Work Text:
Housebroken
by Brighid
Author's disclaimer: Nothing here belongs to me. Ownership is such a shaky concept, anyway. Not for profit, but for love.
roomie in college, and it was like it a two-year anthropology observation, preparing me for this story...
Housebroken
by Brighid
"And just where do you think you're going?" The sharpness of Blair's voice dispelled any false notion that the younger man was drowsing in post-coital lassitude. Jim froze with on leg half out of the bed.
"Got to take a leak?" the older man hazarded.
"Look at me!" Jim turned slowly to meet the mildly reproving gaze of his Guide. "You were going to go and get a washcloth, weren't you? Clean yourself off?" Jim hung his head. Bus-ted, as Blair would say. He heard the sigh work its way up form somewhere around Blair's navel. "Shit, man. What kind of statement are you making here?"
Jim's head shot up. "Aww, hell, Chief, it's not like that! It's just a -- a me thing, y'know? I did it with Caro, too...." He trailed off as he recognized the gleam in his new lover's eyes. They may have only been "together" a few nights, but he recognized Sandburg's patented shit-disturber look after nearly eighteen months of regular exposure.
"What I mean, here," Blair continued as though Jim hadn't spoken at all, "is that I'm obviously not doing something right if you have enough synapses still firing to get up and out of this bed before morning!" With a quick, fluid motion he hauled the other man firmly back into bed and rolled on top of him. "We're just going to have to work on that, hey, big guy?" he grinned wolfishly at Jim before disappearing down his body.
A small eternity later, Jim briefly considered going for a washcloth, but settled instead for a discarded pair of blue boxers -- Blair's boxers. It was, after all, Sandburg's turn to do laundry.
Jim was startled out of a quiet contemplation of his knees when Blair breezed into the bathroom and started up the shower. "Jesus, Sandburg! I'm busy here!" Ellison groused, trying to arrange his shirttails into some semblance of modesty.
Blair shucked off his boxers and T-shirt and tested the water. "Like anyone needs Sentinel senses to figure that out. Hell, 207 can probably figure that out."
Jim gritted his teeth. "Thank-you so much, Mr. Manners. You know, there used to be a thing around here called privacy, Chief. Door's closed, you knock, I say take off...!"
Blair leaned down and kissed the top of the older man's head on his way into the shower. "Yeah, well, we used to sleep in separate beds and keep our faces out of one another's groins, too. Things change."
"Says who?" Ellison complained. "When was this decided? When did we have this meeting? Why wasn't I consulted in this policy change?"
"Look, man, you've been in here twenty minutes. I've got a meeting to get to, and I'd prefer it if I weren't still wet behind the ears when I go into it," Blair called out over the sound of the water. "Besides, what's the big deal? It's a normal human function. I've been around for about every other one you've had, and," he added, peering out around the shower curtain at the sour-faced detective, "it's not like that's anything new to me, man."
"I just like to have my functions sorted out situationally," Jim grumbled, finishing up and going to wash his hands. "And I swear to God, Chief, if you make one 'anal retentive' crack, I'll hold you under the spray!"
A loud snort came echoing from behind the curtain. "Man, there are, like, so many avenues to explore with that. Do I start with the fact you think there'd be only one remark about anal retentiveness, or do I point out you used 'anal' and 'crack' in the same sentence?"
Jim made a rude gesture at the curtain, just as Blair leaned out to grin at him. Ellison gave up after about thirty seconds of glowering and leaned in to kiss the younger man's unrepentant face. "Sandburg, you're weird and annoying and I love you."
"Ditto, man," Blair said before disappearing back into the shower. Jim waited, counted three, and then flushed the toilet. He didn't need Sentinel senses at all to hear Sandburg hollering. He poured himself a coffee in his thermal mug, and headed off to work, whistling blithely.
"There are sprouts in my sandwich!" Jim's voice managed to convey the impression of a man who was seeing but not believing.
Blair looked up from the file he was sorting through for one of the cases Jim was currently working. "With those powers of deduction, it's no wonder they've got you working Major Crimes," he said drily, gesturing to the noisy bull pen around them.
"I don't like sprouts," Jim said, still with the same tone of disbelief.
"Sprouts are good for you," Blair said kindly, and Jim, looking up at him, was pretty sure the younger man was about two seconds from saying "num-num" and patting his tummy. "Those are broccoli sprouts, very nutritious. Iceberg lettuce, on the other hand, is mostly just water. Filler, really," Blair continued patiently, and yeah, he really did sound like a grown-up trying to talk a two-year old out of the sulks.
"Maybe I like filler," Jim groused, reassembling the offending sandwich and taking a tentative bite, taste turned way down.
"Turn it back up, man," Blair said softly from across the desk, a knowing smile on his face. "You can't acquire a taste for something if you refuse to taste it!"
Jim grumbled and scowled but turned his taste back up before taking another bite. To his surprise, the flavour of the sprouts was rich and complex, a wonderful counterpoint to the fresh turkey and sharp mustard Blair had put together for him. He took a third, heartier bite and made a faintly happy noise, only to stop mid-chew at Blair's self-satisfied snort.
"Next week, green eggs and ham," Blair waggled his eyebrows at the older man before returning his attention to the files on the desk. Jim just flipped him off with as much quiet dignity as a man with sprouts between his teeth could muster, and finished off his lunch.
Something tickled the edges of Sentinel smell, and Jim turned the dial up briefly, then notched it right back down again. "Shiiiiiiiiiit, Chief. What the hell have you been eating? And did you have to cut that loose in the truck? Couldn't you have waited until we got home?" the big man grumbled, wiping at his watering eyes.
Blair glanced up from the textbook he was highlighting. "Do you know how bad that is for you? And besides, the longer it sits, the worse it'll smell later. Deal, Ellison. You can do autopsies, you can handle a fart."
"That wasn't a fart, that was chemical warfare," Jim disagreed, rolling down his window despite the heavy rain. "You know, if this is all part of your 'being comfortable around one another' thing now that we're together, let me assure you that I was plenty comfortable without the inclusion of breaking wind!"
"Like you've never cut the cheese in front of me before!" Blair protested, marking his place in the book with his thumb. "Hello, do you remember the Frazetti stakeout? The one where you said, 'Hey, Chief, whaddaya mean Mexican isn't a good idea?' We had to refinish the seats after that puppy! And my hair hasn't been normal since then. Half of it curls counterclockwise now!" Blair was grinning at Jim, and shifting a little in his seat.
Jim surveyed him dourly, and rolled the window rest of the way down. "Keep that up, Chief, and you'll be walking home!" He wiped his eyes again. "And besides, burrito farts have nothing on your sprout farts. All that roughage. You've got a hell of a lot of nerve blaming cows for global warming, Gasman. The temperature in here has got to have gone up two degrees, at least!"
Blair just shrugged. "Gotta keep warm somehow, man!" He shifted quietly again, then rubbed his hands together. "Toasty!" he grinned, then returned his attention to his book. Jim just sighed the sigh of the long-suffering, and breathed shallowly the rest of the trip home.
Jim watched as Blair leaned back on the couch -- the white couch -- and began licking the strawberry yoghurt cone that he'd just made himself. "Hey, Chief. What happened to the whole 'no eating in the living room' thing?" Jim asked conversationally, laying his book open on the armrest of the loveseat. Visions of pink berry stains danced in the older man's head.
Blair picked up his book, a musty old wreck of literature, and shrugged. "Blew that one out the window the other night, man. Or don't you remember?"
A slow flush suffused Jim's neck and face as he recalled just how that rule had been broken earlier in the week. "I don't think that counts," he said gruffly, wriggling slightly to ease the sudden discomfort that accompanied the recollection.
"Why not, man? Made a mess, had to spot clean the couch, but you didn't complain then." Blair's eyes were firmly on the book balanced against his knees, but he was grinning between licks on the cone. Jim watched in reluctant fascination as the younger man's tongue darted out, shaped the yoghurt, slid smoothly along the chill surface. The visual image combined with a more visceral memory, and he found himself short of breath. Slowly, a familiar shape began to emerge in the yoghurt, complete with a little indentation on the top.
A heartbeat later, Jim crossed the small distance between them and took the book and cone from Sandburg's hands, laying them carefully and separately down on the table. A small part of his rational mind made him set the cone on an old Sports Illustrated. With slow, deliberate swipes, he licked every last trace of strawberry from around Sandburg's mouth.
When at last Jim pulled back a little, Blair was panting. "Hey," he said breathlessly, "that cone's gonna leave a mess," he warned, even as his Sentinel descended upon him for another kiss.
"Sandburg," Jim whispered, a quarter of an inch over his mouth, "shut the fuck up." He felt the curve of Blair's smile, tasted his laughter, and promptly set to breaking the whole 'no eating in the living room thing' for the second time that week.
Henri Brown was perched on the corner of Ellison's desk, and showed no signs of leaving anytime in the near future. "I'm telling you, man, you've gotta try Kristy's Kitchen. The food is good, and the help...!" The younger man made a vague gesture that could have conveyed either very large breasts or carrying a load of melons. Either way, Jim was not particularly amused. With Rafe recovering from an appendectomy and Blair marking mid-terms, the two of them had been spending a lot of time together, and while he liked H, he was getting a little tired of all the togetherness. Still, whether melons or mammaries, the food sounded good, and like a viable option for lunch. He was willing to bet they used lettuce instead of sprouts.
"Hey, isn't that your shirt?" H said suddenly, staring out the door of the bullpen. Jim glanced around to see Blair strolling in, and hell, yes, that was his shirt, his ninety-dollar-only-designer-shirt ever shirt. It was also, as far as he could remember, his should-be-in-the-hamper shirt. It wasn't really dirty, but it was slightly whiff, at least to Sentinel senses, and while he appreciated the dark reds and greens and blues on Blair, he couldn't figure out why the kid was fishing through the laundry to wear oversized and rather Jim-scented clothes.
Henri mistook Jim's perplexed silence for pissed-off silence, and slid off the desk. "Yeah, that's your shirt. And Hairboy is a dead man. I'll catch you later about lunch, all right?" Jim nodded as H left, noticing the sad shake of his head as he passed Blair on the way over to his own desk. Obviously he didn't think Sandburg was long for this world.
And maybe he wasn't.
"Is there a reason," Jim began carefully, as Blair came within earshot, "that you're wearing my favourite shirt, and my dirty favourite shirt at that?"
Blair glanced down, smiled, turned his face into the shoulder and inhaled slightly. "Yeah, man. It smells like you, and I've barely seen you this week, and I just wanted to, like, feel that I had a bit of you on me," he answered softly, only for Jim's ears.
Jim swallowed once, twice, couldn't get anything past the knot in his throat. "That makes sense," he said at last, his voice as rough and raspy as Eastwood's at its best. "How about we grab a quick bite at home? It's on the way to some witnesses I was going to run down this afternoon."
Blair's grin just about blinded the detective. "Sounds good, man. Anything in particular you want?" The heated look on Jim's face made him laugh, which he quickly turned into a cough. "Ho-kay, then! Hold the sprouts today, I take it?"
Jim nodded as he stood up, grabbed his jacket and slipped it on. H and the melon-girls would wait for another day. He had territory to mark.
Simon sat back in his chair and belched quietly and appreciatively. Joel, about three mouthfuls behind, soon did the same. "Damn, that was good. Never thought that a vegetarian meal could taste so good," the bomb squad captain said, wiping at his mouth with a cloth napkin.
Blair laughed, stood up and began collecting plates. "Neither did Tyrannosaurus Jim, not until I tricked him into trying it. Why don't you guys go on in and turn the TV on? The game should be starting soon. Jim'll rinse and stack the dishes while I pack the leftovers up. Want some to take home, Joel?" the young man called over his shoulder as he set down the plates and began rummaging around for Tupperware.
"Hell, Blair, I can wash dishes if you'd like," Joel offered, half out of his seat. "You cooked and all; it's the least I can do." Blair just made a snorting noise, and a hand popped up over the counter, waving the older man off.
"Nah, I'll get 'em tomorrow. I don't have to be at Rainier until ten, plenty of time then!" he said, his voice echoing oddly through the cupboard. Joel shrugged and headed out to stake a claim on the loveseat.
Simon, still at the table, raised an eyebrow at Jim. "I didn't know you let dishes sit overnight, Ellison?" the big man asked quietly, the vaguest hint of a smile on his face.
"I'm rinsing and stacking them first," Jim said, a bit defensively, but without much conviction.
"I thought, when the kid moved in here -- temporarily, I might add -- that you said you'd have him housebroken in a matter of days?" The smile had moved from hint to full-blown grin. "Seems to me that boy's got you trained, not the other way 'round! Why, you're positively mellowed, Jim. Domesticated, even!" There was a knowing in the tone, in the glint in Simon's eyes.
Jim gave up, smiled back. "Yeah, maybe. Would that be so bad?" he asked quietly.
Simon clapped him on the shoulder, hard enough to shake Jim. "Hell, no, Jim. Not bad at all. Not if you're happy with it. Not if you're happy."
Jim turned around, saw Blair bobbing up from behind the counter, flushed and wild-haired, waving a red Tupperware bowl in triumph. He laughed, shook his head, and turned back to Simon. "Yeah, I'm happy," he admitted, perhaps even to himself.
"So I've noticed," Simon said, standing and grabbing the salt and pepper and heading into the kitchen. "Now get your happy ass up off that chair and get the dishes rinsed. I don't want to be trying to watch the Jags with that sort of racket going on!"
Jim followed Simon in, and began rinsing the plates Blair had already scraped. Later, once he was sure that Simon and Joel were immersed in the pre-game show, he snuck a sweet, lingering kiss from a very surprised Blair. Domesticated. It had a nice ring to it.
End Housebroken.