by CKC

He stood at parade rest before the large windows, staring out. His eyes automatically compensated for the darkness, and without thinking, he picked out the few ships that were braving the night and moving cautiously through the black waters of the harbor.

What the hell was he going to do?

He turned on his heel, ships forgotten, and checked the clock across the room. Nine thirty. He had half-an-hour, maybe less, to decide.

How could he do this? How could he give up control, give up himself?

On the other hand, how could he not?

Of all the sacrifices asked of him by his sentinel abilities, this was the one he never expected, never prepared for, never dreamed would be required of him. And now he had to decide.

Jim Ellison glanced at the clock again before turning to the sofa and collapsing on the cushions. He lay his head back and stared sightlessly at the ceiling.

//Yes. No. I don't know...//

It was no use trying to think this through logically. Logic, he had discovered to his chagrin, didn't seem to have a place in this peculiar world of sentinel, shaman, and spirit guide. All he could rely on was instinct, and his instincts were divided. One half was screaming 'no way in hell, things are just fine the way they are, thanks a lot,' while the other promised an end to his chill solitude, the finish of his terrible bleak loneliness. Which was right? Because once he made his decision, there could be no turning back. He would have to commit himself to his choice, stifle all regrets, if any, and make his new life based on that choice.

Heaven or hell.

Hell or heaven.

The choice was his and his alone. Blair had made that very clear.

Jim closed his eyes, his body unconsciously responding to the thought of his partner. His fingers caressed the cushions, tracing tiny patterns of desire, his legs spread wide, anticipating touch, his mouth opened slightly, ready to taste and scent. Had it only been last night when his life suddenly shifted and turned upside down because of one single act of love?

~~~~

"Are you sure about this, Jim?" Blair smiled, but his eyes were serious. He rolled to his side and propped himself up on his elbow, kicking the sheet off of his bare legs.

"Yeah." Jim shrugged, trying for laconic. A shadow passed over Blair's face, and he knew that he hadn't succeeded. Never mind. "Listen, Sandburg, get this through your fat skull - there's no way in hell that you're going to be the guinea pig for this one." He raised his hand and gently traced the side of his thumb down the angle of Blair's cheekbone and jaw, smiling to take the sting from his words. "I know you're hung like a horse, but I can't... I won't do it to you until I know what it's like."

"Why?"

The word caught him off balance. Hadn't he answered that? No, not really. Could he answer it? He sat up suddenly and clasped his knees to his chest, turning to look anywhere but at his partner's level gaze.

"Why?" Jim repeated blankly.

"That's what I'm asking. Why do you insist that I fuck you first?" Blair's mouth quirked into a half-smile and his hand came to rest on Jim's knee. "I'm not complaining, but I'd like to know why."

"I don't... I'm not..." Jim shook his head, lips pinched clam-shell tight. How could he explain something he didn't understand himself? "It just wouldn't be right," he finally choked out.

Blair stared at him for a long moment, eyes flickering over his face, until he finally nodded. "Okay. File it under Blessed Protector stuff. I think I understand." He sat up and tucked his feet beneath him, his erection resting heavily on his thighs, both his hands on Jim's bent knees. A sly grin slowly spread over his face. "Just be warned, man. I'm going to make you love it so much that you'll beg to do it to me."

Jim covered Blair's hands with his own and nodded, voice sandpaper rough. "Sounds good, Chief."

Gently coaxing, like he would a puppy or small child, Blair urged Jim onto his side. Jim resisted, more for form's sake than because he wished to, but he gradually allowed himself to follow Blair's lead and lay quietly, facing him. Long strokes down his side and over his flanks urged him to relax, to place his trust in his partner, to give up even the pretense of control.

He gave it up. He allowed Blair to set the pace, returning his gentle kisses, echoing his soft words. Blair's fingers drew intricate patterns across his skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. Jim's hands mirrored their movements, and he smiled to himself when Blair shivered and moaned deep in his throat.

When Blair pushed him onto his back, and then over to his other side, Jim obliged, drawing his legs up. A rustle, a creak, then the sharp snap of a plastic lid told Jim exactly what Blair was doing. He took a deep breath and let it out in one long whoosh, willing himself to relax further.

"Okay, Jim, nothing new yet," murmured Blair behind him, stroking his back and arm. "One finger first."

He felt the familiar chill of cool gel, the initial resistance then immediate capitulation, followed by the smooth glide of Blair's finger. He shifted his legs to accommodate the sudden swell of his cock, savoring the contrast between the cool gel and the heat of Blair's hand on his back and the finger probing him. Closing his eyes, Jim focused on his body's reactions, on the feel of Blair's finger buried deep inside him. He concentrated fiercely on the pleasures of the moment, turning his back on his apprehension, refusing to acknowledge its existence.

Blair seemed to sense his struggle and continued his quiet stroking. Jim shivered and stifled a moan when Blair suddenly began to move his finger in tight circles - his ass was on fire, every nerve awake and flaring. Jim reached toward his swollen cock, desperately wanting to finish himself. He jerked and abruptly fisted the sheet instead as Blair murmured "Hold on," and slid another finger inside him.

//Oh god oh god oh god...//

Flames raced across his flesh, up his back and down his thighs, engulfed his cock and scorched his nipples. There was a groan. He suspected it was his when he heard Blair chuckle. He angled his hips and shoved back on those tormenting fingers, gasping as he was stretched wide. He pulled away and did it again, greed and desperation making his movements jerky and uncoordinated. He wanted to experience that sharp burn over and over, needed it, demanded it. Finally, Blair pulled his hand away - Jim's protest was loud and immediate.

"Hold on, Jim. I've just got to grease myself up," Blair said as Jim shifted restlessly on the bed.

His position was wrong. It felt wrong, a deep-seated, gnawing wrongness that he could not tolerate. It shouldn't be this way. He needed to move. Must move. With a growl, he twisted to his stomach, dragged a pillow beneath his lower abdomen, spread his legs and raised his hips.

Better.

"Hey, the books say that spooning will make it easier," began Blair, his hands gently urging Jim to roll to his side.

"No." Jim resisted. He was good at resisting, even though he always caved in to his partner in the end. But not this time - "This way. Fuck me this way, Blair."

A shaky gasp came from behind, and two warm hands smoothed up his calves and thighs, coming to rest on his ass. "Okay." Blair's voice deepened and thickened. "Okay." A finger dipped between his cheeks and he clenched his ass around it.

"Now."

A brief kiss dropped on his back, then his ass was spread and warmth, no, heat, no, pressure, lodged against him. Jim dropped his forehead to the cool softness of the sheets, hitched his hips a fraction higher and relaxed. The pressure increased, turning into burning as he panted his desire into the mattress. Hands stroked his flanks, and he was vaguely aware that they shook slightly as they caressed his skin. That fact pleased him.

He tentatively pushed back and the burning spiked briefly into pain. He groaned and held still before it subsided into a throbbing ring of fire encircling the bulk that stretched him wide.

Another kiss landed on his back. Fingers held his hips tightly, pressing almost painfully into his muscles. A long, quavering draw of breath let out all at once. "Sorry," murmured Blair, and the fingers loosened.

Suddenly impatient, Jim raised himself up on his arms and shoved back, hard. All at once he was filled beyond endurance, beyond reasoning. He sucked in a measure of air and demanded that his muscles relax, slowly turning the burning pain into fiery pleasure.

He was home.

This was how it should be. This was how it must be, again and again. For a long moment he was suspended, content, impaled on his lover's cock. The damp skin of his ass and back was tickled by Blair's hair, stroked by Blair's hands, kissed by Blair's mouth.

And then it began. A warmth, a nebulous darkness unfurled itself in the back of his mind, reaching out lazily to coil itself around his thoughts. He shook his head to clear it and thrust back again, shivering at the burst of sensation in his ass, which resonated dimly in his mind.

"Jim..." The word was almost unintelligible. Strong fingers grabbed his hips and tried to still him, but he continued to move, squeezing his eyes shut and giving himself up to his body's demands.

Blair gave a strangled cry and then rammed into him, almost shoving Jim onto his face. Jim stiffened his arms and met the thrusts joyfully, angling his hips for more penetration, riding out Blair's hard lunges. The warmth in his mind shifted slowly, deepening, sending long languid trails through him, through his thoughts, his emotions. Every place it touched it intensified, as if he were caught in an internal feedback loop of monstrous proportions. A jolt of pure pleasure shot through him and he gasped, the sound echoed by Blair's harsh moan.

With each thrust, with each cry, Jim felt bound more and more closely with the shadow inside his mind, and the thought terrified him. His body demanded release, however, and he had no choice but to yield and leave his fears behind.

Soft grunts signaled that Blair was balancing on the edge, and Jim clenched his muscles tightly, keening out a wail of pleasure. Blair answered and plunged deep, then rocked hard against Jim's ass as he orgasmed. Where Blair led, Jim, of course, followed, his hips jerking as he spasmed.

They collapsed, still joined, and Jim drifted lazily for a while. Kisses were dropped on one shoulder-blade, fingers trailed up his left biceps. And then, clear as a bell, Blair spoke inside his head.

//"I think I've died and gone to heaven."//

//"What the-"// Jim could hear his own thoughts echo in Blair's mind.

//"How the hell-"//

"Shit!" He tried to escape, to scramble out from beneath his partner, but his muscles, still lax from his exertions, refused to respond. He scrabbled at the sheets, but only succeeded in bunching them beneath his hands.

"Jim, calm down," Blair said, his voice sharp. //"Calm down,"// repeated in his mind.

He lay still but he was not calm, not by a long shot. Blair shifted a little on his back, and his nerves sang, reminding him of recent pleasure. It felt so good and so right to be connected this way, but-.

//"Can you hear me?"//

He nodded, mute.

//"Answer me."//

"Yes. I hear you."

//"Not with your mouth, Jim. Answer me in your mind."//

//"Yes."// He covered his eyes with his hand, vaguely ashamed. He felt completely exposed. It was too much, too revealing to do this. Not to mention weird. He couldn't...

//"Yes, you can. And it's no more weird than being able to see a mile in the dark, or hear someone speaking eight blocks away. We just didn't know about it before."//

"I don't think I want to know about it now, Chief."

//"It's too late, Jim,"// and he felt Blair smile against his back. //"What's done is done, and now we just have to figure out exactly how this works."//

"I'd rather ignore it."

Blair snorted. //"I'm sure you would."// He shifted again and Jim shivered as Blair's cock slid free. The sense of rightness vanished. With a groan, Blair rolled beside him.

"Jim?"

Jim grunted in reply, but kept his head turned away. It took him a minute to realize that the strangeness in his mind was gone.

"Jim?"

He twisted around and peered at Blair, sitting cross-legged on the bed, wiping his cock with a damp washcloth.

"What?"

"It's not working any more."

"I noticed."

"Yeah," Blair nodded and draped the washcloth over the railing, "so I guess it has something to do with our being physically joined."

Jim closed his eyes. "We're not going there, Sandburg."

"Why not?"

"Because I said so, that's why."

Blair moved, bouncing the bed a little, until Jim could feel him stretch out beside him. A finger gently traced down his nose and over his lips. He flicked it with his tongue.

"Y'know, Jim, that was a pretty amazing experience. I mean, even without the-you know. And it's not like we haven't had great sex before, because we have, it's like a constant in my universe. Jim plus me equals incredible sex. Orgasms 'R' us. But this..." Blair paused. "Uh, did you like it?"

His eyes flew open. "I loved it, Chief." Blair blushed and smiled.

"Good. Because I loved it too."

"I just..." He stumbled, unable to form the words. "I just don't know if I can do it again, because of..." He tapped his forehead.

"Why does it scare you so much?" The question was gentle, but still he flinched.

"Why wouldn't it scare me?" He rolled onto his back and crossed his hands over his stomach. Eyes forward, body straight. He could have been lying in his own coffin. "My mind can be a scary place sometimes. You know that. It's bad enough that I never know what I'll find in there, hidden away in the corners. And then if you come walking in..." He shook his head. "You should be the one who's afraid."

"Of you? Get real, Jim. I don't mind admitting that I'm afraid of a lot of things, but you're not one of them. Not even the deep, dark recesses of your mind." Blair's face appeared over him, then quickly swooped down for a kiss. A kiss Jim could handle, and did. Several minutes later, Blair pulled himself upright and gulped air, wheezing softly. "Oh wow, man. Thanks a lot. You've got me all horny again."

Jim smiled, a sleek, satisfied, self-congratulatory smile. He'd managed to get Blair's mind off that... that... that connection thing.

"Hey, Jim." His eyes swiveled over to his partner, who was lying on his stomach, wriggling his hips. "How about turnabout is fair play? How about you fuck me?"

The sight of Blair, leering, knees spread wide and butt waving gently, almost made him come on the spot. Oh yeah, he could fuck him. Especially now that he knew just how great it could be...

Jim closed his eyes, shutting out that seductive image. "Not a chance, Sandburg. You'll have to conduct your research some other way. I'm not making our sex life into an experiment."

There was a pause, then a flurry of movement. "You're a real bastard when you want to be, you know that, Jim? I wanted to share this with you, and if we found out more about whatever was going on in our minds, well then great. But if you're so frightened of opening up yourself to me that you won't even consider sharing the same pleasure I shared with you, then I guess I'm in the wrong place."

Out of the corner of his eye Jim watched him grab his robe and shrug it on, then pad down the stairs, muttering.

With a groan he rolled out of bed and followed.

Blair was staring out the windows into the darkness beyond, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Jim could see his face in the reflection and it looked strange reversed. Blair, but not Blair. He walked up behind him, but did not touch him.

"It's not the fucking that bothers me, it's the other thing."

"I know." Blair frowned and shrugged. "But as far as we know, the two are connected. Unless we try it again, me in you, and try you in me as well, we won't know if this was a once time occurrence, or the norm from now on. If it is the norm, we won't know the range or intensity of our connection until we try it over and over."

"That's a good excuse to keep on fucking," Jim said, but he didn't even pretend to smile. "Couldn't we just hold off on this for a while? Go back to the way things were before?" He ventured a hand on Blair's shoulder, and was mildly encouraged when it was not shrugged off. "We managed for almost a year without fucking each other. We could just go back to hands and mouths again."

"Yeah, I suppose we could," Blair said quietly. "But I don't want to. We just had the best damn sex I've ever had tonight, and you seemed happy with it, plus we find out that somehow or other we can get into each other's minds. We can't just ignore it and hope it'll go away."

"Why not? You'd be surprised what you can ignore if you want to."

Blair turned slowly, and Jim let his hand slip down Blair's arm, stopping above his elbow. Blair looked up at him, eyes narrowing.

"You know the answer to that one. Repressing stuff has brought you nothing but pain and heartache, man. If you insist, you can repress and ignore this all you want, but you'll do it alone." He took a half-step forward and bowed his head, leaning his forehead against Jim's shoulder.

"Alone?" Jim was sure he hadn't heard right.

"Alone." Blair raised his head. "I won't do that to you. And I sure as hell can't watch you self-destruct this way. It's up to you. We go on together and give this a chance, or you ignore it and I move my bed back downstairs."

"You won't just disappear?"

A glimmer of amusement lit Blair's eyes. "Yeah, sure. Like I could ever abandon you. Talk about not going to happen. If you choose to repress this, the only thing I'll leave is our bed."

"That's not a whole lot of comfort, Chief."

Another shrug. "It's the best I can do under the circumstances."

"Blair, I want- I mean-" He bit his lip and jerked his hand away. "I want you, I need you, but this thing between us scares me more than anything."

A nod. "That's obvious."

"Can you," he began, the words dragged from him, "can you give me some time to decide? Until tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Tomorrow I can do. I've got that all day seminar, but I'll be home around ten or so." With a sad smile, Blair kissed his cheek and rubbed his shoulder. "I wish there was something I could do to help you make up your mind, Jim."

"Hold me," he breathed, and was surprised when Blair wrapped his arms tightly around him.

~~~~

Jim glanced at the clock again. Nine fifty-five. He listened carefully, and heard the Volvo turn onto Prospect. Time had run out. He had to decide.

And then he made his decision.

Almost stumbling over his feet in his haste, he rose and took the stairs three at a time. Clothes fell, unheeded, to the floor. He scrambled onto the bed and stretched out on his stomach, jerking a pillow beneath his hips, almost giddy with relief. It is the right decision, his body and mind sang, and he buried his face in the sheets and shouted his joy.

The front door opened and his head snapped up.

"Jim?"

"Up here," he said quietly, trying not to laugh.

Blair ran up the stairs and stopped dead when he saw Jim. A smile spread across his face, like the sun appearing after a storm. Jim grinned back and shifted his hips.

"I guess you decided to go forward," said Blair, sitting on the edge of the bed and trailing his fingertips down Jim's face and neck and back.

"Not just me, Sandburg. We're going forward." Jim snagged the tail of Blair's shirt and tugged impatiently. "Now get these damn clothes off and fuck me. And then," he said with great satisfaction, feeling the absolute rightness of it all, "it'll be your turn."

The end