Author's webpage: http://www2.netdoor.com/~meredith/merry/merry.htm

There was silence in the loft when the echoes faded and the dishes in the cabinets stopped rattling. Quite a contrast to the operatic excesses they'd reached in the truck. The door was still on its hinges but it had been a very near thing, and now Blair wasn't talking, wasn't even breathing as far as Jim could tell. What he was, was moving, and way too fast for Jim's peace of mind.

Another thunderous slam, and the doors to Blair's room shut him out. Glass clattered against wood and held, thank god; enough had been broken for one day. Blair had nearly been damaged beyond repair, and they'd talked about this so many times it was getting stupid. Jim had tried volume instead of diplomacy for this one.

It hadn't been the wisest of choices.

"You make one move in there that sounds like packing and I will personally rip your legs off," Jim said through the door. He wasn't going to shout. His head hurt, and the neighbors already thought they were nuts.

"You don't get the fucking pleasure of me running," Blair muttered. Papers shuffled in his hands, boxes moved, the bed creaked and nearly buckled as he threw himself down on it. "You want to throw me out, you better bring friends."

Settles that, Jim thought ungraciously. He pushed open the doors to the balcony to catch the last light of the day, then dropped onto the couch, tilted his head back, and tried to calm down.

"And I'm not cooking, either!" Blair shouted suddenly. "You can starve, for all I care."

The banked anger roared into dangerous heat, and for a split second the world was a dead silent vastness of white. Time was flash-frozen...

...then set on fire.

"Like hell you're not--" Jim was off the couch in the span of a blink. He yanked open the door, breathing hard. Blair was stretched out full length on his bed, arms tucked behind his head, eyes closed. His hair fanned out over the pillow in an unkempt riot, he hadn't shaved, and the red flannel shirt he wore now was the same one he'd worn the day before.

Jim wanted him with a power that turned his gut to water. "It's your turn," he grated out, arms folded over his chest.

"It's your problem," Blair returned, never opening his eyes. He was smiling, the bastard, calm and cool as ice. He smelled like blood, like Thai food, like sanity. "I grabbed a bagel at the station." Like bagels and...and lite cream cheese. And coffee.

Decaf.

There was a bandage on his arm, covering an angry gash that wouldn't fade from Jim's eyes no matter how well it was hidden. "Why did you do it?"

"Because I wanted you to live."

"That's not good enough."

"It has to be. It's all you get."

"Blair."

Soft exhalation, and the eyes finally opened and pinned him to the wall with a casual glance. "You know the rules," he said.

"Yeah." The word rasped deep, like sand in his throat. "All or nothing."

"No. All, or what we have. You think that's nothing?" Blair pushed himself up, sat with his elbows on his knees, hands dangling motionless between them. "This far as friends. No further. That space in between, it's a wasteland, Jim. I won't go there, I won't put us through that."

"You hurt yourself. For me."

Blair looked up at the ceiling and sighed. "I got between you and Jacobs. That's about as far as my plan took me."

"Yeah, and Jacobs had a knife."

"And he was about to use it on you. I objected, he insisted, I got cut, you took him down. End of story. Happily ever after, man. I can not believe we're going to have this fight again." Wry voice, dark eyes. Jim hated himself for loving both.

Needing both. "We're going to keep having it until you stop thinking we're the Wonder Twins and learn to stay behind me, where you belong."

"I'll learn about the same time you learn to hang back and wait for back-up. You want to start critiquing my performance, Ellison? Maybe you should think about who trained me."

Jim closed his eyes, counted slowly up to ten, then back down again. He remembered not knowing what a bagel looked like. He remembered real cream cheese and pizza with black olives. The Pre-Sandburg Era, one day flowing into the next like water. "I can't do this," he said softly, a revelation delivered into expectant silence. He didn't even like black olives anymore.

"Fuck that." Blair's tone matched his, and he was coming up off the bed, invading Jim's space, making it hard for him to breathe. "You don't have a choice."

Hands on him then, on his neck, thumbs tilting his face up to the light. "Jim, you look at me." Blair waited with the patience of glaciers, squeezing the tense muscles at the base of Jim's skull. He could wait forever. He would; Jim knew him that well.

"Look at me," Blair said again, pitching his voice low.

This voice took them out of friendship, and gripped Jim's heart like a fist of iron. He looked, helpless to do otherwise, and Blair had him.

Somehow Jim had remembered a mythic kind of blue, but Blair's eyes weren't the stuff of legend and they didn't capture him like he thought they would. It was what shone out from behind them that melted Jim's resolve, stole his breath. Intellect, clean and sharp; wit and fire. Blair was immature and brilliant and demanding and pushy and his, heart and soul, whether Jim liked it or not.

Jim liked it. He liked it far, far too much.

"This is how it is," Blair said quietly. His thumbs stroked fire over the vulnerable skin of Jim's throat, an unconscious attempt at comfort that stoked Jim's fear to panic. "You're a sentinel, I'm your guide; we can be friends, or we can be lovers, that's your choice. What we can't be is part time. I won't do that. And we can't be finished, either, because you need me and I'm not walking out on you. We can never be through with each other, Jim, so you just think about this, and don't push me for more than you can handle."

"I never--"

"Put your hands on me? Smiled at me? Comforted me when I was sick, offered me noodles when I was sad, held me when I was hurt, loved me, turned me on, what? You did all of that, and you knew what it meant when you did it. What did you never do?"

Jim found his voice, found his courage. Found his hands on Blair yet again, in his hair, holding his head steady and holding his eyes with sheer strength of will. "I never meant to hurt you."

Blair's breath cut off like a switch had been thrown.

"You never did," he said, his voice a peculiar, airy gasp. "You're just you. How could I not--"

"This is so wrong." It had always felt wrong, it felt like he was falling through darkness, and there was no light anywhere, and no ground either.

"No." Blair's grip on his neck tightened almost painfully. "It's not as wrong as denying it, Jim. Not for us. For us it's right."

Jim turned Blair, pushed him against the wall, a look on his face something like anger, something like desire. "This isn't who I am," he said thickly. His voice shook with negligent passion. A fine tremor ran under his skin, twisting heat deep within him, touching places never before acknowledged. The press of Blair's body into his turned the moment into liquid fire, and Jim grew drunk on it, outraged and dismayed by the force of his own reaction.

"Wrong," Blair hissed. There was no fear in his voice. There was no mercy in it, either. "This is exactly who you are. This is who you've always been."

When Blair took his mouth, Jim was unable to draw away. Shaking, unnerved, unwillingly compliant, he moaned into slide of lips and tongues, returning touch for touch. In the silence of the darkened loft, the chill air from open balcony doors was enough to make Jim shiver. He was lava and ice, hot where Blair touched him, frozen in the absence of touch. With a last, lost growl of denial he tried to wrench himself away from the drowning embrace, but Blair was immovable.

The younger man was iron in his passion, steeled against refusal. He met Jim's struggle with greater strength and Jim was glad of it, thrilled by it -- ultimately convinced by it. Blair understood so many things -- surely in this, too, Jim could trust him. With the utter conviction of rationalization, Jim gave himself over to the demands of his own body, the demands of Blair's body, and gave up the last of his defiance.

Tearing his mouth away, Jim said, "Touch me," and Blair complied. Sturdy, square hands moved first over Jim's face, glancing lightly over the creases in his brow, the fine curve of cheekbones, the flat planes that led to the angle of his jaw. Jim closed his eyes and let the touch fill him the way the kiss had, sensations crashing through him like limitless thunder.

"This is what you've always wanted from me," Blair said softly. He held Jim's face between both hands, and said nothing further. Waiting, Jim knew. Needing to hear. Speechless, Jim pressed his hips into the warm comfort of Blair's, choking on a moan as he felt the solid evidence of Blair's desire.

The hand at his jaw only tightened, and the waiting spun out until, at length, Jim was forced to open his eyes. In Blair's he found understanding -- and a patience that could outlast mountains. This far, no further, Jim translated silently.

Until you can say the words.

"Yes." The word was broken, torn from him on something like a sob, and Blair's eyes blazed like jewels set fire. "Please," Jim said then, "I want you." Please...

Blair drove his body against Jim's, wrapped himself around the solid torso and sought Jim's lips again. There was no restraint left in Jim, nor even the desire for it; this was passion, honest and compelling, and he answered it with every part of himself. Lips and tongues strove together for pleasure, teamwork becoming a stunning, sensual art form they created together, as one.

Words fell between them almost unnoticed, whispers of approval and need. Touch transcended thought, every contact distilled to the essence of electric response. Jim broke away from Blair's mouth and descended to the arched column of throat; the rhythm of Blair's hips, the heat and hardness of him, even through cloth, brought him trembling and eager to the bladed edge of release.

"Yes," Blair said, and Jim thrust against him. It was a good sound, Blair's appreciation, his permission. It pushed Jim further and his teeth closed over sensitive skin again and again. It might have hurt, but Blair's sharp hiss was matched by a moan of pleasure. There was instinct between them, knowledge unsought, and Jim didn't pause to wonder; he bit down again, harder now, and drove his hips into Blair's.

"Jim," Blair whispered. "Oh, man. Please. I need--" His movements became frantic, his eyes unfocused as coordination vanished in a flash of quicksilver need. "I--"

"Shhh..." Jim didn't lift his head; the admonishment was whispered into his partner's throat between sharp bites and the tender ministrations of an eager tongue. "I know what you need."

"I--"

"shhh...let me..."

Quick hands worked between them, awkward, determined. He was hampered by Blair's assistance, desperation working against both of them. "Let me," Jim said again, drawing a deep breath as his own control slid away from him.

And then Blair's hardness was his, hot and solid against his hands, slick as satin.

"No!" Blair's command was insistent, but Jim understood. Instinct guided him when Blair could not. It was a command Blair gave himself, a plea for control, and his body denied it even as the word was uttered. Jim felt the power in his friend gather, and center, and expand...

... and he felt it release, shouted with it. He captured Blair's mouth, driving in deep, taking his own pleasure in the warm, wet heat within.

Spasms rocked them both, completion driving them as they flew together, came together. The conclusion was shatteringly silent, devastatingly intense. Weakened, drained, Jim let his knees buckle, sliding both of them to the cold wood of the floor. Breath coming hard and fast, Jim sought for words and couldn't find them.

Blair had no such difficulty.

"See?" he said softly, arms going solidly around his friend's body. "See?"

Jim shook his head mutely, and tried not to lose his heart in Blair's eyes. He couldn't see anything but Blair, and somewhere deep inside himself, he was still falling.

"...told you so," Blair said. He smiled, brilliantly, beautifully, all tousled hair and beard stubble and red, swollen lips. "I told you so." Lingering on the edge of sleep, weighed down by satiation, Blair was fading.

"Blair?"

"mmmm?"

"Why did you do it? Can you...tell me, now?"

Ever-so-softly fading. "Love you, Jim..."

Grinning fiercely in spite of exhaustion and the slow resurrection of fear -- hopelessly, inexorably possessed -- Jim just closed his eyes.

Because he was tired, because he wanted it, because there was no way out even if he didn't...

Jim held Blair against his chest, arms and legs irrevocably entangled, and drifted toward a boneless, depthless sleep.

Blair loved him. Blair had said it was right.

Jim fell into darkness and dreamed, quietly, that it was.

~~~

End Edges

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