lived there, too.
Or maybe he just didn’t expect you to come home tonight, Blair thought, and that realization hollowed him out and left an emptiness behind he ached to have filled.
Jim could hear Sandburg all the way up from the parking garage. From the second he stepped out of the car, he’d kept up a near-constant stream of low-level nattering, kind of like a schizophrenic who’d forgotten to take his meds for a couple of weeks.
He figured this was an indication that Blair had struck out, but when the door opened the smell of women’s perfume slammed into him like a roundhouse punch, lifting him off his feet before dropping him to the pavement. He lay in bed, trying to keep his breathing calm and even, but some masochistic streak in him wanted him to turn the dials up all the way and take a good, long sniff just to prove to himself that he’d been an idiot all these weeks, waiting for Sandburg to – to –
To what? To sweet-talk him with whatever bullshit lines he used on all those poor, deluded coeds to coerce them into sleeping with him? On the other hand, Blair hadn’t needed any fancy lines to get him into bed, only a kiss that made Jim believe that this was something new, something important, that he wasn’t just another fucking notch on Sandburg’s well-worn bedpost.
The nattering had stopped as soon as the elevator doors had opened, but Sandburg was making other sounds; Jim heard his keys hitting the bowl by the door, heard Blair draw in one quick breath, let it out, heard that weird rustling sound that indicated fingers combing through long, curly hair. The fact that he was familiar with all of Sandburg’s sounds no longer surprised him; over the past few weeks his other senses had compensated for the sudden loss of touch, giving him a running commentary on the way Blair smelled and sounded and looked whether he wanted it or not.
Oh, you want it. In fact, he wanted it so badly it was all he could do to keep from getting up, going down the stairs and rubbing up against him until there was no trace of Blair’s latest conquest left on him. What did that say about him, that he would even think about doing something like that?
He was still contemplating this when he heard Blair’s feet move toward the door again. Jim heard the door close, heard the squeak of the fire escape door, heard Sandburg start down the stairs, heard the soft snick his car key made as he jabbed it into the Volvo’s ignition. When the sound of the engine had finally faded away, Jim rolled over onto his back and stared up at the small corner of space visible through the skylight, a handful of braver stars gamely battling the city’s artificial shine.
“It’s a good thing you’re pretty,” Tyler sighed, handing Blair a mug of coffee, “or I’d have nothing interesting to look at while I kick your ass.”
Blair gulped down the coffee, the hot liquid scalding his throat as it went down. “I think we’ve already established that I’m an asshole,” he rasped.
“Yes, I believe we adequately covered that territory when you showed up on my doorstep at one in the morning expecting a friendly fuck for old times’ sake,” Tyler said wryly.
“I wasn’t – ” Blair shook his head. “Maybe I was. I’m sorry, Tyler.”
Tyler said nothing for a few moments, merely studied Blair over the rim of his mug until Blair felt himself squirm in his seat like a ten-year-old sitting in front of the principal. Finally, Tyler took pity on him and asked, “Is this about Wallet Guy?”
It took Blair’s exhausted brain a few seconds to catch up; when it did, he felt his stomach take a nose dive. “Uh, yeah. His name is Jim Ell – ”
Tyler held up a hand. “That much I don’t need.”
“Okay, then just Jim.” Blair took another sip of his coffee. “I – uh – I’ve kind of had this thing for him for a while. And it was fine, it was a low-level buzz, you know, sort of background, but I guess it’s been building for a while now, because a few weeks ago it just – uh, came to a head.”
Tyler raised an eyebrow at him. Blair reddened. “Yeah, well, the thing is, it was a total disaster. We were all thumbs – and elbows, and – God, it was the worst sex I’ve ever had.” He took a deep breath, let it out. “And the best.”
Tyler flung an arm over the back of his chair. “That’s always a bad sign.”
Blair shook his head and made to stand; he really was an asshole. “I’m sorry – what the hell am I telling you this?” he murmured. “You don’t need to hear – ”
Tyler motioned him back to his seat. “You’re telling me this because I’m your friend. So sit the fuck down and relax.”
Blair shot him a grateful look before subsiding. “I don’t know what to do,” he confided. “He won’t talk to me about it, and I don’t know how to get through to him.”
Tyler cocked his head. “What would you tell him if you could?”
Blair considered this. “That he’s not anything I ever expected,” he said finally. “And that I’m glad he’s not.”
When Tyler didn’t answer right away, Blair looked up to see him with a wistful look in his eyes that disappeared as soon as he caught Blair’s gaze on him. “I, uh. Yeah,” he said roughly, “that might just work.”
“We need to talk.”
Jim resisted the urge to bang his head against the wall, especially considering he was standing in front of the urinal in the fifth floor men’s washroom. “I could say your timing sucks, Sandburg, but why don’t I just piss all over your shoes instead? It’ll probably make the point better than words could.”
Blair, to his credit, didn’t budge at that, just folded his arms and glared at him. “My timing would have been better if you hadn’t run out of the apartment this morning like your tail was on fire.”
Jim finished and zipped up, then walked over to the sinks and began washing his hands. Simon had fixed it with the custodians so they used the unscented soap in this bathroom and cleaned it twice as frequently as any of the others; it was the only way he could stand to be in a public washroom without gagging. “Yeah, well, some of us work for a living, you know? Maybe you should try it.”
“Goddammit, stop trying to get around me,” Blair growled. He stepped closer, and Jim could feel the heat of him bounce off the mirror and the shiny white tile. “You’ve been doing this for weeks and I’m fed up to here – ”
“I’ve been trying to get around you because there’s nothing to talk about,” Jim gritted, snatching a paper towel out of the dispenser.
Blair blinked at him, momentarily struck dumb. “You – what? How can you say that?”
Jim felt that vein in his forehead bulge threateningly. “Sandburg, this is not the time and it sure as hell isn’t the place,” he snapped.
Blair took another step closer, and Jim tossed his head like a wary stallion. “Just tell me how you can say that and I’ll leave you alone,” Blair said, voice almost a whisper. “You owe me that much.”
And Jim hadn’t been sure where his breaking point was, but that was it, because the next thing he knew he was curling his hands in Sandburg’s shirt and whirling him around so that he could shove him against the (relatively clean) tile on the far side of the room. “I owe you? That’s pretty rich considering what you got up to last night.”
Blair scowled at him. “What are you talking about?”
“There were two of them,” Jim said helplessly, aware that he was breaking his rule about ‘no personal conversations in public washrooms’, but it was as if someone else had taken over his brain, his body. “First a woman, and then Tyler.”
Blair stared at him like he’d just spoken in Quechua. “You – how did you know I went to see Tyler?”
Jim’s fists clenched so hard he was sure Blair’s shirt would never lose the creases. “Because I know what he smells like on you,” Jim hissed.
Blair’s eyes widened as Jim moved in closer. “Okay,” he husked, “That’s, um…wow.” His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “And you’re telling me we’ve got nothing to talk about?”
Helpless to stop himself, Jim watched his hand rise, felt the slick softness of Blair’s lips as his thumb brushed against them. Blair shut his eyes and sucked in a breath and Jim leaned in and murmured, “Not a damned thing,” before bringing their mouths together.
He didn’t exactly zone, but there were a few seconds there where time slowed down and drew out like a thread of molten glass, leaving him breathless and waiting for –
For the sound of the door banging open like a rifle shot and a muffled, “There you are, Ell – oh, shit,” as Jenkins discovered Jim kissing Blair senseless in the police station men’s room.
Jim pulled away from Blair, who sagged a little against the wall at the loss of Jim’s bracing hands. He cleared his throat and wiped a hand across his mouth and turned toward Jenkins, who was currently finding the ceiling really damned fascinating. “You looking for me?”
Jenkins’ gaze reluctantly lowered until he was looking at Jim’s shoulder. “Yeah, uh, Cap wanted to see you. Judge signed that warrant you were looking for.”
“For the warehouse? Great,” Blair said, behind him; Jenkins flinched slightly. “We can go and, uh – ”
Jim blinked. “Yeah, right. Good. Let’s – uh – do that.”
“Okay, then,” Jenkins said, his face as pinched as if he’d found a dead skunk. “Well, see you – ” He shook his head and disappeared; Jim stared at the swinging door for a moment and briefly contemplated drowning himself in the toilet.
“Just for the record,” Blair said, “I understand the whole ‘no private conversations in men’s rooms’ thing now.”
Jim gritted his teeth and walked out the door, Blair following behind him at a respectful distance.
“We should tell Simon before he finds out,” Blair whispered as they walked down the hall.
Jim darted a glance around him. “I hate to break it to you, Chief, but everybody knows by now.”
Blair rolled his eyes; he’d spent half the afternoon trailing after Jim and keeping his mouth tightly shut, and the role of faithful spaniel was starting to grate on him. “Jim, we weren’t gone for more than two hours. There’s no way – ”
Jim sighed. “You’ve spent way too long hanging around cops not to have figured
out – ”
“Hey, lovebirds,” Rafe cooed as he went past them, waving a hand.
“ – what gossiping sons of bitches they are,” Jim finished.
Blair, normally not all that circumspect about his romantic life, found himself feeling awkward and embarrassed as they walked into the bullpen and took their seats at Jim’s desk. He could feel every man and woman in the room practically straining with the effort to not look at them.
“Jesus,” Jim muttered after a few moments, his fingers motionless on the keyboard. “I can’t concentrate like this.”
“Yeah,” Blair agreed. “Look, maybe it’s better if we just get it out in the open, you know?” He rose to his feet, a speech about tolerance half-formed in his head.
“Sandburg. Sit. Down,” Jim growled.
Blair patted Jim on the shoulder reassuringly; Jim shrank from the touch. “It’ll be fine.” In his lecture voice, he addressed the room. “Uh, ladies and gentlemen, could I have your attention, please?”
“Ellison! Sandburg!” Blair looked up to see Simon standing in the doorway of his office, his familiar scowl plastered to his face. “In my office.”
“Oh, thank God,” Jim breathed, propelling himself past Blair as though he’d been shot out of a cannon.
The first thing Simon did when they entered his office was close the blinds, which ratcheted Blair’s anxiety up another notch. “Okay, so how much trouble are we in?” he asked, attempting a chuckle.
Simon only stared at him balefully. Blair swallowed.
“That much, huh?”
Jim pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sir, this whole thing is just a massive misunderstanding.”
Blair turned toward him, shocked. “What?”
“Sandburg – ” Jim began, but Blair cut him off.
“No, hang on a minute. I finally get you to admit – ”
“I didn’t admit anything,” Jim said peevishly.
“Not out loud,” Blair snapped, “but I think I got essentially the same message when you stuck your tongue down my – ”
“And that would be the point where we reach ‘too much information,’” Simon said, holding up a hand.
Blair and Jim both fell silent at that. “Okay,” Simon said heavily, “I think you’ve just confirmed the story I’ve heard through the grapevine. Sandburg, you’re not one of my cops, and you’re not Jim’s official partner. This is a good thing, because it means I don’t have to start quoting long, boring passages from the policy manual about fraternization.” He turned to Jim. “Now, this would be where you tell me that your relationship with Sandburg will not affect your performance – ”
Jim cleared his throat, but when he spoke his voice was still rough. “Simon, there is no – ”
Simon shook his head. “Just say yes, Jim.”
Jim’s jaw muscle fluttered. “Yes.”
“Now. See how easy that was?” Simon smiled thinly, then sobered. “Here’s the deal. If you play it cool, this thing should burn itself out within a week. As long as you can keep your hands off each other in this building and at crime scenes, you should be fine. Does that sound doable?” His dark gaze fell upon Blair this time.
“I think I can manage that,” Blair muttered. “But what about reprisals?”
Simon frowned. “Reprisals?”
“Yeah,” Blair said, leaning forward. “Aren’t you concerned that some of Jim’s colleagues might make him the target of homophobic actions?”
Simon blew out a breath. “Sandburg, since 1989 the Cascade PD has worked closely with the city’s Commission on Sexual Minorities, and for the past five years the city has had a Domestic Partners Registration Program that recognizes same-sex partnerships among its workers, including cops. If Jim encounters any homophobic behavior from any of our boys or girls in blue, he’s going to get the full support of the municipal government behind him.”
Blair sank back in his seat, his righteous fervor popping like a balloon at a kid’s party. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. Now please, get the hell out of here so the rest of my detectives can get some work done. Come back in the morning refreshed, and we’ll start putting this behind us.”
Blair stared at Simon, who blinked, then squirmed a little in his seat. “Uh. So to speak.”
Once again, Jim was on his feet and out the door before Blair could even rise from his chair; he caught sight of him again about halfway to the elevator, where Henri was talking with him in low tones. As he watched, Henri and Jim shook hands and exchanged a serious mano a mano look. Blair breathed a sigh of relief; this might not be a total disaster after all.
As Henri passed by him on the way back to the bullpen, he said, “Thanks, man.”
“What for?” Blair asked, puzzled. He darted a glance at Jim, who was waiting by the elevator, body in that still, stiff posture that told Blair he was listening in.
Henri leaned in close; Blair, of course, couldn’t tell him it wouldn’t make a damned bit of difference. “I won the pool, man. Everybody thought the bathroom was too much of a cliché, but I said, hey, sometimes the simplest answer is the best answer.”
“Yeah,” Blair said weakly, watching Jim’s shoulders twitch.
“You two takin’ off for the day?” Blair nodded. “Well, don’t do nothin’ I wouldn’t – uh, on second thought, knock yourselves out.” He grinned and patted Blair on the shoulder in a big-brotherly fashion.
“You’re a prince among men, Henri,” Blair cracked, and was rewarded with Henri’s laughter all the way down the hall.
Jim was going nuts. He was standing here on his own two hands and going nuts.
He’d long since convinced himself that Sandburg’s incessant chatter would eventually send him to the bug house, but the thing that had finally driven him up the wall was the absence of sound, the sudden silencing of Blair Sandburg, as though someone had pulled a plug and let all of his words bleed out onto the pavement until there was nothing left.
That someone would be you, Jim’s inner voice told him. Asshole.
They’d driven home in silence. It had been Jim’s turn to cook supper, and Blair offered him no help, so he listened to the sound of his knife methodically chopping the bok choi, the hiss of the peanut oil in the wok, the soft, liquid sound of the garlic as it seeped out of the crusher. It was almost enough, soothing after a while, but then when they sat down together and there was still nothing, Jim found himself gripping his napkin under the table as he ate to keep from screaming.
Just as they finished, Blair looked up from his plate and pinned Jim with his gaze and said, flatly, “You were going to tell Simon we had no relationship.”
Jim squashed his napkin into a small, compact ball. “We have a relationship,” he murmured, “just not that kind of relationship.”
“Everyone at the station thinks we have one,” Blair said peevishly.
“Oh, excuse me!” Jim growled, unclenching his fist and throwing his napkin on the table before rising to his feet. “Well, then, of course we should start fucking, because everyone’s been betting on it!”
Blair stood. “So you’re saying you don’t want to have that kind of relationship with me.”
Jim’s jaw clenched; he tried to lie, but the words stuck in his throat. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said finally, which was certainly the truth. An affair with Blair would be a disaster; he knew that like he knew his own name.
Blair got a strange look then, a mixture of apprehension and triumph and a few other things Jim wasn’t able to catalogue before Sandburg wiped all expression from his face. “Fine, Jim,” he said simply. “Leave the dishes, okay? I’ll do them later.” He turned and disappeared into the bathroom without another word, and within a couple of minutes Jim heard the shower running.
And you know, that kind of tipped him off right there that there was trouble brewing, but he clung to (foolish) hope until the bathroom door opened again and Jim could smell him, and he’d put on that diluted, faintly scented after-shave he used on dates, and Sandburg had put on after-shave, so he was going out again, and that was just –
“You can’t,” Jim said, thinly, helplessly. “You can’t leave – I – ” And God, could he get any more pathetic than that?
Blair shook his head. “Who said anything about leaving?” he growled, right before he strode over to where Jim was standing like a dick in the middle of the living room and pulled him down into a kiss. And Jim just went, didn’t question, the way he never questioned when Blair said try this tea or picture your spirit animal or deep breaths, Jim, find your center, and it felt like his center was gone, spinning away and rolling under the couch where maybe he’d find it next Christmas when he moved the furniture to make room for the tree.
“Now tell me there’s no relationship,” Blair panted into his mouth, and Jim panted back, “Jesus, just don’t talk and we’ll be fine,” and then they both moved at the same time and Blair’s right foot landed squarely on Jim’s instep.
“Ow, fuck, ow!” Jim exclaimed, collapsing on the sofa in a heap and clutching his foot.
“Oh, come on, it’s not like I’ve crippled you for life,” Blair said peevishly as he sat beside him. Jim glared at him and then let his leg drop down, inadvertently jabbing Blair in the shins as it fell.
“Okay,” Blair sighed, rubbing at his own leg, “I think I have an idea.”
“Well, I’m all ears, and you’re all thumbs,” Jim cracked.
“Ha ha. You want to hear it or not?”
Jim closed his eyes, leaned back and thwacked his head against the couch a couple of times. He felt like there were twenty thousand volts of electricity stored up in him, all that potential going nowhere, and he was about to explode with it, so: “Sure.”
“You go upstairs and take your clothes off there, and I’ll take mine off down here.”
Jim cracked an eye open. “You do realize that at some point it helps if the two people involved are actually in the same room.”
Blair’s mouth quirked affectionately. “Putz. I’m still working on that part. Just – try it? Please?” He reached out a tentative hand and brushed it over Jim’s arm, and even that barely-there touch was enough to complete the circuit and make Jim half-hard in the process.
Jim swallowed, then nodded. Rising on stiff legs, he climbed the stairs and undressed slowly, like he’d forgotten how. He felt the separate textures of shirt, trousers, shorts, socks slide and catch against his fingertips, even the smoothest material feeling like the roughest burlap.
When he was done, he turned to see Blair standing at the top of the stairs, naked, hard, staring at him as though he’d never seen him before.
“God, you’re just – you’re amazing,” Blair breathed, and Jim didn’t have the faintest idea what to do with that, so he said nothing.
“Lie down,” Blair husked, and there was no please behind it this time, only a rough command that raised every hair on the surface of Jim’s skin. Without a word, Jim moved to obey, lying prone, trying to avoid scraping his oversensitized skin against sheets that felt like sandpaper.
“I’m gonna – will you let me just touch you? Can I do that?” and Jim rested his head on his folded arms and spread his legs slightly, and he could hear Sandburg’s heart stutter into high gear at that even before his softly-voiced “Jesus” made Jim shiver. A few seconds later Jim felt the mattress dip and then Blair’s warm palm made contact with his shoulder. He explored Jim’s back for a long while with deep, languorous strokes, then, after voicing another warning, swung his leg over Jim’s and straddled him.
“Blair, God, what are you – ” because Blair was sliding lower, his hair brushing the small of Jim’s back, then his ass.
“Shhhhh.” Blair’s breath hissed against Jim’s skin, making him shiver, and then Jim felt Blair’s lips brush against his left cheek.
Jim squirmed under him, shock stoppering his breath for a moment. He opened his mouth to tell Sandburg to quit it, because geez, he’d just kissed Jim’s ass, and while he knew guy-on-guy stuff tended to involve that region of the body, putting your mouth there was just asking for trouble, in Jim’s studied opinion.
But before he could get the words out, Blair slid his fingers just inside the crease. Jim might have made a sound then, because Blair soothed, “Don’t worry. I’m not doing what you think I’m doing.”
Jim thought, when did you get to be a mindreader, Sandburg, and then Blair spread Jim’s ass with the tips of his fingers and Jesus Christ that was, that was Blair’s tongue, right there on his –
“God!”
Blair chuckled, and the vibration of it made Jim shudder and shake and cry out, because it was too much, it was like an earthquake. Blair immediately pulled back and whispered, “Dial it down, Jim, okay? Dial it down.”
“Don’t know – if I can,” Jim gritted, still shivering. “It’s so – ”
“Dial it down,” Blair said, low and insistent, “now,” and Jim gulped in air like he’d been drowning, which wasn’t too far off the mark. He pictured his dials the way Sandburg had told him to, and within a minute or so he was back to normal.
Blair seemed to sense when he was okay. “Better?” Jim nodded. “Okay, now take it down further – as low as you can go.”
Confused, Jim raised his head and craned his neck around to peer at Sandburg. “Why?”
Blair looked at him blandly. “You ever been rimmed?”
Jim felt his face heat. “No.”
Blair grinned. “Really? Cool,” he said, then sobered. “Okay, well, let’s just say I have a theory about you and the dangers of new experiences – they engage all of your senses at once because your brain is hungry for input, and the next thing you know, instant zone or worse. And much as I’d love to be able to brag that my incredible technique made someone pass out, I’d feel like a cheater with you, because it’s too easy.”
Jim sighed and rested his head back on his arms. “Okay, okay,” he muttered, working to comply with Sandburg’s wishes. It took a couple of minutes, but soon he felt pleasantly numb, like the surface of his skin was in orbit around him instead of wrapped intimately around muscle and sinew.
This is the way people feel all the time, he thought, right before Blair spread his cheeks again and bestowed a brief, tentative lick on his hole.
Jim bit his tongue to keep from yelling, because it was manageable, sure, but it was still amazingly good, and so when Blair asked him softly if he was okay, all he could do was nod quickly, silently begging Blair to keep going. Blair must have figured it out, because the next touch was bolder, more confident, and Jim just lay there and took it, every muscle straining as he fought to not lose it completely.
After a couple of minutes of that, Blair murmured, “Can you take it up a notch?” and sure, Jim could do that; as a result, the next swirl of Blair’s tongue nearly spun him around counter-clockwise. He flung his arms out and gripped the edge of the mattress so hard he probably left dents in the springs, but Blair just kept going, Blair was getting into it now himself. When Blair arrowed his tongue and plunged inside, Jim pressed his forehead into the mattress and opened his mouth in a silent scream. The rough slide of Blair’s tongue inside him was almost enough to make him come if he concentrated on it, but he knew if he zeroed in on that he’d zone, and zoning with Blair’s tongue in his ass was a really unattractive prospect.
Then there was another notch, and another, and by the time Jim was up to eight he was practically vibrating with the need to let go, only he was up so damned high he was fairly sure he’d be dead the moment he hit the ground. He tried to summon enough oxygen to form words, and then before he could speak he felt Blair draw back, the loss of sensation almost physically painful.
“Push it up all the way now, Jim,” Blair husked. Jim stiffened instinctively, wanting to fight the directive, but Blair’s fingers dug into his hips, steadying him. “Don’t worry,” he whispered against Jim’s skin. “I’ll take care of you. I won’t let you go.”
Jim sucked in air as though preparing for a deep dive, then clenched his jaw and pictured his dials cranking to ten. The moment they were there, Blair spread him as wide as he could go and devoured him, using ravenous lips and tongue and – Christ – teeth to finally sever the last tenuous tether holding him to earth. The sensation should have overloaded his neurons, focusing him on one specific point and moment; instead he felt as though he were expanding, stretching to fill every corner of space and time. As he drifted further and further away from his center, he wondered absently if it would be so bad to stay like this, gradually losing all boundaries, all definition. There were worse ways to go.
“Time for you to come back, Jim. Listen to my voice. Concentrate on my voice and come on back, slowly.”
Gradually, because in the end he didn’t want to leave Blair behind, Jim followed him home. After a minute or a year, he was aware of opening his eyes and seeing Blair’s anxious face hovering above him.
Blair’s expression changed swiftly to relief when he saw that Jim was back. “God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I got carried away there, and I shouldn’t have –”
Jim shook his head, unable to put into words what he’d just experienced. Instead, he reached up and threaded his fingers in Blair’s hair, brushed a thumb over his earlobe. Blair’s eyes widened, then darkened as Jim tried to express himself with that simple contact.
It took him a few seconds before he realized he was being a jerk; time for a little reciprocation. Even though he knew there was no way he could do as much for Blair as Blair had just done for him, that was no reason not to try. Forcing his lips to move, he murmured, “What do you want?”
Blair blinked at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, and then flushed slightly and barked a short, embarrassed laugh. “I, uh, you don’t really need to worry about that,” he murmured.
Frowning, Jim slid his hand down Blair’s body until it reached his groin, to find he’d lost his erection. “Let me – I can – ”
Blair’s hand reached down, settling over Jim’s and stilling it. “You don’t get it. I already did.”
And that was when it hit him; he’d been so zoned he hadn’t picked up on it, but when he kicked at his sense of smell he could easily distinguish the respective (and to him, distinctive) scents of their come. Which meant that Blair had come just from doing that to him, and oh, God, he’d thought it would be a week since he could even think of sex again and he was already nudging his half-hard dick against Blair’s leg like a horny poodle.
Blair grinned wickedly. “You like that, huh?” he said archly.
“Yeah,” Jim groaned, closing his eyes. He was helpless to this, totally out of control, and for once in his life he craved it, he couldn’t get enough of it, he fucking loved it, “but this time I want to do it to you,” and he grinned against Blair’s neck as Blair did a little groaning of his own.
“Hey.”
“Hmmm?” Blair attempted to lift his head, but found that his body was not accepting calls from his brain at the moment. He was face down on the bed and he wasn’t going anywhere; he couldn’t even get the hair out of his eyes to watch Jim climbing the stairs, which was a real shame since the guy was still wandering around stark naked. It was a great look on him.
Blair felt the mattress dip and heard Jim’s low chuckle. “You gonna survive?” He planted a minty-fresh kiss on Blair’s temple.
“I want to be cremated, and I leave all my worldly goods to you. Does that answer your question?”
Jim laid a warm hand on Blair’s neck and trailed it all the way down his back until he was cupping one ass cheek. Blair shivered. “So, ah – ” Jim said.
“Yeah?”
Jim made a growly huffing noise that was actually pretty cute. “You’re gonna make me ask, aren’t you?”
Blair managed to turn his head on the pillow so that he could see Jim, who was looking down at him intently, almost nervously. “Yeah,” Blair said, smiling. “I’m in love with you, Jim.”
Jim blinked at him, stunned. “Uh. I was going to ask if you liked the rimming.”
Blair’s heart tried to hide behind his liver. “Oh.”
Jim shook his head slowly. “But that’s – that’s good too, I mean – Jesus, Chief, you really – ”
“Yeah, I really,” Blair murmured. “I have for a while now.”
“Since we – ” Jim made a vague hand gesture. “ – the first time?”
Summoning all of his strength, Blair rolled to his side and reached out to stroke Jim’s arm. “Before that.”
“But you were still with – ”
“I know.” Blair looked away. “I’m not proud of that. I just never thought you’d – well. I guess I wasn’t thinking.”
“Too bad.” Blair looked up, meeting Jim’s fond gaze. “Because I’m kind of crazy about your big brain.”
Blair felt a grin threaten to split his face. “Yeah?”
Jim slid down beside him on the bed. “Yeah,” he murmured, leaning in for a kiss. Blair soon found he wasn’t quite so near death’s door as he had been; he hooked an arm around Jim’s neck and drew him closer, drew him in, drew him up and over his own body until they were pressed together, moving slowly but eloquently in their own familiar language, until the meaning flowed between them both, binding them together.
“Jim?” Blair murmured, when he could trust his voice again.
“Hmmm?”
Blair smiled into Jim’s sweat-damp shoulder. “I’m glad we had this little chat.”
End
August 2006