Resting his aching head on one fist, Blair tried to will the letters dancing around on the Vice report in front of him to be *still* already. If he could just finish this, he could creep up to bed and hide in the darkness until either sleep or unconsciousness freed him from the pain. Unfortunately, that was all he could do. Blessedly rare, his migraines never responded to anything else, going a long way toward convincing Blair early in life that modern medicine was as much guesswork for doctors as herbal remedies were for tribal medicine men.
Another blessing was having a lover who understood all too well how light and noise could be agony. Jim hadn't even questioned why all the lights save one were off when he came home from the seemingly endless Wilson stakeout, and he had moved around the loft as quietly as possible while making a late dinner. Nor did he offer to cook for Blair, though scent must have told him that his partner hadn't eaten since coming home from court himself. Another thing to be grateful for, Blair thought, swallowing down a wave of nausea from the pain.
Bowl of reheated stir-fry in hand, Jim sat on the other side of the table, fingers lightly touching Blair's curls in passing. He ate silently, reading a report of his own, then stretched, sighing. "Tea?" he asked softly.
Saying yes with a grateful look, Blair gave up trying to read in favor of watching Jim. Despite his headache, he couldn't help but leer at the retreating ass, admiring the smooth motion of it under his lover's jeans as he walked away. When that treat was blocked from view by the kitchen counter, he focused on Jim's hands, indulging in his endless fascination for the sentinel's long fingers and graceful strength as he used them. Even the simple task of making tea turned into a choreographed dance when Jim did it, and Blair let himself flow along with the hidden rhythm.
Tea kettle, sink, water, stove, cabinet, mug, honey, drawer, spoon, tea canister - Blair mentally drifted through the motions with his partner, smiling at how precisely Jim placed each thing as he moved it.
Jim sniffed at the canister he held, frowned slightly, and put it down to reach for another. The next one apparently smelt good, to judge by his expression, but wasn't what he wanted. Heart sinking, Blair's smile faded as his lover picked up yet a third container, sniffing the contents of that one, then delicately touching a finger to the dried leaves before bringing it to his mouth. A fourth was opened as well, then immediately closed without a visible sniff.
Thinking, Oh, shit, he watched helplessly as Jim worked his way through their entire inventory of tea, scenting and occasionally tasting, though he had to know which one Blair preferred when his stomach was queasy. Mentally he counted back the number of days since the last time they had made love, headache worsening and stomach clenching as the number went past five. At seven he would have pounded his head into the table in frustration with himself for not noticing how long it had been, but that would have felt too good.
When Jim finished with the tea, leaving out the one Blair wanted, he tasted the honey, then reached into the cabinet for the more exotic blends of it that they had on hand. Mind whirling at top speed now, Blair checked out how his partner was dressed, noticing for the first time that the sentinel was wearing the softest, plushest sweater he owned, one that practically made both of them purr in appreciation of its feel. The jeans were old, faded almost to white and nearly threadbare. They were also incredibly soft and clinging; so much so that Blair could tell that Jim had gone commando today.
For a moment anger at himself - and at his lover - overrode the blinding stabs in Blair's left temple, and he quickly looked back down at his report to hide that from Jim. From habit he steadied his respiration and calmed himself, telling himself over and over, it wasn't Jim's fault. In fact, Blair seriously doubted the sentinel even knew what he was doing and where it would ultimately end - in their bed, Jim begging to be fucked to within an inch of his life.
From the first, Jim had almost always been the one to initiate sex between them, which had actually been a good thing as far as Blair was concerned. New to male-to-male loving, in the beginning they'd had to work past his ignorance and misconceptions, though it had never been less than interesting and fun between them. Occasionally awkward, always frighteningly passionate, Jim had made Blair's transition from 'straight' to 'gay' in the bedroom almost shockingly easy.
But once in a while he'd make it clear he wasn't in the mood, and while he'd try to be as loving and attentive as he could, Jim would be distant and introspective. It usually lasted at least a week, but was so subtle only Simon ever noticed how quiet and withdrawn he was. The insecure part of Blair disliked it, but he was intelligent enough to know that everybody needed some space once in a while, and a sentinel more than most. And, after the second time it had happened, he looked forward to when Jim would mentally come back to him.
The first sign was always the same: the sentinel was distracted and fascinated by his own senses. He would stare at flowers, fingertips tracing the lines of the petals, or spend thirty minutes at Baskin Robbins tasting every flavor they had before buying six different gallons or stand for an hour with his eyes shut, listening to a distant storm. Eventually, he would turn those senses on Blair, being insistently amorous and wonderfully eager, totally unwilling to take no for an answer, no matter how long he had to tease and coax.
Any other time, *any* other time, Blair wouldn't have even considered turning him down. But even thinking about the steady, hard pounding Jim would want made his stomach lurch and his headache sharpen until he thought passing out was a real possibility. He desperately needed and wanted quiet, dark, stillness - not rowdy, rambunctious sex, yet it didn't seem fair to refuse Jim when he so obviously needed it. Damn it all, why did he have to need it *now!* Guilt warred with anger, which didn't help his head at all, and he closed his eyes, massaging his temples in a vain hope of relief.
The gentle touch on his shoulder made him jump, and he half spun in his seat, instantly pressing both hands to the sides of his head as if to hold it together. "God, Jim, did you have to sneak up on me when I've got a headache!" Ignoring the fleeting hurt showing on his lover's face, Blair reached for the offered mug of tea, and deliberately turned his back on Jim, pretending to be absorbed in the writing in front of him.
"Guess I was being too quiet, huh?" Jim murmured. "You going to be able to go to bed soon?"
"Soon enough," Blair muttered, hating the cranky way he sounded but unable to stop.
From the corner of his eye he could see Jim's hands moving with exaggerated slowness toward his shoulders. "Last time, you said the back rub I gave you helped."
In fact, it had, mostly because of the uncanny way Jim had of touching without jostling, applying just enough pressure to relax muscles bunched from pain. Despite that, Blair shrugged away from him. "That was last time."
There was an uneasy silence, then Jim said tiredly, "I'll go up myself, then."
He bent, probably to brush a good night kiss over his head, but Blair dodged it, snapping out, "Jesus, can't you keep your hands to yourself for a change!" As soon as the words left his mouth, he turned, intending to apologize. But the flash of desolation in Jim's eyes and the soul-deep sorrow accompanying it paralyzed him for the moment necessary for his lover to make his escape upstairs.
Killing a moan, Blair put his head down on the table, pillowed by his crossed arms. New guilt throbbed with the agony in his head; of all the things he could have said to his lover, nothing could be more vicious than implying Jim was being too demanding, sense wise. Schooled since childhood that hugs and affection were wrong, a lesson reinforced by old lovers and an ex who had no patience for his sensuality, Jim lived in a world of perpetually needing to reach out and expecting to be rejected for doing so. Until now Blair had literally been the only person who not only accepted but welcomed the attention.
Why don't I just screw him and get it over with! It wouldn't take that long and I could roll over afterwards to go straight to sleep! Angry at himself for his thoughtlessness, angrier at Jim for putting him in a position where he felt he had to fight dirty to get what *he* needed, he stubbornly sat up and smoothed out the slightly crumpled report, reminding himself he only had two more pages to finish.
Before he made it to the bottom of the first, Jim came downstairs again, heading straight for the door. "Mitchell wasn't feeling that well when he came in," he said bluntly. "We've put too much time into this stake-out and it's too important for him to be distracted at the wrong time by a coughing fit. I'm going to go relieve him."
Jumping to his feet, Blair pleaded, "No!" suddenly unable to bear having his lover think he was unwanted in his own home. "No, please!" The fast movement was more than his migraine could stand, and it exploded in slow motion, the throbbing pressure blinding and deafening him. Staggering, he grabbed his head and squeezed hard, praying that he'd pass out or die, at least.
From a long way away, he felt strong arms go around him, steadying him, and he muttered, "No hospital, no hospital. Bed, our bed."
"Chief..."
Soft as the whisper was, it snaked its way thorough the maze of pounding rocks, easing Blair in some obscure way, and he clung to it, repeating, "Bed, our bed."
Somehow he made it upstairs, dimly aware of Jim beside him, both guiding and supporting, crying out in relief when he was finally stretched out, pillow tucked under his head just right. Trying to slide over the top of the pain, he focused on his breathing as his lover undressed him, cataloging every nuance of sensation from the steady rise and fall of his chest. It helped, and he was able to drift in silent counts of 'in... hold... out... hold... in....' Then cold, icy cold, was laid *exactly* where the throbbing was worse, numbing part of it, and he moaned blissfully, fumbling to catch the hand helping him.
"Sorry, so sorry," Blair mumbled. "Just let me rest a few minutes, and we'll make love then, okay?"
"Make? ...Blair!" Jim gingerly lay beside him, being careful not to jar the bed. "I don't want to make love, I want to help you!" The bewilderment in his voice was achingly clear, and for a moment Blair was equally bewildered, his pain making him unsure why he was so positive that Jim was making a pass at him.
"But, but you're *touching* me, and we haven't been doing it, so you gotta be needing it," he explained, knowing he sounded confused but not able to order his arguments any better.
Rather than have him try to be clearer, Jim put his lips near Blair's ear and asked nearly silently, "If I promise not to make a move on you, will you let me help? Your neck and shoulders are so tight they're making mine hurt. I can always stop if it starts to make your migraine worse."
The memory of how much better he had felt last time was too much to resist, and Blair carefully rolled to his side, putting the ice pack where he could rest his temple on it. He rode out the resulting wave of nausea, then went back to counting his breaths, feebly trying to brace himself for Jim's touch.
When it came, Blair wasn't sure at first that the massage had started, the contact was so light. Feathery gentle, feeling almost as if he were trying to tickle himself, fingers floated over the nape of his neck, raising goose bumps that felt good, counteracting the agony dulling his mind. The tiny shivers chased over his scalp, followed by oh-so-skilled digits that dug under his hair without pulling it, sending stronger waves of pain-relieving chills through him. Jim seemed determined to map every square inch of his skull, and he took his time doing it, slowly weaving a web of pleasure and comfort that cradled Blair's awareness in what almost felt like a meditative state.
Then the soothing points of pressure moved onto his forehead, and he started to flinch, but the strength behind them was perfect, balancing against the pounding at his temple to ease the tension caused by it. Flowing with the ebb of stress in his facial muscles, Jim traveled over his features with that marvelous touch, then down onto his shoulders and back, erasing all the tightness. A marvelous lethargy invaded where gifted fingers went, making Blair feel both floaty as if he could drift right off the bed, and too, too heavy to move of his own violation.
When Jim gently turned him to his back to work on his chest, there was a momentary dull thud in Blair's head that was quickly submersed in the placid stillness his lover had created for him. Halfway expecting the massage to turn erotic at that point, Blair discovered he was mildly disappointed when all Jim did was continue on as he had before, coaxing lax contentment from every part of his body. He moved surely over chest, abdomen, then down one thigh, to calf and foot, back up the other leg, onto hand, wrist, arm, across at Blair's throat with sensuous sweeps to his remaining limb.
The pain that had incapacitated him was a remote, vague thing by the time Jim tenderly put Blair's utterly limp hand onto his stomach and drew the sheet over him. Deeply cushioned in quiet bliss, nearly asleep, Blair smiled fractionally, and peeked from under his lashes at his lover, hoping to catch a last glimpse of him to carry into his dreams. In the dim light from the single lamp below, Jim was only a black shape looming over him, face barely more than a collection of shadows. Only his eyes could be clearly seen, and from those dark pools peered something ancient and sad.
Blair gasped so softly only a sentinel could have heard it, his heart painfully jumping in his chest. Of its own volition, his hand rose to offer the same comfort he'd been given, but Jim caught it and tucked it under the covers, whispering, "Sh, sh. Sleep." He bent, and after a hesitation that tore at Blair's soul, pressed a delicate kiss to his forehead.
Sleep was the last thing he wanted now, but he was already ensnared in its clutches, and he sank into its nothingness, not even dreaming, its hold was so complete.
In the small hours of the morning, thirst woke him, and Blair lay completely still for several minutes after it did, afraid to move and reawaken the monster that had been beating at his brain. Then his bladder added its two cents, and his tongue complained about the fur growing on his teeth, and he mentally threw up his hands in resignation. No way would he be able to go back to sleep with all that going on, anyway, so he might as well get up and see just how bad the residual was.
As if moving nitroglycerin, he sat up on the edge of the bed, stunned when the only discomfort was from his increasingly urgent need to visit the bathroom. With a soft laugh of delight, he automatically turned to smile in gratitude at his lover, only to discover the big bed was empty. It bothered him, but he quickly decided that Mitchell must have called in for a replacement after all. As deeply under as he'd been, he wouldn't have heard the phone ringing, even if Jim had left it at normal ring level.
Hurriedly he took care of business and bounded back up to bed, snuggling down in the warm spot he'd left behind. Thinking that if his partner weren't too tired when he got back home, he'd pounce him big time, Blair lulled himself back to sleep trying to decide whether he wanted it fast and hard, or slow and sensual. His dreams were restless from then on, though, filled with an endless search for an un-named but extremely important something that kept him from sleeping deeply.
It wasn't Jim coming back home that woke him up the second time, though, but the alarm clock, and a fast glance at it had Blair scrambling to get showered, dressed and out the door. The stakeout must have paid off with a bust; he'd probably find Jim at his desk fighting his way through the paper work so he could get home and catch some sleep. In the meantime, Major Crimes had a meeting with Captain Roberts of Vice, first thing this morning, and showing up late would not endear him to either Simon or the strictly-by-the-book commander of Vice. Idly musing while he shaved that Vice was an odd department for a straight-laced, buttoned-down personality like Geoffrey Roberts to command, he finished reading the case report he'd been given while he threw on clothes and slurped down his algae shake.
It made sense for Vice and Major Crimes to join forces to work on the string of murders whose only connection so far was that all the victims were male customers of high-class call girls, and killed with a violence that suggested irrational fury, not serial killer, despite the number of deaths. MC would handle the serial killer aspect, and Vice knew the prostitution angle, but he couldn't help but wonder how well Roberts and the more flexible Banks would work together. Scooping up the papers, Blair raced for the door and flung himself down the stairs, still turning over the details in his mind.
By the time he got to the bullpen, he'd nearly forgotten about last night's migraine and the not-quite fight he'd tried for some inexplicable reason to pick with his partner, only to have it drop on him like a cartoon anvil at the sight of the sentinel's shuttered eyes and closed off expression. Jim watched him cross the room without any sign of welcome at all, but he handed Blair a large coffee fixed the way he liked it and muttered, "Good timing - Robert's still in with Simon."
"Good," Blair said just as softly, back to the room so Jim could see, not his partner, but his lover, without giving away the existence of their closet. "Gives me the chance to apologize. Sorry I was such an ass last night."
With a gesture of his pen, turning his head down to the paperwork in front of him, Jim dismissed both the apology and last night. "It happens," he said shortly. You're entitled once in a while, Sandburg." Then he flashed a partial smile and repeated in a mock-warning tone of voice, "Once in a while."
Relieved, but still feeling out of sync with Jim, Blair sat at his own desk and took out his own paperwork for the day as cover while he thought. Before he could even frame his concern into a question, his partner asked, "Any idea what caused the headache?"
All the tightness that Jim had magically banished from his neck and shoulders rushed back, and it was Blair's turn to be dismissive. "You know, stress from the job, all that."
"Yeah, I *do* know."
It was Jim's way of inviting him to vent, but there was no way Blair was going to add his lapse into insecurity and self-doubt caused by nearly a week of testifying in court to his sentinel's burdens. Their first year together as official partners had not been easy on either of them, one of the reasons they had decided to hide their personal relationship. They had enough on their plate at the department without adding 'gay' to the mix, and Blair had thought more than once that he couldn't have picked a worse time to succumb to the love that he'd been denying almost from the start. On the other hand, one reason they had survived was *because* they were lovers; the intimacy gave them both something to hang onto when things got rough.
Some of the memories that stirred up made him smile, and he murmured at Jim's level, "And that keeps me going, lover." From the corner of his eye he could see an answering grin blossom, then a surreptitious adjustment of pants, telling him that his sentinel had picked up on more than just words from him. Adjusting his own, feeling he and his partner were finally back on the same wavelength, Blair picked up the Vice file to ask Jim a question that had occurred to him on the drive over.
Before he could speak, Banks crashed out of his office. "Bomb threats," he announced loudly. "For just about every major municipal building in the city. We go to terrorist alert right now. Move it people; you know your places."
Blair and Jim scrambled, along with everybody else in Major Crimes, and for the next two days everything was tabled except for dealing with increasingly believable promises of violence, though none ever actually materialized. No one slept more than an occasional catnap, all food was grabbed on the run, and by the time it was all over the entire department was one raw nerve. Then that nerve shredded when the Mayor and some federal cohorts announced that they were behind the calls, using Cascade PD as a test case for a new program to evaluate readiness for terrorist attacks.
When Simon found out, Blair thought that Jim was going to have to deck his captain to prevent him from doing grievous harm to the Mayor, which was ironic considering what the sentinel had to say about the man on the way home. They hadn't even hung up their coats when the phone rang - Mitchell had called in sick and Jim was at the top of the on-call roster. Too tired to do more than exchange a long, hard kiss, Blair watched his lover trudge out the door, then wearily climbed to their bedroom.
For a moment he stood stupidly at the side of it, staring at the disarray and feeling the full weight of the past few days hit. His head throbbed ominously, and he retroactively forgave Jim for ninety percent of his snarly attitude from when Blair had been just an observer. Unwillingly he smiled and began stripping. Only ninety, though; the other ten percent had been pure self-indulgence on the sentinel's part.
Conjuring the feeling of their last kiss, Blair tumbled into bed and was asleep half way down.
Waking up was a repeat of the last time he'd slept in the loft - alarm going off, no lover, not enough time, and a mad rush for work, files in hand. This time when he sailed through the doors to the bullpen, everybody was clustered around Jim's desk, listening to Simon.
"Rafe, Henri, you'll take the Pierpont and Anderson cases," Banks said, handing folders to his detectives. "Ellison will be taking Mitchell's shift under Taggart. I think that about covers it."
Reaching his partner's side, Blair flashed questioning eyebrows, and Jim said quietly, "Mitchell has pneumonia - out for three weeks, at least."
"Wonderful," Blair muttered sarcastically, "I love night shift."
"Not you, Sandburg," Banks corrected. "Just Ellison. I've got another assignment for you." He gestured toward his office, then walked toward it, obviously expecting Blair to follow.
Heated words automatically leapt to his lips, but before Blair could voice one of his protests, Jim whispered, "I volunteered, but Simon can switch me if you don't want to go along with what Captain Roberts wants. It's your call, Chief. All the way."
Not giving him a chance to ask questions, Jim cupped one of Blair's elbows and gently steered him toward where Simon was obviously - and irritably - waiting for him. Once inside, he closed the door and blinds, before introducing Blair to Captain Blake Roberts.
There was a flash of distaste in the man's dark eyes as he shook Blair's hand, but his attitude was pure professional, not a hint of anything emotional. Heart sinking because the last thing he wanted was to have to prove himself *again,* Blair gave his own version of a polite nod of recognition, and settled himself in a chair. Aware that Jim was leaning on the doorframe behind him, he said more calmly than he felt, "I take it my assignment is with you?"
Picking up the files for the Dead John murders, the sturdy, muscular man asked, "Are you the one who asked whether or not the customers were steadies for the girl they were with the night they were killed?" Robert's voice was completely neutral, as if he'd based his questioning and command style on Joe Friday from Dragnet.
Nodding in confirmation, Blair explained, "I know that most of the girls prefer to see 'regulars' as much as possible. They know what to expect and it gives them a certain amount of guaranteed income. Same thing for the johns - they tend to settle down with one or two favorites who know what they want and are willing to give it with a minimum amount of instruction. But there are those men always want someone new. I don't know if the answer will do any good, but the more commonalities we have, the more a profiler will have to work with."
Roberts sat on the edge of Simon's desk, exchanging an enigmatic look with the taller captain who was standing by a window, and said, "It was a good question; it turns out that all of the victims were 'grazers,' never seeing the same girl twice in a row. In fact, one," and he picked up the file jacket of the man he was referring to, "was a regular at the hotel where he stayed when in town - about every other month for years - and the staff joked how he didn't seem to have any standards whatsoever. He'd been seen with everything from $1000 a night call-girls to $10 a hand-job street corner hookers."
"Then we have something to work with," Blair said, sitting up a little straighter, his interest rising. "Had all of the girls seen all of the men, at some time or another?"
"Two," Banks said. "But we've got seven murders. Given the quality and price of their 'dates,' some over-lap is unavoidable. And as far as we've been able to tell, there's no particular pattern to what we've found. One of the witnesses had only met the one victim she'd been with that night, another knew two previous victims, yet another had seen two victims with associates, but had never worked with them herself."
"No help there, or at least nothing on the surface," Blair said to himself.
"It does give us a point of entry for an undercover operation," Roberts pointed out.
Not needing a roadmap, Blair pushed his hair behind his ears and asked bluntly, "Why me?"
Without pretending to misunderstand, Roberts lost some of his detachment and said with something like real understanding, "Because you're an unknown. Whoever's behind the killing knows his way around the circle of call-girls, their pimps, and their clients. It's not easy to get names and numbers for women that expensive, and yet this guy's been around enough to know which customers are steadies and which aren't. We need a new face, and yours isn't only new, it's so non-traditional cop that setting a cover for you is a snap."
"Let me get this straight," Blair said slowly, preternaturally aware of his lover standing behind him, silent, almost forgotten by the other men in the room. "You want me to use department funds to have sex with as many different prostitutes as possible to set myself up as a potential target for a serial killer."
Roberts didn't so much as blink. "We would much prefer you not have sex with them, but it's at your discretion, Detective Sandburg. If you can find another plausible reason for spending time with them, the department would be delighted. But these murders are beginning to make bad press, and since the victims are powerful business men, wealthy men in the public eye, the damage isn't limited to loss of life, terrible as that is."
"Translated," Banks said levelly, but with the intent of breaking the sudden tension in the room, "It's bad for Cascade's business and high class tourist reputation, and there are some people with political pull who want something done."
Wanting very badly to turn around and see Jim expression, but hearing 'It's your call, all the way, Chief,' Blair locked his hands together and stared at them, thinking furiously. If he said he was in a committed relationship, he'd have an excuse to back out of the assignment, no face lost. His reputation preceded him, though; neither Roberts nor Banks, especially Banks, would believe him if he claimed to have a girlfriend that he was ready to marry. He could simply stick to his guns, but Simon, at least, and most likely Roberts too, would start wondering who his mystery lover was, and it wouldn't take long for them to arrive at the logical conclusion: Jim. Personally, he didn't think Simon would have a problem with it, but if he suspected already, he would have done his best to derail Roberts from using him on this case.
The vice captain, on the other hand, would immediately call for their partnership to be split. The suspicious death of a gay officer a few years ago and the subsequent uproar had the powers that be walking on eggshells where an officer's sexuality was concerned, but there was no way they'd put up with lovers riding together as partners. And the closet that Blair had all but nailed closed would be compromised. Though official policy was don't ask, don't tell, there were still enough of the old guard around that could and would make their lives a living hell all over again.
Shuddering at the thought, neck and shoulders bunching, Blair really didn't see coming out as an option right now, since he was just beginning to earn his place in the police department as a whole. That left taking the assignment the only sensible thing to do; surely he could come up with a way out of actually having sex with any of the call-girls. And Jim had given him permission of sorts by volunteering to do the back shift where Blair's absence as a partner would be less risky to the sentinel.
"Is there a problem, Detective Sandburg?" Roberts asked, his tone back to studied neutrality.
"Yes," he said promptly and honestly, because nothing else he said would be believed if he didn't. "I'm being ordered to do what every other man in the PD has been ordered to arrest people for. Hell, when this case is over, it could be me arresting the same women I gave money to a week earlier. Add to that the fact that I don't believe prostitution should be illegal at all, and the moral ambiguity of the entire situation is screaming at me at the top of *my* lungs. I do not like the prospect of being a hypocrite of that caliber."
Surprisingly Roberts smiled and dropped his distant facade. "Wrong answer, I'm afraid. You just convinced me you're perfect for the job because the last thing we want is for our undercover man to lose sight of why he's there." With careful deliberation he slipped out one of the crime scene photos of the first victim, a Paulie MacIntyre, single white male, up and coming software engineer, 27 years old and celebrating his birthday the day he died. In the stark black and white of the photograph, the agony left on his lifeless features was all too clear. "This is why you do this, Sandburg. One of these murders was too many and right now we don't have a clue what to do to stop the next."
Put that way, trusting that Jim understood as well as he did that there wasn't much of a choice, Blair let a long breath escape him almost in a sigh. "What's my cover?"
Simon clapped him once on the shoulder, then went to sit behind his desk. "We're going to take advantage of your anthropology background, Sandburg." He took a wallet out of a drawer and handed it over. "You're now officially Dr. Walter Radcliffe, a corporate consultant who offers seminars and on-site classes on how to apply anthropological theories to the corporate environment."
"Big business's latest self-help guru," Roberts added dryly. "There is such a gentleman, and he is currently booked for several months worth of appearances in Cascade. He is also serving 7-12 in New York for statutory rape, endangerment of a minor, and half a dozen similar charges, under his real name. It's to his benefit to keep the Radcliffe identity unblemished, as I'm sure he hopes to return to using it full time, if and when he makes parole. If by chance you run into someone who's attended one of his seminars before, you explain that the name has been franchised, like Colonel Sanders or Ronald MacDonald. The fees for your appearances will go directly into a checking account set up for you; you'll use that to fund your night time activities."
"Wonderful cover," Blair muttered, looking through the wallet and finding the necessary i.d., including several platinum credit cards and a serious wad of cash. He looked up in time to take a briefcase from Roberts. "His material and itinerary, I take it?"
"It'll be a snap for you, Sandburg," Banks said airily. "I've heard you fabricate better just to fill in the air time on a stake out."
Ignoring both the other captain's comment and Blair's 'thanks a lot, sir' grimace, Roberts said, "You'll be staying in the Plymouth. The names and numbers, along with reliable references, of most of the known upper echelon call-girls are in the briefcase. At this point we don't have reason to believe that any of them are guilty of any crime except their profession, but that doesn't mean that they don't have information they're not sharing, so we expect you to treat them as suspects. Do *not* let your guard down, Detective."
"The room next to yours at the Plymouth will be manned by two officers, 24/7," Banks added, warning as well as reassuring him.
"Am I doing deep cover?" Blair asked, feeling his neck begin to turn into a solid lump of rock and the remote warning of a headache stir deep in his brain. "I mean, no contact with my friends, my home at all?" No, Jim? he asked himself, not wanting to even consider that possibility.
At that, Roberts did glance at Jim, almost as if seeing him for the first time, but all he said was, "It would look strange if you didn't do something besides lecture and frequent prostitutes. And I trust you'll take care that you're not followed when you do check in at home and whatnot. That should allow you to keep current with events in Major Crimes, as well as fulfill any obligations that you may have outstanding."
Half afraid of what was going on in the man's mind and not wanting to give him a chance to voice any of it, Blair stood. "Unless there's anything else we need to go over, I'm going to take off and get ready, then. You want me to play Radcliffe as a nerdy professor or smooth, just-this-side-of-conman?"
That startled Roberts a little, and he said, "I hadn't thought... The victims didn't fit any particular personality type; one of the reasons the killer's been so hard to catch. I suppose you can work with whatever is most comfortable for you."
"Nerdy professor, then," Blair said, more to himself than anyone else. "Got the wardrobe for that already, so that's one less thing to worry about." Absently picking up the briefcase, he left, not missing the thoughtful look Roberts gave him and his partner, nor the worried one Banks was trying to hide.
Once back in the bullpen he asked Jim, "Going to catch some z's before shift tonight?"
"Just leaving," Jim said, jaw muscle jumping.
"I'll walk down with you, then, and you can bring me up to speed on our cases." Blair said for the casual listener. As soon as the elevator doors closed, giving them the relative privacy of no surveillance cameras, he turned and wrapped both arms around his lover's waist. "I didn't think I could get out of it."
To his vast relief, Jim returned the hug tightly, erasing the tightness in Blair's shoulders, but freed a hand long enough to pull Blair's cell phone out of a pocket and held it up to show that it had a dead battery. "You might try keeping this charged. You must have just left the loft when I called to tell you what I'd heard."
Taking the phone back and putting it where it belonged, Blair went back to hanging onto Jim with all he had. "Forgot all about it needing a recharge after two days on the run."
"Thought that might be the case," Jim said distractedly, looking down at him with obvious hunger in his eyes.
Blair lifted his head to offer a kiss, only to be overwhelmed by the intensity in it when Jim took it. Giving back as good as he got, he only distantly heard the chime warning they'd reached a stop on a floor, and couldn't prevent a disappointed moan when Jim broke away. For a moment they stared into each other's eyes, making promises, then Blair gave the one he knew his lover needed to hear. "No sex. I'll find a way around it, I swear."
The door slid open, and Jim's expression changed to 'business only.' But Blair was too well versed in reading his partner not to see that he was trying to stoically accept the inevitable. "You do what you have to do," Jim said flatly, leading the way to their parking spots. "Roberts is right; saving lives is the important thing." Then he added reluctantly, "I'll be on watch next door to guard your back when you have... company. The MO so far as been for the attack to take place shortly after the girl leaves, so our man has to be watching closely to know when the victim's alone again. That gives me something I can look for."
"If he doesn't already know when she's going to leave," Blair said absently, trying to think of some way to reassure his lover. Then what he said sunk in, and he asked, "Jim, has anybody looked to see if there's any connection between the *call-girls?* As opposed to the victims? The killer just has too much inside information on them."
Stopping in his tracks, Jim turned a high-voltage grin on Blair. "Maybe you should give Captain Roberts a call on that." He waved at their vehicles and the nature of his grin changed completely. "After you've taken care of some things at the loft."
Getting out his keys, Blair matched his lover's grin and raised it by a leer. "Or one thing at least."
"Just once, Chief?"
Then Jim was in his truck and pulling away, leaving a bemused Blair staring after him. A shout and honk from someone saying hello roused him from his stasis, and he jumped in his Volvo, reminding himself that using lights and sirens just to get home could get him in a world of trouble. As it was he broke more speed laws than he generally considered wise, and managed to pull in next to Jim's truck just as the big cop stepped through the downstairs door. Blair raced after him, caught up at the elevator and tumbled into it, grabbing onto Jim and finding his mouth for a kiss, almost by instinct.
It was frantic, wild and deep, and neither of them were truly in control of it, trading tongues and mouths back and forth in a frenzied need that had Blair completely erect within seconds. Somehow they made it to their loft without breaking away from each other, Blair blindly trusting his sentinel to make sure they were un-observed. A thin sliver of control kept him from doing more until they were safely home and then he began pulling away clothes in a mad search for bare skin and the hard-on he could feel digging against his belly.
By the time they made it to their bed, both of them were nearly naked, and Blair's hands were taking a frenzied tour of all the sensitive places on Jim's body, wringing cry after cry from him and driving Blair insane with need. They were grinding into each other so hard that he could feel his lover's balls draw up, ready for release, and he forced himself to pull away. "Like this?" he gasped.
"Suck? Together?" Jim whispered against his neck before biting it gently.
"God." It was an obvious yes, and a moment later Blair was on his side, eagerly reaching for the prize in front of him. He'd never seen Jim harder, and the ruddy cap was already wet, the shaft practically vibrating as his lover reined in the urge to thrust. His own erection throbbed once, bouncing hard against his abdomen, and he realized he was practically ready to shoot himself just at the sight before him.
He'd always loved oral sex, but to his surprise, actually liked it *more* with Jim than with a woman. Something about the smooth shaft against his lips and tongue, or perhaps the texture of the head - whatever it was, Blair didn't care and he took the straining hard-on into himself, letting it glide into his throat as he strongly jacked the bottom half of the shaft. Almost at the same time, the same thing was done to him, and the twinned pleasures of giving and receiving arced over his nerves, making him buck erratically into the hot suction creating such havoc in his body. Automatically he adjusted as Jim did the same, vaguely aware that neither of them was going to last much longer.
A moment later Jim sensuously slid his lips completely off Blair's hard-on, then gave one slow, long lick from head to balls to the dark valley between Blair's legs. Eagerly anticipating his destination, Blair lifted one knee so that his lover could pillow his head on a thigh, and was rewarded with a single, hard, plunging kiss to the portal of his body. Releasing Jim's cock to shout his pleasure at the caress, Blair held still, wanting to encourage Jim to rim him as long as possible.
No woman had ever been so good at it as his sentinel lover, and Blair didn't really care whether it was because of Jim's senses or because he was a man, or if it was simply innate talent. He just wanted it to go on forever, though he knew eventually they'd both get so aroused that coming would be a necessity. There were no words to describe how the fluttering tongue and the carefully massaging lips felt and what they were doing to him, even to himself.
Not for the first time Blair wished that he hadn't been so adamant about telling Jim he'd never consider bottoming when he'd turned down those few, hesitant, careful passes when they first met. If a tongue felt so incredible, as did the single finger he'd been using on himself on the rare occasions he'd masturbated since becoming Jim's lover, how much better could a cock be? The very thought of giving himself like that to his demanding, commanding, insistent lover sent a hard pang of lust that nearly toppled him over the edge.
With a groan, Blair took Jim's erection back in his mouth, sucking on it voraciously. He felt the first thrum of release in it, his own following hard on its heels, so that they both spilled at nearly the same time. Lost in a sensory swirl of ecstasy, he swallowed reflexively, then sagged limply against his lover, shuddering through the last spasms of his finish.
When he could move without collapsing, Blair shifted position so that he could cuddle nose-to-nose with his lover, sharing more kisses. Slow and sweet, they would end one to nibble or lick at an eyelid or cheek, then flow into yet another, until Blair thought his very bones would melt into Jim's. Finally, sensing that his lover was drifting very close to sleep, he whispered, "I will find a way out of the sex."
"I trust you, Blair," Jim muttered drowsily. He roused himself, opening his eyes to stare into his partner's. "And if you do get turned on, don't sweat it. You're human. It doesn't matter to me, any more than it bothers me that you look at Playboy centerfolds, or if you watch x-rated movies. Just try to bring it home, okay?"
Deep down where it couldn't be seen, Blair doubted that his lover would be able to handle his jealousy quite so easily, but aloud all he said was, "Hopefully it won't even be an issue." He went back to gentle kisses, lulling Jim to sleep, and leaving the bed only after he was sure the sentinel was deeply under. It took him almost five minutes to free his hair from the hand Jim had buried deeply in his curls, but he didn't begrudge a single moment, wishing he could hang on as tightly, too.
* * *
"Well, if it isn't Professor Radcliffe," Rafe said happily, stopping mid-step on his way out of the bullpen with his partner.
Without looking up from the three-week-old mess on his desk, his mind on that night's potential disaster, Blair shot him the finger and said, "May your next undercover be as a waitress in a transvestite nightclub. Better yet, a performer."
"A performer? Nawwww," H said, eyeing his partner speculatively. "Hasn't got the legs for it." Before Rafe could find a comeback, he added conversationally, "What brings you back to the station? Tired of playing true-confessions with Cascade's elite among the world's oldest profession? Or planning on rescuing Ellison from the captain before all of his ass is chewed off?"
That caught Blair's attention finally, and he straightened, trying to hide the sudden tension in his body and glancing toward Banks office. "Hey, I'd rather be thought of being their father confessor than have people think I have to *pay* to get laid." Trying to keep his voice casual, he added what he'd wanted to say first, keeping his tone dry with an effort. "As often as Jim crosses the line, it's a good thing he's got amazing ass-regeneration powers. What is it this time? Refusing to co-operate with the feds? Got the mayor's cousin on drug charges and refusing to believe that mayor didn't know?"
Totally serious, Rafe walked over and perched on the edge of Blair's desk. "Lost a perp - twice in five days."
"You're shitting me." Blair knew he was gaping, but it still took him a second to snap his jaw shut. "What happened? Was he hurt?"
Coming to stand by his partner, his expression sympathetic, Brown said, "First time he took a fall and by the time he got to his feet, the guy had made tracks and Ellison couldn't pick up the trail. Second time, I heard a bust was going down the hard way, and his man got in a blow so solid that he went down. Got it together fast and went after him, but again too late."
To Blair's sentinel-oriented mind, it sounded like his partner had suffered two major zones, *at least,* and knowing him, he wouldn't explain it to Simon that way. He'd just shoulder the blame for losing the crooks, go back out after them, and risk zoning under more dangerous conditions. To H and Rafe, he said as humorously as possible, "I guess I'd better go save at least enough for Jim to be able to grow something to sit on, considering the amount of paperwork he's going to be doing by the time Simon's done with him. And I've got something I need to talk to both of them about."
Rafe had something smart-assed to say about that, of course, but Blair didn't hear it, and, one hand absently rubbing at his too-tight neck, he made a beeline for Simon's office. Though he knocked, the size of his worry was too great for him to wait to be acknowledged, and he blew through the door, automatically shutting it behind him. The sight on the other side stopped him cold in his tracks: Jim was in Simon's arms, his face hidden in one broad shoulder.
For one long, long minute he didn't feel anything, he didn't think anything, he didn't have any reaction at all except to watch Simon look toward him in what seemed to be slow motion to Blair. Then something roared out of him, something that wasn't jealousy or anger, but something older and closer to his soul. It was the need to protect, not just his sentinel, but himself, though that didn't make the least bit of sense because Simon was their friend.
Blair exploded into action, throwing himself at his lover and wedging between Jim and Simon. "Get off!" he shouted, pushing at the big captain. "Get away from him, right now! Don't you, ever, *ever,* EVER, touch him again!" He punctuated each 'ever' with a push until Simon was back up against his desk, eyes wide in astonishment.
From behind him Jim settled two strong hands on Blair's shoulders, the touch almost instantly sobering him. "Easy, Blair. Easy," he murmured directly into one ear.
Gulping, staring at Simon as if he'd never seen him before, Blair muttered, "Ohmygod. Simon. I didn't mean... I know you'd never... *he'd* never... Ohmygod, ohmygod." Higher functions still shut down, he obeyed instinct and bolted, running so fast that he didn't catch up with himself until he was back at the loft.
Once safely locked in, he paced maniacally around the living room, pulling at his hair, then just as abruptly as he left the station, he darted into the bath room, yanking off his clothes and leaving them where they fell. Once in the shower, shrouded in a heat and mist that was strongly scented with Jim - his shampoo, his soap, all the toiletries that Blair had helped him find that weren't abusive to his senses - sanity seeped back in, and he was able to actually *think.*
The first thing that came to him was that maybe he had acted like a jealous, possessive lover because Jim wasn't, and a deep part of Blair's psyche thought he should be. Shrinks called it transference, but no matter how much sense that made on the surface, it didn't feel right to him. That moment of horror, the feeling of imminent danger was too real for him to dismiss, or to even try to recall clearly without having it swamp him again. But for the life of him, Blair couldn't figure out the reason for it or what he could possibly do besides stand in the shower and shake.
When the water began to run cold, he unwillingly turned it off, body much more relaxed but mind still in turmoil. To his surprise, Jim was waiting for him, robe and towel in hand, and without saying a word, bundled him in it, then helped him with his hair. Safely hidden under fabric, dangling locks, and loving hands, Blair said sadly, "That wasn't the best way in the world to let Simon know about us."
To his surprise, Jim chuckled quietly. "Said the possibility had crossed his mind, but he didn't know whether to be grateful because it meant no more episodes like the one with Michelle, or worried because he couldn't imagine how a 'domestic dispute' would translate at the office. So he tried very hard not to think about it at all."
From somewhere Blair found a small smile. "Next April Fool's day, we're going to have to have a screaming argument in front of him about whose turn it is to buy condoms and lube."
"Yours," they said together, promptly, and this time the smile was genuine.
It faded, and Blair said seriously, "Jim, I *know....*"
"So do I," Jim interrupted firmly. "You may have minored in psych, but I've picked up a few things along the way myself. Putting down the towel, Jim cupped his face in gentle palms and urged Blair to tilt up his head so they could see into each other's eyes. "I have no reason to feel jealous or possessive, Chief. There's no doubt in my mind who you love.
"Every night I sit and listen to you talk with those women - and the story you put together about doing a book on the inevitable decline of cultures that make prostitution illegal is fucking brilliant - and all I can think of is how proud I am of you. You encourage them to talk, listen, really listen to them, and without being judgmental or condescending. Do you realize that you might be the only glimpse of compassion and understanding that they see in what has to be a hard, cold life?"
"You make it sound like I'm doing a community service," Blair tried to joke, but the sincerity in his lover's eyes went a long way toward banishing the chaotic panic that had had such a hold on him. If Jim thought it was transference too, well, maybe it was and his earlier conviction it had been more was just a way to justify how he'd acted.
"It's more than they get from anybody else," Jim said.
That made Blair remember why he'd gone to the station in the first place, and he finally sagged against his partner. "Yeah, but what good does it really do in the long run? Jim, I think my next 'date' is with Amber, the Amber we met when Zoeller was trying to get to her. It's a common street name, I know, but from what I could get from her contact, I think it's the same one. I thought she'd given up the life, thought we'd been able to convince her that she could do better than to sell her body as though it were no value to her, personally."
"Ah, Chief," Jim said softly, rubbing his cheek over damp curls. "You've carried a badge long enough to know by now that it's hard for women in the profession to walk away from it for good. The money's too easy, their self-esteem is already so damaged, and they're too vulnerable to the kind of man that preys on that."
"How they get in the trade in the first place, mostly," Blair agreed, sounding mournful even to his own ears. "I haven't told Roberts or Simon, yet, because I wanted to run an idea by you, first. If you think it'll fly, then I know I can sell it to them."
"You want to bring her in."
"We're getting nowhere so far," Blair said hastily, pulling back enough to look up into Jim's face. "I'm hemorrhaging money like I have a severed artery in my wallet, and there's already been another death. Maybe it's time to go at this from a different angle."
"What'd you have in mind?" There wasn't a trace of sarcasm or skepticism in Jim's question, easing Blair's own worries about enlisting Amber's help.
Winding his arms around his lover's trim waist, Blair admitted, "I'm not sure, but there's got to be some way to use this." He burrowed his nose into Jim's sternum and exhaled sharply in relief at his lover's easy acceptance of his idea. When he inhaled, Jim's scent hit him, but it didn't soothe, like it had earlier when he'd been in the shower. Stronger and spicier, direct from the source, it inflamed, instead, and he breathed in and out slowly, feeling his maleness begin to harden in response.
With unsteady hands he undid the button nearest his lips and kissed the bit of satiny flesh under it while undoing the next one up. By the time Blair reached the top button, Jim's had thrown his head back, revealing the long column of his throat, hands knotted onto Blair's shoulders as if he didn't know whether to push him away or hold him closer. Taking the invitation implied, Blair mauled the side of his lover's neck with strong, sucking kisses, all the while pulling Jim's shirt out of his pants and finishing the rest of the buttons.
When the shirt was completely undone, he cupped his hands over the peaked nubs on Jim's chest, letting the heat and subtle pressure from his palms tease and tantalize. Blair rubbed himself over the hard ridge in Jim's pants, for the moment enjoying the promise it held, marveling, as always, at his lover's wanton, willing submission. For a moment he toyed with turning the tables and encouraging the sleeping sexual aggression that Jim kept carefully under wraps to awaken, as he'd recently been fantasizing.
Jim kept that part of himself leashed out of deference to Blair's inexperience, though, and his doubts about turning over for him. This wasn't the time or place to fight those particular demons. They had enough hovering around them already.
Reluctantly he let the idea go for now, and stretched up to claim Jim's mouth, surprised at the ferocious hunger that answered his kiss. His own roared up to meet it, and anything resembling coherent thought fled. Fumbling with the top button and zipper on Jim's slacks, he backed his lover out of the bathroom, down the hall, instinctively seeking a good place to lay him down and take him.
About the time Blair was simply going to shove Jim down to the floor, they bumped into the door to his office, and of one mind, they stumbled through it, falling together onto the futon they kept for guests. Blair landed on top, and the sudden equalization in height let him deepen their kiss, plunging his tongue in fast and hard in imitation of what he wanted. It was so good - hot and tasty and urgent - that he couldn't tear himself way, though his hard-on was aching with the need to find its own haven.
Finally Jim broke away, muttering, "Now, now, now," and turned to his stomach, kicking his pants the rest of the way off as he did.
A drawer was opened, a tube of KY was pushed into his hand, and Blair knelt behind his lover, filling his palm with one cool, firm ass cheek. In the uncertain light from the opened door, Blair admired the erotic feast laid out in front of him, then bent and ravished the smooth skin of cheek, hip, and back with bites and licks, while he hastily spread lube where it was needed.
Part of him was worried that he wasn't taking enough time, but most of him was screaming, along with Jim, "Now, please now, do it, god, just do it, now, now, now..."
As soon as he could, Blair tossed aside the tube, and sheathed himself with one shove, shouting at the tight, satin clasp of the channel around him. From a long way away, he heard Jim's answering roar of delight, and when he withdrew, only to measure his length into the willing body again, Jim met the thrust with a powerful lunge back of his own. His next was even harder, and before long they were slamming into each other with meaty slaps and bestial grunts that added to the miasma of sex and need and longing that choked Blair's mind and burned in his gut.
Everything ceased to exist but the inches of flesh where they were connected, and finally, even that vanished under the crushing weight of his climax as it rushed through his body and into Jim. Screaming, clawing at his lover's hips to hold him closer, Blair gave him days and weeks worth of sheer hunger in a few back-breaking spasms, then fell over him, barely keeping his weight on his hands and knees.
Fighting to catch his breath, Blair tried to gather his wits together enough to reach under Jim, aware from the desperate cries and awkward movements that he'd left his lover behind. He could feel the shaking in the muscles under him, and the answering quiver in the passage surrounding his still half-hard cock, and murmured apologetically as he covered Jim's pumping hand with his own.
That bit of attention seemed to be all his lover needed. With a hoarse groan, Jim came, his seed gushing over their joined hands, and his body tightening around Blair's maleness in a way that pulled a softer one from him. Then his strength gave out, and Jim slowly collapsed onto the bed, Blair going down with him, trying to stay imbedded, with the hope of another, slower, sweeter round when they'd both caught their breath.
Jim seemed to be of the same mind. He drew the hand caught in Blair's up to his lips and gently kissed the fingers, occasionally stropping his cheek over it as he tried to drag in more air. "How is it," Jim murmured finally, "You always know exactly what I need and give it to me without me ever asking?"
"How is it you always need what I want to give you?" Blair asked back, reasonably. He snuggled between Jim's sweaty shoulder blades, idly nibbling whatever bit of skin was closest.
"Because I want anything you're willing to give me?" There was a wistfulness in the words that plucked at Blair's heart, and he gave a strong squeeze. Before he could say anything, Jim asked, in a different tone, "What time is your 'date' tonight? You're going to need time to talk to Simon and Roberts."
"Not until late." Blair gave a little hitch forward, pushing a bit deeper into his lover. "We've got time for an encore, if you want." They were too close, skin-to-skin, for him to miss the sudden tenseness in Jim that came from the movement. Blair levered himself up, locking his elbows, and looked more closely at the broad back under him. There was something not quite right, something off, but before he could pinpoint the difference, he looked down at where they were joined and saw the blood.
Eyes fixed to that spot, he withdrew very carefully and slowly - a feat, considering how badly he was shaking. In his head he screamed, No, no, no, over and over, but all he could do physically was stare at the red liquid seeping from Jim's body and pooling on the bedding under him. Then long fingers locked around his wrists, and his eyes gratefully traveled up from them to meet Jim's solemn, calm gaze.
"It happens," Jim said quietly. "A fact of life that gay men live with."
"It happens?" Blair mumbled, lips numb from where he was pinching them together.
"Why else would I know the name and number of a doctor who takes emergency office calls at any time of the day or night for just this sort of thing?" Jim asked with just a wisp of humor in his voice. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up." He pulled gently, and Blair obeyed, or rather his body did. He was still trapped in his skull with denials echoing off the bone.
Jim led him to the bathroom, put down the toilet seat, and after padding it with the damp towel he had used on Blair's curls, gingerly sat.
"It happens?" Blair repeated, more sharply this time. "And you just deal?"
"I didn't say it doesn't hurt, but I certainly didn't care at the time." Jim ran the water in the sink, mixing it to a warm temp, then grabbed a washcloth to wet it. "And I'm not saying it can't be dangerous, but I can tell that the tear's not very deep or long. It's already stopped bleeding."
"You'll see the doctor anyway." Not a question, but an order, and just like that the imperative for taking care of his lover and sentinel kicked his brain into gear. Blair felt his horror fade back into the pit of his mind, where it would fester into nightmares.
"I'll see the doctor anyway." Matter-of-factly, just as he had been all along, Jim washed the blood and semen from Blair's groin and thighs. "Right after we get through in here. Then you should call Simon to let him know about Amber."
"Life goes on, just like that. Just like I haven't torn you, just like I haven't been such a selfish pig I didn't even *know* I'd hurt you until I saw the blood," Blair said incredulously, standing still for the attention because he didn't know what else to do. "I didn't even have the common courtesy to make sure you'd gotten off first before I got my jollies," he added in self-disgust.
"Just like that," Jim agreed evenly, refusing to be budged from his reasonable stance. "Because I've been hurt worse lifting weights in the gym, because you were *supposed* to be so caught up in making love with me that you didn't notice something I didn't mind at the time, because it was so minor I did get my rocks off." He finished washing, and dried Blair thoroughly.
Standing, not bothering to hide his discomfort, Jim finished, "If you had hurt me deliberately, that would have been one thing. Or if I'd tried to get you to stop because of it, and you didn't, that would have been different, too. But that wasn't the case, and I know you well enough to believe that will never be the case, and even torn, I'm still wishing we could have that encore."
He smiled crookedly, and bent down to brush a kiss over Blair's lips. Blair wrapped his arms around Jim's neck and took a better kiss, trying to read for himself that his lover really was unharmed. Weeks of deprivation made the caress hot and eager very quickly, despite the relief he'd just gotten, and Jim's answering passion convinced him as nothing else could that maybe the tear really was a small thing, after all. Just something that happened with gay sex.
Unwillingly Blair lifted his mouth away before things got too out of hand, and backed off enough to see into Jim's face, hoping his eyes were shining as brightly with love as his lover's were. They must have been, because Jim smiled and ran calming hands over Blair's back. "Okay?"
"As soon as you call that doctor," Blair said, not quite truthfully.
"Nag, nag, nag." Jim left the bathroom, walking very carefully toward the phone, and Blair swore to himself, fists so tight his nails were biting into his palms, that he would never, ever, *ever* lose control like that again.
* * *
Blair quietly let himself into the loft, hoping that despite not be back home for over a month, Jim hadn't lost the ability to sleep peacefully through his comings and goings. It wasn't that he didn't want his lover to know he was there; he just didn't want him to know *yet.* There was nothing more in this universe that he wanted more than to climb upstairs, strip off his clothes, and crawl into bed with a sleep-warmed Jim. It didn't even matter to him what they did once he got there: cuddle or wild sex, or who was on top or bottom. What mattered was getting skin-to-skin with his loyal, reliable, sincere, dependable, honest, sentinel.
He couldn't do that until he'd tamed the seriously hard monster in his pants, though. If he went upstairs this starving and desperate, Blair didn't think he'd be able to stop himself from simply falling on Jim and taking his satisfaction. It'd been too long since he'd had any relief but his hand, and he was afraid that Jim would turn over for him simply out of their ingrained habits. He wanted, no, he *needed* more than that tonight.
Despite his erection, it wasn't simply sex he that he lusted for. What he ached to have was for both of them to be all there, working together, totally aware of each other like they hadn't been in what felt like forever. For once, he didn't want to be alone in his own head; he was tired of that - more than tired.
He made his way to the couch in the early evening dark, and sat on the very edge of it, arms tightly around himself while he rocked and tried to cool his body so he could satisfy his soul. As quiet as he had been, it apparently wasn't enough. Or maybe his body's frantic vital signs were too much for Jim to sleep through. Either way, the light came on in the upstairs bedroom, and he heard the sounds of his lover dressing. A minute later Jim padded bare-foot down the stairs.
"Blair?" he asked softly, not to find out who was there, but to find out if he was welcome.
"Yeah." Despite giving permission for company, Blair hunched in harder on himself, keeping his head down so he couldn't see Jim's strong beauty.
Tender fingers lightly touched the top of his head. "What's wrong?"
"Trying to shed Radcliffe," Blair said half-honestly, knowing his partner would attribute his agitation to how absorbed a cop could get in his cover persona.
"Here, let me help." To his surprise, Jim went over to the stereo and put on a CD; one that Blair liked to meditate to. He went into the kitchen and put on the tea kettle, and while it was heating, lit the fireplace and candles until the loft was filled with soft, flickering luminance. When he came back with a cup of tea for Blair, he knelt in front of him and said, "I'm going to undress you; I've got your robe with me."
Within minutes Blair was bundled into the soft flannel and covered with the comforter from the bed upstairs. Taking the tea when the mug was offered, he automatically settled back into the couch, sipping at the hot drink gingerly. "Taste, scent, sight, sound, touch.... " he murmured, a small smile finally beginning. "Trust a sentinel to know how to reaffirm identity."
Jim crept under comforter with him, and encouraged Blair to lean into him. "Who else would know the real Blair Sandburg in quite that way?" he asked smiling.
That was exactly the right thing to say, and Blair moaned, putting aside his cup to climb into Jim's lap. Hiding his face in the curve of Jim's shoulder, he snaked both arms around his chest and hung on for dear life. Wisely Jim didn't try to talk to him; he just rubbed calming circles into Blair's back and pressed tiny kisses on his forehead and temples.
It was hard to say which one of them started it, but they began rocking into each other, and Blair lifted his head in time to find one of those tiny kisses for his mouth. Jim didn't deepen it right away, but kept coming back with tender, dry pecks that felt nearly worshipful and were more teasing than anything Blair had known. After only a few minutes he was whimpering, trying to get longer, stronger contact, but Jim wasn't having any part of that just yet.
Finally Blair reached up and captured Jim's head, holding him steady so that he could take what he wanted. At the same time their mouths met and mated fully, Jim's hands cupped his backside and pulled Blair hard against him, increasing the wonderful friction between them. The combined sensual assault caught him off-guard, and he abruptly climaxed, caught in waves of pure pleasure that were almost too steep and sharp to be called that.
They ebbed far too quickly, leaving him panting and exhausted, slumped heavily onto his lover. Jim was back to his little kisses, and was combing Blair's hair with his fingers in a way guaranteed to melt any bones he had left. "Aw, man," he mumbled, "No fair. I'll be asleep in seconds if you keep that up."
"If you need the rest, go for it, Chief," Jim said. "I've got a couple hours before I have to go in."
That jolted Blair completely awake, and he sighed heavily, sitting up on Jim's lap. "Actually, no you don't."
"You get a bust?" Jim asked surprised, letting his hands come to rest on Blair's hips.
"No, just a break." Blair made a sour face, but couldn't help the disgust he felt. "A big one, but...." He took a deep breath. "Amber's been dropping in on me at the library where I'm doing research, helping us look for that connection between the call girls. Today she got careless or I got snoopy, I don't know.... Her date book was in her bag where I could see it, and while she was in the restroom I looked through it. When I put it on the table it fell open to a page that she must have been turning to a lot. Her 'rough trade' tricks list."
Jim's expression slipped into neutral. "And the murder victims were on it?"
"Not all of them, but the missing names had been penciled in at the side. She must have known the connection all along. Call-girls at the that level aren't in direct competition the way street girls are; it's not unusual for them to run into each other at social functions. Since they have to be polite to each other under those circumstances, it tends to spread to others - like gossiping about which tricks are dangerous or mean."
Blair went back into hiding on Jim's shoulder. "If she made the connection between the johns, more than likely at least one of the other women did, too. But not one of them came forward to help; not one volunteered to save the lives of the other men that could be targets. Not even Amber."
"What did you do, Chief?" Jim spoke against his ear, hands resuming their trips over his back.
"Xeroxed the list, put her date book back, and went on with my research," Blair said tiredly. "When it was safe, I went in and told Simon what I'd learned. He's conferring with Roberts, trying to decide how to handle this. Thing is, we don't know whose list the killer is using, and there's about five other potential victims on Amber's list alone."
"Damn. So you're going to have to go back to being Radcliffe a while longer," Jim said, and the pained regret in his voice was enough to prick Blair's conscience.
"It's not like I can ever really get away from him," he admitted. "I mean, he's *me.* The me I could have been if I hadn't picked up the badge."
Jim stiffened fractionally, but all he said was, "How so?"
"Well, Radcliffe had the right idea, you know?" Blair played with the pattern knitted into the lush sweater his lover was wearing, paying more attention to the heartbeat under his ear than what he was saying. "He was really, really close, but he didn't have it geared right. And I just couldn't present his stuff the way it was because of that, so I changed it so it would work better. Ever since I did, the dummy agent Roberts has set up for me has gotten enough calls to keep me doing those seminars for the rest of the year, and not just in Cascade, but all over.
"And the book? Once I came up with it as a cover, I decided that I should do the research, just to make it look authentic, and the next thing I knew I was really writing it. I mean the parallels are so *obvious,* I'm surprised that someone hasn't done it already. Any time a woman is reduced to merchandise status, whether it's her husband, her father, or her ruler who possesses her, instead of being owner of herself...."
"You could always offer to split the money with Radcliffe and publish it under his name," Jim interrupted. With a gentle nudge, he moved Blair off his lap, and stood. He brushed at his semen-stained clothes with a wry grin. "Going to go put on some fresh clothes, then maybe we could go get some dinner/breakfast? You said I ddidn't need to go in tonight?"
"I cancelled my 'date,' and Simon told me to tell you to take the night off for a change," Blair answered, willingly dismissing Radcliffe in favor of concentrating on his lover. "For a change? You've been on every night since I've been under?"
"Not full shifts every time," Jim said, on his way up the stairs. "Some nights I just cover your surveillance until we're fairly sure the killer isn't going to show. Pasta good for you? Mercusio's is off the beaten track so we don't have to worry about compromising your cover."
Doing something as normal as sharing a good meal with his lover was just what the doctor ordered for Blair as far as he was concerned, and he got up himself, dragging the comforter around him for warmth. A minute later he was upstairs changing as well, companionably arguing about whether there was too much garlic in Mercusio's shrimp scampi.
It wasn't until he was back in his hotel room at the Plymouth, reliving the night's loving for use with his hand that he realized that he didn't know if Jim had come at all. For a long time he laid in the darkness, wondering what the *hell* was wrong with him that he was treating the most important person of his entire life as if he were a faceless bar pick-up.
* * *
Less than twenty-four hours later, Blair let himself back into the loft again, and, tossing his keys in the general direction of the basket, leaned on the door as if keeping the bad guys on the other side of it by his weight alone. He didn't bother to check for Jim. Simon had already told him in the studiously professional tone he'd used with him since Blair had made such a total mess of their friendship that Jim had taken advantage of the lull in the Dead John cases to visit his brother, Steven.
With luck, he wouldn't get back too late. This place wouldn't feel like home until he did, and Blair was in dire need of that. Never in his entire life had he felt so cast adrift from everything he believed in, everything he'd based his existence on. If Jim were here, bitching and belly-aching about some case or another, or eyeing him with that delicious want-to-love-you senseless leer, or even just watching the tube and drinking a beer, the world would make a hell of a lot more sense. It would be normal, sane, ordered; for the first time Blair understood viscerally why Jim had always been so fanatical about all the household rules. They were his bulwarks against the insanity of a cop's life. But for Blair, Jim filled that role and he wanted him here, *now!*
As if on cue the phone rang, and Blair let the answering machine pick it up, not caring to talk to anybody but his lover. To his dismay it was Stephen.
"Blair? Jim said he didn't think you'd be home tonight, but I wanted to let you know, just in case you checked in or something, that he's spending the night at my place. Came over for dinner, had some wine with me, and conked out on my sofa. Hey, who knew he couldn't hold his liquor?" He laughed, nervously to Blair's ear, then went on, "Feel kind of stupid reporting on him like this, but he says partner's keep track of each other for safety's sake, so.... Anyway, call if you need to. Later."
Thumping his head back into the wood behind him, hammering his fists into the door on either side of him, Blair called his lover and partner every kind of asshole he could think of. His innate fairness tried to kick in. It wasn't as though Jim was a mind-reader and knew when he should be home or when Blair absolutely, positively, had to be with him. It was just hard to be that rational when the disappointment was so immense, and the necessity for Jim's presence was so overwhelming.
Without consciously thinking about it, Blair scooped up his keys and fled their home, not sure at first where he was going. Before long, self-righteous anger combined with the consuming need for his lover, and he confessed to himself that he was heading for Stephen's house. All the way there his heart flip-flopped between simply knocking and asking to be let in so he could beg for Jim to hold him, and pounding on the door so he could crash in and punch the inconsiderate jerk in the nose.
When he pulled up in front of the tidy, well-manicured Tudor home, he got caught between the two extremes, unable to do either, or to mobilize himself into a moderate, rational approach. Blair wound up just sitting in his car, seat pushed back so that he could pull his knees up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, chin resting on his forearms. With a window rolled down to prevent the windows from fogging, not feeling the cool night air, he watched the house as if he were on stake-out, but with his mind anywhere but on proper surveillance techniques.
As the night wore on, his false anger at Jim died away, but it left an emptiness that frightened Blair, forcing him to question *why* he needed to be with his lover so badly that he was nearly insane. It was impossible for Jim to always be there for him; it was impossible for *anybody* to always be there for anybody. His mother was right about never counting on anyone but yourself, never letting any one person be the source of happiness or strength or empowerment. True strength, true identity came from within.
When had he gotten so lost in Detective Sandburg that he stopped being *Blair?* Maybe his life as an anthropologist, a scholar, was gone, but if being Radcliffe had shown him anything, it was that his thirst for knowledge, for learning experiences was not. And the police department had already taught him more than he wanted to know, all of it bad. He still honestly believed with all his heart, though, that people could be and do better than even they thought they could themselves, if they only got the chance. It's just by the time they became part of his workload, most of the chances were gone.
He didn't know if he could live with that hopelessness and despair. He didn't know if he *wanted* to live with that.
By the time the sky had begun to lighten as much as it could with the ever-present rain, he knew he wasn't going to be able to make any decisions about his life way or another as long as he was on the job. It ate up too much of his day and his mental energy, and what was leftover was for Jim. The only way, the *only* way, he was going to be able to clear his head, find himself again, was by taking some time away - even from his lover.
That decision threatened to send him rushing for Stephen's house, but he hung on, trying not to think any more, until he saw Jim quietly let himself out, keys to the truck in hand. Almost the same instant Blair saw him, heart painfully straining in his chest, Jim looked up and their eyes met over the distance. Alarm was clear in his lover's blue depths, then worry, then they closed off completely. That was a good thing, Blair thought dimly; a very good thing because he couldn't deal just now with how much pain this was going to cause Jim.
Half-expecting his partner to leave and for him to follow Jim back home, Blair was mildly surprised when he walked toward the Volvo with the obvious intent of getting in. Blair's always-high respect for his lover's courage inched up. Jim's responses might be fear based, but it had never stopped his sentinel from dealing with the truth head on when faced with it.
Jim opened the door and sat, and for a while they both stared out the windshield at the rain. Finally Jim said tightly, "Did you sit here all night to see if I was there? Or are you waiting to see who else is going to leave the house, since, either way, you obviously thought Stephen was just covering for me?"
Since the idea had never once crossed his mind, Blair turned his head so that his cheek was cushioned on his arms. "We caught the Dead John killer last night," he said evenly. "But only after he'd taken his next victim."
Shutting his eyes, jaw muscle bouncing almost in time with Blair's heartbeat, Jim shook his head. "Shit. How close was it?"
"He was just finishing the job when we broke in, and then he sat down in the bloody mess and confessed happily." Blair went back to staring out the windshield. "Brandon Mitzner is head of the security company that runs the rent-a-cops for half the five star hotels in Cascade, and he was married to a call-girl who gave up the life. Apparently it was a serious love-match, at least to hear him talk about it, and maybe it really was. When a john tried to blackmail her, she committed suicide rather than have her two daughters exposed to her past or steal from her husband or go back to the life. She left a note, so Mitzner killed the asshole, then a couple more so people wouldn't look for the obvious motives, and then a couple more because, as he said, 'It was the only fucking time I wasn't thinking about killing myself.'
"As head of security, he knows most of the girls in the trade by face, knows about their date books and the rough trade list. Says he took the one he was using from one of the girls while she was busy, copied it, and put it back. His position made it easy to get to his victims without being caught, and he read up to learn all the dodges on forensic evidence so it'd be even harder for us to find him." Blair sucked in a breath, surprised at the twisted emotions coming through in his tirade.
Obviously choosing his words with great care, Jim said, "You sound halfway pissed that you caught him."
"Maybe. Sort of. I don't know." Blair put his head down on his arms, blatantly hiding. "Know why the girls didn't come forward? Amber said they were afraid to. Afraid to give the names to the police because, after we caught the killer, their johns would be pissed for getting attention from the authorities, never mind how over-joyed they'd be to have their little deviations known to anybody but the poor women who they kicked around and beat up. And would the same cops that they helped return the favor when it came time to press charges for assault and battery on a trick? Of course not. Who's going to take the word of a hooker over that of a successful, well-connected business man!"
With an effort Blair brought his voice down from a pure shout to something closer to a conversational tone. "Who am I supposed to sympathize with here? Who am I supposed to be protecting? Why am I even in this mess in the first place? Who am I that I have to make decisions like that? Who am *I*?"
"Blair Sandburg," Jim answered, simply. There was a creak from the car seat, then cautious fingers closed over one of Blair's hands. "Let me take you home, remind you, show you."
Uncurling a little stiffly, but letting Jim hang onto him, Blair shook his head. "That only works for as long as you're holding me, and even then, that's us, not just Blair. This goes a lot deeper than me being undercover for a couple of months, or simple disillusionment with a cop's life; this even goes deeper than the radical change in my sexual-self image here. I want to look in the mirror and know more about the person I see there than his name, and right now that's about all I've got. Everything else is lost."
"Maybe you should see the department shrink," Jim suggested hesitantly, though Blair couldn't tell whether it was doubt to what good a psychiatrist could do or worry he'd piss Blair off by suggesting it.
"Maybe," he admitted. He turned his hand so that Jim's lay on top, looking at his lover's as if he hadn't seen it in a long time. It was icy cold, and somehow shrunken looking, as if the cold had leached life out of it. "When I get back."
With great care, as if Blair were suddenly spun-glass fragile, Jim took back his hand and put it in a pocket. "You're leaving." He didn't sound surprised. Or angry. Or much of anything.
Looking directly at his lover for the first time since he got in the car, Blair winced. Jim's face was pale and drawn under its coating of rain, his high cheek bones finely defined, making his eyes nearly invisible under his brow. "Leaving," he affirmed gently. "But coming back, too."
"You do what you have to do, Sandburg," Jim said coldly. He started to get out of the car, but Blair stopped him simply by catching his jacket by the elbow.
"I said," he repeated firmly, "Coming back again, too. The *only* thing I'm sure of is how much I love you. I have no idea where I'm going, or what I'm going to do when I get there, but I am absolutely positive that I will come back to you, because you are the only thing, the only *person* in my life that I can't live without."
Hanging his head almost to his chest, Jim didn't say anything for a moment, but the emotional tell tale in his jaw stopped its frenetic pulsing. "I don't think there's a cop, or a soldier, for that matter, that hasn't stood where you are right now at some point or another in their career. I meant it when I said you do what you have to, and you don't have to make any promises to me before you do it. You just take care of yourself."
At that he pulled free gently, and left. Blair watched him until he was in the truck and out of sight before he started the Volvo and pointed it east.
* * *
After the first few days, Blair lost track of where he was or how long he'd been gone. He drove until whim told him to stop, stayed where he was as long as it seemed the right place to be, spoke to hundreds of people about a multitude of things, and never once felt like he was doing anything but wasting time, gas, and money. During his journeys he tried meditation in a dozen different locations, from the depths of the woods to the middle of a commune. When he'd had enough of that, he went to the other extreme, joining every party he could find or dancing the night away at whatever club was loudest and raunchiest. Then he reeled himself in, and tried for the moderate ground, looking for specific people and situations - arts and crafts shows, Renaissance fairs, PowWows - any place where the creative, innovative, intuitive, and open-minded could be found, the kind of person he'd always thought himself to be.
Then the morning came when Blair woke up in a motel he didn't remember arriving at, with no idea of how long he'd been there, and no reason to get up from his bed. For the longest time he simply lay where he was without moving, staring at the weave of the sheet under his nose, almost lost in his own weird kind of zone. From his current perspective, his life had about as much meaning in it as the warp and weft of the fabric. Up close it was seemed nearly pointless; it was only when you stood back from it to see the whole that you could see the reason for it.
Maybe that was what it was really all about, he thought tiredly, distantly amused that he was finding the meaning of life in an ancient, stained sheet. You really can't see what your life is all about until you're dead, and it only seemed like you could because of the seductive promise of the regularity of days, weeks and seasons. Only one way to find out, and that was only one of the answers death could bring.
A split second after the thought crossed his mind, Blair sat bolt-upright in bed, heart suddenly pounding. The fact that suicide, however thickly veiled under curiosity and fatigue, had occurred to him was a warning sign that his aimless wandering was not only *not* helping him, but that the emptiness inside was getting worse. If he were home, there was no way he could even just sit in the loft without knowing down to the soul of him that as long as Jim Ellison walked the earth, he would, too, and that was simply that.
A soft voice that sounded suspiciously like his own when reasoning with a stubborn-assed sentinel asked quietly in his head, Then what the hell are you doing so far from Jim? He might not have the answer to what's wrong with you, but why turn from the strength he wants and needs to share with you? It's not as if what the two of you have is part of the problem, is it?
"No," Blair said aloud, startling himself at how shaky and weak he sounded to his own ears. "That was what was right with my life. I just think that what answers I need, I need to find on my own, because in the long run, you can only count on yourself, on your own strength. You know, be self-sufficient and self-empowering."
The little voice chuckled ironically, I can't decide who that sounds most like - Naomi or Jim. Then its tone changed entirely to one of infinite sadness. What did that attitude get either of them, in the long run?
For some reason, Blair didn't want to answer that question, didn't want to *think* about that question, and he fled from his own thoughts, forcing himself to dress hurriedly and throw his things into the Volvo. After paying the motel room bill, for once noticing the date on it and realizing he'd been gone nearly four weeks, he asked the clerk for directions to a bank teller machine to get cash, with the intent of finding a map and at least finding out where he was. At the ATM, he took out enough to get him through the next few days, then automatically checked the balance in the account.
The amount didn't tally with how long he'd been gone, how much money he must have used, and he walked away from the machine slowly, trying to understand. Long before he reached his car, Blair realized that Jim was responsible, whether he had convinced Simon to pay for vacation time, or was simply using his own funds. To his surprise, the knowledge hurt. For all his promises that he would return, Blair had abandoned Jim like so many others before him, and yet his lover was doing the best he could to take care of Blair.
"Maybe in the long run the only person I can count on is myself," he muttered unhappily, "But, damn me for the asshole I've been, Jim does the best he can for me, just like I do my best for him. Or did. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" He let himself into his car and put his head down on the steering wheel. "And I've just proven royally that sometimes you can't even count on yourself; this whole trip has been a total waste. What the hell did I really think I would learn by leaving, even temporarily? Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!"
Putting the car in gear he drove away, somehow sure that he was aimed for Cascade and Jim - that he'd never been that far from them in all his wanderings in the first place. He pushed straight through the day and that night, stopping only long enough to refuel the car and snatch fast food, and by the time dawn was a faint line of light on he recognized where he was, relieved that Cascade wasn't that distant. Dawn itself found Blair climbing the stairs to the loft, torn between an over-powering lust to hold and make love to Jim, and an equally strong fear that he'd find the lock changed and a notice waiting for him at the department of where his things were stored.
The key turned easily, and in the early morning gloom, he could see that their home was unchanged. He sighed in relief, then looked up at the bedroom, expecting to see the top of Jim's head showing through the high-tension wire railing, or maybe one of his hands dangling over it. There was no sign of him, though, and Blair looked around more closely, frowning. A thin layer of dust had settled over everything, and the room held the faintly musty odor of being closed up for a long time.
His fear took off in another direction entirely, and he ran up the stairs, expecting to see Jim's things gone from their bedroom. A quick glance found his badge where he always left it on the night stand, and, puzzled, Blair opened the drawer under it to find Jim's gun where it belonged, too. Most of his clothes were where they were supposed to be, and, his confusion growing, Blair sat on his side of the bed, reaching for the top of what looked like a significant stack of cards and letters, the first bearing his name in Jim's strong handwriting.
He absently riffled through the rest, expecting to find personal mail that his lover would think he needed to see immediately, but all the envelopes were from Jim, and without conscious thought, Blair began to count them. There was one for each day he'd been gone, and blinking away the threat of tears, he opened the oldest of them, dated on the inside from the day he left. It wasn't much: a simple photograph of a sunset on the exterior and with a handwritten interior that said, "There was a beautiful one over the harbor today; without you, it might as well have been raining, with only gray clouds."
All the others were in the same vein; simple declarations of love and longing that had the accumulative effect of shredding the self-control Blair had over his unruly emotions. Holding the most recent one in hand, he pushed his glasses up on his forehead and pinched viciously at the bridge of his nose, trying to prevent himself from weeping like a child. Jim had trusted him, taken him at his word that he would return and left proof of it that, like Jim himself, was quiet, straight-forward, and sincere.
A tissue appeared in front of him, and he reflexively scooted backwards, hands going up defensively. Blinking away his incipient tears, he focused on Simon Banks who was calmly waiting for him to take the kleenex. In his other hand was another envelope, like the ones scattered over the bed, and Blair took that instead, eagerly tearing it open to read the contents. It said simply, "I love you," and the handwriting was shaky, as if Jim had been in a hurry when he wrote it.
"How much longer will he be undercover?" Blair asked, looking at Simon, not ashamed of what his face must be showing. "Is he okay? Senses, too? Can you take a message back to him? Please?" Though his pleading was blatant, he didn't try to hide that, either, hoping that on however strained their friendship had become, it wasn't too late to either repair it or count on it now.
"Sandburg," Banks started, then he stopped, and walked a few steps away, obviously deep in thought. He stood for a minute with his back to the bed, then looked over his shoulder. "Blair, you're a good cop. A *damned* good cop. Trust me on this, you need to be thinking like one right now. Do you understand? Think!"
That jarred him more than finding Simon in their bedroom without hearing him come in. Which meant he had a key, Blair abruptly realized, and that got him doing what his captain had ordered: thinking. He looked around the room, seeing the dust again, and added it to the number of cards scattered on the bed, and the fact that Simon obviously had to have delivered at least some of them. But... one at a time? How else could Jim guarantee one for each day? Yet, there was *no* way that an undercover job would allow him to contact Simon on a daily basis.
Tearing himself away from his inspection, Blair saw that Simon was leaving, and took off after him, suddenly sure that if he asked questions, he'd be ignored. In fact, the big captain acted as if he had no clue he was being followed, and took no particular precautions to make sure he wasn't. But when he got in his car, Banks delayed, apparently fussing with his cigar, until Blair was in his, before driving off. Nor did he seem to be in any hurry to get where he was going; a child could have tailed him.
Though it could have meant that he was acting as decoy, Blair was more than willing to bet that Simon had something important that he wanted him to know, and this was his way of providing clues without actually saying anything. Which, knowing Jim as well as he did, had to mean that his lover had gotten their captain to promise somehow not to tell Blair about whatever the hell the sentinel was up to. That meant that Blair was absolutely, positively going to hate it.
Worry, well-dosed with frustration, mixed with his guilt for not being there to stop Jim before he got involved in his current mess, occupied him until Simon pulled up in front of Michael Allen's Hospice and Palliative Care Center. Blair sat staring at the sign for a moment, the first true signs of panic nibbling at his middle, then he hurled himself after Simon, getting through the door in time to see the big captain turn a corner of the hallway.
"Simon, wait, you forgot..." he called out, deliberately letting the front desk clerk think he was only there to catch up with a visitor. That got him past her without any attempt to stop him, and after that he just purposefully strode down the hall as if he had every right to be there. At the next intersection, he saw a black coattail vanishing through a door and hoping it was Simon, aimed for that door himself.
The instant he stepped across the threshold he felt like an idiot. Banks was plainly merely visiting a sick friend, and the poor man didn't look as if he were long for this world. The patient was stick thin, almost skeletal, his shaved head adding to that impression, and a large orderly was helping him back into bed because of obvious tremors in the long legs. Then well-known blue eyes flashed up to meet his, and while Blair's mind was still screaming disbelief, Jim began shouting, "Get out, get out him out of here, Simon, get him out, OUT! OUT!"
Everyone turned to stare at him, but he could only see his lover, his sentinel, thrashing sporadically, weakly, in the orderly's hold, scooping up dishes from his tray table and hurling them feebly in Blair's direction, all the while shouting. Simon started for him, but Blair dodged away from him and the door just as a nurse came through, a tall, lanky doctor right on her heels. In the general confusion that followed, he almost made it to his lover's side, convinced that if he could just touch Jim, that he could calm the sentinel and everybody else as a result.
Simon wrapped both arms around him from behind, and though he kicked and squirmed with all he had, the doctor tackled him from the front, literally sandwiching Blair between him and the captain. They carried him out the door and down the hallway a short way, then deposited him in what looked like a staff lounge room. Simon planted him in a chair, then caged him in place by gripping the arms until Blair angrily met his glare.
"If you'll stay put, you'll get answers," he said sharply.
"I don't think so," the doctor snapped. "Who the hell does he think he is, barging into...."
"This is the man Jim calls 'Chief,'" Simon interrupted.
The doctor stopped himself mid-tirade, then took another look at Blair with a completely different expression on his face. "Ahh," he said quietly.
"Go ahead and tell him everything," Simon instructed, finally releasing his charge to go stand by the door. "Don't worry about patient confidentiality. Since I've got Jim's medical power of attorney, you've had to tell me everything, and I'll tell him if you don't. But if you do it, he'll get the straight stuff and not garbled misinformation from me."
Nodding an acknowledgement, the doctor studied Blair a moment more before offering his hand. "Dr. Benjamin Allen; I'm the director here, but Jim's an old friend, so I took on his case personally."
Not sure whether to be relieved or jealous, Blair remembered Jim saying he knew a doctor who made emergency office calls and asked tentatively as he shook, "You've treated him before, for, ah, plumbing problems?"
"On occasion," Dr. Allen said smiling, pulling up a chair with a side-glance to see if Simon understood the gay slang for a physician who worked with homosexual patients. "When he first started having trouble, he came to me because he trusted me more than other doctors he's seen in the past."
"What kind of trouble?" Blair asked sharply, putting aside the issue of whether or not *he* trusted the physician.
"That's just it," Allen sighed, sitting back in his chair, long fingers restlessly stroking over the arms of it. "We don't have a clue." He looked into the distance for a moment, clearly gathering his thoughts and running over what seemed to be a truly perplexing diagnosis. "His initial complaint was weight loss and weakness, and given some of the locales he was stationed during the service, I thought he might have picked up an odd parasite that had been dormant all that time. But then the tremors started, along with the sporadic paralysis and muscular degeneration, and I had to start thinking it was multiple sclerosis."
Blair inhaled abruptly, not quite choking, and clutched at his composure. "What I saw...." He gulped and tried again. "I've met people with multiple sclerosis. Jim's condition seems too severe for that."
Dark brown eyes, the most compassionate he'd ever seen, probed Blair gently, then Allen admitted, "There is an acute form of MS that does cause this kind of rapid decline, but Jim doesn't show any of the other symptoms, like pain in his extremities, or vision or hearing difficulties. In fact, if anything, he's gone to the opposite extreme of most MS patients: his hearing and sight are *too* good."
At that, Blair nodded, trying to keep his opinion of the acute senses out of his face. Jim must not have confided *completely* to Allen, but that might not remain an option if they wanted to fix what was wrong. "I take it the tests for MS were inconclusive?"
"Well, there aren't any really that are absolutely accurate," Dr. Allen said, staring back into space again, as if trying the thousandth time to solve this puzzle. "EEG's and MRI can indicate it, and there's spinal taps, other things like that. They all came back clean." He brought himself back to the present with a small shake. "I'm going to be blunt, Blair. We haven't been able to find out what exactly is wrong, all the medicines and treatments we've tried have been pretty much useless, sometimes causing as much harm as they were meant to help because of his allergies, and if we can't get a handle on it soon, we're going to be out of time. There are indications the muscular degeneration is spreading to internal organs."
Holding himself very still, as if by remaining motionless the agony would be less, Blair said very quietly, "You have to let me help. I not only know more about where Jim's been than possibly even he does, but I've been there myself. If you've been limited your research to medical texts, I can think of a dozen different sources. I've lived with his allergies, know all the ways to get around them or ease them. If there's *any* clue that can be found outside of medicine, and it looks like you're shit out of luck in that department, *I* can find it."
"That's an awful lot of confidence," Dr. Allen chided.
"No," Blair countered immediately. "That's an awful lot of need. You're afraid of losing your patient; I'm afraid of losing my partner and lover. Which one of us has the better motivation?"
Dr. Allen didn't answer right away, giving Blair reason to tentatively begin to trust him. He ran his hand through the thick thatch of gray hair on his head, obviously thinking over Blair's words carefully. Finally he said, "You're going to have to talk to Jim, right?"
"That's the way I see it." Privately Blair thought that he would anyway, one way or another, even if he had to go to jail for it.
"That could be a problem. He's refused to have visitors at all, even his family, with the exception of Captain Banks here."
For the first time since the two of them began speaking, Simon spoke up. "And he won't let me stay for more than a few minutes."
Blair looked over at where Simon was leaning on the door to the break room, trying to put his gratitude in his eyes as well as his words. "I'm really glad that he let you help at all, Simon, and I'll bet the grouchy bastard hasn't had a good thing to say despite it."
Both Simon and Dr. Allen snorted, mostly in amusement. "It's actually been reassuring," Simon said ruefully. "Like seeing that the Jim Ellison we all know and love was still there."
"He doesn't give up easily," Blair agreed. To Dr. Allen he added, "Give me ten minutes and if I can't get him to agree to let me stay, we'll talk about what I can do without letting him know I'm involved."
Dr. Allen smiled broadly, catching Blair off guard with the simple glee in it. "Not going to give up even he acts like an asshole?"
"Like I said, I'm motivated. Jim and I will work it out after he's better, if necessary." Blair did his best to look immovable, but Allen just smiled wider.
"I think Jim's chances of beating this just doubled. Give me a few minutes to make sure the coast is clear. Technically, I could get sued for letting you in, so...."
"Technically, you had no idea I was going to sneak in," Blair finished for the doctor.
"I like the way you think, Detective." Dr. Allen stood and offered his hand again, and this time Blair took it gladly. "We should work together well."
"I hope," Blair muttered as Allen sailed through the door. That left him alone with Simon with the first time in what felt like forever, and he grabbed what courage he could find to walk over and stand in front of his friend and captain. "I owe you," he said simply. "Not just for taking care of Jim, but for helping me despite the way I acted that time in your office."
"It wasn't the way it looked," Banks said gruffly, but with relief under his words. "I'd give you reassurances about me being straight and Jim not being able to see past you, but, dammit, Sandburg, you have to know I'd never be a dog like that."
"I do, I do." Blair sighed and punched lightly at Simon's shoulder, trying to smile. "If I really thought you two had been up to something, I wouldn't have backed down so fast. Like I said, *my* partner and lover. I would like to know what was going on, though. He was telling you he thought he was sick, wasn't he? And that he couldn't tell me because I was under."
"Worse than that," Banks said gently. "Blair, the first symptoms were weight loss and weakness. Jim thought that he might have AIDS, despite how careful he'd always been and the clean tests. He was worried out of his mind that he'd given it to you, too."
"Oh, man," Blair moaned to himself. "Just when I thought I couldn't feel like much more of a heel."
"You were undercover," Simon reminded him unnecessarily. "There's not a cop on the force who doesn't know the toll that can take on a good man, and I have to admit it had to look bad from your perspective." He rubbed at his face, then went on as if he'd been waiting forever to tell the rest it. "If Jim had tested positive, I would have pulled you from the case and made sure there was no shit from higher up over it. When Dr. Allen couldn't make a diagnosis, Jim talked me into putting him on desk duty except for his watch at the Plymouth, keeping an eye on you."
"When did he go into hospice?" Blair asked, afraid of both knowing and not knowing.
"About a week after you left, though Dr. Allen tells me that he'd been pushing for Jim to go into a hospital for weeks before that, instead of doing all the testing as an out-patient. Hospice was a compromise of a sorts." Simon looked slightly ashamed. "Jim wouldn't give me the slightest clue how to get in touch with you, or I would have called, I swear."
It was Blair's turn to feel shame; even sick, Jim had been covering for him. "I shouldn't have booked like that - without even talking to you first. I just, just...." He described aimless circles in the air with his hands and miraculously Simon seemed to understand.
"Leave after a long assignment is the norm, you know that. And you'd done the bulk of the paperwork before you took off. We managed." Simon pulled out a cigar, though he didn't make a move to light it. "Just *don't* do it again," he warned, dead serious.
Blair was about to give him a hard time about the edict, just to reassure him that they were back on even footing in their friendship when a knock told him that his ten minutes with Jim were about to start. With a sickly smile, he gave a quick wave to Simon and slipped out of the room, trying not to look like he was sneaking down the hall. Wondering foolishly if he really could *sneak* into Jim's room, he eased through the door, and shut it silently behind him.
Thankfully, Jim seemed to be asleep, and without the pressure of witnesses, Blair took a moment to let how awful his lover looked sink in. He had to face that, and that it was likely to get worse, then he had to get past it, because the last thing his lover needed to see in his eyes was pity. Or defeat. They would beat whatever this was, and he'd see the healthy, active man he'd fallen in love with.
Or at least one who took more joy out of his existence that Jim did right now. That much was clear from the tight line of his lips and the absolute blankness of his face, even during rest. Blair had no doubt that if he could see into his lover's eyes, they'd be as listless and leaden as the body that rested under the blankets, legs twitching despite their owner's slumber.
Bracing himself, not sure he could handle it but all too aware of his deadline, Blair crept up onto the bed, climbing so that he was perched over Jim, face to face, his weight on his knees and elbows to keep from hurting the fragile body under him. He kissed the lax mouth - a tiny, lip-hugging peck and stifled a jolt of pain at difference in the taste. That made him realize that Jim's scent was different, too. Not just the surface smell of soaps and cleansers, but the essential, underlying scent that he'd always found sexy, even when he hadn't admitted to himself that a man could smell that way to him.
Gingerly touching his forehead to Jim's, Blair stroked the long line of his lover's jaw, grateful that he'd found something that hadn't changed. It was still bristly, but with the softest imaginable skin under that, and he could feel the muscle tighten even as he petted. Jim opened his eyes, and that, too, hadn't changed: burning anger hiding a much more powerful fear.
Not letting that deter him, Blair whispered, "I'm ready to come back now, Jim. Is that all right?"
"Maybe you shouldn't," Jim said in a gravelly voice. "Might be better if you didn't, Sandburg."
"Little late for that," Blair told him matter-of-factly. "But I'm not *back* back until I'm with you, and I really, really need to be with the only person that knows who I am, even if I'm pretty clueless about it myself, right now."
"Blair..."
Shamelessly, Blair let the tears that he had been struggling with all day surface, and he kissed Jim again, then murmured. "Please. Please. Please, let me come back to you." The wetness running silently down his cheek dampened Jim's, but neither of them made a move to dry the tears away.
Jim tried to turn away, to refuse the lips searching for his own, but Blair wouldn't have any of it. If his lover really wanted him gone, there was a call button under his hand, or he could shout out. Undoubtedly Dr. Allen was listening for just that. With gentle fingers, he held Jim's chin, and kissed him properly, tongue lightly asking for admission, which was granted with an eagerness that belied the rejection implied by Jim's stoniness.
It took an act of will not to melt over Jim from the sweetness in that one caress. A trembling arm closed over Blair's waist, hugging him as if he were the one that were fragile, and Blair lost it. He lifted his head so he could sprinkle kisses over the dear face, gasping out his sobs and cupping the back of Jim's skull with careful hands. His lover murmured reassuring nonsense so softly Blair couldn't make out the individual words, not that it mattered. What mattered was that Jim was holding him, and that he was there, with no intentions of ever leaving again.
"I take it that I'll be adding a new name to your visitor list," Dr. Allen said dryly from the door.
Blair burrowed into Jim's shoulder, hiding until he could calm himself, and he was unsurprised to feel too-slender fingers holding him in place, as if to shield him. "Not a visitor, Benjamin" Jim told the doctor quietly. "Family. He'll be staying with me."
The sound of a body impacting with a chair gave away that Dr. Allen had taken a seat, but he didn't say anything until Blair surreptitiously dried his face on the pillow beside Jim's head, then lay on his side next to him. "I'll be sleeping in here with Jim," he added to make sure the doctor understood.
"Okay," Benjamin agreed cheerfully. "Rules of the roost, then. And listen, because as long as Jim is my patient, you follow those rules or get booted out. And this time no ten minute reprieve, got it?"
He saw Jim go stubborn, but Blair said mildly, "I've got it, though I might debate them with you, if I think you're wrong."
"I like to think of myself as being reasonable. Debate away. But I've got the last say."
"Like fuck you do," Jim mumbled, but only loud enough for Blair to hear.
Or maybe not; Benjamin shot him a look, but all he said was, "The idea of this hospice is to combine the best features of home and hospital. You can come and go as you please, have guests as you please, cook, clean, do crafts, whatever it is you do at home that you want to keep up. The nurses and orderlies are here for the medical stuff - blood pressure, drawing blood, all that - and you're expected to accommodate them. Though if it's a bad time, there's not a nurse on my staff that doesn't understand and will try back again later. With me so far?"
"I'm with you. Is it okay if I take over some of the boring stuff? Make it easier on your people?" And Jim, Blair added to himself.
Benjamin nodded as if it were a good question. "That's up to you. We advise that you let them do the hurting things though - physical therapy for instance. Ideally, Jim should look at you as a source of pleasure and relief, not yet another discomfort to deal with."
That made Blair swallow hard, and it was his turn to nod, grateful he wouldn't be responsible for making things worse for his lover.
"Which," the doctor said, his glee from earlier shining through just a little, "Brings us to sex."
Groaning, almost in as much embarrassment as ire, Jim snapped, "I think we can handle that."
"I'm sure you can," Benjamin said, his tone making the sexual pun clear. "And that's perfectly okay. So is kissing that and licking that, and just about anything else that you feel strong enough to do and want. The only no-no is penetration. And it goes for both of you."
"Blair's straight," Jim said, almost automatically. "And I'll make my own choices."
Head tilted, looking as quizzical as a child, Benjamin said, "From where I sit, he doesn't look that straight."
Jim waved away the comment, and Blair studied him, wondering why after all their time together, he would think in terms of straight and gay where he was concerned. Before he could ask, the doctor went back to the original subject.
"Jim, we both know the possibility of rectal tears are a fact of life for a gay man, no matter how careful he is, but *you* cannot afford one right now. Your immune system is next to exhausted; an infection is the last thing you need. Which is also why you can't take Blair. Given your current condition, there's no guarantee that you'll be able to achieve an erection, let alone maintain it, so keeping a condom on becomes problematic. An urinary tract infection will do you in as easily as a rectal one. No penetration, not even fingers."
Before Jim could argue, Blair agreed for them, a part of him immensely relieved at hearing a doctor confirm what his lover had told him the time he'd been hurt during love-making. "Got it; no anal stuff, but everything else is a go. Anything else?"
"One more, and I'm really sorry to have to do this because I approve of cuddling for a patient, as a general rule," Benjamin said with what sounded like genuine regret.
"No cuddling! Come on!" Blair started.
"You can kiss, snuggle, hug and hold - all the good stuff," Benjamin clarified. "While you're both awake so you can monitor his reactions. Blair, Jim has lost so much weight that his skin is paper-thin, and his ailment has made it hyper-sensitive. If you fall asleep on top of him, put pressure on him when he's too deeply under to react to it, you could cause a lesion, an open invitation to one of those infections I'm worried about. He also can barely shift in bed by himself, so bedsores are a problem we have to look out for, as well. Your weight, in addition to his own, guarantees the loss of even that much mobility, again putting him at risk. I'll have a bed moved in here for you as soon as possible, and that's the only place you sleep. Even if he's awake when you nod off, just to avoid the chance he'll fall asleep after you."
"That sucks," Blair said flatly.
"Big time. But that's the rules. Not so bad though; if you were really in a hospital there are there hideous things called 'visiting hours' to cope with, and monitors to alert nurses if his heart rate and breathing speed up. Embarrassing, and a guarantee you'd be interrupted if you tried to have fun." Benjamin was completely unrepentant, and looked even sterner than when he first dragged Blair into the break room.
"Been there," Jim said tiredly. "Too many times." His eyelids bobbed once, then twice, and just like that, he was gone.
"See my point?" the doctor asked softly.
Staring at Jim, gingerly petting his features with a single fingertip, Blair muttered, "That's scary - how fast he went under."
"That's to be expected, given how much weight he's lost. And he sleeps longer, and longer each time he does." Benjamin got up and came to stand by the bed, carefully capturing Blair's hand and holding it. "If we can't regain some of the ground he's lost, fast, one of these days he's not going to wake up ever again."
Shuddering, Blair reclaimed his hand and left it, butterfly light, in the center of Jim's chest. "First step is getting some weight back on him, obviously. How much does he eat?"
"As much as we can pour into him when he's awake. We tried IV and nasogastric tube, but the dermatitis from both caused more problems than the few calories he took in were worth." Slightly distracted because he was checking Jim's pulse, Benjamin said, "It's almost as if he's not absorbing the nutrition from food at all. When he first started losing weight, he doubled his calories, and still dropped."
"That's about to end," Blair said firmly. "Somehow or another." He chuckled at himself, though there was little amusement in the sound. "Who'd guess that I'd ever *want* him to eat Wonderburgers?"
* * *
Checking his watch, Blair left Jim's room as the physical therapist started the first of the exercises, calculating how long before he would be needed back. Usually his partner dropped off into a deep sleep for at least an hour after the grueling routine, and the routine itself took about forty-five minutes. That gave Blair plenty of time to do some more research before he went down the street to get some ice cream for Jim in hopes that he could coax at least a few bites of the treat into his lover.
Foolishly - or stupidly, he couldn't decide which - Blair had thought that once he was back, Jim's condition would start to improve. Despite the evidence that Jim had been ill long before he left, a part of him was convinced that the sentinel's problems were because Blair hadn't been there to take care of him. But Jim wasn't getting any better. If anything, in the three days since Blair's arrival, he'd lost ground rapidly and Blair had an unshakable feeling that part of the reason was because Jim wasn't fighting any more.
Not that he was suicidal. It more like the soldier who let go of the rope hauling him and his comrades to safety because there was too much weight and the loss of one man would guarantee the survival of the others. Or like a father giving up his space on the lifeboat because his family is in it, to increase their chances of making it. The vague air of self-sacrifice didn't make sense to Blair; how could Jim's death do anybody any good?
Trying to look at it from the sentinel's point of view, and pretty much failing, he let himself into the small library and went straight for the computers, pulling out the list of sites he was methodically working through. He sat in front of the ancient machine and touched the mouse, glancing idly at what was on the screen even as he moved automatically to close the document.
The words 'perceived body image' caught his eye, and Blair stopped himself just in time, instead, scrolling up to the beginning of the article. Several of the nurses and orderlies were working on degrees, something Dr. Allen and his wife, Carol, who was the hospice administrator, encouraged heartily. One of them must have been working on a paper on the psychological effects of long term illnesses, to guess by what he was reading and the notes scrawled on a piece of scrap paper beside the keyboard.
What interested him was the reference to physical types, in particular men who were in physically demanding professions, such as football players, whose livelihood depended on their physical prowess. Hardest hit were those who honestly believed that they had nothing to offer *but* their bodies, and the incidence of suicide among those patients was extremely high, even with intervention. As Blair read through the characteristics to be alert for, his neck began to tense up, and he rubbed at a temple, not wanting to believe what he was seeing.
Trying to hide the symptoms of illness or excusing them as harmless, continuing to work even when dangerously debilitated, refusal to accept visitors, especially close friends and loved ones, rapid decline once admitted - all of the indicators fit Jim. Blair pushed away from the desk and wandered toward the street to walk, mind furiously sifting through what he'd learned and applying it to his lover.
Blair knew that Jim wasn't particularly vain or proud of his muscular build. To the sentinel, being buff was like carrying a gun: part of the equipment needed to do the job. And to Jim, the job was everything. That was as built-in, to a certain extent, as his senses, but it had also been reinforced when William Ellison had forced him to choose between status and wealth, and his instinct to protect. For longer than Blair liked to think, all Jim *had* had was his job.
That wasn't the case now, of course. Jim had him, too. Yet, as Blair turned the idea over in his mind, he could see where that self-same drive to protect could lead the sentinel to believing that freeing Blair as quickly as possible was the right thing to do. From a skewed, distinctively Jim point of view, sparing his partner from watching him die a slow, decaying death was an act of love, designed to keep the pain of loss to a minimum.
If that's what his thick-headed lover was thinking, Blair decided firmly, Jim was about to learn a few things about the proper care and maintenance of a spouse. He looked around briefly to orient himself, then trotted back toward the ice cream shop, already sure of what the first step would be. Not much later he let himself back into their room, deliberately licking his fingers, not so much as to get rid of the traces of the hot fudge that had dripped on them as to leave his own 'taste' behind.
Jim cracked open an eye, and said sleepily, "Never thought I'd see the day when you'd be encouraging me to eat hot fudge sundaes, Chief."
"Hey, I'm anything if not adaptable," Blair shot back. "Besides, what makes you think that I didn't get this for myself?"
"Cause you would have made yours a large," he said smugly. "Besides, you'd share, so, either way, I'm getting hot fudge."
"Just for that I ought to eat the whole thing by myself," Blair groused, inwardly delighted that his partner was at least making an effort to keep their usual banter going.
"Isn't there a rule or law or something against teasing a sick man with sundaes?" Jim asked, gripping the railing with his good hand and hauling himself into a sitting position, before hitting the button to lift the head of the bed.
"If there isn't, there should be." Blair licked the top of the sundae with hastily summoned relish, hiding a pang of admiration and sorrow at his lover's refusal to give into his weakness. "Mmmmmmm. Chocolate ice cream, too, in case you hadn't noticed."
"And nuts and whipped cream, and you've already eaten the cherry. Come on, give, Sandburg, before I press charges."
"Okay, okay all ready! Good thing you don't ask for sex like this or you'd never get laid."
"If that's a hint, sundae first, sex after," Jim laughed.
"Why not both at the same time?" Blair quipped, grabbing onto the opening he'd hoped to find. He swirled his finger through the ice cream, dipped it in the fudge, then offered the treat to Jim, who promptly sucked it into his mouth. It was an odd sensation from Blair's perspective. The cold ice cream had numbed his skin a bit, making the heat and softness of Jim's tongue indescribably sensuous.
Jim released him with a sweeping lick, as if it were another treat all together that he was savoring, and Blair abruptly found himself wondering who exactly was in charge of this game. Quickly he loaded more ice cream onto his improvised spoon, and gave it to his lover, this time taking the initiative and popping his finger past Jim's lips. It was lovingly licked away, then his other fingers tasted just for good measure, and he felt himself growing hard in his pants as though that talented tongue were elsewhere.
Almost automatically Blair gave Jim more ice cream the same way, becoming fascinated by the slow suction and erotic teasing of lips and tongue. His lover seemed to be just as caught up in the love play. His eyelids slid to half-mast, and he released Blair more and more slowly with each bite. Before long Blair was completely erect, and he was pumping his finger in and out of the clinging caress of Jim's lips, heart pounding at the promise in it.
"Know what I missed when I was gone?" Blair whispered, surprised that he could speak at all. "This. Just me and you, just like this, playing and loving. The outside world can't get past what we create for and with each other, the job can't, worry can't. Maybe it's only for a short time, but, God, Jim, it's like plugging into this cosmic energy source that only gets more powerful each time I access it."
He scooped the last of the ice cream and fudge out, fed it to his lover, his free fingers trailing over Jim's cheek, petting gently. "I miss getting into bed with you at night, feeling the warmth of you next to me, the way your skin feels against mine. I don't think I've ever told you how fantastic that is. Satin, silk, velvet, man, none of them has anything on you."
Jim nuzzled into the palm so near lips, eyes closing completely, his longing expression causing an ache in Blair's heart that matched the one in his hard-on. "Mostly," he said, setting the empty dish on the bed tray and getting up on the bed to lay beside his lover, "I just missed *you.* Being with you, being part of your life. It was like I was only half there, because you weren't, you know?"
"Blair," Jim said, voice barely loud enough to be heard and filled with more emotion that Blair had ever heard in it.
It was all he could stand, and Blair gently kissed the cool lips, his hand still cradling Jim's face, a faint shadow of the demands he wished he could make. It was arousing, though, far more than he expected, and without meaning to, he moaned into Jim's mouth, inching as close as he dared. Under his attentions, the flesh warmed, softened somehow, and the taste of the ice cream gave way to Jim's natural flavor, the one Blair had missed so desperately. Nearly whimpering in need, he deepened their kiss, forgetting everything but how much he loved this man.
Turning his good hand so that he could cup the bulge at the front of Blair's jeans, Jim broke away. "Let me taste you, please?"
The very idea of feeling that familiar heat on him so intimately had Blair scrambling into position before he had time to think, undoing his top button and zipper. Any chance he had at backing off, of finding another way to sate himself without risking exhausting his lover evaporated at the eagerness burning in Jim's eyes, and the trembling urgency of the hand on him. Bracing his hands on the wall over the head of the bed, Blair leaned forward for Jim to suck him, deliberately putting himself at an angle where he couldn't thrust too hard.
It turned out to be an un-necessary precaution. The moment Jim's lips closed over him his seed burst out of him in an eruption of pleasure/joy that left him shaking violently. With trembling care, Blair slumped onto the bed beside Jim when he was done, panting an apology and reaching for a tissue to clean away any mess. What he found was a sleeping lover wearing a delightfully smug smile with a single smudge of cream at one corner of his mouth, as if he'd fallen asleep licking it away.
Taking everything he had, Blair got off the bed before he succumbed to the urge to nap himself, but he contented himself with sitting beside the bed, his fingers lightly resting on Jim's left hand. Instead of reading or researching or doing any of the other things that he'd been filling his hours with since coming back to Cascade, he considered what else he could do to drag Jim back to the land of the living. One thing was certain, he wasn't going to let his partner shoo him out of their rooms any longer when the nurses or whatever were in with him. It was past time that someone looked at Jim's routine through a sentinel-specific filter.
Over the next few days he watched, questioned and listened, searching for where he could make changes designed to persuade Jim that simply letting go of life was not an option. Blair made endless notes on his laptop, which he retrieved from the loft with help from Simon. It also meant he could do his research without going to the library and leaving his partner alone, which he was determined to do as seldom as possible. Along with his computer he had some things brought to make them both more comfortable, like their robes and toiletries, and cooking supplies, so his sentinel wouldn't have to cope with the unpredictable tastes inherent in hospital food.
The latter seemed to help; at least enough that for the first time since Jim began seeing Dr. Allen, he didn't lose any more weight. It was a small victory, but Blair was able to use it as leverage coax Jim out of their rooms and into the courtyard on a rare sunny afternoon. They shared a chaise lounge, Jim curled around Blair as if he were a particularly cozy pillow, simply enjoying the sunshine and touch of warm breezes like two contented animals.
Separating to go back inside was almost painful, and maybe because of that silent closeness, Blair noticed for the first time that evening how miserable Jim was when anyone else touched him. Physical therapy he expected to be uncomfortable, at least, but under the usual stoic teeth-clenching, he could tell that Jim was in true agony: far more than the therapist intend, he was sure. Even a bed bath and rubdown was met with a barely concealed grimace when Nickie, their regular night nurse, camee in to get him ready for bed.
Blair watched her through the bath, wincing himself when he saw Jim's jaw muscle start working over time. On impulse he stepped between him and Nickie when she turned to reach for the lotion and asked, "Can I do that part? I mean, is there anything special I need to know?"
Obviously surprised, the husky, gray-haired nurse automatically gave him the bottle. "Not really. Keep him covered except for the part you're working on so he stays warm, and be quick about it for the same reason."
Taking the lotion when offered, Blair gave her his free hand. "Could you show me how much pressure is safe to use? Dr. Allen's warned us about the effect the weight loss is having on Jim's skin." The broad hands that closed over his were calloused and worn, but not unpleasant for all that, and to him the brief massage she gave his palm was invigorating. But to a man who perceived a paper towel as sandpaper, the same touch had to be the equivalent of being scrapped with a dull hacksaw.
"I can do that," he assured her, when the nurse released him. "It'll give you some slack in your schedule, too, if I take over for you."
Looking reluctant and grateful at the same time, Nickie said, "If you're sure. The Allens are pretty strict about family not doing more than they're comfortable with, and this isn't very pleasant for Jim."
Blair gave her high marks for seeing through his lover's macho silence, and nodded his understanding. "I'll make sure it's okay with Dr. Allen when he does his rounds tomorrow. In the meantime, you can leave Jim to me. Trust me, if he doesn't like what I'm doing, you'll be able to hear the yelling."
At that she grinned and gathered up her equipment, putting in on her cart. "There's that."
"Don't I get a say in this?" Jim grumped, yanking a sheet over his legs as if to hide them.
"Nope," Blair said cheerfully. Nickie just laughed, shaking her head as she went through the door. When she was gone, he leaned over Jim, holding his lover's head between both hands to bring them nearly nose-to-nose, his new technique for emphasizing their closeness. "If I were lying in this bed, would you turn your back on me, keep your distance, pretend I wasn't sick?"
Jim didn't answer him, but when Blair urged him over to his stomach to begin, he went willingly, only stiffening slightly at the helping strength that supported him as he moved. Since the best way to get a response out of his lover sometimes was to let him stew for a while, Blair let the conversation go and poured a small amount of lotion into his palm to warm it. Internally bracing himself, he pulled the sheet down to Jim's waist, trying not to compare the wasted form in front of him with the muscular back in his memory. Despite that, it didn't take any effort to make his strokes loving and gentle, smoothing the lotion over more than rubbing it in, and he could *feel* his lover's tension ease when there was no pain in the act.
Nearly melting under the delicate massage, Jim grunted once or twice when Blair went over a sensitive spot, but it was soon obvious he was enjoying himself. Just as Blair had begun to get so involved in creating pleasure that he nearly forgot what he was supposed to be doing, Jim said quietly, "If it was you lying here, it would hurt like hell to see you like this, but I wouldn't turn away or keep my distance."
"If I was me, I'd be mad as hell for hurting you like that," Blair returned gently, re-covering Jim's back and turning his attention to the too-thin legs. "And frustrated, and sad, and, I don't know, maybe guilty for getting sick in the first place. Lots of things, most of which would probably sound stupid if I tried to tell someone."
Apparently not having anything to say to that, Jim silently cooperated as best he could with the rest of the rubdown, managing to flip over nearly by himself when it was time to work on his front. By now Blair was used to the changes in his lover's body, at least enough that it was easy to concentrate on just making Jim feel good. He started with the foot of the leg he had worked on from the back, carefully holding its shape in his hand and feeling along the lines of it, then moved up to the ankle and shin, ignoring, as he had from the start, the trembling and spasmodic jerks from the muscles under his fingers.
It seemed to him that the random twitches grew less as he worked, but he couldn't be sure, and after a while he hardly noticed them at all. The increasing warmth coming from Jim and his almost inaudible sighs held most of Blair's attention. Though his intent hadn't been to turn his lover on, the evidence in front of him said that was what was happening, and to judge by his own growing erection, it wasn't one-sided. By the time he'd worked the lotion into both legs and reached Jim's groin, they were both breathing heavily and Blair was reminding himself over and over that Benjamin had approved love-making.
Not that he had a chance of backing down with Jim looking at him with the ravenous need in those blue eyes entering him as if it were another kind of sex. With infinite care, he stroked over each sharply-defined hipbone, not surprised when Jim opened his thighs and arched fractionally into the touch in mute request for what he wanted.
"No penetration," Blair said, his voice so husky he didn't recognize it himself.
"Yes," Jim argued. "Now. I want you so bad, Chief."
"Benjamin..." Blair started.
"Doesn't know me the way you do. Please. Don't make me beg for what we both need." There wasn't any pleading in Jim's gaze, only fiery demands that Blair had no will power to deny.
At least, not deny him completely. He quickly checked his nails on his lotion-drenched right hand to make sure they weren't sharp or ragged, then slid it into the crevasse between Jim's legs to rub lightly over the tight pucker. It flowered open for him almost at once, and moaning hungrily, Blair climbed on the bed to lie between his lover's thighs. He took the leaking erection into his mouth as he gingerly slipped a single finger past the guardian muscle.
Above him, he heard a soft, "God, Blair!" spoken with such relief that he couldn't help but hump against the mattress, echoing the motion he was using to pleasure Jim. Long fingers settled themselves in their accustomed place in his hair, coaxing him to suck harder, pump deeper, and Blair gave in, greedily chasing after the relief they both needed. He didn't think about making it last. He didn't think about anything at all except how *good* and *right* and *necessary* it was to love Jim like this.
In very short order he was on the edge of climax, and when Jim thrust up once powerfully and crying out his name in ecstasy, Blair tumbled over, his shout stifled in his throat as he swallowed his lover's seed. When the last drop was gone, he scooted up to claim a kiss, dragging the sheet over bare flesh as he did. Awake, but just barely, Jim returned the loving dance of lips and tongue murmuring without words his happiness and satisfaction.
He drew away, pressed a soft kiss against Blair's ear, and whispered, "If it were you lying here, I would do my best to make sure you felt so loved and cherished, you'd do everything you in your power to stay with me."
"And I would want you to because you're the best reason for living I could ever dream of," Blair said softly, nestling his head into the hollow of his lover's shoulder, trying not to put any weight any where else.
The fingers tangled in his curls stirred once, restlessly. "I'm not going any where," Jim promised. Deep even breaths told Blair he'd fallen asleep, and all he could do was lie beside him, counting those slow inhalations and praying that it was a promise Jim could keep.
Distantly Blair knew he had to get up before he dropped off, but for the first time in months he was where he belonged, and instinct coaxed, begged, and cajoled for him to stay, just a few minutes longer. He was on the very brink of slumber when someone knocked on the door to their room, and, before he could pull himself all the way awake, Benjamin came in, carrying files in one hand.
Blair jerked upright, rubbing at his face. "I wasn't sleeping. Honest. Just catching my breath."
"Forget that. His hands! Blair, look at Jim's hands." Benjamin hurried over to the bed as Blair sat up, almost defiantly squirming backwards so that he was in contact with his lover's hip. But he looked at where the doctor was staring, only then realizing that he had felt *both* hands in his hair when Jim had held him, and now they rested peacefully where they had fell when he sat up. There wasn't a single tremor in either of them, not even the left one, which had been so palsied that Jim had given up trying to use it at all.
Benjamin took gathered it between both of his own, skilled fingers probing the lax muscles in forearm and wrist. "Do you realize this is the first sign of regression that we've seen at all?" Positively beaming, the doctor continued his examination, as if fingertips alone could tell him how much of a retreat Jim's mysterious illness had made.
Confused, unable to help but wonder if making love had somehow helped his partner, Blair picked up the files, just to distract himself before he could be tempted into asking if that were possible. Both had Jim's name on it, and he opened the top one. "Two?"
Seeing what he was doing, Benjamin nodded. "One contains copies of files from other physicians - like when he was shot. I was looking it over because I remembered reading in it that Jim had had some tests done four or five years ago because he was having trouble with his sight. That's sometimes an early indicator of multiple sclerosis, but I don't think that was the case, according to those records."
"Why didn't he go to you for that?" Blair asked curiously, opening the other, much thinner file. It was clearly from confidential visits that Jim didn't want in the official files that the department might gain access to.
"For our fortieth wedding anniversary, Carol and I took a year's sabbatical and did all the things we'd always said we wanted to do when we retired." Shaking his head, Benjamin smiled. "We were both getting so wrapped up in this place that we lost sight of each other. Thankfully she kicked me in the ass and dragged me away to remind me *why* we had been together for forty years."
Smiling back at him, Blair said, "Forty years - I can't even begin to imagine that."
"Trust me, they go by fast. Some were bad, some were pure hell, but most were good and a few were heaven on Earth." Benjamin pulled out his stethoscope and listened to Jim's heart and lungs, and Blair fell silent to let him work.
As he did, he read the top few pages, mildly surprised that Jim's visits to him had been few and far between over the years, but that they went back to when he was still in the Rangers. Then he reached the records for the first time Jim had seen him for weight loss and quickly scanned through them. One notation caught his eye, and Blair asked, "You thought he might have an eating disorder?" He reached for his laptop resting on the tray table, and called up his notes, adding the dates for the visits, finding them familiar for some reason.
"Just a passing thought when all the blood work and test came back negative for the obvious reasons for losing weight, like diabetes," the doctor said, most of his concentration on his exam. "Had him keep a food diary for a couple of days without letting him know why I wanted to know how much and when he ate. It should be attached."
It was, and Blair glanced through it, whistling softly at the totals. "Why isn't the man obese?" he muttered to himself. Yes, Jim was active, buff, and not inclined to couch potato behavior, but to burn off that many calories would fuel mountain climbing in a normal person. Not that Jim was anything like a normal person. Blair froze in place, hearing in memory Jim say, "...doesn't know me the way you do."
Aloud he said as casually as he could, "Jim must have one hell of a metabolic rate when healthy."
"Mmm," Benjamin agreed absently. "Probably why he heals so fast and with such little scarring. And no, that's not gone haywire. We checked his thyroid and other metabolic indicators. It's more like he's not absorbing nutrition at all than he's burning it off as fast as he consumes it."
"Not absorbing nutrition?" Blair asked carefully. "Is that really possible? I mean, digestion is a chemical process, right? And once food's been through the stomach, all the intestines have to do act like a sponge; not much to go wrong as long as it's actually making it through."
"The only instance I know of is in infants," Benjamin said, finishing his exam and coming to stand in front of Blair. "It's called failure to thrive, and you usually see it in children who receive little or no physical contact their first few months of life, particularly in over-crowded orphanages. That's generally thought to be a mechanical problem, though.
"They don't nurse at a cold, un-responsive bottle as heartily as infants who are cuddled and held, so they don't get as much milk, and over worked attendants or negligent parents don't notice or care. The less they get, the weaker they get, the less they get, so they don't gain weight or grow properly, and most fall prey to normal childhood ailments. But Blair, Jim is hardly an infant."
"Still, his primary complaint was weight loss, *despite* normal food intake. The weakness could have been caused by that, as well as the demands his higher metabolic rate would make on his body." Blair didn't consider his contradiction an argument. He was too busy turning the concept of failure to thrive over in his mind, typing the phrase into his notes.
"Which was followed by tremors in the large muscles of the legs, followed by the same in the arms and hands, then sporadic loss of control and partial paralysis," Benjamin said flatly. "The weight loss was simply an atypical onset symptom for MS, or maybe a new strain of Lou Gherig's Disease."
"You're the doctor." Blair closed his laptop, but thought, And I'm my sentinel's partner. If his illness does have something to do with his abilities, I'm the one who'll decide which symptoms are important or not.
* * *
Though he didn't want them to, the dates that Blair had copied from the records nagged at him until he finally made sure that Jim would be occupied for several hours by therapy and a visit from Simon, and left the hospice to make a quick stop by the station. Preoccupied as he was by the elusive significance of those particular days, he didn't notice at first the hostility aimed at him by the members of the bullpen when he came in, waving a hello at everybody in general. He went straight to Jim's desk and pulled out their date books and case notebooks, grateful not for the first time for his partner's obsessive habit of noting *everything* that he did.
Eventually the angry silence penetrated, and he looked up to find Jim's desk ringed by obviously pissed and belligerent cops. Even Joel, who he'd always thought of as a good friend, was scowling at him as if he were a nasty mess he'd just scraped off his shoe. Before he could make a joke and find out what was going on, Henri asked nastily, "Cleaning out your *partner's* desk for him?"
The sarcasm wasn't lost on Blair, but he didn't have a clue where it came from, so he answered, semi-honestly, "The doctors are tearing their hair out trying to diagnose what's wrong with Jim. We're clutching at straws, but someone suggested the possibility that it might be environmental - like nerve gas or something - that he ran into on a case. I'm looking over his notes to see where he's been."
Astonished murmurs ran through the small group, and Blair added hastily, "You guys *did* know he was sick, right?"
"Not that he said anything, Sandy," Megan finally volunteered, looking slightly ashamed of herself.
"Grapevine has it that he's on medical leave, and, frankly, he looked like hell when he was here last," Rafe said, casting worried looks at his partner. "He's in the hospital?"
Still sensing an undercurrent he didn't understand, Blair said simply, "Hospice. We've been there a while, now."
Even Henri flinched at that, then said sharply, "You're staying with him?"
Before Blair could decide how to answer that, Joel said, "I told you, I *told* you!"
"Told him what?" Suddenly tired of the mystery, Blair stood. "What is going on with you guys? Look, we need your help. I need to talk to everybody who went out on a case with Jim while I was undercover, but you're all acting like you would just as soon not have him come back. What's up here?"
Joel raised his hands as if in surrender, then said, "Easy, Blair. Easy. Nobody's mad at Jim." He tried to grin, though it looked more like a grimace. "For once."
"The rumor is you bailed on him when you found out he wasn't well," Megan said shortly.
"WHAT!" Blair fell back into his seat, hands going up to his mouth as if to retract his astonishment. His only clear thought was I was so busy trying to nail my closet door shut, I apparently didn't notice that the walls were made of glass.
"Well, what else were we supposed to think?" Henri growled, finally beginning to look more uncertain than hostile. "You go under while you're partner's sick, keeping company with gorgeous prostitutes and working at your new book as if you've never carried a badge, halfway through you have a screaming fight with him in Bank's office, then when the case is over, you take off without even talking to the Captain, and a week later Jim takes a medical, virtually disappearing."
Closing his eyes, Blair thought about what to say and how to say it, then took a page from his partner's book and mentally declared, Screw it. Defending himself wouldn't help if the other members of Major Crimes had already made up their minds, and if they were going to believe in him, they'd have to do that from the evidence on hand. Not that they had much, to judge by Henri's accusations.
"Wait a minute," he said, suddenly *hearing* the first part of the litany. "What makes you think Jim was sick before Roberts assigned me to the Dead John cases?"
"Tightass Roberts *assigned* you?" Joel asked. "When Jim volunteered for night shift, we thought it was because he knew you had asked to work it."
Pushing that aside as unimportant, Blair repeated, "What made you think he was sick then?" He turned the date book still open on the desk to the right month, scanning through it until he found the first note that Jim had made to himself to call a doctor - a week after he switched shifts. No wonder the dates in the medical files had rung a bell.
"You know how Ellison gets when he's not quite right," Megan said calmingly. "Crabby, loud, angry, aggressive.... A real charmer."
"When we were scurrying around like blind mice for Her Honor the Mayor's entertainment for that federal terrorist thing," Rafe added, "I saw him stumble a couple of times, catch himself on a wall and shake his head as if he were trying to clear it. I asked him about it and he said that he just needed something to eat."
Flipping back through the date book, Blair said, "That would have been.... the eighteenth." He looked back up at the people surrounding him, hiding his relief when he saw they were all in cop-mode. "Is that about the same time everybody noticed?" At the confirming nods, he scanned back a week or so, looking for anything that could be suspect. "No toxic dump sites, no weird drug cases," he murmured to himself. "I remember he was really withdrawn and quiet the week before," he added. "But that wasn't because he was sick, it was because...."
A horrible theory began to lurk around the edges of his mind, and Blair sat back, brushing his hair away from his face and hoping he was wrong. "While I was gone," he asked nobody in particular, eyes fixed on the distance, as if he'd be able to see his hunch more clearly there, "How did Jim spend his free time? Was he in here nearly constantly, like he is when he's got a case he's obsessed on? Or did he do the usual - beer and poker on Thursdays, pick up game on Saturday - that sort of thing?"
"Night shift puts you out of sync with the rest of the crew," Joel said, after the murmur of conversation the question stirred up settled back down. "Plays hell on your social life 'cause you're awake when everyone else is sleeping and working when the rest of the world is playing."
"So you and Simon are about the only ones who saw him?" Blair asked, already sure he knew the answer.
"Pretty much, and that was mostly pure business, too, because of how short his temper was," Joel answered, sounding vaguely apologetic.
"What's that got to do with anything?" Henri demanded, obviously not letting Blair off the hook too easily for 'deserting' his partner.
"I'm not sure yet," Blair said distractedly. Abruptly he stood, picking up the date book and notebooks. "If you guys think of anything, please, let me know, or tell Simon. I'm carrying my cell, and he has the number to the hospice." Not daring to look at them, he told the top of the desk, "You'd better hurry."
Feeling their shock, he left, his suspicions tumbling and rolling through his thoughts, unwilling to believe that he could possibly be right. All during the drive to the hospice, Blair kept telling himself that the solution couldn't possibly be so simple, that his lover and sentinel could come so close to death from such a small thing. He'd almost convinced himself by the time he reached their rooms that he really was just grasping straws, but the moment he saw Benjamin and Simon watching a recording of the last Jags game with Jim, arguing over who should have won, he knew he'd had to at least test his theory.
Without saying anything he climbed up on the bed with Jim, sitting alongside him and watched with them, idly stroking the fingers that no longer trembled and twitched. When Jim picked up the remote to rewind the tape, Blair twisted on his backside to face him and asked, "You came here so I could come back to the loft and think you were just undercover, didn't you?"
Warily, Jim answered, "Something like that."
"Would you rather be there, now?"
"Yes." The word was as heartfelt as it was simple, and Jim glanced away as he said it, almost as if he were ashamed of his answer.
Nodding and waiting patiently for his lover to meet his eyes, Blair asked Benjamin without looking at him, "Would it be hard to set him up in our home?"
"Not particularly," the doctor answered. "After all, hospice usually means home care. There are some things you need, and arrangements to be made for physical therapy and so forth.... Jim, do you really think it's a good idea?" At the sentinel's glare, he added hastily, "Not that I think Blair can't take care of you, but we still don't know what's going on. Having a doctor or nurse just down the hallway might make the difference if new symptoms or problems suddenly appear."
"Benjamin," Jim said with some exasperation. "So far medical science has been a complete bust; there's no reason to think that's going to change at the last minute."
For a moment the doctor looked ready to argue, but instead he studied the pair of them, eyes lingering on where their hands were lightly linked. "I might as well shut up right now and save myself the trouble of a fight, right?" Benjamin said dryly.
"Unless you *like* pointless discussions," Blair said for both of them.
With a twisted grin, Benjamin shrugged his agreement. "I'll get the paperwork started."
"I'll call Stephen and let him know there's a change in the billing." Closing his eyes, Jim settled back into his pillows, and Blair didn't think he was the only one who could see the peace in his sleeping partner's expression.
"How long will it take to get every thing arranged?" Blair asked. "I was hoping to get us moved tomorrow."
"Then I had better get going, hadn't I?" Sounding more amused than anything, Benjamin sauntered from the room, tossing off a careless wave goodbye as he did.
The moment the door shut behind him, Simon came over to stand by the bed. "You're onto something," he accused quietly.
"Maybe." Blair met Simon's hopeful gaze, and said warningly, "I'm not sure and I don't want to say anything until I've had a chance to check it out."
"What do you need?" Simon asked promptly. "What can I do to help?"
"Exactly what you've been doing; keep dropping in to visit no matter how grumpy he gets about it. And let anybody at the department who's interested know that they're welcome to visit too. Tell them to use a question on an old case or something like that as an excuse if it makes them feel more comfortable." Hesitating, he gingerly stroked one finger over the back of Jim's hand, and added nearly apologetically, "You'd better warn them how bad he looks so they can get used to the idea ahead of time. Pity isn't what we're looking for here."
"Sandburg, there's no way to prepare anybody for this." Gesturing toward the terrifyingly thin body under the sheets, Simon completed his motion by laying his hand on Blair's shoulder and giving it a quick squeeze. "But I know what you mean, and I'll do my best to at least make sure they know to keep everything off their face but honest worry.
"Now, how are we going to do this moving thing?"
* * *
In the end the hardest part about moving back into the loft was getting Jim to agree to use a wheelchair rather than expend precious strength walking on his own. Once that was accomplished with a hot, short discussion done in bare whispers and blatant pleading on Blair's part, the trip was done quickly and efficiently. In very short order, under Benjamin's watchful eyes, he had Jim settled on the couch in the freshly cleaned loft, with a promise to the doctor that the special bed would be delivered within twenty-four hours.
Blair had left his partner with Simon to help him pack while he had gone home to prepare for Jim's return. Along with scrubbing their apartment more thoroughly than he thought even his lover had ever done it, he had made a pot of chicken soup to rid the rooms of their mustiness and fill them with a much better scent. He had made sure the bedding was clean, then lay wrapped in it himself for a while, reminiscing about some sexier times on that same couch in hopes that his scent would welcome Jim as much as the ultra-soft feel of their sheets.
His efforts were rewarded with a soft sigh of relief from Jim as he pulled the blanket over himself, and the frankly appreciative way his partner studied their home. Blair filled a mug with soup and took it to his lover, sipping at it to make sure it wasn't too hot as he knelt beside the couch. Instead of taking it from him, Jim put his hands over Blair's so they both held the cup and put his lips where his lover's had been. For once he seemed to actually enjoy his food, not just tolerate it for the needed calories, and before long it was gone, every trace of it licked away, even from Jim's lips.
During the process Blair felt Benjamin's solemn regard on both of them, and he peeked from under his lashes once or twice, trying to interpret the expression on the doctor's face. When Jim nodded off, as he often did after eating these days, Blair returned the solemn stare, patiently waiting for the man to speak his mind. Coming to sit cross-legged on the floor next to him, Benjamin said, very unexpectedly, "I had a son once. That's how I met Jim."
"Once?" Blair echoed questioningly.
"Once. You see, every man has his hopes and dreams for his child, even those of them smart enough to know that they should never take precedence over the ones the child has for himself. Mine were simple enough. I wanted Michael to be happy, have a good life with just enough sorrows in it that he would be able to know his own strength. Find a woman as good as his mother, have a long, loving relationship with her, maybe give me some grand kids to spoil."
"Those are good dreams," Blair said cautiously. "Honest, unselfish ones."
"Which is probably why I didn't handle it very well when he came out to me after his first year in college." Putting his head in his hands for a moment, Benjamin made a noise that was part grief, part self-disgust, then straightened determinedly. "As far as I was concerned, a gay man couldn't have any of those things. Not a happy life, not with the kind of prejudice and hatred he'd have to face every day, not a good life having to choose between hiding what he was or having it out there as a target for every bigot to take aim at. No long-term, loving relationship because I believed that gay men went from partner to partner, always looking for better sex." He laughed bitterly. "No grandchildren. My family line would die with him since Carol and I couldn't have any more after Michael, and my only brother died in the Korean War."
"You had a fight when he told you?" It was a story that Blair had heard often, in a dozen ways, most of the ending the same way.
"I disowned him, told him I never wanted to lay eyes on him again." Looking into the past, Benjamin smiled wryly. "Remember I said Carol and I had some good years and some that were hell? That was one of them. She'd suspected all along and when I turned my back on Michael, she refused to do the same. Like a complete and total ass, I made her stand between us, trying to be the bridge between two very prideful men."
"At least you didn't try to make her *choose* between you," Blair said softly.
That pulled Benjamin back to the here and now. "Small blessings." He stood, brushing at his pants, obviously feeling self-conscious. "He got AIDS, one of the early cases before anybody knew much about the disease except that it was the 'gay plague.' Couldn't find a doctor to treat him, got fired from his job, kicked out of his apartment, and finally, because his mother threatened to kick both of us in the head if we didn't straighten up, came back home."
Walking over to the balcony doors, he leaned on the frame, and said with a small smile in place, "That was another one of those small blessings. I took care of him, almost as if he were a baby again, for the last four months of his life. Healed a lot of wounds in both of us." Benjamin scratched at an invisible spot on the glass of the door. "Caused a few new ones, though. So many of our friends, my colleagues, people I trusted, refused to have anything to do with us. Most of Michael's friends abandoned him, like they'd never met him at all."
"Not Jim," Blair said with certainty.
"Not Jim," Benjamin agreed. His smile broadened, becoming the gleeful grin that Blair had come to associate with a serious mischievous streak that had a tendency to sneak out at the least provocation. "I don't know when or how they met, and I've never asked if they were intimate. I do know that whenever he could, he'd drop in for a visit, not easy considering his life at the time, and he showed up at the funeral in full dress uniform, all but sticking up his middle finger at all the gossiping old farts that went just to whisper behind their hands."
Blair couldn't help but snort at the mental image. He wouldn't put it past Jim to do something exactly like that if he were sure he was right and everybody else was wrong. Then the name hit him and he said slowly, "Michael Allen Hospice.... You built it because of him."
"It's not the legacy he had in mind for himself, but I think that wherever he is, he's happy about it."
"And proud of you," Blair added gently.
Flicking a glance at him, Benjamin didn't say anything right away, then he turned to face Blair. "There's a reason I told you all this; I want you to trust me." Blair started to protest that he did, but the doctor brushed it aside before he could make a sound. "Just listen to me for a minute; you can decide after I'm done whether or not you really do."
"Sounds... reasonable," Blair said cautiously, suddenly worrying that Benjamin had found out about his dissertation and added some of Jim's 'symptoms' to come up with the truth. If that were the case, though, why wasn't he having this conversation with Jim?
"Look, Blair," Benjamin began, an edge showing in his voice. "Only an idiot wouldn't notice that Jim's gotten better since you've been back. I've got a lot of clues as to why that could be, but no concrete answers, and maybe I'm not entitled to them in your opinion, but he is my patient. If he makes it through this, I want to know why and how, so that I've got half a chance of helping if something like it happens again."
"Clues?" Stalling, Blair tried his best to look baffled while trying frantically under cover of it to come up with an explanation of his sentinel's abilities that would satisfy a doctor without telling the truth.
"Yeah, clues. Like having Jim come to me a few months ago with a rectal tear when I know for a fact he'd never turned over for anyone before in his life. Like him refusing to even give me a first name to call his lover by, as if he couldn't even trust me with that much information about him. Add that his un-named lover goes away, and he suddenly gets so much worse that he doesn't have any choice but to agree to some kind of medical care. Then he calls for someone named 'Chief' every night in his sleep, sounding as if his heart were breaking. And, to top it all off, when I finally do meet the mysterious significant other in Jim's life, I discover that *Jim* considers you straight, despite the fact that I've seen the bruises you've left on his body from using him."
Benjamin stepped closer to Blair, leaning down a little so they were face to face. "The human mind is a funny thing. It can do things to itself that would make the Spanish Inquisition look like Mommy trying to get Sonny to confess to taking a cookie. Do you know what nasty little game Jim is playing with himself that has his subconscious convinced that starving death is actually a good idea? Is that why he's suddenly getting better, because you're talking some sense into him somehow? Or did you have a more active role in what happened to him? Is that why you left him in the first place, because you couldn't go along with his mental problems any longer?"
A light bulb went off in his head, and Blair said calmly, "Eating disorder - that's what you thought it might be at first, and now you're back to that because nothing else fits as far as you can see."
Apparently startled by Blair's quiet acceptance of his idea, Benjamin went back to studying the glass of the door. "Brought on by guilt for seducing his straight partner, doing it when he was vulnerable, questioning whether or not he wanted to be a cop, already questioning his identity. Then when you had to leave, he believed that it was fitting punishment for taking advantage of you. Any ass can see how much he loves you, and dying would be not only be justice, but would free you from him."
With a glance over at Jim to make sure he was still deeply asleep, Blair laid a tentative hand on the doctor's arm. "I can't say that you're wrong about what's going on in Jim's head, but you're not right either. If I tell you what I know, will you listen, really listen?"
To Benjamin's credit, he didn't answer immediately, but finally he said, "I told you I wanted you to trust me; listening is part of the promise behind trust."
"Fair enough." Blair opened the doors to the balcony and went out on it, leaning on the wall to look over the water. A moment later Benjamin joined him, though he turned so that he could see into the loft and keep an eye on his patient. "First," Blair said firmly, "I don't consider myself straight and I never have. But I've always been the shortest, the nerd, the new kid, the freak, whatever; adding 'fag' to all that wasn't something I wanted to deal with, so I kept it pretty much under wraps, not even experimenting. Then I started riding along with Jim and the *last* thing either of us needed was the attitude cops can have about gay officers, so I shoved it down in a box and threw locks and chains on it, and tried to date everything in a skirt to prove that I wasn't. All of which Jim knows."
"Then why...." Benjamin started.
"I don't know and I'm going to find out as soon as possible." Blair interrupted. "Second he didn't seduce me. If anything, I seduced him, though it was really more like the two of us stumbling together and winding up in each other's arms. And that was way before he became ill, you can check with him about that. The tear was just the first time I really let go when making love with him."
Choosing his words carefully, Blair finished, "If Jim feels guilty at all about us, it's because he thinks I gave up too much to be his partner on the job, and my last undercover assignment rubbed his nose in that. When I left right after, I probably justified his fears, but I wasn't running away from him and I promised I'd be back. I thought he believed me; he left proof that he did for me to find when I came back. And, damn it, I didn't know he was sick! Between being undercover and the shift he was on, he was able to hide it from me."
"That much I knew because he was up-front with me on it," Benjamin said. "More guilt, I thought. Think."
"More like over-protective." Blair sighed tiredly. "And he's right to a certain extent about my doubts about my job, but that doesn't have anything to do with him. I still want to be a cop; I just need to remember why before the bad parts of it erase it all away."
"Why *did* you become a cop?"
The question was so unexpected, and his mind was so filled with the necessity of keeping Benjamin side-tracked away from Jim's sentinel gifts, that Blair answered without thinking. "Because it was the right thing to do." He heard what he said as he said it, and he smiled, finally, finally making all the connections between a failingg body and a failing spirit.
"It was the right thing for me," he said, more to himself than to Benjamin, "The right thing for the people in Major Crimes that supported me, the right thing for Jim, but most importantly, the right thing for all the people I could help because I carried a badge."
"Does Jim know that?" Benjamin asked quietly.
Looking over his shoulder into their home, Blair said bluntly, "If he doesn't now, I promise you he will soon."
"In that case, I'll leave him in your capable hands." His usual merriment returning, Benjamin waggled a finger under Blair's nose. "But I'll be back and you'd better have the rest of my answers. You have no idea how frustrating it is to have a patient dying for no apparent reason, and I don't want to go through this with Jim again. My sanity can't take it."
"I promise, it will never happen again." Blair saw no reason to mention the promise wasn't for Benjamin.
* * *
Despite the insinuation that he was going to talk with Jim that same day, Blair bided his time, confident after the first few hours that his theory had been right. His lover re-discovered his appetite almost immediately, though his tastes seemed to have changed, at least for the short-term, leaning toward what Blair decided was probably comfort food for him. Three days later during Benjamin's regular visit, the scales read a weight gain, and while Jim was still extremely weak, the tremors had stopped completely, allowing a guardedly optimistic report from both the doctor and the therapist.
Just as importantly, in Blair's opinion, the visits from their friends in the department over those three days went well. Try as they might, none of them could completely hide their reaction to the changed appearance of Major Crime's best detective, but Joel set the mood the first day by making a joke of his shock, giving Jim a face-saving way to deal with it. Stephen visited too, on the day Jim left the hospice, looking a little uncertain of his welcome, but determined to face his brother's anger at 'disobeying' orders to stay away, and dissolving into complete relief when Jim obliquely apologized for demanding it in the first place. Much to Blair's surprise, even William Ellison stopped by for a few minutes, shortly after Benjamin delivered his good news, looking decidedly uncomfortable and uneasy, but trying anyway.
Though Jim tried as well, by the time his father left, he was nearly snarling. His shame at showing his weakness in front of the man that always demanded he never show any at all was almost as strong as his anger at William for not being able to disguise his perpetual disappointment in every thing about him. Finally, in desperation to derail the internal litany of self-disgust that he knew Jim was leveling at himself, Blair offered a diversion that he'd been hoping to use for better purposes: a shower.
Jim practically fell off the couch in his eagerness to get thoroughly, totally clean, not even making a fuss at having to use the adaptive equipment Benjamin had had installed. Personally, Blair could see advantages in the small seat installed in the shower, and the hand-held showerhead, but then he'd always had a remarkably inventive mind when it came to sex. As it was, he adjusted the water flow to a setting that produced more of a fine mist than an active spray, made sure that his lover was comfortable with the temperature, and brushed a loving hand over the stubble on Jim's head.
"Shave or wash?" he asked, trying to keep his own preference out of his voice.
"Wash?" Jim asked hopefully. "The only reason I had it shaved was because it was easier to put up with five minutes of vibration from the shaver than it was to deal with than the way my hair felt dirty because I couldn't wash it often enough."
More likely couldn't deal with the discomfort of having it done for you, Blair thought privately. All he said was, "Tilt back your head." Using a tiny dollop of shampoo, he scrubbed gently at the barely there hair, not missing the way his lover all but melted under his hands. When that was done and Blair lathered up a washcloth, Jim roused himself and tried to commandeer it to do the job himself, but Blair wasn't having any of it.
"I *like* doing this," he said firmly, drifting the soapy material over soft skin that had lost none of its sweet appeal to him.
"I noticed," Jim murmured, but made no move toward the growing erection Blair was beginning to sport.
"Being naked makes it hard to hide," Blair agreed mildly. He went on with the gentle washing, not bothering to mention that he wasn't the only one enjoying the process.
"Noticed that, too." Glancing down at himself, Jim grinned crookedly. "I'd like to save it until we're horizontal, if you don't mind."
"Sounds good to me. Benjamin will drag us both back to the Hospice if you take a fall in here."
"Point." Conversation faded after that, and Jim let himself be pampered, relaxing so completely that Blair thought he might fall asleep again. Instead, he did something perplexing. He ran his finger through the liquid soap pooled at the cap on the bottle, then rubbed it between both fingers. A moment later, he ran the soapy finger down the tiled wall of the shower, then over the glass door. Apparently satisfied with his investigation of shampoo and available textures, he rinsed off his hand, then scooped up some of the conditioner that Blair had forgotten to close when the last time he'd washed his hair.
Jim went through the same permutations with it as he had with the soap, and Blair smiled to himself, finally recognizing that his sentinel was captivated with his own sense of touch. It was too good an opportunity to miss, and he aided and abetted the welcomed and familiar sensory fascination by reaching out into the bathroom and snatching up first the shaving cream, then the toothpaste, then anything else that he could grab.
Eventually, as Blair had hoped, Jim turned his touch toward him, running sensitive fingertips over his chest, drawing patterns within the wet hair there. Between the residual slipperiness from the various things Jim had been playing with and the water itself, the sensation that chased over Blair's skin was indescribable and far more erotic than he'd expected. Rather than distract Jim from his tactile absorption, Blair lay aside the washcloth and put both hands on his lover's shoulders, lifting his face to the fine mist falling from the shower.
It seemed Jim was in no hurry to stop touching him. He almost randomly explored every inch of Blair's front, even running a single finger over his hard-on, just to capture the drop of pre-come at the tip of it. Jim was completely erect, too, though he didn't seem to care, and it wasn't until Blair couldn't hold back a moan of pleasure when a nipple was tenderly mapped that the caresses became deliberately arousing. Still in an almost entranced state, Jim teased both buds until they were aching points, then skimmed loving palms down toward Blair's erection.
Blair caught one on the way and pulled behind him, setting the slick fingers in the cleft of his backside. Obeying the silent request, Jim hugged him close, teasing the opening to his body and one-handedly treating his back to the same detailed examination as his front had received. As he did, his lover nuzzled his cheek, his nose, even his forehead into Blair's abdomen, plainly still caught up in his sense of touch, but just as plainly focusing it into sex.
That was good because Blair was rapidly getting to the point where he couldn't think of anything else. The finger delving ever-so-gently into him felt much better than when he had done the same to himself. So much so that he tightened his muscles around it, hoping to encourage his lover to do more. Trapped between them, his cock slid over Jim's wet skin, forcing Blair to control the urge to thrust, and when it got to be too much to resist, he slowly pulled away from his lover, sighing his regret at doing so. "I think we should get someplace level and dry, don't you?"
"Upstairs," Jim muttered, his hands lingering as long as possible.
Reaching for the fluffy towel hanging next to the shower, Blair bundled his lover into it, then used another to pat dry his head and face. "Waste of energy," he argued. "We can use the bed we put in my office just as easily; I can scoot the cot out of the way."
"Not enough room." Clumsily Jim tried to do the same for Blair, succeeding in at least wrapping a towel around him.
Grinning, Blair shot back, "We've managed with less."
Utterly serious, Jim looked up at him through lowered lashes. "I don't want to make do tonight. I want to be in our bed, take my time, and love you to within an inch of your life. Maybe I'm not strong enough to do more than my best to make it good for you, but I want to give what I've got."
That Jim was actually telling him what he wanted and needed in the bedroom was the only hint Blair had to have to know that this was important to his lover. With his sentinel gifts so close to the surface, instinct was probably prompting at least some of Jim's honesty, and the rest could be laid at the doorstep of the simple human hunger for the promise that things were *right* between them.
Besides, it was what Blair wanted, too, if he were going to be honest with himself. "We've got all night," he agreed. "We'll take our time getting up there and get ourselves situated just right." Waving at the hard-on that hadn't softened in the slightest, he added impishly, "I don't think a little delay is going to make any difference as far as being ready is concerned."
Tunneling his hands into the damp curls at the back of his neck and pulling him down, Jim murmured against Blair's mouth, "I'm counting on that." He kissed him, deep and slow, long enough to make both of them breathless. When they broke apart, Blair helped him to his feet, and they started the trip upstairs, pausing every few feet for another kiss, until they got to the steps and Jim needed all his air to climb.
Despite that and the necessity for leaning on the wall once in a while, their hands never stopped touching with loving intent, keeping their arousal alive. By the time they made it to the big bed, Blair was nearly panting with lust, absently wondering if they'd just accidentally discovered a new kind of foreplay. Jim laid down, arms and legs open and reaching for him, but Blair captured his hands in his own, worried at how hard his lover was breathing. "Keep that thought while I take care of few things? I don't want to have to get back up again when we're done."
"Damn, Sandburg..." Jim began, frustration clear.
Pulling his prisoners down to his cock, Blair thrust into their joined palms, groaning at the contact. "I'm not exactly thrilled at putting a hold on things either! But this way I can collapse afterwards and not have to think about anything but cuddling and falling asleep."
From somewhere Jim found a smile, strained though it was. "Hurry or I'll take care of this myself."
Running down the steps, Blair shouted over his shoulder, "Go ahead, but remember that two can play at that game." The answering groan was loud enough to be heard clearly, and Blair quickly gathered together what he thought they might need, including a urinal so Jim wouldn't have to come back downstairs for the bathroom, and ran back up. "Which," he said a bit breathlessly, putting his burden down on the night stand, "Could be fun, I have to admit. But that's *not* what I've got in mind for tonight."
Apparently unaware that he was stroking lightly over his own stomach, eyes fixed on Blair, Jim asked, "You've got something specific planned?"
"As a matter of fact, yeah." Snagging a tube of KY and a condom, Blair crawled onto the bed and knelt between Jim's legs. Because he was looking for it, he caught a flash of desperate longing in his lover's expression that he knew that he had to have missed in the past, and he hurriedly shoved down his grief and sorrow before Jim could see it.
Despite that flash of emotion, Jim eagerly spread his thighs wider, arching up a little to offer himself. "Did I ever tell you I like the way you think?"
"You might not be saying that in a minute," Blair said as if to himself, knowing his partner could hear him. Before he could be questioned, he opened the condom with his teeth, jacking Jim's hard-on with his free hand in the pattern he loved best, to make sure he was ready.
As he expected, long fingers closed over his wrists to stop him before he could begin to roll the condom down. An effortless twist would have freed him, but Blair froze in place, looking up to meet Jim's eyes, letting his speak for him. "Are you really going to make me convince you that I want you... no, *need* you inside me? That I know I could get hurt and I don't care about the risk any more than you do when I'm taking you?"
A fine trembling started in the hold on him, one that had nothing to do with weakness or illness. Jim slowly released his grip, though his face was filled with doubt. Hoping it would reassure him, Blair said, "I meant to do this as soon as I got home; a promise that I wouldn't ever take off on you like that again. And a way of letting you know how badly I missed you when I was gone."
Expecting more argument, Blair was caught off guard when Jim said hoarsely, "No condom. Bare."
The words sent a jolt of pure desire right through his middle, and Blair moaned. "God..., I want that, too. But Benjamin will kill us if you get an urinary infection."
"Fuck him. Bare, please!"
Jim's cock, as hard as Blair had ever seen it, jumped in his hand, and that was all he could take. Tossing aside the condom, he fumbled open the KY and squeezed out a generous portion, his own hands shaking as he worked the column of flesh. A tug on his arm told him to stop, and he sat back on his heels, uncertain what to do next but positive whatever it was, it had to be done now!
"Spoon up in front of me," Jim said, scooping off some of the excess lube on him onto his fingers. "And pull your top knee up toward your chest."
Eagerly Blair did as he was told, relieved all he felt was a ravenous anticipation and not a single trace of fear. Pillowing his head on Jim's upper arm, he teased his own nipples, shivering a little when the cold lube was spread over his opening. Hot fingers pressed inside him and he had to fight not to climax then and there. He bucked back into the penetration, shouting his pleasure, and reached for his cock, squeezing the base to be able to hold off until Jim was inside him.
"God, Blair," Jim muttered into his hair. "Why didn't you tell me you loved being touched like this?"
"I didn't know!" Blair practically whimpered. "Never let anybody do it, and it feels different, *better,* than when I do it myself.
"Better than being rimmed?"
The fingers inside twisted and turned carefully, stretching him wide and sending wonderful pangs straight into his dick. "Oh! Damn, Jim! Just fuck me, okay? Fuck me!"
"Easy, Blair, easy." Jim took away his hand, and Blair did whimper, hating the loss. A moment later the blunt head of his lover's hard-on nudged against his loosened pucker, and he took a deep breath, letting it out slowly and commanding his body to relax. It hardly seemed necessary; Jim glided into him slowly, with no resistance at all from the guardian ring of muscles. There was a momentary discomfort - too full, too big, too something - that wasn't exactly pain and for a moment it was strong enough that he had a flash of doubt and fear.
But then Jim was all the way in, his balls feeling furry and odd against Blair's ass cheeks, and his lover covered the hand he was holding his hard-on with, coaxing him into slowly pleasuring himself. It wasn't the tempo Blair would have used by himself, which helped him hold off the release he could feel hammering at the base of his spine. It *was* a perfect compliment to the leisurely rocking Jim began, though the wild sensations crashing over Blair's nerves were anything but leisurely.
Jim folded the arm his mate's head was resting on so that he could entwine his fingers with Blair's, holding him in a secure embrace that only magnified how completely, totally, thoroughly he was being loved. It was the last straw for Blair's libido. He began to madly ride back onto the cock inside him, forward into the grip on him, fucking himself more powerfully than he'd ever thought possible. All during his insane search for relief, Jim bit and kissed his neck and shoulder, muttering dirty words that lashed at what was left of Blair's mind, until one especially hard thrust and nip tripped him over into climax.
Keening his ecstasy, he writhed erratically on the shaft buried deep inside him, his seed rushing out of him in sharp jerks of unadulterated pleasure that seemed to destroy all his strength. When the last small spurt bubbled over their joined hands, Blair went totally limp in his lover's arms, reflexively tightening around Jim's hard-on.
As if that were the cue he'd been waiting for, Jim gripped Blair's hip in a surprisingly strong hold, and shifted slightly, changing the angle of his entry for short, hard jabs that slammed through Blair, despite his sated condition. A moment later Jim lunged deeply into him, practically draping himself over Blair's body, and he could feel the hot wetness of his lover's come fill him. Murmuring nonsense words through Jim's soft moans, he petted whatever skin he could reach, giving his lover guides to stabilize himself in the whirl of joyfully overloaded senses.
When the flesh joining them began to soften, they reluctantly pulled apart, and Blair clumsily cleaned them both up, Blair for once as exhausted as Jim, they curled together tummy-to-tummy and went to sleep.
In the small hours of the morning when the full moon was shining in a rare cloudless sky, Blair woke abruptly, not sure for the moment if he *was* awake. It had been that long since he'd slept in the comfort of Jim's arms, in the security of their home. He studied the silvered and shadowed bedroom, finding the familiarity of it a balm that he hadn't known he needed, then drew away from his lover enough to be able to study him, too.
The stark and strange light made Jim look unchanged from the man Blair had first learned to love in this home. He looked eternal, like the avatar of sentinels, powerful and virile, even in his slumber. Smiling at himself for his overly dramatic imagination, Blair traced the line of Jim's brow with his thumb, fingers splaying over the short hair beginning to cover the skull.
Suddenly Jim's eyes popped open, and for the merest of seconds, Blair would have sworn on his mother's life that something ancient and wise and content did look out of those pools of blue and shadow. Then Jim blinked sleepily and stretched, smiling as if the brushing contact with Blair was pure heaven. "Ready for that encore you promised me ages ago?"
Chuckling Blair snuggled in close, delighted to find that his lover wasn't just joking; the beginning of a new erection was tickling his stomach. He had something he needed to know first, though, so he asked, "How do you feel? And I mean it, Jim. Not just how strong, or if you're tired. How do you *feel?*"
Leaning back so that he could see into Blair's face, Jim thought about the question for a moment, then answered slowly, "Good.All the way through, like I'd just closed an important case without anybody getting hurt."
Nodding to himself, Blair said conversationally. "I was right, then, and Benjamin was wrong."
"About what, Chief?" Jim moved away a bit more, but just enough to be able to adjust the pillows to make them both comfortable.
"He thought you were subconsciously starving yourself to death because of misplaced guilt and self-loathing for seducing your straight partner." Blair braced himself for his lover's reaction, not at all sure what it was going to be.
"Is that why..." Jim started tightly.
"No, I told you why I wanted you to make love to me," Blair interrupted sharply. "Besides, you're the one who told him I was. Straight I mean. Which confused the hell out of me because I'd told you the first time we made love that I'd always considered myself at least potentially bi."
"Then why the closet?" Jim asked, clearly baffled. "Why tell me in no uncertain terms when we first started working together that you, if memory serves me, 'were nobody's bottom boy?'"
Grabbing the edge of the comforter, Blair covered his face and muttered, "I am *such* a fucking idiot, sometimes."
"Stop that." Jim tugged at the concealing material, trying to pull it away. "Just explain, okay?"
"Because I was insecure and trying not to wind up a target for every bigot in the police department. Because I didn't want people misunderstanding why I lived and rode with you. Because I was in fucking denial that I could be in love with you because that would take away all the control I had over my life and I didn't think anybody, not even you, was worth that. I spent enough years at the mercy of my mom's boyfriends, and moods, and restlessness and, and...."
Blair sat up abruptly, angrily arranging his share of the pillows into a backrest, carefully not looking at Jim as he did. "That's why I left, you know. Not because I don't want to be a cop, or because I want to go back to my old life, or because I don't love you enough to stay. But because I felt like I'd lost control, lost *myself,* after all those years of learning to hold onto 'me' no matter what circumstances I was trying to survive in."
Tentatively he reached for Jim, linking their fingers together loosely, relieved that his lover didn't pull away. "Imagine my shock when I finally realized that what I had lost was you."
"I wasn't lost, Chief," Jim denied, bringing up their hand to kiss Blair's palm. "I was right here. I *am* right here."
"Not when I got home," Blair corrected gently. "I think that's why you were sick. Did you know that if you don't touch a baby - cuddle him, hold him, play with his fingers and toes - he doesn't grow well? The doctors call it failure to thrive. A sentinel whose sense of touch is off the scale, who for all his need for solitude and space to be able to control his senses, was born to be an important part of his tribe, has to be even more vulnerable to that deprivation."
"I'm not a baby." Jim sounded so indignant and injured that Blair couldn't help smiling.
"No, but you do need to be a part of your people, and the way you measure that connection is by contact; not just social, but sensory. Seeing people on a daily basis, hearing their voices, absorbing their scents. Going on midnight shift took that all away. I think..." Blair hesitated, but decided it was better that Jim know everything. "I think that if a sentinel betrayed his tribe, or committed a sin they couldn't forgive, they would turn their backs on him, and he'd die, despite being better able to survive on his own than any of them."
"Incacha," Jim said thoughtfully, "Used to make me join in the rituals and festivals of the Chopec. Told me it was for my good as well as theirs, so that we would trust each other and know each other's ways."
"And he made sure that he was a big part of your life on a daily basis, too, didn't he?"
Looking mildly surprised, Jim nodded. "Hard not to be when he had so much to teach me." He kissed Blair's hand again, this time on the back. "We fucked up didn't we? Put too much time and space between us because of the job."
"So that I felt like I had lost you and you were too isolated to be able to thrive." Blair pulled so that Jim scooted up next to him, and draped his arm over his lover's shoulders. "One last thing. The night I had the migraine? Just before I started working the Dead John cases?"
"I remember."
"I think that was the first symptom for both of us. My headache and irritable mood was because we needed to reconnect, but I was so wrapped up in the police thing I didn't realize that. And you thought you were being too demanding of me, didn't you? That's the real reason you went on the back shift; the case was just an excuse to give me some space so I wouldn't feel like I had to leave." Blair waited, not sure that even with so much evidence, Jim was willing to admit that something so simple as being alone too much had nearly killed him.
Idly playing with the hairs on Blair's chest, Jim finally said quietly, "I know how independent you are, Chief. I thought that if you had a chance to see for yourself that you could do the job on your own, have a chance to convince other cops that you deserved the badge, you wouldn't mind so much being my partner both at home and on the force. Or, at worst, that we could make it working in different departments and only being life-partners."
"Dick head," Blair accused fondly. "I'm not going to lie to you. I don't think I'd be carrying a badge if you weren't, but you are my partner, every way possible, twenty four/seven and that's exactly the way I want it."
Against his skin he could feel an ear-to-ear grin, and he was willing to believe that he would feel the warmth of Jim's happiness, too. "I guess this means I'd better get my ass in gear and get in shape to go back to work."
"We'll have to tell Simon the truth," Blair warned. "Cutting you off from him because you both were worried I was jealous was the stupidest thing I could have done. He might have been able to fill in the gap I caused, at least enough that you wouldn't have gotten so bad so fast."
"But we'll let Benjamin think he was mostly right," Jim said. "He'd shred my medical files before letting anybody besides us see them, so if he wants to chalk it up to mental problems, that's fine with me."
"Well it was. Mostly. Sort of." Blair laughingly caught Jim's hand before he could seriously tickle him. "I'll just have to take better care of you, that's all."
"In that case..." As if on cue, Jim's stomach rumbled loudly, and they both looked down at it in amusement. "Maybe a snack?" he finished sheepishly.
"We'll have to break house rule number eighty-seven; no food in bed," Blair teased.
"Then you should probably join me; who knows the next time you'll have an excuse to flagrantly ignore common sense sanitation guidelines," Jim said straight-faced.
"Thank you, I think I will," Blair said grandly. "It's a generous offer."
"For you, Blair," Jim said, all teasing gone and his face totally serious. "Anything." He kissed him gently, lifted his mouth away to run his fingertips over Blair's lips, and repeated. "Anything."
finis
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