Archive of Our Own ^beta

Author's webpage: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/3281

Author's disclaimer: Jim, Blair and the denizens of the Cascade PD belong to UPN-TV and Pet Fly Productions. No infringement intended, no money being made. The mistletoe and the fake snow are mine.

Blair looked at the supplies he had laid out on Jim's bed. This whole plan had the potential to backfire horribly, and he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that he might be destroying their entire relationship. On Christmas Eve.

But if he had read Jim's signals right...

Operating on that mental picture, Blair started his preparations, grinning a little wickedly as he stripped Jim's blue sheets off the bed.

Working Christmas Eve was fine if you didn't have someone to go home to. Jim smiled as he headed for the loft, remembering how many Christmases he'd opted to work through the evening hours without giving it much thought. Since Blair had entered his life, all that had changed. He'd vied for the various holidays off along with everyone else, and given his seniority and the number of them he'd worked in the past, he usually got what he asked for.

Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel along with the "Little Drummer Boy", he waited for the final traffic light to change to green so he could finish his trip home. It was almost six, and he had plans to make a gourmet dinner with Blair, relax and spend most of the evening eating it, and then maybe open a couple gifts and lounge in front of the TV watching all the Christmas movies and assorted specials that would be shown. After the hectic year they'd both had, the thought of spending a quiet night at home was more than a little appealing. They'd be venturing out to have dinner at the Taggert's the next day.

A few snow flurries were swirling in the air, and the afternoon had yielded just enough snow to dust everything with a fluffy layer of white. Last minute shoppers were staggering out of the downtown stores, juggling bags and grabbing hold of the hands of their straying children. Jim didn't regret not being part of that mess, and was happy his gift for Blair was tucked safely at home in the loft, hopefully hidden successfully from prying eyes.

His roommate had needed a new, updated laptop for a long time, and after Christmas, Blair's laments of slow-moving programs, crashes and the miseries of lugging around something that weighed as much as a small elephant would be over. The thin, lightweight computer had cost an arm and a leg, but it was such a staple item in Blair's life that Jim hadn't considered it excessive. And the look on Blair's face when he saw it would probably be worth ten times the cost.

All of their holiday plans would be perfect with just one tiny adjustment: Jim wanted very much to arrive home and pull Blair into his arms and kiss him, wish him Merry Christmas and say 'I love you'. What was more likely to happen was that he'd walk into the apartment, and yell "Merry Christmas, Chief", and that would be the end of it. His life with Blair felt so much like the best kind of marriage--the kind everyone dreams of but that very few ever have: a union with someone you love and put first, who loves you and puts you first. A lifetime with someone you never get tired of being with, someone who understands you completely and loves you anyway.

Jim pulled into a parking spot and got out of the truck, heading for the loft, anxious to start their celebration. Some of the building's tenants were out of town, but strains of Christmas music or voices could be detected here and there as Jim made his way up to the loft. He focused on his own home now, and picked up the soft sound of instrumental Christmas carols and the scents of pine and cinnamon. And Blair.

He smiled as he stripped away the other smells and focused on that one. There was Blair's shampoo and the warm, delicious fragrance of a freshly showered Blair. There was also a trace of fear, and that made Jim pick up his pace and unlock the door hurriedly.

The door opened into a candle lit room, the glow of the multicolored Christmas tree lights mingling with the light of the fire and a few fat candles, which were the origins of the cinnamon and pine scents. Jim traced the slightly rapid heartbeat as coming from the loft bedroom. Whatever had unnerved Blair, it wasn't there now. There were no other heartbeats, no other signs of anyone there who shouldn't be.

"Blair?" Jim waited at the foot of the stairs a moment.

"Up here," Blair called back, his voice a little brittle.

"What's goin' on, Chief?" Jim asked as he headed up the stairs. He froze dead in his tracks when he reached the top, and then finally made his feet carry him a bit farther into the room for a good view.

The bed was made with red satin sheets and a matching comforter. Artificial snow was sprinkled on the vibrant fabric and some surrounded the bed as well. In the middle of the bed lay Blair, naked except for a few tiny sprigs of mistletoe that were woven into his loose hair, which fanned out on the red pillow.

"Mer..." Blair cleared his throat, which seemed to have gone bone dry on him. "Merry Christmas," he said softly, watching Jim with those big blue eyes, his heart hammering double time.

"Blair...I..." Jim found himself completely speechless as he stared at the beautiful man on the bed, stunned that Blair was offering himself this way...that this was what he wanted, too.

"I'm sorry. I never should have assumed--" Blair started to sit up, and Jim ignored all his inhibitions and sat on the bed, taking a hold of Blair's shoulders.

"If you hadn't assumed, we might have never gotten here," Jim said softly, reaching out to tangle his hand in the long fall of curls. "Merry Christmas, Chief. I love you." With that, he leaned forward and captured Blair's startled mouth in their first kiss, arms sliding around the warm, naked body and pulling Blair close against him.

"Jim?" Blair managed as Jim started kissing a trail down his neck.

"Hm?" he responded distractedly, making the sound against Blair's skin.

"You think you might want to take your coat off?" Blair grinned as Jim pulled back, blushing a little and then laughing.

"How could you worry I wouldn't want this?" Jim asked, his expression turning serious again. He was still holding Blair, still stroking the soft hair, drinking in the liberties he'd dreamed of having that had just been handed to him.

"I knew how I felt, but I wasn't positive...I thought I was reading your signals right, but if I had been wrong about this--" Jim interrupted him with another kiss.

"This could never be wrong, baby." Jim tugged on a sprig of mistletoe and looked into Blair's eyes, smiling. "Nice touch."

"I like to call it 'mistletoe to go'--you know, no matter where we roll on the bed, we're always gonna be under it this way." Blair flexed his eyebrows. "Since you don't seem so good at doing this yourself, let me help." Blair unbuttoned the front of Jim's coat, and pushed it off the broad shoulders, with Jim finally rallying from his somewhat sappy lover's grin to help discard it. He made short work of Jim's sweater and the t-shirt beneath it. With a quick kiss to Blair's lips, Jim stood and took care of toeing off his shoes and dispensing with pants, boxers and socks. Blair shifted over in the bed to make room for his partner.

Blair's hands traveled over the broad planes of chest and down the strong shoulders.

"You're incredible," he breathed, then looked back into Jim's eyes. "This is your last chance to return your Christmas present for a full refund." Blair tried to keep his voice light, but the worry in his eyes betrayed him.

"You can burn the receipt for this one," Jim quipped back, kissing Blair again. "There's just one thing."

"What?" Blair pulled back, his brow furrowed slightly.

"How much would it cost to get one of those extended lifetime warranties?" Jim smiled as Blair chuckled a little, then became very quiet, and very serious.

"One 'I love you', and your forever," he responded. He smiled as Jim nodded.

"Sounds reasonable. I'll even throw in a couple million extra 'I love yous' to sweeten the deal." They kissed again. "I love you, Blair. And my forever is yours...it has been for a long time."

"I love you too. Merry Christmas, Jim."

"Merry Christmas, Chief."

Jim let his hands wander over Blair's back and stray down to the firm mounds of his buttocks, squeezing gently. Blair groaned and wiggled his hips, causing a delicious friction between their rapidly heating bodies.

"Have you done this before?" Jim asked softly.

"No. Never wanted to before you," Blair answered honestly, wrapping a strong leg around Jim's.

"Same here." Jim continued massaging the tempting ass, kissing and nibbling at Blair's earlobe.

"Mmmm...you're off to a good start."

"Wanted you for so long, baby." Jim attacked Blair's neck, working on a large passion mark he hoped would show up as well as Rudolph's nose.

"How long?" Blair prodded, loving the rare moment of having a verbal, expressive Jim climbing all over him.

"Since before...Alex...and everything..." Jim explained between kisses.

"You were jealous of her?"

"In every possible way, Chief." Jim was quiet a moment, his face only inches from his lover's. "We both had five heightened senses, but I couldn't compete with the one thing she could offer that I couldn't."

"She was a woman."

"Yeah," Jim admitted softly. "So I guess that's why I turned into an asshole with you about everything. I figured the two of you would develop this...bond...and being she was a woman..."

"You thought I'd pick her over you?" Blair concluded, resting his forehead against Jim's. "I'd never pick anyone over you for anything. Don't you know that?"

"I do now."

"I love you, Jim. I always loved you. Okay, when we first met, I was fascinated by you. But when you let me move in--and then never asked me to move out...I fell like a ton of bricks. I was so...different from what I pictured you wanting, and you still made room in your life for me. More than just what was necessary for you to get my help. You're the most important, special person in the world to me. You've been the center of my life for a long time, man. You know that."

"But I didn't' know about...this," he said, gesturing between them.

"You knew. You just haven't done it before so you didn't recognize it. Or have you?"

"You'll be the first." Jim smiled, giving Blair's butt a firm squeeze. "Now, where were we?"

Blair responded by closing the distance between them and sealing their mouths together again. He started thrusting against Jim, who followed his lead, creating a friction that was almost painful in the intensity of the pleasure. Jim broke away from their kisses first, calling out Blair's name as he reached his climax. The added slickness between their bodies and Jim's passionate cries of his name pushed Blair over the edge. He joined his lover in reaching his completion, and the two men finally lay, panting, holding each other and recovering.

"Love you so much," Blair murmured, smiling as he felt Jim tugging the satin comforter over them both. He held on tightly, relishing their closeness. The sound and sight and smell of Jim had meant safety, love, security--home--for a long time now. Being held close in Jim's arms was the best present he could have hoped for.

"Love you too, baby." Jim kissed Blair's rumpled hair, laughing a little when he got a mistletoe leaf stuck to his lip. "This stuff works better that anything I ever stepped under before," Jim commented. He chuckled as Blair burst into a full-blown laugh.

The first sensation Blair was aware of was a soft, moist warmth moving about his sticky stomach and groin. He groaned and smiled, liking the feeling of getting clean, almost as much as he'd enjoyed getting "dirty". He opened his eyes and found Jim smiling back at him, wearing his favorite gray robe, moving a warm washcloth over the soiled area, gently washing away the dried traces of their lovemaking.

"It's still Christmas Eve, sweetheart. We've got plans, remember?"

"Mmm." Blair smiled and let his eyes drift shut again. "What plans?"

"Dinner. Corny Christmas movie." Jim paused. "Presents." He smiled broadly as one eye opened in response.

"Presents, huh?" Blair asked, interested.

"Presents," Jim confirmed.

"I can't have them if I just lie here?"

"Oh, you'll get a present for that again later." Jim leaned forward and kissed his drowsy lover thoroughly. "But I was thinking more along the lines of traditional presents. Packages."

"Ah," Blair responded, nodding. "What'd you get me?"

"That's usually why people open presents--to find out."

"Okay." Blair raised himself into a sitting position. "But I already have more than I ever dreamed I'd get." There was a little catch in Blair's voice on the last words, and he reached out to caress Jim's cheek. Jim caught the roaming hand and kissed it.

"I never dreamed you'd want the same thing I did."

"Tell me about it," Blair responded, rolling his eyes. "I just about died a thousand deaths waiting for you to get home. I figured you'd either react like you did--or you'd kill me."

"Here." Jim handed Blair his plaid robe. "The loot is under the tree downstairs.

"I've gotta get yours. It's in my room."

"In your old room. This is our room now, Chief."

"I like that." Blair smiled. "Our room."

"Our room, our apartment...our life." Jim kissed the hand he was still holding. "Presents."

"Presents." Blair got up and pulled on his robe, and they made their way downstairs where only the firelight and the Christmas tree lights illuminated the room.

Blair hurried into his room and returned with a large flat box festively wrapped in gold foil with a big red ribbon around it, and a smaller box wrapped up in green and red holly print paper. He added the two boxes to the two that were already waiting there.

Jim picked up the smaller of his gifts for Blair, a red foil wrapped box with a silver bow on top. They sat cross-legged under the tree and swapped small boxes first. Blair opened his first, and seemed genuinely pleased with the software he found inside. It was a program for creating lively presentations, something Blair had expressed a lot of interest in, if only he had a better computer.

"This'll work great on the one in the office," Blair opined, reading the back of the box. Jim stifled the urge to shove the big box under his nose and make him open it immediately. Instead, he took his turn, opening his smaller gift from Blair.

"These are really beautiful, Chief," Jim said, stroking the soft leather of the dark brown gloves. They were obviously expensive, and it would have been easy to zone on the supple texture of the leather.

"You were due for a new pair," Blair said, shrugging a little.

"Yeah, a new pair of Penney's specials, not something like these. These are really outstanding." Jim slid one on, and flexed his fingers. "Perfect fit." He looked up at Blair, smiling at his slightly disheveled lover who still had a few pieces of mistletoe stuck in his hair, and sported a passion mark the size of a large Christmas bulb on his neck. "Just like us," he added, leaning forward to kiss Blair slowly, lovingly. "I love them. Love you too," he said, smiling at Blair's answering grin.

"Would you open your big one now? I'm just dying here. I've had it for six months."

"Six months?" Jim laughed a little and started pulling at the gold foil wrapping. He opened the flaps of the large, flat white box that housed his gift. "Oh, Blair...this is...this is great," he said genuinely, looking over the 18x24 heavy framed and matted collage that had been built around the Officer of the Year plaque, and contained a photo of him shaking hands with the mayor, and a picture of him with the Cigar Club, Stephen and Little Stogie, immediately following the event.

"All that stuff was lying around...and it's such a nice honor--I wanted you to show it off a little."

"It's great, Chief. There's a perfect spot for it in our room upstairs."

"I was thinking that wall right there," Blair pointed at one not far from the front door. "You can be humble if you want, but these are our walls, and I'm proud of you and I think it should go there."

"Thanks, Chief." Jim smiled softly and reached over to take a hold of Blair's hand. "I love it."

"Good." Blair exhaled loudly, then his eyes strayed to his final package.

"Go for it, sweetheart."

"I think I'm gonna like that--'sweetheart'."

"Hope so. Because you're my sweetheart now."

"Will be for the next 50 or 60 years." Blair pulled the package toward him. "Big box," he opined, smiling and tearing into the paper.

Jim watched, fascinated. He'd rarely in his life seen a conscious Blair both motionless and speechless. The perfect, full lips were parted slightly, the stunning blue eyes bulged, the graceful hands frozen in place, a few shards of paper still hanging from the fingers. It was as if someone had hit "pause" on the VCR, and Blair had been halted in his tracks.

"Jim--this isn't a trick box and there's like, a sweater or something inside?" he finally asked, not taking his eyes off the box.

"No tricks, Chief. Did I pick the right one? I went back to the store a couple weeks after we looked at them, and I wasn't positive--"

"Yeah, this is the one," Blair said, still staring fixedly at the box. He finally looked up at Jim for quite a few seconds before speaking. "I never expected...I mean, this is so...major."

"You spend a lot of time on your computer and the one you've got isn't doing the job, right?"

"Well, yeah, but...I...I never expected--"

"That's why they call it a surprise." Jim smiled at Blair's continued state of shock. The younger man finally looked back at the box, and bit his lower lip. "What's the matter, Chief?" Jim asked, concerned at the tears he saw pooling in Blair's eyes, reflecting the colored lights of the tree.

"I wanted this so much...and there was just no way... And you were going to do this for me even before we...you know...got together? This is like, the top of the line..."

"I didn't love you any less before we made love than I do now. It's just different...better," Jim added, smiling. "If I could, I'd give you the top of the line in everything, sweetheart."

"I got that as soon as you told me you loved me," Blair responded in a slightly choked voice, a single tear escaping.

"Get over here," Jim ordered gruffly, pulling his lover into his arms and squeezing tightly.

"I love you," Blair mumbled into Jim's neck.

"Merry Christmas, baby."

"Merry Christmas, love," Blair whispered back, holding on tightly.

"Hey, what do you say we throw a frozen pizza in the oven, and then you show me your new toy?"

"We are still talking about the computer, right?" Blair clarified, grinning a little devilishly as he pulled back to look at Jim.

"For now. I'm planning on playing with my new toy later." He gave Blair's butt a playful swat.

"Oh, man, the ego's not too inflated. Your new toy, huh?"

"It ain't my ego that'll be inflating, baby."

"What happened to the gourmet dinner idea?"

"We've got better things to do than cook." Jim flexed his eyebrows and kissed Blair again.

"I'll go put the pizza in." Blair hurried into the kitchen and started their meal cooking.

The evening progressed at a relaxed pace as the two men ate pizza, tinkered with the new laptop at the kitchen table, and then hung Jim's gift in the spot Blair had selected. Curling up on the couch under a shared throw, they munched popcorn through "It's A Wonderful Life" and intermittently dozed, kissed and made out during "A Christmas Carol".

By the time Scrooge was sprinting through the downtown streets, a reformed man reveling in the true meaning of the season, Jim and Blair were fast asleep on the couch, cuddled together, wrapped up in the warmth of the blanket, the season and each other.

End

Season's Greetings! :-)