White Men Can't Jump by lamardeuse

Warnings (highlight to view): explicit sex

Written for the Sentinel Thursday "Games" challenge

If that’s true, then his pale skin must be a clever disguise, because he’s airborne again, leaping with a fluid grace that’s surprising as hell. He throws the ball at the highest point of his body’s arc, so that it sails up, just over Jamal’s blocking hands, and—

“Damn! Another two points!”

The collective shout of joy combine with the buzzer signaling the end of another quarter to drown out Jamal’s outburst, and the other team members crowd around to practice the ceremonial rubbing of the head. It’s gotten to be a strange tradition with the Southtown Tigers, to the point where he’s complained—loudly and to anyone who pretends to listen—that he’s going to run out of hair one of these days. This time is no exception.

The other man moves closer and lays a broad hand on the top of that head, savouring the springy feel of the hairs under his palm. If he concentrates, he can feel each individual strand moving against his skin.

“Not likely, Sandburg. You still have enough hair for the both of us.”

Blair’s head jerks up, and a broad smile settles on his face, making the whole surface of Jim’s skin prickle with heat. “Good thing, huh?” he drawls.

Jim grins back; he’s long past giving a shit about how much hair he does or doesn’t have. Amazing what getting laid on a regular basis will do for your sense of proportion.

Blair seems to be thinking about proportions, too, because his gaze roams casually over Jim’s sweat-damp basketball jersey, then strays lower for a lingering second, his expression turning—pun intended—cocky.

“Something on your mind, Ellison?”

“Yeah,” Jim says, taking his hand away reluctantly for fear of being too obvious in his regard. “I like the way you move.”

Blair’s expression turns downright carnal, and Jim glances around to make sure no one is nearby. “You’ve seen me move on the court a hundred times,” he points out.

Jim shifts, suddenly feeling awkward, fidgety. “Not since last season.”

Blair’s eyebrows draw together in a frown, then relax again as comprehension dawns. “Hmm,” he murmurs, taking a step closer. “So you finally figured out how hot I am, is that it?”

Jim rolls his eyes, but it’s a feeble denial against the colour rising in his cheeks. Blair chuckles low in his throat, and the sound goes straight to Jim’s cock.

Wonderful. Horny as a goat, in a gym full of semi-delinquent teenagers. And still one whole quarter to go.

The moment is interrupted when Jamal—head of the Docklands Community Center and evil genius behind the inner-city basketball league—saunters over and slaps Blair on the shoulder. “You sure you white?” he asks, chuckling.

“Sometimes I wonder, man,” Blair quips, his hand merging with Jamal’s in a slap-slide-grip handshake that has Jim thinking of Blair’s hands, of last night when Blair’s fingertips glided over his arms and his chest and his thighs until he was reduced to begging—

God, when did this become so much of what he needed?

The scary thing is, he still doesn’t know just how Blair feels, how much Blair does or doesn’t need this new—element—to their relationship. Most of the time, when they’re out on a case or working with the kids or knocking back a couple of beers with the Major Crimes gang, it’s still the same old vibe, still the one they always had: tight, affectionate, and oh-so-bitchy. Jim doesn’t know if Blair wants him to be any other way.

After three months they still haven’t fucked, because—well, because half the time they don’t last long enough to get all the way out of their clothes. And because Jim’s never mentioned it, even though he dreams of nothing else these days. Dreams of taking Blair sweet and slow, the pressure building until he’s pounding into that tight (he knows it’ll be tight, god, so tight) heat, and Blair is sobbing with it, sobbing for more and harder and deeper.

But Blair’s never asked for it, and Jim knows that the reality isn’t likely to live up to his middle-aged porn flick wet dream. Knows that he’s scared of hurting him.

Knows that he’s scared of being inside Blair, because once he’s there he might never want to come out again.

The whistle blows, and Jim snaps out of his daze to join the other players on the court. This time, it’s Blair’s turn to sit on the sidelines, but before he does, he sends Jim a meaningful glance that has the older man reeling.

The glance says, I’m watching you, too.

He spends the whole goddamned last quarter hard as a rock.

He’s been patient, he really has. But this time, somebody’s going to get fucked.

Watching the finest ass in Cascade—hell, in the greater Northwest—shimmy around the court for that endless, agonizing final quarter was a new form of torture and bliss combined. Once he followed Jim’s suggestion and looked at the man through the context of their new situation, the basketball game took on a whole added dimension that he enjoyed immensely. It would have to be suppressed in the future, though, because playing hoops with a raging hard-on would be a definite distraction.

The door’s barely closed behind them when Jim yanks him into his arms and attempts to taste his tonsils, and Blair hasn’t got the breath or the inclination to tell him they were taken out when he was ten. It hasn’t escaped his notice that Jim has been more careful with him the past three months than he was on the first damned day they met. He’s wondered what it would take to make Jim remember that he was a guy.

Apparently, it took a few set-ups and a couple of three-pointers. If he’d only known—

Jim’s breathing his name against his ear and peeling off his clothes while shoving him backward at the same time. You had to love the big guy’s ability to multitask. Suddenly his back meets the wall, hard; startled, Blair lets out an undignified yelp. And that’s when he’s sure that things are really different, because normally, if he makes a sound of surprise or pain, Jim’s all over him with expressions of concern and guilt.

But this time, Jim only presses closer and grinds against him.

Hallelujah. We have reached the promised land.

Right before he pushes inside, he comes to his senses.

Blair notices the change immediately, and his tousled head thunks against the wall. “Jesus, don’t stop, don’t stop,” he pants. His hands reach behind him to tighten on Jim’s hips, try to reel him in like a prize trout.

“I don’t—” Jim pants back, unsure of what he’s trying to say until it comes out of his mouth. “I can’t—hurt you—”

At that Blair’s head turns, and laser-blue eyes focus on Jim’s face. “You will hurt me,” he says, slower and more clearly than Jim would have thought him capable of at this point. “You will. But it’s okay, Jim. Because I need this.”

“This?” Jim demands, pressing against Blair’s entrance hard enough to make him groan, suddenly fierce in his need to know. To be sure, once and for all, that they’re on the same page.

“Yeah, this—you—us,” Blair gasps, squirming against the iron prison of Jim’s arms holding him up, holding him close. “This—everything.”

“You need it?” Jim demands, breath hot against the back of Blair’s neck. He feels Blair nod, stubble of his jaw scraping against Jim’s temple.

Jim sighs and pushes and suddenly he’s in, just the head of him, he’s inside Blair, ohChrist—

—it’s more than he could have dreamed—

—and Blair’s moaning, “yeah, do it, do it, need you, all of you, please,” and it’s that breathy please that sends him over the edge, until he’s buried as deep as he can go—

—and Blair’s moan turns to a grunt, not a really comfortable grunt, so Jim waits and waits, body straining with the effort of holding still, until Blair twists around, kisses him softly and nods again—

—and that’s all the sign he needs to begin the slow outward slide, painful because it takes him nearly out of Blair, but then he’s sinking homeward again, and it’s—it’s—

“Fuck me,” Blair growls, and that’s the end of thinking for a damned long time, as Jim gives their bodies up to instinct, to rut and heat and the shock of discovering that something he thought was new is actually as ancient as time.

When they reach the end of it, and collapse in a sweaty, sticky, exhausted heap against the wall, Jim pulls out of Blair carefully, slowly, regretting every inch of his withdrawal. But later, when they’re lying tangled on the bed and Blair is starting to snore softly, he closes his eyes and sees a man poised in a perfect arc of flight, and realizes he had nothing to be afraid of.

Because there’s no way they’ll ever leave one another again.

End

Go to the sequel, Check and Mate