Work Text:
DISCLAIMER: You know, if I owned Jim and Blair, I might see fit not to put them through hell all the time... On the other hand, since UPN and Pet Fly own them, I can pretty much put them through all the hell I want--as long as I give them back (g).
RATING: kinda NC-17ish
NOTES: Not *too* melancholy...
SERIES NOTE: This is the second story of the Keep Dreaming series--the first one being JUST SOMEONE--but I've kind of decided that, the way I'm writing them, they don't need to be read in a particular order.
WRITTEN: June 30, 1997
Phantom Limbs
by Dean Warner
Blair slouched tiredly into the loft. Why did the days seem so much longer when he spent them at the University? At least on those days, he didn't have to play two roles--professor *and* Guide. He should find the simplicity liberating, shouldn't he?
Fat chance, he told himself bitterly, heading for the fridge as he dropped his coat on the kitchen table. He could do that today. Jim wouldn't be back until tomorrow night, and it should feel good to be free of that anal streak...
"Okay, Sandburg," he groused to himself, pulling out a beer as he headed for the couch. "Grow up, would you? Crushes are for teenagers."
The television only annoyed him, and he was too bone-weary to hunt up a video. He wanted to just wallow for a while. Actually, he'd been wanting to do that for some time. But Jim didn't need to deal with that, he thought coldly.
And if Jim asked him why the hell he was so melancholy anyway...? Well, Blair didn't need to deal with finding a new place to live in the middle of the semester.
With Jim gone for a couple of days, Blair figured he could just have himself a good wallow now--plenty of time to perk back up so he could play "Jim Ellison's faithful sidekick" again when his partner came back. It was all he was ever going to be to the man. Might as well play the part well.
The thought made him slightly angry, so he ignored it. He didn't want to be angry, he wanted to be sad. So, like a man turning off a switch, Blair let his anger float away.
Music, he thought suddenly. That was what he needed. Something depressing... something cold... Something that sounded like he felt when he thought of those words he couldn't say, those arms that would never hold him, that body that would never claim him.
Something... tragic.
He took another swig of beer, mind and body rebelling as one.
Nah, fuck it. Something *erotic*!
He walked quietly into his room and grabbed a CD, returning to the living room to take advantage of the better sound system. As he dropped the disc in, and cycled it to his favourite song, he lay back on the couch and tried not to drown in the images, as he thought of his partner.
He thought of the way Jim's face lit up when he smiled, of the strength in that gorgeous neck, of the power in that voice... The music swelled, falling into a deep, thrusting rhythm that made Blair ache for even the phantom feel of Jim's hands.
Unconsciously, Blair found himself bucking slowly in time with the music, his hips rocking seductively as he unbuttoned his jeans and slid them slowly down his legs.
What would you do if you saw me like this, Jim? he asked silently. If you saw me being so sexy and so brazen. Would you want to fuck me?
He ignored the voice in his head that laughed at him. This was *his* fantasy, and he'd welcome that voice to take a flying leap.
"Would you want me?"
He whispered it now, giving himself over, just for the night, to a waking dream that he had never been allowed to have before. The music ground on, as he slipped his boxer shorts off, kicking them to the floor to join his jeans.
"Would you want to touch me, Jim?" he whispered, running two sensitive fingers down his cock, while his other hand slipped under his shirt to tug and twist at his nipple ring. "Would you want to take me in your mouth? Suck me off?" His hand grasped his cock lightly, and he began a slow ascent, always in time with the music, always in counterpoint to his heart.
"And if I wouldn't let you, Jim?" he teased his phantom. "You'd just have to watch me, just stand above me as I pumped... and pumped..."
I wish I could do this for you, Jim, he dreamt silently, letting the sound of music and sliding flesh envelop him. I *want* to do this for you... I know you'd never let me, but I *want* it...
He gave himself to it entirely, closing his eyes as he let his mind feel Jim's hand on his cock, Jim's mouth at his chest... Jim, pumping him and pumping him, forcing him right to the edge, making him beg for release, beg for embrace, beg for--
"JIM!"
Blair sat up quietly, staring at the moonlight, as the clock told him he had slept most of the night away. He looked around him, still smelling his fantasy, still feeling that wonderful heaviness of limb...
Still feeling Jim's phantom.
"Back to reality, Blair," he gritted, pulling himself from the couch. Shit. He could probably clean that all day, and Jim would still smell it. He'd just use that horrible spray Jim loved so much--at least that would keep the Sentinel's senses occupied, right?
"How can you possibly love a guy who is *that* anal, Blair?" he asked himself as he headed for the bathroom.
He showered thoroughly, beginning to regret his actions from the evening before. God, was he really reduced to this? Was he reduced to simply chugging down a beer and then playing with himself to some Nine Inch Nails song while he tried to pretend that it was Jim who was getting him off?
"Blair," he told his reflection sternly, as he shaved. "You really have lost it... It's time you found someone who *wants* you."
*Even if it is just somebody.*
Jim came home in a better mood than he'd thought he would. The three-day stakeout had yielded a clean bust, and he had a day off now to just relax.
And wouldn't it be nice if I had someone to relax *with*? he asked himself silently as he pushed open the door.
The smell of cleanser reached him, and he balked at it. Blair? *Cleaning*?
"Hey, Sandburg!"
Even as he spoke the words, he knew that Blair wasn't home. He looked around as he hung up his coat, spying a letter on the kitchen table:
Jim--
Meeting a friend for dinner. May not be home tonight. See you tomorrow,
Blair
Jim took a deep breath, irritated as much by Blair's note as by the cleanser's power. "A friend," he groused quietly, moving to the kitchen and pouring a glass of juice from the fridge. "A *girl*friend, I bet."
He sat on the couch sadly. All alone, Jim-Boy, he moaned to himself. All alone, and no one to blow...
As he sighed, his nose finally identified the underlying scent that had set him on edge.
"Oh, man..."
*That* was the smell! Beneath the cleanser, beneath the air freshener... Blair... Blair and musk...
His roommate had obviously found "somebody".
God, why do you put yourself through this, Jimmy? Why do you sit here, day after day, watching that kid as he sticks by you through *everything*! He's been drugged, kidnapped, shot... Jesus, he's your best friend and you sit around here wishing that *you* were the one he'd been fucking on this couch!
No, he realized soberly. No, it was more than that. He didn't just want a quick fuck--if he had, maybe he might have had it already. Maybe Blair wasn't "into" guys, but he was surely open-minded enough to be talked into it... Just once.
No. Not a quick fuck. What he wanted was that special someone...
What he wanted was Blair.
"Damnit, Ellison," he growled angrily. "How could you possibly fall in love with someone so..."
So what? his mind taunted. So young? So wild? So different? You didn't actually think you ever had a chance with him, did you, Jimmy? Blair Sandburg, babe-magnet? How the hell could you have thought he would ever go for an old stick like you?
He shook his head as the sky dimmed outside, pulling himself to his feet and heading up to his room. No joy in Mudville tonight, Jim-Boy, he sighed inwardly, knowing that, once more, the only dream he'd have tonight was that of Blair in his arms, a phantom lover in the form of a friend.
A friend he could never have.
No joy in Mudville.
No joy in Mudville at all...
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