Disclaimer, datclaimer, deyclaimer, weclaimer. There, it's conjugated, are we happy now?

This is for my little Twinkle: my first slash story with actual sex (tm) in it! Thanks to WoD and Sen_Betas for taking a look at it.

Takes place after the SenToos but before TSbyBS.

*You are in love with me; I shall make you perplexed ~ Rumi*

The first three nights of the stake-out, Sandburg had brought bits and pieces of his academic life with him; his dissertation, student term papers to grade, articles he wanted to read. By the fourth night he said he was tired of reading fine print by pen-light and had fallen back on complaining.

It was cold, the bench seat in the truck wasn't comfortable, we hadn't bought enough food, it was too dark for him to see anything, some despotic heavenly being had assigned him to teach an 8am Intro class this semester. And that was the first 30 seconds of complaint.

I was used to Sandburg's voice providing the running commentary on my life, like a dubbed foreign film, and found myself listening to his tone and cadence but not the actual words. He might be complaining, but his tone was cheerful, completely without rancor; he had the ability to make do with whatever life had given him and to be relatively happy with it, although he liked to discuss it in a little too much detail for me.

So it was something of a relief when his cell phone rang and diverted his attention.

"Yo, Blair here," he said, obviously equally as glad for any kind of interruption. "Molly! I haven't heard from you in a long time. How the hell are you?" He sat up from his bored slouch with a pleased grin.

Molly had been one of his more normal girlfriends. Her hair had been a color found in nature -- even if not actually her own color -- nothing visible had been pierced, her clothing wasn't strategically ripped and was even on the conservative side. I'd never worried that she had been out to fold, spindle or mutilate my guide, as had a few of his other girlfriends.

The conversation degenerated into a laundry list of people they knew, where they had gone and what they were doing; I stopped paying attention when the language became anthro-speak. I'd never admit it to him, but I was bored, too: though not bored enough to try and decipher anthro-speak.

Instead I catalogued the items on the quiet street in front of us. A few parked, empty, cars, a dog sniffing along the fence line in his yard, either a possum or a raccoon in the trash about a half-block away. We were on the edge of the industrial district, where the houses became smaller, older and more run-down and the concrete tilt-up buildings became more prevalent. It was late enough that most of the houses were quiet. I could hear a re-run of a baseball game from five years ago on ESPN Classic from a house four doors down and was almost tempted to listen in.

Suddenly my attention was brought back to Sandburg with a jerk when his voice deepened and he gave an evil little chuckle. "Let me get this straight, Molly, you want me to help you write a letter to seduce a man?"

I ignored Sandburg's right to privacy and tuned my hearing to listen to both sides of the conversation.

Molly laughed nervously, her voice sounding strangely compressed and tinny through the digital cell phone. "Blair, you wrote me the sexiest note I've ever read."

"Oh, yeah," he said, his hips shifting involuntarily, "I remember that note. And the night that followed."

Molly sighed and there was silence on the phone as they both contemplated whatever it was that they had done.

A few suggestive images flashed in front of my eyes; Blair, naked, skin flushed, eyes closed, his head tilted back, that generous mouth slightly open; his square, capable hands, gliding across firm, muscled skin, his fingertips lightly stroking; and then it was my turn to shift on the seat. I couldn't remember exactly when I'd started thinking about Sandburg like this, but I knew I'd been a cranky bastard for about the last year and, using my superior detective skills, had concluded that there was a connection there.

Molly's tinny little voice interrupted my reverie. "I'm dating a history professor and he's really shy. I thought if I could write him a letter, it might do for him what yours did for me. I know it's a lot to ask, but, please, Blair, it means a lot to me. I know you stopped dating wom--"

"Yeah, okay, " he interrupted quickly, "I get the concept." He glanced over at me, and then looked back out the windshield, straight ahead and cleared his throat. "Umm -- sure. I can do that. Cyrano de Sandburg, at your service."

I almost choked. "Sandburg...."

He waved me off. "Dial it down," he hissed, covering the phone with his hand.

Dial it down. Dial it down. Sandburg and an old girlfriend were going to have phone sex right in front of me, in my truck, dammit, and he wanted me to dial it down.

"So," he said, settling down into the seat, making himself right at home. "Tell me more about this guy. What's he like? Do you think he has any," he wiggled his eyebrows at the phone, "kinks?"

Molly laughed. "Like yours, you mean? I don't think we ever found a kink you didn't have."

"Hey -- I don't have any kinks. It's only a kink if you get off on feeling that it's somehow wrong. If everyone is having a good time and it all feels right, then it isn't a kink, despite what anyone else might say."

Once again, I got a look into Sandburg's kinder, gentler world, apparently one in which sex was a simple joy shared between good friends. My own experiences, in covert ops and in Vice, had taught me that a harsher, colder world existed and I had learned some dark truths about myself that I would rather have not known. I knew I had kinks, and quite a few of them involved the man sitting next to me. I shifted on the seat again and groaned.

He put his hand over the phone. "What is it with you, anyway? I'm talking here, man, having a conversation. A private conversation." He looked back out the windshield of the truck and removed the hand covering the phone's mouthpiece.

He went back to Molly, who was in mid-sentence. "... I was thinking that I should start with poetry, but I don't know which poets to choose."

"For a history professor? Well, there is nothing quite like going back to the primary sources for material. Song of Solomon, despite modern revisionist attempts to explain it away as a misunderstood expression of agape, is pretty hot. Can't really go wrong with Rumi, either, though you need to be careful of the translator or else he comes out sounding like a fortune cookie. Then, of course, there is always Burton and The Arabian Nights."

"Oh, puh-leeze," Molly whined. "You and Burton. It's a good thing he's been dead for a hundred years or no one else would have a chance with you. Except maybe a Sentinel, of course."

Sandburg's eyes darted over to me and he cleared his throat again. "Umm, yeah, okay, so you start off with a good poetry quote -- and then just go with the flow, you know, talk about what gets you hot and he'll follow."

Molly snorted into the phone, a very unattractive sound. "Most of the men I know, the fastest way to get them hot is to grab for their dick directly, not to whisper sweet words into their ears."

"Molly, Molly, Molly, what a sexist thing to say. Look, the primary sex organs may be a little different, but the basic mechanisms of arousal are the same. I mean, the thing that really controls arousal and desire, no matter the gender, is the brain, and that's the organ to hit for the lasting buzz."

"Uh-huh, like when your head swivels around to watch someone with a nice ass walk by."

"Hey, sight is controlled by the visual centers in the brain, so that counts. And I guarantee you that words can get a guy off the same way they can get a woman off."

"Oh, yessss," Molly whispered, her voice gone husky, "I remember once you nearly talked me to orgasm, it was the most incredible thing. And it is true that you never go non-verbal, no matter how far gone you are, so I guess I can use you as a data point of one for your "brain-sex" theory."

I closed my eyes. Too much information. So it was true; Sandburg never did stop talking. That beautiful mouth, those wide, generous lips would be always in motion and that deep rich voice would pour out, erotic and encouraging. Christ, I was getting harder just thinking about Sandburg's mouth.

I could smell pheromones all over the damned place - mine, his, even hers from wherever the hell she was back east. I cranked the window open and pulled in a desperate lungful of cold night air.

There was too much at stake to allow a change in the careful balance between us, to allow me to even think about making a potentially disastrous change in that balance. We'd already proved in the last year that our partnership was fragile; hell, Alex Barnes had shown me that Sandburg was fragile. I'd always thought of him as resilient and tough -- nothing could keep Sandburg down or make him stay put in the truck or make him shut up; not Simon's growl, not kidnappers, not being shot, not his cold roommate taking out years of fears and frustrations on him. And then I saw him in the fountain, dead, and realized what a house of cards I'd built around us.

He could be killed, or some opportunity could come up for field work that would tempt him even more than Borneo had, or in reflexive, unthinking anger I could finally find that one thing to say that would be too much for him -- and then he would be gone, out of my life forever.

I drew in a last huge breath of night air, turned away from the window and looked back at him. He was slouched down on the seat, his head leaned back, his eyes almost closed, but his mouth, his mouth was moving because he was talking: no, he was dictating a fucking letter to Molly. His voice was thick and slow. "Sometimes the sweetest thing is the anticipation of being touched -- of knowing that you desire me as much as I desire you, that your hands are just inches away from my skin, that we are separate for only a few moments now, our time is coming, your hands are descending..."

Finally the last clue stepped up to me and introduced itself; Sandburg was talking to Molly about what it felt like to want to be touched and his half-closed eyes were firmly fixed on hands; my hands, wrapped around the steering wheel, holding on tight.

He wanted me to touch him.

That revelation knocked the breath out of me.

When I could breathe again, I let go of the steering wheel with my right hand and half-turned toward him, reached out with the tip of my finger and ghosted my finger over the tightly puckered nipple visible through the thin t-shirt under the flannel shirt, not quite touching him, but close enough that I knew he would be able to feel the heat of my hand hovering over him.

This was a bad idea. I had told myself that, over and over, yet here I was, doing it anyway. And Sandburg, Sandburg was...

Responding. To me.

He arched his body up into my touch, following my hand. "Oh God, oh God, oh God," he chanted, finally biting his lip to shut himself up.

Molly's voice sounded concerned. "Blair? Blair, are you okay?"

I pulled my hand away as Molly's panicked voiced acted like cold water thrown on my libido.

Blair was staring at me, his eyes huge. "No, 'sokay... Uhhh... Jim was... Jim was saying something to me."

I rubbed my eyes. "Sandburg, hang up the phone." My head was starting to pound.

Molly was still babbling, right over both of us. "Look, if you're busy or something, we can do this later. Or, really, you don't have to help me. I can come up with some things on my own--"

He looked away from me and kept right on talking. "Nah, Molly, I've got other ideas, too. Look, you remember my email address, right? Send me the ideas you have and I'll write up some--"

"Sandburg," I warned.

"--stuff when I get home and email it back to you." He glanced over at me and started talking even faster. "Bye, Molly. It was good hearing from you--" He squawked as I snapped his cell phone shut and the conversation ended. "What the fuck is going on with you?" he demanded indignantly. "You get a hard-on listening in on a private conversation and decide to play a little touchy-feely. You make yourself nervous and then back down, and then you hang up on my friend!"

"I didn't get nervous, Sandburg, I thought.... I was.... Ahhh, shit." There was no way I could make him understand what I didn't understand myself.

" 'Ahhh, shit' ? Nice, man, real nice. Flattering and literate. Just what--"

I was in the wrong and I knew it, so I shut him up the only way I could, remembering that the best defense is a swift offense. I twisted toward him, wrapped both hands in the front of his flannel shirt, yanked him across the seat and kissed him -- hard, fast and brutal. Then I dropped him back where he had been on the seat and slid back to my own side of the truck.

"Well," he said. There was a long pause. "Well." He brought one hand up to his face and touched his lips. "Well. Hell."

I was at somewhat of a loss for what to say and so, apparently, was he. Was that good or bad? He was looking straight out the window in front of him, and if I didn't know better I would have said he had zoned. "What happened to the verbal part of the package, Sandburg? Is that all you have to say? Are you okay with," I waved my hands around, "this?"

He turned toward me, his eyes narrowed. "You're fucking kidding me, right? Man, I've been waiting years for this." He rolled his eyes. "Sentinel of the Great City. Detective of the Year twice in a row. Clueless moron."

Both of my hands were back on the steering wheel. "This is about sex, Sandburg, not trading insults."

"Jim, Jim, Jimmm," he said in that patronizing, patient voice that often made me want to wring his neck. "This isn't about sex."

My dick and I disagreed with him. "Then what is this about? Jesus, Sandburg, you were about to give yourself a hand job in my truck!"

Sandburg turned so that his back was against the passenger door and drew his knees up on the seat. His eyes were slitted almost shut, the barest edge of deep blue visible. And he was fucking smirking as he looked into my lap, where my pants had grown uncomfortably tight. "You knew what it was about the very first morning, man, you called me on it."

I stared at him, trying to remember. "How about the refresher course, here?"

He rolled his eyes again. "Shit!" he said, sitting up in annoyance. He pushed a hand through his hair and then made a rude gesture at me. "It's been a courtship ritual. A looong courtship ritual."

I remembered that morning. He had just moved into the loft, complete with his monkey and his weird music and his grimacing tribal masks and his strange food for what was supposed to be a week -- a week that, at latest count, had stretched into more than three years. The morning after the monkey had trashed the loft, he had made me breakfast and I had said something about courtship rituals not keep me from throwing him out of the loft. I winced now. Throwing him out of the loft was not something I wanted to think about. "That long ago? Why didn't you say something before?"

He looked at me sideways "Uh-huh. And what do you bench press, man?"

I snorted. "Right. Like you have been afraid of me for a second in your life."

He looked down and spoke softly. "Not afraid of, no."

"So if you have been waiting for this, then what was the whole parade of women through your life about?"

He shrugged. "Hey, I like women and they like me. I couldn't have what I wanted, so I figured that second prize would do. Everyone playing the game knew the rules and the score - so no harm, no foul." He looked back up at me, his face earnest and open. "I thought maybe, someday, things would change between us. But if not, it was all still good, you know?"

He was right; we'd been headed this way for years. Years of avoiding the obvious, years of looking anywhere but at each other. "So, Sandburg."

"Yeah, Jim?"

"If this isn't about sex, then..."

"It's about us. You and me. Goes way beyond sex."

I looked at my watch. Twenty minutes until the shift relief got here and Sandburg and I could leave -- could go home. "But we get to the sex part sometime, right?"

He snorted. "Hey, man, seems like I remember a House Rule about sex in the loft. Not that it ever applied to you, of course. However," Sandburg said, looking at me speculatively, "we aren't in the loft right now, and the only rule I remember about the truck is about muddy shoes." He held up a foot for my inspection. "No mud on my shoes. So no rules in effect right now."

"We're at work, Sandburg. On the clock, here."

"Well, one of us is," he said in his most reasonable tone. "I don't actually get paid to do this, so it can't really be considered a job, right? I mean, how would this really impact my next performance review? I don't get a raise or something?"

I turned to stare at him and he grinned and moved a little closer. "So, therefore, I must do this for some other reason. Like, say, the fringe benefits?" He wiggled his eyebrows at me.

He was trying to annoy me. But I wanted those hands, that mouth, that voice, the entire, often aggravating, package that was Blair Sandburg and I wanted it with a possessive fierceness that surprised me. And it occurred to me that I was going to get what I wanted, and very soon. "You ever done this before?"

He smirked. "Are you asking for advice or looking to give it?"

"Jesus, you're an annoying little shit, you know that?"

"Do you talk to all of your dates like this, Jim? Because, you know, I am not feeling, like, love vibes from this whole conversation. It might explain the lack of second date opportunities in your life, man."

"You are not my date, Sandburg."

"No, I think we skipped right past the dating part." He laughed. "Oh, man, I've thought about this before. What it would be like to have sex as a sentinel -- or with a sentinel. How a sentinel would use his senses to focus in on his partner."

I couldn't help but lash out, just a bit. "You've probably already written a chapter on it."

"Nah," he said, as he ran the rough pad of his thumb over the back of my hand, "I haven't written that yet. I've just dreamed about it -- about you -- and some pretty hot dreams they are, man."

I closed my eyes. Sandburg had been dreaming about me. "Sounds like a kink to me, Sandburg. Thought you didn't have any." I opened my eyes when I felt him move even closer.

He laughed softly. "Well, that might have been an obfuscation." He turned and leaned forward, slowly, flipped open the top two buttons of my shirt and licked across my collarbone, his tongue warm, wet and firm. "You and me, in your truck? That might be a really big kink. I think we should test that theory, man, right here and right now."

His last comment, with the words "test" and "theory" in it, effectively stripped away the warm haze of pleasure that had been sliding over me. I sat up with a jerk. "I am not your god damned lab rat, Sandburg, and I am not going to put up with some kind of test--"

My sudden movement had shifted him backward and his head hit the windshield with a thunk. "Owwww! Chill out!" He sat back up, rubbing his head, alternating between wincing and glaring at me. "You are such a paranoid bastard. Way to kill a mood, Jim." He sighed. "How many times are we going to have this conversation? I thought we were past this, man, I thought we'd learned."

I gripped the steering wheel again, staring straight ahead: staring anywhere other than his troubled blue eyes. Somehow the night had gone spinning out of my control, opening up issues and ideas that I was profoundly uncomfortable with. I shifted on the seat, trying to ease the hot, tense ache in my cock and balls. Okay, only some parts of me weren't on board with the idea of sex and Sandburg. Some parts seemed to like the idea just fine. I shuddered and brought my fingers up to rub my eyes. Something about the phrase "sex and Sandburg" made me shiver and I couldn't tell if it was in delight or terror.

Before I could reply, I caught the flash of headlights in the rear-view mirror as a car turned onto the street. The police radio crackled with static and then Brown's voice boomed out. "Good evening, gentlemen; those of you who were lucky enough to draw the first shift in tonight's stakeout are now officially off-duty. Those of us not possessing enough clout with the captain to avoid the after midnight shift, also known as the "freeze your ass off shift," are here to take over."

Both Sandburg and I rolled our eyes at Brown's dramatics. I picked up the mic and answered. "Roger that, H. It's been quiet."

"Unlike last night, and the night before that, and the night before that, and the--"

"Just like that, H." I watched as the car coasted to a stop behind me. Rafe was driving his fifteen-year-old BMW. I'd given him a hard time about a cop owning such a yuppie car and his comment had been three words: "heated seats, Ellison."

I held a hand up in salute, started the truck, waited for Sandburg to fasten his seatbelt and drove out of the area. I knew there wasn't a chance in hell that Sandburg had forgotten the previous conversation, and the longer he had to think about it, the worse the questions were going to be.

"Dinner?" I grunted. "My treat. Since you don't get paid for this and all."

"Preferably someplace very public, where you think I might avoid asking questions?" His arms were crossed and he was looking slightly amused.

I shrugged. "I was thinking someplace that they serve food, myself."

"Huh," he nodded to himself. "Just the right tone: humorous, casual, not too desperate to avoid the real subject, but--"

"Jesus, Sandburg. I try to be a nice guy - for once, okay? - and take you out for dinner after a stakeout and you have to analyze it. It's dinner, right? Just dinner."

"Right," he nodded. "Just dinner."

And with that he reached across and cupped his hand over my crotch and my still-hard cock throbbed and leapt at his hot, knowing touch. "I'm driving, do you mind?"

"Look, we need to talk about this before we go any further. A mistake here could be fatal--" He saw my shudder at the word and switched tactics. "I just want to make sure we're on the same page, Jim, that's all."

"You want to talk? Fine," I said, hitting the brakes and yanking the steering wheel. The truck skidded to a stop in a quiet alley, lit only by street lights at either end. They alley was deserted and still. "So let's talk, Sandburg."

As I had turned the corner, Sandburg had braced his feet against the firewall, grabbed the dashboard with one hand and the door arm rest with the other. Slowly, when he knew the truck was finally stopped, he drew in one long breath, and as he exhaled he unwrapped his hands from the arm rest and leaned back. He held up his hands, palm out, in front of him and took another deep breath in the patented Sandburg "I am letting this go" gesture.

I expected to be talked to death, or at least into starvation, and turned to him to set the ground rules for this discussion. But before I could speak I found myself yanked out from behind the steering wheel and pulled halfway across the bench seat, toward my aroused roommate. His firm lips were warm and dry and moving across mine, placing small kisses at the corner of my mouth, across my jaw, before he decisively latched on to my lips.

When I had kissed him before he had been too surprised to respond. But now he was primed and ready. He threw himself into the kiss with enthusiasm and energy. I discovered something that I suspected women -- and hell, apparently maybe even men -- on several continents knew - an aroused Blair Sandburg was all hands and mouth, and he used them all to exhort, exclaim and encourage, by word and touch. He unbuttoned my shirt in a frenzy, his square, strong, masculine hands stroked and kneaded and caressed me and his lips were warm and slightly moist as he spoke words against my skin, words that seemed to penetrate the flesh directly and take up residence inside the center of my bones.

"Ah, Jim, man, you are so beautiful, so perfect, you feel so good, your skin is so smooth. Such contained power in your body, and it is such a turn-on to put my hands here," he put his hands flat on my chest, his thumbs lightly stroking my nipples, "and feel your body tremble for me, man, for me."

My hands slid into his hair and tightened as I arched against him. It was a sensory cascade that I had not expected, had not dreamed even existed. His hair was soft and springy, the texture complicated, and I could have zoned on that alone except there was the rest of him here, that mouth and those hands, touching me, stroking me, speaking to me, engaging taste and scent and sight and sound.

"Stay here with me man, stay," he said and his lips came back to mine and his voice was finally -- finally! -- silent and only his hands and his lips spoke for him, expressive as ever his voice was.

A deep, primitive portion of my brain awoke and began to catalog sensations -- there were textures of Blair Sandburg that I had not known before, this smooth patch of skin on the nape of his neck and this, the crisp, wiry hair on his chest and this, his heartbeat, usually familiar and calming, now pounding against me, not in fear or terror, but in arousal and sheer want for me. I pulled his shirts off and ran my hands over him, wanting to feel every inch, to know every inch and every texture, but too aroused and impatient to take the time to map his every contour in detail. That would come later, I thought with great satisfaction.

For now, this was Sandburg, my Guide, my Blair, mine, and I must have been saying that out loud because Blair pulled his lips away from mine for air and the power of speech and was answering. "Yes, yours, take what you need, take, Jim, touch me.. ahhh, yes, like that... so good... yes, there, just like that, your hands are so amazing..."

His words stopped abruptly as I unfastened his pants and slid my hands inside his boxers, along the smooth contour of his ass and hips and I felt his muscles bunch and tense. He was still straddling me, the position effectively keeping me from removing his pants entirely, but I pulled them down as far as I could, exposing his ass and beautiful, aroused, engorged cock.

He gripped my shoulders, hard, his hands rhythmically flexing as I stroked his hips and his body moved against me. He shut his eyes and tilted his head back, mouth slightly open, and I found myself growling slightly. I leaned forward and began to taste textures that had been hidden from me before - the soft, almost delicate skin at his hip, the sheer essence of Blair in the musk in the curls around the base of his cock. I touched the tip of his cock with my tongue and he yelped and pulled back.

"Oh, no no no, it's gonna be over real quick here, and not without you, man, not without you, it's my turn to see and touch and taste..." He slid his legs back and braced himself on the seat, reaching for my pants with needy, fumbling fingers. I smiled at his eagerness and helped him unfasten my pants and lifted my ass to slide my pants to my knees.

There was a moment of silence as he looked at me, then he placed both hands on my chest and slowly trailed them down to my cock, which was pointed straight at him. "Ahh, Jim," he said, his voice low and rich and smoky. "I've wanted to see this, I've needed to see this, to touch you." I shuddered as the lust and want in his voice seemed to lightly caress my skin before it -- and his hands -- wrapped around my dick.

"Blair," I said thickly, the only word I could contribute to the conversation as sensation poured over me. I tensed. Since my senses had come on line, I'd been careful during sex, always making sure to keep things damped down, completely under control, but that was impossible with Sandburg -- I was too used to using him as my focus, to wrapping my senses around him, and right now that was creating a huge sensual feedback loop. My senses kept focusing in on Sandburg: the light flush on his skin; his dilated eyes, a thin ring of deep blue barely visible around the pupil; the elevated heart rate that I could see wit the pulsing his cock; the musk of arousal floating off of his skin. With each sense that gauged his arousal, my own arousal increased and it was becoming too much to hold on. I pushed up against him and moaned.

" 'Sokay, Jim, let it happen, dial it up, man, way up -- it's all good here. Remember, I'll catch you, I won't let you fall, you can trust me..." He kept up his monolog, centering me in the here and now, while he leaned sideways and rummaged through his backpack with one hand, spilling the contents all over the floor of the truck, "fuck, where is it? Damn, damn, damn..."

Finally he found what he was looking for and I heard a plastic cap snap open and then smelled an undertone of scent: almonds, honey and a neutral oil -- the smell of the lotion he used on his hands.

My dick was already painfully hard and I shuddered. His square, powerful hands, now slippery and fragrant with lotion, were warm and so very knowing as he stroked me, first circling the sensitive head and then gripping tight as his hands slid down. I grabbed his hands to set the stroking rhythm; I wanted slow and sweet, I wanted the torture of feeling the need for release building and burning and I wanted to see those hands doing it to me.

He thrust his own hips, matching the pace of his hands, and his dick brushed against my hand. I let go of his hands to hold him, to stroke him as he was stroking me. Holding him was like holding a live wire and I felt the jolt of electric current, mainlined straight to the core of my body as we matched thrusts.

His head banged against the roof of the truck and he either didn't notice or didn't care; he certainly didn't stop talking. "Jim, oh Jim, c'mon, let's do this together, we'll both get there, this is so good...."

His voice trailed into a long, wordless moan as his movements became jerky and then he began saying my name, over and over, and I could feel his body tensing up. I could smell his imminent orgasm and it was almost too much input, a barrage of out-of-control sensual information. I wanted to see him come, to see his body caught in ecstasy and I tried to dial my senses down but it was too late for that. He shouted my name and I felt the first hot splash of his semen through my fingers, onto my chest, as he arched up and cried out and then I knew it was about to be over for me, too.

My hands were coated with come, the sharp salt musk mixing with Blair's natural scent and pheromones to make a custom-mixed primal perfume that went straight to the base of my spine and from there to my cock. I felt my balls drawing up tight and I reached for Blair's hand to slow him down. He pushed my hands away and I grabbed the edge of the seat. He wrapped both of his hands around me, using his thumb on the sensitive underside of my cock, his other hand firmly pumping me; all along he murmured my name, his voice and his scent focusing my senses on him while his hands lovingly stroked me into what felt like another dimension. The muscles in my back and legs locked and I snapped my eyes shut and saw flashes of color behind my eyelids. I bucked hard against him as I came, roaring as the sensation ripped through me.

He was whispering to me, his voice low and soothing and I pulled him up against me. I took a final deep gasp of air and let the aftershocks ripple through me, both his and mine, and we drifted together on the sensations.

Eventually I realized that we were semi-naked, sweaty and sticky in the rapidly cooling cab of my truck, parked in a quiet but public alley. Sandburg was silently slumped on top of me, almost bonelessly, held in place by my arms around him, his breath finally steady and even again, small hot puffs of air against my neck. I tightened my arms and enjoyed the sensation of a silent, sated Sandburg. He began to stir and I let go of him.

"Sandburg. C'mon, pull it together." I twisted and pushed with one shoulder and he slumped back onto the passenger side of the seat.

He turned his head to look at me, eyes barely open; then his eyes and his hand ran down my body, two forms of caress at once. "Hmmm."

"Home," I said, taking the noise as a question. "Food. Hot shower. Clean clothes." And my big bed, I thought.

"Mmmm," he said from his side of the truck as he stretched languorously. His two shirts were on the floor of the truck, buried under the junk he had pulled out of his backpack in his frantic search for lotion, his pants were pulled down his hips, his hair stood away from his head in every direction and his chest was coated in sweat and semen -- and he looked incredibly content, if mute.

I grinned. Sandburg seemed to have lost the ability to speak, and I had done it to him. I picked one of his shirts up off the floor and used it to clean off the parts of me that needed it the most, and then tossed it to him.

I started the truck and turned on the heat in deference to my always-cold and currently semi-naked partner. "Hey, Cyrano, you're coming up short on the verbal thing again." He flipped me off and I laughed out loud.

I had thought that this would be a mistake, that any change in our precarious relationship balance would be for the worse; but the warm, solid, currently inarticulate presence beside me felt closer than he had in months, my sense of contact with him bright and clear and right, as though we had just made a new and essential connection between us. At that moment, I didn't care if it was Sentinel-and-Guide thing or a Jim-and-Blair thing; it was just us, as simple and as complicated as that could be. He was silent but smiling and I was laughing and smiling -- an all-around success, I thought, as I waited for him to pull on the cleaner of the two shirts and fasten his seatbelt.

And then we headed home.

End Cyrano de Sandburg by Rhyo: rhyolite@comcast.net

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