Author's webpage: http://bifictionalbedlam.slashcity.net/guests/gritkitty.htm

Author's notes: At this rate, I'm going to owe my firstborn to Wacot for all these titles and concepts... Thanks to Nestra for beta'ing and the DRV drones general wackiness.

Poster's note: I am posting this for a friend. I know the posting interface is going to destroy her lovely formatting, so if you wish, you can read the story on her website at the addy above. Please send all feedback to gritkitty@hotmail.com.

_._.Hazelnut Cinnamon Coffee with Real Cream._._

God invented coffee so people can drink cream.

The odd comment returned to Jim as he measured coffee into the maker. Rich notes of cinnamon and hazelnut hit the back of his nose, thick and stimulating and sweet. He poured in water, flicked the on button, and soon the smell turned faintly bitter as flavor and chemicals leached out of the ground beans and into hot water. Jim usually felt ruthlessly neutral about flavored coffee, but it smelled good, really good, certainly better than it had in Simon's office yesterday, when they'd shared a pot with a reluctant witness.

Scared under his defiance, the man had responded poorly to Jim and Simon's strong-arm measures. Then Sandburg moved in, all encouragement and low-key hustle, offering a cup of Banks' fancy coffee, with real cream. The man sipped from the mug Blair put in his hands, smiled, and uttered that strange observation about God and coffee. Sandburg belted out a laugh in response that seemed to come from his toes, uncensored and infectious, easing the tension. The man found some courage, and finished spilling his story by the time he reached the bottom of the cup.

Afterwards, Simon had given Blair the coffee, an opened pound bag, nearly full. Blair had insisted Jim stop by the store on the way home to pick up real half-and-half. Jim hadn't minded; it was an easy thing he could do, and cheap payment for the help.

The snooze alarm squalled from Sandburg's room for the second time in ten minutes, yanking Jim out of his reverie; he could hear sheets rustle, a faint whistle of passing air as an arm flailed, and the smack as a hand smashed the alarm into silence. More soft whispers of cloth, a faint, woody groan from the futon as weight shifted on it, and then the continued slow, soft exhalations from Blair.

Enough of that, thought Jim. He entered Sandburg's room. "Hey, Van Winkle, get out of bed, or all the fish'll be gone before we get there."

Blair muttered some subterranean malediction into his pillow and dug under his covers. Jim stepped to the end of the bed and began pulling the stack of blankets and sheets and quilt. Blair's noises of irritated protest increased in volume as the receding warmth exposed more of his skin to the cool, morning air.

"Ohhh, you are so fucking evil, man. It's five. In the morning. No one should be awake at this unholy hour." He glared at Jim, eyes screwed up and annoyed behind chaotic hair.

"You gave me permission last night, Chief," Jim said calmly as he roughly balled the bedclothes and set them on the end of the futon. "You said I could use whatever means were necessary, up to and including explosives, as I recall."

"I was on drugs, I swear." Blair reached for the knot of blankets.

"Ah-ah-ah, Sandburg. We're going fishing." He grabbed a warm, hairy ankle. "I've got coffee."

"Coffee?" Faint hope for salvation widened Blair's eyes, and he stopped fighting for the covers.

Jim released the ankle. "Remember, we've got real cream, too."

Blair grunted, a noise that could've meant anything from oh, yeah? to screw you, swung his legs to the floor, and sat up. He rubbed his eyes with both fists, then scrubbed his hair with fingertips, rousing the curls to new levels of riot.

"Get a move on, Chief. I'm leaving in twenty, with or without you."

In the kitchen, Jim found some mercy for the man and readied a mug full of fresh brew, setting out a spoon and the carton of cream next to it on the counter. Blair emerged from his den as if drawn by his nose, steering half-blind and unerringly for the cup. He poured his own cream -- a good amount -- and reverently took the cup in two hands, bringing it to his lips and sipping loudly.

"Ohhh, god, that's good," he groaned, and swilled more, heedless of the heat. Eyes closed, Blair slurped enthusiastically. Jim could hear the trickle of liquid all the way down to his stomach. Jim's head tilted as he watched the eyelids twitch, thick lashes on pale cheeks; he startled when Blair's eyes snapped opened, all happy and blue, and said, "Mmmmm. I think I love you, man."

"Yeah, well, I'm not picking out china patterns," Jim muttered. He felt a vague sense of unease, which stirred a sudden -- and irrational -- irritability. He'd woken so calmly in pale, dawn light, gently buzzing with anticipation for a tranquil day in a leafy forest, the white-noise burble of running water, and time spent with his odd best friend in a quiet place. That peaceful feeling had evaporated, seemingly because Blair's simple act of drinking coffee built a weird tension in him, an oddly pleasant friction he felt surge to life in the air between him and Sandburg's hedonistic consumption.

Blair poured coffee in his half-empty cup, adding more cream. Jim frowned and said, "Hey, save some of that for me."

"Uh-uh," Blair shook his head slowly. He drank, then tilted the cup away so the rim still touched his lower lip. His eyes closed again, and his mouth slowly stretched in a long, lazy, close-lipped smile. His cheeks flushed. His brow smoothed. Jim could hear his heart-rate speed up and level out, tripping lightly; hear his breath slow and deepen.

Blair opened his eyes, pupils bottomless and black, irises a widening rim of dark blue suede as the black slowly constricted in growing morning light. Then he sighed, a sound so rooted in the sensation of some physical pleasure that Jim abruptly turned to avoid the display, swallowing a surfeit of anticipation and spit, suddenly aware how his own lungs expanded with the same appreciative gusto his roommate exhibited. Jim regulated his respiration to exhale the sigh inaudibly, disquieted that he hadn't yet poured his own coffee, hadn't been thinking or yearning for coffee as the sensations blew though him.

Christ, thought Jim, fumbling for a cup to fix his own beverage. Sandburg had just turned the ingestion of caffeine into a wanton example of performance art. Jim focused on filling his mug without spilling, embarrassed that he'd watched that show with enthralled intent, and unsettled that he'd enjoyed how watching stoked a frisson of...of... Jim's mind groped for a word to describe that electric, uncomfortable, intangible thing he'd felt -- still felt -- as he'd watched Blair, but each one that seemed pertinent also seemed inappropriate when applied to his roommate, and quickly slid away.

His back safely shielding him from Blair, Jim said dryly, "You want a cigarette after all that, Chief?"

He heard another sigh, a regretful sound. "God, this shit is sooo bad for you, but tastes sooo good."

"Coffee?"

"Coffee with cream." Another noisy sip. "Harrison was right. Totally. That kid knows his gastronomic pleasures."

"Just so you're awake."

"Ho, yeah. Another cup of this and I'll be ready for handstands, man."

"Good. Now go get ready so we can hit the road."

Jim added cream. He stirred the fulsome billows of velvety white explosions in the black of his coffee until the color smoothed to a uniform, creamy tan. He turned around, leaned against the counter. Blair looked normal now. Awake, aware, rumpled in an old pocket tee shirt and faded boxers and that insane hair.

"You're not dressed yet."

"In a minute, in a minute. I'm not finished yet. This is, like, smelling the roses."

Jim shrugged, then sipped. The coffee incorporated a faint sweetness from the lactose in the cream, thinned the fatty clouds, mixing with them so the coffee flavor was enhanced and carried to the furthest recess of his sinuses. He didn't realize he'd closed his eyes until he felt Blair's hand on his arm, and snapped them open.

"Jim? Jim? You there, man?"

"I'm here, I'm here." He shook off the hand, mildly unsettled by the touch -- unease a strange sensation in and of itself since he usually drew such comfort from Blair's fingertips. "I'm just enjoying, okay? Or is a law that only you can go orgasmic over your morning fix of caffeine?"

Blair looked pained. "If that's orgasmic for you, no wonder you don't get second dates. Shit, I thought you'd checked into la-la land."

"Just go get ready." Jim set down his coffee and drew himself to his full height. "Now."

Blair seemed unimpressed. "Sure. Fine. On it." He retreated to his room, coffee cup in hand.

Jim tracked him aurally, just enough to tell he was dressing, not slipping back into bed despite the caffeine. Then, he relaxed his senses to a comfortable 'parade rest' that filtered out all those mundane, normal, expected sounds and breezes and shadows, keeping his senses neutral and loose, all except for taste. He focused on his mouth, and re-tasted the first sip of coffee lingering all savory and sweet and bitter on his tongue. Funny how good the flavored stuff tasted this morning; he usually passed it up, but somehow, it fit into the ambient smells and tastes of the loft. Or maybe it was just because Blair enjoyed it so much.

He picked up his mug and savored another infusion of the richness and the kick.

__.__.__

_._.Maxwell House Instant Coffee._._

The weekend had neared perfection.

Jim and Blair had bantered, fished, drank beer, hiked; endured bug bites and sunburn and a hard rain on Sunday; shared quietude around a small, snapping fire and small gems of memories, a collection of stories from childhood, anecdotes about jobs, gentle regrets. Only a mildly uncomfortable awareness of Jim had shifted the experience off the center.

Jim's proximity felt like a fecund island in a sterile ocean of solitude out here in the woods, sustenance for a man who preferred the bustle of humanity all around. Food, harvest, bounty and festival, all in one, and Blair wondered about how one man could seem like enough when Blair thrived on variety in his environment. Finding the satisfaction he did in Jim's company was a curious concept, and it dogged Blair, denying him a perfect camping experience and pushing the limits of his imagination to conjure all the ramifications what that satisfaction could mean for Blair as well as Jim.

Still, Blair had no complaints as the truck pulled up to a stop outside the loft, home. It was a good feeling, coming home; good to mentally finger up and down the brand new memory of a really good time because somehow, comparing a completed vacation and a tired, happy return home enhanced both concepts.

They unloaded the truck, dumping packs and gear on the living room floor, shucking outerwear, taking turns at the bathroom. Motivated by hunger, Blair foraged in the refrigerator, finding leftover vegetable korma and one last piece of naan. He tossed the flat bread into the microwave like a frisbee and nuked it for half a minute before he covered it with cold, curried vegetables, rolled it up like a burrito, and took a bite.

"Mm, that smells good," said Jim as he emerged from the bathroom.

"It is," Blair mumbled.

"I don't suppose there's any left."

"Uh-uh. Sorry."

Jim stepped close. "Gimme a bite, then."

Blair shrugged. "M'kay." He held up the makeshift roll, yellow sauce welling here and there through the fingers of his fist, hoping faintly the mess would put Jim off. Jim didn't take the offered food; instead, he wrapped his hand around Blair's, pulled it up as he leaned down, took the top of rolled nan into his mouth, and bit. Teeth still buried in the bread and sauce, he made a surprised little 'm'mm' sound deep in his throat, and hitched his head forward for another inch of the rolled up Indian food, biting it off cleanly. He released Blair's sticky hand and straightened, busily chewing the huge mouthful.

"I said a bite, not the whole damned thing, man," complained Blair. He looked balefully at the strip-mined remains of his snack because he didn't want to look at Jim any more, Jim with his jaw working, and a dreamily half-lidded, food-induced bliss on his face. Contemplating the ravaged mess in his hand was little better. Blair's stomach continued whining for food, and all he could think of was how Jim's mouth had been all over that bread.

Jim said something unintelligible, the tone amused. He smiled, all lopsided with one cheek full of food.

"Here I am, trying to put up a good show of altruism, and you have to nail my generosity like a pack of starving wolves. Poor form, Jim." Blair suddenly decided hunger overruled aversion to Jim Ellison's spit and shoved the rest of the bread and vegetables and sauce into his mouth. Then he licked the palm of his hand. He chewed, swallowed, and groused, "Shit. I'm still hungry."

Jim chucked deeply and began cleaning up the camping gear.

__.__.__

Monday morning demanded a quiet respect from Sandburg; he gave it willingly, moving behind Jim slowly and quietly into the Cascade Police Department building. He had energy for little more, feeling tired and empty and not a little passively angry. Post-fantastic-vacation letdown, he supposed. And oh, it had been superb, one of those unexpectedly delightful experiences that lingered in the memory, improving with age so you could drag out in later years and say, "Hey, remember that fishing trip we took three years ago? You know, the one where I used hot stones to bake that fish you caught and it was really good and we hiked that hill and took some pictures and saw that herd of deer and listened to the coyotes and it rained on Sunday and we drank all that beer and..." A smile slipped under the radar, just thinking about future reminiscing.

And then he recalled how they'd returned home, where Jim had taken a bite of his korma, a big, wet, deliberate, sloppy bite of Blair's food that seemed just like a big, wet, deliberate, sloppy kiss. Blair was still thinking hard about that one. His smile faded.

Simon opened the door to his office and called across the early morning hush of the bullpen before Blair settled further into that train of thought.

"Sandburg. Where's Ellison?"

He glanced back. "Getting coffee, I think."

"I need to see you both, now."

"Can I take off my coat first?"

Simon's face clenched into that annoyed twist that made him look like he'd just smelled something socially unacceptable, an expression Sandburg perceived as half affection, half exasperation. "Just the coat, Sandburg. Your clothes are bad but I really don't want to see what's under them." The door closed.

He hung up his coat, humming atonally under his breath, then sat at his desk while he waited for Jim to arrive. Sandburg fingered the top folder of a stack of paperwork on his desk, the ebullient worker bee in him calculating just how much he could get done in the next five minutes while Jim moseyed over coffee in the break room. Blair dawdled despite the enthusiasm of a well-developed work ethic, reluctant to dive into work because the rest of his brain felt subdued this morning by the whole Jim-ate-my-korma episode.

Suspicions and doubt eroded his dwindling sense of well being as he sat at his desk in Major Crimes. They had politely stood aside during the weekend, allowing for a bang-up good time, but that was the problem -- the weekend was over, just a memory, and no protection from Blair's Tilt-o-Whirl of troubled mind. Surrounded by the sleepy pace of the police department on start of a slow Monday, doubt and suspicion crowded close, whispering all sorts of things in his ear.

You could have talked to Jim.

You could have been honest and corrected Jim's misunderstanding that the last Terry you'd gotten lucky with was 'Terry' short for 'Terrance', not 'Teresa'. You could have confessed that you'd only gone out with Terry because he was tall and buff. Like Jim.

You could have been brave for a change.

Smack! Blair slapped his open hand down on the desk; he turned his face and felt a pissed-off expression twist his features. From across the room, Joel looked up, mild concern visible in the wrinkle of his brow. Blair shrugged and canted an irritated glance at the stack of papers on his desk, a silent explanation. The subterfuge worked; Joel grinned, silently commiserated, and withdrew his attention. Blair laughed bitterly at himself, a silent, scathing burn of self-ridicule. He'd been as surprised as Joel at the sudden noise his hand had made.

Just leave it. Bury it, burn it, lose it. He wiggled deeper into his chair, rested his palms on his thighs as he closed his eyes, and sipped down a deep breath, held it for five heartbeats, then blew it out with a silent load of anger, soft as a sigh.

He opened his eyes, resettled his glasses, and ran a hand over his hair to the low ponytail before picking up a pen. The weekend, the tension, and the anger all receded. He reached for a manila file-folder.

The calm remained unshakable until Jim entered the room, fifteen minutes later. Suspicion began its susurrant drone in Blair's head, husking "No straight man in Western culture touches other men as much as he touches men. No, not men, just you. Jim touches you, repeatedly, every day, and you let him, and he knows you let him. He looks at you. He listens to you. He could be gay; he could be attracted to you." Doubts followed, a panicked litany of insecurities: "He can't be gay. Or bisexual. Or attracted to me. He's a breathing, gliding, power of nature; what do I have to offer him?"

"Hey, someone brought in donuts," said Jim. He held one, huge teeth marks and broken circle evident. "You want one?"

"Not in this lifetime." He watched disdainfully as Jim devoured another swath of fried pastry. "Oh, Simon wants us. Now, he said."

Jim nodded, still chewing. "Let's go, Chief. Wouldn't want to keep him waiting, now, would we?"

In the office, Blair could smell the residual scent of Simon's first cigar of the day. He settled his weight on the table as Simon began talking.

"Bad news. We took down Rodriquez over the weekend, but the bust went bad so now the evidence is tainted. We're back to needing an eye witness."

Blair watched Jim shake his head. "All we got is that Harrison kid."

"A uniform is bringing him in now. I'm hoping you guys can use your pull with the kid to get him to agree."

"Agree to testify? Simon, you've got to be kidding, right?"

"Do I look like I'm kidding?" Simon struck a pose of glacial solemnity, then relaxed. "Blair, I know he won't like it, but it's the only way to put this creep away."

Blair opened his mouth to protest more, but closed it when someone knocked at the door, then opened it.

When he entered Simon's office, flanked by a tall cop, Walter Harrison looked like a storm cloud on a leash, all scowls and bluster, prevented from bolting by the firm grip the cop held just above his elbow. Simon waved the officer away. When the door closed, he said, "Sorry about that."

"I bet." The young man stood stiffly by the closed door, hand covering the opposite arm where the cop had clasped him. "I want to go now."

"We need your help, Walter," said Jim.

"Harrison. I told you last time. It's Harrison."

Blair clamped down on a wince, shooting a frown at Jim, who tilted his head in response, a reluctantly apologetic show of neck.

"We need your help, Harrison," Jim repeated, trying again. "Julio Rodriquez will walk from this charge if we don't nail him with an eye witness."

"Eye witness. You mean actual testimony, don't you?" He glowered, and then exploded. "I gave you my statement! You said you wouldn't need anything else from me; hell, I thought that you'd have that asshole in jail by now!"

"It didn't work out that way, Harrison," said Simon. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry don't fucking cut it! Rodriquez can have me killed, like that!" He snapped his fingers in Simon's face. Simon held steady.

"He can't have you killed if he's locked up," said Sandburg, his voice low and placating.

"That's bullshit. I know he's got connections. I've seen what he's done, what he's capable of."

"We can protect you," Jim said quickly. Blair heard impatience in Jim's voice, impatience he sensed was aimed at him, and knew that this time, he'd messed up somehow.

"Oh? How you gonna do that?" Harrison glared at the taller man.

"Witness protection. New city, new identity, new life."

"Maybe I don't want a new identity!" he railed. "Why do I have to put my life in a fucking blender? I didn't do anything wrong, except talk to you guys."

Blair sympathized. He did. But he also wanted that sick bastard off the streets, maybe as much as Simon and Jim did, even. Involuntarily, he looked at Simon, who caught his eye and nodded, a slight jerk of his dark head. Blair hopped up from where he'd leaned against the table and approached Harrison.

"You're right. You didn't do a thing wrong," he said soothingly. "It's rotten fucking luck, but it happened, man. It happened. And it ain't going away. You've got to deal with this before you can get on with your life."

Harrison frowned and put his hand over his eyes. He moaned, "I know. I really fucking hate this." He lowered his hand. "I don't suppose you've got more of that coffee."

Simon turned in his chair and said regretfully, "No, I ran out. All I've got is some instant Maxwell House. I've still got real cream left, though. You want some?"

"Shit," said Harrison, "I guess so."

Simon made the coffee while Sandburg eased the witness through his fear with alternating promises of protection and softly enthusiastic encouragements so he'd agree to appear in court. Blair knew that Walter Harrison was a punk with an attitude, but he also knew that Harrison had a silver lining that just needed a little push to find the courage to come out on top.

"Here." Blair handed Harrison a mug of muddy, instant coffee, and gripped his arm again, a friendly gesture that he let linger because he sensed the nervous man needed it. Harrison looked at him, dark eyes grateful, and Blair could see that silver lining shine through.

"Got more, Simon?" Blair held out his free hand and accepted his own cup of coffee before glancing up at Jim...and nearly dropped the cup. Blair had expected to see any number of things on Jim's face: distain for Harrison, disapproval for Blair's technique, maybe even satisfaction that things were going well, that Blair had been helpful, but instead, Blair saw...

...jealousy. Anger. Both centered in Jim's stare that Blair easily discerned was aimed at his hand on Harrison's arm. Granted, his face seemed quite stony; Blair doubted Harrison would notice, but he could see the tension like a scream in Jim's stance, and he knew Simon would see it too. Jim looked ready to launch himself at Harrison and Sandburg and start kicking serious ass. Blair frowned, and allowed his hand to remain in place past the time when he would have removed it if he'd never noticed Jim's sudden attitude.

"I want to talk about details. Where are you guys gonna put me, and stuff like that," said Harrison. "After that, well... Maybe I can do this. Maybe."

"Good," said Simon. He summoned his assistant and gave her a few swift instructions. "Here, she'll take you to see who you need to, and you can ask all the questions you want."

"You're doing the right thing, man. Really." Blair rubbed his hand reassuringly up and down Harrison's back. He could feel the tense muscles quiver, trying to relax, and took defiant pleasure in his ability to help calm the young man. Blair purposefully avoided looking at Jim until Harrison left with Simon's assistant and the door closed, then met the taller man's pale blue eyes with a virtuous serenity. The atmosphere remained thick and uncomfortable.

"What the hell was that?" Jim sounded pissed. His arms crossed over his chest, a deliberate movement of suppressed strength.

"Are you talking to me, Jim?" retorted Blair. He turned to face Jim, squarely, and let his own anger surge out. "Because if you are, what the hell do you mean, 'what the hell', huh? He's going to testify, isn't he?"

"Maybe!" accused Jim. "Christ, you were promising him the moon and stars! He'll probably bolt as soon as he hears what the real deal is."

"He needed reassurance! And a little respect, too, you know. I mean, you called him Walter! How stupid was that? He'd corrected you on that last Friday, man; it means something to him, it's his name, and if his file means anything, it's probably his most valuable possession. You can't ignore stuff like that."

Jim's arms unfolded, his brow furrowed. He shook his head as if he wasn't hearing correctly. "Stupid? How about the fantasy that he'd be safe once Rodriquez is in jail? Even he knew how idiotic that was, and he's just a punk addict, for Christ's sake."

"Hey! What's with the judgmental labels?"

Jim looked away. "I'm just calling 'em as I see 'em, Chief."

"Oh, that's such a load of crap!" Blair's arm sliced through the air, the edge of his hand smacking into his thigh. His leg stung. "This is really scary for him, and we're asking him a lot, you know. A whole fucking lot!"

"We're asking him to spend half an hour of his precious, druggie time wearing a tie and a jacket and telling the jury a story he knows by heart. He doesn't need a god-damned courtship and flowers and a new condo on the east coast."

"Jim." Simon said, his voice rumbling with warning that Blair heard, but ignored.

"What?!" Blair took several quick, edgy steps forward. "I was mentioning possibilities, man! Stuff I've heard you guys promise all the time! How is what I said any different than what you guys say? Or are you guys just blowing smoke? He's gonna have to give up his life for this!"

"Sandburg!" snapped Simon.

"I'm sorry, sir." He darted a quick glance back to Simon, sounding nothing like sorry, and everything like righteous. His empathy for the sacrifice of a man's life hit deep; he couldn't ignore it. "But I've heard this stuff before, and I know that he can get something good out of witness protection." Blair turned back to Jim, gesturing widely, forgetting he still had a cup of coffee in his hand. Hot liquid sloshed over his hand and spattered the carpet. "Can you tell me he won't need it? This is Julio Rodriquez we're talking about! How many murders has he gotten away with? Murders that you even know about?"

Jim seemed made of glass, Blair wondered if he'd feel smooth and cold to the touch. "If he'd made better choices, he'd never been in that house to witness the murder."

"And that means what, exactly?" Blair canted his head at Jim, teetering on the edge of a sarcastic diatribe and balancing, mostly. "That someone who uses drugs has no rights to his own life? Jeez, Jim, if he'd made different choices, you wouldn't have the chance to take that slime Rodriquez down right now! He's going to have to give up his friends, his family, his fucking name, and all for something good that won't ever come back to reward him!"

"He'll be alive, won't he?" Softly, cuttingly.

Blair whirled around, nearly snarling with anger. He saw Simon lean back, reflexively, as if stunned by what he saw on the young man's face.

"I've got to take a walk," muttered Blair. He placed his clenched fist on Simon's desk and made brief eye contact with the captain. "Sorry about the spilled coffee, sir." He took a too-large mouthful before setting the cup on Simon's desk and storming out the door.

The bitter fluid flooded his mouth, too much to swallow at once. It punched his tongue with a revolting combination of tastes: harsh caffeine, flat chemicals, and souring cream.

__.__.__

_._._Swiss Chocolate Almond Roast, whole bean_._._

Fury and ashes. The first would flare, hot and consuming, leaving the second scattered in a bitter wake of remorse.

Good at guilt, ain'tcha, Jimmy?

The voice came from the past but had not faded, ringing in his memory as clearly as it'd rung out one hot summer day years ago.

James. James had said that. They'd been friends, Jimmy and James, that summer after high school, the kind of friends that formed overnight with quicksilver simpatico. In Jimmy and James' case, it had come about through a combination of passion for motorcycles and disdain for fathers and a sudden, secret attraction for each other that had raced straight over friendship into lust.

Jim had lost his virginity with a saucy high school girl in his junior year. He'd had sex with two more girls during his senior year, and he'd loved it, loved sex, and looked forward to exploring more of this wonderful sport with women. But then, James.

Beautiful, feral James. He was nearly tall as Jim, and well-formed, all angles where Jim was fulsome muscle. Thick, sable hair. Eyes so dark they looked black, except Jim could see the variations of color there, subtle and rich and engrossing.

"C'mon, Jimmy, let's go for a ride," he'd roar over the clatter and bang of his Harley's voice. He'd show up at any time of the day or night, infuriating Jim's father, thrilling his brother Steve, scandalizing the housekeeper. Jim would jump on the back without a thought; once, he'd been half-undressed for bed -- it was eleven o'clock -- but jumped on anyhow, forgetting he wore only dirty jeans and white socks. Summer air had been a sultry caress as it rushed past his bare skin, and James' denim jacket had radiated rough warmth into his chest as he hung on tight and James opened the throttle.

Wild, wild James. There had been hot, uncompromising kissing while straddling that bike, hands clambering for purchase on firm chests and bony shoulders. Soon, there had been hand-jobs, all dry friction and short, intense orgasms in the garage, at James' uncle's house. Then they had taken long rides into the country, breaking for lunches and sloppy, nasty blowjobs in lonely fields.

Six weeks of utter bliss for Jim Ellison, until the uncle found out. Jim barely survived the mortification of that discovery, and he knew he couldn't live through the scathing pain of his father's reaction should he find out, too, so when James' uncle made plans to ship the boy back to his parents, Jim accepted it numbly and without protest.

James called him a coward.

"I'm going to be eighteen in four months, and then they can just go fuck off, all of them! We'll leave here, go to New York, or LA, or, or, shit, anywhere you want to go."

Jim had felt guilt, but also a bite of responsibility. If James ran away from home, he'd be giving up an education he'd planned for his entire high school career, working hard to maintain the grades he'd need to attend art school. He had powerful, raw talent, an ability that awed Jim. Jim felt he'd be responsible for somehow ruining a chance for that gift to flower if he got swept away in the passionate theater of lovers on the run.

He'd loved James with tenacious, youthful enthusiasm, but he also had a core, deep down, that was older than his body, older and wiser -- he had to listen to it.

And so, he had parted from James.

Through his adult years, he'd continued to enjoy the company of women in his bed with as much enthusiasm as he'd had in high school. As for men, there had been few others that had captured his affection, but he only ever acted on that feeling with one, just before he joined the covert ops. The affair had lasted a weekend, satisfying and sweet. Jim refused to regret it, and he didn't on a basic level, but he had to admit to himself that convenience and appearances did matter to him. It was a scary admission to lay on a marriage, but knew that was a simplistic reason and an unfair excuse; when they'd married, he'd loved Carolyn, he really had.

He wanted to do well. He wanted to be right. And he'd always had a bitch of a time swimming against the current of main cultural flow. Something in him rebelled and twisted at the thought of flouting conventions. He figured it made him a better man, somehow a righteous man. And most times, a lonely one, too.

Jim stood outside the Cascade PD building as memories and feelings flickered through his mind. He purposefully avoided thoughts of the disaster he'd just lived in Simon's office, but it wasn't a perfect avoidance, for he felt the sick wash of shame in response to the acid sear of Sandburg's anger. He was old friends with shame, but that didn't make them comfortable companions, leaning together against the rough wall next to the doors of the building. Wan sunlight cast a shadow of Jim's body against the wall. He thought a shadow would be a fitting form for shame. And he wondered how long he'd have to endure it. He had suspicions. It had something to do with choice, he was sure, an act of volition that would move him closer...or further...from shame.

Jim began to laugh, softly. He rested his head back against the wall, letting it drop back and gently thump, feeling the texture of the building on his scalp keenly because his hair had thinned in the past few years. Older. Wiser? Hardly. Wise men danced around issues less than they confronted them, dealt with them, and what was Jim doing now but dancing a slow cha-cha with his heart?

Blair Sandburg tripped every ley line in Jim. Every last one. And yet Jim sat on that exhilaration, sublimated it under a noble responsibility he felt for the city at large, a responsibility to take care of things, and that was exactly what twisted at the root of his towering anger in Simon's office: Jim wanted Blair, but felt he shouldn't have him. Gay cops went against 'the way things are'. Jim felt as if he'd been somehow programmed to support 'the way things ought to be'.

Fear of failure on either front made him freeze and hold Blair at arm's length, but no closer. Made him reach for Blair, but only with his fingertips. Made him leap without looking, just to keep Blair safe, made him nearly burst his heart to keep the city safe, and made him nearly insane with the dichotomy. Or at least lose his cool in front of the captain. Smooth.

Jim raised his head from the wall and looked for Blair. Sandburg had stormed out of the precinct, ostensibly for a walk, but Jim was sure he had followed up on his declaration. Jim cast his gaze out in progressively wider arcs at greater distances. He sampled the area around him, taking visual snapshots of the territory, quickly scanning them in his brain, automatically filtering them for any small piece that might say 'Blair'.

There. Across the street, almost to the next block, a patch of kinked, varicolored brown, slanted down in a familiar angle. Jim re-tuned his sight and saw the man. Blair stood staring moodily into a storefront, one of the ubiquitous coffee shops that permeated Cascade. His hands were planted firmly in his front pockets. He frowned. Slouched. And looked unhappy.

Jim sighed, a careful movement around his heart. It was easy to think, outside of the moment. Jim and Blair had entered Simon's office after a weekend so enjoyable, so companionable, and so fraught with sexual tension that Jim hardly knew what to do. He wanted sex, or a fight, or just something to break the pressure that encircled him, a pressure comprised of affection and need and lust. 'Something' had walked into Simon's door: a tainted, smaller, younger copy of James. A James that Blair seemed to enjoy touching, no problem if he was a junkie, hell no!

And that was all it took to make Jim lose whatever sanity he thought he owned.

Jimmy, you think too much. His father said that to him as a kid, many times. For once, Jim had to agree.

Down the street, where Jim's attention focused so intently, Blair walked into the shop. Jim concentrated, reaching for scraps of light behind that store window, finding enough so he could see Blair purchase something in a small, white bag, and a cup with a lid. He remerged from the store, and walked slowly down the sidewalk back to the police station, small bundle under one arm, brown paper cup in his opposite hand.

The sun flexed and made a better effort at shining as it reached as high as it could reach in Cascade's sky. The light helped Jim's sight; he could just see the purple teabag tag dangling down the side of Blair's cup, as well as the small label on the bundle, Swiss Chocolate Almond Roast, whole bean. His gaze clambered up, finding purchase in the soft folds of Blair's red jacket, and then falling into the sun-sparked glory of that hair.

Brown. Hardly! Jim saw colors in that rainforest of luxury that put the expected, myriad tints of brown in the coffee house Blair just vacated to shame. Much of his hair was coffee bean brown, dark and ashy, a bit cool in tone, as if some strange blue lay in the shadow of that usually warm color. A few pale strands the color of an almond's interior clung to the top perimeter of his head, perhaps bleached by exposure to the sun and wind. There, behind his ears, the hair shaded darker, like bitter chocolate shavings, submitting to as many strands of pure black as had given up their pigment to the sun on top. Mocha, prosaic and stolid, provided a perfect playground for the exotic colors Jim saw in the waves around his face: copper, brass, cinnamon, nutmeg, curry and wheat and a smoky, reddish violet, just a few strands where the tones segued from warm to cool around the tops of his ears.

The colors almost talked to him as they drew nearer. Jim wished he knew what to say in response. He thought it had something to do with sign language, or maybe Braille, something to say in the dark, something to say in a bed, with skin and unspoken words.

Something real, and truthful, and brave. Something unbound by guilt. Or shame.

Blair's footfalls changed as he drew nearer the building, slowing and lighter, somehow, a subtle change of cadence that Jim identified as hesitation, scant as it was.

"Jim."

Jim nodded. "Nice walk?"

"Uh, no, actually. It really sucked." Blair shifted his weight from foot to foot. "You?"

"No, no walk. Not yet."

"So." Blair stopped. He tried again. "So, I stopped and got Simon some good flavored coffee."

"Uh huh. He ought to like that."

"I hope so. Look, Jim," said Blair as he stepped closer, "I think maybe we should go someplace and talk this out. I mean, things just need to be said, man. Maybe a few things need to be retracted, too. Redirected. Maybe redefined. Something."

Jim saw contradiction in Blair's face, fearful reluctance warring with yearning. Fear. Want. Fear. Want. A realization dawned suddenly bright, stabbing Jim's brain with clarity and insight. He saw on Blair's face what he himself felt roil within, and knew that Blair was a coward, too, and there, there was the bedrock of his anger: Blair was a coward, too. Just like him. Jim said, "There's really very little to say, Chief."

It was true. Jim knew it, had known it, but had run from it. Things needed to be done, not said. Blair or Jim had to take a first step, and now Jim knew Blair wouldn't take it; he was too ruled by fear. Jim would have to do it. He just needed to screw up his courage.

"I don't understand. Does this mean we're still mad at each other?"

Jim looked at him gravely. "I wouldn't presume anything about your anger, Sandburg."

"Excuse me?" Blair's stance shifted into something loose and dangerously ready for sudden movement.

"Look, I'm going to take my walk now. I'll be down at the," he hesitated, just a second. He didn't want Blair to know he'd been tracking him, so instead of the independent coffee shop he'd seen Blair patronize, he picked something commercial and bland, and said, "Starbucks, two blocks north." He gestured. "Give me some time, Chief. Then you can find me there."

"Like, how long, Jim? Five minutes? Half an hour? A week, a month, a year? Little help, man. I certainly don't want to presume anything about your timetable here."

"How long?" Jim's angry retort burst out, loud as a shout. "Good fucking question, Einstein. How long have you wanted --?" He clamped his mouth shut, glanced about, and continued his accusations in a passionate whisper. "How long have you wanted me but said nothing?"

"Want you?" Shock rounded Blair's eyes and mouth. He shook his head as if dazed. "Jim, what about your little display in there. Cats spatting over cream have nothing on you except they aren't total assholes and they don't get me in trouble with Simon!"

"Just --!" Jim bit off the rest of his retort. "Look, we can't talk here. Meet me at the Starbucks."

"Screw that, Jim," said Blair roughly. "You can find me at home if you want to talk so bad."

"No, wait." Jim caught Blair's arm, jerking him back. Flip of coin, flip of heart. The knowing roused him.

Blair aimed pure, angry hurt at him. He yanked his arm free, an abrupt move, and dropped his package. Fastened poorly, it burst open on the ground.

Beans exploded from the bag, a startling spatter of smooth, hard shells trembling with motion on the sidewalk, followed by a rich, pungent scent.

__.__.__

_._.Caramel Mocha with Whipped Cream._._

Blair was unskilled at retaining active anger.

He found Jim where he said he'd be, in the local Starbucks. Jim sat in a straight-backed chair at the back of the shop, looking too big for the slender wood legs. One hand rested on his thigh. The other curled around a tall, paper cup of coffee on the small, round table in front of him. He stared at the mass-printed mural on the opposite wall.

Blair took a chair from an adjacent table, set it down across from Jim, turned it around and straddled it. He folded his arms on the back and waited.

"I'm sorry about that. In Simon's office." Jim's voice sounded soft and sincere, but his eyes remained fixated on some spot over Blair's shoulder.

"Okay. I'm sorry, too." Blair kept his voice light, and faintly teasing. Humor had always been the best grease in their relationship. He shrugged, a small wriggle of shoulder inside his plaid jacket, and performed that placating sideways bob of head. "I, uh, I was way out of line."

Jim nodded silently, eyes focused on something distant, maybe nothing at all.

Blair stifled a sigh. Was it going to be that easy? That difficult? Or worse -- was it going to remain the same? During the yelling fight in Simon's office, he knew Jim had felt something under his skin, something close to the reality they'd both ignored for too long, and when Jim had nearly shouted it out on the street, Blair realized just how exhausted he had gotten from ignoring it for so long. He wished he knew some painless way to travel from point A to point B, but didn't. Emotionally weary, exasperated, he gestured to the beverage in Jim's hand. "So, what are you drinking?"

Jim frowned and looked at his cup. "I'm not sure. I just ordered it, because it was the special."

"Here. Let me look." Painless banter; easy. Blair took the tall cup from Jim's hand and held it up, trying to decipher the black grease-pencil marks written on the side, and failing. "Wow. This is worse than your handwriting, man." He brought the cup to his lips and cautiously sipped. "Hm. I think it's a caramel mocha. It's awfully sweet."

"Yeah?" Jim looked at him for the first time since Blair had walked into the coffee shop. He held out his hand, a silent request for the cup's return. Blair gave it back; Jim drew it to his mouth, swallowed. "It is sweet, but I kinda like it."

"Yeah, well, then again, you love junk food; fitness gurus around the world would have strokes if they knew what you put into that body," Blair said, then added softly, "And you do realize that this stuff is just expensive, caffeine-injected junk food." He felt thoughtful; he knew his last comment sounded thoughtful, even to his own ears, for while the words talked about junk food, his voice's timbre talked about 'that body'.

He waved his hand, a lazy, dismissive gesture. "Maybe it has to grow on you." A sudden, absurd thought intruded, a thought about reeds bending in the wind. He knew a penetrating clarity and felt suddenly light, exuberant. He would surrender; the how of it threatened to splatter all over his face with a huge grin, but he reined in the impulse and instead said, "Here. Let me try it again, see if I can't make some headway on the learning curve."

Jim slid the cup back across the small table that separated them. Blair picked up the cup and, thinking about Jim's teeth all over the korma in his hand last night, brought it to his lips slowly, pursing them to blow on the little hole of the plastic cup lid. He'd learned at an early age how his sex partners found his mouth alluring, from those chaste pecks at fourteen to the extended make-out and petting sessions of sixteen to the full-course banquet of all things oral he'd mastered before he was old enough to vote. Since he and Jim had both already sampled the coffee, they both knew the temperature fell within a comfortable temperature for drinking. However, Blair had no compunctions about fighting dirty, and he knew instinctively that although he was surrendering, he was fighting to get Jim to surrender, too.

Oh, yeah, thought Blair. This was long overdue; a crusade begun god knows how long ago (maybe the very first day?) that had flared into ugliness in Simon's office. Blair wanted this resolved to his satisfaction. Shamelessly, he formed his lips into that little 'oh' and blew once more.

He sipped. Slowly.

And sipped again, purposefully sloppy, and licked the caramel colored drips that flowed down the side of the cup, then licked the trail of sweet, creamy coffee that pearled and ran over his hand. Head bowed to his task, he swiveled his eyes to look up at Jim. The man appeared stunned, maybe even zoned out, but Blair saw his adam's apple convulse as he swallowed, and knew Jim wasn't zoning out from sensory focus. Not in the usual way, at least.

Jim cleared his throat. "That's my drink, Sandburg."

"You want it back?" Blair gave his face full rein to do the total innocent shtick; wide eyes, half-open mouth.

"Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do. I spent almost five bucks on that stuff. It's not my job to keep you in sweets, especially since you don't appreciate good junk food even when it walks up and bites you on the ass."

"You're cruel, man. String me out on sugar and then deny me my addiction. Amnesty International is gonna come banging on your door."

"Give me back my coffee, Chief." Jim reached for it; Blair hung on tight. Jim's hand slipped over Blair's fingers, catching on the tacky glue of coffee and syrup and spit like it was some bizarre flypaper. This time, Blair didn't rein in the smile; he thought of his sticky fingers as a Jim-trap, baited with pheromones and activated by touch to capture, not kill. Not yet, at least, and then only a little death.

"Just hand it over. Niiice and slow, Blair," said Jim. His voice swung low and dangerous, as if the innocent paper cup were a gun, as if the moment could suddenly explode. With a start, Blair realized the moment could very well explode, right in his pants.

How the hell had that hard-on snuck up on him like that? He couldn't deny the evidence; waiting impatiently just under the pedestal table, but damned if he remembered the interim process between flaccid and full-alert. Maybe it had been Jim's voice as he said niiiice and slow, Blair.

'Blair.' Jim had called him 'Blair', and there were no hospitals, hostage situations, or explosives involved. Blair swayed, just a little; black flecks danced around his vision, and he sucked in a sudden gulp of air. The prospect of fainting held little allure, but he didn't think it was that, but rather the obscene amounts of blood and oxygen that had migrated south of his belt in a manic rush, leaving his brain wanting for logical thought or words.

"Blair?" Both of Jim's hands encircled Blair's hands on the cup, trapping them between the warm coffee and Jim's warm palms. "Blair? You with me?"

Unhesitatingly, he said, "If you want me, Jim." Soberly. Humbly.

"Yeah. I do."

The fight had evaporated. Vanished, gone, dissipated in the thick, rich coffee-tainted atmosphere of Starbucks. Without fanfare or declarations, the war was over, and both sides had won. Their hands slowly came away from the paper cup, first Jim's, then Blair's. Blair noticed a last, long, swath of chocolate and coffee that described a spiral path down the length of his middle finger, dried to a thin paste.

He slid his finger into his mouth up to the last knuckle, and sucked it clean while staring at Jim. __.__.__

_._.Ethiopian Coffee._._

Jim admired bravery.

Blair's bravery had smelled like anxious sweat and musk as he'd sucked his middle finger clean of deliberately spilled coffee. When the pink, tongue-scrubbed fingertip emerged from between Blair's lips, Jim felt a jolt in his gut and caught a whiff of that same bravery emanating from his own crotch.

Bravery. Sex. Brave sex. Sandburg had the lion's heart after all.

Considering he sat with his dick throbbing under the table -- and if the smell rising off Blair meant anything, his dick was hard, too, -- the conversation flowed, quiet and calming. Jim finished his sweet, sweet coffee. The pressure eased in his pants; soon after, Blair suggested they return to work.

"Yeah, back to the grind, Chief." He pushed his chair back, stood as Blair did, taking his empty cup with him. At the door, he abruptly stopped and turned. Blair collided with him.

"Jeez, Jim. Watch the sudden immovable object impersonations. I almost got a bloody nose, man." Blair rubbed his nose.

"Sorry." Jim tossed the cup in the trash. "Uh, you want to go out tonight?"

"Out?"

"To dinner. Out to dinner. My treat."

Blair looked up at him. Jim read nothing in his features' repose; his face was blank like it could be sometimes. Jim found that null expression inscrutable and a little scary. A worldly half-smile emerged from the void. "Jim, you make it sound like a date."

Jim shrugged and half-smiled back. Blair's smile loosened and fell off his face as he waited for some response from Jim, but Jim had no intention of saying a damned thing. He wondered idly about this sudden sadistic streak, enjoying the close-up show of a humbled Sandburg's sudden grasp of an unexpected offer.

"Uh, okay. Jim. A date -- ah, dinner sounds good." Blair walked carefully around him and passed through the door. His voice sounding as careful as he moved, he repeated, "A dinner date, okay. Good. A date. With Jim. Yeah," and led them back to the police building where they worked with subdued efficiency for the rest of the day.

__.__.__

Sweet, scented smoke hit Jim hard as he opened the door to Sheba, a restaurant. It served Ethiopian food and, apparently, small flame pots of burning incense as well. Jim found the fragrance pungent but pleasurable.

"Oh, Jim, this is great." Blair turned, his eyes rapidly scanning the patrons, the dancing smoke, the wall hangings and statuary. He sniffed deeply. "That's...I know that scent. It's...it's...oh, I know, it's frankincense. M'm, smells just..." He paused. "It's not too much for you, is it, Jim? We don't have to eat here; we could find someplace else, really. Wouldn't want you to ingest something that'd ruin the mood, man."

"No. I'm good." Jim had chosen this restaurant because he knew Blair would like it, knew that good ethnic cuisine was one of those things that made Blair spark and hum with enthusiasm. Blair's quick offer of deferral alerted Jim that Blair knew he knew...and was willing to forego the fun for Jim's sake. Jim felt warmed by the implied understanding, and spoke affectionately. "Mood, Chief? We're worried about mood, here?"

"Well, yeah. Mood, music, food, it all ties in to a superior dining experience. You lay your money down, you want your money's worth."

"Yes, my money's worth, exactly." Knowing grin met knowing grin. As innuendo and tension got too big for the moment, Jim felt heat suffuse his face. He felt a compelling need to look anywhere except at the younger man, but just then, Blair dropped his eyes, and Jim felt strong.

A woman approached with two menus under her arm. "Two for dinner tonight?"

At Jim's nod, she gracefully indicated a table near the front bay window. Jim shook his head. "Could we sit in the back, please? On the couch?"

"Of course. This way."

Jim politely waited for Blair to precede him; Blair glanced up at him, amused knowledge readily evident. Jim felt like molten glass, transparent and languid, but it seemed Blair accepted his gallantry without rancor or ridicule. The steps he'd been using to dance around his heart seemed to work just fine now that he had a willing partner. Every clich was becoming an in-joke; every little gesture and word came loaded with more meaning as they moved deeper into this date, and at his core, Jim felt heavy with that palpable anticipation.

Settled, they each hid behind a tall menu. Jim felt odd, rooted deep in soft cushions at a low table, and floundered a bit, trying to situate himself gracefully on the edge so as to feel less like a drowning victim. After two full minutes of fidgeting, he acquiesced to the moment and settled back, purposefully relaxed. That was, after all, the point. Relax; enjoy the ambiance, the company. He lifted his eyes from the scrawl on the menu to track his company visually. Blair studied his menu with laser focus; he'd put on his glasses, and Jim had missed that while he'd pitched about on the mushy edge of couch cushions. Blair, studying: as comforting and familiar to Jim's eyes as his own hands.

"What do you think, Jim? Anything look good?"

Jim had no experience with this type of food, nor did he much care. He listened to Blair's monologue on the merits of various dishes with an ear to tone but not content.

"I trust you. Just order. You know what I like."

"I --. Okay, Jim." Blair bent his head to the menu once more. When the waitress came in search of their order, he gave it to her unhesitatingly, and she left.

"Vegetarian assortment, Chief?"

"That was for me. I got you some meat, you carnivore," he replied, his tone defensive. "Don't worry; wouldn't want you to languish from a lack of protein."

"You really carry this antagonism toward anything non-algae to a ridiculous extreme. I eat healthy."

Blair grinned. "Ignorance is bliss, man. You have no real concept of what's healthy. I will grant that you eat a hell of a lot better than your brothers in blue, but I'm not worried about that, not tonight." He waved his hand, flip-flop.

"Oh? So you're worried about something else?"

"Well, not worried, no; just looking out, making sure you've got the energy you need. You know, for a long night."

Jim snorted, covered his mouth as if he'd coughed. The server returned at that moment, bearing twin glasses of water; Jim took his and drank greedily. When she walked away again, he said, "Blair, you are a flirt. A bad flirt."

"This is hardly flirting, Jim, more like pre-flirting. And besides that, what's your point?"

"I guess I don't really have one. Frankly, the conversation is getting weird." He smiled as he said it, and tilted his glass at Blair: a salute. Blair nodded and smiled in return; it seemed he understood the homage and the strangeness.

A lull graced them. Jim looked around the restaurant. A couple sat at a table by the door, holding hands and gazing soulfully into each other's eyes through a twist of scented smoke. A group of young women twittered and flapped at the table in the storefront. Music melded and mellowed the sounds of sharp conversation and soft nothings and food preparation slowly trickling from the kitchen.

"Do you think Harrison will be okay?" asked Blair, his voice wondering and faintly worried. Jim felt no antagonism like he had during the morning meeting in Simon's office, nothing negative at all, not when Blair Sandburg was his date.

"What does your crystal ball say?"

Blair shrugged. "If he stays clean, he could do okay. I feel bad for the guy."

"Me, too. Believe it or not."

"Of course you care! I know you care, Jim; you care about people. Sometimes you're a total son of a bitch about showing it, but I know. I know."

Jim looked at his hands, pleased. "You don't really need to ask me, do you? You nailed it -- if he stays clean. If. Addictions are hard to overcome; they trip you up, play on your weaknesses, and some people never shake them."

"You sound like a father, Jim."

Jim nodded. "Thank you."

Blair chuckled. "It suits you, in a Nick at Nite sort of way."

"Oh?"

"Exactly. 'Oh'."

"Should I be insulted?"

"Hardly!" Blair's chuckle gained strength and turned into a belly-laugh.

__.__.__

Jim faced the platter of strange substances with a staunch heart and a grumbling void where his stomach should be. Laid out in clumps on spongy, bland-smelling bread, each food emitted an aroma that grabbed his stomach's unequivocal interest with an audible complaint.

Blair closed his eyes and sniffed, fanning the steam to his nose with his hand. "Ambrosia. Food fit for the gods."

"How about some forks, then?"

"C'mon, Jim, I told you; you scoop it up in the bread, and eat it with your fingers."

"They give me a fork in Chinese restaurants when I ask for one."

"Jim, c'mon! Give it a try. It's easy, here, look." Blair ripped off a wedge of bread and used it to pick up a gob of green-flecked paste. He tucked it into his mouth, chewed, and groaned. "Jim, this is sooo good. It's collard greens; you gotta try it, really. Here, here." Blair tore another hunk of bread, neatly scooped more goo, leaned close and offered it to Jim's lips.

Jim looked around, his face heating. The couple remained oblivious. The girls had been shooting the odd predatory glance toward him and Blair, but now they seemed totally involved in some raucous conversation, heads together, unmindful of anything else. The waitress conversed with a patron at the bar. No one was looking; no one cared.

Jim opened his mouth. Blair's fingers inserted the sachet of food then withdrew, leaving an explosion of food flavor and a trace of skin oil from Blair's fingers on his lips. He chewed. "Hey, this is great."

"I told you! Here, try some of the lentils." He tore bread, scooped lentils.

"I can do it," Jim protested.

Blair's hands stilled. He looked up. "I know you can do it. I'm flirting, you moron."

"Oh, you're flirting. This is flirting. Gotcha." Jim leaned forward, forearms on thighs. "Okay. Peel me some grapes while you're at it, Chief."

"Nah, I'd rather fan you with a palm frond." Blair had taken up too many lentils for the piece of bread he'd torn, and was trying to squish it into a manageable packet.

"Would you be naked?"

"Uh..." Blair gaped, just a moment, then smiled. "Hell, yeah. Provided there's a space heater nearby. Or we're someplace Mediterranean-like." He offered the jumbled morsel to Jim. Jim reached up and immobilized Blair's forearm with a grip on his wrist, then wrapped his lips around the food and Blair's fingers, sucking the lentils from between the tips, sucking the tips clean.

Blair gasped, a strangled sound low in his throat. Jim could see his color rise to a dull pink on his cheeks, feel it spike at all his pulse points and his crotch, too, and smiled around his mouthful. "Flirting, right?"

"Oh, yeah." Blair's voice was surprisingly steady. "Flirting. Works great, don't it?"

__.__.__

Coffee came last.

Blair had insisted on coffee despite the late hour, vowing Jim would need it to keep going tonight. The couple by the door was gone. The pack of young women remained, swilling through a second round of coffee and incense; Jim could hardly see them for the smoke wreathing their table. Another man joined the patron at the bar, and both spoke comfortably to the waitress, like old friends. And Blair enthused about the coffee.

"I've had this, like, only once before, but it's so cool," he said.

"Only once?"

"If I'd known this place were here, it've been more, believe me. There used to be a nice joint closer to the university, but it closed down, oh, four, five years ago now. They served the best coffee I think I've ever had." He gestured to the girls' table up front. "I don't remember the incense thing, but we'd started out at the bar and the whole evening's a bit hazy now."

"Except the part about how good the coffee was," Jim deadpanned.

"Yeah, exactly! They roast it for you, right there, grind it up, and steep it in a pot. It's thick and strong, and it's far and away better than espresso."

On cue, the waitress returned, a flattened basket full of sizzling, smoking beans in her hand. She tossed the beans lightly, offered it to Blair and Jim to smell.

"There, smell. It's good?"

Blair moaned. "It's perfect."

Jim nodded at the waitress' enthusiastic smile. She withdrew, taking the beans with her, and Jim returned his regard to Blair.

"Do you even need to drink it now? I think you snorted enough already."

"Reminding you to enjoy life gets tiresome after awhile, Jim," Blair said. "Lighten up! Remember, this is a date; you're supposed to have fun."

"A date. Dinner and stimulating conversation, right?"

"Well, what do you think you've been doing so far tonight, anyhow?"

"We did eat dinner," Jim conceded. "We mostly talked about work, though."

"Right, too true. Okay. Something that has nothing to do with work."

"Or school," Jim added.

"Or school," Blair agreed. "Um... Oh, hey. Coffee."

"You want to discuss...coffee?"

"It's just been a coffee-filled day, really, even if I haven't had a decent cup yet. Did you know coffee was discovered in Ethiopia? This is the best place to drink it, totally."

"Ethiopia, huh?"

"About a thousand years ago or so, a comely young goatherd named...jeez, I forget; I heard this a long time ago. Kali, maybe? Damn, no, of course that's not it." He shook his head impatiently. "Anyhow, this shepherd went to round up his animals and found them all dancing around this tree, in the throes of some great excitement, acting pretty happy for a bunch of goats."

"Goats. In the...throes of excitement."

"Oh, yeah. The boy noticed they were chewing on the leaves and berries, so, he figured he'd try it, too."

"Sounds like someone from up the Sandburg family tree."

"Sandburgs, comely? Of course," Blair said sanguinely. "Anyhow, he found himself dancing around, all happy, too. There's a version of the myth that has a monk ambling by who discovers the dancing boy and his goats, and uses this marvelous new thing for religious ceremonies. Oh, right, and then there's one where this guy sees the ghost of his dead mentor. There's some patron saint thing going on there..." He trailed off. "Wow, that was a long time ago, in my first year as an undergrad. I wish I could remember more of it now. But the goats. Most of the stories point to this boy's herd of goats, munching down at a tree."

"Dancing goats," Jim said dryly. He heard the waitress approach, and looked at Blair with what he hoped was his best cynical face.

"Yes, it's true," said the waitress. "Coffee was discovered in Ethiopia by a boy's goats."

Blair grinned smugly.

The waitress presented their coffee on a tray, with a round pot cradled in a basket, two tiny cups with slightly flanged rims, and a spoon anchored in a bowl of sugar. Next to the cups was a small clay pot full of soft, gray ashes and a single hot coal, and a small dish of what looked like lumps of sugared ginger.

"Would you like sugar?"

"Yes, please," said Jim.

"Sugar, absolutely, please, and thanks for backing me up." Blair jerked his thumb at Jim. "He never believes me."

The waitress smiled as she spooned in generous amounts of sugar in the bottom of each cup. She poured steaming, thick coffee from high up, releasing the maximum amount of fragrance from the brew and never spilling a drop. As she set the pot down, she said, "Yes, it's true. The goats ate the leaves and beans, and the boy discovered them dancing around the tree. His name was Kaldi."

Jim saw Blair biting his lip, could hear a suppressed guffaw.

The waitress put a ginger-colored lump of incense on the burning coal. Smoke began dancing up, twisting lazily in errant currents of air. "Put on more as you wish. Enjoy." She left. Jim reached for his coffee.

The cup was scalding hot; he quickly put it down.

"Pick it up by the rim. It's not so bad." Blair gingerly raised a doll cup to his lips and blew gently across the black fluid. Jim avidly watched, tuning his sight so he could see the miniscule twitch of muscle under the fullness, see a pink, wet tongue dart out and retreat, the sparkle of spit twinkling on every last taste bud.

Jim opened the door on his fantasies and fondled them in his imagination, right there at the table, turning them over in his mind's eye. That mouth, on his mouth. Skating across his chest. Mouthing his navel. Wrapped around his cock. Blair sipped, a quiet sound to the world, a sloppy declaration of lust to Jim.

"Try it, try it! While it's hot; it hurts so good."

Jim picked up his cup by the rim. As he drew it close to his mouth, fingers of smoke clung to the swirl of air currents his arm cut, reaching like living things for his face. He cautiously sipped.

The black, silky drink coated his tongue with liquid coffee aroma: pungent and sweet and hot.

__.__.__

_._._Tiramisu, two spoons_._._

"I could go for something to eat," said Jim.

Jim Ellison's stomach was a scary organ to contemplate. Blair contemplated it anyhow, just as he contemplated every part of Jim, figuring that prosaic pouch had a lot of mass to supply with food and drink -- Jim was a big man, after all, comprised mostly of energy-demanding muscle -- and probably should be awarded heroic stature in the scheme of all things Ellison.

Then again, Blair had yet to get the man's pants off.

"Right now? Like, what?"

"I dunno. Something sweet. Something...dessert-like."

"We're walking to the truck after dinner, Jim. You just had dinner. A full meal."

"So? I want dessert. I'm still going for my money's worth tonight."

"When you invited me on a dinner date, I was hoping that it wasn't going to be only about food, Jim," said Blair. "I mean, I leapt that hurtle you threw at me, sailed right over the word 'date', and I'm proud to say that I didn't even blink. Much. I spent the whole day, the whole evening, getting used to it, the concept, and I gotta tell you, I'm looking forward to it. All of it. So, this had better not just turn into some prolonged feast for you, where you go home and beach yourself on the bed and pass out." The words tumbled fast, a machine gun spew out of his mouth and into the air before residual fear could call them back: the first time he overtly referenced this...this...attraction, this courtship between him and Jim.

Jim stepped closer as they walked along the sidewalk, bumping Blair's shoulder. "You've been getting used to the idea for years now, Chief. You worry too much." Blair felt a flush of comfort under his clothes.

"This is worry?" His hands described an asymmetrical shape, just bigger than a breadbox, something too large for a man's humble heart. "Oh, this isn't worry, man. Far from it. I'm just astounded by your ability to eat at any given time."

"I'm going for the long haul tonight, remember? A little carbo-loading couldn't hurt."

"Okay, food. Something sweet. Just so we get to the burning of all those calories sometime. In the near future. You know, tonight, even."

Jim grinned. "So, dessert. Know any place open this late?"

"Uh, around here?" said Blair. "Yeah, actually, I do. Chompie's. It's a caf and bakery, about four blocks south of here. Any time of day or night, it's the place for baked goods."

"Sounds good. Let's roll."

Jim's stride lengthened; Blair had to trot several steps to keep up, silently laughing at how Jim sounded as if he were on a mission. Gonna go take down some perp pastries, Chief. Blair bit down on a chortle, realized it was as much as one-quarter hysteria because he knew this date was spiraling to ground zero, and that meant bed. Blair couldn't tell from one minute to the next if he was going to burst from anticipation or anxiety, but they were in the chute. It was going to happen.

Tonight. It was going to happen tonight.

If how he felt in the restaurant was any indicator, Blair was going to have the time of his life. Maybe that was what intimidated him so badly. Searching for dessert seemed a pretty good way to slow the inward rush, stave off the inevitable...except, he didn't want to hold it off. Didn't want to wait; would rather turn on the police lights and speed back to the loft.

No one ever said building intimacy was easy, but he was getting a bit queasy on this particular pitch and heave of naked want and indecision.

In the truck, Blair said nothing, letting the radio dispel lingering quiet. Jim seemed content, and said nothing either. They reached the caf, Jim parked the truck, and they walked into the establishment that glowed warmly from the windows and exhaled rich, sweet baking smells from the open door.

Jim gravitated to the expanse of pastries neatly arranged in a glass case. "So, what do you recommend? You did well on the Ethiopian stuff."

"Yeah, I did, didn't I?" Blair enjoyed a thick slug of complacency curling in his gut. Complacency, or something else as he thought about his fingers full of lentils in Jim's mouth. "I'll just ask for what's freshest. Can't go wrong there."

"Nothing pineapple."

"Duh, Jim. I think there might be a meter maid somewhere in the precinct who doesn't actually know about your dislike of pineapple." He glanced up, caught Jim looking at him, and felt like cream filling.

Blair turned his hot face to the case with is soldierly ranks of cupcakes and rugelach and tortes, gauging how each might crumble or melt on Jim's flat belly so he could lick it off. This was getting bad. He thought hard (he was hard), riffling though every technique he'd ever used to usher a willing date through the motions of dinner or movie or lecture or exhibit or concert or dessert and into bed as quickly as possible. It wasn't that he usually played the horn-dog, but sometimes, with some people, intellectual stimulation took a back seat to lust, and it wasn't as if he hadn't spent years plumbing Jim's mental depths anyhow. To every thing there is a season, and Blair knew it was time to plow the field.

So much for indecision. It seemed lingering trepidation no longer plagued Blair's libido; in fact, his libido was sitting up, begging, and saying prayers. His eyes lit upon clear plastic cups with creamy, tan layers alternating with sable-edged ovoid cookies and topped with a dollop of whipped cream and a drizzle of something probably from the caramel family. The thought intruded that Jim probably knew exactly what it was by smell. Jim probably knew a lot of things by smell alone.

"One of those," he said to the boy behind the counter, pointing to the row of plastic cups. "To go." Blair paid, and took his change along with the small, white bag.

"Just one?"

"I'm not hungry. You know, unlike you, I'm normal; I actually feel full after dinner." Blair walked purposefully out the door of the caf, leaving Jim to catch up. At the truck, Jim unlocked the door, and slid in. Blair watched him reach across the bench to unlock the passenger door and caught Jim's furtive swipe of hand over the seat, dislodging week-old crumbs and a fast-food wrapper that he recognized as his own detritus. Blair rewarded his gallantry by laying his palm on Jim's warm thigh for the entire ride home.

__.__.__

Suspension.

The world receded bit by bit as they ascended each stair until it vanished outside the door of the loft.

Blair had expected blood-fueled frenetic violence, sex at its visceral best, built up over a period of months. Years. But the long, slow burn had turned manic anticipation to ash, and now all that remained was this silent, sweet need. He moved forward just as Jim moved forward, and they lilted together, two vines seeking the other's sun.

Lips. Arms. Hands. Contact points of another man's heat on Blair's mouth, gripping his arms. He watched Jim, all blurry and rapturous at an inch away. Jim's eyes were closed; Blair admired his eyebrows and how they twitched in time to his mouth's pleasures.

Tongue. Taste. Blair's own darkness as his lids slammed shut -- too much stimulation at once. Jim's warm hands moved up Blair's arms, over his shoulders and neck, sliding up under the warm curtain of hair to cup the back of his skull. Sequestered and retiring, Blair's nape tingled; Jim's touch ignited a cold fire of shivering sensation that shot swaths of goose bumps all down Blair's body amid a sudden, heavy heat that struck his dick, bringing it from pleasantly firm to painfully rigid.

Blair drew a desperate breath in through his nose. The quietude and curious suspension of time and reality that had stilled the world lurched forward, and they were not tenderly twining but flinging hard bodies at each other in a maelstrom of brutality. He felt the violence of sex take over, and joyously submitted to the animal passion within, the procreative drive that brought people together to birth something new. In this case, he wasn't sure what was conceived -- love, maybe? -- but he relished the journey.

He rocked up on his toes, pushing his weight into Jim's chest, pushed his tongue into Jim's mouth. Tongue met tongue and they pushed against each other, tasting and sliding along the other's length, taking side trips to explore a smooth line of teeth or swipe the roof of mouth.

Blair pulled his mouth off Jim's with a wet sound and pushed away. He and Jim panted at each other, having transformed from calm, ethereal creatures of silence to pulsing, sweaty, needy animals in the span of twenty heartbeats. Blair saw Jim's eyes track his face, flick up to his hair, then burn a line down and stop at his crotch.

"Jim." The name broke through a frantic race to catch his breath, all low and dense. "Are you ready for this?"

Jim nodded.

"Let's go upstairs."

Jim nodded again, and waited for Blair to precede him. Blair recognized it wasn't gallantry this time, but a need to follow. Jim wanted a guide.

It was easiest to fall into expected roles, really, although the anger of an unasked responsibility (Oh? And who had stalked poor Jim Ellison, abandoned hero of Peru, in the first place? When had this all started, anyhow?) slumbered uneasily under his skin.

Anger is passionate. Blair used it. He walked up the stairs, didn't look back at Jim until he stood at the side of Jim's bed, didn't turn when he heard the top step creak as Jim stepped on it, or when he heard soft movements behind him. When sound eventually stilled, Blair turned around.

Jim in uncertain need was beautiful.

"Here," said Blair. He took Jim's arms and urged him to the bed, pushing him to sit. Blair nudged unresisting knees apart and moved between them, standing solid and immovable. He slid his hands up from their grip on Jim's upper arms over hard shoulders to lightly encircle a perfect neck. Blair loved Jim's neck. He bent forward; Jim tried to kiss him but Blair tilted his face away -- he wanted his mouth on Jim's neck.

"M'm," Blair muttered into the long line of Jim's throat, traversing the column with his lips. He could smell traces of frankincense on Jim's skin and in his own hair as it fell forward around his face and caught on the faint scruff on Jim's cheek. Blair opened his mouth, sucked and slurped the territory around Jim's ear, caught the lobe between his teeth to suck and nibble until he felt Jim melt from a stoically passive monolith to a moaning roil of languid muscle and bone.

Blair felt Jim's hands on his waist, resting warm and heavy but still. He straightened, seeking enough distance to look into Jim's face. Blair's heart jumped, scaring him.

Jim was making love to him with his eyes, tenderly, lovingly. Nothing but need burned out of that blue radiance, the same need transferred to Blair though Jim's hands on his hips. It was too intimate, too tender for Blair. He preferred the animal posturing that had gripped them briefly downstairs; he preferred his sex uncomplicated, but when had anything about Jim Ellison ever been uncomplicated? He laid his palm along Jim's cheek, gently ran his thumb over the parted lips.

Sex. Plain, old sex, something primal and very easily understood. He couldn't do this with open eyes; he closed them and unleashed his animal.

Fingers splayed wide and captured Jim's face in a cage of bones and tendons; Blair kissed him with hard competence, his lips overpowering Jim's easily, his tongue thieving everything from Jim's mouth. He modified his grip, lowering it to the mountain range of shoulders and pushed Jim down, laying himself over the heaving plain of Jim's chest. He wiggled down, wormed his fingers into Jim's waistband, fishing around with his left hand while his right yanked at the belt buckle, button, fly; from both sides, Blair freed Jim's dick and fisted it hard around the base.

Jim sucked in a hiss. Blair felt the sound twang between his ears and increase the throb in his cock. He bent his head and engulfed the top of Jim's erection, sliding down to where his hand still anchored the base, sucking hard, twirling his tongue around the flange of differently-textured head, pulling off to lip-nibble the softest part, just on the underside of the top, and then pulling it all in deep again.

Sharp, musky scent from Jim's crotch mingled with Blair's spit and their sweat in the air, a heady amalgamation of olfactory lust.

"Blair, oh, damn, you've...you've got to stop..." pleaded Jim between gasps.

Blair could feel how Jim's cock heated and hardened further in his mouth, and Blair was in similar straights; he could sink railroad spikes with his dick if he wanted to. Which he did not. John Henry, he was suddenly seeing John Henry in his mind, and choked around Jim's dick from laughter.

"Ah, ha-a!" he cried out, and pounded his fist into the mattress, working hard to suppress the absurd mirth. "God, yeah, Jim. Slow it down; I can do that. I think. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I," Jim swallowed, garnered some lucidity, "don't want to come in my pants."

Blair began divesting Jim of clothes. "I prefer sex naked, myself. C'mon." He urged Jim up to pull the shirt over his head, and then tugged off his shoes and pants and briefs before skimming out of his own clothes, leaving them all mingled in a twisted wreck on the floor.

"Hitch up," Blair said. Jim did, scrabbling under the pillows to find the top sheet and slide under it. Blair helped him yank the covers free and push them down to the foot of the bed. Jim lay down, supine along the length of the bed. Blair stared at the display of smooth muscles and skin, the image burned into the rods and cones of his retinas finding a weird connection with his body that made his cock twitch. He marauded his way up Jim's body, pillaging and burning with his hands and mouth, as slow as he could manage.

Jim grunted when Blair mashed his face into his crotch again, and hauled at his arms, pulling him up; Blair didn't appreciate having his mouth removed from proximity to Jim's dick and fought a little, pushing his advantage of gravity and weight onto Jim's arms, pinning them with limited success.

"Come on, man; just go with it," Blair said, then reached down and encircled Jim's shaft with his left hand, began stropping it hard while bracing his weight on his right. He stared at Jim's red cock slipping in and out of his fist, glanced up at Jim's face, felt the punch of pleasure bullet to his brain that nearly brought him off right then, no hand on his cock at all, and that feeling, that naked need was exactly what Blair had seen, reaching out so tenderly from Jim's eyes. Blair felt it; he just felt it hotter.

"Jim, touch me; I'm so fucking tired of waiting."

Limber, strong fingers snaked around Blair's dick, squeezing with satisfying pressure, jerking up the length, smoothing back down. Blair's right arm gave; he collapsed onto the bed next to Jim; Jim followed him all the way down, hand still moving.

"Ohh-hh, yeah, perfect," Blair gasped. He shimmied and Jim squirmed until they lay on their sides facing each other, hands mutually frantic on each other's turgid cock, working the silky drops that welled up into a creamy glide over skin like hot glass. Blair sunk into the ruckus of hormones and spastic nerve firings, lost in the doing, hit hard by each sensation feeding his desire. The mingled smells, stronger in the air now; the involuntary whuffs of desperate breath escaping Jim's lips; the molten heat of skin under friction fingers; saline and musk on the tongue; kaleidoscope jumble of Jim-pictures.

Yes, yes, yes! Blair's brain shuddered around the visuals. Rich, pale skin, furrowed with straining muscles along his heaving belly. Red, red cockhead in Blair's hand. Random track of a fulsome drop of sweat running down Jim's chest like a child rolling down a hill. Beautiful neck bowed to his task of effort and ecstasy...

Jim threw his head back, eyes closed, mouth open and emitting a noise that groaned faintly from deep within. Blair stared at his face, stunned yet still writhing, jerking, working hard to push Jim over the edge while Jim pushed him even now. The flickering lids over Jim's eyes opened. Blair could see the first firings of orgasm in the blue stare before he felt Jim's cock spasm and shoot milky ropes of come over his hands, onto his chest. The cloudy blue stare of pure love was naked, open, embarrassing, painful to behold; it pinned Blair's dick to his heart and brain, and he fell, spewing come and cries.

Jim sorted his limbs from the tangle, arched over Blair, and kissed him. Blair felt invaded; Jim was stealing all the things from him that he didn't want to admit he owned, things like anger and love and resentment and admiration, taking them all through his mouth in this post-coital vulnerability and cherishing them between their lips. Then Jim lay down again, assuming a familiar posture of sated repose, the fingers of his left hand idly stroking the damp skin of Blair's hip, and all Blair could feel was gratitude.

"Thank you, Blair," Jim said quietly.

"Welcome."

Blair's eyes fluttered closed, open, closed in the silence as he listened to his breathing slow, listened to Jim's regular exhalations, listened to the bewildered and satisfied hush in his own heart. Just as he saw the edge of sleep's dark country, Jim spoke.

"Did you bring in the dessert?"

"Wha--?" Dreamland vanished; Blair was totally in the loft again. "I...I don't think so. Did you?"

"No." Jim paused. "I could really eat that now. Tiramisu, isn't it?"

"Um, yeah." Blair frowned, irritated and denied of his after-sex nap. He levered himself up on an elbow. "You got the munchies, Jim? Now?"

"Well, yeah, I do." He sounded defensive. At least he didn't look naked with need and love anymore.

Blair stared at him, blinked, frowned. Realized that maybe, maybe he could tolerate seeing those naked things on Jim's face without confusion or embarrassment...maybe could do more. Maybe.

He got up, fished around the snarl of discarded clothes, and found his jeans. He slid into them, forgoing underwear or socks, yanked Jim's sweater over his head, and pushed his bare feet into his shoes.

"Chief?"

"I'm getting your snack, Jim. Be right back."

"Blair?"

Blair loped down the stairs with more energy than he though he could possibly have, through the door, down, down, and out into the cold. He retrieved the small, white bag from the truck, and trotted back up all the flights of stairs. A yank on the silverware drawer in the kitchen, two spoons, and back up to Jim's bed, two stairs at a time.

"Here," he panted. "Your dessert." He grinned. "Asshole."

Jim took the bag, retrieved the cup, opened it. Blair handed Jim a spoon as he recaptured his half of the bed, unmindful of the cold clinging to this hair and clothes. He toed off the shoes; they thumped to the floor.

"M'm," Jim muttered around his spoon. "This is good. You didn't have to go get it."

"No, I didn't have to, did I? Gimme some." Blair reached in with his spoon, scooped out a quivering mound of cream and cookie and espresso. He opened wide, put the whole thing in his mouth, eyes locked with Jim's amused gaze.

Sweet and rich and sharp melded on his tongue, invaded his sinuses, then slid with perfect creamy perfection down his throat.

__.__.__

_._.Coffee in bed._._

Awareness seeped through the slumbering synapses of Jim's brain as dawn light bled into the shadows of his room. He felt foggy, thick, comfortable and oh, so sluggish. Perceptions of his environment penetrated at a fraction of his ability, less able than a normal person. His ceiling looked distant and dark as he blinked drowsily; early morning commuter traffic hummed, muffled and indistinct. His mouth felt glued shut, mute and bland. His eyes fluttered closed as he tried to sort odd dreams from reluctant waking.

He drew a deep breath in through his nose. A scent came with it, a scent that shot from the nerves in his nose to his brain with a rousing association. The rest of his drowsy senses leapt awake in a rush, and Jim suddenly knew everything with exacting detail: sweaty warmth of damp skin under him; sandpaper scruff rougher than his own gouging his cheek and temple; the slow, slumbering rhythm of respiration and a stolid thump of heartbeat under his ear; and Blair's profile in repose at close range.

Jim draped over Blair; his head was tucked into Blair's shoulder. Jim stretched minutely, greedily gathering together all the twinges and aches from unaccustomed effort to savor with memory. His small movement woke the younger man; Blair's eyelids squinted then opened, a glint of surprising alertness right on the surface.

"Mm. Morning." Blair began shifting under Jim, sorting out limbs and beginning those languid stretches that helped blood restart the day's faster thrum after sleep's hushed flow.

Jim rolled off, resting on his back. He felt queer, a bit off-kilter like he always did the morning after a new lover, but something more as well. He suspected the feeling might be related to how his senses operated, for they began an eager inventory of effects all up and down Jim's body as it responded to the rich stimulus moving in bed next to him.

His skin prickled as it flushed. His heart revved, and settled into a steady, smooth tattoo. Pings of anticipatory pleasure echoed like sonar through his brain, a curiously tangible feeling intensified by Blair's heavy scent of skin oils and sweat and musk. Jim's hands craved contact; he indulged them, languidly exploring Blair's warm, hairy chest.

"Mm, I guess it's a good morning, then," said Blair. He turned to his side and fell silent, watching while Jim fed his hands. "You look like you're reeeally enjoying that, Jim. I'll make a junkie out of you in no time."

"A junkie?" Jim chuckled. "I think I already am." He broadened the scope of his explorations, sliding his hand down a lean hip, seeking. Blair's hand covered his unexpectedly, and gently moved it away.

"Hm?" He grunted the interrogative, thwarted and puzzled.

A small smile of regret curled Blair's mouth. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but we don't have time. We've got to be in to work early today."

Jim glanced at the clock and frowned. "Blair, it's five in the morning. We've got time."

"Jim." Blair took Jim's hands in his own, pulled them up and clasped them close to his chest. "We gotta clear up a few things."

Jim's gut tightened with anticipatory disappointment. "Things? What things?"

"Things before sex."

"Ah, isn't it a little late for that?" The words tasted bitter. Jim knew what this man sounded like while falling over the edge of ecstasy. He pulled his hands away and pushed himself to sitting. Blair followed him, punching his pillow into a comfortable shape with careless blows before shoving it pragmatically behind his back.

"Late? No. Not at all." Blair seemed all calm and firm, yet his voice was warm. "Last night was perfect, and the timing couldn't have been better, Jim. Really. I think we could enter some synchronized competition if sex is ever declared a sport in the Olympics." Jim stole a look at his face; his smile was rich with innuendo. Blair tilted his head at Jim and the smile shaded into rueful. "Last night, man. I'd been hoping, Jim, really hoping that would happen, and I don't think I can tell you just how much it means to me."

"But?" Jim hated and expected that word.

"But what?" Blair frowned, just a second, and then his eyebrows swept up in sudden concern. "But nothing! Last night was...I mean, thank you, Jim. For last night. This is gratitude, Jim, and believe me, there's no room or reason for a 'but'."

"What about these things we've got to clear up?"

"Last night was perfect, Jim, and we still should talk about that whole screaming at each other in Simon's office thing." His hands came up, punctuating his words. "I mean, I know what it was, now, or at least I think I do. It was stress, trying to do the job, and at the same time trying to dance around fear of this undercurrent of repressed sexual tension between us and..."

"Oh, come on, not with the fear and repression crap again!" exclaimed Jim. "I get pretty sick of you throwing those concepts in my face, Sandburg!"

Blair shook his head, causing his curls to bounce around his head. "No, no, Jim. Jim, really. I was talking about me. Me. My fear, my repression about this."

"You? Repressed?" Jim's laugh had a hard edge. "Since when? Did someone erase the sexual revolution from history?"

Blair frowned. He looked hurt. "What does the sexual revolution have to do with my sudden epiphany about being a gay man?"

"Sudden? What do you mean, sudden?" asked Jim. He turned the question over, comparing it with memories of the previous night, and without waiting for answers, shot more questions at Blair. "Aren't you? Last night, what were you doing, if you're not...? If you're not gay?" Conflict buffeted Jim's sense of reality, refusing to reconcile the concept of Blair being 'suddenly gay' with the myriad acts of imaginative competence he'd performed on Jim just hours ago.

"I was having sex with you, Jim. There's not all that much difference between sex with men and women. I mean, bodies are bodies, you know. But that's not what I meant. I mean, there's gay, and gay. I, uh, experimented, in college. But..." He paused, then rushed breathlessly on, "I mean, it's one thing to do the experimentation thing, even if it goes on past your college years, but then, pow! To find myself living with a gay cop all the sudden, it's pretty intense. I'm in your bed, Jim, and last night, it seemed pretty damned serious. This isn't a place I thought I'd end up, man." A hard chuckle burst from his lips. "Man!"

Shock stifled all words in Jim's throat.

Blair looked sorrowfully into Jim's eyes. "I like being in your bed, Jim, way more than I can ever tell you. I'm just not sure how to go on from here, and... It scares me, it really does. Will it change us? And work. Oh, man! I'm so totally unprepared with how to deal with this at work; I mean, what if they found out?"

"They won't." Jim looked at his toes tenting up the sheet. "And what if they did?"

"I know it's not easy to be out, and it's a lot worse for cops, don't tell me it isn't."

"We're a real couple, aren't we?"

Blair shrugged elaborately, easily sliding along the tangential thought. "Well, we meet some of the universally accepted components of marriage, but some will always be outside our abilities." He thought a moment. "Hm. Then again, there's always adoption."

"Adoption? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Marriage, Jim. Couplehood. Sharing economic responsibilities, sexual access, and raising children, those are some of the basics. Outside the whole dowry, bride-price concept, that is, which wouldn't go far anyhow 'cause Naomi isn't into material wealth even if the Ellison clan is pretty wealthy, right? and that's just as well, 'cause the Sandburg resources just aren't real long on goats or cattle or yams, although come to think of it, we could put on one helluva party, and save face that way."

Jim slowly shook his head. A smile marched with stately grace across his face, taking its time. He'd been alarmed by Sandburg's desire to discuss 'things', fearful that last night's escapades had been a fluke, or worse, a regret on the younger man's part, yet he sat all warm and delicious, talking about marriage attributes and yams. Just like an amusement ride, Sandburg. Jim could never be sure if Blair was going to scare him, thrill him, or delight him.

He slid out of bed.

"Jim?"

"Hold on. You wanted to talk, right? I'll be right back." He padded quickly to the kitchen and prepared coffee. As it dripped, he fetched a robe from the bathroom before stepping outside to retrieve the paper. Two cups, spoon, cream, all laid out neatly, and Jim had time to skim the first page of the newspaper before the coffeemaker stopped burping and huffing. He fixed two cups as he remembered Blair liked it, with lots of cream, then returned to bed, cup in each hand and the paper clenched against his side with an elbow.

"Hey, hey!" Blair carefully took a mug. "This is promising on several fronts. Does this mean I get breakfast in bed, too?" Jim slid in bed, moving slowly so as not to upset either cup of scalding coffee. Both men happened to glace up at the same time, catching each other's gaze, then chuckled, both just a little self-conscious.

Jim moved his cup forward. "Toast, Chief." Blair gently clinked the rims together.

"What are we toasting?"

"Anything. I just want you to drink some of that."

"Huh?"

"Drink the coffee, Blair. I like what it does to you."

Blair ducked his head, all false modesty and bluster. "Well, hey, Jim, whatever turns you on, man." He looked up, amused. "Frankly, you do a number on me by just breathing."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah." He sipped, and sighed. "You actually leave me speechless. I can't even find the right words. Very frustrating, actually."

Jim snorted. Blair hadn't used many words, but he'd still had plenty to say last night. "That doesn't mean you're not going to try, is it? Or are you going to stick to the, ah," Jim searched the air for moment, "non-verbal vocalizations you serenaded me with last night?"

Mild heat rose to Blair's face; his cheeks actually pinked. "I'm, uh, hoping that I can do it more romantically than you're making it sound. Maybe before I get mired in the, uh, non-verbal bits." He tucked his head down, blowing on his coffee with quiet puffs of breath.

Jim thought about the vast storehouse of Blair's memory, and suddenly had an image of Blair reciting erotic poetry while in bed. The more he thought about it, the less absurd, and more delightful, it seemed. He smiled again and wondered if his face would be sore later from all this happiness.

"Sounds like a plan," said Jim. He looked at Blair's hands wrapped around his mug. He could hear Blair's heartbeat gather itself up to respond to the stimulant; feel the beginnings of a temperature spike radiate from his skin. Soon, Jim knew Blair would feel it directly, and heave one of those sighs that did to Jim what coffee did to Blair. "How's that coffee?"

"Perfect, but the cream thing's gonna have to stop. It's a great indulgence, but I don't want this crap mucking up the walls of my arteries. Or yours. The caffeine addiction is bad enough." Blair drew in a breath, held it, then let it out in a gusty whoosh that seemed to come from his toes.

Jim grinned wider.

"It's an addiction I can live with."