Title: Oops

Author/pseudonym: Blue Champagne

Fandom: The Sentinel

Pairing: Rafe/J (so far)

Rating: PG-13

Status: New, Invite-to-Continue

Archive:Yes

Series/Sequel: Not yet

(I *have* seen low-angst Rafe, those of you out there who've written it. <s>) I never did anything else with this, because I'm in the throes of the Lovers' Farewell series and finishing the J/B/R novel I'm working on. It really totally begged a sequel. I left a *lot* of things needing explanation, and a bunch of directions it could go. Anybody feel like catching the baton? <bg> Also, sorry about all the one-word lines, etc. I tried everything, believe me, to get rid of them, before sending to the group.

Oops
by Blue Champagne

Jim drifted toward wakefulness, snugged against a warm, pliant body. He sighed contentedly and snuggled closer, wrapping his arm around the slim, muscular waist, letting his thoughts, scattered by pleasant-if-disjointed dreams, begin to wander back over the previous night's sweet, satisfying, and above all thorough lovemaking. What a night. What a guy...

Hold it.

His companion evidently coming to the same realization just as he did, Jim found himself eyeball-to-eyeball with an equally stunned and unbelieving Brian Rafe.

"Jesus!"

"FUCK!"

In a mighty flurry of bedclothes, the two men leaped away from each other and got their various personal attributes concealed, Brian using the sheet, Jim grabbing a pillow. For a moment they just sat there staring at each other in shock, hyperventilating.

Eventually, they began to calm down a little. Jim gulped and tried "Um..."

"Yeah, er..."

"So..."

Brian sighed, slumping, and released his deathgrip on the sheet (it wasn't like he still had any secrets from Jim that a sheet could cover, anyway). He looked back up with a resigned expression, shrugged, and said "Oops."

"At least," Jim acknowledged, slumping too. "Okay...what happened? Well, I know what happened, but what happened before that?"

"You mean before we made it to the bed before, or before we decided to ruin our own lives before?"

"Before we decided, etc. What's the last thing you remember before..." Jim trailed off, his face heating. He had just been blessed with a vivid recollection of the first major episode in last night's series of carnal events, that being sucking Brian off on stakeout in his truck outside a
pharmaceutical wholesale warehouse. The case was actually Jim and Blair's; they'd been after a ring of raw material suppliers who were bringing in unregulated stuff from South America, bypassing both quality checks and import tariffs. "Before...I...you...um..."

"Before we started making out in your truck and you, um, right," Brian veered off of that thought, skin beginning to turn pink. 'He blushes all the way down his chest,' Jim noted, then slapped himself mentally. 'Stop looking at him like that, idiot! In fact, just fucking stop looking at him altogether.

'Damn, he's pretty, though...'

"The only thing I can think of...I mean, I know we didn't get drunk, and I know we wouldn't both suddenly decide at the same time to trash our careers and get busy on each other. We *have* to have been drugged."

"I don't feel hung over," Jim noticed.

"Neither do I, but have you got another explanation? Obviously it was something with no obvious aftereffects."

It was true that Jim's memory, sadly, seemed to be pretty much intact, and it only took one look at Brian's heated face to know his had to be, too. "Somebody slipped us something?"

"Who'd do that except Milner or one of his guys? How would they know we were staking them out that night, and how would they have gotten it to us?"

"Good point. Then we had to be breathing it. But I'm sure I would have smelled something..."

"A lot of mind-altering gases and chemicals are odorless, Jim."

'Not to me. Then again, judging by the evidence...' "We need to get to the hospital, get checked. We might still have it in our systems. If they can identify it, it might pin Milner, if it's something we can connect with--"

"Jim, wait. We need to think about this before we just go charging to the emergency room, flashing our badges. If we go in and tell them we have reason to believe we accidentally ingested a mind-altering substance, they're going to want to know why we think that, and when we tell them..."

"We don't have to tell them the *truth*..." Judging by the look on Jim's face as he spoke, he knew how lame and hopeless that sounded even as he said it. For one thing, those people had been to school long enough to know a thoroughly worn-out survivor of a championship session of male-male sex when they saw one, especially when two such specimens walked in together talking about having been drugged and out of their heads. Besides, when they admitted that last,
thorough on-record physicals would be required before they were allowed back to active duty.

"Besides," Brian finished, "like you said, this could be too significant to the case to ignore completely."

Jim groaned. He was right. "Well, then how do we--"

Then he froze at the sound of tired footsteps trudging up the hall.

"Shit! It's Sandburg!"

Jim and Brian both cast anxiously about for some avenue of escape, but Blair's key was already turning in the lock, and unless Jim was prepared to pitch Brian naked out of a third-story window (not the most discreet move), their only option was to keep his presence quiet until Sandburg, home from an all-nighter at the University, hit the shower.

"Do you even see my clothes?" Brian asked in despair, running a hand through his sleep-rumpled hair.

"No," Jim sighed in resignation. "I'm sure it'll come back to us where they are. Everything else has--shh."

The door was swinging closed. Blair knew Jim had been on stakeout the night before. He wouldn't know, though, if Jim had been out there all night or if they'd managed to wrap up early for some reason--he usually called to find out, but he wouldn't have got through on the cell last night, that was for damn sure. So he would probably bring his non-Jim-alarming guide presence upstairs briefly to check what time Jim's alarm was set for, so he would know whether to keep quiet or not have to worry about waking him up--

"Rafe! Under the covers!" He grabbed the younger man and stuffed him under the comforter, then flopped down himself, closing his eyes.

A pause. Footsteps on the stairs. Jim played possum.

"Jim."

Silence.

"Jim."

Jim sighed and opened his eyes.

Blair had come up, all right. He was pointing at the Rafe-shaped lump on the side of the bed nearer him. He had a seriously spooked look on his face and a gleaming black Italian leather object in his other hand.

Rafe's wallet.

"Tell me that's not who this thing would seem to indicate that it is," Blair said faintly.

Rafe sighed and started to emerge from cover.

The wallet took a flying one, spinning merrily in place in the air as the thunder of Blair's footsteps receded down the stairs, the younger man managing to make the speedy descent without killing himself despite the fact he had his hands over his eyes. "WHOA, see no evil, man, I was *not* here, I'm *still* not here, I never even came home--" he grabbed his backpack and made for the front door.

"*Sandburg!* Come back here. Do you think Brian and I would deliberately wreak havoc with our careers this way? We could use your help."

"Put the pants on first, *then* the shoes. And if anyone at the station asks me you guys are just good friends. Later--"

"*Blair*! Calm down. This is not what it looks like. Well, okay, it is what it looks like, but we were drugged."

"Whatever you say, big guy--"

"I'm serious!"

"He's serious," Brian added. "We wound up breathing some kind of airborne intoxicant. We're only lucky we didn't end up *killing* each other, or anyone else. We both carry guns, and Jim *drove* in that condition." 'With my, um...head in his lap, too.' "Considering what might have happened, we're lucky all we did was have sex, and even more lucky that it was only with each other. So if you're having a problem, think how Jim and I must feel."

The voice of reason managed to halt Blair's lunge for freedom from extreme complication. "Um...yeah, I guess. I see what you...damn." He dropped his backpack and slumped at the kitchen table. "You guys better get to the doctor, man."

"We know," Jim said. "But we've got to deal with a few things first. We can't just include what happened in the report, so we have to come up with something to explain why we stopped checking in--someone would have come out to check on us when that happened, and when we weren't there--"

"Or worse, if we still were..."

"C'mon, they'd have called us on it right then if anyone saw anything, Brian."

"Your lips to God's ears."

"We were there at least until three in the morning, because I remember checking in about then," Jim said, settling into the sheets to think. "The stakeout was only supposed to be until it started getting light, which this morning would have been at about four-thirty. If the only call we missed was letting dispatch know we were packing it in, it may just have slipped by. Those things happen."

"And it may not have. They may have sent someone when they didn't get that call, and when we weren't there, figured we'd just called it a night without reporting. And neither of us is that sloppy."

"You're right, everyone's alarms are probably already flashing, but considering we didn't report any unusual activity or let anyone know we were moving in on anything, can you think of a reason besides 'We were tired and fluffed the call' that has a hope in hell of flying? Both our cellphones and the scanner crapping out at the same time is unlikely, to say the least, and one of us would have called to explain that when we got home in any case."

Brian sighed. "You're right. We were tired and fluffed the call. Blair, are my clothes down there?"

"Yeah. All over the *place* down here, in fact. So are Jim's. I found your wallet in one of the saucepans hanging in the kitchen."

Brian blinked, then actually grinned. "Oh. Yeah. I, um, remember that part."

Blair sighed, then--still not looking up toward the loft bedroom--"Okay, your story is that nothing happened on the stakeout, you were tired, you forgot the last check-in call, you went home to bed. Brian was never here. Right?"

"Right--"

"Shit."

"What?" Jim's eyes darted to his partner in debauchery. "What shit? *What*?"

"H."

"What about him?"

"He was supposed to stop by on his way to work this morning--we were going to have breakfast, or in my case, dinner."

"So you fell asleep and didn't answer the door."

"He's my partner, Jim, he has keys to every lock I've got and he uses them just for something to do. He'd have let himself in. Even if he hadn't, my car's still here."

"That means we can be expecting a call from--"

"I think you've already had a few," Blair said, noting the flashing condition of the answering machine light. "Which you either screwed through or slept through."

"Geez, Chief, d'you have to put it like *that*?"

"Sorry." The beep whined. H's voice. "Hey, Jim? Wake your ass up and come to the phone, something's not right...Jim? You up? Man, I know you were on stakeout all night, but that's kind of the point. You were the last one to see Brian, and I can't find hide nor hair of the guy, at home or at the station, or anywhere else. As soon as you get this, you call me back and tell me where the hell he is, okay? Okay."

Beep. "Jim? H again. Wake *up* already and come to the phone. If I can't get you, I'm gonna come out to see if you're missing, too--I just found out you didn't make the last check-in on the stakeout, and now Brian's missing, and you might be. Your cell's either turned off or out of range, and I found Brian's at his place on the bedside table, he hasn't even *got* it. Now call me!"

Beep. "Jim, Simon. I'm sending Brown and Connor out to your place right after this damn meeting's over, and if they can't get you to open the door they're going to break it down. Henri's already filled out all the paperwork for a missing persons report on Rafe, even if he can't file it for another day and a half; he's like a mother tiger with one cub. One *missing* cub. Call me if you get this before they get there." Click.

Blair had been wandering around the main floor of the apartment, gathering up Brian's clothes, after vanishing into his bedroom briefly for some clean underwear. "I grabbed you a change of shorts," he was saying. "If I were you, I'd get dressed and get moving, because that last message showed up over an hour a--"

Bang bang bang. "Jim!" Connor's voice. "We know you're in there, your truck and Rafe's car are both here, ya bloody comatose old cobber, now open the door before H wets himself!"

"Brian! Down here! Take these and hide in the bathroom, turn on the shower," Blair said; Brian obviously didn't need to have explained to him that his saying a bright "Hi!" to H and Connor while looking and smelling like six kinds of rut would not exactly improve the situation. A tall, slim, muscular, naked blur shot past Blair, snagging the bundle of clothing en passant and Vanishing into the bathroom, slamming the door.

"Wow," Blair murmured, eyes locked in fascination on said door. "He's, uh...he looks nice, doesn't he?"

"Just answer Connor already!" Jim hissed, burrowing under the covers, glad Henri and Megan didn't have heightened senses of smell. "I'm asleep!"

"Right, right," Blair nodded, snapping himself out of it. "Jim asleep. Brian in shower. Got it..."

Just as the heavy banging started up again, Blair pulled the door open. "H, Megan, hi."

"Hairboy, where the hell is--"

"Shh, Jim's sleeping," Blair whispered. "Stakeout last night, y'know."

"Of course I know, I loaned him my partner for it when you got drafted by the U," H said. "Which is why I--"

"Oh, you're looking for Brian? He's in the shower."

H slumped against the doorjamb in relief; Megan patted him comfortingly. "They didn't make the final check-in, and then when I couldn't find him--"

"Oh, that. Brian mentioned it to me--feels like a complete fool about it. Figures he and Jim'll both be getting ragged at all week about making a rookie procedural screwup just because they were too bushed to think straight. In fact, that's why Brian took my bed last night. Jim didn't want him driving when he could barely keep his eyes open."

"That doesn't sound like my partner," H muttered darkly. "You sure he's okay?"

"Oh, he's great! Um, tired. Said he was going to take a shower to make sure he was awake enough to drive, then head home."

H shook his head in befuddlement. "Well, okay. If you're sure he's all right."

"I can honestly say I've never seen Rafe look better than he did just before he got in the shower."

"Then you just tell him for me that if he ever does this to me again, I'm kicking his narrow ass to the moon. Got that?"

"Got it, H," Blair grinned. "See you. Later, Megan."

"Later, Sandy. We'll call Simon and tell him Jim and Rafe are found."

"Thanks." The door shut.

Upstairs, Jim groaned. "You're gonna pay in the next lifetime for that one, Chief."

"Sorry. Besides, it was true, though he's kind of bruised up. Your doing, I take it?"

"It was a communal effort. I've got the same kind of blotches and scrapes."

The bathroom door opened, and Brian emerged, damp and wearing a pair of Blair's flannel boxers and a white cotton T-shirt. "Thanks for the quick thinking,

Blair," he said resignedly, and sat down--verrrry carefully--in one of the kitchen chairs. He winced and shifted again.

"Look, guys, I know this is none of my business, but don't you think you're being a little paranoid, here? What happened was plainly not your fault--either abandoning the stakeout or fooling around--"

"Oh, we weren't fooling around about it, no way," Jim muttered, to a rueful snort of agreement from Rafe. "We were *very* focused."

"You know what I mean. If you were drugged, you wouldn't be held responsible. Even if you weren't drugged, it wouldn't be fraternization or anything, would it? You and Brian are the same rank."

"That's the Army's fraternization rules you're thinking of, and actually, we're not," Brian said. "We're both Lieutenants, but Jim's a grade above me. None of that is the point, though."

"Then what is the point? Yeah, I'd feel pretty stupid too, but--"

"It's different for you," Jim said glumly, coming downstairs dressed in his bathrobe. He was moving like an old man, too. He sat down--also carefully--in the kitchen chair opposite Brian's. "You aren't a cop."

"Come *on*, like I said, you guys were *drugged*--"

"That doesn't matter. We don't want this in the official report. Let it get out that it happened for any reason and the next thing Brian and I know, we show up for work to find both our desks painted pink and paper streamers trained over a 'Just Married' sign with our pictures on it." Jim sighed, resting his forehead on his palm.

"I think you underestimate the people you work with," Blair muttered, starting to put up coffee.

"On the contrary, I think Jim's cutting them a break by not mentioning the Fleet enemas in our lockers, the boxes of Kotex thoughtfully being left for us in the men's room, or coming down to the garage to find our cars dripping with Astroglide."

"Hm...I guess it seems different because I *know* the people you guys work with, but you're just describing the usual--

"What we haven't mentioned is the possibility of long-term ramifications," Jim said dryly. "Ten *years* from now one of us could find ourselves turned down for a promotion because there was this rumor once that--"

"Okay, okay! I get the idea. In that case, I'll take you to the voodoo hut on campus. Dr. Vallejo is a good friend of mine. She'll get you checked out. There's no reason to connect you two with her, except through me, and like I said, she's a friend."

"You sure about this?" Brian wondered.

"She's done it for me before--my students come to me when they get in trouble, and these days, on a college campus, a lot of that trouble can be medical in nature. I've gotten kids pregnancy tests, VD checks, complete physicals, drug check lab work--she'll even do the lab work herself if I ask her to."

"Then I guess you're sure you can trust her," Jim said.

"Consuelo is a subversive, like me. She wouldn't rat on a patient for anything less than a formal subpoena, and she'd have to be threatened with contempt of court even then. If you both feel all right, we might as well have breakfast; Consuelo won't be at the hut for a while yet, anyway. Speaking of pregnancy

tests, I don't imagine that's going to be a problem for either of you, but I'm willing to bet you guys didn't use protection, did you?"

Brian shook his head grimly as Jim said "We didn't even use *lube*."

Blair winced. "Ooh, man---tooooo much information, there, big guy," he said, averting his eyes, holding up a hand to distance himself. "Tell all that to Consuelo. And I mean it, tell *all* that to Consuelo. I'm sure you're both all right, of course, but no point taking chances."

"Define 'all right'," Brian muttered, shifting again. "I hope to God I don't wind up cornering the Preparation H market." Jim actually managed to grin, then suddenly burst out laughing, joined by Brian.

"Man, I tell you I do not need to *know*," Blair begged, plunking cups of coffee down in front of each of them. He couldn't help a surreptitious grin, though. It appeared reaction was setting in for the funboys du jour.

"I wonder if Bactine makes suppositories," Jim mused, cracking Brian up again.

"If they do, put me down for a gross," the younger man said, dumping sugar into his coffee.

"Speaking of gross," Blair muttered.

Brian added "You know, I hear butter is supposed to be good for friction burns."

"Will margarine do?" Jim snickered.

"Do they make margarine in sticks?" Brian wondered, both men dissolving in helpless hysterics.

"Why didn't you think of that last night?" Jim wondered.

"New meaning to the term 'melt in your mouth'."

"Finger lickin' good," Jim wheezed.

"*Finger* lickin' good?" Brian wondered, arching an eyebrow.

"Oh, *man*, Blair groaned, slamming the lever of the toaster down. "Just what we need to raise the tone of this little occurrence. Butt humor."

Jim said "I wonder if Chloraseptic would do any good."

"Isn't that supposed to numb your *throat*? Besides, it's got alcohol in it."

They blinked at each other a moment, then simultaneously went "Whhhoooo!" in the manner of someone being goosed by an icicle, hopping up from their chairs, then falling back down in hilarity again.

"Oooo, that *smarts*," Brian opined.

"New meaning to the term 'wake your sorry ass up'," Jim agreed.

"I don't believe this is happening," Blair sighed. The toast popped up. Blair eyed the Mazola suspiciously before finally applying it to the bread. "Yeah, go on, laugh it up. You're having a shock reaction, looks like. Get it out of your systems now; I don't want you making spectacles of yourselves at the clinic."

***

"Um..."

"Um what?" Jim wanted to know, sighing in exasperation. "I keep catching you watching me. Is it something specific or just the general weirdness of it all?" Jim tossed his bag of Reese's Pieces in one hand as Brian made a minor show of pouring creamer in his coffee.

"We probably don't want to talk about it here," Brian admitted. "The break room is a little public."

"The bullpen is worse. Think we can get away with a little walk?"

Brian made a face. "*Can* you?"

"I used, the, uh, product that Consuelo recommended."

Brian's face got worse. "Ew. How do you stand it?"

"I don't think you, um, are suffering as many of those particular aftereffects as I am," Jim admitted. "The alternative was worse. Come on."


They made their way through Major Crimes and into the hallway, moving toward the elevators, just two detectives on their break, nothing to see here, people...when the elevator doors shut on them, both of them lost their everything's-cool affectation and slumped against the wall.

"I hurt all *over*," Brian complained, wincing, trying not to spill his coffee. "*Still*."

"Me too," Jim said grimly, stretching first one arm, then the other, feeling his shoulders protest. "Jesus, what a workout. I never knew I was such a..."

"Slut?"

"Well, that too, but..."

"Oh. The whole bottoming thing."

"Most of which I did. This is past belief." Jim popped a Reese's Piece into his mouth, shaking his head, his eyes fixed unseeing on the elevator wall.

"I know what you mean..." Brian trailed off as the elevator doors opened and they exited first the car, then the building, walking slowly (and carefully) toward the park a lot of the people who worked in the building ate lunch at.

"I guess I just wanted to know if we were okay," Brian said. "We've been friends a long time. I'd hate to trash it over this."

"You wanted to know if I...can deal with this."

"I'm not sure *I* can deal with it, and...um...I'm not sure how to put this without making you suspicious of my motives night before last. Rest assured I was every bit as stoned as you--"

"Yeah, yeah, I know that, Brian. Just tell me?"

"I've actually *had* thoughts about guys before. Never acted on it. In fact, I've never told anybody. But it's at least occurred to me, and I'm pretty sure it's never even crossed *your* mind, so if *I'm* having a serious problem...I don't want you to end up hating me, Jim."

"I'm not gonna hate you. Feel kind of weird around you for a while, maybe, can you blame me?"

"Hell no, of course not, who would? But that's how the hating thing starts in cases like this. I ended up sleeping with one of my co-workers when I worked Homicide a couple of years ago, and she and I were pretty much on the outs from then on. It'd been a one-time thing, we both knew that, but we were both a little drunk and a lot on the rebound, and...sometimes those things happen, and you're cool about it. I've slept with friends before and there was no problem.
But that time, we...it was just bad energy after that, man, bad vibes. We both really regretted it and we never got over that. I haven't spoken with her since I transferred. I won't say she hated me toward the end, but she resented me something fierce, reasonably or not."

"I don't resent you."

"Not yet, no. But eventually you might. You did something that--for you--is totally crazy, so out of character you don't even recognize yourself at the moment, knowing you're capable of doing what we did for *any* reason, drugged or not. And I know about it. I was there, I'm the one who let you find that out about yourself. You *could* eventually resent the hell out of me."

"That thought really bother you?"

"Yes. Jim...I know when we first woke up, we were both pretty freaked out. I didn't believe it at first, either, or I wanted to not believe it. But I was thinking about it last night, and it...there's no reason we have to let it ruin our working relationship. I mean...maybe I'm being presumptuous, but I like thinking of you as a friend, too. I know you don't have many and you like it that way, so if I'm pushing--"

"You're not," Jim said quietly. "It's all right. Go on."

"I know I'm running off at the mouth, here, sometimes I do that when I'm nervous. It's just that...Jim, I liked what happened. I still like it. I like remembering it. That threw me for a major fucking loop, and I'm still in shock, I think, over that. Theory is one thing. Contemplation of the
possibility is one thing. But this...this was...this wasn't even Kindergarten-level stuff, here. We started with see-Spot-run, but we ended up in Marcel Proust."

"We went through all thirteen books of 'À la Recherché du Temps Perdu'," Jim agreed.

"Yeah, tell me about it. So I just...I was just thinking about that, and hoping you were going to be okay with it. Okay with me, I mean, even if you're never okay with *it*, exactly. And that's why I've been looking at you sideways all day, the end."

"It's not you," Jim said quietly, offering Brian some Reese's Pieces, which the young man took with one hand while discarding his coffee cup in one of the park's trash cans with the other, and began nibbling on the candy as he listened. Jim continued "I never thought much about guys that way. Things come up in the Army, some situations, but it never did much for me...maybe, I'm thinking now, because I didn't want it to do anything for me, not because it really didn't."

"You say that because you had a good time the other night? We were both zonked. *Any* sex would probably have felt good, Jim, you don't need to worry that you might be gay because of it. Plenty of people have experiences with gay sex without being gay. Or even necessarily exactly bi. It's called being a curious straight."

"I know that, but...see, I'm more of an action-oriented type. I never wanted to think about guys or whether I was interested in them. But you know as well as I do that while there are a hell of a lot of drugs that lower inhibition--including something as simple as beer goggles--"

Brian rolled his eyes. "Am I ever gonna live that down?"

"Relax, Rafe. We've all been there. All I was getting to is--even so, there aren't any drugs that can turn a person on to something that utterly does *nothing* for them. You might settle for a specimen of manhood, womanhood, or whatever that you'd never go for otherwise, but if you don't have any interest whatsoever, in, say, screwing a sheep, all the E or whatever in the world
isn't going to induce you to screw a sheep."

Brian smirked. "Are you calling me a sheep?"

Jim smirked back. "I bring it up because it wasn't a case of one of us being drugged and predated on. God...we...*devoured* each other."

"And so you're saying that you think I might not be the only one of us with...an interest."

"The thought crossed my mind, but I haven't really been...thinking, just...*realizing*. Looking at what's right there to be seen, with me. And from my end of it, what's there to be seen is...is that I...yeah, I did like it while it was happening...and like you said, I still like it. I like remembering it. In fact..." he paused. Brian was very still; the sun was in his hazel eyes, but they were wide open, filled with the light, not narrowed against it.

"I think I'd like...I don't know. Maybe sometime...to try it sober," Jim said softly. "If you would."

"Oh...my God..." Brian murmured. But he didn't get angry; he didn't even look worried. Just...amazed.

Apparently reassured by this, Jim touched his arm lightly. "I'm not trying to use you. I really like you, Brian. But...I don't know what I'm feeling now. Attraction, I think. You're a hell of a good-looking guy, and I've got a lot of respect for you. But beyond that, I..."

"Jim. It's okay. You don't have to profess undying love right here and now for me to be *totally* fucking flattered. I mean, hell. Most guys who'd never even thought of sex with another guy...I wouldn't have been surprised if you'd gone for my throat, threatened me, accused me. But all you did was freak a little, and mobilize on making sure we had our asses covered about the whole thing, which anybody with a brain would have done. And now this, and...Jesus. I don't know what to say."

"Say you'll think about it."

"Oh, I'll think about it, Jim." Brian grinned, then laughed softly. "I can definitely promise you *that*." He looked down at his feet, then back up; obviously trying to introduce a note of levity to get them back into workday-head, he added. "And while I'm thinking, I'll stock up on aspercreme."

"And Astroglide."

"Oh, yeah." Brian made an "ouch" air-sucking noise through his teeth. "Definitely. Astroglide."

There was a pause.

"Well, anyway," Jim said, "right now, Blair's got some things on this latest case, um--he said he'd come up with--"

"Yeah, Henri and I need to go interview some...look, Jim..." Brian gave up on escaping this topic quite yet and said softly "No rush, okay? I mean, maybe we could try just talking or something. Get to know each other, better than work and poker games and Simon's club can do, you know?"

"Geez, Brian..."

Their gazes held a moment, and then Brian said "God. I think I just asked you out."

"I know, I think you did, too--um, should we..." Jim's gaze strayed back to the PD building. "You know. Who should we...?"

"Tell? Um...well, keeping it from Blair's a lost cause, of course. How about just our partners? We know we can trust them."

"Do you know if you can trust H with *this*?"

Brian smiled. "I know H better than anyone but his mother. Yes, I can trust him with this."

"Well...sounds good then." Jim gave an all-done exhalation and dumped his candy wrapper in the trash can. "Time to get back to work."

"Right. Just one thing...I kind of wondered if you and Blair ever..."

Jim blinked. "I told you, I never have."

"I know, but...you guys are so close. If it's just that you found out you might think of guys as more than friends--at least, if it were the right guy--you don't have to feel like you need to, er, follow up with me, as it were. Maybe he..."

Jim held up a hand. "If that was the first thing that occurred to me, I never would have asked you what I asked you. *You* were the first thing that occurred to me. We could talk all afternoon about the why of that and not get any

closer to..."

"You're right. Not the time. We'll talk later."

"Later. How about...tomorrow night? You working?"

"No. No, I'm not working. I think this first talk might be a little touchy--shit, you know I didn't mean it like that--" he slugged the smirking Jim's shoulder lightly and finished "--so why don't we avoid public arenas? Dinner at my place? I've got some steaks in the freezer."

"Blair showed me a great trick for garlic potatoes."

"Great. We'll head for the market after work and pick up whatever we need. Good?"

"Great." They smiled at each other a moment, then started getting embarrassed again, and Jim put a hand on Brian's shoulder, turning him back toward the PD building. "Let's get back and get to work so we'll both be sure to be free tomorrow night."

END PART 1