Considering he claims to be flying by the seat of his pants, Blair Sandburg has instincts made of gold.
Instinct's a good thing. Tells you when you're being watched, where to throw your next punch, and when to get the hell out of Dodge. And I can appreciate that. Have appreciated it in more than one dark alley on more than one rainy night.
In fact, I seemed to appreciate the hell out of Sandburg's instincts just last evening.
What I don't appreciate is my brain deciding instinct's all I need and abandoning its post. Which is exactly why I've spent the last three days without any higher thought processes. Without any control. And it's why I'm siting in front of a moldering temple, trying to remember what it's like to think in logical, straight lines.
Maybe some of that flowchart paper would help. Nice, neat little boxes and arrows to tell me what my next step should be.
After my instincts were done dragging me by the balls through the jungle, I finally got my answers. My reward was seeing my visions made real in stone and water. Congratulations, Ellison, you're not crazy after all. And while I floated helpless and immobile next to an unrepentant killer, I was given all the control I could possibly want. Because for one crystalline, omnipotent moment, I knew.
Everything.
It's all gone, now. As if I woke up and knew I'd had a dream, but couldn't latch onto any of the details. All I can remember was how it made me feel. I remember it filling every fold and crevice of my mind until it flowed as thick as the water cradling my body. I remember it going too deep and hurting like hell. And I remember pushing it away.
I rose from the pool, muscles weak and quivering, and felt the hole it left behind. Could hear the remaining faint echoes with my new, cleansed ears. And I could have gotten it back. I wanted to. It was waiting for me just under the flat grey surface of the grotto waters.
But Alex was waiting for me, floating in her own visions. And Blair was waiting for me. I'd left him curled up and content next to the campfire, but now I could hear him breathing fast and shallow outside of the temple. And Arguillo was tired of waiting for me -- he was sending his men in. I had a job to do, and people to protect. I turned my back on the pool.
See, Sandburg? I'm not a control freak after all.
So I saved Blair, saved Megan, and saved every living creature in a couple hundred mile radius from the nerve gas. Tried to save Alex, but I was too late for that. Now I'm trying to remember precisely when I left normal behind, so I can go back and find it. This is the part where Sandburg's instincts are right on the money yet again.
No questions, no lectures, no quotes from long-dead philosophers. Best of all, no comments on last night's... encounter. I don't want to think about that right now, and he doesn't ask me to. Just provides quiet reassurance that I am not like her.
Yet another lesson in Advanced Sentinel Care. I wonder how painful this one was to learn. Because as much as he knew when we got on this ride three years ago, and as quickly as he helped me get a handle on my life again, that wide-eyed student would never have the patience to simply stand here, offering silent comfort. When the hell did he change? For eight years I've made a living by noticing details that other people miss, and for three years I've been able to smell lies and taste doubt and hear a pounding heartbeat across the room. Yet I still carry around this image of the young, cocky, impulsive kid I met that day in the hospital.
He nudges my shoulder, and I rise and follow him to the helicopter Simon managed to scrounge up. He sits next to me during the flight out of the jungle, and I don't think he strays more that three feet from my side as we see Alex into custody, the nerve gas to the American Embassy, and return to the hotel to wait for a morning flight out. So it's not all that surprising when he follows me right into my room at the hotel and starts pulling down the bed. He's moving so sluggishly that I doubt he has the energy to talk, much less find enough hot water to wash the jungle grime off. And I know I've had my share of baths for the day. So we settle for peeling off the most offensive outer layer of clothing and collapse onto the bed. The last thing I remember is blinking wearily at the sight of his dirty hair for the second night in a row.
I wake sprawled out over the mattress, bed covers gone awol. I'm staring at a stucco ceiling, automatically cycling through my senses. There's none of the early morning confusion that's supposed to come from waking in a strange place. Hasn't been for years. I'm instantly aware of where I am and why I'm there and what happened the day before.
Sometimes I'd really appreciate a few blurry moments first thing in the morning.
Seeing as how I'm a detective and all, I figure I should locate those missing blankets. I turn my head and find a tightly bundled Sandburg somehow defying the pull of gravity on the five inch strip of mattress I'm not currently occupying.
"Chief?" I put a hand on the lump where I approximate a shoulder to be and give it a shake. "It's morning. Time to get up."
"Mmph. Whunna sleep."
"You can sleep on the plane, buddy. Get up."
The bundle twitches, then falls apart as Sandburg lurches upright to lean over me. I'm still laying on my back, and he's glaring down.
We stare at each other.
The awkwardness that was swept away by adrenaline at the temple slams down on me with a vengeance, and I suddenly realize that it's the morning after. The morning after with Sandburg. The last time we were in this position, he was flushed and half-naked, and was watching as he jerked himself off. And if he doesn't say something soon, I'm going to reach up and yank on one of those dirty curls to see if they still bounce. So now would be a real good time for him to say something, say anything...
"You're a goddamn slave driver, you know that?" He stumbles away towards the bathroom, and the tension breaks and dissipates.
"Brat!"
"Asshole!"
He slams the door for emphasis, and I grin at the glass tinkling in the overhead light.
Sandburg takes me up on my suggestion and spends most of the flight back to the states with his head lolling back against the seat. It's no wonder the guy's exhausted, considering he dragged himself out of the hospital to take the walking tour of Sierra Verde. I, however, got just enough sleep last night to make me wish this plane had a track where I could run a few laps. Or speed bag suspended from the oxygen mask compartment. Anything I could throw a few punches at without damaging some vital part of the plane.
He wakes up for the transfer at LAX, snags a couple magazines from a newsstand, and spends the second leg of the trip reading. Eyes bright and foot tapping unconsciously, he looks completely normal. Especially when you consider his energy is coming from dubiously edible airline food. But he's just as quiet as he was yesterday, and that's definitely atypical. He should be quoting strange and useless trivia at me. Badgering me about how long the flight's taking. Speculating on the kinks of the flight attendants.
I want to hear him talk, but he won't start a conversation.
I'm reduced to staring out the window and reading license plates through breaks in the clouds. Something that would typically be beyond even my impressive range. Sandburg would produce a plausible theory to explain it. Maybe it's the lingering effects of my swim in the temple pool. Or the combat buzz from chasing Alex across a couple continents.
Or the shock of learning that Blair's come smells like crushed grass in August.
Which is not something you're going to dwell on, Ellison. You needed help, and your partner came through with flying colors. You kept your focus long enough to get in and out of that temple alive. Now you're going to get your partner home, run his clothes through the washer twice, and figure out what his overzealous mind is working over now.
Then the landing gear makes jolting contact with the tarmac.
*
The loft is back to its usual appearance. Which means that the underlying organization is fighting a losing battle with the everyday detritus of our lives. I made absolutely certain everything was unpacked before he even made it out of the hospital. The nurses had kicked me out of his room, and Simon had kicked me out of the station, so I figured the least I could do was lose a night's sleep making sure all his stuff was back where it had been before.
Particularly since I'm the one who first put his life, and then mine, into a depressingly small number of cardboard boxes.
Now the place looks perfectly normal. Perfectly ordinary. We get in the door and I flick on the lights. Sandburg deposits his bags right on the two square feet of flooring where they'll be most inconvenient to walk around and wanders over to the windows. Shades are raised to reveal a moderately drippy view of Cascade at night.
"Now this is definitely a positive climatic switch we've got going on here. From humid and steaming to humid and freezing in the space of a day, thanks to the wonders of modern transportation technology."
For a scientist, Sandburg's got a bad habit of speaking in hyperbole. "I don't think temperatures in the fifties qualify as freezing, Chief."
"They sure as hell would on the Kelvin scale," he muttered. "Fine. It's still relatively freezing, given how nicely I was acclimating south of the border."
Surprise. Just like that, we're talking again. I just can't believe we've reverted to discussing the weather. How utterly proper. Let's see, introductions have been made, followed by cliched comments. The next step would be to offer refreshments, right?
"You hungry?"
"Nah. Extended hours soaring in the wild blue yonder don't do much for my appetite." He leans back against the glass panes, raindrops etching trails around him. "But coffee, that's a different story. I could do coffee."
"On an empty stomach? Not planning to sleep tonight?"
"What, I've got a bedtime now?" He's snapping, low and brittle.
Contrary to popular belief, I do have a modicum of sense, so I keep quiet and turn to the freezer in search of ground beans. His apologetic sigh drifts closer. "I wouldn't worry. Twelve years of higher education have allowed me to cultivate a complete immunity to caffeine."
"I see. Glad to know all that tuition money wasn't completely wasted."
Something soft but solid hits me between the shoulder blades, and I turn from the percolating coffee maker to find Sandburg cross-legged on the floor, pulling yards of dirty clothing out of his duffel bag. I pluck the wadded-up sock ammunition from where it lies on the counter and return fire. Blair fields it smoothly, so I try for a verbal dig. "I think I should take those down to Ballistics for analysis as a new, deadly form of stink bomb."
"Cute." He lunges for my bag and ransacks it in turn. "You want to get me a laundry basket, or should I just wash these using the fraternity method?"
"That's where you hang them from the balcony to air out, right?"
"You got it." I hand him the basket, and he starts sorting through the knee-deep pile. He lifts a muddy shirt that had been pale blue in a former and scarcely-remembered lifetime, muttering lightly to himself, "I'd like to see what kind of hint Heloise would have to offer about this one. Am I supposed to be going on what color it should be, or what color it actually is?"
The sotto voce diatribe continues as I rummage in the refrigerator for a while, coming up with fried rice that managed to escape the invasion of mold due to an overabundance of MSG. I ignore the slightly metallic flavor and eat, pausing to pour Sandburg's coffee, sugar it lightly, and pass it down to floor. In the faintly musty air of the room, the bitter smell is a welcome sign of life. He takes a sip, grimacing slightly.
"More sugar?"
"No, I'm good." He takes another drink, wrapping his hands around the mug.
Just like he did next to the campfire.
Just like he did before he turned and reached for me.
I shake my head lightly and clear my throat. "It's okay? Not too strong?"
"It's fine. No, wait, better than that, it's fabulous. You could go into business." Sarcasm building, he gestures grandly, drawing a marquee in the air. "I can see it now: a chain of Ellison Cafes, stretching across the land."
"Smartass." Then, around a mouth of rice, "Sure you're not hungry?"
He glares at me through the rising tendrils of steam. "Jim."
"Yeah?"
"You can stop with the mother hen routine any time now. Preferably before I'm forced to add a chapter on Sentinel nesting habits to my thesis."
I've heard Sandburg tell tales about this mythical land between complete self-absorption and stifling hovering, and I swear I'm going to find it one of these days. Which will probably shock the hell out of him. "Yeah, right. I'll just... clean out the fridge, here."
"You do that."
I pitch fossilized rolls and lunchmeat that looks like an experiment in terraforming into the trash while Sandburg crisscrosses the loft, redistributing the dregs from our luggage in his bedroom, the bathroom, and upstairs. I can smell peppermint as he walks behind me. That would be the toothpaste. Rustling paper could be a notebook belonging to either one of us; must be my case notes since he runs it upstairs. The smell of leather, but none of the rustling that would indicate a jacket. A book? One of his old ones?
His breath hitches, and I whirl around to see him sitting on the loveseat, staring at the closed cover of The Sentinels of Paraguay, holding it carefully like it's made of stained glass.
"What?"
He looks up, some nervous shadow flitting over his face. "I forgot to tell you. In the rush. And then I was trying not to think about it..."
"What?" I say again, louder this time. Please don't let it be something else about Alex. That's over, now, over and locked away.
He takes a deep breath. "Megan knows. About you. About Alex, too. I'm sorry, Jim, it's just that she saw the book, put it together, and there really wasn't any way to refute it. I mean, the proof was right there..."
I cut him off mid-babble. "That's it?"
He looks confused. It isn't a typical Sandburg expression, and it sits awkwardly on him. "Um, yeah. That's it."
I slouch heavily against the back of the loveseat. In light of the past couple weeks, this hardly qualifies as a disaster. Granted, it's not particularly good news, but it wasn't completely unexpected. "Chief, she had it half figured out already."
"You do realize that this is the part where you're supposed to be pacing a trench in the floor, launching into your standard tirade, right?"
"I'm not angry." Sandburg's not buying it, and raises an eyebrow. "Okay, I'm not that angry. Not really." It's true enough. If someone's got to know, it might as well be Conner. And I'm not going to fuck this evening up with a lecture.
Still, things would have been simpler if Blair hadn't dragged that book along.
I'd asked him once, years ago, why he carried it around like a security blanket. Like he wasn't convinced I was real, and just had to check every five minutes and see it written in black and white. He'd laughed, saying if I'd met my favorite fairy tale in the flesh, I'd be spooked, too.
Guess he got spooked enough to pull it out again.
He lays the book on the table at his knees and rises into a stretch, joints softly cracking as his arms reach for the ceiling. "So," I say. "We going to bed now?"
My brain slips into gear a split second after my words register in these damned ears of mine, and all I can do is stare gape-mouthed as Sandburg lets his arms fall, and turns to stare back, blinking owlishly.
Shit. Just when I'd relegated my memories of a panting and sated Blair to some compartment in my mind where they could go fuzzy at the edges, overlaid with soft orchestral music.
Then he collapses amongst the cushions, laughing his ass off.
I just groan, and wait for his chortling to die down to a soft hiccuping. Real slick move, Ellison.
Now that it's out there, you've got to say something.
"Chief, about the other night..." He tries to cut me off with a wave, but I won't be steamrolled until I say this. If I stop, I don't think I'll be able ever get it out.
"No, give me a second. I just... it was... I mean, it helped. You helped."
He smiles softly, honest-to-God exhaustion written in every line of his body. "We're close, Jim. And we needed that to be tangible for a while. Okay?"
"Yeah. Okay." Tangible. That's one extremely inadequate way to describe it. But I think that's the best we're going to do at this hour. I abandon my mug in the sink and head for the stairs. Blair turns back to the laundry, but I stop him with a brush of a hand against his shoulder.
"Just leave it, Chief. We'll deal with it in the morning."
"Yeah." That light smile appears again. "Night."
"Night."
*
During the first week, we relearn our usual routine.
Routine paperwork, followed by routine legwork, and then even more routine paperwork. For a change, the biggest mystery in my life is the sudden recent traffic pattern shift in the Major Crimes bullpen. Apparently, my desk has become a major tourist attraction.
Coincidentally, this is true only when Blair's sitting there.
Conner sweeps in bright and early with an offering of lemon danish from Heinz's Bakery on the corner and an even fresher selection of gossip. Brown provides an unsolicited assessment of the physical virtues of the new crime lab intern. And when called into his office, Simon personally pours Sandburg a mug of fine Arabican gourmet decaf.
I have to get my own, under the gaze of a certain smirking police observer.
On the plus side, all I have to do is ask for a file and it magically appears on my desk within five minutes. Naturally, it's accompanied by someone else in Records hoping to bump into my partner.
They're all trying to be subtle. In fact, if they weren't trying so damn hard, it might actually be working. Unfortunately, it becomes readily apparent that the academics have cornered the market on obfuscation skills.
It's like this continuous "Welcome Back from the Dead" parade.
No one's going to come right out and say it, of course. Well, except for Blair himself. Macabre humor is part occupational hazard, part occupational survival skill. It's also the level at which he's been dealing with what happened at the fountain.
Personally, I'm trying to forget it happened at all.
"You know what all this is, don't you?" he says, munching on a chocolate chip muffin baked by Ruth in Dispatch.
I pause in my typing, hands still poised above the keyboard. "I'm sure you're about to tell me."
"It's my own, personal Easter."
That's enough to tear me away from the monitor. "You want to tell me again what that 'J' in your name stands for?"
"Oh, that's good, man. You do realize who that could implicate as my father." Exaggerated eyebrow wiggling follows, which I pointedly ignore. "And you're getting caught up in the culturally dominant paradigm again."
"Right. I've got a problem with that."
"I'm talking about Easter's foundations in Pesach and in the spring rebirth celebrations of countless cultures. The vernal equinox connection to the goddess Ostara in the Teutonic mythology, and to Demeter and Persephone in the Greek. Celebrated on a slightly smaller scale, of course."
"Oh, of course. Hey, Exalted One?"
He takes another bite of the muffin and gives me his best condescending teacher look over the rims of his glasses. "Yes, my devoted servant?"
"How about getting your worshipers to build you an altar or something? My desk is about to tip over from the strain of bearing your gifts."
During the second week, Dennis Chung is murdered.
Nearly simultaneously, Sandburg gets dismissed, albeit temporarily, from Rainier's anthropology department.
I'm shocked at how well he takes it.
That's not to say that he's calm about it. Or taking the hit lying down. Hell, he drew up the battle plans to get his job back even before he walked into the station. But the fact is that he's been working up to this doctorate for over a decade, and the damn thing nearly died in its eleventh hour.
Of course, it seems like his career's been held in some form of eleventh hour stasis for an awkwardly long time now. Hell, he flat-out admitted that he's been stalling the final steps. But stalling on your own terms is completely different from having someone else pull the rug out from under your feet.
In retrospect, I think his focus has been shifting for a long time. A damn long time. There's the expeditions that have been turned down, starting with Stoddard's study in Borneo two years ago. All the classes he's missed for one police-related commitment or another that have now returned to bite him in the ass. The seminars that he couldn't devote his full attention to, the visiting professors that he wasn't always there to wine and dine. It's a pattern currently culminating in his drive to expose this Ventriss brat as the criminal he is.
It's not that his passion for anthropology disappeared. It just got translated into a passion for more concrete action. A desire to see tangible results. And I can see why. It's not like I'm particularly known for an affinity with abstract theorization myself.
Yet even I know it's not the best way to get a Ph.D. and a tenure.
But maybe that's not what he wants anymore.
During the fifth week, Blair gets kidnapped. Again. Held at gunpoint by Garrett Kincaid. Again.
That's pretty much when I figured life was back to normal.
*
Friday night. Thank god. I walk into the darkened loft around seven and wonder when Sandburg's going to make it home. I'm still nursing the first beer of the weekend in front of the television when I hear his car pull up.
As soon as he walks in with a grunted "hey" I can tell he meditated this afternoon. A hand carding through his hair frees the scent of Mysore sandalwood. That's the good stuff, he says, and it's been hard to get lately. Something about political unrest in India and government-owned distilleries. But of course Sandburg can still get his hands on it; he's probably got five contacts in every village on the subcontinent. Still, he only pulls this stuff out when even his energy levels get seriously tapped.
Funny how he always manages to get taken hostage by psychos like Kincaid right in the middle of finals week. Then he'll go and say there's no such thing as coincidence. It probably has to do with star alignments and planetary conjunctions or some such shit.
He hasn't been burning the incense here, though. He knows it drives me nuts, so he wouldn't fill the loft with it. Not knowingly. But it still clings to his hair, to his clothing. When he peels off his coat and hangs it next to mine, it's as if he opened a thurible and held it up to my face.
I watch him slump onto the couch. "Hey. Long day?"
He snorts. "You mean there's another kind?"
I salute his point with a tip of my bottle, then walk back to the refrigerator. Sandwiches are assembled from Wednesday's turkey, vegetables are subdued at knifepoint into two salad bowls, and the table is set with one bottle of ranch and one bottle of pineapple ginger dijon vinaigrette. Not gourmet fare, but it's enough to bring Blair to the table.
Still slumping.
Not good. You'd think just once we could both manage to be in a decent mood at the same time. If this keeps up, my reputation as the biggest grump at 852 Prospect will be ruined.
Dinner begins in silence, with all Blair's movements a study in quick, economical motor control. He used to handle his utensils as a maestro would a baton, riding to the punchline on piccolo trills and signaling to the timpani for punctuation. Now it's a repetitive, carpal-tunnel inducing motion between plate and mouth.
This would be a great moment to quote something profound and poetic.
"Leave them alone and they'll come home, wagging their tails behind them."
Evidently nursery rhymes are the best my gray matter can do on short notice. Sandburg blinks mutely, and I'm tempted to turn up my hearing to catch the sound of those dark lashes meshing and parting.
"Your usual flock of admirers. I'm assuming you've chased them all off with that scowl."
Awareness dawns, and he lifts an eyebrow. "You start calling me Bo Peep and I'll see that Megan gets the spare keys to your truck."
I snort to show exactly how long he'll live if that happens. "Little Blair Peep chasing fuzzy-tailed coeds across the university commons."
Mission accomplished. He laughs and splays a hand across his chest. "Moi? Chase tail? I do not chase tail, Jim." Any resemblance to righteous indignation is trashed as he adds a Cheshire grin. "The tail comes to me. Wagging. Panting, even."
"I hear the words, yet I see you here at this table..."
He pontificates with his fork. "Her name was Amy, she wore a criminally tight tank top, and she wanted to take me out for Mexican."
Since when does Sandburg throw over Cascade's Perkiest on a Friday night? "Hey, Don Juan? My name is Jim, I'm wearing a t-shirt, and we're eating leftovers."
"Damn, now you tell me! I mean, that would explain the complete lack of cleavage."
I'm a couple feet too far away to cuff him upside the head for that. "You are so full of shit."
I'll admit it wasn't the most original of verbal ripostes, but figured he'd at least grin. Instead, he frowns and stabs at an innocent slice of cucumber.
"That's the problem right there, man. I thought I knew who I was, and then it turns out I'm just full of shit." His voice is low, and he's only looking at the salad.
"I was kidding, Chief."
A sigh, and he meets my eyes. "I know that. But I forgot, Jim. I forgot that this isn't some kind of controlled lab I'm living in, and instead of a sheepskin I almost ended up framing my own death certificate."
He trails off and grabs for his glass, but he's still staring at me. Challenging me. And I never know what to say.
"It wasn't your fault..."
He looks like a marionette with its strings cut. "I don't know about that. I mean, it could have been worse. I could have not drowned. And then I would have woken up thirty years from now with a tenure and an ego wall and peer accolades and only then realized how full of shit I am."
Aw, hell. What am I supposed to tell him? That he'll wake up in thirty years and realize that no one's really in control of their lives, anyway? That I'm glad he's full of shit, because his fast talking has saved the day more times than I can count? But before I can figure it out, he's pushing away from the table.
"I've got to get out of here, man. I just gotta go move, or dance, or... or something." And as he sweeps his dishes into the sink and grabs his bag in a flurry of arms and unbuttoned flannel, I realize that I'm not supposed to say anything. There isn't anything left to say.
Because if he'd wanted conversation, he wouldn't have come home to me.
I block his charge to the coat rack. He skids to a stop, eyes narrowed to slits as hard and blue as lazurite.
"Move."
Right. He'd have better luck ordering Mt. Rainier to relocate. I shake my head.
"Dammit, Jim," he mutters, hand darting over my shoulder to snag his black jacket. I grab his upper arms to halt the lunge and feel his biceps clench for a moment as he involuntarily tests his restraints. Just as quickly, the tension dissipates, fingertips brushing my shirt as he lets his hand fall. He turns to stare at some point above the kitchen cabinets. "Let me go."
"Like hell. You go out like this and you'll drive the Volvo head-on into a telephone pole." It's hard to avoid the Father Knows Best voice when he's riled up like this. "I'm not in the mood to get a midnight summons to the morgue to ID your body."
He flinches away with a shudder that crawls under my palms. For a moment, I consider letting him go. But the casual stance and averted eyes that would signal another man's acquiescence are the signs of Sandburg mustering the troops. He rallies with admirable speed.
"So what are you going to do?" The words are half sound and half breath, a shade too clipped to be sultry. "You going to hold me here all night, Daddy?"
God. I should have known he wouldn't fight fair.
"I just might." My fingers finally slide together to grip the open front of his shirt. With a quick yank it's off his shoulders, collar trailing against his calves and still-buttoned cuffs hobbling his hands.
He shudders once more as I whip us around and shove him back against the door. His eyes may be wide and bright, but this time it's not fear, not when the color is utterly obscured by the ebony of his pupils. There's still something not quite right with the way his t-shirt blends with the bold red poster on the door behind him, so I pull his arms up long enough to wrench that layer over his head as well. He stands unresisting as it joins the snarl of fabric at his wrists.
Oh, that's better. So much better. I hold my widespread hands a few spare inches above that bare flesh, tracing its contours. My palms tingle with the invisible heat rising from his lips, his neck, and from the juncture of his thighs, swirling around and between my fingers. My hands are suddenly far too cold and I ball them into tight fists. I know if I lay those icy fingers on Blair's skin he'll hiss and pull away, the muscles of his belly twitching at my touch.
Incredibly, Sandburg doesn't seem to realize how precarious his position is, because his lips are curling into a ghostly faint grin. "You don't even know what you want from me, do you?"
"I know you want to dance."
Now the grin is full-blown, but it's not sweet, and it's not gentle. "I didn't say I'd let you lead."
"I didn't ask." Now I'm angry at him, angry at his smug voice and glittering eyes, at the way he's been pretending nothing changed after Mexico. And I'm furious at myself for letting him pretend, for sitting safely out of range and watching as professors and students and psychos take potshots at him.
I want to see him shiver at my touch.
Hands again on his arms, but this time unhindered by clothing, I lean in to taste the soft valley behind his jaw where the pulse beats strongest. Another step closer and I can part his thighs with one of my own, bringing our denim-bound cocks some degree of relief as they press together. His hips jerk in response, and I smooth my hands down the small of his back until I can pull him tighter to me.
He squirms and twists, not to get away, but to release his hands from their tangled bindings. Stitches stretch and break, then he's free to wrench my face away from where I'm working at the tendons of his neck. Lips meet in a clumsy crush, but it's sweet and deep enough to leave me gasping for air.
Yet he's still standing on steady legs, just watching me.
"No, Sandburg, not this time." It's muttered low, and I don't care if he answers. I brush mahogany hair away from his left nipple. The ring is long gone, but it hardens more quickly than the one on the right. I roll it between my fingers, squeezing to feel the tough scar tissue within. He grunts, but only once, so I set my teeth to the flat right tit.
I worry at it as my fingers trace ribs, pressing with too much strength to tickle. I'm rewarded with the sound of my name forced between clenched teeth, and I'm suddenly glad he's not a woman, doesn't have the nails to gouge my back.
"Oh, that's nice, Jim, so nice, but you can suck it harder, I know you can. C'mon, man, bite it harder..."
He trails off in a groan that's hardly more than a rumble in his chest, but there's an edge of desperation to his plea that finally convinces me he's with me on this, that he's just as alone and aching as I am. I sink to my knees and bow my head to his groin, savoring the pull of my jeans as they shift around my cock, breathing hot against his own trapped hardness.
My fingers meet in an awkward tangle as I undo his zipper and yank jeans and boxers to the floor. Slick and florid, he still smells sharply of grass, but now it's the tall grass of a sand dune, bent double by the salt spray of the ocean.
Dizzy, I shift my caresses from torso to a distracted kneading of his ass, fingers meshing in the warm cleft. Blair's croons turn into curses as the moment drags out.
"Damn you, don't you stop now. It fucking hurts, Jim, don't you fucking leave me like this." It's almost too desperate, and his roving hands turn into fists, pummeling my shoulders.
My lips part, tongue flickering out, and for a moment the sheer enormity of making contact out weighs any details of taste and texture. The undulations of his hips are enough to convince me to take him in my mouth, and his chanting coalesces into words.
"That's right, Jim. You kneel there and you lick my cock. You suck it good and I promise I'll come, promise I'll shoot right down your throat."
Fierce and strong as he is, I have to stop to wet my palm with a swipe of tongue. At his cry I return with both mouth and hand, falling into a mutual cadence for long minutes. Then the rhythm dissolves, and Blair's cries shatter into wails, and his come breaks into me with the fire-thick pulses he promised.
He slips from my mouth and I hear paper tear as his slide to the floor rips the poster from its tacks. It settles around his shoulders like a starched cloak, rising with the shuddering efforts of his first few breaths. Then his eyes regain their focus, his lips their subtle uplift, and front teeth gleam faintly at me.
"You need me, don't you, Jim." He leans forward to rub the hard bulge in my pants, and it's suddenly impossible to ignore the ache of my own body. I nod, falling back to sit on my heels, and scramble to open the fly with tingling fingers. I could be fighting with a figure eight knot for all the luck I'm having.
"Let me." He's laughing at me, but I forgive him as soon as he mercifully manages the zipper.
Too frantic to actually pull any clothes off, I lift my damp cock free, groaning a low, relieved note. I start pumping in the same upward motion, no thought to finesse. Another hand breaks the strokes, and I blindly clamp my fingers over Blair's. He takes the hint and tightens his grip, letting me set the tempo and control its minute variations.
"You look so good, Jim. We look so good. You look at your cock and let it go. Your turn to let it go."
I freeze.
"No, Blair. Not yet." Please, I'm not ready to let you go yet.
But he refuses to be placated and his hand picks up the motion again, dragging mine along. "Yes."
Then there's only the salt of Blair on my tongue, and the blessed clench of knowing fingers.
And I come.
*
Under my fingertips, I can feel each imperfection in the hardwood floors. Inanely, I wonder when I last waxed it.
"One of these days we'll make it to a padded surface."
Blair flashes a grin. "I don't know, man. Your butt looks nicely padded to me."
I land a swat on his in response, attempting a growl. It doesn't seem to have any effect on his smirk.
Chin tilted up, he stares over my head at the high ceiling. "Did I ever mention that I have this bad habit of saying things when I'm hard that I wouldn't normally say otherwise?"
Now there's a shocking revelation. "You mean you actually think before you open your mouth?"
He sticks out his tongue. Silly brat. It's not going to do us a damn bit of good all the way over there.
I cup a hand behind his head and pull him close.