Work Text:
The Kiss
Author's website:
http://www.NightRoadsAssoc.com
Not mine.
This story is for Majilique, who was having a bad day. Much thanks to Laura JV, the Monkey Queen of Evil, for betas. I also need to thank the writers and editors of the Crossroads zine. I reread after beginning this story, and it put Jim and Blair's voices in my head again. Thank you.
"Okay, Rip van Winkle. Relief is on the way."
Blair didn't want to wake up. He was warm. He was comfortable. He was in a very happy place. But he opened his eyes anyway. All he could see was blue sweater. Oh, God. He'd fallen asleep on stake out again. On Jim. Who seemed to have wrapped his arms around Blair. "I'm awake."
"Sure you are, Chief." Jim pressed a kiss onto Blair's head. "That's why you're still drooling on me. Now, rise and shine. Henri and Rafe'll be here any minute."
Blair barely heard the last words over his own heartbeat. He was more than warm, he was waking up and it was time to let go. He pulled away slowly until he could see Jim's face in the light of the streetlamp.
And all of a sudden, he didn't want to let go any more. It's not like Jim hadn't kissed him before. He'd always just smiled at them. Why not this time? It didn't make sense - maybe his brain had turned off. It must have turned off, because why else did he just pull down Jim's head and kiss him on the lips?
Before Blair had time to register what he was doing, let alone why or how it felt, Jim pulled away. "What the hell are you doing, Sandburg?"
Blair fell back on the passenger seat, staring at Jim. "Jim?"
Just then, their reliefs pulled up. "We'll talk about this later." Jim visibly bit down on his anger before giving his report of "Nothing, nothing and nothing" and driving away. His knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel, and Blair wondered exactly what he'd done.
Twenty silent minutes later, they were back in the loft, facing each other in the living room. "Okay. Now. What the hell were you doing?"
Blair stared at him. "Jim, I didn't shoot you. It was just a kiss."
"Look, I thought we had this all straight. You know I like guys. I told you the day you moved in for good." He clenched and unclenched his fists. "You said you were cool with it."
"I was. Even when you brought home that doofus Bob the Lawyer, I was cool with it." Bob the Lawyer was a big guy with curly blond hair that Jim dated for all of two weeks. Blair met him one morning at breakfast.
Jim narrowed his eyes. "Bob the Lawyer was a good guy."
"I never said he wasn't. He was a very good guy. But he was also a doofus. I don't know what you saw in him." Blair tried a grin. It failed.
"This is not about Bob the Lawyer. Bob the Lawyer moved to Seattle. There is no more Bob the Lawyer. This is about you pulling that thing in the car." Okay, now Jim was right in Blair's face, all but grabbing hold of his shirt. This was not good. .
He rolled his eyes and stood his ground. "It's just a kiss, for God's sake. You'd kissed me five seconds earlier. And you kissed Bob the Lawyer for a good five minutes right here in this living room. Not to mention Kevin the Plumber, which was a major surprise all around." As in, Blair had come home early to find Jim doing things on the kitchen floor with a guy in a grey uniform, things that Blair never suspected Jim would do.
"He didn't even give us a discount on labor, either." Jim took a deep breath. "Sandburg, those guys were...weren't. They weren't my straight roommate. You should know better - I thought we had this clear. I don't come on to you, you don't tease me and we respect each other's privacy. We never said it, but I thought it was understood."
"It was. I do. I mean, I like what we have and I don't want to mess it up." He sat down on the couch. "I wasn't teasing you."
"Then what was that about?" Jim tilted his head and widened his eyes.
"That was...that was me waking up, maybe in more ways than one. That was your kiss turning me on , which still freaks me out. That was me realizing you were...or I was...that something had changed." He ran his hands over his face. "That was me acting on pure impulse. Pure hormones. Ruining things. God, why am I so stupid?" Blair pounded his fist into his thigh. "I am so confused I don't which end is up or what I'm doing. I don't know why I kissed you, Jim. And I don't know why I still want to kiss you, but I do."
"Okay, let's take this from the top. You weren't teasing?" Jim's jaw was twitching. If it weren't for that, Blair would have thought him perfectly calm as he sat down on the chair.
"God, no! I'm stupid, but I'm not an idiot." They shared a grin. "You woke me up. You gave me one of those little kisses, like you've been doing for years, like you do to everyone." He shook his head. "God, I've seen you kiss Simon, and he thinks you're as straight as I...thought I was. It's never meant anything before. Except it did, this time. And there was your face and I went for it. Just to see if." He took a deep breath.
"If what?" Jim's voice sounded less calm now.
"If maybe I was missing something." He stopped, trying to figure out how to say the next thing, the thing that had to be said.
"So you thought, hey, Jim likes guys. He'll let me be curious until I decide I like the ladies better?" That wasn't angry. That was snide.
Blair jumped to his feet. "Have I ever acted like that? Do I use people like that? I meant.. look, you...you...doofus. I'm trying to say that I was missing something in me." He walked over and pushed Jim's shoulder. "That I think I'm in love with you, and I always have been, but Straight Blair doesn't do guys so I didn't see it. I'm having an entire identity crisis here and all you're worried about is that I might hurt your feelings?" Oh, that was so the wrong way to say it.
"Oh." Jim stared at him in shock. "I'm. Straight guys. I don't want to get burned again, and I know you won't, but it's automatic - straight guy wants to see what it's like, and then he decides you seduced him and maybe it was even rape and he runs back to his wife and kids. Except three weeks later, he's out in the alley or the steam room with someone else. Sandburg, you want to experiment, there are places you can go. I don't want to be your test subject."
"That is not me. That's completely not me. Ever. And not with you." He pushed Jim's shoulder again. Jim let him. "Not that what I'm feeling is me. Except it is because I'm feeling it." He could feel his hands flailing around, trying to make sense of things. Nothing made sense. Except one thing was getting increasingly clear. Whatever he felt in the truck was still there.
"I'm sorry. Maybe it's my fault."
"Your fault?"
"The kiss. It wasn't one of the joke ones. You were looking very kissable there, drooling on my sweater like that." He bit his lip. "So I took a chance and made it a real one." He took a deep breath. "One of the rules is that if you do fall in love with the straight guy, you never show it. Because then he's out the door."
"You love me?" Blair stared.
"I've been in love with you since you threw me under that truck." Jim grinned. "Blessed Protector."
"Oh. Wow. You've done a good job hiding it. You haven't been exactly pining away." Just what Blair needed. Like things weren't weird enough. So why was his pulse racing at the thought that Jim loved him?
"I don't do pining, Chief." Jim grinned wider. "Why should I be celibate because you were stuck on het?"
"I don't know what I am anymore." Blair also didn't know what to do or where to look. "If I promise not to...burn you, will you help me?"
Jim took his hand. "Are you sure? This will change everything."
"Everything is already changed." His knees turned to water and he collapsed on the arm of Jim's chair, still holding Jim's hand. "It's only a question of where it goes." He reached out and stroked Jim's face with his finger as if he were petting fire. "I want it to be with you."
"You're shivering." Jim kissed Blair's other hand, the one he held. "You're scared to death. We can wait. We can take it slow. We can even not do this at all."
"Yeah, I'm scared. I was straight when I woke up this morning, man, and now. Now all I want is to spend my life with you. Except I wanted that before; I just didn't know it was in your bed." He tried to laugh, but failed. "Jim. What scares me is that I won't like it. That there we'll be, in love and not able to do anything about it. And. I need to know."
"Oh, so no pressure here, right?" Jim stroked Blair's hand.
Blair succeeded in laughing. "Yeah, you got it. Either you make me come the first time, or we're doomed to a life of frustrated celibacy. Or double dating."
"Anything but double dating." Jim smiled. Then he took a deep breath and stood up, still holding on to Blair's hand, so Blair had to stand, too.
They faced each other. Jim was breathing rapidly. Blair wasn't breathing at all. He couldn't. They didn't move. Blair felt like a bridegroom - a virgin bridegroom - on his wedding night. 'How did they do it all those centuries?' came the thought from some corner of his brain, the part that wasn't shaking in fear or screaming in desire. Kids about to start the most important relationship in their lives and sex at the same time?
Someone had to move, or one of them was going to run, and Blair was afraid it would be him running. He felt like he was swimming through molasses as he raised his hand. And Jim's hip was firm and hard and Jim shuddered at Blair's touch, and then Jim's hand was on Blair's back and Blair could feel the warmth rippling down his body, the same way that kiss had done earlier, and he gasped out loud, and then he was pulling Jim's face down again, and they were kissing again.
And this time Jim didn't pull away, and this time Blair knew what he was doing. And Jim's lips were warm and responsive and they opened and the entire world was Jim's mouth and Jim's body pressed against his, and it was most decidedly not like a woman's, and that thought made him want to pull Jim even closer, to devour his mouth, made his hands roam all over Jim's back and waist and lower down and Jim moaned into his mouth and his hands were also everywhere. Then those hands, those elegant, aristocratic hands, were unzipping and unbuttoning and Blair's hands were doing the same and they were naked and in each other arms again, and Jim was more beautiful than Blair had ever noticed before in all the times Jim had walked around the apartment unclothed.
He pulled Jim down to the floor, to their knees, still kissing, still exploring, letting his hands go places he'd never thought to go - all the places on a man's body he never thought of touching before but now had to, had to know, and Jim let go of his mouth and started kissing lower and lower, nuzzling the patch of hair in the center of his chest, playing and nipping at his nipples and Blair howled with pleasure before pushing Jim onto his back.
And Jim was lying below him and his face was glowing. Blair put his hands on the floor and supported himself as their groins met and he began to move, and Jim moved under him. Blair never took his eyes off Jim's face, Jim's eyes. They found their rhythm so quickly and Jim was hot and hard beneath him and he felt clumsy as hell, not knowing what to do with his legs, with his mouth, but Jim seemed to know and as they both reached their climax a few seconds apart, it was all okay. It was all good.
Spent, Blair let himself collapse on Jim, who kissed him and then rolled them both over so they were on their sides. "Oh, God."
"You okay, Chief?"
He looked at Jim. Did he actually just have sex with a man? Were those a man's hands stroking his arms, his back? Jim's hand's were gentle. Gentler than he'd ever imagined. Blair took some deep breaths, and tried to find his center. It was supposed to be easy. It was something he'd done every day since junior high school, so it should have been easy. "I don't know." Jim nodded. He kept petting Blair. "I'll let you know."
"But at least we won't be double dating?" Jim smiled and, with one more little kiss, got to his feet.
"You are such a doofus." Ah, that's where his center went.
"That's why you love me, Sandburg."
Copyright June 2002 Debra Fran Baker and NightRoads Associates
End The Kiss by Debra Fran Baker: [email protected]
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