Work Text:
Echoes That Caress
by BL
Author's disclaimer: Disclaimer - First appeared 15th Century. 1 a : a denial or disavowal of legal claim: relinquishment of or formal refusal to accept an interest or estate. I disavowal any legal claim to The Sentinel and it's characters.
ECHOES THAT CARESS by BL
FIELD
"Check it out. Have you ever seen legs that long? They've got to be as tall as I am," Blair whispered, propping himself against the Sentinel.
Jim shivered, reflexively running a hand over Blair, contouring the muscles of the trim torso.
"Personally, I can't feel an attraction to a woman who can wrap her legs around you twice and still stick her toes in her own ears, but apparently you can if the hitch in your breathing and the elevated heartbeat are any indication." He chuckled quietly into his Guide's ear, unconsciously pulling him tighter to his chest for a hug.
"C'mon, man. She could wrap those legs around both of us at the same time," Sandburg continued, bouncing slightly and grinning over his shoulder at Jim.
"Now, there's an image Sandburg," Jim sputtered, giving his Guide a little shove. Retaining contact, he pushed Blair before him, clearing a path through the crowd, heading toward the exit of the field.
The going was slow, and Jim soon found himself stroking two hands up and down his Guide's back, feeling for hot spots, caressing skin through silk, seeking reassurance, soaking up comfort, maintaining awareness while filtering out the worst of the crowd. Using Blair as a touchstone.
Falling into reverie, Jim contemplated the levels of attraction elemental to humanity, and elemental to his relationship with his Guide in particular. Every aspect of his partner's personality fascinated him, compelling him respond with increasing intimacy. Societal conditioning required he shun this compulsion, and he had fought within to strike against his growing physical attraction to Blair, often overreacting and pushing away a friendship more profound than any he had ever known, or had ever hoped to know. Every colossal mishap that tore at their friendship, created new threads of confusing emotion that spun a web about them, drawing them closer together even in the act of tearing them apart.
The tensile strength of their friendship caught the light at unexpected times, and Jim found himself enthralled. He found himself in love. And, having eased into this new awareness, he found himself in lust. And, wasn't that an alarming place to come to.
Absently, Jim continued stroking his Guide, ghosting over the solid contours of a slim back, and delving into intriguing hollows, unconscious delight surfacing slowly.
He failed to notice Blair's increasing agitation.
TORMENT
Blair was ready to explode. He pasted a smile on his face, shook every hand extended to him, patted several backs, and tried to ignore the sensual sweep of palms heating his skin through his shirt. He was fine with Jim using touch as a form of communication, but his hands were definitely saying something different this evening, and it was driving him insane.
Unobtrusively adjusting himself, Blair decided the man wasn't indulging on purpose, probably not even aware of how suggestive the petting was becoming, how he was smoothing down over Blair's ass, and feathering over the crease in between. Certainly, with the length of his jacket, no one else was aware. But, Blair was aware, and if he didn't find a way through the crowd soon, he was going to embarrass himself one way or another. Thoughts of pulling the restless hands down over his burgeoning erection pulsed across his vision. No one would notice. Or, he could wait until the hands dipped low again and turn into them, confronting Jim face to face. Mouth to mouth. Tongue to tongue.
What he could do and what he would do were vastly different things. In reality, he would continue through the crowd, sprint to the truck, and hug his jacket to his lap on the way home. Jim would attribute his excitement to the triumph of the evening, and long legs.
After years of tumultuous friendship, the idea of more than friendship was a haunting dream in the heat of the night, or a quicksilver image branding the end of a shared smile. The spiritual bond between the Sentinel and his Guide could not be denied. It was fulfilling. He didn't need more. Want was another issue altogether.
CLIME'
The crowd dispersed with agonizing slowness. Toward the gate it coalesced into a gelatinous mass of writhing humanity, impossible to wade through. With the press of bodies pushing from behind, Blair could feel his friends increasing tension. Hands began clutching him instead of merely petting. Feeling frantic fingers scrabbling at his shirt from behind, he paused.
"Jim? Man... You gotta calm down," he whispered when searching fingers finally found their way beneath his shirt to his bare back. A large palm spread quickly across his skin, moving upward before stuttering to a halt. "Jim? Are you with me? Shit."
Pulling the rest of his shirttail loose, he pivoted, pressing his own hand over Jim's, keeping it in contact with his skin. He was peripherally aware of curious looks, but he focused completely on the man before him.
"Jim? Where'd you go? Y'know, this isn't a good place to check out." Glancing around, he searched for an avenue of escape, hoping he could lead his catatonic friend to a place of safety, if not awareness. Oblivious now to the reaction of the crowd, he cupped his partner's face in his hands, pulling the acquiescent body down so he could stare eye to eye. "Jim, come with me. We'll just go over there," he intoned, jerking his head in the direction of a decrepit wooden bench surrounding a large oak tree. Out of the path of the exiting crowd, it sat in the deep shadow of it's own foliage.
Night had fallen, the crowd finding their way to the parking lot with the help of klieg lights surrounding the field. Blair painstakingly maneuvered his friend out of the stream of traffic and led him under the darkness of the tree, pushing him down upon the rough-hewn bench. It was cool and slightly damp beneath the leaves, the constant chittering of the crowd muffled to an indistinct murmur.
Parking his own butt on the bench, he checked Jim's breathing, and then clasped a strong tanned hand to his heart. Tracing the strong angular features with his other hand, he mapped the broad forehead, the winged brows, the patrician nose, and firm lips. He palmed a bronzed cheek, dipping beneath the jaw-line to check a pulse point.
Caressing the Sentinel with his fingers and eyes, he rode the overwhelming sense of deja-vu and pondered how he came to be here. Intellectually, he understood his purpose as a Guide. Spiritually he accepted his choice of commitment. But emotionally, sometimes he couldn't grasp the depth of what he was, let alone the amazing man sitting next to him right now doing his impression of a two-by-four.
"Y'know I love you? Like, how could you not know? I give up everything for you once a year," he whispered into the night. Watching people meet and greet in the blinding light of the kliegs, he rubbed the hand he grasped between his own, breathing words into the night. "Sometimes, I get afraid and wonder, what's it going to be this year? What am I going to give up? I don't think I have anything left to give. Okay... well, there is that shiny knew badge that I had to massively trim my hair for, and don't think I'm gonna forget that." He puffed wry laughter, pushing a hand through short curls riding just below his ears.
Repetitively, he stroked over flesh, whispering echoes that caressed the ears. Knowing really, that some day, Jim would zone on some quiet thing of beauty and never come back, leaving his body behind as his spirit flew, expanding, exploding, morphing into something beyond these human boundaries.
Chafing the hand that he held, he brought it to his mouth, checking the temperature with the press of his lips.
"Gettin' cold, friend. Don't make me call the EMT's," he threatened. Taking both hands in his, he pushed them up under his shirt, holding them to his chest, gasping at the wicked chill pebbling his skin. He waited, eyes closed, feeling the vibrations of his own heart through those hands. Time breathed. A minute shift in attention signaled the return of the Sentinel.
"Chief? Please, tell me there is an outstanding reason I'm playing with your chest," Jim rasped.
"You just can't get enough of me. What I find curious is that the only way I can bring you back from a zone is to let you play with my chest. That's a statement right there, man." Blair dropped his head in relief, and squeezed the hands still pressed to his chest.
"It's the heartbeat, Sandburg."
"So you keep saying. I'm beginning to suspect that's just an excuse to touch me," Blair teased, leveling the intensity of the moment.
TOUCH
"I don't need an excuse to touch you," Jim responded quietly. So saying, he flexed his hands, catching at the abundant hair covering the compact torso, and pulled.
"Ow. Quiddit. This is the thanks I get for bringing you back to the present? My nipples are affronted," he declared.
Jim snorted, tugging briefly on the small ring threading one nipple before removing his hands from beneath Blair's shirt and leaning back against the broad trunk of the tree.
"Your nipples... Chief, you brought me back to a spot I didn't want to be in the first place. Now, if you'd brought me back to that trout stream we found last fishing trip, I might feel more inclined to thank your nipples." Rolling his head against the rough bark of the tree, he glanced at his partner. "Isn't it time to get your feisty self home?"
Reclining against the strength of the tree, they stared at each other, close enough feel heat rising. It was dark, but refracted light caught a wealth of friendship arcing between sapphire and smoky blue. Silent questions swept back and forth on indigo and violet waves, and the distance between them narrowed until they were nose to nose.
"Let's go there," Jim whispered, before closing the remaining distance between them and claiming his Guide. The shock of full moist lips against his startled him, and he leaned away slightly before swooping in to suck a full bottom lip between his, murmuring appreciatively, and angling fully over the plush mouth tempting him. A tongue plunged into his mouth, sweeping over his, and flavor exploded, blinding him. Suffering the truest form of synesthesia, he was free to see the fulsome scent of his partner. He chased it over the thrusting tongue, groaning his pleasure at the brilliant sensation of rich, hot, Blair filling his mouth. All this from just a kiss, he thought, and was transformed.
Blair straddled his lap, pulling at his zipper, and fucking his mouth with a sleek tongue. Jim cracked an eye, frantically noting that the tree filled the darkest corner of the field, and though a majority of the kliegs still blazed, the crowd had dispersed. They were cloaked in the relative safety of shadowy foliage. Relative, as long as they didn't get naked. Too naked, he decided, biting back a groan.
Scalding fingers found their way into his slacks, pushing aside his boxers and palming his erection. He arched into the grip, thrusting on a wave of illuminate pleasure that left him weak and wanting.
Tearing from a needy mouth that consumed, he drew in lungfuls of Blair scented air, before submerging again, claiming the plush lips noisily, repeatedly breaking away to fill his ears with the wet sound of their mouths colliding wildly.
Busy hands liberated his cock, easing it through the fly of his slacks. He did groan then, fingers kneading a jean-clad ass, pulling the younger man closer, as they thrust intimately against each other in the heated confines of Blair's strong hands.
Blair brought one hand up between them, fingers delving. Jim licked broadly, his tongue meeting Blair's between and around questing fingers. The wet hand returned to its place, easing the dry friction between their shafts.
Jim shivered. The taste of Blair fingers remained, tempting him with the flavor of the silken cock riding his own.
Cautious, even cresting the thrill of exposure, Jim gave up the idea of swallowing cock, promising himself that feast for later. Instead, wresting his partner's other hand from its pleasurable grip, he thrust his tongue between the fine webbing catching the flavor of himself and Blair. Musk consumed him and he rolled his hips in time with the fingers he sucked, getting off on the taste, texture, and sound of sex.
"Shit, Jim... I'm gonna...." Mouth open, lips burning over salty skin, Blair moaned continuously, humping rapidly against the molten rod snared against his. He froze, body locked in the rigid throws of release, cock pulsing, scream of completion trapped against flesh, reverberating through the Sentinel's body.
Jim rubbed the ejaculate quickly over his own erection, grasping the base of it and pumping brutally. Mouth seeking, he murmured erotic things he wanted to do when they got home, and came on the wicked image of Blair thrusting into him with both fingers and cock.
"Blair... Let's... Go... there...," Jim growled through resounding waves of completion.
LOFT
"Jim." Blair tucked a foot under a bare thigh, curling his toes. "Why'd you do that, today? Touch me like that?" The other foot stole into the lap of the naked Sentinel.
"What are you talking about, Sandburg?" Jim picked up the foot kneading his scrotum, and ran the sole of it along his growing erection.
"In the crowd, today. The way you touched me. It was different, suggestive, possessive. It made me want to strip you naked in the middle of the crowd and fuck you stupid." Understanding his partner on one level, he began stroking his foot along the sensitive flesh beneath his sole. "I mean, what was that all about?"
"I didn't know... I was...." Jim pushed Blair's foot out of the way, replacing it with his own hand, stroke easing rather than arousing. "I don't know if I can explain it, Blair. It started out as a way to keep the crowd at bay. There is so much sensory input, and I needed an anchor. I can turn the dials down, but the input is still there. Can you imagine the amount of information available to the senses in the middle of a crowd?" Rolling over he grabbed a condom and lube from the bedside table.
"The dials weren't working, and I was starting to panic. And, there you were. So, I grounded myself in you, like always." He crawled between Blair's knees and sat back on his haunches, teeth tearing at the condom wrapper.
"Suddenly, Blair, it occurred to me, out of countless others over the years, and the over ten thousand people milling about that stadium, I choose you to hold on to. I chose you. I can touch you. You're accessible. You let me touch you. Always." So saying, he rolled the latex down over his partner's pulsing cock, proving the accessible to touching part.
Blair thrust up into Jim's hand, never releasing his partner's gaze.
"But, then it's more than that, Blair," Jim explained, moistly coating latex covered heat.
"It's that you touch me." Tapping the flesh over his heart, he sought to help his Guide understand.
"You... touch me."
END