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Thanks to Anne and Diana for the beta.

There are grunts and there are grunts.

There it is again, closer as he moves to the door. All the other sounds in the hallway are within the range of normal for this location, this time of day, or rather night, and for my roommate. So normal, that what I'm feeling isn't alarm as much as concern.

There's another one.

I'm curious enough after that one to get up and meet him at the door. I don't have to worry about how it will look, playing coy, or being misconstrued as overbearing. It isn't that he doesn't have a clue about the true nature of the connection between us--not his feelings, not mine, not ours--or that he won't read anything more into my being at the door to greet him than hypersensitive senses at work. He knows and I know he knows, and that works for me. Every place we've ever been on that particular continuum works for me. I don't always have to rush to conclusion. I haven't had much trouble just enjoying where we are, where ever that is. Up to now, going with the flow has actually been rather nice.

Since what I'm experiencing is concern and not alarm, I expect it to keep being nice.

I spare us both the rattle of his keys as he tries for the door. It's quiet enough that I don't mind short circuiting that jangle, since sometimes I'm so dialed into him that no matter how careful he is, that metal-on-metal rattle jars sharply. I always nudge down my senses, do it without thinking. But afterwards when thinking returns, I always lament losing whatever inkling of him got banished with the noise.

Going with the flow means appreciating such nuances, no matter their shape or size, whether unexpected or unplanned. Sometimes our relationship is fed by the little things, small and insignificant. Sometimes, like now, I'm very aware of my partner and my friend and he feels closer to me than usual. That's neither small nor insignificant.

He looks up at me as he realizes the door is swinging in, and there is one word for what I see on his face: pain.

"What happened to you?" I ask, reaching for him and knowing any touch had better be a gentle one. His flinch stops me short. His eyes are full of trust, and he is a study in possible contradictions, looking for all the world like he knows I'll do the right thing even as his body signals otherwise. Such open need isn't uncommon between cops, nor is it talked about. It's part of the bond, part of our bond, too. I'm suspended, unable to drop my hand. As if I want to.

"Long story," is all he mutters, slouching.

His natural grace and fluidity have vanished. In their place there's only stiffness and an almost mechanical sense of motion. This close to him, it's always easier to let the barriers slip away, so I do, taking my time as I sweep over him with my eyes. There is less danger of overload than usual, and that's something I haven't admitted to him yet. When it involves him, I have yet to miss a thing. Right now, he's not only stiff, he's leaning forward about ten degrees, listing.

His eyes are tired but interested, yet there's enough weariness to make me pause. "Okay to touch you?" I didn't know I was going to ask him that, but some part of my brain realizes it's the thing to ask next, given that my arm is still outstretched between us.

By way of answer, he hands me his backpack. He grunts again in the process, and I eliminate some of the distance between us. I touch him whether he's ready for it or not, gambling that nothing I do will make him feel any worse.

"Tell me something here, Chief." I say, cupping his shoulder and drawing him a little closer as I swing to the side so he can step through the door. I can go on instinct, but it would help to know what I'm up against.

"It hurts," is all he manages. He's moving with all deliberateness and not much speed, still without animation, and I realize that I've seen this before. There is a special pain that reduces a man to two words like that.

"Your back."

He stops about three paces past me and nods his head slowly. In another life, pre whatever did this to him, he would have twisted around as he told me, but twisting is out of the question at the moment. He's not above trying to help himself in other ways, though, and he hisses while trying to unbutton his jacket. On the surface there is frustration, but I'm sensing other things, too.

I step up behind him. "Is it muscle or nerve, can you tell?"

"Muscle."

"Well, that's something. Leave it," I add as he continues to struggle with his clothes. "I'll get it in a minute," I say before moving around him.

Less than a year after making detective I remodeled my bathroom. It was a drag to have to depend on the department's whirlpool just to be able to climb the stairs to my loft after going however many rounds with the scum-of-the-day. So I made sure that I had everything I needed at home. The massaging head gets more use than the power jets, but I've never regretted having them both. Tonight the shower head is going to prove its worth once again.

After setting the water to several degrees beyond comfortably warm, I return to Blair. He is sans jacket and shirt, but his eyes are clenched shut and he's glued to the same spot. So much for leaving it. He almost looks smaller, he's so tense, and something about the way he is holding himself points to the probability that he's riding out a spasm.

I start on the rest of his clothes.

"Jim?" So simple.

"Trust me." He opens his eyes, but doesn't relax at all. "Tensing up is only making it worse, Chief."

"I know," he says, but it's still an effort. His eyes come back to mine briefly before I break the contact.

"Can you lean over enough to lean on me as you step out of these?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Yes, actually." I tilt my head back and smile at him. A little one. He's thinking about it, it's all there in the uncertainty in his expression.

"Let's not find out."

"Your call." He doesn't object, so I work his khakis and boxers down over his hips and adjust my balance as he clutches my shoulder for leverage. Standing again, I turn him around very slowly, letting him determine exactly how much to move, and then we make our way into the bathroom. Once inside, I put two tablets in one of his hands, and a small glass of water in the other. "No arguments. Just take them."

He closes his eyes again and swallows. Evidently it's not just pain but significant pain, given his lack of objection to the decidedly unnatural remedy he just downed. I start stripping my own clothes. When he opens his eyes just in time to see me stepping out of my boxers, his mouth gapes open. Pain or not, this is still Sandburg. "You need help," I say. I love his curiosity as much as anything else about him.

"Yeah," he mutters, "I do."

I ease him under the hot needle spray with both hands but only after I've climbed in first so he can lean against me if he needs to. He groans again, a sound so full and heartfelt that it seems to come from deep within his soul. It is even more resonant than normal in the warm humidity of the shower.

The sensation catches him by surprise. He stumbles and I tighten my grip on him. "Oh man," he sighs.

"I've been there, Chief. Here," I add, and bring him around to face me. It's time to give his back over to the hot water.

"I can't," he begins, but I'm going to make sure that he can.

"I've got you."

The jets and surrounding mist do their work, and he begins to relax enough to move underneath the water. He eases to the left and then the right, forward then backward, changing the pressure, covering an area about the side of his outstretched fingers. Something innate that I trust as much as I trust him tells me it's safe to loosen my hold, and I let my hands slip down from his shoulders to his biceps. A few minutes later Blair actually leans forward into my chest. He's found the spot, the center of the strain, and he's not moving away from it for anything.

He starts to hum in contentment against my skin while I take more and more of his weight. So much so, that soon I'm afraid he's going to dissolve at my feet. We're about to bridge this crisis and we both know it. We have different ways of handling situations like this, but they're complimentary. They're as different as night and day but they work for us. Like me leaning down to whisper in his ear and him not resisting. He does exactly as I suggest, he slips his arms around my waist. Closer now, I feel him take charge of his own relief, note his diaphragm as it contracts and expands in ever deepening breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth; the air is fractionally cooler against my skin. It has the power to melt me in ways that the hotter water can't begin to match.

But he's got something else on his mind. "So I suppose you know exactly what this is."

It's his way of asking a question that doesn't really need an answer. Of course I do, and so does he.

He understands enough, he understands what it isn't. But that's just the trust that's already a part of our relationship bearing itself out in a new situation. Isn't that the point of trust? The rest of it, well the rest of it will come in time.

"Um, Jim?"

"Yeah?"

He opens his mouth to continue, but then thinks better of it. As tempting as it is to chalk this uncharacteristic behavior up to the pain, that's not really what's going on at all.

I let him swallow his questions and slide a hand down his side until it finds the small of his back. He arches into the touch unintentionally and then he does it again, consciously. I stroke again, stopping higher this time, waiting to see if he wants to talk about it now. I'll talk about it whenever he wants to, and I think he's realizing that as we stand there. But I don't need to talk about it at all. I can't be sure, but I'm guessing that he's come to that conclusion, too.

If he groans, I won't know if it's because of us or because of the hot water, but either way it will be a good thing. But he doesn't groan, he sighs and tightens his arms around me until we're holding each other. It's the very first time.

I reach for the shower head and he shifts with me, pressing into the heat of my body, choosing it over that of the water.

"Better?" I ask.

"Much."

His eyes turn away again and it's just as well. I'm distracted by the rivulets of water as they move over his skin, the heavy dampness of his hair, wet but not soaked through. Clouds of moisture surround us, slowing everything, including Blair's incremental shifts as he tests his range of comfortable motion until eventually, he stills again.

Neither of us is crazy enough to let this go too far, too fast, but the fact is we look after each other and we both want it that way. This time it was my turn, and this time happenstance took us someplace it would have otherwise taken us a lot longer to get to. And the fact is he feels good in my arms, and as I look down the length of his body, from shoulder to heel with the water sluicing over him, something I've long suspected is at last confirmed.

He is magnificent in wet skin.

~End~

c.2002
Cinel Durant

End Wet Skin by Cinel Durant: cineld@yahoo.com

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