Author's disclaimer: Y'know, I fuckin' hate disclaimers and I can't heckle Ron Moore on a SenSlash list so screw it, okay?

Author's notes: To the sisterhood of Fuh-Q and all our long-suffering brothers who now know what real women talk about when locked behind closed doors.

"Did you and Carolyn..."

Jim's head swiveled toward his lover as every muscle in his body tensed. In a few seconds Blair was going to get his thoughts together and say something.

Something...bad.

Anytime your current love interest utters the word 'did' in conjunction to you and the name of a former significant other then leaves it to dangle before the blow, prepare to be sucked out the airlock of romance.

If nothing else, Jim Ellison had experience on his side. Even as Blair was forming the words in his mind, Jim was already preparing the thousand and one possible excuses he could use which would, when used properly, ensure he would get laid again before death.

"...ever have..."

Jim winced. 'Ever have' was a really bad sign. Ever have what? Possibilities flooded his brain and he rapidly filed them into Sandburg acceptable excuses.

"...the 'talk'?"

"I really think that..." Jim began then stopped, "What?"

Blair shrugged, "Y'know, the talk?"

He blinked--twice, "Um."

"You had to have had the talk, man!" Blair stared back in amazement. "I've met the woman--she's far, far too intelligent not to have had the talk before you guys got married."

Rubbing the bridge of his nose and shutting his eyes tight, Jim muttered, "Once again since beginning this relationship I am totally and completely lost."

"You mean to say that..." Blair shrugged and grinned, "Oh well, no wonder you two split up. I can't believe she didn't have the talk with you!" He suddenly got a far off look that usually meant he was filing away some deep, dark, and highly embarrassing fact about Jim.

Jim, the man he was currently boinking.

Jim, a man who could kill someone with a deck of playing cards and a toothpick.

In other words, him. Where the hell were the toothpicks when you needed them?

"Whatever you're thinking of, stop," he warned.

Blair snapped his fingers and gasped, "That would explain why she described you as commitment shy and afraid of intimacy! You weren't given the talk, man!" He nodded to himself, "That also explains that impotency problem you had with her during--"

"WHOA-WHOA-WHOA!" Jim jumped to his feet, "What did she tell you?!? I never had a problem--"

"Hey, Jim--chill!" the other man soothed.

"--don't you even THINK about writing that down either, Sandburg! Plus, I had a pinched nerve and it messed with my circulation so--"

"CHILL OUT!" Blair yelled causing his lover to stare out him with a 'please stop him from saying another word, God!' look. It was the same look Blair used to give his mother when she'd talk about his constipation with other moms during Open House. "Listen, the point is that I feel that since we're moving along in our relationship and it looks as though we are prepared for a long term commitment, we should discuss a few things like civilized people, okay?"

If anything, this made his partner look even more panicky. "Uh, commitment?" Jim sat down carefully, ready to bolt for the door just in case.

"Are you saying that you don't want a commitment?" Came the dry response whose tone, on the Sentinel scale, registered as an 'I'm deciding whether or not to be pissed yet' but was still two verbal fuck ups from an, 'okay, I'm outta here and which of this prick's CDs am I taking with me?' light to medium bellow.

"Uh yeah, of course I do! I just wanted to..." thinkthinkthink, "...to be the one to ask first." gulp

That was a good choice because now Blair was smiling his, 'yeah, you almost fucked this up but you may still have an opportunity to come' smile. "That's really great Jim, and I'm really...I dunno, moved by what you just said. Really." More smiles! Better smiles! BLOW JOB smiles!

Hey, hey, hey, I'm about to be rewarded God, thank you! Oral sex is a Good Thing! "I mean it, babe." Jim reached out and took Blair's strong masculine 'made for a handjob' hand in his own and drew it over toward him until it subtly settled on his knee right below Cap'n Jimmy's treasure chest o' lurve. "I love you so much. So very..." Up Blair! C'mon, move the hand up! YO! Sporting wood, man! "...very much."

Blair patted Jim's knee then grinned, "Yeah, I know and that's why we need to talk."

Fuck! Aw no man...nooooooo! The hand was out of bounds. The only action he was getting below the waist was the 'deflate the bone' Aunt Vesta knee smack!

Shit.

Jim's face fell dramatically, "What talk? I have no idea what it is that we're supposed to be doing." Except fucking. I understand fucking. I like fucking. I'll settle for minor foreplay as long as I come at least once, okay?

Where'd that hand go?

"There comes a time in every couple's relationship when they need to discuss boundaries." The hand was back! We got squeezing! We got knee fondling!

Houston, we are ready for landing, por favor.

"When I first moved in we discussed," Blair rolled his eyes, "or rather, you bellowed certain house rules to me which I accepted, do you see where I'm going?"

Going UP I hope!

"I never bellowed," Jim leaned in and kissed Sandburg gently. "I just suggested with reasonable volume."

"Well," Blair said huskily, "I have a few suggestions too."

"If you want to eat on the couch, that's fine." Hopefully you'll be eating me on the couch within the next, oh say, five SECONDS??

Blair sat back. Back into the couch and away from Jim. Worst of all, he sat back away from little Jimmy.

Ahem, well, big Jimmy.

Maybe Blair was exploring art as a hobby? He was doing a marvelous job with his balls, as they were almost the same shade as his eyes by now, Jim sulked.

"I want to talk to you about the stuff that we need to clarify between us as a couple. There are things that I need to say to you before we are so deep into this partnership that neither of us can get out, okay?"

Jim sighed deeply and slumped his shoulders, "Aw, c'mon Blair, why are you always wanting to talk anyway? It's unnatural."

Blair frowned, "What are you talking about, 'it's unnatural'? What's so unnatural about me wanting to discuss our relationship?"

"Because men don't do shit like that!" Jim rolled his eyes, "Look, you're a man."

"Last time I looked, yeah, I had an outie. What's your point?"

"The point is, when you dated women did you ever want to actually talk to them?" Jim's eyebrow rose tauntingly.

"Yeah, of course I did!" Blair snapped. "I talked to every woman I ever had a relationship with. What does that have to do with our relationship though?"

"The point is that you talked to them but did you do it because you really wanted to?"

Blair paused, "Of course."

"Blair..."

"I wanted to talk to them!" Blair insisted.

"Tell the truth. No obfus--whatever."

"I did want to talk to them!" he repeated. "If I didn't want to talk to them why would I have even gone out with them?"

"To get laid," Jim said simply.

"No."

"Yes."

"No!"

"Look, after you two did the horizontal hokey poky, what did you talk about?"

"Horizontal what?" Blair snorted. "Man, lay off the South Park reruns."

"When you first met a girl you used to talk because she wanted to talk. It's a courtship thing," Jim explained. "After you slid into home though, you stopped talking because it would be redundant. I mean, all the important stuff was over. You knew where all her bits and pieces were and she knew what you liked so other than deciding what's for dinner or which sports you wanna watch on cable, what else was there to say?"

His little love monkey was not looking too happy at this point. "That has got to be the most fucked up reasoning I have ever heard. I mean, I teach college, man. I have heard some bullshit theories come out of the hung over, fume dependent party hogs known as 'freshmen' but this one takes the Golden Brahma Award for Excellence in Bovine Residue Distribution. "

"My point is that men and women have different needs," Jim offered him a smug, confident grin. "Women think differently, they talk differently, and they get pissed off when you leave the seat up but then get hostile when you leave it down with a few, insignificant little sprinkles."

"So speaks the man who considers a wet towel on the floor to be a hanging offense," Blair drawled.

"My point is that men and women need to communicate more because they don't understand one another to begin with. We're men, we have the same needs and the same interests so we don't need to do all that crap."

"But I want to talk. I want to communicate more. I don't see why, if we have so much in common, you find this so threatening."

Jim snorted, "I don't find it threatening! I just think it's a little..."

"What? A little what?"

"Well, girlie."

Blair's mouth hardened into a grim line, "Are you calling me a girl?"

"No."

"Yes you are, you think I'm a girl, don't you?"

"Blair, I've had your dick in my mouth. You are not a girl," Jim hastened to cover his ass.

"You think I'm a sissy pansy-assed little powderpuff, don't you?"

"Blair, I never---"

Blair poked him in the chest angrily, "I beat your weak ass at basketball, pal! You throw hoops like a teenage dancing queen!"

"Well you look like a girl!" Jim shouted back, his pride now on the line.

"I do not! I have more body hair than you! You're like the least hairy guy I know--and my dick is bigger!"

"You have all that poofy hair and big bug eyes--and your dick is not bigger!" Jim roared.

"It is too!"

"NOT!!"

"Yes it is!"

"Well, you said size didn't matter!"

"I LIED!"

Jim's face was bright red, "Well...you're shorter!"

"Not where it counts," Sandburg tossed back.

"Fuck you!"

"Fuck you!"

"Fuck you!"

"Fuck you!"

"Fuck you!"

"I think I read this somewhere else already," Blair muttered.

"Fuck you."

"I'm beginning to see a pattern emerging here. It's either a school yard pissing contest or a blatant attempt at plagiarism, either way it's not helping."

"Helping what?" Jim threw his hands up in defeat. "What the hell did we need help with in the first place?"

"Stuff!"

"Stuff? STUFF? What fucking stuff is that?" the bigger man, bigger in every way <ahem>, sneered. "C'mon Einstein, use that silver dollar vocabulary."

"Relationship stuff! Stuff that lasts throughout the ages, you dumb shit! Stuff that means we love each other even when you're being a total dickhead!"

"Fine," Jim sulked as he sat back on the couch. "Let's just do this talking thing and get it over with, okay?"

"Okay."

Both men stared at one another for a few moments.

"What do you want to talk about first?" Blair asked.

"Sandburg," Jim growled, "there are only five legitimate topics of conversation for any man: when do we fuck, am I in trouble, what's for dinner, where's the remote, and where did you put the Harbor Freight tool catalog I got in the mail?"

"Only five?" Blair asked skeptically.

"Well, you can have variations on the theme, but yeah, five," he shrugged.

"But what about the important relationship questions?"

"What? Like whether or not we should get a big screen TV or a hot tub?"

"No, like whether or not we want kids," Blair glared.

"Kids?"

"Yeah, miniature versions of people who drool and poop a lot?" Blair rolled his eyes.

Jim eyed him like a bug, "Why? You got something hid that I don't know about?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're not pregnant are you?" Jim gestured between them. "I sure as hell know I'm not gonna get knocked up any time soon."

"Why do I even hang out with you much less sleep with you?" Blair sighed as he stared toward the heavens.

"It's a pretty moot point then if you ask me. Why even discuss something that's impossible...unless of course you know something about male physiology that I don't."

"What about adoption, or a surrogate, or what if, someday...well," Blair shrugged. "Medical science is getting pretty out there, y'know. There could be pregnant men within ten years."

"Not me. No. Capital 'N', capital 'O'--no." Jim crossed his arms defensively, "And frankly, not meaning you any disrespect, but the thought of you running around pregnant scares the shit out of me. If you're this way now, imagine what damage you could cause when you were high on hormones?"

"Okay, what about adoption or a surrogate?" Blair grinned.

"Do you want to have kids?" Jim asked.

His partner hesitated, "Do you?"

"I asked you first."

"Why?"

"Look, you started this communication thing, now answer the damn question: do you want kids?" Jim frowned.

Blair gave a weak half-shrug, "I dunno, I like kids. I mean I wouldn't feed them into a wood chipper or anything, but I don't see myself as someone's dad right now."

"Me neither," Jim announced. "Maybe someday we'll consider it but for now I can't even see getting a dog with our schedule. Are we done talking yet?"

"No!" Blair huffed, "We have more stuff to discuss, like..."

"Like?" Jim prompted.

"Well..."

"Look babe, the game is on in less than ten minutes. Can we finish this talking stuff soon or what?" Jim griped. "The pizza guy should be here with the hotwings and extra large monster meatza treatza any time now."

"What about you? Don't you have anything you want to discuss?" he scowled.

"No."

"Aw c'mon, I asked something and now it's your turn," Blair cajoled.

Jim eyed him warily, "Fine. If we decide to go ahead and formalize this relationship you aren't gonna make me do anything stupid or embarrassing are you?"

"Like what?" Blair asked slowly.

"Sing wedding vows, wear a tuxedo on the beach, or call you by sickening little love names in front of the guys."

"No."

"Can I eat bacon and Wonderburgers?"

"No."

"Okay, I'm done," Jim put his feet on the coffee table and switched on the set. "Your turn to get the beer."

Blair stared at the TV then back to his lover, "Whatever happens man, don't change."

"I wasn't planning on it, why?" Jim asked curiously.

Blair got up and walked into the kitchen, "Because as long as you remain the deeply sensitive asshole we all know and tolerate, I'll always remain the better half of the Sandburg-Ellison partnership."

"Love you too babe, get the door. The pizza guy is here."

Blair pulled some money out of his wallet and walked to the door. "Oh yeah, romance isn't dead. Right."

"Hey! I ordered the hot wings for you, remember?" Jim called out in a hurt tone.

"Yeah, and tonight when the indigestion hits, just remember that every body noise is my way of saying 'I love ya, you big lug'," came the sarcastic retort.

Just as Blair opened the door, Jim said, "NOW you're getting the hang of this communication business. There's hope for you yet."

"Yeah. Great."

The urp End