Work Text:
Well, what do you know, I've actually answered a challenge within six months of its introduction!
This is in response to Saraid's Anniversary Challenge. I'm going to have to start putting ATNA warnings on my stories for All Talk, No Action. Still and all, there should be enough Smarm for me to retain the title of Smarm Queen!
This story is in no way affiliated with UPN or Pet Fly Productions. The characters are their property, and this story is not meant to infringe upon their copyrights.
First of Forever
by Myrna
"Hey, what's all this?" Blair asked, jogging downstairs and following the enticing smells into the kitchen.
"This is breakfast," Jim said, setting a freshly made fruit salad on the table. There were bakery muffins, scrambled eggs, and toast in addition to the fruit.
Blair gratefully took the coffee cup Jim offered, feigning a look of confusion. "I knew you recognized the meal from this side of the table," he teased, "but I don't recall your ever actually *fixing* it."
"Very funny, Chief," Jim said, pushing Blair into a chair. "It's not my fault you always get up earlier than I do."
"Yes it is--it's the only way I can get a hot shower." He grinned when Jim graced him with a smirk. "So what's the special occasion?" Blair asked, filling his plate full. He'd come home late the night before, too tired to do anything but fall into bed.
"There doesn't have to be a special occasion," Jim said with false sincerity. "Can't I do something nice for my guy just because?"
"Your *guy*?" Blair said and nearly spit a mouthful of eggs back onto his plate.
"Well you *are* my guy aren't you?" Jim asked.
"Well, yeah, technically, I guess," Blair mumbled, a single eyebrow raised at his lover's bizarre behavior. Neither one of them were much for romantic declarations, both of them more comfortable letting their actions speak for them. 'I love you's' were whispered in the throes of passion, not in the bright light of day. Breakfast conversation usually tended more toward the condition in which Blair had left the bathroom and coordinating their daily schedule.
"You're my guy," Jim said conversationally, almost under his breath, like he was really just talking to himself. "My beautiful Blair. Mine, mine, mine..."
"The pod people have arrived," Blair said, rolling his eyes and returning to his breakfast with gusto. Food sure was a damn sight better when someone else cooked it.
Jim was cleaning the kitchen now, singing under his breath, which was out of character enough. Blair tuned in and nearly stood up to check Jim's temperature when he realized what the detective was singing.
"Yes sir, that's my baby, no sir, don't say maybe, yes sir, that's my baby...."
Blair was just getting ready to ask if Jim had suffered any recent head injuries he forgot to mention when the doorbell rang.
Grinning broadly, Jim turned to Blair and said, "Door!"
Blair laughed and shook his head, certain his lover's strange demeanor would eventually be explained. He opened the door and coughed in surprise at the man standing there with the largest bouquet of red roses Blair had ever seen. He fished a couple of dollars out of his wallet for the delivery guy then took the vase of flowers from him.
Jim grinned at his lover's crimson face and wide, disbelieving eyes. "You like 'em?" he asked with childlike excitement.
"Yeah," Blair said, sounding surprised to realize it. "Yeah, I do. But come on, Jim, what's up?"
"I was going to send them to you at the University," Jim said eagerly, "Even thought about having them delivered at the precinct, but I didn't need to make a show of it. You really like 'em?"
Blair smiled at Jim's little boy pride in his gesture. "I really like them," he said, setting them down on the coffee table and chuckling to himself when Jim quickly grabbed a magazine to place beneath the vase. "But I'm, like, way confused, Big Guy. I have no idea what we're celebrating and even if I knew, I didn't get you anything."
"Just waking up knowing you're mine is present enough for me," Jim said gallantly, prompting a groan from Blair.
"Breakfast?" Blair began listing, predatorially advancing on his lover. "Flowers? Spouting romantic drivel before 8 AM? What is up with you, man?"
Jim backed up until his knees hit the couch, and he dropped to the cushions, his laughter saying he wasn't going to keep the kid in suspense any longer. "Okay, okay, I'll talk," Jim said, holding his hands up in defeat. "A year ago today, we stopped Lash, and..."
"Jeez, what's wrong with you!" Blair yelled suddenly, backing away from Jim like he was poison. "What in the hell makes you think I'd want to celebrate *anything* having to do with that? God, I can't believe you! What is it, Jim? Not enough citations as it is? Not enough press coverage? Now you gotta go around making *holidays* out of our little Blair/Victim-Jim/Hero scenarios?"
"Wait, Blair! Wait!" Jim said urgently. "Let me explain, all right? Let me explain!"
The sudden panic in Jim's eyes startled Blair and served to calm him. His trust in Jim allowed him to let the older man gently take his hand and lead him over to the couch. Blair sighed and looked up at Jim, willing him to explain himself.
Usually whenever Jim was called on to reveal something personal, Blair could count on him to be hesitant, reluctant to disclose parts of himself he'd always kept hidden. There was no such diffidence now. It was almost as if Jim had rehearsed what he was going to say.
"Until you came to me, Chief, my life was all about bracing for the next disappointment, you know? I mean, my mom left when I was just a kid, my dad was a bastard, Steven and I could never be close. And then in Covert Ops--losing my men, *all* of my men, Blair; coming home only to find and lose Carolyn...watching Gil Brody die, losing Jack...then Danny..." Jim slowly shook his head, as if listing everything suddenly reminded him how very much there was to list.
"Blair, until I found you, it was all about what--who--I was going to lose next. Knowing me was like a sealed death warrant. And one day, I just decided I wasn't going to risk it anymore, wasn't going to risk caring about someone when I knew everything would just get fucked up anyway. And I was well on my way to closing off whatever parts of my heart were left."
Jim reached over and slid his hand into Blair's, lacing their fingers. "But then by some miracle, this beautiful, brilliant kid enters the picture...and for him, life is all about what fantastic discovery lies just around the corner, and all of a sudden, my life isn't about what's going to go wrong next. Every day I spent with you was like some unbelievable gift from God."
Jim ducked his head, then shrugged. "I know that sounds corny, but it's true. I don't think I can explain the darkness well enough for you to fully understand the light you've brought to my life. I was finally, *finally* starting to believe that maybe I wasn't cursed or jinxed, or whatever it was that made me keep losing everything and everybody that ever mattered to me. And then that fucker...that sick, sadistic fucker tried to take it away from me...tried to take you away from me."
Blair's eyes were wide in stunned disbelief. He had no idea how deeply Jim blamed himself for events he'd had absolutely no control over. "Jim, you can't think..."
"I knew then it was pointless to try to fight God or the fates or whoever was having such a great time shitting all over me. You were the only thing in the world that mattered, and Lash was taking you away from me."
Jim shuddered at the memory. "I had it all planned out, you know? After I...after I found your body, I was going to take my .38 and ride out to the mountains, and I'd go deep into the forest and strip out of my clothes, lie down on a bed of leaves and then end it." Jim shook his head, looking back at the memory.
"I knew it would play out that way, Chief. I knew it like I know you're sitting here right now. I knew it, because that's the way my life worked... Knowing me could only spell disaster."
"Jim, man, come on! You know that's not..."
Jim looked steadily into Blair's eyes. "Until you came to me, it was true," he said.
The enormity of Jim's courage rocked Blair--that he could believe those words and yet somehow manage to take another chance was nothing short of amazing.
"I love you," Blair said quietly, reverently.
"And today, a year ago today, I found where Lash was hiding; found you, just in time. And that's when I knew," Jim said. "That's when I knew it would be different from now on...that whatever price I had to pay, I'd finally paid it in full. And you were my reward, Baby...for surviving the shit; for persevering through it; for risking that last shred of hope I had. I'd earned you, and I'd won you, and you were mine for eternity."
"I don't...I don't think I deserve you," Blair said, blue eyes glistening with wonder, with the understanding of what he meant to his lover.
"Don't say that," Jim said, his voice hushed and intense. "Don't ever say that. You were a gift to me, Blair. And it will be my honor, my *privilege* to love you for as long as you'll have me."
"Is forever too long?"
"It's a start," Jim said, and kissed him gently. "I doubt if you even remember that night..."
"I don't much," Blair admitted softly, oddly dazed by Jim's sweetness. "I remember you carrying me to the truck, and going to the ER. I remember you taking me home...and I remember you letting me sleep upstairs in your bed. I don't think I'll ever forget waking up there the next morning."
"It was awhile before we took the final step," Jim remembered fondly, "But you've never slept anywhere else since. My life began that day, Blair. That's what I want to celebrate with you. The life you gave me. The life you've graced me with."
One final kiss to Blair's soft hair, and Jim got up and started cleaning the kitchen, amused at Blair's stunned reaction to his words. Finally, *he'd* get the last word for once.
"It was different for me."
The words were so quiet, Jim was hardly sure he'd heard them.
Blair looked over at Jim with trusting eyes. "I know there was a before and then there was an after, but I don't know when exactly the before became the after." He gave Jim a silly grin, acknowledging the senselessness of his words.
Jim returned the grin. "The weird thing is I know exactly what you mean, Sandburg," Jim said.
Blair's smiled faded. "I'd been running for so long, I didn't think I could live any other way. It always seemed like I was getting shoved aside, you know, so I started...I started cutting out before anybody could push me away. Never stay anywhere too long, don't wear out your welcome, leave before they kick you out. Don't let them in. Don't let anyone in. Don't trust, and they won't disappoint. Don't stay. Those were the lessons I'd learned, Jim."
Jim nodded slowly, wincing in empathetic pain.
Blair smiled at him. "But it was like you took every lesson I'd ever learned and proved it false...Whatever I'd experienced, even if I'd experienced it over and over again, somehow, you kept showing me that those things were the exceptions, not the rule, that getting hurt wasn't the natural outcome of caring for someone. And after Lash, when the nightmares were so bad, and you weren't getting any sleep, and I was such a basket case over everything, it was like...every breath you took, everything you did was to show me it was going to be okay, that it was going to get better... You installed the extra locks on the front door and the security locks on the windows and the fire escape...you sent me to that self-defense class and made sure the department shrink was available to see me... Anyone else would've cut their losses and run, Big Guy, but there you were, sticking with me, riding out the rough stuff like...like maybe I was worth it to you."
Jim walked over to where Blair sat and gently caught his chin in his hands. "You're worth anything and everything to me."
Blair blushed, then grinned at his embarrassment. "And even when the Borneo thing came up, I knew, I *knew* I wasn't running. Maybe it was a side trip or something, but it wasn't be running, 'cause I'd learned that staying was worth any hurt I might face someday. And then somehow, some time, I came to believe, to really *believe,* Jim, that I wasn't going to get hurt. That maybe something like forever really did exist, and I'd found it with you."
Jim took one of the roses out of the vase and ran it from Blair's forehead, down his nose, over his lips and past his chin. "Maybe there's another day we could celebrate, huh?" He pulled Blair to a standing position and kissed the path the flower just traveled.
"So what--I'd have get up early and fix you a grand breakfast?" Blair asked. He grinned impishly at the older man. "How would you tell it apart from any other day?"
Jim wrapped him in a warm embrace and kissed him more forcefully. "I can't tell them apart anyway," he said softly. "Every day with you is heaven."
Blair's groan of dismay at Jim's sappy remark gave way to a groan of desire. "Oh, man, you're killin' me," Blair moaned as Jim stretched his T-shirt away from his neck and began nibbling on the sensitive skin.
"You're not dying on me, Sandburg," Jim said confidently. He spread his legs wide to lessen the height difference, pulling Blair tight against his erection.
"No way, man," Blair agreed, rubbing himself against his lover's hardness. "I'm not goin' anywhere. You're stuck with me forever."
Jim smiled. "That's a good start, anyway."
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