Archive of Our Own ^beta

People have a deep-seated, intrinsic need for rituals. Jim and I, little microsociety that we are, have created our own. I keep hoping that if I explain what happened that way, maybe it will make some sense.

It began as it always does, with some psychopath deciding to make sure Blair Sandburg appreciates his life. For the record -- I do. I really, really do. Life is a beautiful gift. I notice every minute. It is a blessing to be able to wash the dishes or do the laundry. I regularly stop and smell roses. I realize I'm blessed, and lucky, just to be alive. Honest.

Whatever powers are out there making sure this message gets through, and sending a thousand dark angels as enforcers: I got it. Go terrorize somebody else. For example, a rich prick of a CEO who thinks his goddamned principles are more important than my life, or even the life of his own daughter. Just for example.

But I don't want to think about Caitlin, or her father, and especially not about that elevator. It's behind me. I survived it. I'm starting to learn from Jim here; sometimes the best thing to do with trauma is forget about it.

It's the strange things, the beautiful and bizarre ones, that I want to fix in my memory and look at from a thousand different angles, like a kaleidoscope.

And this ritual Jim and I have tops that list, though it will never see the light of my dissertation. No, this one will definitely have to wait fifty years until the Oliver Stone film version. "What really lurked behind the stone facade of Detective Jim Ellison? What desperate secrets were shared between the Sentinel and his guide?"

And what's behind that possessive, anyway?

So. After they pried us out of the elevator, Jim was there, white-faced and grim, carefully not saying anything to me other than buddy jokes. He pulled me away from the crowd and the journalists that had started to pile up. It seems I was officially declared a hero; my name was even on the evening news. I think I prefer to be "a police observer who was at the scene." Much safer, usually.

We were silent in the truck on the way home. Same as last time, when I was shot protecting Amber Larkin and Jim was afraid that I'd been killed. Or when Lee Brackett had us both by the balls. Or the time before that, with Lash, which I am definitely repressing.

To say Jim has fear issues is kind of like saying rivers have some water to deal with. I know this. And he's incredibly brave in spite of his fears; he faces stuff, has faced stuff, that would give me a thousand nightmares.

Which is why I don't understand how the threat of losing me is the one thing that utterly terrifies him. I understand why I'm half-insane and strung out on adrenaline when my life is threatened. That makes sense. But this is a guy who dates Death on a regular basis -- hell, who has Death's phone number memorized -- and never bats an eye. But let the bad guys touch a hair on my head, and Jim comes totally unglued. Hence the need for our little ritual. We've never discussed it; we just let it happen. Whatever he needs. I'm the guide; it's my job to peel him off the ceiling.

Okay, I'm not that in denial. I can peel him off the ceiling so easily because I'm up there with him, his twin in stark, raving terror. I don't want to lose me, either.

When we made it back to the loft, we started in on our preparations. By now it's purposeful; we know what to do. The phones come off the hook, including the cell. Simon's got a whole bullpen he can call on; Jim needs this time where no one else can get in touch with him.

The doors are locked. Jim even puts a chair under the front doorknob; if another psycho is going to invade his territory, they're going to have to fight for the privilege. We close the blinds. This time, Jim lit a fire in the fireplace. The nights are getting cooler.

We make dinner together, usually something simple. Comfort food. This time it was canned tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. He thinks I'm insane for eating mine with mustard. Tall glasses of milk; no beer. We're already half-drunk on fear and relief.

We take turns in the shower and dress comfortably, just sweats and T-shirts. And all the time we're attending to these little things, we don't say much of anything to each other. Just "this okay?" or "your turn."

Then we've eaten and put away the dishes, and Jim checks the locks again because he needs to, and I'm sitting on the couch watching him do it, thinking about Mom and her sage, and neo-pagans with their elemental circles, and Hasidim with their tabernacles. Sacred space.

The loft becomes a space between the worlds, a place outside of time. I sit on the couch and breathe deep, feeling the power of it, watching Jim, half-conscious of what he's doing, pulling every blind completely closed, shutting out any minute interference from the outside world.

And then, without saying anything, he comes to where I'm sitting on the couch and wraps himself around me, and we hold each other.

He just needs this. He needs to hold me, to convince himself that I'm okay. Needs it so badly that, the first time, he actually asked if it would be all right. He's afraid of threatening me sexually, I guess.

He was very up-front about his sexuality early on, right from the time I moved in. He's attracted to men generally, me specifically, was I interested, yes or no, no problem. Straightforward. That's Jim. Honest. In touch with his desires, if not his actual feelings.

And when I said no, thanks, he was cool about it, never said anything about it again. Every now and then, when his guard is down, he flirts with me. And, no blushing virgin I, I take it. He's my best friend. I love him. It's just that I'm pretty much straight.

But this -- he's just convincing himself that I'm all right. It's not sexual.

Right. That makes this all sound like the worst case of denial in existence, because this time, after we held each other (yeah, I need to hold him, too), we moved into touching. He just needs this. And it doesn't count. We looked Death in the face, yet again; we deserve these dispensations. This isn't on the record.

His neck muscles were solid steel, and I started massaging his neck, getting him to relax. He never lets go, always on alert, jaw jumping. It's only when we block everything else out that he can actually begin to lower the constant vigilance. I had him smiling, almost purring, leaning into every touch like it was a caress.

Which, in point of fact, I guess it was.

He really has a beautiful body. I don't think it implicates me to acknowledge that. I've learned to admire his sleekness, the power of him, for a very practical reason: that body saves mine. Same reason I admire his skills as a detective, and the miracle of his Sentinel abilities. I am their direct beneficiary; they keep me alive.

Which still doesn't quite explain why I kissed him. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

I half-expected him to break the moment. I think if I had been him, I would have: "Sandburg, what the hell are you doing?" or something like that.

But he didn't. He just pulled me close, twined his fingers in my hair, and kissed me back.

Objectively, the man is a good kisser. I mean, I'd expect that from someone who's as kinesthetically oriented as Jim, but it's always good to have a theory corroborated.

And, hell -- I admit I wasn't feeling terribly objective at the moment. I wanted to feel life, and this man is the embodiment of it. He's been my friend, my partner, my savior, my obsession. I'm not blind to that. My life doesn't revolve around my own axis anymore, and neither does his.

Which still doesn't explain how one kiss led to another, just as passionate, or how I found myself shaking with arousal, and need, and pent-up fear.

Jim ran his lips through my hair. "I need you, Chief. Don't scare me like that again." His voice was so gentle; when this happens, it's like he thinks I'm made out of porcelain. It half-annoys me, but I know he'd say the same thing if I were six-four and built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, so I let it go.

I knew he had been terrified for me. I'd been trapped in that elevator; there was so little he could have done. And Jim likes to fix things manually. He'd sounded so scared over the microphone. Hell, he even called me "Blair." In public. Have to remember to mark my calendar.

It wasn't until he was holding me, there on the couch, that I almost started crying. "I was so afraid," I admitted, barely making any sound, but I know he heard me.

And then he was kissing me again, and I went with it. Nothing was going to change between us; this was just release, and he needed it. Hell, I needed it. I needed to scream, or cry, or fuck someone, and Jim was making himself into a very valid option number three.

I think I reevaluated things when I was sprawled over him on the couch, our shirts off, our erections prodding each other. "Whoa." I sat up, a little wigged.

Jim just laid back against the arm of the couch, looking understanding and smug at the same time, as if to say he'd been there, and wasn't I enjoying the ride? "You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," I told him, "just -- "

"It's all right, Chief." He seemed to curl in on himself, almost imperceptibly. Ready for the thousandth little rejection from me. And I couldn't hurt him. He needed me, and it wasn't going to kill me to try and be there for him. We're a team. Too many other people have bailed on him. We need to stick together. I can't hurt him like this anymore. He needs me.

Obviously my body wanted it. And I'm not, by nature, a particularly dualistic kind of guy. I am my body. I'm in it. If my dick wants something, it's not like I've ever been one to overrule that. I mean, all other things being equal, and safe.

And I've never been safer than I am with Jim.

"Just... slower, okay?" I said, taking his hand and retreating to my usual perch on the arm of the couch, behind him. He's appallingly masculine; it's in every line of his body. It's part of what made me nervous; if he were more of an androgyne, I think I could have written this off. But I'm the one who occasionally gets "excuse me, miss" from the back. Jim's the one with the excess Y chromosomes, the corded muscles, the comic-book superhero jaw. Whereas some of the women I've dated have been butcher than I am.

Enough to give a guy a complex, really. And I know I already have one. You can only take so many years of "queerbait" before you get some serious issues about this sort of thing.

Which is why, when he lifted his eyes up to me and whispered, "make love to me," I was stunned, and shattered, and incredibly aroused. And when he came close to me, and rubbed his head on the inside of my thigh, completely submissive --

Well, let's just say that I never, ever expected to see that moment. And it made the fears I'd had about looking like less of a man because of what we were doing seem terribly petty and small. If Jim Ellison, a powerful man with an iron grip on his self-control, could offer himself up like that, surely Naomi Sandburg's sensitive new-age hippie boy could meet him on that precarious limb.

He had, in that one move, appealed to my lust, my masculinity, and my curiosity. Had hit me, in effect, pretty much everywhere it hurts. And he knew it. There was something in his eyes other than need, something predatory. A cat-might-get-the-cream look.

I slid down the arm of the couch, and pulled him to me.

This ritual of ours has involved some pretty heated touching before -- last time, our hands were wrapped up in each other's for, like, hours -- but it has never gotten anywhere near this. I've always been able to write it off, say it wasn't sexual, not really. Jim responds to touch, communicates through touch. This down time is where we agree to speak his language, to reaffirm our friendship.

And this was just more of the same, on one level.

On another, well, it's kind of beyond my abilities to express what it's like to have a Sentinel go down on you. I was with this miracle of a man who could sense every change in my body, who knew the sound of my pulse as though it were his own, and who was determined, with a faith and patience almost beyond my comprehension, to show me just how good it could be to make love to him. It was completely unbelievable.

I was shaking, stammering his name, higher than hell, when he took his mouth away and slowly ran his lips up to my stomach. His eyes were completely dilated -- I could barely see the blue in them -- and there was a plea in them I couldn't identify.

"Anything, Jim," I said, barely able to speak myself.

And we nodded at each other, smiling, kissing each other again. Touching base, reaffirming this was what we both wanted. Jim seemed to be working up to asking me for something more. And I knew, whatever he needed, he would get. Sun, moon, stars, whatever.

"Take me," he said, barely audible. His eyes were locked on mine; there was no way I could have misinterpreted the need in them. And he could see my acquiescence, immediately, even as I was taking my brain apart with the mechanics. Yes, of course, but how?

"Show me," I said, my voice still thick. Words between us echo in this space; we're both unnaturally quiet, which I suppose is slightly more unnatural for me, but still....

He was leaning over me at that point, and he gently pushed me against the couch cushions. "Don't move," he whispered, and I didn't. He slid away from me, leaving me somewhat cold and confused, and so hard that I hurt.

He came back quickly, and pulled me to him before I could even see what he had brought. Confident now, no longer a supplicant, he was the aggressor, and I revelled in it. Finally, somebody I didn't have to convince that they might, maybe, like to go a little further. We were both in this now for everything we had.

I was inexperienced and aroused and scared, but he showed me where he wanted to be touched, what pleased him. I felt powerful, and awed, as if I had been entrusted with something holy.

And then he took my hands and showed me how to touch him inside, to prepare him for what we were going to do.

If somebody described what this was like, clinically, I would be disgusted, or at best neutrally bored. But we were both so focused, so intent, that each touch was like a prayer; I was anointing him, almost literally, and he was kneeling on the floor in front of me, hands parting his ass for me, his back arched, his rich voice crying out with pleasure.

I, myself, made Jim Ellison moan.

And then he turned around, quite suddenly, so that I was scared I'd done something wrong, but what he wanted to do was touch me, and slide on the condom, and I've never been in a situation before where even that was so sexy, so important. Part of the act itself; part of who Jim was. He kept me safe, even there and then.

And then he was begging me again with those eyes and I realized how completely he was offering himself, how utterly I could shatter him just by turning away. And there was no force in this world, not even my own fear, that would let me do that to him.

In one motion I turned him back around and gently pushed inside him. He cried out with pain. I was startled, afraid I'd done something wrong, but he held my hand tight, encouraging me.

Then I let myself feel it, and there wasn't any more room for thought, or worry. Just heat and need and the rhythm we built, slowly, between us. I wanted to touch him everywhere, inside and out; I wanted to overwhelm him in a thousand places at once. Guide instinct, I suppose; he needed that, to keep him from focusing too closely on any one thing.

I sure was focused on one thing, and one thing only, but I felt like my mind was in a million pieces. It's not like I can describe it exactly. The words are dirty, and inadequate. Yes, I was, in fact, fucking my best friend in the ass, but it was so far beyond that, on so many different levels, that describing it in detail would be like spitting on a relic. Taking him was something ineffable, outside the boundaries of language. Not to mention that I'm still feeling pretty weird about it having happened at all.

We were combined, two bodies merged into a single purpose, and he was guiding my hands on his cock, which felt no less bizarre or right than any of the rest of it. And then the rest was just rhythm and harmony, all the way home.

I watched him come in a kind of dizzy terror. I mean, I act like I'm a man of the world and all, but I've never seen another man have an orgasm before, and he was far gone, shaking and crying out my name, his semen gushing over my hands. It was a moment of utter weakness, and he let me see him like that.

And then it was my turn, and I was chanting "Oh my God" over and over again. I held onto him like I was drowning, and he bore me up.

I am no stranger to the concept of orgasm, mind you. It and I have been friends on a nearly daily basis since I was about thirteen. I have come a few thousand times in my life. But not since the very first time has it been so intense, so scary, so deliciously kinky and free and messy and right as it was when I came inside of Jim's body.

And now as I think about it, I'm wigging out in a very serious manner. Does this mean I'm gay? That I'm bisexual? That I belong with him? What does this mean?

But then, with each of us surrounding the other's body, it just felt like victory. We were both jubilant, psyched. I'd never been on a high like that, and at the same time boneless and mellow. We both whooped like teenagers, high on endorphins and adrenaline and sex and our own partnership. If somebody had needed mountains moved, we'd have done it. Never mind the ceiling. I was going to have to peel us both off of the goddamn sky.

And we eased ourselves apart, gently, and I slid the condom off while he grabbed his discarded T-shirt and started to clean himself, and then I helped, and we shared triumphant grins and not a few kisses. Kissing is an art form with this man. You can feel his kisses right down in your toes.

And then he started talking, like every word he'd ever wanted to say had been dammed up inside of him, and he told me that he loved me, that I was beautiful, perfect, wonderful, and I was talking back to him, softly, just encouraging his words, echoing what he said. I wanted him to talk. I can babble anytime, and I was still stunned speechless, anyway.

And then he was silent, and I said, "What is it?" The silence had come as suddenly as a threat, and that was my thought -- that he had heard something and the defenses were back on line.

He just shook his head. "You don't want to hear all this," he said.

It was a physical thing, watching him withdraw back into himself, and I wasn't going to let him do it. Turtle to shell, caterpillar to chrysalis, Jim Ellison to silence. Damn it. No.

Not anymore.

"You listen to me," I hissed. "I love you. I want to hear everything you've got to say to me."

"You didn't want this," he said, disillusionment clouding his features.

"The hell I didn't," I told him fiercely, and I guess the look in my eyes must have convinced him a little, because he ran his hand along my face. I turned my head and kissed his palm.

"Blair. You're straight," he reminded me, and then the full magnitude of what this was, what it meant, hit me. Somehow I managed not to flinch, to still look him in the eye.

"Tonight's a special case," I said slowly. "Anything goes, here. New rule."

"I'm not sure I like the idea of only making love to you after you're attacked by a psycho," he said, a little wryly, sliding his hands over my shoulders. He leaned in to kiss me, and I leaned right back at him, just as eager.

"I don't know what I think," I said, still considering my words. I had the power to make the light in those eyes go out; my words controlled him. I had to be careful.

He's my responsibility, as I am his.

"I just need time," I told him. "Let me figure this out. Don't jump to conclusions. I wanted this as badly as you did. I love you, Jim, and this is totally incredible. I just need some time, okay?"

"I just had to have you here," Jim said. "I had to know you were all right."

"Ditto, man. Very, very ditto. Okay?"

He smiled again, all the way into his eyes. "Okay, Chief. Whatever you need."

And then I knew that just as surely as I couldn't deny him anything, he couldn't deny me whatever it was that I needed. Which made us fools, or it made us in love. Or both.

Then I took his hand and led him back toward my bedroom, but he took my shoulders and pushed me in the direction of his room instead, and we ended up there, where two guys could properly sprawl. I'm not sure whether I was holding him or he was holding me, or if it even matters. We slept like we were drugged; I didn't even have any nightmares about plummeting ten stories at a shot.

I woke at dawn and slid out of bed, sticky and embarrassed, but still sort of awed. Like a birthday, or the morning after the first snowfall. I slid downstairs, took a shower, and took the chair out from under the doorknob. I went out onto the balcony and watched the sun climb up into the sky, writing in my journal.

Which leads me here. He hasn't woken up yet. I don't know what I'll say when he does. Do I just play casual? Do I kiss him good morning? Do we treat this like a morning after, or like any other day?

I'm working through this, and I figure there's got to be people that are just so good that no one can willfully kick them out of bed. Melissa Etheridge says she'd sleep with Brad Pitt; I guess Blair Sandburg can say he'd sleep with Jim Ellison. Hell, go for the burn: Blair Sandburg has slept with Jim Ellison. Now what?

I'm not sure where this is going. If we'll keep seeing other people. If we'll ever make love to each other again. I hope so. But I don't want to mar what happened, cheapen it, by making it a casual sort of thing. It's like in Much Ado About Nothing, when Beatrice tells the Prince he's much too good for everyday.

I don't know what to think, exactly. But right now I'm going back upstairs, and back to bed. It's too cold out here, and I don't want Jim to wake up alone.