Archive of Our Own ^beta

Author's homepage: http://members.tripod.com/heleninhell/index.html

Her smile faded, but only a notch, when Jim opened the door.

"Hello?" She was wearing leather pants and a t-shirt, carrying a raincoat, her face windburned across her cheeks and nose.

"Blair's not here," he said.

"That obvious, huh," she said and grinned at him.

"He'll probably be back soon, so. Come in then."

"Wow, smells good," she said, stepping across the threshold.

"I was just, um. Dinner. Have a seat," he said, and waved towards the living room, but she sat down at the kitchen table, slinging the coat across the back of the seat.

"Thanks."

He checked the chicken and added the seasoning packet to the rice and the loft was very quiet, except for the gentle nervous tap of her foot on the floor. If she'd been in the living room, he could have safely ignored her, but she was three feet away and it seemed rude not to talk, so he said,

"What were you guys planning to do?"

"Just hang out. Eat, thrash out the rest when we met." By which she meant, Jim thought, screw our brains out. "I'm Sophie, by the way," she said, getting up so she could shake his hand.

"Jim."

"Ah. Yeah, I know." Then she leaned back on the table and examined him with frank interest. God only knew what Sandburg had been saying about him. Not to mention that he hadn't bothered to tell him he had a date, so he'd made too much food. And talking with some girl who had the hots for Sandburg wasn't his idea of an especially fine evening, which he should have thought of before opening his mouth.

"Er. You teach at the University?"

"No, I work in the archives."

"Oh. Old stuff, then."

"Papers, photographs. Band uniforms from 1892."

"Sounds interesting."

"Does it? I mean, it is, but, uh. You're just being polite, right?"

"Well."

"That's okay. From what I hear, being a cop is a lot more exciting."

"Just what kind of slander is Sandburg spreading anyhow?"

"Just enough to make the girls crazy." She smirked and moved her shoulders in a faint sardonic waggle.

"That works?"

"Hey, I came all the way over here in order to be stood up."

"On the strength of Sandburg's thrilling tales of urban warfare."

"Something like that. I think, anyhow." So at least she wasn't in love with him. Girls who were into Sandburg were a bit much to take; if they noticed him at all, they were prone to nauseating chit-chat about the sublimeness of Blair. Either that, or they asked his opinion on Mumia's execution. At first, he'd been irked at how easily they ignored him. He'd grown used to a certain response from women: he was in decent shape, and tall, and not an obvious asshole. He'd thought that women liked tall. After being confronted with the somewhat bewildering quantity of women who went for Sandburg, he'd been forced to revise that opinion.

"Do you know how long you're supposed to cook asparagus?" he asked her.

"Um. No. Asparagus. You boil it," she offered.

"Yeah, I know that. But, for a long time? Does the water have to be boiling beforehand?"

"Search me," she shrugged.

"Oh hell," he said, and put the asparagus in the pot and turned on the stove. He scrubbed down the counter and opened another beer. Eventually, she said,

"He's not coming."

"He probably got stuck someplace."

"Yeah, I guess," she said glumly.

"I'm sorry."

"Shit." She looked at him and said, "I just, I had a really crappy day, and I was looking forward to Blair, you know. He's very calming."

"Yeah, I know."

"You do?"

"Not like that."

"Hey, it's okay, I mean," one of her hands flew up and she backed up a step.

"I don't. We don't," he said.

"Oh. And now I'm going to pretend that I'm not embarrassed," she announced, scrubbing nervously at her forehead. It was kind of cute, he had to admit. He had a certain embarrassing susceptibility to cuteness: babies, nature shows. Blair. He sometimes wondered if it was some strange manifestation of 'protect the tribe'; he hoped so.

"You're blushing," he told her, to see if she'd turn pinker.

"You're not helping." The chicken and rice were done; god only knew about the asparagus, which he was sure he'd done wrong. Blair always offered advice, whether he knew a damn thing about it or not. It threw him off to ask someone who admitted that she had no idea. Her stomach grumbled faintly.

"Um, would you like some of this? There's kind of a lot. I didn't know he had a date."

"Ah. Sure, okay. Thanks. You cook for each other?" She accepted a plate and fork from him and carried them to the table.

"We switch off. Water, juice, beer?"

"A beer would be great. Does he make you eat that weird stuff he eats?"

"Sometimes." He handed her a beer and opened one for himself and sat down. "It's not so bad."

"Yeah it is, it's really bad." She took a bite of the chicken. "This, though. This is really good. Where'd you learn to make this?"

"My wife--"

"You're married?"

"Divorced."

"Sorry."

"Yeah, well, my wife wasn't much of a cook. She knew a hell of a lot about water heaters, but she couldn't cook."

"What's there to know about water heaters?"

"I don't know. But whenever there wasn't enough water she'd just go down there and do stuff and it was better. So I cooked."

"Makes sense." She concentrated on her rice.

"So this is usually the point at which Blair's friends say something about how I don't seem like I'd be the type to have a roommate."

"Naw, you seem okay. You can cook. Hell, I'd live with you."

"Thanks." They ate for a few minutes in silence and he caught her looking at him once. She smiled slightly and dropped her eyes and then she dropped a piece of chicken on her shirt.

"Oh damn," she said, and carefully picked it off, leaving a dark Worcestershire smear.

"That's gonna stain," he said.

"Yeah. A beautiful end to a rotten day."

"Take it off."

"What?"

"Just--wait a minute, I'll go get something for you to put on." All of his stuff would be big on her. He went in Sandburg's room and dug through the pile of fresh laundry on his bed. He grabbed an undershirt and a flannel shirt off the bed and tossed them to her. She changed in the bathroom, bringing the shirt back out.

"If it soaks, it should be fine. You just have to do it right off."

"Thanks. Blair didn't say you were a big expert on stain removal."

"Yeah. well. Hidden talents."

His clothes fit her well--they were a little large through the shoulders, but the right length.

"How tall are you?" he asked, abruptly.

"Five seven." She looked at him curiously.

"Um," he said. "If you have someplace to be, I mean, don't let me keep you. You can just take the shirt in a bag or something. And Blair won't mind about his clothes."

"No place to be. I have this roommate and she has a boyfriend and I promised her I'd scram for the evening. So I'll probably just go to a movie or something."

"What's playing?" She shrugged. It was pouring rain out. And he thought well, what the hell. Why not just be nice for a change. He'd already been nice, gone out of his way, in fact, and it had actually been sort of--nice. Blair's girlfriends tended to be on the irritating side; overly talkative or overly friendly or just odd smelling, but this girl was all right. And it occurred to him, only peripherally, that it would be fun to torture Blair by having him come home and find them companionably sitting in the loft.

A week ago, Blair had accused him of being a recluse. He'd been kidding, which made it worse.

"I'm not a recluse," he'd said.

"Sure. You just like to stay in the loft and avoid people."

"You're here," he'd said.

"I don't count." Blair had said.

"Look," he said to her. "Just stay here."

"Really?"

"It's not like I had big plans for the evening. I was just going to read. If you just wanna stay--and Blair might show up."

"Will you tell me all sorts of deep dark secrets about Blair?"

"What makes you think I know any?"

"That's sort of a defensive reaction for a man with no secrets."

Jim stared at her grimly and she said,

"Um. sorry. You still want me to stay?"

"Go ahead."

"Well, okay. Thank you. Could I borrow a book?"

"Sure."

She chose a book and lay down on the couch and Jim pretended to read and looked at her instead. Tough cookie, Jim thought. Sandburg seemed to like girls who could push him around a little--or maybe more, push back, because he was a pushy guy himself. Scuffed boots, short hair, no perfume, no makeup, she was pretty, but not all that pretty, or, perhaps, just not lushly pretty, no great fall of hair, not much of a figure.

She read rather quickly, unlike Sandburg, who tended to stop and ponder and make notes. She turned her head and caught him looking at her. She frowned.

"Look, I think, I'm really invading your space here, so I should go," she said, and rolled to her feet.

"No, I asked you to--"

"I know. And it was nice. And the food was really good and. But I think, I get the feeling you're not really um."

"what?"

"I just, you know, you like your--" she gestured vaguely at the walls, "your alone space thing. And far be it really from me, to, um, intrude."

"People always think that, but it's not true."

"Sure. Okay. But I still think, I." She went to the sink and pulled her shirt out of the water, wringing the excess water out. She shoved up the sleeves of the shirt and shook her hair out of her eyes and the water ran across her pale wrists and she looked suddenly young enough that it made him feel old. They had talked while eating like normal people, like people who had something in common, but now he saw that it was a lie, that this girl had nothing to do with him, that their only connection was Blair.

"Just stay," he said, taking the shirt out of her hands.

"But,"

"Stay," he said, and kissed her.

"Oh," she said. She blinked, but didn't laugh.

"So," he said.

"This is a one night only offer, right?" she asked, one wet hand on his waist

"Yeah," suddenly almost breathless with how easy that had been. It wasn't as though he'd never done it; he had, after all, been in his twenties in the eighties, but after that had come the nineties and fear and responsibility and niceness and sincerity and meaning and nothing like her clear eyed acquiescence,

"Sounds good." She tilted her head and said, "C'mere," and he did, kissed her, her soft lips, her hair, shorter than Sandburg's, slid his hands under the flannel shirt to the curve of her back, she was soft and warm and she had her arms around his neck, stroking through his hair. And he pulled her arms from his neck so he could pull off the flannel shirt, soft and warm from her body, and the familiar feel of that stopped him for a moment, and the flannel shirt fell on the kitchen floor as he said,

"Maybe this isn't."

"You know. um," she interrupted him and started pulling him towards the couch. "I kind of have this whole feminist stance thing going on with being a slut."

"But Blair," he said, following her.

"Blair has a feminist stance going on with being a slut?"

"Isn't he--you guys had a date."

"Well. so?" He hesitated again and she shook her head belligerently and said, "Look, you clearly want to, and far be it from me to pressure you or anything, but Blair and I aren't exclusive by a long damn shot and--he doesn't own me," she finished, voice dropping a little.

"You're not one of his many toys," he said.

"Exactly." She patted him companionably on the stomach and sat down on the couch "He doesn't tell me I can't go with other boys." And she had a point, after all, and no one had ever accused him of being very smart about women and Blair didn't even have to know and if he found out he'd forgive him, he'd have to forgive him, and she was right there on his couch and wanting it and he couldn't bring himself to say no.

"Aren't you a little young to remember that song?" he asked, touching her shoulder. She hooked a hand in his waistband and pulled him down to sit on the coffee table and kissed him and said,

"Dirty Dancing soundtrack. The movie that defined my adolescence."

"You smell nice," he said, drawing a hand up behind her neck.

"You too," she said, and then they were really kissing, she was pulling him up on the couch and sliding under him and he slid one hand under the undershirt to touch her waist and she moved underneath him so he kissed her harder, her legs splitting around her thigh, jostling her hips against him and he licked her neck a little as she pulled his shirt out of his jeans, said,

"umn," and as he kissed her throat and slid a gentle thumb over her right nipple and stroked the outside of her thigh, the jostle became a quiver, he could feel her heat through the leather of her pants, through his jeans, hot on his thigh, she pulled her mouth from his and came, shuddering beneath him.

A few minutes later she squinted up at him and said,

"You're gone let me take off my pants for the next one, right?"

"okay."

"I'm gone do that now," she said, and wiggled out from underneath him long enough to take off her boots and pants.

"Do you do this a lot?"

"define this."

"casual sex with guys you don't know."

"You started it."

"We're not talking about me."

"Well. I do know you. A little. More or less--you're a cop and Blair talks about you all the time and you fed me and I'm horny, okay, so cut me a break." She sat back down and faced him.

"okay, then," he wasn't in the mood to argue.

"so. You could take off your shirt," she said, and raised her eyebrows suggestively. He pulled it off and she started to pull off the undershirt, but

"Leave it on," he said.

"What?"

"The shirt, leave it on."

"All right."

"You can take off your bra," he said, and she reached around and unhooked it, pulling it off through the arms of the shirt, watching him, eyes slightly narrowed.

"humn."

He put a hand on her knee and her skin was hot, so he slid it up further along her thigh, she didn't shave that high, she was wet for him, he could smell it, and her hips slid down the couch towards him, pale eyes, half closed, he hooked a finger in the waistband of her underwear and slid his hand down her stomach, and she was swollen beneath his fingers, hot, and he slid one finger slowly into her and her eyes went wide. He pulled her firmly towards him so he could kiss her breasts through the shirt and god, she was so young, she'd hadn't even been legal, he realized, when he married Carolyn, she'd still been in high school, and he felt like a real sicko, suddenly, but mostly at how good she felt against him. He'd long grown used to a certain level of sophistication from the women he slept with, all long cool limbs, even their orgasms were elegant, panting cries, delicate fingernail creases in his shoulders, but this girl was like a little animal against him, underneath him, when she came her whole back bowed up against his hand and her breathing hitched up like she was choking, and she was wet with sweat, her hair mussed and sticking to her face. And the girls he remembered feeling up, even fifteen years ago when he'd been feeling up girls this age, had never come like that.

It gave him courage, her red face, red lips, and her sweat against the shirt had made it really pungent, heavy, and he realized that it wasn't her that smelled good at all, it was the shirt, off-white with many washings, neck beginning to fray, it smelled of Sandburg in winter, the layer closest to his skin and before he knew it he said,

"What's it like when you,"

"What," still panting, one hot hand on his shoulder

"Nothing."

"Just tell me." He closed his eyes for a minute, but when he opened them he still wanted to know, so he said

"What's he like?" his hand was still on the shirt and she knew immediately. He almost expected her to punch him, it was a goddam insulting thing to ask he thought, inwardly groaning, but she only smiled lazily and said,

"Hey. you got hidden depths." She pulled him up close and kissed his neck and whispered, "it's like, he kisses you and it's everything, it's, he loves having his neck kissed, makes him crazy, makes him," and Jim pulled back and started kissing her neck, "and he likes," she said,

"yeah?" he said and they looked at each other for a minute, before she said, levelly,

"head. He really likes getting head," she said, "oh," she said, as Jim slid down, buried his nose against her stomach, a quick nip through the shirt, dragged her underwear down her legs and then kissed the inside of her thigh and she shook and petted the back of his head and he took a tentative lick and she growled

"what are you waiting for," and slid one leg over his shoulder.

"Hey, Ellison, you gonna take off your pants?"

"Jim, say Jim."

"Jim."

"Good," he said gruffly and lifted her up against him, her legs sliding up to wrap around his hips and before he could think about it, he carried into Blair's bedroom, put her down on his unmade bed, on top of the pile of shirts and underwear and sheets and let her unbutton his pants and pulled them off before climbing in on top of her.

Through the shirt, he licked the soft hot space between her breasts and she squirmed underneath him, half-coming again, and the pile of clothes clung and wrapped around her, he could see the blue shirt Blair had worn two days ago under her head and his favorite pair of corduroys under her hips. He stroked her belly and watched her arch against his palm and said,

"You want this,"

"I want it," she repeated obediently. He touched the shirt.

"hm, Blair," he whispered.

"I want it," she sighed. There were condoms in Blair's bedside table. He slid into her slowly, deliberately, and her mouth opened, her head tilted back,

"I want it, I want," she said, "I've wanted it for years, I've always wanted it, I want you," and slid her fingers swiftly over his eyes, closing them, he could hear her wiggling out of the shirt, too slow to stop her, but she was only rubbing the shirt across his face, across his back, wiping Blair into him

"Sandburg," he whispered into her mouth.

"Sandburg," she dreamily agreed, the shirt was tangled between them now, and

"talk," he said, "you always talk."

"I, oh, um, Jim, please, mm, um, did I say I want you to, harder, please, kiss me, please." and slid a hand between them to touch herself, came against him from just a few short expert touches and the tight spasms around his cock, he could feel them in his hands on her back, dialed up, brought him off.

"Christ."

"Yup." She rolled out of bed and stretched. When he came out into the main room, buttoning his jeans, she was pulling on her pants.

"You don't have to."

"I have this rule about wearing pants in public."

"You know what I mean."

She nodded.

"You can stay," he said, since she was hooking her bra.

"Jim. um, you aren't taking this as a reflection of your um, performance? Right? Because, er, you really shouldn't." And she blushed.

"No, I know. I don't have sex with people and throw them out," he told her.

"It might be a bit awkward tomorrow morning."

"You have a point."

"Yeah," she said, and found her coat, pulling it on over her bra. He got a plastic bag from beneath the sink and put her shirt inside.

"You gonna tell him?" he asked, handing her the bag.

"Why would I do that?" He must have looked unconvinced because she continued. "It's none of his business."

"Right."

"I had a really nice time. But, I'm going and. I think you kind of have some laundry to do."

"Hold on a second and I'll walk you to your car." He came back out of the bedroom with Blair's laundry in the basket.

"It was--interesting," he said, as she climbed into her car.

"That it was," she said, and closed the door.

"Sophie, I'm so sorry about last night, I got held up." Blair caught her coming out of the archives. It was summer; five-thirty and no hint of evening. She smiled at him as he came into step beside her and said,

"Yeah, I figured. It's fine."

"I tried to call you but you weren't home."

"I guess I'd already left."

"So, you wanna reschedule? I'm free tomorrow."

"Oh, I can't."

"Next week, then."

"Um. Blair. This isn't really--I've been really busy lately." Blair nodded, slightly confused.

"Did Jim say something to you?" he said abruptly.

"Jim? No. Why would Jim say anything to me?"

"Because, you know, he can be a little scary and overprotective and stuff, but he's all bark and no bite, really."

"oh."

"Are you dumping me?"

"We'd have to be going out for me to dump you."

"You're changing the subject."

"No I'm not." They stopped at a crosswalk and Blair looked sideways at her and said,

"Jim did say something to you."

"No he didn't."

"Are you sure?"

"We barely talked. I just showed up and you weren't there, so I took off."

"That's funny. He said you guys ate together."

"He did? Well, that's, um, what I meant. I showed up and you weren't there, but there was food, so I ate. And then I took off." In sunlight, her eyes were oddly washed out, greeny-grey, fixed sincerely on his.

"My god you had sex with him."

"What?" Her eyebrows flew up. "No I didn't."

"You had sex with him."

"You don't know that," she said defensively.

"You. had sex. With Jim," Blair insisted.

"All right, okay, yes. I did. It's not a federal crime."

"You had sex with Jim?"

"Yeah. It was. nice." They walked in silence for a few minutes. She was wearing a knee length skirt and heels. She looked like a member of the PTA.

"Hey." he finally said.

"hey?"

"Yeah. Hey. We went out on four dates before you slept with me."

"What's that got to do with anything."

"You hit on my roommate, Sophie."

"He kissed me first."

"He kissed you?"

"yup."

"Was there. Did he seem weird?" Blair asked.

"No. He kissed me. That's how it happened. He kissed me, we did it. Then I went home."

"Not excessively focused on you or sensitive or anything."

"No," she said firmly. They had reached the parking lot and her car. "You know what? Um. Blair, ah, it's sort of late."

"You're dumping me because you had sex with Jim." Blair leaned against the car next to hers and she looked at the ground and said,

"Yeah. I just I just don't think--look, Blair, you guys are really good friends and this is just going to makes things very odd between you."

"Is this because he was better?" Blair asked suspiciously

"This is exactly what I'm talking about."

"Who was better?"

"No. no way. I'm not having this conversation."

"Oh so he was better than me, great. That's. you could just lie or something."

"No, no he wasn't better."

"I was?"

"No you weren't," she said, exasperated. "it's like chocolate and vanilla: different. Both good. Yum. Both of you, I promise."

"okay," Blair said, slightly placated.

"Good."

"Wait a minute. I'm chocolate, right."

"Um." Her forehead creased.

"Sophie." She smiled weakly at him and he said, "I'm vanilla. I'm vanilla? What the fuck, look, I demand a rematch."

"This isn't a rugby match, Blair."

"I am not vanilla."

"Look, Blair, yes you are. You are so friggen well adjusted about sex, or, you have been up until now, anyway, and you want everyone to have a good time and you say all the right things and you know, like, every position ever and it's hot, okay, it's very hot. But Jim. I mean, Jim is, um. He has some other stuff going on."

"kinky."

"well if you wanna label it."

"Now you're telling me Jim is kinky."

"Blair."

"Do you have a problem with compulsive lying?"

"Blair, stop being a psycho about this."

"Sorry. Did he tie you up?

"No, he--"

"Then what?"

"I'm not, this subject is not open for discussion."

"you can tell me. Old time's sake. I probably already know about it.

"Blair, go home, it's six o'clock, I promised I'd babysit my sister's kids and I'm late, good-bye." She got in her car and shut the door firmly.

"So guess what?" Blair came in and flung his backpack through the door of his room before turning back to Jim.

"What."

"I'm well adjusted about sex."

"That's great, Sandburg."

"Well, no, actually, it's not."

"oh?"

"Sophie dumped me." Blair swaggered toward him a bit and Jim took a step back and said gravely,

"She did."

"Yup. Turns out she had sex with you," Blair said sharply.

"She told you that?"

"Not the specifics."

"mm."

"That's all you have to say."

"I'm sorry," Jim offered.

"Really? Jim, what were you thinking, I mean, I thought you were up on this whole man code of honor thing here and wouldn't, I mean I worried about some things but having you sneaking around screwing people behind my back--"

"Number one, you stood her up. Number two, it's not like it's your decision to make, anyway. She wanted to, she said some stuff about feminism and then she just took off her pants, okay? And Number three, who cares about number three?" They glared at each other a moment and then Blair, evidently, decided to concede the point, because he said,

"She said I was vanilla. She said I was well-adjusted."

"Well that's good," Jim said.

"No, I don't think it is."

"Whatever you say."

"I'm not vanilla." Blair yanked opened several cabinet doors and started making dinner as Jim said,

"I'm sure you're not."

"What did you do that was so kinky?" Blair said searchingly.

"Nothing."

"Look. I hardly think that Sophie's definition of kinky is tamer than yours, so it must have been something."

"None of your business."

"Oh come on."

"No."

"Hey, was it pheromones?" Blair looked up over the rim of his book.

"No."

"Just checking."

"Do these socks look really white to you?" Blair asked the next morning, sitting on the couch, pulling on his socks and shoes.

"They're supposed to be white."

"Yeah, see, that's what's weird. I mean, my socks aren't generally so white. They tends towards grey."

"And." Jim pulled on his coat.

"And these are white."

"They look the same to me."

"They do."

"Yup."

"Huh."

"Hey, Sandburg. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it."

"That's okay. What are friends for?"

"I really am sorry."

"If you can't pimp for your friends, who can you pimp for."

"we okay?"

"Yeah. Although if you really wanted me to forgive you you'd tell me what you did that was so kinky."

"Forget it. It'd just go in that goddam dissertation anyway."

"It would make the chapter more complete."

"Oh, you're not going to."

"Why not? I think it's a good example of your protectiveness towards the guide. Plus the assumed, um, oneness of the Sentinel and Guide."

"What?"

"Sentinel/Guide pairs were sometimes seen in many cultures as a single entity. So, you know, you probably instinctively felt a perfect right to sleep with someone I'd slept with."

"That's a crock."

"That's very affirming, Jim."

"Didja spank her?"

"Sandburg."

"Did she spank you? Did you wear her underwear? Do it on the roof?"

"Shut up, Sandburg."

"You know, the least you could do is let me have a little vicarious thrill."

"No."

He waited for Blair to bring it up again. He waited, actually, for Blair to throw it at him during a fight, for him to use it as proof, as precedent setting behavior for Jim's latest instance of inconsiderate behavior, but Blair never did. Sandburg was often too forgiving by half, he thought. In fact, as time went by and Blair didn't get angry at him for it, he started to feel more guilty and confused. Which might have been Blair's plan all along, but, no, Blair had never been able to hide his anger, so Jim had to conclude that he'd simply forgotten about it, or didn't care. And that made him feel even worse, because it meant, what? That Blair had come to expect him to behave like an asshole on certain occasions, so he didn't even bother to get angry?

In time, the whole thing seemed unreal, and it was easy to forget that it had happened, because Jim Ellison didn't go around having sex with girls in leather pants in his roommate's bed, and if you put it like that, he wasn't sure Blair would believe him anyway. He kept the undershirt, folded small, in the back of his drawer. He sometimes forgot it was there. A year went by.

It was one thing, after all, to think you wanted something, and quite another to really want it. And he had come to see that people weighed their desires, mostly, against chances of failure, against consequences; people sitting in the interrogation room writing out a confession the result of simple miscalculations. He had never been slow to make up his mind before; but then, perhaps, he'd never had such difficult calculations to make. It was something to think about, framed by the late night hum of street lights, the frenetic howl of the electric mixer. The year ticked by quickly, without agony.

He came home to find Blair doing pushups, red faced, lips pressed determinedly together.

"Whatcha doin'?"

Blair finished the set and rolled over to sit on the floor and said,

"This police academy thing, it is going to entail pushups, right?"

"Well, yeah."

"So, I'm. I thought I'd get ready." He rolled back over and started another set.

"Um. Blair. Do you really want to be a cop?"

"What else am I supposed to do?" Blair said, breathless.

"You could tutor or something. You could, I don't know. Some book thing. A bookstore? A library?"

He sat down on the couch and watched Blair finish.

"First, I doubt it. Second. I just." He shook his head. "I want something that doesn't remind me of it."

"oh."

"I, um, I miss it a little," Blair said, shamefaced.

"oh."

"Stop it. Jim. I don't blame you. And can you stop looking at me like you think you're some sort of tragic reminder?"

"Well, sorry," Jim said, feeling even more like a tragic reminder, not to mention a selfish shit, and Blair hauled himself to his feet and came over to flop on the couch. He looked tired. He rolled his shoulder and Jim could hear the blood flow to his muscles decreasing; he'd been doing pushups for a really long time.

"Look. It's just, everything that's been true for half my life, isn't. I woke up yesterday and I was thinking about some book I felt like reading and I realized I couldn't. Because I don't have a university library card any more."

"What book?"

"It doesn't matter--it's not just that book, you know, it's every book, almost, for the rest of my life."

Jim turned sideways on the couch and hugged him.

"Hey," Blair said, and returned it, pressing his nose against Jim's shoulder. "hey."

"Blair," Jim said, and his voice was oddly husky.

"Jim, it's. I'm okay. I'll be okay," and Jim hugged him again, closely, and Blair pulled back and said, "Are you gonna be okay?"

"Me, yeah, I'm fine."

"Not that the hugging isn't fine, but,"

"I just thought you might need a hug."

"You thought I," Blair knitted his lips together determinedly and then said a little too solemnly. "can you repeat that?"

"I thought you," Jim started again, stopping when Blair burst into laughter.

"No offense man, but you are definitely not allowed to watch any more Hallmark commercials."

"That's nice, Sandburg. I try to be sensitive for once and you just throw it back in my face. What am I supposed to do?"

"How 'bout you find a constructive outlet for all that guilt and make me dinner."

"Well, you're the one who's unemployed."

And that was his last ditch attempt.

That's great. That's really brilliant, Ellison, he told himself, pretending to read on the couch after dinner, sitting next to Blair, dialing down severely, so he couldn't hear Blair's solidly unexcited heartbeat. He just threw his whole life out the window, but you thought maybe he'd like to make out with you. Right.

He'd spent the last year thinking about kissing Blair, but never had. Half cowardice, half prudence. He hadn't been unhappy the way things were. He'd wanted to be certain; he thought he had plenty of time. At first, it seemed like a better idea to wait until the dissertation was done--he'd had certain vague ideas, which had been supported by some roundabout questioning of Blair, that it wouldn't do to be sleeping with him while trying to write about him. Although he privately thought that Blair's objectivity was pretty compromised already. Really, he'd been putting it off because he'd been nervous. It wasn't every day that you asked your best friend if he wouldn't mind letting you lick him, if he wouldn't mind sitting, Jim checked, about a foot closer to you on the sofa. And then everything at once, publicity and press conference, and all he'd been able to think afterwards was finally. Thank Christ, finally; he'd thought it was proof. He'd planned to take Blair home and make love to him as soon as possible. He'd planned to say things like "I'll make it up to you." and "I'll make you forget." And yes it was fucking stupid, and Sandburg was probably right about those Hallmark commercials, but these pipe dreams reared up out of nowhere, the unshakable image of a dazed Blair underneath him, pulling him down for a kiss on lips bruised from earlier kissing, a Blair who whispered, "Jim, I did it because I loved you."

It hadn't worked out quite that way. He'd thrown out his initial plan at Blair's stricken face in the hospital waiting room. Never mind that he wanted Blair sighing and curled around him, never mind that. Blair looked sick with impossible decisions and he'd wanted to give him time. He'd wasted the last year on caution; he could stand a few more weeks. And work had been busy with both Simon and Megan out and the three weeks until Simon chucked a badge at Sandburg had slipped by just like the last year had. At the station, in front of everyone, grinning at Blair's incredulous face, dragging him in for a hug, shoving his hands into Blair's hair and feeling the fine curve of his skull, he'd thought: now. Today.

So, when he'd gotten home and found Sandburg doing pushups, he'd tried the hug again. This time, he noticed that Blair's heart rate didn't change at all in his arms. He seemed, in fact, bemused by the hug and Jim saw that Blair might have been willing to throw away his whole life, but it wasn't out of love, no, he'd just deluded himself that Blair had been thinking he was worth it, you stupid fuck, conceited fuck, he told himself. As if sex could be restitution for the loss of a future.

You wouldn't think that growing up with Naomi would give you such a devout sense of duty, because make no mistake, Blair had done it out of duty and honor. He'd said he'd protect Jim and he'd screwed up with Jim's identity and done the only thing possible to make it right. He'd have done it no matter what. Jim didn't matter at all. He'd have done it for Simon. Or, god, any fucker who walked down the pike. Alex.

And then Blair had laughed when he'd tried to be sympathetic. He supposed he ought to feel all right about that. It was the first snarky unreserved Blairish grin he'd seen in days. He'd smiled dutifully on receipt of the badge, but it had been a strained grin. Blair was ever polite, and he'd wanted to accept the gift in the spirit it had been given. He'd understood that, for Simon, there was nothing more coveted than a detective's badge.

So Blair had gone on sleeping on that stupid crappy futon of his in his stupid little room and Jim had the feeling, oddly reminiscent of unsolvable physics problems from high school, that there was some sequence of events, something, something he could have said or done that would have led to Blair being in his bed at this exact moment. But it hadn't happened.

At least Blair hadn't been drowning his sorrows in sweet female flesh, although it was, of course, not for lack of trying.

"who knew," he had said, coming in quite early one night, "that women gave a fuck about academic fraud?"

"um?"

"Apparently, they felt that the fraud might translate to other areas."

"I'm sure that's not--"

"I never knew that I was picking up women on the strength of my professorliness. I mean, it's not like I went around saying, 'hey, I'm, you know, more or less Dr. Blair Sandburg. I've never perpetrated academic fraud. Would you like to go to bed with me?'"

"I'm sorry," Jim had said.

"Yeah. You tell me just about every day, Jim."

So Blair did pushups every day and went about his daily routine with a certain determination-as if he could no longer quite remember the reason that it was important for him to brush his teeth, only that he knew he was supposed to. A week before the Academy started he cut his hair.

"I thought you weren't gonna cut it," Jim said and realized he sounded almost petulant. Pathetic.

"They were gonna make me wear it in a bun. I mean. A bun. No way," Blair said, running a hand through his hair and looking almost surprised at what an abbreviated gesture it had become. "It'll grow back. And I think--I need some camouflage. It's not that short, anyhow."

"No. It sort of looks like Sophie's hair, actually," Jim said, unthinking.

"Sophie? Oh. Have you seen her around or something?"

"No. It just crossed my mind, is all. I don't meet that many women with short hair."

Blair thought, after the first day, after Jim's watchful inquiries that night, that it might have been easier if it had been really bad, if someone had cornered him in the locker room and broken his nose or vandalized his car, but that did not happen. People ignored him, mostly. Just the fourth guy from the left, second row, doing jumping jacks. Just the guy who mostly knew the answers. He was a little too old and a little too short, most of them didn't know who he was--

"Don't any of these kids watch the goddam news?" he asked Jim one night, irrationally annoyed. The few who did seemed to take a quiet pleasure in his failures, his poor performance with the gun, the day his technique was used as an example as the best way to get your head blown off by a perp you're trying to subdue. He wasn't worth enough for them to waste time on; he rarely even managed to get their scorn. He'd been dashing into closed societies for close to half his life, but this was the first society he'd even really been trying to become a part of. He was failing, and Jim, puttering around the loft in the evening, hungry, shoulder-sore from a chase, reminded him of what a hash he'd made of everything. To make it worse, Jim kept watching him. He'd look up from trying to do homework and find Jim's eyes on him.

"What," he usually said, "what?"

"Are you okay?" Jim would ask. This had become his favorite thing to say after "I'm sorry."

"Yes, I'm okay."

"School okay?"

"School's, sure, yes. fine."

"Okay." But clearly, it wasn't, because then Jim would just keep looking at him, stealing concerned glances at him while he did his homework and it was starting to piss him off, actually, because Jim was a Sentinel and it seemed like the least he could do would be to use his goddam senses for a little unobtrusive observation.

He did his homework with a vengeance, mostly so he'd have an excuse to refuse Jim's careful offers of help at the firing range. Did his homework and answered questions in class and soon he was there again, fucking brain, fucking brownnose, and this was somewhat better, familiar at least, that old home territory.

She answered on the third ring.

"Sophie Newcombe."

"This is Jim Ellison," he said, and stopped. He hadn't thought much past getting her number from university information. He had thought that having the number scribbled on a piece of paper in the second drawer of his desk would convince him of what a poor idea this was. "I'm Blair Sandburg's room--"

"I know who you are," she said, sounding faintly annoyed.

"I--" he said. She sighed on the other end of the line, but said nothing. After a long pause, he said, "Blair has a late class tonight."

"I see," she said. The phone receiver was hot and heavy in his hand, faintly slick with sweat. "Jim," she started, "I don't think--"

"I'm sorry," he said, wondering how he'd gotten to this place, this hot indian summer afternoon, his sweater was too heavy, and Blair looked miserable these days and refused to admit it and it was his fault mostly and he really wanted to touch someone who didn't make him feel so goddam guilty. "Please," he said. There was an even longer pause before she asked quietly,

"what time."

"seven." She hung up before he could say thank you.

Blair was having his first good day in weeks. He thought he might be getting the hang of it. Some of the bullets had actually hit where they were supposed to tonight, before the sprinkler system had malfunctioned and forced them out of the building. He'd gotten a call from one of Naomi's more virulently anti-gun friends two weeks ago and although he'd been unsuccessful at explaining the difference between a right-wing NRA militia wacko and a detective in favor of gun control to her, he had managed to get a handle on the distinction for himself. His poor aim had apparently been psychosomatic-he decided to take Jim up on the shooting lessons. Maybe even tonight--he was home early, after all. He unlocked the door; looked like Jim had gone to bed early. He took off his coat and walked quietly to his room to get rid of his backpack before making himself something to eat.

Muscle memory should not be underestimated. Sling a backpack through a bedroom door nearly every day for three years and the muscles have learned the action thoroughly, completely. Blair's arm moved although he'd stopped thinking about moving it the moment he pushed open the door. The backpack described a low arc through the air and fell gently on the floor by his bed, a foot from Jim and the girl.

Jim was on his back and she was straddling him, skirt pushed up over her thighs, shirt off, but bra on. Both of their eyes were closed, she was biting her lip, Jim's shirt was open, pants shoved down to his knees, he had one wrist across his eyes, face turned sideways into the pillow, the other hand high on her thigh, his back was arched, hers was too, she still had one high heel on. She saw him first, turning, eyes going wide, and that was all he saw before he stumbled backwards out of the room, stupid with shock.

He supposed, later, that there must have been a certain interval between this and Sophie emerging from the bedroom, fully clothed, hair somewhat rumpled, but it seemed like no time at all, no time to sit on the couch in the dark and avoid thinking about it, avoid thinking about the fact that his hands were shaking.

"Blair," she said, seeing him, and as she took a step closer her faced changed, from embarrassment to concern. "are you all right?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She looked at him searchingly for a moment and said,

"Um. I better go." She shifted on her feet a minute, clearly trying to think of something else to say. Finally, she said, "I'll see you around," and he thought, savagely, not fucking likely, not if I can help it.

Then, after what must have, again, been a certain interval, Jim came slowly through his bedroom door. Blair had had some faint hope that Jim would laugh it off, offer to buy him new sheets, or make some smirking comment about his sexual prowess, but he gave it up after one look at Jim's hollowed-out, guilty face. Jim was holding his shoes in his hands, huge shoes, big hands,

"You were--" Blair cleared his throat. "You were having sex in my bed." He had been trying for outrage, or at least for blase acceptance, but the words came out incredulous, as if he couldn't believe he was saying them. And I can't, he thought, so there you go. Jim was nodding shakily, working up to saying something, but whereas Blair had been unable to think of anything to say ten minutes ago, he could think of half a dozen things he wanted to say now.

"How many times have you done that?" he demanded.

"Just one other time," Jim said.

"With her?"

"Yeah."

"So, just last year and this year, you expect me to believe that?"

"That's the only other time."

"My god, that's what she meant. That's what she meant that was so kinky?"

"Are you gonna move out?" Jim asked.

"Why didn't you hear me coming?" Blair asked, realizing what was really strange about this whole thing, not Jim, with his perfectly huge bed upstairs, fooling around in his bed, not Jim determinedly having some fling behind his back with Sophie who was absolutely not his type, not Jim underneath some girl, mouth straining for her kisses, none of that, "You should have heard me two freakin' blocks away. You should have heard me coming in the door, you couldn't dial down that much and still feel a goddam thing." He stopped to breath, stopped in case Jim said anything, but Jim was just looking at him. He couldn't see much in the dark.

"Sit the fuck down, Jim," Blair said, tired of having Jim skulking in the corner. "Did you want me to catch you, did you want me to see you like that? Do you want me to move out?"

"No, I don't want that." Jim said.

"Then what? I mean, I don't even believe this, I can't. You were having sex in my bed," he said again.

"I know," Jim said.

"That's not kinky." Blair said. "I've had sex in that bed a bunch of times. And it's not. That's not all that, kinky, it's just why were you, was it her idea?"

"No."

"Your idea. I just. Wait a minute. Last year, when you. You did wash the sheets, right?"

"I washed all your laundry."

"My socks. That's. they were so white."

"you have to separate the whites,"

"So is this a laundry fetish? Is it a small uncomfortable bed fetish? Is it a make Blair need a hell of a lot of therapy fetish? What?"

"I don't know," Jim said.

"I'm making this whole realization about western culture and how it's really made much vaster inroads on me than I thought it had, because I've just, I'm used to being Blair the open guy, you know? I mean, it wouldn't normally bother me that you were screwing some woman in my bed, because, well, you were going to change the sheets and except for certain lapses in which you screw women in my bed, you're a very considerate roommate. But you see. I mean. I'm just, I'm shocked."

"I'm sorry." Jim said. "Blair, I'm so sorry."

"I know."

"I didn't mean to, not the first time, it just happened."

"But the second time, what? you knew I had that class and you called her."

"yeah," Jim admitted. He put on his shoes and tied the laces and then he just sat there, watching Blair. He looked, Blair thought, as if he were waiting for something.

"Did you make her dinner," Blair asked. Jim looked a little startled; apparently, this was not what he had been waiting for.

"She'd eaten."

"Could you make me dinner?"

"I—"

"It's your night," Blair reminded him.

"Is ravioli okay?"

"Yeah, that's fine."

Jim moved efficiently around the kitchen, and Blair watched him cut lettuce and red peppers, boil water, reheat some sauce. The only thing Blair said was,

"Aren't you having any?"

"I'm not hungry."

"Make some for yourself," Blair ordered, and Jim turned obediently to add more sauce to the pan.

They ate in silence. Towards the end of the meal, Blair said,

"So I did better on the shooting, tonight."

"That's, that's really good," Jim said.

"I was thinking, maybe you could, we could go to the shooting range."

"Yeah. Okay, sure," Jim said. And he sounded so normal, so like Jim, that it was almost as if he hadn't been having sex in Blair's bed, as if it were nothing at all, and Blair was suddenly harshly angry. He got up and left the dishes to Jim and went and washed his face and brushed his teeth. Jim was checking the latch on the balcony doors when he got out.

"I'm gonna go to bed," Blair said. Jim nodded, and turned towards the stairs, but Blair was there before him and said,

"No, no, see, you like my bed so much, you can sleep there." And he walked up the stairs to Jim's bed. Upstairs, listening carefully, he heard Jim's soft tread, into the bathroom, and then back out and into his room.

The loft seemed quiet and huge from Jim's bed. He wasn't sure he liked it. He'd become used to sleeping in his small bedroom, walls had grown on him, enclosed him, made him safe. On expeditions, he'd done his share of sleeping outside, or in grassy latticed huts, but even outside, even staring up at the sky, there had always been the breathy murmur of other sleepers around him: company, safety. Fuck. Jim's bed was huge. Fuck, what was he doing up here. He'd never expected Jim to let him get away with this. He'd never expected any of it. Not the dinner, not the dishes--he kept expected Jim to tell him to cut it out, to tell him it wasn't such a big deal. And the fact that he hadn't, the fact that Jim was probably squirming around on the futon trying to get comfortable while he was stranded on this big fucking continent of a bed up here--. Well. It must be as big a deal as Blair thought it was.

He dropped into an uneasy sleep at last and waited around as long as was possible in the morning for Jim to wake up. He wanted to say that he was sorry, that he didn't care, that he couldn't stand one more night in that bed, but the door to his bedroom stayed stubbornly shut and he remembered that Jim had the day off and he was late for class anyway, so he left.

He brought home take-out; he'd been practicing his apology/magnanimous forgiveness all day. Everything was going to be fine. He thought that until he came in the door and found Jim, t-shirt stained dark with sweat, coming out of his room with a pair of shoes, a book, a baseball bat that he kept in the back of his closet and his favorite shirt.

"Jim, hey."

"Oh, hey," Jim smiled.

"um. what are you doing?" Oh god, Jim was moving him out, Jim was throwing him out, "Jim, wait, you don't." But Jim just smiled again, oddly eager, and Blair saw that he had a shallow scrape running along the inside of his arm, "Jim, what's that, are you all right?"

"Fine. Come see this," Jim said, and went up that stairs. Blair shook his head and followed,

"Look, Jim, about last night, I know I flew off the handle and I," he reached the top of the stairs, "you moved all my furniture up here."

"Yeah," Jim nodded. He pointed at his arm. "I sort of scraped myself up on the dresser."

"You can't, you don't have to do this."

"No, it's okay. I mean, you're eventually gonna start paying rent and I thought. Blair," he said seriously, "I'm really sorry."

"It's no big deal."

"You know, I think Naomi went a little heavy with you on the whole sharing thing. It was really, unforgivable. I shouldn't have."

"No, but this, you don't have to do this."

"You said that."

"I. Thanks Jim, it's really. It's great. It's. I love it," he said. "What about the bed?"

"Oh, it wouldn't fit through the doors."

"You can't sleep on my bed."

"Why not?"

"It's too small."

"You sleep there."

"I'm shorter than you are."

"It's fine. I'm perfectly comfortable."

"but."

"You're making this sort of difficult, I mean, you always yammer on about what an inconsiderate slob I am--"

"Now that's completely unfair, I've never--"

"And I try for once to do something nice and be, y'know,"

"said anything about you being a slob--"

"sensitive to your needs,"

"and I don't know where you're getting all this new age crap--

"and you can't even say anything about it--

"but--

"I'm trying to talk here you know."

"Fine. I'll fucking stay up here. Are you happy?"

"Yes."

"It's great, Jim." It wasn't of course. It was weird, but Jim had been so pleased at his solution, Jim, lover of solitude and wide open spaces and this is what you get, Blair, he told himself, for not waking him up last night when you wanted to and making him give you your bed back. Because now it wasn't even his. Instead he had this huge bed that was freezing cold because he could never seem to get the covers wrapped around him quite as securely as he'd been able to in his old bed. He watched tenaciously for Jim to say something about his bed, for him, even, to roll his neck or stretch or anything, really, at all that would allow him to say,

"Hey, why don't you move on back upstairs," or "Jim, don't you think you'd like to sleep on a real mattress?" Jim was obnoxiously stoic about the whole thing. And there was just something wrong about having railings at your head instead of a nice wall. "I'm afraid of heights," that's what he should have said. The railing freaked him out. He had banged his head on it a few times, which had been quite unpleasant.

To complain seemed rude, though. And at first he felt as though he couldn't say anything, given that Jim had thought up this innovative new form of apology, which certainly trumped the 'nice dinner' apology, and even the 'Hey, I really want to go to the holy land falafel wagon for lunch,' apology. And then, when it seemed like the apology had gone on long enough, it became apparent that Jim actually liked his room.

"It's quieter," he said. "I mean, when you come in late or something it muffles the sound."

"oh."

"And, uh."

"what."

"Don't be insulted or anything, Sandburg, but I was never too thrilled about having you be the first line of defense in this place."

"I'm not insulted."

"yeah, you are."

"How do you know?"

"You do this thing with your mouth when you're mad. And you smell."

"I smell?"

"Yeah. mad."

"You think everyone smells."

"Everyone does smell."

"Well, I'm sorry I'm such a blight on your nostrils."

"Remember when you used to tell me how important it was for me to use my senses to their full potential?"

"I didn't mean that you should go around bitching like a little old lady about how people smell."

"Is that a comment in the official Guide capacity?"

"What if it were?"

"I'm not sure if 'bitching' is appropriate guide vocabulary."

"Oh, I suppose Incacha never complained about your bitching."

"Nope. He usually said stuff like, "I worship you like a god, Enqueri." and "oh no, let me do the grocery shopping this week Enqueri."

"That's pretty weak, Jim."

"Jeez. You dredge up repressed memories and all you get is ridicule."

"and scorn. Don't forget the liberal helpings of scorn."

Things seemed almost preposterously normal after that. His shooting got a little better and his hundred yard sprint time really didn't at all and he kept waiting for the part of the classes where they handcuffed you to a bomb and made you get out of it but that didn't happen and some guy in one of his classes called him an asshole and a liar and that wasn't so hot, but it was par for the course and sleeping in the loft wasn't so bad. It wasn't good either. It sucked, actually, and Jim kept looking at him.

He couldn't make it to the station very much at all any more, and even when he could, he didn't feel much like it. People still whispered--less so than they had at the beginning, but enough to make it uncomfortable. Simon tended towards jovial, when-are-you-joining-the-team back slapping. Megan still looked so sorry for him, which was worse. It seemed better to stay away until he just had the badge, already. Jim's senses were fine--or, at least, he hadn't complained about them, which meant they were fine. Not even a "Chief, I have a headache." And finally, he tended to procrastinate on the homework, which meant most weekends he was trying to catch up, so he couldn't go to the station even it he wanted to. He was doing the homework he should have done on Friday on Sunday night, late, and Jim was cleaning his gun, sitting on the couch. He finished and stuck the rags and oil below the sink and stopped by the kitchen table,

"I'm gonna go to bed," he said.

"Sure, fine. Good night."

"It's pretty late."

"so?"

"So, are you going to bed any time soon?"

"Probably not. Work, you know."

Jim took a hesitant breath and said,

"You don't have to, you know."

"Yeah, I do. We have a test tomorrow."

"No, I mean, you don't have to do it at all."

"Oh." Blair looked up at him, clearly waiting for him to continue, so he said,

"Sandburg. Blair." He sat down across from Blair and continued, carefully, "You're, uh, you just don't seem very happy. And you don't ever come to the station or even really want to hang out with me,

"Oh, so now I'm not paying enough attention to you?"

"No,"

"No, I know what this is about," Blair shoved his chair away from the table and got up, "you just don't like it that, that I'm not at your beck and call all day,"

"That's not it."

"You know, I really wish you would just decide what you want. You want me to go to the Academy. You don't want me to go to the Academy. You act all weird." He had stalked over to the living room and Jim followed him.

"I'm not the one acting weird."

"oh no? You keep looking at me."

Jim gaped at him and then shook his head, "I don't believe this. I mean, I really can't believe it."

"What?"

"Do you remember the first stakeout we had where you spent the first hour giving me a Freudian evaluation of every member of Major Crimes and then moved on to Jung for the second two hours?"

"Yeah. So I'm a big fat bore, so what?" Blair sat down on the couch, crossing his arms.

"so you used to use the word 'teleology' at least once a day and you haven't used it in weeks."

"Now I really have no idea what you're talking about." Jim sighed and climbed across the coffee table so he could sit down facing Blair. He rubbed his nose with a knuckle and then said, bluntly,

"I slept in your bed, Blair, I had sex in your bed. Twice."

"Oh that."

"Oh that?" Jim said, sounding genuinely pained.

"I mean, I thought we were putting that behind us. Not talking about it and stuff."

"What?"

Well, you didn't talk about it," Blair said defensively.

"But. I thought you were mulling it over and coming up with theories and stuff. But it's becoming painfully obvious to me that you haven't been doing anything but--"

"Hey, I've been trying to get a police badge."

"You hate the goddam police academy and I'm so tired of seeing you just lumping it. You don't have to do it on my account, trust me."

"Oh so you really don't want me to be your partner. Well, you could have said so. I mean, instead of having sex in my bed. I guess that's just too subtle for me."

"That's not what I said."

"Sure as hell sounded like it."

There was silence for a moment and Blair looked at his knees and frowned.

"Just. Blair. You're sleeping a lot," Jim said awkwardly.

"So?"

"So, I mean, you go to school and then you come home and sleep. And you cut your hair and you stopped doing that weird Malaysian lawn bowling team thing you do and you didn't even care that I had sex in your bed and--"

"Man, we cannot get off this sex in the bed thing, can we? Fine. Okay. Fine. You had sex in my bed because you were asserting territoriality."

"Wrong."

"How do you know?"

"I know. That's wrong."

"Okay. You had sex in my bed because Sophie gets off on breaking taboos."

"Wrong," Jim said again.

"Your sheets were dirty." "Wrong."

"She's afraid of heights. Or skylights. Or,"

"Jesus H. Christ, Sandburg. Are you doing this on purpose?"

"Doing what?" Blair grinned maddeningly at him and Jim grinned helplessly back, but sobered quickly. "Okay, then," Blair said. "Tell me. I really don't know why."

"She pretended to be you," Jim said, so quietly that Blair did not at first hear him.

"She what?"

"She pretended to be you," Jim said, avoiding his eyes.

"oh."

Jim nodded and stared at the floor and waited.

"Why? Did she get off on that," Blair said curiously. Jim's chin tilted up and their eyes finally met.

"No. I asked her to."

"you asked her to," Blair repeated. "Um. pardon me, but how effective could that possibly be, I mean, given that she's, er, a woman. And you're a Sentinel and. You didn't hear me, so. That's why you didn't hear me come in. You had everything turned down."

"Not smell," Jim clarified.

"Why?"

"Well, it smelled like you--your bed and everything."

"Not that why, I mean. Do you. You want to have sex with me," and it seemed, even with all the evidence, even with the fine tremor of Jim's hands, a ridiculously presumptuous thing to say,

"I think so. yes."

"oh. Since last year, even?"

"No. Not really. I just, I spent most of last year wondering if it was normal that I wondered about how you did it."

"um."

"Yeah. not normal, I know."

"That's what she meant when she said you were kinky."

"I guess."

"It's pretty kinky," Blair said thoughtfully.

"Are you gonna take this seriously?"

"I'll try."

"Stop laughing Sandburg."

"I'm not laughing at you. I just. You're right, I should have known."

"Yes you fucking well ought to have. I've been waiting for you to figure it out for weeks. What was the hold up, anyway?"

"It just, it never occurred to me."

"Sandburg, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, sometimes you're just dim."

"Well excuse me." He closed his mouth and when he looked up, Jim was staring at him in the same waiting way he had been for weeks. "Um. So."

"I really like you and, if you wanted to, I'd want. you know."

"Yeah."

"okay?"

"I got it."

"You got it."

"Loud and clear." And Jim was still staring at him so he got off the couch and said, "I need to think about it."

"Fair enough. I'll just. go to bed," Jim said, and he looked a little disappointed, but not surprised.

Blair's car died the next morning. Jim was working a later shift and he'd planned to avoid him entirely. Instead, he had to climb back up the stairs and wake Jim up to ask him for a ride. He apologized several times, until Jim said,

"It's fine, it's no big deal, Sandburg. It's no problem."

They rode in silence for several miles and Blair could just see Jim's studiously calm face out of the corner of his eye and he finally blurted,

"I'm still thinking about it."

Jim nodded and looked fixedly through the windshield and said,

"Look. Chief. It took you about forty-seven seconds to fall in love with Maya and you've lived with me for years and now you have to think about it?"

"That's not fair."

"I just think, either you know or you don't. So maybe you think you're letting me down easy or something, but you're just making me feel like a jerk, so--"

"Hey."

"I'm not going to throw you out or anything, I'd just like to hurry up and get rejected here, I mean, if it's not too much trouble."

"Maya was a woman," Blair said.

"So?"

"Don't be dense, Jim. You don't think, I mean, I've never done it with a guy."

Jim did look at him then, looked disgusted with him,

"Don't bullshit me, Sandburg--I know you shacked up with that guy when you were in Ecuador so--"

"Who told you that?"

"Naomi."

"But,"

"This was when she thought your, how did she put it, your free spirited giving approach to sexuality would make me less than interested in living with you."

"Well, I was being respectful of their traditions. Which included homosexual relationships between younger members of the tribe."

"Yeah. I'm sure there was great hardship. You obviously like guys just fine so that's not the problem."

"Stop pressuring me. You know, I already live with you. I'm already gonna be your partner for, like, forever, because no one else is ever gonna want to be my partner and I already destroyed my career for you, so what else do you want?"

Jim leaned over fast and kissed him at the next stoplight, one hand still on the steering wheel, one hand under Blair's jaw, thumb stroking under his ear, his tongue sliding along Blair's teeth, flicking against the roof of his mouth, catching the underside of his lip, a little rough, even, the car behind them honked and Jim ignored it for a moment to say,

"I want you to sniff around me the way you do everyone else."

"That it?"

"no," touching his lip thoughtfully.

Blair answered a lot of questions wrong in class that day. On the fourth

"No, Mr. Sandburg," he caught a commiserating grin from the kid who sat next to him,

"Didn't do the reading last night, huh," the kid, Mackelthwaite, said, as they changed for calisthenics.

"Not really," he said.

"But I thought you'd done all that a thousand times," someone said. Mackelthwaite's friend, Crouse. The class was on arrest procedure.

"Standing around and watching Jim do it isn't the same, you know, as having someone ask you what step four is."

"What is step four?" Step four, as far as he could tell, was supposed to happen right before some guy pulled a gun and Jim ended up pursuing him through a deserted warehouse.

"Fuck if I know."

That day, when they chose up partners for sit-ups, Crouse said,

"Hey, Sandburg, you gotta partner," just as if he didn't know that Blair never had a partner, that he always had to jam his feet underneath the bleachers.

"No," he said, making a show of looking around. Crouse held his feet and eventually said,

"I got this, study group thing. If you're interested. Just a few of the guys, we're meeting tonight." and Blair considered that they were really going to take him out somewhere and beat the crap out of him but that seemed a bit devious for these guys, who had been fairly straightforward about not liking him, so he said,

"I don't have a ride,"

"You can ride with me," Mackelthwaite said.

"Let me call Jim."

"Ellison's your ride?"

"My car broke down." This seemed to really make them like him.

He came home to find Jim sitting in the darkness.

"Hey," he said cautiously. Jim said quietly,

"I thought maybe I freaked you out."

"oh."

"I thought, maybe. Blair. If I shouldn't have."

"I liked it."

"yeah?"

"yup."

"C'mere," Jim said. Blair came over and dropped his backpack, flopping backwards over the arm of the sofa. His shoulders ended up in Jim's lap

"how was that study group," he said, and put a careful hand, flat, directly over Blair's sternum.

"it was okay. I tried to convince them that having a study group at a bowling alley was a bad idea but they weren't into it. Kiss me again,"

Jim leaned over and kissed him and Blair held his neck and pulled himself part of the way up but the position strained both their backs so the kiss didn't last long. Blair settled back in his lap and Jim ran a finger across his eyebrow and said,

"I thought about this all day."

"me too."

"You get over the wall today?"

"Mackelthwaite boosted me up."

"Who's Mackelthwaite?"

"Just this guy." Jim was running a gentle finger under the neck of his shirt. "And I told everyone all kinds of crazy lies about how eccentric you were. Insistence on cleanliness, that sort of thing."

"Why?"

"Well, they were curious and I was trying to bond and I thought that I'd stay away from the truth."

"why?"

"Well, I wasn't sure the 'I'm in love with Jim, Jim's my boyfriend' story would go over real well."

"I'm your boyfriend?"

"Only if you want to be."

"I want to be," Jim said.

"yeah," Blair whispered, because Jim was touching his lips and his nose and pushing his hair away from his forehead.

"Just like that?" Jim asked. "we're. you're. with me?"

"just like that," Blair said.

"Do you," Jim swallowed. "Can I make love to you?"

"On your first day as my boyfriend," Blair smirked up at him, "I'm not sure if that's--"

"Sandburg. please, I've been waiting a really long time. Don't joke about it. okay? We don't have to, but I'd really like, I really. I want you."

"okay. yes."

And Jim slid his hand across Blair's lips and neck and down his chest, over his stomach to the waistband of his pants and put a gentle hand over his cock and Blair said,

"definitely, yes." Jim peeled his shirt up to his nipples and rubbed back down over his stomach and opened his jeans. He reached inside his underwear and drew out his cock. He stroked it slowly with his fingers, watching Blair flush slowly, his eyes get wider and darker. Blair's hips squirmed against the couch and he said,

"Bed?"

"Yeah. Upstairs."

"Hey, hey, Sandburg. That is a quality hickey you got there," Mackelthwaite said the next morning.

"Mr. Sandburg, I suggest you make more of an effort to do the homework," he was told, in more than one class.

"So I think I didn't do real well on that test," he told Jim after dinner.

"Oh. you got an A- or something?"

"No. I think I actually did badly. Which would be your fault."

"So maybe now they'll stop calling you Curvebreaker McGee."

"They don't call me that."

"Then all your problems are solved."

"Um. Are you high?"

"No."

"Then what are you talking about."

"I'm trying to get you to, you know. to, um."

"Oh. No, see, you do this," Blair said, and leaned over Jim and kissed him. Jim pulled him down in his lap and slid one hand under his sweater and kissed him swiftly and hungrily and when he pulled away to start kissing Blair's neck, Blair said, "yeah, that's good. That's. um."

"Can we do it in your bed?" Jim asked.

"I bet you say that to all the girls," Blair said. But he stood up and walked to his room, pulling off his sweater and shirt as he went. He took off his jeans and sat on the bed and was surprised to find Jim nowhere in sight.

"Hey, Jim," he said.

"Sorry," Jim said, appearing in the doorway. "Wear this."

"ooh," Blair said, before he really got a look at the raggedy bit of cloth. "This is an undershirt, Jim. circa 1988, I'd guess."

"Just put it on." Blair pulled it over his head.

Jim took off his pants and then sat down on the bed and let Blair take off his shirt. He leaned against the pillows at the head of the bed and pulled Blair up into a kiss, spreading his legs around him. They kissed and Jim ran his hands up and over Blair's hip and around the rim of the undershirt, touching his spine, the small of his back, his nipples through the cloth, until Blair was kissing him frantically, letting himself be cradled by Jim's thighs, his stomach, but soon it wasn't enough and he reached between them to circle his hand around Jim's cock, moving slowly, pulling his mouth from Jim's so he could watch Jim's head tip back, watch his hips jerk and his mouth make tiny incoherent noises, and suddenly Jim's death grip on the hem of the shirt, on him, suddenly made a great deal of sense and he stroked a hand down the center of Jim's chest and said,

"Dial it up." Jim gasped, and Blair whispered, "it's me, it's really me." Jim's eyes opened wide and he flinched and came, suddenly.

"oh, shit, Blair, I'm sorry."

"no problem," he said, wrapping one arm behind Jim's back to really kiss him, and then Jim's hands were at his hips, at the hem of the shirt again, but this time he pulled it up and off, Blair cooperatively raising his arms. Jim ran two fingers down Blair's chest and then gripped his waist and flipped him onto his back, crouching above him, knees between his legs, hands on either side of his head.

"I hated it that you didn't want me," he said quietly.

"But, I--"

"I mean, I could hear your heartbeat and you were always so calm. No pheromones, no nothing." He knelt up and traced a hand down Blair's chest, ran one finger up his cock and Blair jerked and reached for him and said,

"But now I do, I want you."

"I know," Jim said, and he grasped one of Blair's extended hands with one hand and slid the other under the small of his back and lifted him forward, until he was kneeling with Blair in his lap, Blair's legs wrapped around his hips.

"wow," Blair said, and wiggled experimentally against one of Jim's hands, which had stroked down his back to hold his ass. "wow," he moaned, and his shoulders tilted back as he moved against Jim's stomach. Jim kissed his throat and the soft spot beneath his ear and said,

"Are you gonna grow your hair back out?"

"Um," Blair said, and lost his grip on Jim's shoulders, but Jim caught him, one strong hand cradling ass, the other between his shoulders, and pulled him up close to nuzzle his neck, "I'm sorry, I, I say dumb shit when I'm turned on," but Blair was moving now, squirming against Jim's belly, slick from his sweat and semen and he said,

"that's, never mind. Jim. please," so Jim pulled him closer and licked his collarbone and Blair's spine curved savagely under his hands and his breath caught in his throat and he came shaking in Jim's arms.

"Sometime we'll actually have to do something, you know. hard core." They were lying on their backs staring at the ceiling of Blair's room.

"that'd be nice," Jim said.

"Did you really like my hair long?" Blair said, after a moment.

"I like it now. It's nice."

"You want me to grow it back?"

"Blair,"

"C'mon. Hey," he said, throatily, "does it turn you on?"

"Blair,"

"Does it get you hot?" Blair breathed.

"oh shut up Sandburg."

Jim woke him up at one o'clock. Or, rather, he woke up to find Jim leaning on an elbow staring at him.

"Jim?"

"There's something I kind of wanted--"

"what?"

"Don't look like that. it's." He grimaced and traced a finger across Blair's cheek. "Blair. It's not that I don't want you to be my partner. but."

"Oh here we go." Blair rolled to the side to face Jim.

"I just want you to know--I mean, I make enough money, I don't have any kids or debt or,"

"I don't really think I'm housewife material, Jim."

"That's not what I meant--I want you to do something, that, um, you want to do."

Blair groaned and flopped onto his back. "You know what? I'm gonna do this one more time and then I want you to stop badgering me about this. And unless I'm bleeding, you can stop asking me if I'm okay. I want to be a detective and I want to work with you and be your guide and if that means I have to do squat thrusts and call everyone in the world by their stupid last name, so be it."

There was silence and then Jim said, mildly,

"well. just making sure." He put his head on Blair's shoulder and wrapped one arm across his chest and sighed with content.

"Hey." Blair said, after a minute. "You're not in love with me because no one else in Cascade would poke me with a stick at this point and you feel guilty, are you?"

"As long as you don't love me because I'm, uh, because you're my guide and you think you have to," Jim mumbled against his shoulder.

"'course not." "Relax, Sandburg. I wanted to poke you with a stick for months before you perpetrated academic fraud." "Well. You could have told me then, instead of sleeping with Sophie." "I wasn't sure though. And then you weren't interested. And then, you know, I didn't want to burden you."

"because having amazing sex with you is such a chore."

"You'd given up enough, okay Sandburg? You. I was in love with you and and. You were learning how to use a gun and doing that terrible not-crying gasping thing in the shower." "Oh." Jim gathered him more securely in his arms and said,

"And I just, I wanted to pretend a little. That I could have you. And then when you saw us, I was sure--I thought, once you were done being mad you'd figure it out and either tell me you wanted to, or, not, you know, and then we'd be okay." "Look, it wasn't that obvious."

"I think it was."

"Look, I'm not psychic. It's not my job to figure out what's going on inside your--wait. Um. scratch that. I'm just. Jim. I've been living with you for a long time and every time I come up with some explanation for one of your wacky outbursts, you tell me I'm full of shit. So, you know, this time I was just going to let it lie."

"But I didn't want you to this time," Jim protested.

"But I didn't know that. See, I thought you were into the direct approach, so you know, if you'd come to me and said, um, 'I'd like a blow job, and, by the way, I had sex with your girlfriend while she wore your undershirt because I have a big ole thing for you,' well, then I would have taken notice."

"Right."

"Got it?"

"Yes." It began to rain, a heavy wet thrum against the roof. "Sandburg," Jim said softly, "I have a big ole thing for you."

"heh. I'll say."

"You want jam on your toast?" Jim asked the next morning.

"sure."

"Need energy for those squat thrusts, huh," Jim said slyly.

"You're such a sex fiend, Ellison." Jim handed him a plate. "It's really not so bad," he said around a mouthful of toast. "I think some of the others are starting not to hate me. You may find this hard to believe, but there is a certain, you know, gestational period for liking me."

"Really?"

"Oddly, some people think I'm sort of annoying at first. And a punk."

"No."

"Yes. But then they warm to me." Blair finished the toast and licked jam off his thumb.

"Well. Don't let 'em get too warm."

"Whoah. You gonna be possessive?"

"You like possessive?"

"Yeah. I think I do."

"In that case," Jim said, and crossed the kitchen in two steps, lifting, half shoving Blair on to the table and pulling up his shirt to leave a bruised kiss slightly below his nipple. Then he pulled down the shirt and stepped back, smiling slightly.

"Your third day as my boyfriend is going really really well," Blair said, "just so you know."

End Restitution.