Title: Fear of Flying

Author: Silk

Fandom: The Sentinel

Pairing: Jim/Blair

Rating: R

Summary: Sometimes you have to leave the ground in order to learn to fly.

Archive: If I sent it to you, please feel free.

Email: silkn1@att.net

Series/Sequel: No

Website: http://www.crystalgardens.net

Disclaimer: All things Sentinel owned by Pet Fly and Paramount. Not me. This work is not for profit.

Warnings: m/m

Notes: This story was originally published in Whispers of the Heart 5.



Fear of Flying
By Silk


Pre-Flight Check

"I hate airports."

"You hate *waiting*."

"That's true. I'm an impatient son of a bitch, Chief. Why do you put up with me?"

"Couldn't be your sterling personality."

"This from Mr. "I Minored in Psych," for God's sake."

"I didn't claim to be an expert, Jim."

"Like I suppose you think *you're* perfect."

"At least I don't make all my decisions based on fear."

"Cheap shot, Guide Boy. And I don't make *all* my decisions that way."

"Oh, yeah? Then how come we get *this* close and no further, Jim?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do. You're not just impatient; you're a close-mouthed son of a bitch, too."

"Just because I don't dance attendance on your every fucking word, Darwin, doesn't mean I'm indifferent."

"Ooh, big words, Jim. But can you put your money where your mouth is?"

"I'll tell you where I'd like to put my mouth," he muttered under his breath.

"What's that, Jim? Did you just say something that could be construed as personal?" Blair cupped his ear as if he were hard of hearing.

"I-I...."

"Yes, Jim?"

"I hate airports."

*****

Boarding

"You haven't said a word since we got our boarding passes, Jim."

"I'm thinking."

"About what?"

"About how much I hate airports."

"No, you don't, Jim. That might've washed twenty minutes ago, but now? We are almost on the plane."

"Why do I get the feeling you're not talking about the plane?"

"Why do I get the feeling you don't want me to know what you're thinking?"

"I hate you."

"Ah, at last, we've progressed from inanimate objects to people."

"You're a fine one to talk, Sandburg. I don't see you doing True Confessions here either." Jim's chin jutted out belligerently.

"Is that what you want? Be careful what you ask for, man. You. Just. Might. Get. It."

"I can deal with anything you want to say to me, Chief,"

"Oh, yeah? What if I don't want to say anything? What if I want to show you something? Without words?"

"Like what?" Jim asked bravely, knowing he had just broken a cardinal rule of the Cop Code. Never ask a question if you don't know what the answer's going to be.

"Like the fucking Taj Mahal. What do you think, Jim? You up for this?"

"For what?"

"Putting your mouth where it belongs."

"In public?"

"You pig! You just confirmed what a filthy mind you have."

"Well, if my lips don't belong on your ass, Chief, I must have misread that expression in your eyes."

"Jim!" Blair squeaked.

"You think what I want to do to you is dirty? No wonder we never got any further, Sandburg. I'm not the only one operating on fear-based responses."

"It's not that. It's just - "

"What?"

All at once a tinny voice that was barely intelligible, even to Sentinel hearing, announced: "Flight 705 will begin boarding now at Gate 5. If you are in rows 18 or higher, you may board at this time."

***

Take-off

Jim reached around Blair, ostensibly to make certain his seatbelt was securely fastened. But he wasn't fooling anyone. Least of all himself.

Blair's hand closed on his, just for a second, and Jim knew he was irrevocably lost. Blair owned his heart. Why it had taken him so long to claim what he so obviously possessed remained a mystery. Even to Jim. But he knew it. As well as he knew his own name.

"Chief...."

Blair's smoky blue eyes opened wide. Clearly, he had read some of what Jim was feeling in the older man's face.

"I want to go there, Jim," Blair said hoarsely.

"You think you can handle this?"

Blair nodded, unable to trust himself to speak.

"Are you sure, Chief? You have to be sure because I'm not playing here."

"Jim...." Blair visibly trembled and closed his eyes, gathering himself under control again. When he opened his eyes again, he looked as if he'd never been more certain. "You are my life. I want to be with you. Forever."

Jim's heart skipped a beat or two in response to the huskily voiced vow. "Blair..." he whispered, the name an involuntary invocation of the spirit of the man he loved. "I - "

"Would you like a freshly baked muffin, sir? Or something to drink?" The flight attendant smiled brightly, her words meaningless inanities Jim momentarily couldn't decipher.

What I want, honey, is definitely not on your menu, Jim mused.

Powerless to resist the magnetic pull of his partner's gaze any longer, Jim slowly drifted closer. Close enough to touch him. And yet so far apart still.

As if she sensed that her presence was somehow irrelevant, the flight attendant moved on. Jim didn't spare the young woman another thought, his predatory instincts surging to the fore with the target of his desire so near. "Let me..." he begged in an unashamed whisper.

"What?" Blair asked, his mouth mere inches away.

"Kiss you...."

"Yessss..." Blair responded with a puff of breath that warmed Jim's lips.

It was a tender claiming. It bespoke none of the ardent intensity that leaped between the two of them like the flickering of a live flame. Instead it was a joining of spirits, long awaited, long hoped for, and their lips touched with the fervor of their wistful hearts. Be my mate. Complete me. Take from me that I may give you - everything that I am and ever will be.

Blair sighed helplessly when Jim moved away from him again. They were in public. They dared too much.

Then all at once, their mouths met, merged, melted against each other. Public be damned. Jim Ellison might have taken light-years to get his ass in gear, but once he did, he had no intention of ever letting go of Blair again.

Reluctantly breaking away with a muttered curse, Jim slowly allowed himself the luxury of resting his forehead against Blair's. "Want you, Chief," he sighed.

"You do?" Blair asked, his voice rising hopefully.

"So much."

"Oh, man."

Jim nuzzled the soft curls that threatened to fall into his lover's face, provoking a breathless noise from the younger man. "Need you, too."

"Umm...."

Blair closed his eyes on a wave of desire that warred with the tenderness he felt for his Sentinel. "Your timing sucks, Jim."

"That's not all that - "

Blair's eyes flew open, their color dramatically darker than they'd been moments before. "Don't you dare finish that sentence, man," he exhorted. "Or I won't be responsible for what happens."

"This is a commercial aircraft, Sandburg. I imagine they have rules about that sort of thing," Jim quipped dryly.

"There must be some reason there's a mile high club, Jim."

"Oh, God," Jim groaned, resisting the urge to pull the younger man hard against him. Which was an impossible task, given the constraints of their seatbelts. "You're killing me, Chief."

"Well, don't die yet, man. There's a hotel in our future. At the other end of this flight."

Jim slid the side of his face against the anthropologist's beard-peppered cheek and grimaced. "You picked a great day to give up shaving, Sandburg."

"You dragged me out of the loft before I was done in the bathroom, Jim," Blair automatically protested, but his heart registered nothing but elation at the feel of Jim's bare skin.

The tip of Jim's tongue flicked out to caress Blair's ear, and Jim could trace the frisson of excitement that shivered throughout his Guide's responsive body. Suddenly aware that Blair was chanting something under his breath, he concentrated, his efforts rewarded a short while later. "You do?" he whispered, losing the battle to maintain control.

"Oh, yeah," Blair whispered back with equal intensity. His hand creeping slowly around Jim's neck, Blair spoke directly into Jim's ear, more out of shyness than anything else. "I love you, Jim."

Jim drew back and studied the younger man's face as if he were committing each feature to memory. "I love you, too."

He rubbed his thumb affectionately against Blair's cheek, catching a drop of moisture at the corner of his eye that could have been a tear. Only it wasn't sadness that peered unsteadily through Blair's expressive blue eyes. It was happiness.

They didn't have to leave the ground to take flight. But they did.



End