Work Text:
DISCLAIMER: Pet Fly and UPN own these lovely boys, but I want to use them, and so I shall. I love to use them *so* much, I don't even care that I don't get paid for it!
RATING: G
NOTE: WARNING! Melancholia and angst abound! Tissues may be warranted (although, maybe not (g)). Another from Deannie in a blue funk. Don't worry, though, it
AIN'T a death story.
THANKS: To SXF! I love you guys, and you make me wish I could spend all my time writing for *you*!
WRITTEN: June 30, 1997
Just Someone
by Dean Warner
Jim slipped his key in the lock quietly, assuming Blair wasn't going to make it home from his date tonight, and too tired from his own double shift to listen to the loft before he entered. He was surprised to find the anthropologist sitting shirtless on the couch, in the dark, a glass of water in his hand as he stared out into the clear winter sky.
"Hey, Chief?" Jim kept his voice quiet, hanging up his coat without ever taking his eyes from his partner. "What's going on? I thought you had a date?"
"I did," Blair answered, a touch of sadness in his voice.
Jim advanced slowly, standing at the other end of the couch, examining the taut muscles in his roommate's back. He tried to smile gently through his words. "Not your type, huh?"
Blair's sigh said it all. "I wasn't hers, I guess."
Jim stood for a long moment, just watching the play of Sentinel-enhanced light on Blair's back, watching the curls that fell in a soft, solid wave as they dipped and swayed in response to Blair's smallest movement. The kid hadn't turned to him, so Jim was free to gaze, as he often did when Blair wasn't watching.
But the sadness in his Guide's voice made Jim want to do more than just look. Blair needed to be held. He needed to be loved...
But he'd never accept it from Jim.
Blair, for his part, wished that Jim knew what he was feeling. The cop always seemed so... centered. He'd never know what it was like. Oh, sure, he'd lost his cool when his senses went crazy, but at least he always knew who he was--at least he didn't feel this huge hole that couldn't be filled.
He heard Jim clear his throat, and watched the reflection he could see in the window, as Jim shifted uncomfortably. "Big Guy." Blair had called him that once, and it had stuck. And Blair had loved to be able to have just that one little intimacy...
Because he knew he'd never get anything else.
Jim moved forward slightly, stopping himself as quickly as he could. Blair wouldn't let him touch him. He knew that. Not the way he wanted to.
He opened his mouth to speak, not entirely sure what he was going to say, but Blair beat him to it.
"You know," the younger man said, his voice still quiet, befitting the mood. "There are those days when you just know that you're never going to find the right person." His head fell forward sadly, and Jim caught himself watching the play of muscles on Blair's now-exposed neck.
"You think that you're just going to spend your life going from person to person... And never find that one special one."
Jim stood silent. What could he say to that? Blair was rarely in these introspective moods, and Jim had no idea how to help him--no idea that Blair would sanction, anyway.
He tried for a logical approach. "Come on, Blair," he rallied softly. "You've always had people crowding around you. One of them will be the right one."
"It's all just a few nights together, Jim," Blair announced, perhaps a little bitter. "It doesn't mean anything."
The words were out before Jim could censor them. "At least you have *someone*."
"But it doesn't mean anything, Jim," Blair repeated coldly. "Touching someone because you want to touch--you want to be held by--*someone*. Doesn't matter who, doesn't matter for how long..." His voice dropped in sadness. "Just... someone."
Jim stood quietly beside the couch, watching his young friend as Blair stared out at the winter sky. He didn't know what to do--he knew what he *wanted* to do, but if he did it now, he was afraid Blair might think he was comforting him out of habit, that he thought Blair was just...
Someone.
He found his voice finally. "So you've never found that one person?"
Blair smiled, and Jim caught the reflection in the glass, his Guide's melancholy visage pulling at his heart. "I thought I might have," Blair whispered.
"What happened?" Jim tried to stop himself, again, from moving forward, but his body had a mind of its own, and, as he stepped up behind his friend, a tentative arm outstretched, he saw Blair's reflection close its eyes.
He couldn't watch Jim struggling to say the right thing, wouldn't have been able to stand it if Jim laid that "comforting hand" on his shoulder. Blair sighed sadly, as he denied the reflection before him. He wanted Jim to love him, but...
"I found out I was just *someone* after all."
The whisper was enough to make Jim drop his hand, mere inches from its goal. God, Chief. If I could--
Blair seemed to shake himself abruptly, rising from the couch and heading for the kitchen to place his glass silently in the sink. "I'm sorry, Jim," he said, sounding like the self-deprecating Blair that made Jim want to take him in his arms all over again. "Guess I'm just feeling down." He turned, a pain-filled smile on his face. "I'm going to sleep."
Jim stood straighter, still feeling the phantom heat of his friend on the couch before him. "Okay, Chief. Good night."
"Night, Jim."
The Sentinel stood there by the couch until Blair's warmth had faded, as he listened intently for the sound he knew would be coming from his partner's room... There it was... Crying. Light and careful, so as not to set off a Sentinel's ears.
But Jim heard it, as he had heard it many nights lately. And he wished desperately that he could do something for his friend. He couldn't, of course--at least, nothing Blair would *let* him do. Melancholia is catching, he laughed painfully to himself. Time to go to bed. Time to go to bed and dream of the one day when you can hold him--hold him and never let him go.
He fought not to hear that little voice in his head: Keep dreaming, Jimmy, it said. Keep dreaming, because that day will *never* come.
Blair listened, hearing Jim mount the stairs to his room, hearing him get comfortable on the bed. What would it be like if Jim really loved me, he wondered. What would it be like to have his arms around me, knowing that he'd never let me go?
Keep dreaming, his mind suggested bitterly. The feel of his arms in your dreams is all you're ever going to know...
Two men fell asleep, not fifty feet from each other, and assumed that they
were worlds apart...
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