Author's webpage: http://www.skeeter63.org/jayci

Author's disclaimer: The characters from the TV series "The Sentinel" are not my property, and I am not making money off of them. That's all I have to say.

Author's notes: This is set immediately following the episode 'Black or White'.

I just asked Blair one question and he wouldn't shut up. And he swore to me that everything he told me was true.

Storyteller by J.C.

Blair put down his book, not that he had been reading it anyway, too lost in thought to pay it proper attention. He stretched his neck, trying to ease tired muscles, and checked his clock to see how late it had gotten. It had been a long day, but he was still too wired to sleep. Chasing mad bombers seemed to have that effect on him. And then there was the matter of a phone call he needed to make to get himself out of a little predicament. As soon as he figured out whether it was better to go ahead and call Jessie to tell her that he would be working the next night, or wait until late morning as if the work was an unexpected surprise.

Dealing with such dilemmas didn't worry him much, and the fact that he almost had it down to an art form didn't bother him either. After all, he rationalized, it shouldn't be considered lying if he wasn't out to hurt anyone. 'Embellishment' he'd told Jim, exaggerating situations to help people. Okay, maybe the romantic obfuscation was a little self-serving, but still had to do with keeping other people happy. And 'bullshit'--well, that was just fun, male bonding as sport and, oftentimes, female bonding, too.

Deep down, he didn't really feel truth was overrated exactly, but people weren't always ready for the unvarnished truth. No matter what type of moralistic convictions they purported. The truth was often painful, unappealing, unwelcome. Despite claims to the contrary, most people enjoyed their illusions...their own personal versions of reality.

Even Jim should know that, Blair thought. The whole Sentinel business made liars of them both. Was the world actually ready to accept a cop with five heightened senses? And even if it was, was Jim truly ready to be exposed as such? Every day they had to deal with covering their tracks, and most times it came easily enough for Blair. Thinking on his feet was one of his gifts. He wasn't sure what would happen to him if that ability failed him one day.

That sort of quick thinking had gotten him to Jim in the first place. One swiped lab coat and voila! instant doctor with direct access to exactly what he'd been looking for. A godsend for him, and for Jim, too, whether Jim admitted it or not. Just a simple little trick had convinced Jim to take his first step toward help that was actually relevant to his situation.

And helping Jim had become the main thing. Did it matter that most of Blair's solutions came from hunches and instinct and his broad knowledge of folklore, rather than sound scientific principles? Just about everything he had tried had achieved some positive results, practically from the beginning, but he had known he could do more if he could get Jim to relax around him. Staying at the loft went a long way towards that, providing more opportunities for them to address problems as they arose in a setting where Jim was at ease. Did Jim need to know that Blair had never intended to leave after only one week? It wasn't as if Blair had actually been involved in blowing up his old residence. That had been a convenient twist of fate. At the time, he hadn't yet come up with a plan of his own, and had been sure that it would have to wait until his project with Larry, the television watching ape, was complete. Jim had surprised him on that score, and even more surprising was the strong sense of friendship that had since grown between them.

The friendship meant a lot to Blair, and had resulted in a bond that was unique in his experience, even outside of the uniqueness of the Sentinel situation itself. Maybe it had to do with the many ways in which they related to one another between living and working together. And Blair enjoyed how Jim connected with him, especially those casual touches that weren't nearly so casual, Blair concluded, but an offshoot of Jim trying to keep himself in balance with his senses. So frequent that they almost seemed natural, yet still felt special. That constant physical element produced a heady conglomeration of sensations for Blair, at once friendly, and familial, and sexual. A level of attachment that went deeper than anything he had ever allowed himself to know.

Which presented him with a different agenda. Not simply to hold onto an anthropological coup, but what had also become his best friend and his very own live-in sexual fantasy. Given time, most people, even Jim, responded predictably to the upbeat, offbeat academic, the mild-mannered Jewish boy that was young, but also knowing. The effect was that he got taken seriously, but sometimes not too seriously, and oddly enough that was often an advantage. It helped him to adapt to most any situation, made it easier for him to insinuate himself, hopefully, in a productive, rather than annoying way.

And if he had to get creative in order to get the important things done, so what? There shouldn't be anything wrong with wanting to help. So what if he'd never really been in therapy, had never been subject to anxiety and panic attacks? He'd minored in Psych...had knowledge, even if it wasn't first hand, and that claim had gotten Jim to back off so that Blair could talk to Joel about his recent fears connected to working with the bomb squad.. So what if he'd never been caught on a bridge during an avalanche? He did still have a problem with heights, and he'd had to face that head on in a big way jumping out of a plane for Jim. (The major screaming on the way down notwithstanding.) And the idea of 'mind over matter' had helped get him through. Telling himself over and over again 'It's not about you' before he'd jumped, before he'd gone to Peru even, and consequently made the decision not to go to Borneo. Besides, later he'd owned up to Joel about the ruse, and by then Joel had successfully disarmed a bomb, saving the day. No need to be ashamed of that at all.

He had to admit though, even if only privately, that there were times he just needed to make things easier for himself. Little fabrications that he'd told so long they were practically second nature. His Swiss Army knife for example...a complex icon that he'd simplified. It wasn't really a gift, and he'd never had a bar mitzvah. Naomi had had her own ideas about her son's path to manhood, his accountability, his beliefs, his life. For his thirteenth birthday, she took him on a journey, exposing him to a mix of spiritual and cultural ideas. Later, Blair thought that maybe it had been more for Naomi's benefit, because her own such trip, when she'd first taken off from her parents' home, had been cut short by the unexpected matter of Blair's conception, changing her focus from her own path to what might be better for her unborn child. They had traveled from continent to continent and all across America, and as a result, his intellectual curiosity had developed a focus on different ways of life, and when he'd heard his first 'tribal watchman' legend, a specific fascination had been awakened.

By the time that they'd made their way back to the western coast of the United States, Blair had celebrated his fifteenth birthday, and had set the foundation for the road his life would take. In addition, he'd had his first sexual experience--losing his virginity to a boy whose hands and eyes were what he later remembered most. He also remembered how it had felt to leave that time and place behind. There had always been a sense of loss whenever he and his mother moved on, even when he was excited about the next stop, but never before had leaving produced a tangible ache. He had almost told Naomi that he wanted to stay in Arizona, but he hadn't wanted to explain, hadn't yet learned to pull ready explanations out of thin air. Consequently, that was the year he learned to keep secrets from his mother. Not because he'd been afraid she would disapprove of the nature of his relationship, but it had all felt too personal, so emotionally intense, surprising even himself that it had been with a young man rather than a girl with budding curves.

The knife had been taken from the pocket of a pair of jeans that earlier had been hastily removed and tossed aside. Blair had slipped it into his own pocket as he'd gotten dressed beside a moonlit lake, avoiding the gaze of a pair of dark brown eyes. A stolen memento the night before he and Naomi were to leave. For months afterwards, he had taken it out, handled it, remembering it being used by those long-fingered, broad palmed hands, wondering if Luke was missing him or just the knife. He had never told anyone the real story behind it, and that year at his new school in California, when the first person had asked what the deal was with the knife, he had been reading a book on Jewish mystical tales. The bar mitzvah explanation had popped out without much conscious thought, and he had stuck with it, finding it much less complicated than the actual truth.

Circumstances hadn't always caused him to conceal those leanings that he'd never fully leaned away from, but, with Jim, he had made that decision early on in their relationship. An uptight, macho cop didn't need to see him as the pretty gay boy, especially since he'd felt an immediate attraction to the cop in question, though over time, he had effectively gotten that under control. And it wasn't that he believed Jim was homophobic. In fact, he had questions about *Jim's* sexuality that he'd never dared ask. But the level of connection they'd achieved was too important. If Jim suddenly thought that Blair might be ogling him, or even that Blair might think Jim was doing the ogling, that could change the ease with which they routinely invaded each other's personal space, and Blair didn't want that to happen.

As a result, he had kept his inclinations to himself, not lying to Jim about them, just diverting him that one time with the story about the truck driving 'uncle'. About that summer he'd taken off, restless and angry, turned down for an expedition with his favorite professor. He'd met his mother in California, and she'd introduced him to Jay, and he'd ignored the spark zigzagging through him when they had shaken hands. Big, thick hands, so different from Luke's. After swapping stories about places from coast to coast, it had been Naomi who'd suggested that maybe Jay could take Blair along with him for a while, to Blair's excitement and embarrassment. On the road, he had been Jay's seventeen-year old nephew to anybody asking, and he'd learned how to drive a big rig, reading books and watching people along the way, trying not to spend time fantasizing about his companion. Halfway through the trip, much to his surprise, he'd found his interest returned, and somewhere between St. Louis and Kansas City, he began to learn what it was like to make love to a tall, well-built man. He had fond, fond memories of that summer.

There had been other men in his life since then, but still, over the years, always many more women. Since meeting Jim, however, it had all become mostly talk. There wasn't much time for the Sandburg juggling act of keeping the ladies happy, (not to mention a promise to God made behind a vending machine), and he cut back as best he could, though that hadn't helped him in the case of his current 'two-date' fiasco. His first, admittedly crazy, plan had been to get Jim to step in for him with one of them. Jessie was great, and they'd been acquaintances for a long time, but what had originally been just a casual outing had, at her gradual instigation, taken on a more serious tone. He could have easily given her a story, but if she and Jim clicked, that offered a better solution, and he thought that Jim would at least like her well enough to make it through an evening of food and music. What he hadn't told Jim was that the other date was with a man, who, coincidentally, was also named Jesse...but without the 'i'. The first guy that he'd paid any attention to at all since moving in with Jim, and the anticipation had been keeping him buzzed for days.

All he had to do was solve the issue of the female Jessie, and even though getting Jim to go out with her hadn't worked, Jim still made a convenient excuse, along the lines of a convincing complaint about stacks of paperwork stemming from the bombings case. Not a total fabrication...Jim was sure to hijack him into helping with the follow-up, and Jessie knew that police work often made him unpredictable.

Three sharp knocks broke into his reverie. "Yeah?"

The door opened and Jim stepped forward, crossing his arms as he took up his customary leaning position. "If you still want me to, I'll do it."

Blair rapidly ran through his current list of 'things to get Jim to do', trying to pick what Jim meant. "What?"

"You know...Asian studies, death rituals. Your screwed-up love life, my coming to the rescue."

"Oh. Yeah. Okay, cool. I'll call Jessie, give my apologies and set it up. You know Pacific Blues, right?"

Jim nodded.

"That's where I was going to meet her, okay?"

"Sure."

"Great!" Blair got up, feeling around on his bed for his cell phone. "Thanks, Jim. She's smart and beautiful. A good time will be had by all, you'll see."

"Yeah, whatever, Sandburg. I'm just doing you a favor. Don't try to turn it into the Love Connection," Jim said as he walked away.

Blair grinned as he punched the numbers. He knew Jim had a thing for redheads; even Naomi had gotten to him, sage burning and all. "Hello, Jessie?" His mind whirled as he sought a Jim-less excuse for bowing out. "There's been a little change in plans..."

Stimulating conversation, shared interests, that zing of attraction...fucking fantastic, Blair thought. Like a lot of dates that he'd been on, but with that extra thrill he got from being with a man. Tall, lean, strawberry blond with intelligent eyes and a warm voice. When Blair had expressed a sudden disinterest in Pacific Blues, Jesse had suggested Cascade Station, a restaurant where the clientele was primarily gay, and there was a charged excitement in the air that Blair associated with such places, keeping him half-hard the whole evening. Sex seemed almost inevitable, and, unselfishly, he hoped Jim was having at least half as much fun as he was. For one fleeting instant, he wondered what it would be like to be there, out with Jim, sharing food and laughs, and the promise of sex to come. But he forced it out of his mind, and let himself enjoy his present company.

When they left, walking in the direction of their cars, they passed by a number of men kissing here and there, and Blair got that rush, that sense of abandon he often felt when he wasn't hiding that part of himself. He grabbed Jesse by the arm and kissed him long, uncaring about being on a sidewalk under a streetlight. Breathless moments later, he pulled away, kiss-swollen lips curling in a smile.

"Okay if I follow you to your place?"

In answer, Jesse nodded, palming Blair's ass and squeezing it gently before getting into his car.

"So, you really feel that truth is overrated, Chief?"

Pulled from his thoughts, Blair looked over at Jim who didn't turn his head or otherwise break concentration from maneuvering out of the crowded grocery store lot and into traffic. Blair's mind had been on the night before--good sex often stayed with him, occasionally seizing his attention with memory flashes for some time afterwards. He had gotten around to wondering how Jim's date had gone, when he suddenly realized that they had stopped at a light and Jim was watching him expectantly, and he had no idea what the question had been.

"Huh?" he finally responded.

"The other day, with Simon and Joel, you said the truth is overrated."

"Oh. It has its place," but Blair didn't think Jim would want to hear the Sandburg version of that, so he turned to look out the window, thinking it best to let it go.

A grunt was the only response, and after a minute, Blair looked over again, cursing his own willingness to sometimes ignore the voice of reason.

"I suppose, as a cop and everything, that you believe in Truth, Justice, and the American Way," he said as they started moving again.

Jim gave him a sideways glance and then shrugged. "As a cop, not to mention a soldier, I've found that the three are not always connected, Chief."

"Does that bother you?" Blair asked. "That 'justice' isn't always about 'truth', that 'the American way' is sometimes a lie?"

"Sure, but I was still a little kid when I learned that it's not a perfect world." It looked like Jim was about to say more, then just shook his head. But, before Blair could look away again, he continued. "These days, though, I've been able to snatch bits and pieces of 'black and white' out of the gray areas. Moments of absolute certainty," he said, sounding almost awed. "Because of my senses...and you, I have the ability to see, hear...sniff out the truth, even. Take a hunch and follow it through and know that I nailed it. Then, I have to lie about how I got there, so I guess you were right--truth has its place."

Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, Blair opted to change the subject. "Yeah...so...um...how'd your date with Jessie go?"

When Jim just blinked at him, Blair thought he was going to protest either the abrupt change or the question itself, but then he answered. "It was fine, but I don't think I'll be seeing her again. She did seem interested in my story about the Chopec, but..."

With a snicker, Blair cut Jim off. "Dusting off the war stories, man?"

Jim gave another shrug. "It was just conversation. She brought up jungles, I was just keeping up my end. She was pretty and nice, but either a woman is turned on by a man with a gun...or not."

"Seriously? She didn't like you being a cop?"

"Wasn't a point in my favor, I could tell."

"Oh, man, I'm sorry. She knew I worked with the police, and knew in advance that you were a detective." Eyes narrowing in thought, he took a breath and grinned. " I'll have to remember to only hook you up with cop groupies from now on. Or women who really are into, uh, death rituals."

"I think you should just stay out of my love life from here on out, and I'll stay out of yours." Jim's tone softened the statement.

"Yeah, I hear you, man," Blair said, rolling his eyes, but he couldn't deny that it was probably pretty good advice.

After dinner, while Blair was supposed to be helping Jim clean the kitchen, Jesse had called asking if Blair wanted to meet him later, but Blair had found himself begging off for no good reason other than to pretend to read while Jim watched TV. Jim flipped through channels with the remote, and Blair flipped pages of a book, ignoring the text and absently scanning pictures of Mayan relics, his mind somewhere else entirely.

"Jim, you don't think I'm some kind of compulsive liar, do you?"

He met Jim's puzzled look.

"I mean because of what I said about embellishment and obfuscation...because of those stories that I told so that I could try to help Joel."

"Sandburg, I don't think you're a malicious manipulator, if that's what you mean, even if you are a little loose with the truth sometimes. You did good with Joel. Your spin is what keeps my case reports believable...and your romances aren't really my business."

"But..." Blair said, prompting Jim to continue, only to be startled by the earnest expression that came over Jim's face.

"But, I want you to know that you can tell me anything."

"What do you mean? I tell you... lots of stuff." Blair was mildly shocked that he'd almost said he told Jim 'everything'.

"No, you bullshit. You dig and get me to tell you stuff, but you...tell stories. And that's all right, I guess. As long as you don't feel that you have to tell me stories."

Fine, Blair thought, though he wasn't sure it was fine at all. "So what is it? What do you want to know?"

Jim eyed him, cool and blue and steady. "Why don't you tell me about your date?"

"My date?" Blair's voice squeaked, but thankfully only in his head.

"You know, last night..."

"Right...well..." Blair said, maintaining eye contact, giving truth a shot, "it was with a guy." Once it was out in the open, it seemed to sit there mocking him, and he looked away. "So, is that better? Or are you pissed because you feel like I've been lying to you all this time?"

"No. You don't owe me any explanations, Chief. I told you, I just want you to feel like you can."

Blair accepted that, but it still made him defensive. "It's not like I know everything about you, you know. You think your life is an open book to me?"

"I don't know, Sandburg, you're writing the book...you tell me."

No suitable snappy comeback sprang to Blair's mind. He had no idea how it would all come together--Jim the person, Jim the subject, the person facing the subject in the form of a paper, the results devoid of the sometimes all too personal nuances shading the discoveries Jim and Blair had made together.

"Maybe, I'd like to think," Jim was saying, "that when we walk into this place, we can leave some of the pretense behind. Some of the bullshit we give to the outside world. We all have secrets...hell, for me Covert Ops shit alone.... But you and I...here...."

"We can be ourselves?" Blair ventured; feeling like Jim was touching him, stripping something from him, maybe exposing a little bit of what lie beneath his enthusiastic, somewhat nutty layer.

"Yeah, something like that."

Jim was still watching him, and it was that intense gaze, Blair decided, that was touching him, open and unguarded right then, warm with feeling, making him feel lucky and so fucking...special. He took a deep breath. "Well, to the utter chaos that you consider my love life, you can add the fact that I like guys. I wasn't really hiding it...I mean, I haven't gone out with any men since I've known you, and you were already giving me a hard way to go about the two dates in the first place, there was no way I was going to spring the whole truth on you."

"You thought that maybe I'd have a problem with it?"

"Well, I did wonder if it would mess with the way you interact with me."

"It won't."

"Okay."

"So..." Jim said, after a moment of surprisingly not uncomfortable silence, "you never told me how your date actually turned out."

Blair had just grabbed the remote and he paused, glancing at Jim out of the corner of his eye. "Not bad." He grinned at Jim's arched eyebrow. "Okay...good. Good enough that I might see him again, if you leave me enough time and energy between bombings and whatnot."

"Hazard of a cop's life, Sandburg," Jim said, grinning back.

"Yeah, right. I get all of the hazards and none of the benefits."

"Hey...you got me out of the deal."

With a snort, Blair tossed Jim the remote, and said, "Here, continue your hunt for satisfactory programming."

But, inside, he was still smiling, feeling calm and relaxed as he settled back onto the couch to pretend to read.

It had been nagging at Blair a while before it finally formed into a clear, distinct thought. Three times that day alone, he'd picked up the phone to call Jim, only to hang up because he wasn't sure what he was calling about. On the way home, it had hit him, sharp and bright, and he ran up the stairs, various theories running through his mind, thinking that living with a man who had heightened senses could prove to be a bigger challenge than he'd realized. He pushed his way inside, slamming the door shut in his haste, and slid to a stop, dropping his bag at his feet, automatically mumbling an apology when he saw Jim wince.

"You got a problem, Sandburg?"

"Uh...no, not really." Blair hung up his jacket, picked up his bag and walked over to Jim. "Just a question. You knew my date wasn't with a woman before you asked me about it, didn't you? How'd you know that?"

For a few seconds, Jim stared at him. The blank expression gave Blair no clues at all, and he was about to voice his own suspicions about the lingering scent of male secretions when Jim finally spoke.

"I saw you kissing a guy on Station St. that night."

Blair felt a rush of anger, a panicky surge of heat, that somehow, for some reason, Jim had been spying on him.

"I...uh...I travel through there after dark sometimes," Jim went on.

Taken aback, Blair sat down, hard, barely missing the floor. "What do you mean? You've been going out cruising?" It had crossed his mind more than once, lots of times in fact, that there was the possibility that Jim could be...but it had seemed like so much projection. "I haven't since right after Peru...it was tough enough adjusting without...well, and then joining the force. But sometimes, I just like to go by and see..."

"Oh, man..." It had to have cost Jim to reveal that, Blair thought, and he could empathize with the admission, with the need. "Okay, Jim. Truth time? Part of the reason that I didn't let it slip about my sexuality was that...I had some feelings for you. I already had so much wrapped up in you, and I didn't want things to get convoluted or awkward. I told you back then it was about friendship...I just didn't tell you everything." When there was no response, Blair made himself ask, "So...are we still good?"

"Yeah."

"And you're not going to freak out about me being here, or working together, or anything?"

"No, Chief." Jim looked up, and Blair almost visibly sagged in relief when Jim smiled at him, a smile that was also shining in Jim's eyes. "No," Jim said again.

"Cool." And on shaky legs, Blair went to take a shower.

Blair woke, groaned as he stretched, turned over, eyed his clock, and started to get out of bed, only to have it belatedly kick in that it was Saturday. He paused, mentally checking first his schedule, then Jim's, until he was sure that he had nothing to do and nowhere to be...at least not at that early hour, and he let himself collapse back down.

But after several minutes of trying, sleep didn't seem nearly as enticing as the sharp scent of fresh coffee taunting him from the kitchen. He stumbled out of his room, halted when he saw Jim standing at the balcony doors, but then moved forward in his search for caffeine. Nothing had seemed to change between them in the days since his admission, despite his frequently being overwhelmed by certain feelings he'd thought were under control. Fortunately, casework and sensory tests and a date on the side, (though not with Jesse), had kept him focused enough.

"Hey," he said, joining Jim in the living room after fortifying himself with a cup of coffee.

"Morning, Chief."

"Everything all right?"

Jim turned and Blair could see steam rising from the mug in Jim's hand, and, for a crazy moment, he imagined it was Jim giving off the heat, instead of the liquid in the cup.

"Think you can handle a little truth?" Jim asked him.

Blair could feel the floor moving beneath him, but then seconds later realized that he had simply started shaking. He didn't speak, or nod, or give Jim any encouragement whatsoever, too afraid of what ugly painful thing Jim's truth would reveal. But Jim seemed oblivious to his state, steadily advancing, and yes...talking, Blair found when he made himself pay attention.

"I like you, Sandburg. You, the setup we have here. For reasons that go beyond you helping me out, and beyond the friendship we have. So, I get what you were saying before, because your being here clears up a lot of problems for me, but you...you make me think about...possibilities that complicate everything."

Blair was so on edge, he was surprised he could even understand what Jim was saying, but he noticed that Jim seemed even more edgy--his face tight and his jaw muscle twitching. Unexpectedly, that served to ease Blair's tension, putting him in the familiar position of calming Jim, and he found himself reacting, using his voice, his touch.

"Jim, if you're saying what I think you're saying, then...hey, I'm down with that. I mean, I'd like to see where it goes." He moved in, touching Jim's arm, his thumb rubbing circles over fine hairs and smooth muscle, before he took the cup from Jim's hand and placed on the table.

"We have to work together, Chief. Your paper, my senses, the job. I haven't... It's a bad, bad idea. We shouldn't be thinking about it, much less doing it."

Moving closer still, Blair looked up at Jim through his lashes, feeling a jolt in his chest as well as in his pants. "But we are, right?"

As if in slow motion, Jim lowered his head, kissing Blair tentatively, then more thoroughly. All the answer Blair needed. More than enough when Jim added wandering hands and rocking hips to the deed, turning it into a carnal dance, sex while still dressed.

"You don't plan on making this a quick fuck on the floor, do you?" Jim finally rasped, breathing hard against Blair's lips.

Blair didn't care...a quick fuck now, a slow screw later...but it occurred to him that Jim might mean something else. And he lived with Jim--obfuscation wasn't going to be the best option. If he was in it, forget 'Truth, Justice and the American Way', Jim would be looking for trust and commitment. That was relationship advice Jim had given him not long after they'd met. And Blair knew that those issues had already taken on an importance in their present relationship. So, if they were going to take things further....

He backed away, taking Jim's hand. "No way. I think we can take this someplace more comfortable and spend some quality time on it. I've...uh...got stuff in my room."

Not just a fuck, anyway, Blair knew, but some solid, real thing that scared and thrilled him, overshadowing dissertations and police work. He rummaged around for the necessary supplies, and turned back to where Jim was waiting, and it felt as if he had just taken a huge, irreversible step.

"Jim," he said, then, he pushed Jim down on the bed and sat beside him. "This won't be about bullshit, Jim, okay?"

"Sure, Chief." Jim looked startled, as if the idea had never crossed his mind, and Blair took great comfort from that.

"Truth has its place, right?" Blair offered nervously, feeling suddenly goofy and all soft inside, while so much hard-edged desire on the outside. "But I wouldn't hesitate to lie if it would save your ass," he added, almost fiercely--as close to 'I love you' as he felt he could do at that moment.

Jim looked at him, eyes bright and clear, and then they were kissing again. It crossed Blair's mind that they really should talk some more, but Jim's lips chased the thought away.

Clothes fell off quickly enough, naked bodies moving together so easily, passion skyrocketing, making it quick, after all. Stroking hands moved faster, breathless moans grew deeper, until hot slickness spilled between them. For a long time they stayed pressed together, happily sticky and uncomfortable. Then, Jim rolled off, and for another long time they listened to each other breathe, content as their bodies cooled.

"So, Chief," Jim said finally, running his fingers over Blair's belly. "How many of those travel and adventure tales are actually true, and how many are bullshit?"

Blair peered at him, but Jim didn't seem wary, just amused. "Some are true, but I've listened a lot, read a lot more, so the details are authentic, whether I was there or not." He gave a half shrug, managing to look both sheepish and smug at the same time. "And can I help it if the guys in the bullpen are easily entertained?" A shiver ran through him as Jim's touch grew bolder. "Of course, now I have a perfectly legit story about a parachute jump into a Peruvian jungle, with the added touch of a lizard in my pants...but who's gonna believe that?"

Jim laughed, a rumbling, satisfying sound, and Blair started thinking about cleaning up, eating a little breakfast, and afterwards, making Jim moan some more.

"Okay," Jim said, leaning in closer, "how about this? Is 'Sandburg' even your real name, or is that something that Naomi picked up somewhere in her rebellious youth?"

Blair lifted his head, licked Jim's ear, then whispered, "Go ahead, ask her...I dare you." Chuckling as he kissed his way to Jim's lips, and after about thirty seconds, he abandoned the idea of a shower and food, because Jim was already moaning his name.

THE END