Work Text:
A Matter of Taste
by Brighid
Author's disclaimer: This is not for profit, but for love. They belong to Pet Fly, and a host of others who don't love 'em nearly enough.
what possessed me. This is for Dawn. = )
A Matter of Taste
By Brighid
All things being equal, it wasn't a bad date; it wasn't a particularly good date, either, but not bad. Food was good, the club okay, if loud, and Sharon...Sharon was nice. Tall, attractive, not a redhead, which is something I've finally started to clue-in to. I think, had I wanted to, I could have stayed with her tonight.
I just didn't want it; at least, I didn't want it that much.
I mean, yeah, I could have managed it, but I didn't feel like managing, you know? That sort of thing isn't supposed to be about managing, it's supposed to be more than that. So I just stopped things before they got far enough to be insulting, told her I had a lot to do the next day, early, and begged off.
And it's true, I do have a lot to do. We're fixing the showerhead and upgrading my computer and then Sandburg and I are going to the Price Cutters Warehouse to stock up on a few things. I've learned that if I don't ride herd on his ass, he buys freaky things by the caseload. I mean, who the hell eats pickled eels in the first place?
So instead of 'managing' with Sharon, I'm back at home. Sandburg's already here, watching something on cable, eating popcorn and drinking that dandelion soda he picked up at the alternative market by the U. I go to the fridge, get myself a plain, old-fashioned cola and then wander over to join him on the couch. It occurs to me that we've been doing this a lot, lately. It also occurs to me that there's a reason for it, but we're not quite there yet, either of us, so I don't say a word and neither does he.
I pop my Coke and settle in next to him, reaching for the popcorn. "So, what are we watching?"
He glances at me sideways, and moves the popcorn bowl to the other side of himself, away from me. I shrug, reach over him easily and snag a handful. Height and reach are two of the few advantages I have over the guy, and I'm not averse to using them from time to time. If I didn't, I suspect he'd run circles around me. "We're watching 'Last Tango in Paris'," he says, smacking half-heartedly at my hand, but he's smiling, too.
I cough on a kernel and it takes some serious backslapping and a quarter of the can of Coke to clear it. "For chrissakes, why?" I manage at last.
"Because it's a cult classic of erotic film, I've never seen it, and it beats the hell out of pretty much everything else on," he explains. "Now shut-up or take off." He grins at me, to take the sting out, but he's serious.
I shut-up, settle in, and we watch the movie. I've seen it before and I've got to admit it left me cold. The acting is so-so, the situation is real enough to be uncomfortably embarrassing but not engrossing, and the sex is...uninspired? Flat? I tried to explain this to the woman who talked me into seeing it the first time, but I couldn't make much headway. Then again, neither did the relationship.
Sandburg, however, is moderately into it. I can hear the shifts in his heartbeat, his breathing. Not even really thinking about it, I open up my senses to catalogue everything, to just tune into him. I know his temperature, his pulse, the tiniest hitch in his breathing. He smells good, too: Sandburg, with salt and butter and the soup he had for dinner. It smells like home. He smells like home.
I suppose this could be viewed as an invasion of privacy, but the thing is, we just don't have that much privacy between us, not anymore; what little we've got is illusory. He's been elbow-deep in my biology and psychology since the get-go, and over the years it's just gotten deeper. He's inspected, catalogued and recorded just about every damn function I have. I don't really have any secrets from him. Not any that matter, at any rate.
As for him -- I've seen him mad, sad, glad, sick, tired, despairing, destroyed, horny, drunk, crazy, stupid. I've tucked him in when he's been drooling on the couch, taped his ribs and kissed his boo-boo's better and cleaned up after his goddamned algae shakes. I've seen his hair when he gets up in the morning, and used the bathroom after him. It only seems fair that I catalogue and monitor him as closely as he's watched me.
Right now, he's faintly turned on by the movie. Nothing serious, nothing major. Mostly curiosity, I expect, and that brain of his working overtime on the theme of the film. He's expecting this great piece of erotic storytelling, and his body's geared up for it. Personally, I think he's in for a disappointment, but hey, who am I to say? Maybe Marlon Brando turns his crank. I just get comfortable and enjoy the company. Halfway through, I even make another bowl of popcorn.
The movie ends and I start shifting, trying to get some feeling back into my ass. Not bad, not bad at all. A bit dated, a bit slow, but not bad. I sigh, stretch, and then catch Jim's expression and the tail end of a headshake. "What?" I demand.
"What 'what'?" he returns, kinda irritably, licking the last of the butter off of his fingers. "Just not my sort of movie, is all. Kind of boring, really."
I shift on the couch, pressing my back against the arm and pulling my knees up under my chin. "How so, man? I thought it was pretty good. A nice example of erotica. A bit tame, maybe, but intense in it's own way."
He snorts at that. "What the hell is erotic about an old man having it off with some girl he doesn't know or doesn't give a damn about? Half the time they just go at it, you know? There's nothing to it but...well, fucking." He makes this helpless gesture with his hands, like he's got about a billion things to say, but can't quite get it out right. Which is cool, because I've spent the last three years totally majoring in Jimspeak, both verbal and nonverbal. I've learned that sometimes he's a slow starter, but once we get into it he's hell on wheels. The man could've been a master debater. Pardon the potential pun. My brain keeps going places like that around him, lately. I suck a stray bit of popcorn off my thumb, and think about what he's just said. "Yeah, but Jim, that's what erotic is, right? Dictionary definition: pertaining to sexual love and/or sexual desire. The movie certainly had that covered."
He twists around so that he's almost mirroring me, except he stretches his legs out more so his toes are bumping mine. "Yeah, but Sandburg, the dictionary only gets part of it, really. Erotic is...personal, you get it? It's about a hell of a lot more than just sex. If that were the case, then high school health films would have to count as soft-core. There's more to it than the mechanics. There has to be some sort of relationship, some degree of intimacy. Dogs screwing in the park are more involving than most of the crap people try to pass off as erotica."
That particular image just leaves me whooping. "Remind me not to go to the park with you, man. I don't want to have to explain you to anyone." He flips me off and then his mouth quirks up in that half-grin of his, the one that goes with that evil little laugh he's got.
"Okay, so I suck at analogies. Still, you get what I'm saying here, don't you?" he says, and I nod, because I do, I get where he's coming from.
"Yeah, man, it makes sense. You're talking about the difference between denotative and connotative language. While the movie fits the dictionary definition of erotic, it doesn't fit with all the things you and a lot of other people associate with erotic. Denotatively, it's erotic, but connotatively...."
"It's a wet fish," Jim finishes, then swallows the last of the dandelion soda he stole from me. He shrugs. "Sorry to be a drag, but it just doesn't do it for me." He makes a face. "This is a weird conversation, Sandburg."
I make a "yeah, so?" hand gesture at him. "When isn't it weird between us, man?" He gives a little nod, conceding the point, and suddenly I get an idea, and we're off and running with it. "So, big guy, purely in the interest of research, a sentinel's sexuality and all...what do you consider erotic?" I waggle my eyebrows, give him my best leer. "C'mon, man, this is just between you, me and the dissertation committee. What makes your little hyper-senses spin, your heart go pitter pat? What's your definition of erotic? I mean, are we talking a hint of cleavage? Leather-knee boots? Lacey panties?" I'm doing the whole Monty Python nudge-nudge, wink-wink thing, but there's a part of me that really wants to know here. I mean, hell, I can do lacey panties.
For a minute he just looks at me, eyes flat and flinty and I think, oh shit, but then they're gleaming, just freaking shining. His hand snakes out and locks around my wrist like he's cuffing me; then he just tugs me, not hard enough to hurt but enough that I have got to move. Next thing I know I'm kneeling on the couch, with his legs on either side of me while his face is about six inches from mine. "Lacey panties scratch," he growls, and hello, we have entered the Twilight Zone.
If Rod Serling interrupts, I'll break his fucking neck.
He lifts my hand up, so that it's right in front of his face, and the first thing he does is inhale. He just starts passing it slowly in front of him, scenting me. His eyes drift close and I can feel the soft, warm 'whuff' of his exhalations. A low-grade shiver starts up between my shoulder blades and then shudders down my spine. Some small part of me is girly-screaming 'run-away' at the top of it's lungs, but most of me is just lost in the blazing, rapt expression that's all over Jim Ellison's mug. Sweet merciful crap. I'm getting a hard-on from my forty-something, cop roommate. I'm getting a hard-on from him sniffing me like some perv going through a sorority's whites at the laundromat. I think, ladies and gents, that Blair Sandburg is having himself an epiphany. Amongst other things. I let my eyes close, losing myself in the sensation.
About two second later they're wide open again and I'm halfway off the couch, shouting. He's stopped smelling me, and now he's biting gently at the pads of my fingers, his teeth precise and tender as they work over the calluses and scars, his breath hot and moist on my skin. After each nip and nibble, his tongue comes out and soothes the sting away, flicking feathery strokes over my skin. I'm breathing with my mouth open, and I'm thinking that if this is foreplay, then sex with this man ought to require a full physical.
After a while his mouth opens wider, and he runs his teeth over my fingers, the fleshy pad on the heel of my hand, over the sides and knuckles. Sometimes he mixes it with slow, sucking kisses. His tongue snakes out a little bit later, licks along the veins in my wrists, up over my palm, slipping between my fingers in a way that basically ensures most of my blood ends up south of my belt. I'm so hard I could cut diamonds.
Right now, though, I can think of things I'd rather be doing.
I think I'm making really stupid, grunt-moan noises, but I'm not tracking too well, so it could be all in my head. My hips are moving, slightly, in time with the thrusts of his tongue between my fingers, and I'm praying that I don't really embarrass myself here, but Jim, it seems, has other ideas. The hand that isn't holding my wrist shoots out and cups me through my jeans even as he sucks my three middle fingers into his mouth and begins doing something that my underfed brain can't even begin to assimilate. All I know is that my hips start moving in earnest, and about a minute later I'm losing it totally, shaking and praying and gasping so hard my ribs hurt. It goes on, like, forever, and then I'm pitching forward onto Jim's chest. He takes one last loving suck on my fingers, then gently puts my hand down.
"That answer your question, Chief?" he asks, his voice that sorta Clint Eastwood rasp he does so goddamned well, and parts of me shudder in sympathy. I nod, not able to speak because my brain hasn't finished replacing the blown synapses. He smiles at that, almost gentle, and places a kiss on the top of my head. Then he's easing out from under me, and walking up the stairs to his room, leaving me boneless and brainless on the couch.
Okay, that probably just violated about every little unwritten house-rule I've got, but shit, it needed doing. Sandburg's always on at me to open up and express how I'm feeling; for once I just took him up on it. I mean, hell, I could smell him when he started needling me with those questions, and I've got to admit, the picture of Blair in lace panties was an interesting one. I think I'll pin it up right next to the one of him in a little leather gladiator's kilt, the one I've been carrying around in my head since he made me watch "I, Claudius" with him.
I can hear him, still breathing hard, as he gets up off the couch and staggers off to the shower. A few minutes later I hear it running. I sigh, flip over onto my stomach and just listen to the sound of the water hitting his skin. I guess this is it's own form of 'managing', but it seems so much better than staying with Sharon would've been. There's something here that just wasn't there, and while I've been know to think with the smaller head on occasion...
Sometimes I think with my heart. Not that I'm going to tell Sandburg that. Not unless he brings it up. Or says it first. I've done my turn at going first.
He's out pretty fast, and the whole loft fills up with warm, Blair-scented steam. I peer through the railings, watch him tighten the belt on his robe, head over to the fridge and pull out a beer. He stands in front of the door, hesitating, then grabs a second one. I can feel a grin threatening to split my face in two, so I squash my face into my pillows and just track him with my hearing. He pauses for awhile at the bottom of the stairs, and again at the top. Eventually, though, he's sitting on the bed beside me. His back's against the railing, and his legs are splayed out so one is brushing mine. We sit like that for awhile, him sitting and drinking, me just listening to him sit and drink. It feels nice.
"You licked me," he says at last, his voice slow and thoughtful.
I roll over onto my side and reach for the second beer he's holding. "I knew there was a reason we called you an 'observer', Chief," I say drily. He whacks me upside the head with his beer bottle, not altogether gently.
"What I'm wondering," he continues, ignoring my comment, "is why? I mean, yes, I understand that you were answering my admittedly nosy questions, probably to try and get me to shut up, but still, I'm left wondering if you licked me because you like licking, or if you licked me because you like licking me. And that's a hell of a thing to be pondering, big guy. One of those 'keep you up all night' issues, really."
"Well, Sandburg, I'd hate to deprive you of your beauty sleep. If you want to know the truth, you wanted to know what I rated as erotic, and I've always been turned on by licking," I admit, taking a slow pull on the bottle he brought up. "But if you're looking for total honesty, then I've got to admit I like licking you. I've suspected that for awhile, but tonight sort of clinched it for me. In fact," I say quietly, "I'd use a considerably stronger word than like. If I'm being honest."
I'm watching him, how he tenses up as I begin the first part, how he almost goes boneless by the time I finish. His body starts making all these horny, happy smells, and I just close my eyes and let them wash over me. "So," he says at last, and it's still that thoughtful, inquiring voice that he opened with, but this time there's a spark of Sandburg devilment creeping in. "We've established that you like to lick. Do you also like to be licked? Is it a reciprocal thing? 'Cause I need to know. In the interest of science, and all."
"I can go both ways," I say, then wince as he starts to crack up, getting absolutely stupid with laughter at that. After a minute I give up, start chuckling, too.
"Well, I'd figured that out," he says at last, wiping his eyes. I sit up, take the beer out of his hand, set it down with mine on the night table. He stops still and looks at me, his eyes impossibly wide, his irises almost totally lost in pupil. "So, why tonight, Jim?" he asks, his voice so soft only my ears can catch it.
I shrug slightly. "I guess it was the fact that I went out and spent almost a hundred bucks on a date that left me feeling like something was missing, then came home and watched a movie I hated with you and realized everything was there," I finally offer.
He smiles at me, grins, his eyes crinkling up with the strength of it. "You sweet-talker, you," he laughs, then launches himself at me. His kiss lands a bit wide of the mark, hitting the side mouth instead of straight on, but since he carries it down over my neck, I'm not complaining. Somewhere along the way he loses the robe and my dress shirt and slacks get mangled and tossed over the railing and somehow he's under me, on his stomach, and I'm working my way down the notches of his spine. Somewhere between his shoulder blades, he groans and says, "You know, the showerhead isn't spritzing that much."
Somewhere over his tailbone he assures me that I can use his laptop whenever I want, no need to upgrade my PC.
About five minutes later and five inches lower, he tells me that Price Cutters has Sunday hours.
Then he forgets how to speak English, but we manage just fine.
An End. (Literally)
End A Matter of Taste.