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They were late. They were very late; there were blood and tissue and fiber samples that needed to be discussed with lab technicians, and photographs that needed to be Sentinel-ized, a few pounds of paperwork and one interrogation. Not to mention that if they got back last, everyone would have conveniently decided that it was their turn to host poker night, which meant two days of suffering through the detritus of Major Crimes: smoke and corn chips and Brown's oddly lingering cologne. The last poker night, he'd found Meghan's hair all over the apartment for a week. He wasn't sure why it bothered him, since the apartment, from the perspective of Sentinel vision and smell, was coated with Sandburg hair, but it did.

These were good reasons, excellent reasons, why he and Blair should be getting back in his truck after a short lunch, but, instead, Blair was standing by the garbage can, smiling blithely up at a beautiful woman. [Workin' the Sandburg mojo], Jim thought sourly, checking his watch, mentally trying to decide how he would go about forcing a confession out of the murderer they'd picked up this morning. [I shouldn't have let him throw away the sandwich wrappers,] he thought. Blair gestured out the window at some children playing in the parking lot and Jim tuned in to check on his progress,

"See," Blair was saying, "the dynamic of a society of children is much more complex and rule-bound than we tend to give it credit for. Watch the kid in the striped sweater--I'd say he's the scapegoat in this particular scenario.

"oh god almighty," Jim grumbled out loud, sinking lower into his seat. This could take all day. It wouldn't be so bad except this was such a constant, Blair seemingly unable to resist any woman who so much as dropped a glance in his direction. This woman was very pretty, actually. Cool blonde swirl of hair, elegant legs. Jim wondered what she was doing in a crummy sandwich joint. Sandburg was making headway with her, he noted. She was standing closer. [She likes him,] he thought. He could see it from here.

He hated interrupting Blair when he was in the middle of his act; the women always looked at him like he was a cretin, for starters. Then Blair would say something witty at his expense and the women would laugh. He knew that this woman's laugh would match her hair, cool, sparing a bare glance for his jeans and torn jacket from tackling a suspect several days ago and stained baseball cap. Blair was wearing a Greenpeace t-shirt and a necklace that had been made by a women's cooperative in Guatemala out of bottles that were cleared out of reclaimed rain forest land.

Jim didn't consider himself a man of excessive wants, but now he wanted several things: he wanted to get out of this sandwich shack and back to work where he belonged. He wanted, for once, Blair's legendary charm to go awry, and he wanted that woman to look at him and not see exactly what she expected to see--some middle-aged cop who didn't deserve his original sensitive whatever-the-fuck-have-you partner. He decided he could settle for just the first one and got up.

"Sandburg," he said, when he had crossed to them,

"Yeah, just, just a minute Jim," Blair said, sparing him hardly a glance before turning back to the woman, whose eyes had skated over Jim and floated back down to his partner.

"We're late," he tried again, noting that the woman was wearing a really expensive suit. No polyester in that puppy at all. Real pearl necklace, too.

"uh," Blair spared him this time. At which point, Jim got sort of angry. He had been testy before, he would admit, but now he was bound and determined to wipe that expression of fascination off the cold fish's face and to get Blair's ass into the car so they could get some work done. Almost before he knew what he was doing, he raised a hand and put it on Blair's shoulder and then trailed it down his back. That got everyone's attention. The cold fish looked concerned. Blair said,

"Jim, yes, what?" at the same time that Jim picked up part of a conversation from the other side of the restaurant. 'You ready to go, baby?' someone was saying.

"You ready to go, baby?" Jim said, imitating the inflection.

"er." Blair said. 'You know we don't have much time at lunch--I'll make it up to you tonight,' the voice continued.

"You know we don't have much time at lunch," Jim obediently parroted. "but I'll make it up to you tonight." Then he ad-libbed a gentle swipe across Blair's hair. This was good; great, even. The cold fish looked both angry and astonished. Blair was looking at him like he didn't know whether to start yelling at him or have him committed. Time to move, before things fell apart. He gave an unrepentant grin to the cold fish and scooped his hand around Blair's waist, more or less frog-marching him out the door to the truck.

They were halfway back to the station before Blair said anything.

"What. the fuck. was that?" he said, ominously.

"We were late, Sandburg."

"So you thought the best way to handle it would be to act like some jealous boyfriend?"

"I wasn't jealous."

"whatever. That woman; did you happen to take even the tiniest glance at that woman?"

"Yep. Very hot, chief. She liked you too."

"Yeah, she liked me. She really liked me, except now, thanks to you, she thinks I live with some two hundred pound guy."

"You do."

"hilarious. What possessed you? And what was that thing with my hair?"

"I thought that was a good touch."

"It sucked, Jim, it was lame. You kind of thumped at my head with your paw. It's called a caress, man, haven't you ever touched anyone's hair before?"

"yes, I have. Perhaps not as much as you have," Jim said, sullenly.

"Look, just because I was making some serious headway with Angelina Jolie's beautiful sister doesn't mean you have to get surly on me."

"She wasn't all that good looking."

"She was a looker. And you spoiled it. She might have actually had a sister, you know."

"We were late. And she was frigid. Hardly your type."

"Can you really tell? Did she have a marked absence of pheromones?" The rest of the trip to the station was taken up with Blair finding his notebook and asking a series of questions in this same vein. There was a small pause after Jim parked and turned off the engine.

"uh, Jim," Blair said, quietly, noncommittally, "you don't harbor any secret lust for me, or anything."

"uh, no," Jim answered. "you don't, either, right? for me, I mean."

"nope," Blair answered, sounding relieved.

In the elevator, leaning against opposite walls, he asked quietly,

"You'd tell me if you did, right?"

"yeah, Chief," Jim said, seriously, "I'd tell you."

[This is the last time], Blair thought, furiously, [that I will feel guilty about using up the hot water or cooking smelly things or anything else, for that matter.] Jim had known how important this latest batch of tests was for him. They were going to be the control group. He had a chapter due on Thursday and coincidentally, it was the chapter that he needed the fucking tests for. It was now nine o'clock on Tuesday night and Jim had promised him he'd be home at four, so they could do the tests. Blair had planned to spend the whole of Wednesday--and probably Wednesday night as well--writing it up. And now it was dark and he needed the sun for some of those tests and fuck. Jim had promised.

Jim was his best friend, but he did have a propensity for finding other's lives rather less earth-shattering and tragic than his own. [And it's going to be plenty tragic,] groaned Blair to himself [when Dean Snelson asks me where that chapter is.] He had actually called the station at about five and gotten Simon.

"Yeah, Jim went to grab dinner with Connor and Rafe," Simon had said. "No, nothing big's happening. I think he's just planning on catching up on his paperwork tonight."

"oh," Blair had said. Then he'd spent the next four hours trying to write parts of the chapter based on how he thought the tests might turn out. [Admit it,] he snarled at himself, [you were waiting for Jim to burst in the door and apologize.] But he hadn't and now it was nine and Blair was driving over to the station because he couldn't bring himself to call Jim up and whine at him about forgetting.

His current plan was to walk into the bullpen and have Jim look up at him blankly and have embarrassment and apology slide onto his face. Then they'd do three-quarters of the tests, Blair would write until the sun came up and make Jim do the other quarter, write some more, perhaps accept a little more abject groveling from Jim's direction after click-clacking away at his computer as loudly as he possibly could all night, turn in the chapter on Thursday and try to get a date with Snelson's secretary for Thursday night. A good plan. A fine plan. He walked slowly into the bullpen, to give Jim a chance to realize what he'd done. Meghan and Simon were poring over a report. Rafe was poking despondently at his computer. Some uniforms were mooching around. Jim flapped a distracted hand at him.

"Sandburg." Nothing. no dawning realization, no apology.

"Hey, Jim. where've you been?"

"right here." And after an almost unbelievably long pause, [this from the man who can remember the way about eighteen different kinds of explosives smell,] in which Blair stared stonily at him, said, "oh, your tests. Sorry."

Blair had been on the receiving end of a lot of apologies in his life, but this one was currently the worst he'd ever received. [You'd think,] he told himself, [that after years of Naomi's 'oh, so sorry, honey' with the summer camp and the time she forgot me at the Ferris wheel and the pool guy and the lawyer and the mariachi player, I'd just be used to it.]

"I can't believe you blew me off, man. You knew how important this was," he said, trying to keep his mind on anger. He didn't particularly want Jim's pity. [Righteous indignation,] he told himself [the bastard stood you up.]

Jim raised his hand with the pen still in it, and for some reason, this, the sight of the pen dwarfed by Jim's massive hands, triggered a memory of Jim's hand ghosting over his hair [oh yeah,] he thought [here we go.]

"You may be hell on wheels in the sack, Jim" he said, raising his voice slightly, noting that Rafe had nearly given himself whiplash at the words, "but you have a lot to learn about being in a relationship."

"Sandburg," Jim had said in horror, dropping the pen and raising his hand, whether to hit him or stop him, Blair wasn't sure. He didn't care, it felt good seeing Jim so off balance, revenge sang pure and sweet in him, and he jerked away, saying,

"oh no you don't. Not tonight. Not after you forget tonight and let the food I cooked for you get cold and leave me alone. Paperwork more important to you? Fine, sleep with it. on the couch. See you later, loverboy," he said, snidely, and shot Jim the finger, covertly. As he left, he tried hard to channel the cold stride of the outraged lover that he had only ever seen from the back.

There was a moment of silence in the bullpen as Jim realized that

"Sandburg, wait up. I'm sorry." Might not have been the best thing to call after him. He looked furtively around. The uniforms were studiously avoiding eye-contact, cultivating their best: "don't look at us, we're just the uniforms" looks. Rafe was looking at Jim as if he were an inconsiderate oaf. Connor was grinning her "you bloody Yanks are all crazy" grin. Simon looked tired. Great. Fantastic.

"You know Sandburg," Jim said, weakly. "always with the jokes." He looked down at the paperwork on his desk and found that he was finished. "I have to--I'm done," he said firmly. "I'm going. Because I am finished with my paperwork. It's late, and I'm going home."

No one said anything.

Jim shrugged on his coat. As he walked past Simon, he tried,

"uh, Simon, we're not--"

"Jim. just go home. It's okay," Simon said.

"Thanks so much, Sandburg," Jim said when he got home, but he said it without any real heat. Because, as Blair pointed out a minute later,

"You started it, man."

"Yeah, but did you have to destroy my reputation? I'm sorry about the tests, okay?"

"I destroyed your reputation? What, you're a freaking debutante now? I had my wicked way with you in the back of my fifty-seven Chevy and then told all the other football players you were easy?" Blair's early irritation had faded, and he was in high good humor. "I'm sure no one will believe me. relax, Jim"

"Why not? because I may not be easy, Sandburg, but you are. "

"hey. Just because I'm not some leggy criminal doesn't mean I couldn't get you. Besides, I meant that no one would believe me because of my flattering assessment of your amorous technique. 'hell on wheels'," he snorted, "who in their right mind would believe that?"

"oh ha ha," Jim said grouchily. There was silence and Blair sighed and said,

"Ah, look Jim, I'll date someone, you'll date someone, Simon will get a new brand of coffee, Meghan will say some other Australian thing that sounds obscene to some VIP, it'll fade." [It was sort of funny,] Jim thought. [Rafe looked like he wanted to hit me.]

"yeah, I know," he smiled in spite of himself. "I had it coming, anyway."

"yup. And if it doesn't blow over there are some very interesting Chilean joining-the-heterosexual-community rites I can introduce you to. Just your standard leaping up on your desk in the bullpen ripping off your shirt and doing a little ritual bloodletting sort of thing."

"I'll keep it in mind." "You wanna do a test?"

"okay."

"okay, what am I doing?" Blair said from his room.

"You're hopping on one foot."

"yeah, and?"

"What, is that an eggbeater?"

"yep."

"Chief?"

"yeah?"

"You really think I'd be hell on wheels in bed?"

"Yes, Jim, I'm sure you would, but what am I doing?"

"I, you're chewing mint leaves. But you have no desire to find out or anything?"

"No. I mean, yes. I mean, they are mint leaves, and no, your virtue is safe with me."

"okay. same here"

"right.

"right. Now you're cutting your fingernails."

It was lunchtime and the beginning of spring. For the first time in days, the constant rain had let up and Jim had found a place to eat outside, simply because he was tired of the smell of the bullpen, the smell of wet wool and gortex and Meghan's obnoxious Bovril. Outside it smelled like mud and leaves and dog shit, but it was okay, it was nice. He'd made a sandwich this morning because he hadn't wanted to spare the time to go out to lunch, and it was a good sandwich. He'd found a dry bench in the park across from the station. Life was good.

He heard the person coming from quite some way away, of course, but it seemed only polite to pretend he hadn't, to take another thoughtful bite of sandwich.

"Hey Jim," the voice came. Matt Aiken--a narcotics cop he knew very slightly. They'd worked some cases together. Big, rough dark hair, quiet, Jim couldn't imagine what he was doing talking to him.

"Matt," he said. The man cast his own shadow--when it became apparent that he wasn't going to move, Jim sighed inwardly and said "have a seat."

"thanks." there was another fairly long pause and Jim was just about to ask if everything was okay, when Matt said,

"um. heard you and that Sandburg guy were together." Jim had moment of panic, thinking [shit. fuck. the gay basher has to be this fucking enormous guy? He can't be that puny guy from records?] and, secondarily [I'm going to kill Sandburg.], before he realized that far from screaming 'fag!' and clocking him, Matt was just waiting for an answer.

"naw," he said. "It was just--a joke, sort of--he was pissed at me and I sort of messed up his advances towards some woman the other day."

"oh,"

"He's sort of, excitable, that way."

"but you guys have a good arrest record."

"yeah. Thanks."

"look, Jim, have you ever been to that pool hall down on 54th and Delaware?" Matt looked uncomfortable, slightly raised heartbeat. Embarrassed.

"No, is it a good place?" Sandburg tended to accuse him of being socially ignorant, but that was far from the case. Look at him now, smoothing over the embarrassment of personal questions, allowing amends to be made.

"yeah, it's good. You wanna check it out after work?" [And look at his heartbeat slowing down], Jim congratulated himself.

"I guess, sure."

"so he asked you if it was true that you were seeing me?" Blair said, peering over his glasses at Jim, holding a report in his hand. He had shown up at three and told Jim he had to attend a night lecture and couldn't cook dinner. Jim had said it was all right, he could just get something when he went out. Which had led to Blair teasing the whole story out of him. Then Blair had laughed and Jim had said

"what?"

and Blair had said, "nothing."

and Jim, aggravated, had said "no. what, Sandburg?"

And Blair had said: "So he asked you if it was true that you were seeing me?"

"right."

"and then, after you denied it as a scurrilous rumor, he asked you if you liked to play pool?"

"yes, Sandburg, do you have a point here?"

"And tonight, you're going to some pool hall with him," Blair persisted.

"yeah, so what?"

"Jim." there was a long pause while Blair grinned delightedly. "you're dating him."

"I'm not. He's a guy."

"yeah. and you're going on a date with him. A mutually agreed upon outing in a social setting. A date. ah-ah-ah, don't even try to deny it."

"It's not a date."

The pool hall was dark and loud and precisely the sort of thing he hadn't done enough since meeting Sandburg. The odd anthropological exhibit was interesting, of course, and he liked to camp, but it was nice to go someplace and say,

"I got the next round," without having the person you were with obviously taking mental notes on male bonding rituals. He won two games and Matt won three; neither of them threw any games. Matt was quiet, with a depthless economy of movement that was different as well. He shook the hair back from his forehead, told Jim the latest narcotics bust stories and, then, after mutual agreement about how crappy Lethal Weapon 4 was, they messed around on the videogames lined up along the walls.

"I suck at these--I'm too old. You're too old," Jim said. The only game he recognized was Asteroids and he had been in his early twenties when that first appeared.

"But you use the word 'suck'" Matt grinned, "so you can pick up some stuff from the next generation."

"This is embarrassing," Jim said, as they lost another few quarters.

"Try this one," Matt said, indicating a shooting videogame with a gun attachment. To Jim's surprise, they were both quite good at it. They mowed down an army of mutants and zombies and

"what are those, some kind of bugs?" Jim said.

"Space bugs, I think," Matt said, aiming carefully. Jim got a high score, of which he felt absurdly proud, and then sort of ridiculous about feeling proud. He got home at twelve-thirty. As he left, he'd said,

"this is a good place," to Matt, who smiled, and said,

"yep. See you around," before turning and jogging to his car through the slight rain.

Blair was asleep. Jim considered waking him up to inform him it hadn't been a date, but didn't.

The next week, Matt stopped by his desk with a pile of forms, and Jim, to his surprise, said,

"you know, there's this good R & B act that's coming to town--do you like that sort of thing?" Because he'd had fun. [I need to cultivate more friendships outside the Sandburg zone,] he thought. [And Matt's a good guy and he likes the stuff that I like and someday Sandburg's gonna leave anyway.]

"yeah, sure, the Elbow Room, right?" Matt was saying. "We should share a car, though, because the parking is terrible."

"okay. Friday, then," Jim said, and took the stack of papers with a grimace, relieved that Sandburg wasn't there to inform him it was a date. "It's not a date," he mumbled to himself, Sentinel-soft.

They took Matt's car, and it was past midnight again when he dropped Jim off at the loft. They sat in the car a minute,

"The show was really good, huh?" Jim said. It had been loud and exuberant and there had been three encores. They hadn't talked much, but it was good to attend these things with another person, to have someone to nod at after a good solo, to talk to at intermission, to buy a beer in order to express the general feeling of happiness and well-being in the world that a good R&B set could generate.

"yeah, it was," Matt nodded, "I had fun with you," he said. And then he reached one hand casually over to Jim's cheek and kissed him on the mouth before Jim could think anything but [shit he's going to kiss me.]

It had been a long time since he had been surprised by a kiss, since he hadn't been able to see it from a mile away, but this, the gentle quick pressure of someone else's mouth against his own, the taste of beer and a little gritty pretzel salt, this really surprised the hell out of him. He must have looked odd, because Matt pulled back and said,

"Hey, is this okay? I thought you said you weren't with Blair."

"I'm not," he stammered, which Matt, evidently, took to mean 'go ahead, do your thing', because he slid across the seat and cradled Jim's head in his hands and gave him a real kiss, licking easily at his lips until they opened and slipping his tongue inside as Jim took a startled breath and thought of the first girl he'd french kissed, at sixteen, and how weird it had seemed, and how he'd pressed forward anyway, believing the advertising.

It was supposed to feel good, but it mostly just felt wet, before your body got conditioned to things like that, before you had met someone who you wanted to burrow inside and never let go and spent the rest of your life trying to find someone else and Jim forgot himself, because, now, actually, kissing did feel good, and it had been a long time, so he laid a palm against Matt's shoulder and moved his mouth a little, but even he was surprised at the small sound of need that escaped his lips. Matt pulled back, stroking his hand along Jim's face.

"you okay? too fast?"

"no, it's okay, it's only. It's late," he said and tried a smile. He was at the door of the building before Matt pulled away, and he heard what he said without realizing that he had dialed up his hearing.

"Fuck. push the man--you won't be seeing him again."

But he was wrong because the next time they saw each other they made out on Matt's couch for three hours and ate a slightly charred dinner. Jim knew he should care about this sort of thing, that nodding at Matt's questioning fingers at his shirt buttons, that laughing at his teasing as he undid the buttons, raising his hands to pull him up over him to touch his face, was not something he should be spending his weekends doing. [It's wrong and sick, you're straight,] he told himself. He tried saying it out loud, alone in his truck, but this just made him laugh, since he had spent the preceding fifteen minutes contemplating whether to let Matt get into his pants next weekend.

He had time for all this because Blair was dating some woman, really giving her the hot and heavy application of tenacious Sandburg. This freed him in some ways, because he didn't have to think what Blair would say, which turned out to be:

"Jim. hey, Jim, is that a hickey? hey, hey, very classy. Whadja do last weekend?" It was a measure of how much Blair had been gone that Jim didn't even think about his answer,

"Just hung out with Matt," to which Blair said,

"oh," and about thirty seconds later, "oh. fuck. Really?" He got up abruptly and went in the kitchen and began to chop some things. Then he turned back around, knife in hand and said,

"Just so I have this, just so I know I'm not overreacting--that hickey is from the application of someone's mouth, someone who isn't a woman like usual, I mean, not that you're exactly covered with hickeys at all times, but." He stopped and blew his breath out and said. "Matt gave you that hickey. with your participation. [because, Blair,] a part of him sneered, [there are so many sexual assaulters who go around giving people hickeys.]

"yeah," said Jim. [He looks blithe,] Blair thought. [He looks fucking blithe. I'm Jim and I have some major mouth marks on my neck, but I'm fucking fine.] So he turned back to the onions and he was so annoyed by Jim's total security in his masculinity that he cut himself and in the ensuing blood and confusion and Jim's,

"will you just sit still, it's deep and I want to get a butterfly strip on it, stop it." Blair started to feel a little better. Enough so that he felt he could say, with the correct inflection,

"So, you sleeping with him?"

"I'm not sure. Not yet."

"oh. Jim, I'm sorry I flipped out. Are you--look, were you sleeping with men before and was I just being, like, the most unobservant observer ever, or is this a new development?"

"new."

"okay. all right."

He hadn't been paying attention. He had been chasing after a woman, of course, a beautiful woman, a fun woman, fun in bed, and perhaps a little too serious, but interesting enough until she said,

"Look, Blair, it's been nice but I have a lot of work and I can't really afford to be distracted."

[In the future,] Blair noted, [I have really got to stay away from these science types.] Because it wasn't pleasant to wake up and find out you were just a fucking distraction. Sure, he wasn't devastated, he'd only known her three weeks anyway, and he had gotten to the point where he hardly expected anything to work out.

But now he was back and Jim was sleeping with some guy. Jim looked happy. Blair couldn't decide which of these things astonished him more.

Jim went to work and came home and helped Matt chop the huge branches that had fallen off the trees in his back yard from the last storm and watched some martial arts movies with him and fooled around with him.

[Oh at least be honest about it. You fuck,] he told himself, but that was almost the point, he wasn't being honest about it. Or, at least, he wasn't thinking about it. Only that he, Jim Ellison, had done a number of things that involved some other guy's cock and the world hadn't ground to a halt. No one had noticed. They were both adults, for god's sake; after a certain point, dry humping seemed foolish. And once clothing came off, well, Jim thought of himself as a thorough person. Drawing lines was for wimps.

And certainly, sometimes things hurt a little, but what was so wrong with that? There was nothing unnatural to him about pain, he'd been a Ranger, after all. He'd spent a number of years being told to do things that seemed insane by large men, and none of them had ever flopped down beside him and said "Jim, that was great." or made him breakfast. So this seemed like something of an improvement.

He was floating, he supposed. Blair was still too stunned to pester him, or perhaps he actually did consider certain things to be none of his business, and once, he and Matt had stopped at a convenience store to buy some beer and the clerk's eyes had flickered up over them as Matt put a box of condoms on the counter with the beer and she had known. She looked utterly bored and said,

"That'll be 7.49." No one cared, no one noticed.

He felt insulated in some ways, perhaps, by Matt's bulk, by the complete calm on his face when he slept. He was a supremely unanxious man, and this made it easier to simply do what felt good. And not just good--sex was suddenly new again, exciting and weird and amazing that doing this could make you feel that. Jim let the oblivion of sex drift and color his world--he knew he was leading an unexamined life, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

There were things worth finding out--for instance--he remembered women's underwear, how could he forget, and not, necessarily, that Victoria's Secret stuff. He'd dated a lot of women who just wore cotton, and, as he was a big believer in spontaneity, he knew that, more often than not, womens' bras and underwear didn't match. They just wore any old things together, the hot pink bra from the discount bin and the grey cotton from several years ago that hadn't quite los t the elastic, it didn't matter, but women's underwear, silk or soft, always wet, was sexy. He had fantasized about women pulling slowly pulling their underwear off, touching themselves through the underwear, hands slipping underneath. Men's underwear, he found, was simply something to get out of. Women looked good half dressed, but men looked better nude, all skin and muscle, no distractions.

It had seemed so excruciatingly strange at first, not ugly or dirty, though, and perhaps that made it even more strange, that this particular thing was without the typical flailing of Jim's love life, the fits and starts, the look of frozen agony on his face that had come to be a constant, once things worked out incredibly badly.

Blair had talked to Matt a few times, mostly just in passing. They'd had surprisingly little to say to each other. It took Blair several weeks to admit, even to himself, that this bothered him. These were several weeks when Jim would often get in late or not at all and would disappear entirely on weekends, appearing on Monday at work with a sated content look. complacent.

It was Wednesday, a normal Wednesday: they were racing through a back alley evading some gun runners who were trying to kill them, when Blair saw Jim's chest. Jim had more or less thrown Blair over a chain link fence and was vaulting over himself. Blair had turned to make sure that Jim was coming, and Jim was just pulling himself over the fence, his t-shirt rucking up briefly. Then they were running again, but not before Blair had seen the few small bruises and mouth marks, under a nipple, right above Jim's waistband. He hadn't yet been able to admit how much that bothered him.

He hadn't been able to sleep for two hours the night that they had both come home after tossing someone's garbage for evidence, filthy and tired, and Jim had stripped off his shirt before getting fully into the bathroom and between his shoulderblades, there was rough reddened skin. Perhaps Blair had wondered a bit about how, exactly, Jim had gotten the bruises on his chest, thought, hell, he might have just been wrestling around, or run into something, but he didn't wonder at all how Jim had gotten that rash between his shoulderblades because he knew exactly what it was. That was beard burn. The two hours he spent awake were spent feverishly trying not to think about exactly how it had been given.

So Jim's with a guy, he told himself. So fucking what? It wasn't as though this was a particularly new experience for Blair--people at the U rearranged their sexuality all the time. Most people seemed happier for it. But this was Jim. Fuck.

[It would be a lie to say I never thought about it,] Blair told himself. He'd labeled it as 'it' because he couldn't come up with a better title. 'Jim having a boyfriend' bothered him, for some reason, and what he really wanted to call it, 'Jim fucking some guy' seemed sort of angry and crude. So he settled on 'it'. And of course he thought about it. But actually, he'd never thought about it before--that was like thinking about the possibility of having a light bulb explode in your face: some really unlikely shit. But once someone brought something up like a lightbulb exploding (or your best friend taking it up the ass), you started to think about it in gruesome detail.

Jim's height, his strength, his body in the same space as Blair's seemed like a provocation. He kept discovering things he wished he hadn't, (Jim fidgeting uncomfortably on the seat of the truck, faint fingernail marks on his forearms), but he was still morbidly curious. But if Jim had been taciturn on the subject of his feelings before, he was now completely silent.

Because Jim wasn't talking to him and because he couldn't think of a way to start the conversation, because Jim had somehow made the very idea of dating a woman bizarre, Blair was home on a Friday night with every intention of getting roaring drunk. Jim was at Matt's like he was every weekend lately, and he could sleep in tomorrow: no harm, no foul.

He wasn't very far into the bottle of tequila when Jim opened the door. Far from roaring drunk, he was just barely buzzed. He and Jim had gotten this drunk drinking beers and watching basketball playoffs.

"'lo," he said. "Why aren't you at Matt's?"

"His sister's having a baby," Jim answered, hanging his coat.

"Oh, but he didn't invite the boyfriend to come along," Blair blurted.

"no." Jim said, shortly.

"So," Blair said, after a pause and another sip of his drink. "How's it going with him?"

"He's a nice guy," Jim answered.

"A nice guy." Blair echoed. "A nice guy. Well, I'm sure he is, but there are a lot of nice guys out there. Why did it take you nearly forty years to start acknowledging the fact that they were nice guys by screwing them?" [ass.] he thought. [shut up.]

"you're drunk, Sandburg."

"I absolutely am not. Take a look at that bottle. I've had barely anything."

"If you're so sober, why did you just say that?"

"I think it's a mid-life crisis!" Blair said, ignoring Jim. [I am a little drunk,] he thought. [feels good.]

"and I think you have too much free time, Sandburg," Jim said, patiently.

"I'm writing this down, you know! It's going to be the first fucking chapter of my book: The Sentinel Suddenly Decides to Start Fucking Men. Has a certain ring to it, don't you agree?"

"You think I'm doing this to get your attention. I don't believe this," Jim said.

"You know what I don't believe? I don't believe you're fucking a man." Blair said loudly.

"Well you're the one who made me such a goddam open person." Jim growled. "You made me take Phil to the Jags game that time Simon couldn't go and he didn't proposition me or wear lavender, and then you made me go to that barbecue he and Andy had and so then I knew gay people and it didn't seem like such a big deal and isn't that exactly what you wanted?"

"I wanted you not to be a bigot--you didn't have to go out and start sucking dick."

"are you jealous?"

"oh, I must be jealous now, I must want you for myself, right? Just because you start going around taking your clothes off and and and kissing guys, I must want to you kiss me, right? That's okay, you know, it's, I mean, you aren't attracted to me. which is fine, I guess. It's fine. I'm not your type. You like those big, muscular guys. with the muscles and the tallness. Let me ask you, don't you think that's sort of narcissistic, Jim?"

"Blair--"

"I mean, you don't want me, and I'd like to know why. Is it my hair or maybe I'm not big enough for you, I mean, a lot of people like big guys, what is it? you can tell me what it is."

"what, it's so surprising that I'm not attracted to you?" Blair leapt up from the couch and paced over toward Jim.

"Everyone's attracted to me, Jim, I'm a very attractive guy."

"I see." He wondered if Blair would let him have some of that tequila. This appeared to be a conversation that was much improved by inebriation.

"So you've never had a lustful thought about me. Not one?" Blair poked him in the chest

"Have you about me?" Jim stepped back, crossing his arms.

"No! what does it matter?"

"That's what I'd like to know,"

"Because I'm your best friend."

"Yeah, you are. Do I have to want to sleep with you to prove it?"

"I don't know, maybe."

"You don't mean that. You're straight and I'm with Matt and,"

"shut up," Blair said savagely and he herded Jim backwards to the sofa and poked him in the chest. Jim sat down. "what is it that you like so much that he does?"

"Blair, cut it out. It's none of your business."

"yeah, it is. Tell me what you do." And when Jim just frowned at him, Blair reached forward and ripped Jim's t-shirt. The shirt was old and grey and he'd had it for at least seven years. It was on its last legs but that didn't stop Jim from being surprised when it ripped cleanly, collar to hem, and Blair dropped a wide strip of grey cotton on the floor.

"How does he touch you? Tell me, does he touch you like this?" Blair ran a casual hand across Jim's nipple, "Does he kiss you? Does he fuck you?" Jim just sat and looked at him and this really infuriated Blair.

"Do you beg him to fuck you? I never really figured you for a slut, but you learn new things about your friends every day, I guess," Blair spat. "I bet you do beg him for it, I bet you've sucked him off in the interrogation room, I bet you've bent him over a table in there because you needed it so bad," and this, the terrible light in Blair's eyes, his shaking hands, was far from the way that Jim thought of his and Matt's sunny lazy fooling around, their good honest sweat, their intermittent but never terrible urgency,

"that's not the way it is," he thought about saying, but it was clear that Blair would never believe him. Jim suddenly wondered why he cared, why he was letting Blair make new enjoyment he was taking from his life so ugly. He'd heard enough.

Blair stood over him shoving his hair back and Jim stood up and grabbed him and kissed him. It wasn't a very good kiss--it was an angry kiss and it was meant to hurt. Blair dropped his glass and clutched at Jim's shoulders and hair, trying to push him away, but Jim was much stronger and he shoved Blair's mouth open and rooted around with his tongue and, still kissing him, forced him down against the sofa and straddled him. He'd never kissed Matt this way, he'd never kissed anyone this way, and he used his body to hold Blair's frantically twisting body down, one hand tangled in his hair, the other hand holding one of Blair's arms pinned against the couch. He ground his body against Blair's and kept on kissing him until he ran out of breath. When he pulled back he could feel Blair shaking beneath him, his eyes wide and horror-stricken.

"Let me up," Blair said. Jim looked at him a minute, and then climbed off him. Without looking at Blair he walked over to the coat rack, grabbed his jacket and walked out the door.

[Oh shit,] Blair thought. Then he said it out loud and his voice sounded cracked and scared. He wasn't drunk anymore and he couldn't stop shaking. There'd been a few times over the last few years when he had been sure that Jim was going to belt him, and he'd been scared, but not like this. [Nothing happened. He's gone. You're okay,] he told himself, and realized that they were the same words he'd said to himself after Lash, only now they were after Jim. And while Lash hadn't been his fault, Jim had. [Couldn't keep your big fucking mouth shut] he thought. "I didn't deserve it," he said out loud. [And did Jim deserve that shit? You pushed him down first, you ripped his shirt.]

In the bathroom mirror, his lips were red and beginning to bruise at the edges.

Blair didn't show up at the station the next day. [Big fucking surprise, you son-of-a-bitch,] Jim thought. [You sexually assault him and expect him to walk in with a big smile?]

"Where's Sandburg?" Simon asked.

"I don't know," Jim said. "work, I guess."

"You look like hell, Jim." Simon said.

"had a hard time sleeping" he said and Simon nodded, moving on.

Matt had given him a key, so he'd gone to his house and slept in his bed. Tried to, anyway. He couldn't forget how Blair had shouted at him and, worse than that, how Blair's body had felt underneath him. He had been turned on on that couch, by Blair's yielding mouth, his solid body.

[I would never have forced Blair,] he told himself, but he had forced Blair and he wanted Blair and in the end he'd had to get up and go masturbate in the shower. He tried to think of Matt, he tried to think of Carolyn, he even gave a cursory try to the dirty sexy girl he'd seen in the lock-up for marijuana possession, but in the end it was Blair who came to him, whose hands slid over him, whose mouth he pumped into, Blair's name he said, quietly, ashamedly, as he stood under the showerhead.

At lunch, he drove to the Rainier campus. He wasn't sure what he was going to say, but he felt he had to make an effort. He was walking towards the anthropology building when he saw Blair come out of the doors, see him, and turn hurriedly back inside.

"Blair," he called, and chased him through the doors, catching him in a narrow hallway off the main corridor. At twelve-thirty, it was empty, all the students in classes,

"Blair, wait. I'm sorry." Blair turned, and his mouth was bruised and Jim felt sick.

"why?" Blair said. "I asked for it--sticking my nose into your sex life like that. Well, you gave me a taste of what it was like and I'm not interested, so maybe we could just drop it,"

"Blair that wasn't. I'm not. I don't like to hurt people," Jim tried, but Blair shook his head and said, refusing to meet Jim's eyes,

"You were hard, Jim. I felt it."

"I know, I know. I, there's no excuse, you don't need to move out, though. I mean, please don't, " he said desperately. He couldn't stand Blair looking this way at him, and he realized that he had taken for granted the way that Blair usually looked at him, a mixture of trust and amusement and friendship. "I'm not going to do anything, else, I'm not, I won't touch you, or--"

"okay."

"okay, you'll stay?"

"yeah. why don't we just write the night off--I mean, maybe I didn't ask for you to jump me, but I was kind of an asshole, before, you know."

"I was a bigger asshole."

"hey, no one's disputing that," Blair smiled, tentatively.

"are you okay?" Jim asked and his hand moved slightly, towards Blair's lips. Blair flinched and tried to stop it and then said, "yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Did you say you had some paperwork?" "of course."

"I'll see you later, then," Blair said, and nodded a little too much, so Jim took the hint and went back to the station.

"I didn't give you that," Matt said that night, touching Jim's lip where one of Blair's teeth had nicked him. His lips were swollen a little. Trust Matt to notice; [dating detectives is hell,] Jim thought. At least he'd thought to take his t-shirt to work and throw it out. He was wearing one of Matt's shirts.

"I know," he said. "Thing got a little. Blair and I, he isn't taking this real well." There was a long pause while Matt walked to the window and Jim stared at the clock and calculated how long it would be before he could get his clothes off and be underneath him on the bed, forgetting grinding his cock against Blair's stomach, holding his hair so tightly it hurt.

"um, Jim," Matt was saying, "I don't think this is working out."

"what?"

"This whole thing with Blair--I can't be with you like that."

"Blair is straight and we aren't, there's nothing," [I'll be lucky if he ever even touches my shoulder again]

"Jim. Just--I'm not stupid. You're--I like you, but he's gonna keep looking at you like that and that's the way it is."

"Like what?"

"I think it's better if I cut my losses," Matt said. "I'd like my shirt back.

"Home again?" Blair said. It was barely seven-fifteen. He'd been at Matt's for less than twenty-minutes. Blair looked nervous. [get used to it, Jimmy, because that's how he's gonna look at you from now on.] Blair was making a stir fry and Jim realized that he hadn't eaten since breakfast, which was a bowl of corn flakes in Matt's kitchen. He'd skipped lunch to talk to Blair; he hadn't felt much like eating anyhow.

"Is there gonna be enough of that for two?" Jim asked. [There. that's exactly how I would have said it before.]

"oh, yeah, sure," Blair said, nodding his head.

"Matt dumped me," Jim said, casting about for conversation.

"oh." Blair said, "cause of--?" he waved his hand vaguely, indicating the two of them.

"yeah, I guess. He thinks we have this. twisted thing, sort of." His voice faltered, because, of course, given the other night, they now did. [I'm probably gonna have to get rid of that couch,] Jim thought glumly, [because now it's the couch where I committed a felony.]

"Do you want me to talk to him?" Blair had put the knife he was using to chop carrots down and was regarding him steadily.

"And say what?"

"Oh, I'd think of something--I'm really pretty decent with jealous boyfriends."

"get a lot of that, huh."

"like you wouldn't believe."

"thanks, Chief, but I think not. it was, good with him, but now it's, sort of, different."

"spoiled?"

"yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault."

"yeah, Jim, it was. I stuck my big nose in, you know. But I'm done now. you can date guys, I won't freak out."

That was all that was said about it. And if Blair noticed that Jim didn't date anyone, male or female, he didn't mention it, the same way that Jim didn't mention that Blair's next two girlfriends were tiny things, dainty and feminine. Blair towered over them. Blair stopped standing quite so close to Jim and Jim, in turn, stopped touching him, except when he forgot, which wasn't often, because the first few times he did, Blair jumped and then looked guilty and made a great show of smiling at Jim and not moving away. This was even more excruciating than not touching Blair, so Jim kept his hands to himself. He did a lot of tests that month, tests that Blair suggested diffidently, a marked change from the way he used to demand that Jim drop everything and tell him how moist the air was.

"You don't have to," he told Jim, the first time he asked for a test.

"I want to," Jim said. [it will make me feel better,] he thought, and he knew that Blair understood this as well.

It was a month of proof.

Slowly, slowly, as Jim didn't touch him and they solved a few crimes and the Jags had a winning streak and Jim and Blair spent an afternoon rotating the tires on Blair's car, they relaxed. The friendship wasn't the same as before, and Jim saw uncertainty in Blair's eyes more than he'd like to, but it was good enough. It had to be. For long stretches of time, Jim could even pretend everything was normal.

The more Jim couldn't touch Blair, the more he wanted to. He had started having the most incredible, carnal wet dreams. Some of them were lewd and some of them were tender and all of them featured Blair, naked, clinging to him. The only way he was able to live with himself was that each night, the dream-Blair whispered to him how much he wanted him to be doing exactly what he was doing.

He knew he watched Blair, and one day Blair had caught him sniffing one of his shirts, and Jim had always been an awful liar anyhow, so he thought it was hardly possible that he was successfully concealing the lust that would hit him at odd moments, burning at him, making his breath clutch and stutter. Blair said nothing. And if he noticed that Jim was washing his sheets a lot more often, well, Blair didn't mention that either.

One way or another, a month went by.

It was a lazy afternoon, too cold and rainy to go outside, the rain making that loft a haven of warmth. Jim had started a fire and they had appropriated opposite ends of the couch, both reading. Blair was reading some inordinately boring tome and he kept having to restart chapters. Jim dozing on the other end of the couch, book open on his chest, didn't help.

"I'm not gonna retain any of this," Blair finally yawned to himself and Jim opened one eye at him. "come on," Blair said, "I wanna get out of here. Let's go do something."

"Like what?" Jim mumbled, eyes closed.

"I don't know," Blair said, getting up, "but if I don't get out of here, I'm going to fall asleep."

"And that would be such a bad thing?" Jim said.

"Come on, man, just get up," Blair said, and extended a hand to Jim to pull him off the couch. Jim reached for it, but they both misjudged the weights because Blair found himself falling forward to land on Jim. It was the first time they'd touched, except cursorily, those first few much regretted hands on shoulders, nudges in passing. Blair's knees knocked against Jim and his elbow hit Jim in the side and Jim's hands came up and quickly, gently, lifted Blair off him.

"sorry," Blair said, suddenly out of breath. "underestimated the force required."

"ow," Jim said. "you're heavier than you look, Sandburg."

"want me to kiss it and make it better?" Blair said, glibly. Silence fell. Blair could hear the rain outside and the sputter of the fire and the dry click in Jim's throat as he forced a bark of laughter.

"s'okay," he said.

"no, it's not," Blair said, and reached for him. He pulled Jim's unresisting head towards him and kissed his cheek, then slid his lips across to Jim's lips, caressing his jaw. He rose on his knees to get a better angle and Jim's hands came cautiously to his waist and Blair just mouthed Jim's lips, keeping the kiss light and easy, licking his lips and then dragging his lower lip across the wet trail he'd left.

He straddled Jim, pushing Jim against the back of the couch and Jim was passive underneath him, staring at him,

"your eyes are really blue," Blair said, and he brushed one hand over the short hair at the base of Jim's neck and used the other to trace random patterns across his cheek. Then he moved his fingers to Jim's damp lips, and nudged them open enough for two fingers. He rocked them in to the first knuckle before drawing them out and plunging them back in up to the second knuckle. Then he pulled them out and replaced them with his lips and tongue and they kissed for long minutes, lazily, Blair pressed tightly against Jim's chest, controlling the kiss with his tongue. Jim's hands moved restlessly, but he didn't take them from Blair's waist. Finally, Blair pulled back and squirmed experimentally on Jim's lap.

"you're hard," he said, and then he deliberately ground his ass against Jim's cock, startling a breath from him. "tell me you want me," Blair said quietly, "tell me you want me more than you ever wanted him."

"yes," Jim gasped. "yes."

"If you were gonna fuck anyone," Blair continued, slightly breathless, "you should have been fucking me. I'm your best fucking friend, and I'm your guide and I'm gonna be your everything." He kissed Jim again, hard and fast, clutching his shoulders.

"I'm not sleeping with you because you have a god complex," Jim said, when Blair lifted his mouth.

"Naw, you're sleeping with me because I want you so bad. That night." He didn't need to say what night it was, "I was hard too, I just, I didn't want to believe I could like that even a little."

"It's not gonna be like that," Jim said, and he ran a hand down the long muscles of Blair's back and Blair shivered and said,

"That stuff I said, about the interrogation room, about begging because you needed it so bad. That was about us; I knew that was how it would be between us." And this time, it was Jim who pulled him in for the kiss, kissing him hotly for a long time, with lots of tongue.

"Tell me what you want," he whispered. "anything. I'll make it up to you," liking the way Blair was gripping his shoulders. "Tell me," he said again. Blair's mouth was open and he was flushed and he managed a grin and said,

"this is just wild." His hips moved again, involuntarily, and then they were humping against each other, both breathing hard, grinding their cocks and their lips together.

"Wait wait wait," Blair stumbled back off him, panting, his cock aching. Jim's thighs were spread wide on the couch and there were two bright spots of color on his cheeks; he was a sweaty horny mess. [I want him to look like that all the time,] Blair thought.

"I want you to fuck me," he said. When Jim said nothing, he said,

"is that--is that okay?" And Jim moved off the sofa in a blur and caught him up and before he knew it he was pressed again the pole that divided the kitchen and the living room and Jim was kissing him and fondling his cock through his pants and even though Jim was above him and pressing him down it was nothing like that terrible night. And Jim was reading his mind or something, because he boosted Blair up higher on the pole, one hand under his ass [god, he's strong] Blair thought dizzily, and Jim kissed his throat and murmured in his ear,

"I'll make you forget that night," and then flicked Blair's earlobe with his tongue.

"It's forgotten, it's, uh," Blair managed, as Jim continued, persuasively,

"did you picture it? tell me how you pictured it."

"Your bed," Blair moaned, "you."

Jim let him down and walked him backwards towards the stairs, pulling off his outer flannel shirt. Blair nodded and walked quickly up the stairs, getting halfway up before Jim spun him around and kissed him, muttering against his mouth,

"maybe you pictured me giving you a blow job on the stairs,"

"yeah, that's, I might have," Blair agreed, weakly, because Jim had gotten his pant unbuttoned and down to his thighs and was lowering him to the stairs.

"Hold onto the railing," he suggested, nosing at Blair's stomach, stroking Blair's thick hard cock with his fingers before putting his mouth on it, sucking fiercely, letting it slip almost all the way out of his mouth before plunging his mouth all the way down over it, doing this again and again, holding Blair's hips down against the stairs.

[Someday,] Blair thought, through a haze, [I'll be able to say a complete sentence again.] His vocabulary had been sharply reduced, to the words "oh" and "Jim" and "please". He knew there were a fixed number of permutations for the order of the words, but he couldn't remember how to figure it out and Jim didn't appear to mind and if he looked down, Blair could just see his hot, unbelievably hot, wet mouth on his erection and it was, perhaps, the most erotic thing he'd ever seen and Jim fingered his ass and he was coming coming coming in Jim's mouth and all over his shirt and his face and he forgot to hold on to the railing but it didn't matter because Jim caught him and picked him up and carried him the rest of the way.

When he could think again, he was sitting on the edge of Jim's bed, his pants around his thighs. Jim had taken off his shirt and was holding it and watching him.

"good, so far?" he asked.

"what, are you blind?" Blair said. "Stop fishing for compliments and get over here."

"I just, I need to know, have you done this before," Jim stammered.

"yeah, I--after you kissed me, you know, I wanted. I wasn't sure what I wanted, but I. There were a few guys. Just one night things."

"oh. so you. you liked it."

"not really."

"Blair, we don't have to, I don't wanna do anything you don't like."

"I liked the parts where I pretended they were you," Blair said. "I liked, I made them do it with me on my stomach, you know? I, that was really good,"

"oh," "But, you know, they didn't call me Sandburg or Chief or anything. And they didn't make me do their paperwork, so it wasn't the same." Jim smiled.

"You know, Sandburg," he teased, sauntering over to the bed. "you owe me a shirt." He ran his fingers over the collar of Blair's t-shirt, stroked down it with his hands.

"yeah, I know. you should really collect," Blair breathed.

"I think so," Jim answered and ripped the shirt, the same way that Blair had ripped his a month ago and even though Blair had been expecting it, he still gaped up at Jim in surprise because he hadn't known that anything could turn him on so thoroughly. Jim pulled his jeans off and then shoved his own off and came down on top of him, kissing his mouth and his sternum and giving his nipple a hard bite as Blair gasped,

"you know, I was,when I asked you if you liked big guys I was really talking about me. I like big. I like how strong you are," he got no real answer but Jim made a sound of approval as he roughly licked Blair's other nipple and reached blindly out to his night table, pulling the drawer out with so much force that it hung crazily and precariously from its tracks. He fished out something and returned to Blair's lips, kissing him until Blair had wrapped his thighs tightly around him, his hands starfishing needily across Jim's back.

"I like you like this, can I do you like this?" Jim asked, his hands suddenly, shockingly, on Blair's ass.

"god. yes. any fucking minute now, Jim," Blair groaned.

And Jim lifted and spread his legs even further and his wet fingers greedily circled Blair's opening and then they were inside him and Jim was swallowing hard and saying,

"I'm sorry, I can't, I can't wait, Blair, is that enough?" And Blair was too far gone to even find words so he just nodded eagerly and reached for Jim, who came to him, who came in him, Blair's legs up over his shoulders, roughly jerking off Blair's cock in his hand.

It was some time before Blair could say everything he wanted to say, which started with, "That was the most amazing thing that ever happened to me," and moved on to "um, I can do you, right?" Jim smiled and pulled Blair on top of him and pushed his hair off his face before kissing him.

"that's yes, right?" Blair asked.

"I need to recover first," Jim said.

"what about me, don't I need to recover? It's not like ass-fucking is on my daily to-do list." Jim's eyes darkened at that and he said,

"perhaps you should add it," and continued, "I need it. Blair. Now." It had never been like this with Matt, with Carolyn. He had liked them and he had liked their bodies, but that like was a tepid emotion compared to what he felt when Blair slid a hand down his torso and announced,

"I'm recovered." He pinched Jim's nipple. "you wanna beg me for it?"

"I wanna get fucked," Jim said.

"we aim to please," Blair said.

They didn't wake up until Jim's alarm clock went off at seven. It woke him up immediately, but it was at Sentinel levels, so Blair kept sleeping, wrapped around him, one hand clutching Jim's ass. Jim poked at Blair, touched his face, thinking about Blair's excited breathing the night before, his startled "wow," as he slid into Jim. "oh wow." He'd said it several times.

"Wake up," Jim said, softly. But Blair just patted his ass slightly and rolled over the other way. "Blair. Blair."

"I'm up," Blair mumbled, obviously not up. "You have a really comfortable bed, Jim. You have a really." He sat up. "shit." Jim couldn't think of anything to say.

"wow," Blair said.

"You said that," Jim said.

"I know, but I think it bears repeating."

"hey," Jim said, meaning 'good morning', meaning 'I'm glad you're here'. and because Blair smiled at him, he gathered his face in his hands and kissed him.

"so. guess I wasn't imagining things after all," Blair smirked. "that's right, Jim. I woke up one night and heard you moaning and pleading and shouting my name and stuff."

"oh." There was a long silence while Jim wondered about the logistics of long term pity-fucking.

"I love you," Blair said bluntly. "It was killing me that you were fucking him."

"I'm sorry,"

"you know what was really killing me though? How happy he made you. You were--you looked so good. Simon asked me if you were taking vitamins or something." He opened his mouth to keep going, but Jim said,

"I love you." He'd never said it to Matt.

"good. good. I thought you might."

"You make me much happier than he did. You're going to make me much happier."

"yeah?"

"I'm hoping you'll make me much happier in the shower this morning," Jim said encouragingly.

"Yeah, I think I can fit that into my day planner," Blair grinned. "I have to update the to-do list anyway," he said, and blushed.

It was a Thursday which meant Blair had classes all day, so Jim hadn't seen him since they parted reluctantly in the morning. They'd skipped breakfast, but Jim was late anyway since they'd made out in the doorway for ten minutes, while Blair tried to lock the door and dropped his keys and a bag full of library books and a tribal mask he was using as a visual aid, so he could get a better purchase on Jim's shoulders.

Blair was working in his room when Jim got home. He leaned in the doorway and watched Blair for a moment, noting the sure movements of his shoulders as he took notes on a text, the way his back looked when he concentrated.

"hey," he said, as Blair marked his place and spun around in his chair.

"hey. it's good to see you," Blair said. "have a seat," he said, pointing to his bed. Blair pushed against his desk and rolled his chair over to Jim to kiss him on the cheek.

"that's some technology you got there," Jim said. He'd given the chair to Blair several weeks ago, buying it at the station for twenty dollars when they got new chairs in the some of the offices. It had been an apology present, but he was careful to point out how cheap it had been so it didn't look like a bribe.

"it's ergonomic," Blair said proudly. "It was a gift from my extremely sexy lover." [It appears], Jim thought, [that a big part of my life is now going to be taken up with grinning foolishly at Blair.]

"I'm a jerk," he said, when the silence had gotten ridiculous.

"what?" Blair said.

"Matt seemed, so big to me, you know," Jim said, by way of explanation.

"I'm not sure I like where this is going," Blair said, pushing the chair back a little.

"not his cock. I mean, the rest of him," Jim said, aware that he was explaining things badly.

"Still not liking it," Blair informed him.

"Will you let me talk? I just meant that he seemed so big to me because the only person who really ought to have been there was smaller"

"that's me, right?"

"yeah." Jim gave him a jokingly exasperated glare and Blair crossed his eyes at him.

"So you don't like big," Blair asked.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. I like your cock."

"hum. Flattery will get you everywhere."

"does that include your very nice wet mouth?" Jim asked, pulling Blair's chair across the floor and kissing him playfully. Blair pushed himself out of the chair and climbed on top of Jim, nuzzling his neck and whispering,

"yep. It includes my perfect tight ass, as well."

"I'm also fond of your ego," Jim said, and Blair pushed him back on the bed and began to unbutton his shirt.

"Shut up, man, or I'll shut you up," Blair said, and proceeded to do exactly that.

End An Unexamined Life.