Archive of Our Own ^beta

MA- Mature Adults only. Contains m/m sex, violence and strong language. Not intended to infringe upon the rights of Pet Fly Productions.

The BS Factor

by Jen Riddler

"Have you ever thought about having children?" Blair asked suddenly.

Jim shot him a glance. "You're not talking about adoption, are you?' He had to ask, a certain amount of hostile squeamishness in his voice.

"No way, man," Blair confirmed, to Ellison's obvious relief. "I'm talking about your bloodline. Your progeny."

Ellison shot him another glance.

"Little junior sentinels?"

"Well, yeah."

"No." Jim answered flatly, in a tone that brooked no further discussion of the matter.

Not that Blair ever took any notice, always barging through Jim's police barricades.

"But just think of it," Blair insisted enthusiastically. "You're a perfect genetic specimen. We can't let that go to waste."

He patted Jim's crotch fondly.

Jim glanced down, and removed the hand, placing it back in Blair's own lap.

"For the last time, no." He tried to terminate the discussion. "I am not donating. Not for you. Not for anyone."

"Not even for research?" Blair's fingers began creeping up his thigh again.

"No." He swatted the hand away.

"Stop it," he reiterated, seeing the hand move in his peripheral vision. "Unless you want to crash this vehicle by distracting me while driving, keep your hands to yourself."

"No hanky panky while the vehicle's in motion. Got you." grinned Blair, completely unaffected by Jim's reproach.

Jim Ellison tightened his hands on the wheel and took another deep breath and steeled himself for another day in the life of Blair Sandburg. The manic student ruled his life, bouncing around like a kid on red cordial. And Jim's life would be a dull, empty, frightening void without him.

"I still think it's amazing none of this stuff showed up in your army medicals. Are you sure I can't get copies?"

"No."

"There must be copies on file. The police department, your health insurance..."

"Sandburg, what are you playing at?"

"Just working on the physical aspects of your abilities, you know, to see if they were detectable before they manifested. You know, to see if there's a way to test for Sentinel potential."

Ellison shrugged and let the words roll over him. Being a guinea pig for Sandburg's scientific curiosity irked him at the best of times.

Jim scowled at the traffic ahead. It had started innocently enough. Blair had asked in his typically enthusiastically curious way if Jim and Carolyn had ever thought of having children during their brief marriage.

No, thank god. Well, maybe. But no children had made their failed relationship a lot less complicated.

Blair had then interrogated Jim on whether he'd ever given serious thought to fatherhood, and had skipped on to donation before Jim, unusually distracted, had finally picked up the thrust of Blair's argument. His genetic superiority.

His hands tightened around the wheel.

Like hell he was going to let Blair farm him out like some prize stud bull.

He pulled into the police garage, Blair chattering happily beside him, hand sliding up his thigh before the engine had stopped turning over.

"Not here, Chief," he tried to duck the human heat seeking missile, warm lips nibbling an oversensitive earlobe. "Video camera," he managed to gasp. "I don't want to have to cite myself."

"Not in front of the uniforms," Blair acknowledged, good naturedly, adding another one of Jim's house rules to the ever growing list.

He slid out of the truck, followed by his ever faithful, and especially frisky this morning, companion.

The lift doors were barely closed before he had his arms full of Sandburg. He gathered the kid up in his arms and kissed him, lifting him up and swinging him around a little, joyfully, playfully, laughing.

"You can be so silly," he grinned. Blair had brought a lightness to his life he'd never known he was missing.

"What if we hit the lift stop button?" asked Blair, a hand reaching towards it.

"Don't you dare..." Jim caught him from behind. He swung Blair up again, tickling him. Blair shrieked and squirmed, trying to wriggle free like a child. The doors opened and they fell into the corridor, laughing.

"When you two have quite finished," Simon snapped at them like a headmaster. They fell into line like naughty school boys, sneaking a glance at each other.

"Jim, in my office." Simon flicked a disapproving look at Blair, knowing exactly who was the ringleader.

"Back in a moment, Shortstop," promised Jim, pointing Blair in the direction of his desk and swatting him lightly on the bottom.

Jim stood, noting Simon had shut the door.

"I saw you on the monitor this morning," Simon started.

A slight flush coloured Jim's cheeks.

"Sorry. Blair's in a silly mood. I guess it's infectious."

Simon softened.

"It's good to see you happy, Jim. But not everyone is so understanding."

Jim nodded.

Simon picked up a folder.

"Vice are still down a man." He tapped the folder in his hands. "They've got a deal going down and they could really use some help."

"Me?"

Simon pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"Actually, they saw Sandburg. They want him. They think he'd be perfect."

Jim's face went rock hard.

"No. He's not trained."

"He doesn't have to be. He just has to wear a wire and hand over the cash."

"It's too dangerous."

"And riding with you isn't? Look, Jim, I don't often ask for favours..."

Jim visibly slumped in defeat.

"He'll be fine." Simon patted him on the shoulder. "He could surprise you. I've watched him. I wouldn't let him tag along with you if I didn't think he was up to it."

Jim snapped around.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

Jim folded his arms, watching Blair through the venetian blinds.

"You know, with a few weeks in boot camp, or maybe the Academy, to straighten him out..."

"You want to straighten him out?" Simon teased, ducking Jim's look. Subject: S/F: The BS Factor 2

Blair lifted his shirt obediently as Jim adjusted the tiny microphones. He tore off a piece of tape to reposition it.

"Hey!" cried Blair, as the tape ripped away hair. "Watch it or I'll do that back to you," he threatened.

Jim pulled down the dirty t-shirt and patted his chest. "Good to go, Halfpint."

Blair scowled, displeased with the latest nickname.

Jim held him in a soft blue gaze.

"You going to be okay?"

Blair showed him all charm and bravado.

"Sure. No problem."

Jim shook his head. The kid had balls.

"I'll be watching you," he promised.

From his vantage point he kept every sense trained on Blair. He could smell Blair, the anxiety in his sweat, his jittery heart keeping in time with his own nervous beat, the soft muttering, the swish of his hair and clothes as he paced, unable to sit still. The scratch and flare of sulfur as he struck a match and applied it to the cigarette he held. The way he'd held the cigarette, sucked on it, with real need, he'd smoked one before. Several, in fact. He blew smoke into the sky and dropped the butt onto the ground, grinding it with his sneaker.

"Easy, easy," Jim whispered, Blair's jumpiness likely to scare off the dealer. This was only the first buy, the bottom rung on the food chain. An unimportant bust, just time consuming, which was why they were using Blair. He looked the part.

Jim watched the small figure wander back and forth nervously, sucking on the cigarette. A prop, nothing more, he'd explained. He'd taste like nicotine for days afterwards. He looked so small. The figure stopped, leaning against the wall, looking directly up to where Jim lay, hidden, watching.

"You know, the Greeks had a legend," he whispered softly, under his breath, knowing Jim could hear him. "Once, people were whole. Then a jealous god split them into two halves, as jealous gods do. Now everyone who is ever born is doomed to spend their lives searching the world to find their other half, their soul mate. Most never do find that long lost part of themselves, but the lucky few do..." his voice dropped away completely.

Jim could only see the dark blue eyes that looked towards were he lay hidden.

"I know, Little One," Jim murmured softly. "Don't worry, I'll watch out for you."

"Blessed Protector."

Blair smiled up at him, a smile enough to melt Jim into a puddle right there.

"I'm here," he promised. "Heads up, Squirt. Here he comes."

He saw Blair straighten, freeze for a moment, then casually affect the nervous jitteriness of a student starting to come down.

Conversation was short and tight. Money and baggie were exchanged in a slack handshake. Blair shoved his bag in his pocket, then glanced up.

No. The gun came out instantly. Blair backed up against the wall as the back up guy melted from the scenery into the street. Both guns swung down on Blair's head. Jim rose up from his vantage point on the roof. The rapid pace of Blair's heart pounded in his ears, the adrenalin in his sweat almost intoxicated him. The slightest movement of the blue irises held him, as Blair watched him rise up, then stop, as one of the guns turned from Blair to what Blair was watching.

Blair saw Jim slow to a stop, unseeing, unaware of the gun turning towards him.

Shit, Jim, not now, he pleaded in a fraction of a second that lasted for an hour.

Jim was zoned, focused so tightly, entirely on Blair, and the second gun that now almost pressed to his temple.

Without time to breath, Blair snapped up the arm that held the gun on him with an audible snap, catching the gun as it dropped from suddenly numb fingers, firing, dropping the second gun man, the bullet breaking wet brains onto the tarmac as the body fell, gun falling from the loose hand, skittering across the ground with a metallic rasp. The second kid made a dive for it, screaming as a bullet ripped through his hand. He fell into a rocking, writhing foetal position, clutching his bleeding and broken hands to his chest as Blair stood over him with the gun.

"Jim!" he called snapping his sentinel back to attention.

What Jim had watched registered suddenly with his conscious mind. The smell of hot metal, cordite, blood and bone assaulted him, as did the sound of the kid's whimpers.

Blair as all right. Blair was safe.

Jim was back down in the alley by the time the calvary arrived, shaking more than Blair was, masking his fright with an easy grin and cheerful teasing.

"Nice shooting, Tex," beamed Jim. "For someone who's never used a gun, you're a natural."

Blair just stood there, looking troubled.

Jim took the gun gently from his hand, then rested his other hand on the young man's shoulder.

"You okay?" he asked, leaning close.

Blair nodded.

"I screwed up. I panicked."

"No you didn't," Jim stated deliberately. "I panicked. You kept your cool. You saved my life." The fingers tightened slightly. "I wish you'd reconsider carrying. I'd feel confident knowing you were my backup."

"So you can take more risks? No way."

Blair became animated at last with consternation. Until he saw his targets being wheeled into ambulances.

"Am I in trouble?" he asked at last.

"No. I'll deal with it. Simon will deal with it."

Jim studied Blair again.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

Blair nodded glumly, uncomfortable under Ellison's intense scrutiny.

Jim took Blair with him back to the station, sitting with him protectively in the back seat of the squad car, escorting him through the building, staying with him as he filled out the incident report.

Jim leant on the desk, watching him, only him.

Blair stopped typing, hissing an annoyed breath between his teeth.

"What?" he demanded.

"Don't you want to talk about it?"

"No." Blair was head down, typing again.

"Maybe see the department psychologist?"

"No."

"They can help you, you know."

"I know, but no. I'm fine with this. Really. Now if you shut up, I can get this done and get out of here."

Jim eased himself back. Okay. Gone was the happy go lucky Blair of this morning. So much had changed, with a single gun shot.

"Okay, Chief, I'll be here if you need me," Jim offered, leaving Blair alone, like he wanted.

Blair watched him go, and slumped a little. He finished the report, left it on Simon's desk and left, not even seeing Jim as he passed him by the coffee machine on the way out.

It was late, Blair was half asleep on the couch when Jim finally came home. He knelt by the edge of the couch, running his fingers softly through the long hair.

Blair stirred.

"Dinner's in the microwave," he mumbled. "I picked up something on the way back from class. Where were you?"

"The perp you winged sang like a bird in the hospital. We've set up a round the clock watch on their little activities."

Blair sat up properly.

"I'm sorry about before. I was upset."

"I know." Jim touched his cheek softly.

Blair moved into the caress, kissing the palm, his tongue sliding against flesh, watching Jim's eyes dilate. He moved up to suck lightly upon each finger, making Jim close his eyes and moan slightly. He leant in, pressing Blair against the couch, tongue sliding over lips, between teeth, tongues stroking tongues. Blair pulled his t-shirt free, up over his head, guiding Jim to suckle upon a dark pink nipple. Jim climbed up on the couch, almost mounting Blair, but Blair pushed back slightly.

"Not here. Bedroom," he managed to say.

Jim stood, but headed not towards the stairs, as expected, but towards the kitchen, popping open the microwave door to inspect what Blair had left him.

Blair's growl of frustration was audible even to someone without Jim's hearing. He looked up, puzzled to see Sandburg looking fraught and harried.

"Chief?" he asked, puzzlement in his blue eyes.

"Damn you, James Ellison," hissed Blair.

Ellison's newly studied ability to shift gears suddenly was never so irritating as now. He had an erection fit to burst and Ellison wanted dinner first.

"I thought we were going upstairs," he said slowly, deliberately, between gritted teeth.

Jim was all innocence.

"You don't have to. It's okay. I know you're still upset about the shooting."

Blair rolled his eyes.

"I'm not upset about the shooting, okay. I am upset that you'd rather feed your face than make love to me."

Jim quietly shut the microwave door. He was hungry, but he knew better.

"Okay, I'm sorry. I thought you were just doing it for me."

"No. For us. How could you be so thick..." he stopped himself. "I don't want to fight. Not now."

Jim leant against the counter, studying his friend and lover. Blair was upset. He could practically smell it. That's why he'd backed off. But if Blair wanted this...

"Okay," he gave in. "Lead on, MacDuff."

Blair glared at him briefly but led the way, yelping when Jim pinched him from behind as they walked up the steps.

The old spark was back, as Blair almost skipped up the stairs. Jim was still concerned; Blair had taken a life. That was cause for a major philosophical shift.

Jim found his loft lit with softly flickering candlelight. Blair pushed him gently from behind to get him past the top step.

"You've been busy," Jim observed.

"You don't miss a thing," Blair teased. "Just a few candles. I thought we could use a little romance."

Another small shove was required to get Jim over to and seated on the bed.

"Off duty, Jim, off duty, " Blair reminded in a light whisper, hoping to melt the ramrod that held Jim straight and slightly uncomfortable in this setting. "At ease, Soldier," Blair teased.

"You've gone to so much trouble," Jim breathed, feeling under pressure to perform to Olympic standards.

A breeze through the window caused the candles to flutter, casting amorphous shadows across the walls, distracting Jim for an instant.

Blair took the opportunity to blow softly across his ear as he undid the buttons of Jim's shirt, peeling it open. He nuzzled his cheek softly against Jim's chest hair for a moment, breathing his scent. That worked. He felt Jim arch back slightly as each hair stood erect, Jim catching Blair's face in his hands, bringing that sweet face up to kiss the full lips. His tongue slipped between those lips, tasting his Blair.

Jim's fingertips trailed over Blair's already bare shoulders. Sensory overload, touching, being touched. He brought himself back from the brink, lessening his pleasure, but knowing how it unnerved Blair, to lose himself utterly in the touch of Blair's tongue upon his skin; the moisture, heat, texture and movement, to experience that pure moment and nothing else.

He almost purred as Blair nuzzled along his jawline, pushing his shirt over his shoulders, kissing him as fingers unbuckled his belt, eased open his jeans.

Taking control, Blair pushed Jim back against the bed, smiling as he pulled away the black denim and cotton, leaving Jim lying there, naked.

"Close your eyes," he asked, watching as Jim settled back. Invisible air currents, soft caresses of warm air from the candle flames, cool air from the window, brushed across his skin, dancing across the fine hairs; warm breath from Blair, moving down, the brush of his hair against his thigh. Confidant fingers stroked down his calves, kneading the balls of his feet.

He released a slow breath, pressing back against the bed, focused on Blair's touch.

The sudden engulfing of his toes by a hot, wet mouth caught him by surprise, the sucking, swirling tongue sending a coil of fire through his groin.

He lost himself in the feel of the slick tongue gliding across the sensitive skin, waking to Blair's soft voice by his ear.

"I 'm here, Chief," he reassured.

"Good. Close your eyes." Blair instructed.

Jim obeyed the quiet authority in his voice, the voice of his guide.

He heard the clink of the ice in a glass, then the splash of a single drop of cold water onto his chest. The sound, the sensation, rippled through his consciousness like a stone thrown into a pool. Another drop splashed down onto him, then, after an eternal wait, another. He smelt the candles, hot and sweet as the breeze stirred them.

The next drop to splash onto his chest burned, sending his senses slipping into over drive. The hot wax dropped onto his skin and spread. Jim pushed his head back, a sigh escaping his lips, then laying perfectly still.

Blair put down the candle, leaning close.

"Jim? Jim!" he hissed.

"I'm still here," came the breathy reply.

"Great. I thought you'd zoned."

"Almost. I'm on the brink. It's incredible."

"Uh huh," Blair smiled, touching the ice cube to Jim's already hard nipples, then breathing softly across them, his breath rippling through the light hairs on Jim's chest.

Ellison gasped, his thick erection pumped once, splashing a small pool of sticky fluid onto his stomach.

"You're controlling your orgasm?" Blair realised, impressed.

"Not for long," Jim grunted, grabbing Blair and shutting up the student with a searing, starving kiss.

Jim pulled the younger man onto the bed, rolling him underneath, holding him down, yanking off his jeans, more roughouse than romance, too eager, too hard, stopping suddenly with a sweet and gentling kiss.

Blair was hard, stirring with each stroke of Jim's hand.

"Jeans pocket," Blair had the sense to gasp breathlessly as Jim chewed on his ear, tongue looping through the metal rings.

Jim's hand snaked across the bed to extract the slim plastic package from the jeans pocket tumbled beside the bed, tearing it open with his teeth.

He stopped to sniff for a moment.

"New brand?"

"Yeah, the others gave me an allergy, and it's not like we need the spermicide."

"I don't know why we need this at all. I want to feel you..." Jim's voice dropped to a throaty plea.

Blair clutched at his rapidly receding common sense.

"Because you might have been a good boy, but I haven't. Jim..." he begged, heady with arousal, shimmying down in the bed, the friction of his skin almost enough to send Jim over the edge. He bit down on the impulse, stabbing his tongue deep into Blair's willing mouth.

Eager, almost clumsy hands rolled the rubber on. Jim clutched Blair tight, back against him, pushing, ready.

"Now, Ellison," Blair insisted, forcing his hips back, desperate for the steady beat and thrust of penetration. He grabbed at the hands that held him, hissing as Jim pushed in, out, then in deep again. He could feel the blind, hungry mouth over his back, his shoulders, teeth pressing at his flesh.

"Jim, let it go, now!" he screamed, knowing Ellison was holding on, pushing and pulling, he was gonna, oh, gawd, a tight hand pumped him, he was gonna...Jim...

Jim almost crushed him, arms holding too tight at the moment of climax, then that big body slumped over him, spent, until he pushed up, squirming around to face those lazy teal eyes.

Jim was slowly biting down his arm, tasting his skin, his texture.

"Ow," remarked Blair. "Not so hard. Some of can't just switch off our pain receptors, you know."

Jim had learnt to do that, out of necessity, due to the way Jim's brain heightened a paper cut to feel so much worse than a knife wound. It caused as many problems as it solved, though.

One night, just out to pick up some junk food to feed Jim's craving, Jim had to be the hero and foil an attempted robbery at the 7-11. The uniforms had shown up to haul off the kids, everything had been fine. Jim had fished for the keys in his pocket, horrified to find his hand and the keys covered in bright red blood. Rapidly falling drops splattered down the plastic bag full of chips and coke, splashing onto the asphalt. Then the pain had hit him with a swinging punch. He'd left Blair holding his body and screaming at the uniforms for help.

Blair had spent one of the unhappiest hours of his life at the hospital, waiting for Jim to come out of surgery. It wasn't too bad, just a deep knife wound, sewn up and released into Blair's care. This all meant that Blair had the extra duty of checking him for unfelt wounds. Not that he minded, most of the time. It was always an excuse to share Jim's showers.

Blair smiled, finger tips tracing Ellison's mouth above him.

"You know, I appreciate the sudden interest in tantric sex, controlling yourself like that, but sometimes, Jim, its more fun just to let go. You can't control everything. Besides, its supposed to be hell on the prostate. Blair's teasing hand sank deeper, finding it's mark, stroking, intimately.

Blair ginned as Jim got that 'oh, gawd' look on his face.

"Yours feels just fine though," he announced cheerfully.

Jim caught the metal hoop between his teeth and pulled slightly on the tiny silver nipple ring, bringing a gasp from his partner.

Jim twisted his hips as Blair's fingers slid in and out; little pricktease. He kissed the boy firmly, taking Blair's manhood in his grasp and milking him dry while he stamped hard kisses all over that gorgeous throat and jaw.

They kissed deeply, then Blair pushed Jim back a little, to catch his breath.

Jim leant above Blair, playing with his hair again, hair like some angelic boy in some renaissance painting. With a soft caress, Blair slipped the spent condom from Jim and tossed it over his shoulder, settling down as it sailed out the window, down into the alley below. Jim spooned up behind him, snuggling, his warm breath brushing over Blair's shoulder, his fingers still slowly dancing over Blair's hip til they stilled, the breaths slowing into a steady rhythm, and he knew Jim was asleep. Blair lay awake, thinking, thoughts flying at the speed of light, the way they did on the cusp of sleep. He lay perfectly still, lest he disturb Jim, acutely aware of the hand that rested heavily upon his hip, the bristled chest hairs that brushed against his back as Ellison breathed.

Cramping in his stillness, mind too wired to sleep, Sandburg eased himself from under that heavy arm, gently kissed the sleeping lips goodnight and padded down to his own room, his own bed.

Transforming his running thoughts into several pages of notes by dim yellow light, he finally set down his note pad and pen, put aside his glasses, and settled down to sleep alone.

Blair was already up, sitting at the table, quietly reading another text book, head bowed, ear phones in.

Jim tapped him on the shoulder and bent to place a brief kiss upon his lips as he looked up. Liking it, he ducked down for a second, deeper kiss.

"That was some game you played last night," he smiled.

"Yeah, well, you're such a vanilla. It's my duty to broaden your horizons," remarked Blair drolly, switching off his walkman and removing the ear phones.

"Why didn't you stay?" Jim had to ask, trying to sound casual as he poured himself a glass of orange juice.

Blair shrugged. "I had to make notes. That control you showed last night was truly remarkable."

Jim nearly spluttered his juice across the kitchen.

"You made notes? Listen, Darwin, my sex life is not for publication, comprehende? What we do is between you, me and the walls, okay?"

Blair shook it off like he always did.

"Sure. No problem. It's not essential to the thesis. Just an interesting sidebar, really. The more you learn to control your senses, the more you've learnt to control the rest of your body. Your reactions to pain, and pleasure..."

Jim held up his hand.

"Enough. 'You were great' is about as clinical an examination of my sexual performance as I want to get into, okay?'

Blair grinned. "Okay. I was impressed. You were great."

"That's more like it," Jim agreed.

Jim pulled off the bulky headphones and set them aside, stretching in the rickety chair, turning to glance at Blair, hunched over on the worn and torn and many stained brown velour couch, tapping away at his lap top.

Aware of the older man's attention, Blair looked up.

"This is what you do all day on a stakeout?" he asked. "Watch empty houses?"

"Yeah."

"You get paid for this?"

Jim smiled. "Yeah."

"I'm doing something wrong then. I'm the one working and you're the one getting paid."

Jim's smile broadened. "Yeah."

Blair went back to typing.

"You shouldn't hunch over your screen like that," he admonished.

"You see any ergonomic furniture around here?" Blair shot back.

Jim got up and walked around behind him.

"What are you writing? Stuff about me?"

"Yeah, and butt out. It's hardly likely to be objective if I let you start throwing in editorial comment." Blair saved his file and shut it down. He leant back into Jim's arms, which had begun firmly massaging his shoulders.

"Mmmm, good," he purred, leaning back further. Jim sank down on the couch behind him, rubbing and caressing, gently pulling back his hair so he could nuzzle at warm throat, sensitive ears.

"Oh, God," Blair started, silenced by a tender mouth over his, drawing his tongue into Jim's mouth. He leant back against the couch as Jim almost straddled him, deepening the kiss, taunting nipples through cloth, rubbing hips against stomach. Then letting Blair's mouth free, sliding down onto the flor, carefully opening jeans.

"Pocket," Blair voiced softly.

Jim shook his head.

Concern knitted Blair's brow.

"I want to taste you," Jim answered huskily. "Ssh, it's alright," he soothed. "Relax. No, don't relax," he retracted hastily, with a grin.

Blair's erection was already halfway there. He grabbed at Jim's hair, his shoulders, as his tongue traced delicate patterns over the thin, sensitive skin, licking at tiny traces of salt, breathing deep of Blair's musk, finally swallowing him whole. Moving with a slow and building rhythm, he brought Blair, mumbling blindly and incoherently, clasping at him and empty air, to climax. Surprised at the taste and texture, and volume, lost for a moment, then regaining balance, easing out of the experience. He slid up Blair to kiss him deeply, the taste of his seed still on his lips. Pushing him down against the couch, hips and thighs rubbing, grinding, pushing up shirt to taste skin. His thigh sliding between Blair's, his arms around him, their mouths met again.

"I love you, Blair Sandburg," he reaffirmed, moving down to suckle on a dark pink nipple, to the joyful, soft echo of Blair's moan.

Three knocks thudded on the door. Jim slid off Blair and landed with a just audible thud on the floor. Blair pulled down his shirt and pulled up his jeans with almost comic, manic movements.

With Blair finally achieving some level of decency, Jim opened the door to the relief watch.

"Hey, it smell like prom night to you in here?" asked Detective Ghiardelli.

"Yep. Rode hard and put away wet," grinned Detective Hershey.

Jim winced, knowing the fresh, wet, sour smell of sex was all too apparent to a couple of seedy and seasoned cops.

"You doing your gigolo on company time, Ellison?" taunted Ghiardelli.

Blair stood up, colouring.

"I am not a gigolo. I'm a teaching fellow. He doesn't pay me."

"Well," Jim tilted his head, thinking. "You do get room and board free, not to mention meals..."

"Ah, rent boy," chuckled Hershey.

Blair threw an annoyed glance at Jim.

Which Jim feigned ignorance of.

"Nothing happening," he confirmed, nodding across the road.

Ghiardelli smirked. "Yeah. We could tell. Later guys. Hey, Hershey, watch the wet spot on the couch."

Blair snapped close his lap top and stalked out, followed moments later by Jim, still grinning.

"Hey, Darwin," he called on the steps. "Wait up."

Blair stopped on the landing and turned, seething.

"Why did you do that to me?" he demanded. "I mean, I know why; to be part of the group culture, to form a bond by putting down the outsider, but why did you do that to ME?"

"I'm sorry, Chief.," he offered. "They were only teasing. We were kind of sprung."

"You publicly humiliated me. They treat me like a joke enough of the time, you have to add to it by calling me your rent boy?"

"I'm sorry, okay?"

Blair just turned and continued stomping down the wooden stairs.

"Sandburg," Jim tried.

"I don't appreciate being the butt of your jokes with your cop buddies," Blair sniped back, glare darkening at Jim's smirk.

"I've never known you to be so sensitive. You usually just shrug it off. What's wrong?" he caught Blair by the arm.

Blair shrugged him off.

"Nothing."

Jim spun him around, cupping his face in his hand, studying the blue eyes.

"Don't lie to me. Something's wrong. Give."

Blair twisted his face free, looking down.

"What's going to happen to us? When the reports are in, the project is done?"

"Is that what this is?" his hands rested warmly on Blair's shoulders.

"I'm always going to need my Guide."

Blair looked up at him, real doubt in his eyes.

"What if you became so adept, you don't need a guide?"

Jim smiled softly.

"I'm always going to need you, want you," his voice dropped to a husky whisper, and he pulled Blair close in a loving hug, his hardness pressing into Blair's stomach. "We'll always be together. Forever," Jim promised.

Blair gave into the embrace for a moment, then pulled free.

Jim still held onto him for a moment longer.

"You really okay, Chief?"

Blair nodded, fiddling with his lap top, and they descended the stairs in silence.

"You hungry?" Jim asked as they emerged onto the footpath.

Blair shrugged non committedly.

"Well, I am," Jim decided.

They ended up at a tiny little Vietnamese place, with vinyl chairs and plastic tables, plastic chopsticks, fluorescent lighting and the most amazing smells.

Jim wolfed his down, while Blair picked. He glanced up, studied the doleful face, and placed a hand over the student's.

"I'll make it up to you," he promised.

"Ellison? Jim Ellison?" boomed a deep bass voice from above.

Jim snatched his hand back and almost stood to attention.

"Sam!" he beamed. He swung his beam onto Blair.

"This is Samuel Coleridge. We were in the army together. Sam, this is Blair Sandburg, a colleague of sorts."

"Of sorts, sounds interesting."

Sam sat down in the spare seat at Jim's urging. As he sank into the chair, Blair rose.

"I've got a lecture. Later." He nodded to both soldiers, then pointedly laid a crumpled five dollar bill on the table.

Jim picked it up and pocketed it, never once his eyes breaking contact with Blair's. This would continue at home, tonight, that much was certain.

"What's with the kid?" asked Sam, once Blair was out of sight and Jim had returned from his private musings.

"Blair? A couple of the guys teased him and now he's gone all moody. He's a good kid, usually. He's a grad student, anthropology. I'm helping him with his research. Behavioural studies. Sharp as a tack, that one. I'm hoping, in a few years, after he gets his PhD, that he'll go on to the FBI, their Behavioural sciences unit. He'd be perfect." Jim's eyes shone with pride.

"He ever do a stint in the military?"

"Blair? No, he's gun shy. I'm hoping the Academy will get him over that."

"Funny," mused Coleridge. "Because I could have sworn I'd seen that boy in a uniform once."

"Not Blair," grinned Jim. "The original hippy love child pacifist." He sprinkled more chilli sauce over his noodles. Before the Sentinel thing, he'd had a real taste for things spicy. It'd taken him a while to learn to live with chilli again.

Blair wasn't home. Jim knew that before he opened the door. Maybe the kid was still out sulking, holed up in the university somewhere. Jim had only been teasing, but it had obviously struck a nerve with Sandburg, especially siding with the relief watch to gently mock Blair.

Sandburg was right, it had been wrong to join in with the group mentality and single out the outsider.

But that wasn't enough to set Blair off. He'd put up with much, much worse over the last two years, especially from Jim and Simon in the early days. It had all been like water off a duck's back. Jim had admired that. The kid was so unflappable, so hard to bait, made it a challenge.

It was the shooting yesterday, must be. Thanks to him, Blair had been blooded, taken his first human life. Jim couldn't remember his first, or rather, chose not to.

He'd speak to Simon and arrange some counselling for Blair, voluntary or otherwise. He didn't like to see the kid upset, looking tired and drawn, like he had been when he'd left.

He sat down to think, still impressed with the way Blair had handled himself in a bad situation. He could have been killed. Jim had panicked, Blair had not. He must have really have been paying attention all this time, keeping his cool, reacting to a deteriorating situation with complete professionalism, while the experienced officer fumbled. He couldn't have been trained better.

Jim's flush of pride of pride was pricked by the memory of what Sam had said, about seeing Blair in uniform. No way. It wasn't possible. Blair had been a student all his life, living off grants, odd jobs, research projects, teaching, tutoring and the occasional cash advance from Naomi. Perfect recall of Blair holding the gun intruded. Holding it with a trained familiarity. No fumbling, no doubt as he pulled the trigger. Only concentrated confidence, deliberate placing of the shot.

There was no denying it. For all his protests, Sandburg knew how to handle a gun. Someone, somewhere, had taught him how to shoot. Maybe one of his mother's boyfriends. He'd grown up in some pretty wild locations, including the Middle East, he remembered.

Sam could have sworn he'd seen Sandburg in uniform.

No. No way. Not that retro hippie peacenik. Not Sandburg.

Blair had told him so many stories about his past it was impossible to sort truth from exaggeration from straight out fiction.

He saw Blair holding the gun again.

He didn't know anything about Blair, not really. Only who he was, nothing of who he'd been. He'd never bothered to ask.

He saw Blair holding the gun again.

He'd needed Blair, accepted Blair, brought him deeper into his life than anyone else, ever, with none of his usual checks or balances or caution. He'd let the standard police check for prior arrests for his consultant's pass stand, trusting Blair deeply, intimately. Blair was his guide. He owed his life, his sanity to Blair. He followed his voice without question.

He saw Blair holding the gun again.

He trusted Blair with everything, with his life, to look after him, to watch over him when he lost control. Sure the kid liked to embellish, spin yarns, but he wouldn't lie about this. Not something like this, he was sure of that.

He kept seeing Blair holding the gun.

Blair had never lied to him. Blair had frequently bent, distorted and straight out invented the truth.

Blair said he had never used a gun. Blair clearly knew how to use a gun.

Blair in uniform. Nothing in his background made mention of such training.

Blair, shooting the gun, with ice cold confidence.

He'd ask Blair, straight out, secure in the belief there would be some simple or easy explanation.

Blair would never violate his trust, not on something important. Blair was real to him. Blair was there for him. He trusted him.

He tried to banish the image of the gun discharging in Blair's hand from his mind.

Conflicting thoughts racing and tumbling, he tried to stop them, breathing the way Blair had shown him, closing his eyes, focusing on just one sense, heightening it, letting it take over, expand and fill his consciousness totally.

That's when he heard it.

Jim followed the tiny, barely audible, electrical pneumatic noises. Normal human hearing would not have picked it up, not even Jim's normal range had heard it before. Only with being still and practicing his listening had he been able to pick it up.

He followed the sound to the air vent above the kitchen.

Pulling out the chair, he stood up on it, flicking out his Swiss army knife to open the vent's grill. Pushing it open, he found what he suspected, dreaded. A tiny, tiny surveillance camera no bigger than the smallest optic fibre. He pulled it free, snapping it loose from it's mooring, scrunching it in his fist like so much fishing line. A cursory exam would have missed it. Jim, knowing what he was looking for, had scanned the vent until his keen blue eyes had found it. State of the art. He knew what that meant. Someone had wired his loft professionally.

Temper barely contained, he stepped down, retrieved his small tool box from beneath the sink and began the slow, tedious process of sweeping the loft for bugs, removing them where he found them, rage boiling over. His mind raced over any and all the tradesmen he'd had in over the last year or so, any time he could remember coming home and finding things out of place. Of course, in the two years since Blair had moved in, that was almost impossible.

The loft looked like it had been vandalised. Light fittings, powerpoints all ripped open and trailing wires, stuffing torn out of furniture, sidings stripped from walls, floorboards prised up, the TV, stereo and VCR in pieces.

He'd collected an impressive pile of very expensive equipment on the kitchen table by the time Blair had let himself in, home late from an evening class.

"...stopped off at the library, did you get anything to eat, hey, what's going on?" he asked, the conversation he'd apparently started while still in the corridor came to a complete stop.

"Someone's been spying on me," Jim snapped, pulling a wire angrily from the wall, not at all concerned with the plaster and paint chips flying around him.

"Shit - my room - my notes!" Blair ducked into his bedroom. Jim heard Blair's laptop and modem startup, but couldn't care less, too involved in stripping every last wire out of his walls.

Jim cracked open the clock radio like an egg, sifting through the electronics before discarding it. He picked up another lamp and smashed it down onto the floor.

"Jim, stop," Blair pleaded.

Ellison spun, to see Blair holding a gun on him.

"Sandburg?" he demanded, and took a step towards his lover.

Blair shook his head sadly and fired two shots, then another.

Jim clutched in shock and disbelief at the darts that struck him in perfect grouping upon his chest, over his heart.

The drug was fast acting. Unable to form a coherent curse or question, he sank to his knees and passed out.

Blair sank down on the floor crosslegged, placing the gun carefully on the wooden slats away from him, cradling Jim's head gently in his lap, stroking the short brown hair tenderly as he waited.

Cold air, stale. Air conditioning. Chemicals. Industrial strength disinfectants. Floor polish. The soft buzz of a fluorescent light over the roar of the ventilation . The rustle of clothes, the squeak of rubber soled shoes. Hushed voices talking, softly, distant. The high pitched chirp of computer monitors. A hospital. He was in a hospital. Some sort of accident, must be. Couldn't remember. Just Blair, calling out something, pain in his chest. A gun. There was a gun. A gun, in Blair's hand. No, must be remembering it wrong. His heart caught a beat. A familiar voice, but the tone, syntax was wrong. The scent was all wrong; nicotine, gum, synthetics.

"He's awake. Playing possum. I'll take it from here."

"Your involvement in this assignment is over, Captain. You were pulled because it was believed you were getting too confused, your resistance to further intensive..."

"Intrusive."

"Study has been duly noted. This subject offers an opportunity for unique study. You've done your job. Let us do ours."

"I'm still the agent in charge of this case, until formally notified otherwise. This is still my subject. He trusts me, we have a working relationship."

"You sure about that?" laughed the other voice, as footsteps retreated.

The familiar footsteps dragged up a chair and sank into it.

"You can open your eyes now, Jim. It's just me."

Jim blinked. Square, dull, flat grey room. Military. He tried to move, but couldn't. He was strapped down. He twisted his head around to see Blair, and found a stranger. The long hair was gone, as were the earrings. The casual clothes replaced by a regulation dark suit and tie. The very image of a government man.

Jim watched as Blair extracted a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, tapped one out and slid it between his lips.

"Mind if I smoke?" he asked, lighting up anyway. "Technically, it's a non smoking area, but I've had a two year craving that just won't quit."

"Blair..." he whispered, voice unnaturally hoarse, as though he'd been screaming.

Anger and horror crossed the young man's face, reflecting his own.

"What happened?" he croaked.

"You really don't know? The Sentinel Project, Phase Two."

Reality bit down hard. Flight or fight warred with his senses, everything tilted. Trapped. Like a rat in a cage.

"How stupid could you be," the stranger with Sandburg's face sneered. "You thought the idea of talk shows were a joke. Didn't you ever consider that the government would take an interest."

"This isn't interest. This is a violation of my civil rights."

"You're down as a volunteer in this project."

Jim shut his eyes for a moment, fighting off the wave of panic. Trapped in this government sanctioned hellish inquisition. Betrayed by the person he most trusted.

"Don't do this," he pleaded in a quiet voice.

Sandburg looked stricken, turning away for a second. "I can't help you. It's all out of my hands."

"Blair..."

The eyes returned, hard, fierce. "I'm not Blair!" he screamed.

"I always thought you'd look better with short hair. I was wrong."

The words were calculated to sting.

The young man stood up angrily.

"Get on the clue bus, Ellison. There is no Blair Sandburg. He doesn't exist. Never existed. A work of fiction."

"Who..." Jim started weakly.

"That's a need to know basis only, buddy. And you don't need to know zip. Ditto the where. As to why - do you really think the military would let someone with your talents slip through their fingers? We've been watching you for years, Ellison. Since Vietnam they've been testing soldiers for certain heightened senses. You cleaned the board. Exceeded expectations. Especially during that little sojourn in Peru. Then you locked down again. We waited. Then we got the call."

"Simon..."he murmured. Simon must have tipped them off, the only one who'd known, who he'd told. Then Blair, no, Blair Not Blair had shown up, so insistent, so conveniently, knowing everything. Simon approving his partnership with a civilian, just like that. Blair Not Blair's apartment blowing up, so he had to move in. The whole damn thing like a military operation; was a military operation. And he'd missed it. He was a Sentinel, yet he'd been blind to it all.

"Get out," he rasped.

Blair Not Blair bristled.

"I don't think you're in any position to be giving orders, Jimbo."

"Get out!" Jim screamed.

The man with Blair's face just took another pull on his cigarette.

"Come on Jim, don't play at being so naive. Your father was an army man, as was his. You've read about army personnel being used as a test control population, Gulf War Syndrome and all that. Do you really think no one in the military knew about your abilities? We knew before you did, Jimbo. Your exhaustive debriefing, all those medical tests after you were pulled out of Peru; don't tell me you weren't the least bit suspicious over the level and intensity of the scrutiny you endured then. Unfortunately, it's going to be nothing compared to now.

"Field testing is over, my friend. Sadly, for you, the scientific method requires that our tests be repeatable under controlled, laboratory conditions, before theories can be considered proven."

Jim just looked at him with dead horror, suddenly drawn to movement, eyes widening as the man he knew as Brackett popped his head round the door.

"Morrison, briefing at 1900."

The man who had been Blair stood up, dropped his cigarette to the floor and ground it out, while straightening his suit.

"Don't look so surprised, Ellison. Brackett's been my supervisor for this whole assignment. The test was his idea. You surpassed everyone's expectations on that particular little run through. The men in suits were very pleased."

"You bastard," Jim hissed. He thought back to the bridge, like a chessboard. His whole life had been a chess game. And he was the pawn. Check, and mate.

"Get out of here!" he cried.

His face tore and creased, he doubled over, hands clutching at his ears, mouthing screams silent through the glass, as a white cloaked, industrial headphoned, clip board carrying observer calmly ticked off a response to the high frequency squeal vibrating through the room.

Blair turned away, holding his breath, holding his lunch.

"These tests are inhuman! You're torturing him! Killing him. He's not a test subject. He's a human being, a person."

"Letting personal feelings get in the way of science, Captain?"

"This is wrong. It proves nothing. You've destroyed all the work we've done. He'd learnt to control, fine tune his senses. This constant onslaught - he's shutting down, his responses have dropped significantly, almost below normal. This isn't science. This is sadism. We could have collected more data in the field, all the data you needed."

"But not under controlled conditions. This is science, Captain. This is method." MacRoberston turned on him. "Tell me, what particular theory were you working on by sleeping with him, I wonder?"

"You wanted samples of seminal fluid."

"An ingenious collection method."

"It's standard. You know that," Blair shot back, rising to the bait.

"A little defensive are we? Your emotional involvement in this project has been noted. That's why you were pulled. It was felt you were no longer being objective."

Blair could have killed him in three seconds, but saved himself the court martial.

"We have to learn if your fantastic claims regarding the subject are true. Your theories can only be tested by observed, repeatable methods under controlled conditions."

"These aren't tests, this is torture. Locking him in a room and bombarding him with high frequency sounds is only going to deafen him and send him insane, and then he won't be of any use to you."

"He won't be any use if we can't replicate the conditions that brought out his 'sentinel abilities' as they're quaintly called, or test them for possible military application."

Blair realised he was the lone voice of conscience against a huge research and development project.

The room was a prison of fluorescent light. Four sturdy orderlies held down his arms and legs, while his head was held back, his mouth prised open and a tube forced down his throat. He struggled violently, body bucking under them, his screams gagging and choking.

"You don't have to do it this way," Blair tried to plead, pulling on the doctor's arm to stop. Two orderlies tried to drag him away.

"No! Don't!" he tried to pull free, and was slammed hard into a wall for his trouble, left to lie on the floor as Jim suffered the indignity of being force fed, then sedated.

"You've got to get rid of Morrison. He's disruptive to the project, and the subject seems to resent his presence rather than finding it conducive to cooperation."

"Agreed," nodded the second shadowy clipboard man, glancing again at the monitors.

Cold. Wet. The ice chip danced around his lips, dripped onto them. He opened his lips slightly, to lick at the water drops. Thirsty. The tip of his tongue brushed against skin. Blair. Not Blair.

The touch surged heat through both their loins for a moment, before the touch withdrew, both remembering, regretting.

Blair carefully placed another ice chip on Jim's lips, letting him swallow it.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked, finding voice.

"You know the military wants to study you, man," Blair offered, sounding so achingly like his old self.

"No. This. You almost made me think you care."

Blair looked away.

"You look awful, Jim. With what they're doing to you, hurting you, forcing you to eat with the tubes. Why won't you eat?"

It was Jim's turn to look away.

"I'd rather die than live like this."

Blair leant close.

"Don't say that."

"It's true."

"Come on, Jim. You survived Peru. You can survive this."

"There was a chance I might have gotten out of Peru." He turned his head to regard his visitor with contempt.

"What do you care, anyway. I don't even know you."

Blair glanced around, knowing full well the room was wired enough to know what he'd had for breakfast almost as well as Jim could.

"Fine. You want name rank and serial number? Grant Morrison. Captain. 7143457."

Jim chewed on this for a while.

"Not even Jewish?"

Blair shrugged.

"They bob you for this job or what?"

"The majority of boys born in the sixties and seventies were bobbed, as you put it."

"Naomi?"

"Another agent."

"You parents must be so proud."

"I wouldn't know. I never knew them. I was a state ward. I joined up to pay for my college degree."

"Your patriotism does you credit." Jim sniped back. "Not even in anthropology, I'll bet."

"Medicine, actually. Though with all the research and study I've put into this project, I feel like I've earned the phoney degree."

Project was the wrong word, raising Ellison's hostility to palpable levels.

"I was only following orders."

"I'm sure." Jim seethed bitterness, the Nuremberg defence hardly covering the raw betrayal he felt.

Blair sank back in his seat, unable to explain where his orders began and ended, where his feelings for Jim began and ended, where he began and ended.

"When we first met, you called me a monster."

"I didn't mean it."

"Yeah, right."

Ellison turned his face away.

Blair poured himself a large scotch and settled down, popping in a tape marked only by a date and camera location. He'd forgotten about the camera in the TV. Sometimes he'd forgotten about the cameras all together.

The monkey had trashed Jim's loft. Yeah, sure. A team of several technically proficient monkey's in grey overalls.

Odd to see himself on his TV screen, but he was only watching Jim. Jim, eyes shining, full of playful affection, teasing and tickling as he tried to watch the movie, seducing him touch by touch...

The screen went black, Blair unable to watch anymore. He took another swallow of the scotch and steadied his breathing. What did it matter, how he felt. Jim had loved Blair Sandburg, and Blair Sandburg didn't exist.

But neither did Grant Morrison. Not for six years. He had no home, no possessions to speak of, other than a small box in storage. He'd lived Blair so long, he couldn't remember his own tastes in music, or food, what were his own likes, what he'd brought to Blair, what he'd created. He'd started to think of himself as Blair, dreamt he could live as Blair, with Jim, forever.

Then they'd called him back. Because he wanted to be Blair.

Jim woke with a start, a second before he hit the ground in a metal tearing, flesh rending crash. He was sweating, heart racing, lost. Then he remembered, heart sinking. Stale, conditioned air, paint, disinfectant, the hum of computer monitors droning on, to keep him company through the night. A lone tear escaped as he remembered the warm comfort of Blair's breath, Blair's heartbeat, Blair's skin, Blair's scent, his hair spread out on the pillow; just lying there, every rise and fall of the chest, fascinated, because he loved him.

Blair poured himself another scotch with a shaking hand and tried to forget. Tried to numb himself enough so that when he fell asleep he didn't dream of a big black panther clawing at him. Numbing himself so that he didn't ache for Jim's touch, Jim's smile. Numb the pain of being so close, and seeing only dull resentment in those eyes, the eyes of a man he had once friend, lover. It had been a lie, all of it, from the start.

Then why did he feel this way. Why did he feel so bad. Why couldn't he just let Jim go, walk away. Why did it feel so wrong, deep in his soul, that is, if he still had one. Why did he feel like a wire between them was stretched taunt, pulling at him, bleeding, breaking.

Blair spoke to him softly, drawing him into a state of relaxation. Almost unconsciously, his hands touched and retouched Jim in gentle strokes. Jim found himself focussing less on the voice and more and more upon the hands that touched him, until the sensation of warm skin brushing over his became his universe. Blair's fingertips sliding over his brow, his soft breath as he exhaled.

He was lying on the couch, head resting in a warm, denim lap, eyes closed, trying to slow his breathing as soft, gentle fingers soothed his shoulders and neck, straying over his scalp. Blair's touch., skimming over his skin, his breath, soft words floating over him, the electric brush of fingertips over his hair.

He gasped and came with the most soul shaking, shuddering orgasm of his life. His eyes opened wide, sitting up sharply, startling Blair.

"Jim?" he started.

Jim pushed his concern away with his hand, half turning from him, then swinging back just as suddenly, pressing Blair against the couch with a fierce kiss, hands grabbing tight fists of springy hair.

No resistance. The mouth opened under his; hot, liquid. He dived into that slick, wet universe, drowning as another pulse speared through him.

Blair climbed up for air.

"Touch me," Jim pleaded, and Blair guessed at what had happened. His hands traced lines down the broad back, making Jim tremble, pressing his body closer.

"This feel good?" Blair purred, hand sliding down Jim's chest, abdomen, to brush across damp swelling.

Jim arched up against him in a shocked gasp, coming again. Hungry, desperate for more, he caught Blair in a savage kiss again, pressing, rubbing against him, all but straddling him on the couch. Blair pulled him in tight, stroking down the strong back, Jim's tongue delving deeper in reply to every touch. Blair grabbed his arse and squeezed, causing Jim to choke and come again. Every touch, breath brushing across his cheek, fingertips stroking across skin, brought him trembling over the edge. He was lost in a multi-orgasmic swirl of sensation; and couldn't give a damn about stopping. Every sense focused on Sandburg; his heat, his breath, his heart beat, the feel of his skin, tongue lapping across faintly stubbled jawline, the faint smell of soap, the wet velvet heat of his mouth, his musk.

The beat of Blair's heart quickened, his pulse warm under Jim's fingers. Jim slid his fingers down, eliciting a strangled moan from Blair, locked in his arms. He stroked along the hardened length. Blair gasped again, rising up. Smiling, as his lips and tongue explored metal earrings, soft earlobes, he rubbed gently.

Sandburg made a choking little hiccup noise against his throat, and he felt a wet warmth spreading beneath his hand. Sandburg's musk was an intoxicant, as much as his voice, his hands, his eyes.

"More?" Sandburg asked, breathlessly.

Jim nodded tightly, eyes squeezed shut, breathing hard.

Blair kissed that mouth.

Jim was rolling in his senses, awash and drowning in Blair, knowing nothing but that it was the best, purest pleasure he'd ever known. His own hands snaked over Blair, pulling soft groans deep against him.

"Don't stop. Please, fuck me," Blair begged, giving voice to his desires.

Jim pulled away clothes, too eager, too fast, like a kid under the tree at Christmas. Riding their passion like a rollercoaster they clung together, screaming, Blair hot, pulsing, engulfing him; riding, rocking, exploding.

He rested a cheek against a sweat sheened back, kissing a bare shoulder blade, then lay flat on his back, staring up at the skylight.

"Oh, shit," he groaned.

Blair rolled over, relieved to see the dazed and blissed out smile on Ellison's face.

"That was..." he couldn't find the words.

"Outstanding? Intense?" Blair suggested helpfully.

"Yeah," he admitted. A wicked smile twisted his lips.

"Can we do that again?"

"Anytime," Blair promised, leaning down, almost laughing at the way Ellison squirmed beneath his hair which brushed in maddening soft carrsess upon his skin.

"You look like you're tripping," Blair teased, seeing Jim's eyes start to dilate, the first sign of a zone out.

"Then guide me," Jim teased back softly.

Blair reached out to lightly stroke that face, still amused at the shivers and jolts his touch caused as his fingers trailed southwards.

"Everything still tingly?" he asked.

Jim nodded. "You were hoping that would happen, weren't you," he accused softly.

Blair grinned. "What can I say, Jim. You make me hard."

"Me, or all the money you're going to make on the talk show circuit."

"You." Blair chuckled.

"Is it always going to be like that?" Jim had to ask, breathlessly.

"I don't know. Maybe." He bent to kiss the inviting mouth, hair brushing over rapidly rising and falling muscular chest.

Jim groaned and rolled Blair underneath him, grinning as he dipped down to kiss him.

Blair reached down and pulled free the latex, earning further guttural groans from Jim.

"So, you comfortable, Sandburg?"

"Why, you going to stay on top of me all night?"

"Yeah," Jim smiled, eyes bright.

He snuggled down on top of Blair on the rug, still tingly; every scent, every sound a turn on. He reached out to touch his skin.

Cold emptiness. He woke again to the dark room, damp sheets and a fading erection, the first he'd had in weeks. There was no sound of Blair next to him to comfort him. No breath, no heartbeat, no warmth.

He missed that heartbeat. Closing his eyes, he concentrated, reaching out, until he found it, separated it from all other sounds like a beloved, treasured thing, the sound of Blair's heartbeat, faintly distant, but there. He breathed deep, taking comfort in the rhythm. He breath caught, remembering.

The beat strained, quickening.

Blair wrung out the scotch bottle, trying to block the sudden feeling of loss puling at him. Memories, feelings that weren't his, weren't anybody's. He could almost feel Jim's ghostly touch against his skin. He tried to shrug it off. Too much damn alcohol, or not enough.

Jim. The pangs of loss were real; invisible wounds that bled tears. He shivered, suddenly cold inside himself, empty like a black hole, falling, distraught with self loathing, lust, loss, longing and loneliness.

He could almost feel Jim, reaching out to him, whispering to him with soundless visions, invisible touches. Blair tried to brush the feeling away, shake it off, but it wouldn't go. Soft touches, reminding him of Jim, flooded his senses. He was delirious, must be. The yearning tore him up; shredded him. He smashed the empty bottle against the wall, the fragments scattering, beautiful and deadly, about him.

Blair crumpled in on himself, crying.

The quiet sobs echoed back at him, and Jim turned away, not wanting to listen anymore.

It had only ever been like that with Blair. No one else came close.

No one could ever share the connection they had, guide and protector, a bond that had seemed so real.

He steeled himself to his own sadness.

The room was quiet, cold and solitary. He missed the comfort of his companion, more than he thought possible.

Yet he could not forgive him.

It was morning and Jim woke, not surprised to find the same strange young man in his room as always, this time no longer watching over him, but through the cloudy, barred window, arms folded protectively over his chest, slouching slightly under a great invisible weight.

"Grant," he called softly. No response. "Grant," he tried again. "Blair," he finally resorted to.

At last the sullen young man turned around. He'd lived as Blair Sandburg so fully, so completely, to defeat Jim's inbuilt lie detector, that he no longer remembered who he really was.

"Thought you'd zoned on me, for a moment, Chief," he teased quietly.

For a moment, the old easiness was there between them, binding them. Simultaneously, they both remembered and the bond grew brittle, breaking between them, til only cold, sharp shards lay between them.

"Why are you still here," Jim asked at last.

"I'm still observing the project."

"They don't want you here, you know."

So Jim had overheard the scuttlebutt.

"Well, they're stuck with me. So are you. I've put six years of my life into this project. Nobody knows you, what you can do, as well as I do. No way in hell am I going to let them pull me off it now."

"Bully for you." Jim's voice was wholly sarcastic.

It drew Blair up short, reminded him that Ellison was no longer his friend. Ellison no longer cared.

He couldn't quite hide the hurt in his features.

Jim could see the sting of his barbs written clearly in the young man's eyes. Part of him wanted to say he was sorry, that he could never hurt Blair. Part of him wanted to hold him, love him. Another part wanted to slam him to the floor and kill him, not very neatly, with his own hands.

Blair read all of it in Ellison's eyes and turned away again, despondent.

Blair watched and waited as two orderlies put Ellison in a wheelchair.

Ellison was more than gaunt. He'd lost nearly half his body weight, starving himself to death.

Blair glanced away for a moment, as the orderlies arranged Jim in the wheelchair, unable to view the sight of the body he'd once worshipped at reduced to skin sagging over skeleton. It tore his heart out and ripped it to shreds.

"You can leave him to me. I can handle him. He's in no state to tackle a two year old."

He took charge of the wheelchair and steered him down the corridor.

"What's going on?" Ellison demanded.

"Take it easy and work with me and you may just survive this," Blair warned under his breath.

"I'm not doing anyhing until you tell me what's going on."

Blair paused for a second, gathering strength.

"Okay. Since they brought you here, your test scores have been dropping off the scale, down so low you've all but lost your sentinel abilities, the lowest scores you've ever had. In light of this, they're thinking that maybe I was right, and rigorous testing in labs isn't the way to go. You need a more natural environment, more paced tests of your abilities. You've got two weeks off to get your strength back."

"And I have you to thank for this?"

"No. They don't listen to me. I'm nothing more than the agent previously assigned to your case. My personal involvement is a matter for review and possible disciplinary action."

They pushed through the doors, emerging into the mid may sunlight.

Jim groaned, shielding his eyes.

Blair handed him a pair of sunglasses from his pocket.

"Thought that might happen."

The air was fresh, sweeter, alive with pollen, perfumes, the sharp scent of freshly cut lawns.

"Why are you doing this?" Jim had to know.

"They think I might be able to get results from you where they can't."

"No. I mean, why do you try to be nice to me?"

A sick little laugh caught in his throat.

"You don't know, Jim? You think I'm the cold hearted bastard I wish I could be? That I could wash my hands of you and walk away? I can't."

"You handed me over to a bunch of mad scientists. I'm not someone's science project. Not yours. Not theirs."

"It's beyond my control, it always was. I was just there to observe and report."

"And betray me." The words were cold and sharp, and cut deep.

"They were going to bring you in, Jim, one way or the other. I tried to make it as gentle as possible."

"Gentle, right," he snarled.

"What else could I do?"

"Yeah. You were only following orders. Don't give me that crap."

"And you've never followed orders, orders that made you sick to your soul?" Blair fought back, pushing the chair ahead in angry shoves, with half a mind to let it roll down the hill and slam into the trees.

"They gave me no choice. I had to betray you. It was a betrayal the moment I met you. But if you could look past yourself for one fucking minute, you'd see you weren't the only person betrayed."

"Who else did you screw over?" Jim sneered.

"Blair Sandburg," came the quiet, small voice. "He adored you."

Jim fell silent, as did the wheels of the chair, Blair no longer having the strength to push him.

A single drop of water splashed down onto his cheek. He glanced up at the sky. No clouds, no birds, no air conditioners. He could smell, feel, the salt drying on his face. A tear. Blair was crying.

"How did we come to this?"

Jim's cheek brushed against his hand. He thought for a moment it was an accident, but the touch continued. Blair reached down to place a hand on his shoulder, but Jim carefully shrugged him off.

"No. It can never be the same between us."

"I care about you. I can't stop caring about you." The words were torn from his throat.

"I know," Jim offered quietly. He'd overheard Blair being discussed by his superiors; Blair's misguided emotional attachment to his subject being frowned upon. As much as he wanted to hate Blair, he'd learned he'd owed an extra year of liberty, the honing of his skills, his control, all to Blair. Blair had tried to do what was right in a no win situation. Jim had been there, done things he'd rather not recall, things he shut away as the work of another person. He understood why Blair had done it. He tried not to hate him. But the personal betrayal, the lover who had lied; he could not forgive him.

"Help me up," Jim asked, angry, frustrated to be reduced in a matter of weeks to an invalid.

Blair leant in close, his arms wrapping around that warm body, feeling ribs, lifting him up.

Jim's arms closed around him tight, head bowing, mouth locking onto Blair's.

The world spun around them as Jim held him, kissed him, hard, hungry, unforgiving, angry, passionate.

Cold metal prodded at his heart.

His gun. He hadn't even felt Jim lift it. He stepped back.

"Don't do this," he pleaded. "You'll never get out of here."

"They'll never set me free."

"Jim, we can get through this. Just put the gun down, okay?"

"No dice, Darwin." Jim held the gun up more firmly, safety off, ready to fire.

He saw Blair's eyes track movement behind him, could see the reflection in his eyes, riflemen back on the roof, snipers behind him, almost hidden in the trees.

"See you in the next life, Chief," he promised, raising the gun to Blair's forehead, ready to pull the trigger.

"No, Jim, don't, please," Blair held out his hand. "Just give me the gun. I'll try and get you out, please, trust me."

"Trust you?!" Jim snarled, bitterly sarcastic. His hand tightened on the gun.

"No! Don't shoot!" Blair screamed.

The shot cracked through the air. Hot red blood splattered across his face.

He rocked backwards, a scream of anguish on his lips.

Blair placed his gun and ID down carefully, deliberately, on the desk before him.

His supervisor flicked his eyes over the young man before him, noting with distaste the tousled hair, the pierced ears, the casual clothes, trying to equate it with the bright young soldier he remembered. The eyes, they were dead eyes. The kid had gone too deep, been confused, turned around. A more textbook case of Stockholm Syndrome he' never seen. Morrison had become subjective, rather than objective. He'd let himself become overly sympathetic towards his subject matter, identifying with him, imagining himself to have been in love with him. The kid needed counselling, not isolation.

"Are you sure, Morrison? You're throwing your career away. Do you know what you're losing here?"

"I know what I've lost, Sir," Blair answered flatly. His career was screwed, he knew that. He'd be stuck in administration. He didn't need that. He needed to...he didn't know what he needed...just the need to get away from all this. He couldn't go back to what was, just like that. Not just like that. He'd lived and breathed Blair Sandburg for so long, Blair was part of him, he was part of Blair. He couldn't separate it, he didn't want to. He couldn't remember anymore where he ended, and Blair began. He didn't know who he was. All he did know was that he'd betrayed Jim, and he knew that stain on his soul would never fade or heal.

"Resignation is not the only answer." Rowntree looked from the ID on the desk to the young man before him."

"There will be an investigation, but your record until now has been exemplary."

"Sir, the subject Ellison removed my gun and was shot and killed while holding that gun, Sir."

"Thank you, I've read your report. Very to the point. However, this project represented a considerable investment, questions will have to be asked, an investigation into what transpired, and what, if anything, is salvageable out of this mess will be required. Captain, " his voice softened. "I am aware of your confusion regarding your loyalties in this case. You were in the field for two years, you earned the trust of the subject. You feel your orders conflicted with your assessment of the situation. It was not for you to authorise how this project was undertaken, nor its outcome. You were only to observe and record the subject. You should remember that your relationship with Ellison was a fabrication, nothing more."

"Yes, Sir," he answered, biting down all the chaotic feelings that raged inside him. Resentment, betrayal, guilt, grief, loss, longing.

"Don't throw your career away on this, Captain. It's not worth it."

Blair's eyes hardened.

"With all due respect, Sir, I feel I lack the stomach for this kind of work."

"If that is how you feel, Captain, then I accept your resignation."

Blair just stared down at the ID and gun that had cost him, lost him everything.

He pushed open the door to Jim's loft, entered and let the door fall closed behind him.

Driving around the city for hours, he'd realised that he had no where else to go, nowhere else he'd rather be.

It was exactly they way they'd left it; a shambles, torn open and torn apart.

But there was still Jim here. Things he'd owned, things he'd touched. In the bedroom, his scent was strongest. Blair curled up on the bed, hugging himself, breathing deep the scent from the pillows, the sheets. Just a faint reminder. The room was empty. Jim wasn't here anymore. The darkened room echoed with the sobs that wrenched themselves free. Memories of the flag draped coffin still haunted him, the crack of the rifle salute over the hole in the ground shattering his soul, his broken heart bleeding into the freshly turned ground, almost fainting with the loss as the polished wooden box descended into the earth. Remembering, as raw as rape, screaming til his throat bled, holding Jim in his arms, feeling his heart beat falter and fail beneath his fingertips. Sharp. Someone had stabbed him with something, too groggy to stop them from pulling Jim's body away from him, descending into darkness. By the time he'd woken, it had been all over.

Eyes blinded with tears, he slid Jim's police revolver across the sheets towards him, cradling it as he brought the barrel up to rest against his temple. Taking a gulping breath to steady his hand, he looked up at the ceiling, suddenly calm as he pulled the trigger.

In the shadowed corner of an intensive care unit in an unnamed military hospital flat lines wavered and grew into peaks and valleys. Blue eyes opened, pupils contracting, a breath tried to escape lips.

"Blair..."

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