Author's disclaimer: Neither Jim nor Blair, nor George Michael, for that matter, are owned by me.

Author's notes: Ahem. This is my first TS story and it's been a fairly interesting experience, but now I'm starting to find it something of a blight on the old C drive. At any rate, I'd love to receive feedback, but please do not ask why Jim and Blair keep squabbling because, unless it's a lack of vitamin D, I do not know. Finally, a thank you to Francesca for answering a question.

First, Blair was not there. Oh, he was there when he needed to be, at the station, at home, and no one needed to say

"Sandburg, are you with us?" more than they usually did, but Jim noticed that he was meditating a lot, really a lot, and when he wasn't meditating his breathing was all over the place, but even that was hard to gauge because Blair started being away from home almost all of the time that he wasn't meditating. Jim would come home from the station and find a pot of soup on the back burner with a note, in Blair's precise tiny scrawl, on how to heat it up and how there was fresh bread in the left hand cupboard and cheese and pickles in the refrigerator and how he'd be back later. Later meant long after Jim had given up and piled into bed, telling himself it was none of his business anyway.

[a woman], Jim thought, at first. [Or some big university thing]. There was nothing wrong with him, nothing medical--heartbeat: fine, temperature: fine, he smelled the same as ever. [Leave it alone], he told himself.

"D'you notice anything weird about Sandburg?" he asked Simon, after a week of this.

"You mean more than usual?" Simon smirked.

"Yeah, more than usual," he'd said, not bothering to acknowledge the joke. At this Simon said,

"He seems fine to me, Jim. Yesterday he gave me a fifteen minute rundown on the shape of grass huts--"

"reflecting tribal hierarchy, yeah, I know," he'd said. But the hexagonal dwelling of the Inpichu hunters aside, there was something just, just off about him, an observation which Blair didn't take too well:

"something off? something off? You mean like rotting fruit?"

"of course not."

"well, then, what's wrong?"

"are you angry about something? are you angry at me?"

"ah, yes, of course, Jim, it must be about you, mustn't it, it's gotta be something about The Sentinel." The words sounded like a curse and Jim recognized the testiness in his tone, had seen it a hundred times in the interrogation room. It was the tone of voice people used when you were very close, when you had cut straight to the bone. The next step, in these instances, was to press forward, to figure out exactly what you had said that pushed them into that blank faced denial and keep on pressing.

"So it is me." And Blair's response came back after a sigh, much quieter.

"no, Jim, really. It's not you. It's just some stuff, you know." He shrugged, lightly, looking at Jim, but not too hard, not that *look, I can look you in the eye without blinking* desperate stare of the guilty. And this would almost have worked. [Sandburg], he thought, [is really much better at this than your average criminal.]

"Did I do something?" he started and then, fuck, he was just angry, how dare Sandburg push him into this conciliatory, do you wanna talk about your feelings position,

"I don't want to talk about it," Blair said. It was a last ditch attempt, because he could feel that Blair's heartbeat had sped up. It matched his own. There was going to be a confrontation, he could feel good clean anger pouring through him,

"That's not an option," he ground out "You start acting all weird and avoiding me and you barely even touch me anymore," his words astonished him. He hadn't realized, even, that Blair's touches on his arm or shoulder or face were gone, and he certainly hadn't realized that it bothered him. "Is this some new kind of test?" he demanded, "the Guide withdraws and leaves the Sentinel hanging?"

"what?" Blair looked honestly bewildered at this, and a small part of Jim knew he was overreacting, but the rest of him was roaring [yeah--where the fuck has he been?]

"I can't believe how I let you jerk me around, Sandburg. Jesus--I bet you love this; just a little more evidence of my primitive needs. I bet you lie awake at night thinking of this shit; let's see what fucked up shit I can pull on Jim that will make him lose it and beg me for help."

"Jim," Blair had assumed his 'hey, man, relax' face, his 'Sentinel-goes-off-the-deep-end' face, and Jim, wondering faintly why he was being such a bastard, said,

"Naomi really messed you up didn't she? You're so fucking glad to find someone who needs you that you can't just leave it alone. You need proof, constant proof."

"You can leave Naomi out of this," Blair said and now he was really furious, which, Jim realized, had been his intent all along. Blair was looking at him like he hated him and he took a step towards Jim and said, quickly, "yeah, I lie awake at night, Jim. And actually," he laughed, and it was a mean laugh, "I do think about ways to make you lose it. I think about a lot of stuff, but lately," he stopped abruptly and seemed to reconsider. Jim was leaning against the wall, with the most goading sneer he could manage, and at that, Blair flushed with anger and then started again, "lately, I've been thinking mostly about fucking you."

They had always played this game, this one upsmanship game, but it had been friendly before, each trying to puncture the other's cool, get below the surface. It was a way to say the things about friendship and need that neither of them had a lot of experience saying, but [shit], Jim thought, [Blair just won]. Because he had played the god damned trump card and it was as if saying it had somehow catapulted all of his tension and anger into Jim, because Blair had tossed himself easily onto the arm of the easy chair and was looking at Jim, grinning mirthlessly at the shock and confusion in his face.

"So, Jim," he said, finally, his voice a parody of the smooth seductive tone Jim had heard him use, with good effect, when he talked to women. "what do you think? Do you want to just kneel down, hands and knees on the floor, and let me do you? or maybe, you know, you'd really rather be on your back, legs spread for me," and he kept talking, the litany of, what, filth? whatever it was, spilling from his mouth, in a coolly flirtatious voice. Jim hadn't known that Blair could say those things to anyone, and he stood, stunned into silence, until Blair stopped. Tired of his lack of response, maybe.

"Cat got your tongue, Jim?" he asked, getting up. He was leering now, and it was a leer of victory; his eyes were hard with it. "As fun as this has been," he said, "I have office hours which I should really be getting to, so I'll see you around." He walked out the door.

[Jesus the Fuck Christ] Jim thought, sitting down heavily. He knew a lot of things went on with Blair that he didn't know about, that he didn't ask about. He knew that Blair had this whole other existence, one that didn't intrude on his life except in the most superficial sense--blue books here and there, Blair scrambling to find an overdue library book, a few answering machine messages:

"Hey, Blair, Eddie--I know I said I could take the two-thirty section, but I can't, I promised Maureen I'd do the 231 lab with her. Is the Monday four-thirty still open?"

"uh, this is a message for Blair, the Thompson kid is still saying he didn't plagiarize the paper, which means that we have to do a hearing--can you make it on Wednesday, 10 o'clock, room 240?"

but he'd had, obviously, no idea about the sorts of things that were floating around in Blair's head.

So Blair was gay. Or liked men. Or, possibly, just liked Jim. Although the look in his eyes hadn't looked very much like like at all. No, Blair being a homosexual or wanting to do...things to him wasn't really the problem. He had been trained to find the anomalies, the pieces of the puzzle that didn't fit and he had seen Blair around a lot of people he liked [women], his mind screamed, [women is who you saw him around], but he'd never acted like that.

Blair was charming with people; flirtatious; he never pressured anyone or made them uncomfortable. [It wasn't], Jim thought, [a very productive way of accomplishing your objective.] It wasn't Blair's MO at all. If Blair really wanted him, he would sit down and have a talk with him. Maybe cook him a nice meal. So something was clearly wrong, and he had to talk to Blair to find out what it was. This could be fixed. He shied away from the part of him that was asking: [so what if he had sat you down and had a talk? What then?] Stupid. Unproductive. Blair was having problems and it was manifesting itself in this strange way and perhaps Jim wasn't as touchy-feely or intuitive as some of Blair's friends, but he knew when someone was trying to get rid of him. He couldn't imagine a more effective way for Blair to get rid of his friendship than to crudely proposition him. That's what it was, that's all--a screen for something really wrong. That was it.

The sign on the door, said "Blair Sandburg, office hours 10-12 Mondays". It was Tuesday. It was seven o'clock. Now that Jim was here, this seemed like less of a good idea, but he could hear Blair in there, shuffling papers around, alone. He hesitated: [I could just let him work it out alone], he thought. [He's doing a crappy job, so far, though. Besides. It's not like he'd leave me alone if I suddenly started describing in detail the things I want to do to his body. And that's hardly the issue, is it, Ellison? Shit. Shut up--just get in there and fix this.] He knocked and then pushed open the door without waiting for Blair's "come in," which died on his lips as he saw Jim. "what do you want?" he said, rudely, turning back to his papers.

"I want to know what's going on with you," Jim said, launching into speech as if they had never stopped, "Blair, this isn't like you--"

"Like your picture of me, maybe, I mean, yes, I make an attempt to be easygoing, even to be accomodating, but you have to draw a line somewhere, so I thought I'd start with the fucking."

"Will you stop talking about that? That's not what this is about, I mean you're not, why are you being so mean?" his voice flailed around and eventually petered out. [weak, Ellison, very weak], he thought.

"This is classic," Blair huffed, "this is fucking classic--you take the cake, Ellison, you really do. Okay--I'm not being so nice so you ask why, and I very kindly oblige you with an answer, which you don't like, so you decide it's something else. So, let me just say this once more," and this was in his yes-this-will-be-on-the-test-stop-wasting-my-time-if-you-aren't-really-interested-in-the-subject voice "I'm not having problems or flashbacks or any kind of mental imbalance, here, I just think, even if George Michael did say it first, that it would be nice if I could touch your body. Got it?" he raised his eyebrows and Jim told himself, [you pathetic fuck, haven't you learned anything? Examine a problem from all angles--remember that? remember when you weren't an idiot? Don't just go with the first solution that comes.]

"When you said...all that," he said, finally, "is that how you pictured it?" [Lord knows not everybody has a body like you], he was calmly informed.

"Don't you think you're jumping the gun a little here? What gives you the right to ask me that? Have you given me any indication that you're going to take me up on the offer? I have better things to do than be interrogated-and, frankly, I don't share details about my sex life with people who aren't participants." Blair had come around his desk and moved towards him, and Jim found himself backing up, but Blair was just getting a book off the low table near the wall.

"excuse me," he said, glaring at Jim. Jim stepped out of his way and found his back against the wall, once more.

And he was aware, of course, that the last time he had made a decision under pressure, trying to make sense out of new and unfamiliar data, without really thinking things through, it had ended up rather badly, with packed boxes and fountains and nerve gas, but he couldn't help it because, ask anyone, ask Blair, Jim Ellison was a creature of habit, he owned pairs of pants that he had worn for ten years, he ate what he ate and drove what he drove, and read what he read, and kissed how he kissed, always always.

He remembered an old girlfriend who had grumbled at his kissing technique, "I don't know," she said, "I just like to, you know, take it easy, at first, see how we fit together, but you just go and dive in," or an even earlier girl who had shoved him back so hard that his head hit the ceiling of the car and said, "Could you calm the fuck down?", but it was a hard habit to break and he had never dived into anyone the way he dove into Blair, pulling him forward by the neck of his shirt like they were starring in some 2 a.m. movie about juvenile delinquents that had taken a header into porn, fitting their lips together and shoving his tongue past teeth.

He ignored Blair's response, ignored everything but Blair's lips and teeth and tongue and smell, just going ahead and doing it, because, at some point in the conversation, perhaps even before he pushed open the office door, he had known that this was going to happen. He was just trying to get it over with, holding Blair against him, the cool cinderblocks at his back. He could feel the slight scratchy imperfections in the cement through his shirt, providing a nice counterpoint to the heat of [shit] Blair's erection. But no, no, that wasn't it, Jim Ellison wasn't a man to mince words and he had never in his life used the word 'erection', it was a doctor's office word, a tenth grade biology word and this was neither. He could feel Blair's hard-on. There, that was better, although, that, of course, made it more real than the erection had been.

Being around Blair, he realized, shoving his hands into Blair's hair, gave a person interesting ideas about inevitability. Not that he'd been much on shades of grey before, but the constant assault with theories about genetic imperatives and inborn traits gave everything a strangely binary order. There was no longer any in between: there was holding and there was not holding, but there was no thinking about holding, there was no thinking about the inadvisability of wanting your roommate, or about the downright strangeness of being mostly straight. No, either you fucked men or you didn't, and either you wanted to fuck Blair or you didn't. And if you wanted to fuck Blair, then you wanted to and you ought to get right on to the doing it part, before you woke up and found, or were informed, that his binary door had swung closed, and whereas, yes, he had wanted to fuck you, he was now finished with the wanting, and, in an equally binary, are-you-in-or-are-you-out fashion, finished with you.

And once something beyond the overpowering warmth of Blair's mouth had managed to trickle into his mind, he was able to stop, and he pushed Blair back slightly and, still cupping his jaw, ran one thumb around the outline of Blair's lips, stroking the bottom lip a few times. The thumb was wet when Blair jerked himself back out of his grasp. He was blushing, a little.

"now I'm a participant," Jim said. "Is that how you pictured it?"

Blair started to say one thing and then swallowed and tried another; Jim could see the responses flicking past, like watching a slide show. He stored them up to think about later, because all he could think about now was what Blair would say, watching the abortive movements of his wet lips. Redder than usual, he thought. I did that.

"Depends." Blair said, finally, and his voice was cold and hard again. "You gonna let me fuck you?"

"I, is that the only thing you want to do?" Jim said, and to him, his voice sounded desperate, but oh, what the hell, he had been desperate since about two Thursdays ago, since someone had hijacked Blair and left him with this insistent stranger.

"Oh, sure, I wanna do other stuff. I wanna suck you off and I want you to suck me and I want you to fuck me, and I wanna lick every square inch of your body."

"Then, why are you--"

"So what you're saying, Ellison, is that the 'other stuff' sounds pretty damn good to you, but, somehow, getting fucked doesn't have that same romantic sheen."

"I didn't say that."

"naw, you didn't have to. But I know you and I know I'll just get into it with you and you won't be able to handle it, but you have to know that I consider the whole concept of assigning set roles in sex to be bullshit, not to mention demeaning and, really, deeply unsexy, I mean, it robs it of its spontaneity entirely, so I thought I'd just be up front about my feelings about stupidass topping and bottoming, and tell you that I want to fuck you."

"oh."

"So, later, you can't tell me you didn't sign on for it, that you're really a dominant guy or whatever--"

"Shut up."

"I knew you couldn't take it." And suddenly, he couldn't, he had to get out of there, he couldn't decide if Blair's talk of fucking and sucking turned him on or not, and before he could decide, Blair was going on about sex roles. He had a headache. He was hungry.

"I have to get out of here,"

"Of course you do," as he walked away, he knew he wasn't imagining the smug inflection of Blair's voice.

He went back to the loft and ate dinner, noting, morosely, that it was Blair's night to cook. The last time that they had eaten together before this whole thing started, Blair had made black bean stew, thick and dark and manageably spicy, with cornbread. The night had been rainy and the stew had burned off the chill he'd felt all day, socks wet at ten o'clock after an arrest in a puddled parking lot. Blair had been in a terrific mood, poking the (light) sour cream across the table and letting Jim have the last piece of corn bread. He had been chosen to attend an anthropology conference in Texas, to give a presentation, and he had chatted excitedly to Jim about the size of the conference and the importance of the scholars who would attend. Jim knew it was important, knew, in fact, because he remembered Blair all keyed up the morning before the meeting with the department review board--there was stiff competition to attend this particular conference and Blair had been barely able to down his eggs. He had patted the man on the shoulder.

"Good luck," he'd called, as Blair left. Later, at the station, he had asked him how it had gone.

"okay, I guess, Jim," Blair had said, "Are we going to go check out the scene at this burglary or what?" And he'd smiled and poked an elbow into Jim's hip, "No rest for the wicked."

[Stop thinking about this], Jim told himself. [This is making it worse].On the other hand, it did stem, somewhat, the crashing tide of images that Blair's words had evoked. Just thinking about the way Blair's lips had twisted as he'd said them, words Jim had never imagined that Blair would say to him, [I wanna suck you off, I want you to suck me], made his stomach flip and turn. It wasn't revulsion.

[Maybe], he thought, [I'm getting into this all too fast. Maybe if I just slow it down a little. Make this connect with reality], he snorted to himself. And this, actually, seemed like a good plan. It was comforting, after days of no plans, no A to B solutions, to have a real plan.

"Okay," he said seating himself on the couch. Okay. It could happen like: this, for instance, he thought. The morning of the department review board--he would have, um, touched Blair to comfort him.[I already did that], he thought. So he would touch him differently, he would, um, lay his palm on the shoulder for a moment and then slide his palm down over Blair's chest. Blair was wearing a red t-shirt that morning, his memory helpfully supplied him. It was a thin shirt, and he hadn't yet put on the sweater hanging over the back of the chair. So he would be able to feel Blair's heartbeat, his heat through the shirt, without really even dialing up. And Blair would, Blair would lean his head back, his hair falling away from the smooth extended curve of his neck, and they would kiss, just like that. It would be slow, nothing urgent or forced like today in the office, just Blair leaning against him in the chair, wanting him, maybe reaching one hand up to run over Jim's cheek, holding him gently in the kiss.[Until you got back strain], his subconscious muttered.[Shut up], he thought. Because this was all very nice and very good. He got more comfortable on the couch.

So then Blair would lick his lips and grin, a real Blair grin.

"Thanks for the eggs, man, I gotta go or I'll be late," and he'd blast out the door, maybe with a goodbye kiss.

[Well. my my my. But that was tame. Don't even try that on us, Jimmy], something at the base of his skull smirked [get back into that kitchen and try again. Do what you really want this time.] So Blair was back grinning at him and he was [well, damn] sinking to his knees and unbuttoning Blair's pants and finding his cock and man it was hot and he would first, kiss the head and then maybe lick it a little bit and--

The sound of the key in the lock brought him soundly back to reality, but not quickly enough to do anything but sit there as Blair walked into the loft, blue eyes widening slightly at the sight of him, pants unbuttoned, one hand on his cock, completely hard, already leaking.

"hey, what were you thinkin' about?" Blair asked, reasoning, no doubt, thought Jim, that things were already as embarrassing and as disclosed as they could really be, that one more question wouldn't make a difference.

"you," he managed to choke out, removing his hand, rather belatedly, from his cock. Unable to figure out what to do with the hand exactly, he waved vaguely at the kitchen.

"That's not very specific," Blair said.

"What, are you going to deduct points from my final grade?"

"What was I doing?" Blair said. Almost the guide voice. Certainly persuasive.

"You, were, uh, sitting there."

"erotic."

"it was the morning before that review board thing for the Texas conference."

"That turned you on?" Blair's eyes, for the first time in days, had lost their hard luster and were now simply curious, perhaps even vaguely amused.

"I'm kissing you. because you're nervous--because I think it'll make you feel better and then I'm--" and he closed his eyes because he couldn't believe he was about to do this, he leaned his head against the back of the couch "and you smile and I want to make you even less nervous so I go down on my knees and get your cock out of your pants and first I just lick it, getting it wet, but then I get it into my mouth and start sucking and you start out just touching my hair, running your hands over my face, but then you really get into it and you just hold my head and start fucking my mouth and making, um, noises, and you get, your rhythm gets jerky and you're just wild and you come in my mouth and we just sit there for a minute and then you realize you're going to be late and so you grab your bag and stuff and tell me you'll finish me off at night and just lick across my lips and leave and I'm still just kneeling there by your chair." And he was pumping away at his cock, everything slick and hot and good and he came in his hand and opened his eyes to find Blair sitting on the coffee table, barely two feet in front of him.

Blair's heartbeat was elevated. He smelled like books and oranges and lust and he was looking at Jim, at Jim's softening cock and heaving shoulders and dripping handful of semen.

"Wipe it on your shirt," he suggested, so Jim did. And now Blair smelled really strongly of arousal. [Well, I should hope so], his brain groused.

"So what happens that night?" Blair asked.

"I hadn't--"

"Tell me what happens," and shit, that really was the Guide voice and he couldn't say no, he couldn't say he didn't know, that he wasn't even sure how he had gotten to this place, semen wet and pungent against his skin, Blair in front of him, warm and salty and looking at him speculatively, but quite calmly, considering that Jim had just beat off in front of him.

"I go to work," he began slowly, "and I get home before you. You come in and we kiss and--" there was a long pause. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know," just one more failure. He waited for Blair to get angry again, because that seemed the only constant of the last few weeks, but Blair just said, mildly,

"Maybe it would help you to reenact the first part," and he shifted back, subtly, gently, on the table, tendering an invitation

"I think, maybe, yes," Jim mumbled, sliding off the couch and in between Blair's knees and it was not as easy to get Blair's buttons undone as it had been in the fantasy, but his cock was a great deal hotter and he could feel the pulse beneath the skin. Jim ran his tongue over it, but it was already slippery with pre-ejaculate and

"yeah." Blair said.

"right, uh, oh," Blair shuddered.

"hard. Shit. Just like that," Blair forced out and Jim couldn't tell if he was whispering or shouting because his hearing was all over the place because he was concentrating so hard on twirling his tongue around the shaft and sucking and Blair's hands in his hair and on his shoulders and then it was as if Blair suddenly remembered his fantasy because his scalp was clutched in tight fingers and god Blair was forcing him back against the couch and straddling his chest, kneeling on the floor, and really fucking his mouth with a punishing rhythm, by this time completely incoherent and Jim was clutching his hips and thighs and ass and realizing that his neck was going to be killing him tomorrow and then it was over, in a series of gulping swallows. He couldn't do it quite fast enough and some of it came out, dribbling down his chin and Blair panted, "Swallow it all," so he did, wiping it into his mouth with his finger, even though there was no way Blair could have used the Guide voice at that point.

Then his cel phone rang. Simon .Smugglers, docks, he didn't catch it all,

"I think Sandburg better be here for this one, Jim." Simon said. "We need to be able to get a definite fix on them."

"Right," Jim said, and hung up. He looked up at Blair, still straddling him, and said, "That was Simon--he thinks we may be able to shut down those smugglers tonight," it came out rather well, especially considering the fact that he had to crane his neck at a punishing angle to be able to make eye contact with anything above Blair's ribcage.

"uh huh," Blair said, pushing his hair back away from his face. "okay." Jim could see him regaining control, piecing together his happy-go-lucky exterior. He'd known, of course, that it was as carefully constructed as his own cool yeah-that's-right-I-carry-a-fricken-gun demeanor, but it was a shock to see Blair force himself to rights, see how quickly his mouth, gone slack with pleasure, snapped back into shape.

Jim reluctantly pulled his arms from around Blair's thighs and sat up some and this pushed Blair down further into his lap, until he came in contact with the hard-on Jim had chosen to ignore until now. But Blair wiggled his hips a little and said,

"Do you want--"

"look, you don't need to do me any favors," he muttered, wondering what he was doing getting hard a bare ten minutes after he'd come the first time.

"uh huh. The question is: do you want me to help you out?" Blair was sexy, he realized. Not that he hadn't know this before, what with women practically leaving claw marks in the loft door, but now that Blair's ass was resting against his cock, Jim was gaining a whole new appreciation for the startling conjunction of the square hard strength of his shoulders and the cool gold of his skin.

"I don't--"

"Jim, for God's sake. Do you want it?" Blair ran a thoughtful finger down the center of Jim's face, a familiar guide gesture made shocking by circumstances. When the finger reached Jim's lips, Blair casually pushed it into his mouth, stroking Jim's tongue, his lower lip. Then he brought the finger back to his mouth and put it inside--not teasingly, just as if there were something on it he wanted to taste.

"yeah," Jim could feel the flush spreading slowly over his cheekbones, "I want it." Blair smiled, let out a triumphant

"okay, then." And repositioned himself so he was kneeling in between Jim's thighs. Jim hadn't zipped up his pants from before and they were now a rumpled mess. Blair reached for his cock and stroked it once and then, never letting go, leaned forward and kissed Jim. He ran his tongue slowly along Jim's lips and then sucked his tongue languorously into his mouth. Jim sighed and bucked up into his hand and the kiss changed as Blair grabbed the back of his head with one hand and positioned his head exactly the way he wanted it, kissing Jim so fiercely that their teeth clicked faintly together.

He kissed Jim's jaw and neck and pumped and rubbed his cock and then he let go of Jim's head and trailed his fingers down his chest to tweak and roll a nipple through the semen soaked shirt.

"Could you take this off?" he asked. Jim wrenched the shirt over his head and pulled Blair back for a kiss. When he released his mouth, Blair started talking, softly, first just nonsense stuff, sexy stuff, how hard Jim was and how he loved the way his dick leaked for him and how his nipples were beautiful and dark and responsive and how he bet Jim could come just from having his nipples stroked, which very nearly did make Jim come, but Blair knew what he was doing and the pressure of his hand stopped it and suddenly he was leaning close to Jim and saying:

"Fuck, man, like it should surprise me that I now need to reevaluate--once again--my whole view of life based on unexpected actions of yours, but, Jim, you were so hot and that, man, was one unbelievable blow job and I'm just going to ask you to ignore my earlier statements, because I was an idiot and I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about, but I've revised, I take it back, and there is nothing I would like more than for you to fuck me right now--the cornerstone of any successful academic is the ability to be flexible, to be able to follow another's lead, are you okay Jim, I, no, it's just that I never really heard anyone make noise like that," because Jim had started coming when Blair had started talking about fucking.

"Jim, thanks for gracing us with your presence," Simon bit out, when they arrived at the docks.

"Sorry, sir, I had to pick up Bl-Sandburg at school." They had sat for a moment, both studiously not looking at each other. That was ridiculous, Jim thought, not to be able to look at the man after all that. They'd both gotten up and he'd gone into the bathroom and cleaned himself roughly with a washcloth and gone upstairs and changed. When he came down Blair was waiting by the door in a different shirt and pants. They nodded at each other and left, barely talking in the truck, except for Jim to say,

"do you think it might be faster to take 80?" to which Blair replied,

"maybe--these are the east docks?"

"right."

"yeah, 80."

It was a long night and there were no smugglers and no smuggled goods but it took them nearly until dawn to be sure. Again and again, he'd listened through the darkness for nothing, for a few men on ships playing cards or the radio, but mostly sleeping, a thousand slow even breaths in the darkness that made him feel tired and he was sick of looking at Blair and saying,

"nothing here." As the night wore on, he had become increasingly aware that neither of them had taken a shower. He could still taste Blair and he could smell himself on Blair and it turned him on and annoyed him at the same time because they had solved nothing. In fact, they'd probably just fucked up everything more thoroughly. He still didn't know what was going on and he was screwing his best friend, who didn't seem very happy about the situation.

[I'll get him home and we'll talk], he thought.[I won't touch him.] He made an effort to shake away the memory of Blair leaning over him and telling him how much he'd like to be fucked. They got home right as the sun was coming up, both of them yawning up the stairs.[In a movie], thought Jim, [neither of us would be able to sleep until we'd worked this out], but he was bone tired. He was having a hard time remembering that the last time he went to bed he had no idea what was wrong with Blair, had never felt his lips or his hair, had never had his mouth wrapped around Blair's cock. One day. It seemed like weeks.

Jim headed straight into the bathroom to brush his teeth, and he was still moving around checking locks and turning off lights when Blair came out, the smell of stale sex replaced with some variety of minty freshness. He smelled like Jim's mouth tasted.[Not that that's a big change from the last eight hours], Jim thought. Blair had washed his face; his hair was damp around the edges, a few curls thoroughly soaked. He smelled like soap. In fact, the air surrounding his torso was had a higher moisture level than the rest of the loft. Evaporation. Jim realized that Blair had scrubbed himself off and put his shirt back on before he was entirely dry. Odd. Before, he would never have bothered. He would have just left the shirt off--likely, left it balled in a corner of the bathroom.[He put that filthy shirt back on because of me,] Jim thought, waiting at the base of the stairs and feeling foolish, [because he didn't want me to see him.]

"Good night," he said.[damn it.] "d'you--"

"Don't, Jim. Just, don't," and Blair disappeared into his room and Jim was tired enough that he didn't even force himself to admit that he was glad that Blair had cut him off. He had had no idea what he was going to say.

He woke up at three, afternoon rain splattering against the skylight. He stared at the murky sky and thought of kissing Blair, thought of the men he had screwed, furtively, here and there, thought [shit, boy, you are in some serious trouble here], because he knew it didn't matter, he'd take this strange, cold Blair, he'd take whatever he could get, for as long as he could get it. The problem was, given all the evidence, that didn't look like it would be very long. He got up at four and took a shower, scrubbed all traces of semen off the spot in front of the couch, washed and folded the t-shirt from yesterday and put it in the back of the drawer. He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to wear it again.

Blair wasn't there. Tuesday afternoon class, he remembered. Blair would be home at six. Or he usually was. Jim began to make dinner, making sure that Blair wouldn't have an excuse to leave, once he got there.[I won't let him], he thought, and something twisted painfully inside him.

Blair got home at ten--

"stuff to do, man. sorry," he said. And Jim, who had been slightly annoyed at seven and angry at eight and just livid at nine, was, by now, only tired and determined.

"we're going to talk," he said.

"are we," answered Blair, easily.

"yup," he could feel his jaw twitching with resolve, and had gotten it almost relaxed when Blair said,

"I'm pretty tired, actually--sleep patterns all over the place from last night, so, if it's all the same to you, I'm going to turn in."

"It's not all the same to me," he snarled and he half carried, half shoved Blair over to the couch."will you just tell me what's going on with you."

"Will you just back the fuck off?" Blair snapped, trying to move around Jim off the sofa, blocked as Jim pushed him back down and sat on the coffee table in front of him.

"No, you know what? Speaking as someone whose jaw was sore this morning because of your dick, I won't back off." It occurred to him, in the part of his mind that was semi-hysterical that he'd said anything of the sort, that the last time they had sat in this position, albeit with the positions reversed, he'd been too out of his mind with lust to even contemplate talking.

"Well, that's what's going on with me," Blair said.

"funny. It didn't seem like you had too many problems with it last night." [The last time you did a guy,] his memory volunteered, [he took you home from work and gave you a beer and a condom and then the conversation portion of the evening was over.] Blair tried to move again, but Jim put his palm against his diaphragm and nudged him easily back down onto the couch and Blair glared at him,

"See, that's exactly what I'm talking about," he half-shouted, "I don't want to do something and you make me. You use your size and your strength and just, make me--not a very fetching dynamic for a relationship, don't you think?"

"I wouldn't make you do anything you didn't want to do," telling himself, fiercely, that you couldn't possibly force someone to be given head. No way.

"You're making me do something I don't want to do right now," Blair bellowed.

"Don't change the subject, which is, let's just be clear here, that you think I'd force you sexually. That's very flattering, you know--to be living with some guy who thinks you're a rapist. That's great," he had begun to wonder if Blair's unusual unwillingness to talk was somehow related to a certain pattern he'd noticed. Namely that the latest rule in their relationship appeared to be that any attempt to talk was closely followed by his tongue ending up somewhere on Blair's body. As bad as the last few days had been for the rest of him, they'd been pretty good for his tongue. But maybe Blair hadn't wanted it, didn't want it. The memory of him coming out of the bathroom wearing a dirty shirt over his clean body snickered at him. "You don't want me," Jim said, swallowing, "and you think I'd make you,"

"That's not, that's not it, oh shit, Jim," and Blair took a deep breath and said, once more, "that's not it." He fixed his gaze somewhere over Jim's left shoulder and said, "It's, you'd put your hands on me and I'd do anything you wanted, I'd let you fuck me any which way you wanted, no problem. I'd beg for it if you wanted me to, I'd be happy to beg for it, and you of all people should know that it's not all that pleasant to have so little control over yourself."

"Oh Jesus, Blair," and Jim lifted himself off the table and threw himself down on the couch next to Blair. His jaw really hurt. His neck hurt. His nipples smarted from where Blair had pinched them last night.[If we ever actually have sex], he thought, [I'm going to be confined to a wheelchair.] "Do you think, Sandburg, for God's sake," he sighed, "that you could let me in on the whole story from the beginning?"

Blair sighed as well, and began talking, scratching one nail on couch cushion. "I wanted you before, but it was fun, it was like a game--I knew I could never have you and so it was just like having this nice little fantasy to haul out on a rainy day, like thinking about a naked Jodie Foster admiring my intellect or winning the lottery. But no sane person ever ripped their guts open over some movie star and there wasn't any ticket I could buy that would get me even a millionth of a chance at you and god I don't think you have any idea how good you sometimes look and are you aware that when you're being this tough sweaty cop, you touch me more than ever?"

"I guess I--"

"For Chrissake, Jim, that's a rhetorical question. At any rate, I was fine and then I interviewed Mark Sullivan for the thin blue line diss."

"Oh Christ."

"He didn't say anything bad about you or anything. He said you were very considerate and charming and that you were great even after you stopped seeing him, at the station and stuff. Made sure he was doing okay, had conversations with him, anything you could do to make sure he knew he wasn't just some guy you fucked."

"It was a long time ago," Jim tried to say, but Blair was still talking,

"but he knew he was, you know. He knew that even that Jim Ellison, yes-I'm-talking-to-you smile didn't change that. Didn't matter, you know. Once I knew it was a possibility, I couldn't stop thinking about it.It was making me crazy--you were making me crazy. But when I started to actually try to fit it into reality--you know, not some fantasy where we just fooled around on every piece of furniture and didn't have to scrub the hell out of it later--there were only a few ways it went. Mostly, you fucking me. God, I could picture your hands on my body like you fucking owned me, but I could barely picture you kissing me. I mean, I suddenly knew that you did guys, but I wasn't sure you kissed them," Jim moved slightly towards him at this, but Blair flinched out of the way and continued, "I wasn't sure you touched them when they weren't underneath you or made them eggs or picked them up from work when their car broke down and you were already doing that stuff for me, and I kept asking myself why I couldn't just let well enough alone."

Jim tried to think of something to say, but only the most inappropriate things popped into his mind.[Mark Sullivan gave fantastic head], for instance. Blair had had crumpled in on himself, his arms crossed over his stomach. "It was just easier to have you mad at me," he said, quietly. "It was stupid."

"Blair, this is, you're different than Mark," Jim finally managed.

"Why? He was crazy about you. and I'm." his face pinched for a moment, and Jim knew that expression, that was Blair's *get ready, because I'm jumping into the line of fire* face, the one that began some chain of events that involved guns and pain and pavement and ended with comments that began with 'for a smart guy...' "I adore you," Blair whispered roughly. Such an old fashioned turn of phrase, it turned Jim inside out, he, [forgive me, I'm sorry] he wanted to say, he had been tangled in the way Blair's mouth looked when he said 'fuck', in how good it had been to be underneath his body.

"oh .oh my god." He couldn't not touch Blair; he wanted to so badly. He knew he shouldn't. He should have been replying, he should have been doing something other than kissing a line down Blair's neck, Blair's body acquiescent against his, shivering a little.

"I think I'm in love with you," he mouthed the words against Blair's collarbone and felt him go even more limp against him, felt capable hands come up to his shoulders and in between them to his shirt and Blair shifted to lie on the couch and pull Jim up over him, and began, seriously, mouth slightly open, to undo Jim's shirt buttons. Jim knelt over him and touched Blair's thighs and neck and hair and Blair tugged him forward and began tonguing a nipple, his hands running along the waistband of Jim's pants, forcing him down so their pelvises met and bumped and jerked together and then Blair's callused hand was inside his pants running along the cleft of his ass and the simple touch made his body roar with need. The scent of Blair's desperation had melted off him and Jim thought he could feel the individual creases in Blair's lips as he kissed across his chest to the other nipple, but wait, wait something was wrong,

"Stop, just, stop a minute," he said, noting that he was already breathless and Blair did stop, really stopped and yanked his hand out of Jim's pants and pushed himself away, far back to the other end of the couch, "Oh, man, I knew it, I fucking knew it. You fucking pricktease, you're walking around with this perfect ass and it's inviolable. Of course."

"will you stop it? Have I ever once said you couldn't fuck me? Ever? Fuckin' A, and you give me a hard time about preconceived notions. If it's not too much trouble, could you just stop acting like I think my ass is the divine shield of the seven samurais? You know, I'm just going to give you tacit permission to touch my ass. That's right, Sandburg, my ass is yours. Go to town."

"no. you tell me why you wanted to stop."

"It's nothing, it's just, this isn't how I pictured this. Don't look at me like that. I just thought that you were the kind of person who had fun when they made love."

"Well, I'm sorry if I'm not living up to your standard here."

"Sandburg, are you always such a pain in the ass? You are my fucking standard. I only meant that I'm signing over my ass to you, you could at least smile a little."

"You're right. I could smile a little," and he did and then he was beaming, "and I could ask you what you like,"

"I like you," Jim said.

Blair was lost, he was gone, his eyes were feverish and Jim wasn't far behind, humping his cock against Blair's and licking at his jaw. His favorite shirt was lying on the floor of the living room with the arm half ripped out and he could smell a cup of tea underneath Blair's bed that had a whole colony of mold growing in it, but the solid feel of Blair's body under his more than made up for it. Last night on the couch had been one thing, unexpected and sexy, but this, Blair's hands skidding down his back, pulling him closer, this was much better. Jim's happy musing was invaded by Blair's broken gasps,

"Jim, please, could you just fuck me? Please, god, just, I mean, this is good, this is great, this is, oh, yeah, but I'd really prefer to be fucking myself on your cock, and don't tell me you don't want to either, because it's burning a hole in my leg right now, so come on what are you waiting for, I know you'll fill my ass so nice." Jim yanked him into a real kiss then, sucking his tongue into his mouth and stroking it, reaching down to move his hands over Blair's ass, to muscle one long sweat-slick forefinger into Blair's asshole and Blair sighed against his mouth and said "yeah, just like that," and moved his hips against Jim's finger, so he nearly missed it when Jim said, quietly,

"no,"

"no? naw you don't mean that Jim, I mean, I know you want to, come on," and he arched up under Jim, posing, writhing, "how do you want me? On my back, on my stomach?"

"in me," Jim gasped, "in me."

"what?" Blair closed his eyes. He opened them slightly to gauge Jim's expression and exhaled noisily. "Oh man, not right now. Of course, it figures that my words would just come back and bite me on the ass at the most inopportune time. Jim, it's a nice thought, truly it is, but don't you think it would be nice to fuck me--I mean, it only has to be nice if you want it to be, nice and slow or hot and nasty, I don't care, just as long as, " but Jim was regarding him steadily, stubbornly, and he'd slipped his finger out of Blair's body. "oh fuck." Blair pulled himself back, still hard as iron, but regaining a measure of control. "why not?"

"Because of all the stuff you said,"

"Right. well. I suppose I made the bed--now I'll just have to lie in it. I've never used that proverb in a more appropriate context than now. So," and his body language shifted just slightly, and Blair's brain was back and Jim was trying to decide whether he liked the limp, wide-eyed begging Blair or this one better, when Blair said, softly, again, "so. Do you like it nice and slow or hard and nasty?"

He was going to say, whatever, I don't care, just, go to it, but what he actually gasped out was "slow. And nasty." And Blair raised his eyebrows and laughed and said, "whoah. Big points. Original answer. Creative." He got out from under Jim and dug something out of his bedside table and said, "okay. on your back please," and as Jim complied, he continued, "I lied, you know, I did imagine it once or twice, you spread out for me, like this. Just like this," he repeated in satisfaction and he ran his hand over Jim's straining cock, down through his spread thighs, over his balls to his anus. "You tell me if I do anything you don't like, okay?"

"I'm not sure if that's possible," moaned Jim, pushing his ass against Blair's hand. There was a long moment when neither of them said anything, when the room was silent except for their excited breathing as Blair slicked one finger with lubricant and pressed it into Jim.

"good?" he asked.

"Fine, good, yes," said Jim. And Blair began to move the finger in, out, around, and then he added a second, saying,

"you've done this before?"

"few times," was his answer. Blair was silent for a moment and then he leaned forward and said,

"I believe you asked for nasty?" And Jim grinned, a fathomless grin, and said,

"Gimme what you got, there, Sandburg," and then his neck arched back involuntarily, his back bowing against the bed and Blair began talking again, still fucking Jim slowly with his fingers, adding a third,

"Man, if I'd had any idea you'd be like this, so willing, so hot for my cock, I would have done this ages ago. Jim, why don't you stroke your nipples for me, that's right, that's good, show me how good it feels, how good it feels to have my fingers in your gorgeous ass. I think next time we do this, I'll take you on your hands and knees, just so I can look at my cock disappearing between your asscheeks, but for now, this is good, with you open for me, getting ready to take my cock,"

"okay," panted Jim, "you're nasty, you've proven your point, now could you please fuck me with that fabled cock of yours?"

"I don't want to hurt you,"

"Blair. Please," and he pulled himself off Blair's fingers ignoring Blair's startled concerned exclamation and turned himself over, presenting his ass to Blair, who said,

"oh, Jim, this is going to be really good. I'm going to make this really good for you,"

"I know," and Blair slid slowly inside him and it was good, especially after Blair reached around and grabbed his cock, stroking him and plunging into him and moaning his pleasure against his back and in the next few minutes, as the world came apart at the seams, the only coherent thought that Jim had was that it was nice that something could shut Blair up, and even nicer that that something involved him getting hickeys on his back.

So, given all that, it was something of a surprise that Blair woke up the next morning in a bad mood. Or rather, his bad mood woke Jim up. They had made it from Blair's rumpled, wet bed up to Jim's before falling asleep, satisfactorily, to Jim's mind anyway, wrapped around each other. [Problem solved], he'd thought, falling asleep, with Blair's face buried in his diaphragm. He had woken up alone.

Blair was in the kitchen, fixing...toast. Jim couldn't dissect his muttering into actual sentences, but Blair sounded worried.[At least he's not angry,] he thought.[oh yeah? give it fifteen fricken seconds.] He found his robe and went downstairs.

"Hey," he tried. He laid a cautious hand on Blair's back, neutral zone, he thought, but Blair stepped away.

"Do you want some toast?" he asked, back to Jim.

"I guess. Are you, you know, taking off?" Blair was fully dressed, down to tied shoes.[When did he have time to shower?] Jim wondered, sniffing a little.[Did he sleep at all?]

"You want me to? That's no problem, you know, I have work to do," and he slammed down a plate of toast and the butter tub on the table.

"Jesus, go ahead, be my fucking guest. Zen and the art of fuck and run."

"You're a pushy bastard."

"Just get the fuck out of here if you're going to leave again. I have cold burnt toast to eat."

"if my toast is so terrible, don't you think it would be a good idea to make your own?"

"No, you know what I think? I think that you decided how this was going to go, and then it didn't go that way and now you're mad, for some reason," and he sat down and asked. "why are you so fucking angry at me? You said you adored me--were you lying about that?" Blair looked immediately ashamed and crestfallen and picked up the loaf of bread and put it back down and said, quickly.

"no. God, no, Jim, absolutely not."

"I don't know what I have to do to make you happy, is all. I talk about my feelings, I let you do whatever the hell you want to my body,"

"I thought you liked it."

"I did like it. It was, you were very, ah, uh,"

"so were you."

"Then what. is. the problem," Jim said, enunciating every word. "I hate this shit, Sandburg. Blair. I'm crazy about you and obviously," he shifted uncomfortably on his chair, "I'm hot for you, and I don't know what else you want."

"it's just, it happened so fast--like first, we were fighting and destroying our friendship and the next minute we're making out on the couch and you like me."

"yeah," Jim smiled.

"And pardon me if I'm a little nervous the next morning after fucking someone I actually care about."

"okay," Jim said at the same time that Blair elaborated, "that I'm in love with."

"okay," he said again. "me too," he added, softly.

"I just, I woke up and I wasn't sure, you only said you thought so last night,"

"but we were, we slept in my bed,"

"ah, Jim, but you're such a fucking gentleman about this stuff. I thought you were maybe being nice to me."

"I was being nice to you," Blair nodded jerkily at this and stepped back again, and Jim clarified hastily, "I love you, you moron."

"There you go with the sweet talking," Blair mumbled after a pause, the relief clear in his voice. Jim picked up the butterknife and scraped at a piece of toast.

"so we're clear. You're staying."

"It's not supposed to be so easy," Blair warned.

"easy? You call this easy?" He dropped the toast, "It's seven in the morning. We fell asleep at three. We've been arguing for several days, stopping only to fuck around and there isn't much on my body that doesn't hurt. Will you just stop complicating things? I like you, I like your hair and the lumpy places on your ribs where they've healed up--" and Blair was in his arms, hoisting himself up to reach Jim's mouth, meshing their lips together, his mouth was wet and soft and hot and his back, under Jim's hands, was hard with muscle, and also hot and Blair broke the kiss off and said, with eager eyes,

"are you gonna fuck me?"

"but--all that, stuff you said," Jim said, still holding him, hoping like hell that Blair had an explanation, and a short one.

"Jim. hello. I'm over it. I was just directing all of my fear-based control issues onto a certain act--namely, that of being fucked by you. See?"

"you're nuts, Sandburg."

"well, it's true, it wasn't working very well," Blair admitted.

"mm?" Jim said, running his hands up under Blair's shirt, pushing and lifting him so he was seated on the kitchen table.

"yeah," he breathed, shoving at Jim's robe. "uh. In the middle of thinking about how controlling you would be and how big you were and how you would just fucking take me wherever you felt like it, I kept getting distracted by the most insistent boners."

"um," Jim said, wrestling Blair's pants off. "Like this one?" he asked. And Blair's hips rolled and his back arched against Jim's palm and took a rough long breath and gasped,

"yes," so Jim rolled him over, shoved the plate of toast out of the way, shrugged off his robe and sank his hand into the butter tub, smiling as he did it, because Blair was finally back.

(end)

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