Author's webpage: http://www.ravenswing.com/bas/

Author's notes: Thanks to Laura Jacquez Valentine for the beta. Dedicated to Cygnet, who bugged me diligently until I finished the story.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Blair insisted as he stormed back and forth across the living room.

"Everyone gets nervy at times like this, Chief." Squashing someone with a vending machine had a way of shaking a guy up a little.

Blair snorted. "Everyone, yeah, I'm everyone. Give me a beer." He crossed the room as Jim opened the fridge door and they both reached in at the same time. Blair was faster, bumping Jim's hand aside.

He was off and pacing again by the time Jim closed the fridge door. He didn't open the beer, just rolled it between his hands. He stopped dead on the carpet and pressed it to the back of his neck.

The kitchen light cast hard blue light over the near side of Blair's face; the streetlight outlined his throat in soft yellow. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed.

Jim popped his cap and drank.

"Do you think he'll be all right?" Blair asked. His closed eyelids fluttered.

Jim shrugged. "He might be. He might not. He's a criminal; you were defending yourself."

"Sure." And then Blair was pacing again, back and forth from the door to the stairs, moving with short, stiff legged steps.

Jim watched him pace. He sighed and leaned his hands on the kitchen table. "Come on, Chief. Drink your beer--drink two! Get plastered and sleep in my spare room and it'll all look better in the morning."

Blair stopped near the stairs with a rap of his foot on the floor. "Don't fucking patronize me!" His eyes were wide and dilated, and his breath came quickly. "Just don't, okay!"

"I'm not." Jim set his beer on the table. Blair looked like he was having a meltdown right there in his apartment. "Look, I'm a cop, and--"

"And I'm not, right?"

Jim approached, hoping to calm the kid down. "And I see people get freaked out over violence all the time, even if they did the right thing--"

"Which I did!" He was sounding and smelling sharper, angrier. Jim reached out, planning on a nice comforting arm-pat--but Blair suddenly grabbed Jim's wrist, twisted it and shoved Jim face-first into the wall, pinning Jim with his body. "I'm not some little wuss," Blair growled, and shoved against Jim with his hip.

Jim swallowed carefully. One cheek pressed to the brick, the other brushed by Blair's curls. Blair's hands on his wrist and his back and Blair's hip pressing into his thigh--he could break the hold but he didn't really want to. "I know," he said.

"Yeah." Blair's hands were shaking just a little. "Dammit," he muttered, and let Jim go.

Blair took a step back and Jim turned around. Blair wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Dammit," Blair muttered again. "I'm going to go home." And he turned and left, just like that. Jim didn't stop him. It would have been too strange if he had.

The remote was on the kitchen table so he turned on the TV for the noise. Something with people in suits--a woman looking great in red. That worked. He switched the remote for his mostly-untouched beer.

He couldn't drink the cheap stuff any more, not after the weeks of sensory drills the kid had put him through. He was noticing things he'd never noticed before. There was so much more in the dense, quality brews--whole worlds for his new nose. He let himself stand and smell the beer for a long moment, thinking about the day and his uncomfortable explanation to Simon. He thought about Blair and the resources and guts nobody knew he had. He thought about more of those annoying-ass tests, grimaced and drank his beer.

He left the TV on and took the beer upstairs with him. Beer was one of those smells he tended to associate with men, even though Carolyn had a beer with dinner at least as often as wine. It was a drinking with the guys smell. It was a sitting around the barracks smell. It was a pushing into walls smell. He drank again and thought about Blair shoving him with his hips.

Blair shoving him with his hips--trapped between the brick wall and Blair's dick with Blair's frantic breath in his ear--he could get into that, he could definitely get into that, and he reclined on the bed, unbuttoning his pants.

He had to do something after the day he'd had. And if he couldn't do something with someone, then he could do something with himself. While thinking about someone.

Someone with chick hair and a guy voice, which pushed his buttons like nobody's business. Someone who could push him around--he liked people tough enough to push him around. Carolyn could push him around; she handcuffed him to his own bed more than once. And Rebecca, who threw him over her shoulder on their first date--but the smell of beer was in the air and on his breath, so he was going to indulge in a guy fantasy tonight.

A guy fantasy. Jim spread his legs and relaxed into it, thinking about the sharp scent of Blair's skin. Blair rubbing against him, Blair sliding his hands down him, Blair saying "bed" in that sexy deep voice--or no, how about "couch"--or better, "table."

Bending over the kitchen table--Blair's hands on his back--Blair's mouth on him, that big beautiful mouth--he could get into that mouth, definitely. And Blair had great hair to hold, to grab, but he was no passive partner, he could--he could--he could put Jim right--where he wanted him--right--ohhhh, right there--

Jim exhaled and fell back on the pillow.

Blair made a good fantasy. Jim opened his eyes and took a deep breath, still smelling beer. He stretched. Correction--Blair made a great fantasy. He really had to stop fantasizing about his partners, but...not yet.

He stripped off his clothes and went downstairs naked to wash up.

end.