Anger : Forfeit (a ratio of chaos), a Sentinel story by Glacis. Rated NC17 for adult content/language. No copyright infringement intended. For James (thank you, once again).

It had been a hard winter for Cascade, full of cold, rain-laden wind off the Sound. Sandburg had been run off his feet, teaching, researching, following Jim into the field and cleaning up his paperwork behind him.  Jim knew he hadn't made it any easier on the kid -- but he didn't zone out on purpose. And he didn't do it often. Just every once in awhile. When he had been separated from his Guide a little too long, and they were getting just a little bit complacent, that maybe he'd have a handle on it, and Blair could see to his myriad other responsibilities. Then Ellison would be poised at the door of a warehouse, or a crackhouse, or along a dock, gun extended, eyes concentrated forward … and the world would gradually narrow down to a pinpoint of light, or a whisper of sound. And Captain Banks would have to tackle his best detective to get him out of the way of a gun or a knife or a kick in the guts. Three times in four months wasn't bad, considering his earlier track record. But when once would be enough to result in premature death, it made it imperative for Sandburg to trail along.

And the kid didn't handle the cold very well. Especially when he was tired.

At least, that's what Jim told himself, as Blair sank further and further into a silence and a despondence that the Sentinel couldn't breach.

He was an anthropologist, not a cop. I'm a doctor, not a redshirt, Jim, Blair cracked sadly to himself. 'I can do this. I can do this.  I have to do this.

'I'm not sure I can.'

He stared at the untidy sprawl of limbs and blood that, until ten minutes ago, had been a detective. Major Crimes had been called in on a joint operation with the Vice department, kidnapping being a sideline of this particular gang of drug-smugglers, and the bust had been relatively clean. Relative to the blood-bath it could have been, Blair supposed, but that wouldn't be any comfort to the family of one Ed Akin, late of Cascade Vice. He swallowed heavily, pried his eyes away from the body to check on his Sentinel, and found Ellison listening to Simon as the Captains of the two divisions divvied up reporting duties. Unneeded there, he found himself staring again at the impressionistic splatters of blood and other fluids painting the rocky ground around the corpse.

So close. So damned close. So not him. He was a lover, not a fighter, he thought, but if he wasn't here, then it could so easily have been Jim.

The juxtaposition of Jim, love, blood and absence with the closeness of the most recent threat pressed in on his mind, and he stared unseeingly at the drops of blood haloing the form on the ground. Couldn't do that. Couldn't go there. Didn't dare go there. Didn't have a choice.

It so easily could have been Jim.

He didn't hear his partner calling his name, the slight impatience growing as there was no response. All he could see was blood, and emptiness.

"Sandburg, are you coming or not?"

Jim couldn't quite keep the strain out of his voice. It had been a bad bust -- any time an officer died it was bad -- and he just wanted to file it and forget it. But his partner wasn't helping. He was just staring off into space … oh, shit. Not space. He closed the distance between them as quickly as possible, one large hand closing around Blair's upper arm to pull him away from the view of the corpse that seemed to hold him enthralled.

"C'mon, Chief, let's get out of here." He tugged. Sandburg didn't budge. He pulled harder, and the rigid body under his hands suddenly lurched sideways. Jim stopped moving and looked down into the face reluctantly staring up into his own. The normally expressive cobalt eyes were flat, pupils dilated. He looked like he was in shock. "Are you okay?" Maybe it was a stupid question, but it was the only thing he could think to ask.

"Coulda been you." The words were so soft he could barely make them out, even with enhanced hearing. If anything, the words grew fainter as the voice continued, seeming to echo out from somewhere deep in  his Guide's chest. He dialed his hearing up so that he could follow the disjointed mutter. "So close. Too close. Can't lose you. Love you, need you too much, wouldn't be anything left, not without you. So close.  Coulda been you. So not cut out for this-"

His hand fell slack against his side, and he knew his jaw was hanging open, but he couldn't do a damned thing about it. Sandburg's pupils suddenly contracted, as if he was coming out of whatever strange state he had been in, but it was too late for Jim to react. He was caught up in the memory of that disjointed murmur, words playing over and over in a feedback loop in his brain. "love you ... not cut out for this ... love you ... too close ... love you ... need you ...  love you" Love him? Love him how? What the HELL was the kid rambling  about now? Need? Love? Leave? Did he mean to leave him? He couldn't do that. He must have heard wrong. Sandburg couldn't leave. Couldn't love him. Couldn't need him -- not like that. But no matter what else he had said, he simply couldn't leave.

Sight faltered, following touch as his numb body shut down system after system, concentrating on this conundrum, that his Guide should want him and leave him, both at the same time. Bereft, but refusing to believe in either the need or the possibility of loss, fighting both with equal internal force, Ellison was unaware that the world disappeared as he listened to the words of his Guide over and over.

Blair clenched his fists until his nails cut into the palms of his hands, wrenched out of his own version of a zone-out by the realization that his thinking out loud had tossed his Sentinel into a full-fledged version of the real thing. Shuddering at just what he had revealed, appalled by Jim's reaction to his unwitting confession, Blair slid into Guide-mode and decided to worry about fall-out later.  He began talking quietly, leading Jim away from the bustle of the clean-up around them with a firm grip on his jacket sleeve.

"C'mon, man, listen to me, hear what I'm saying, Jim, come on out of it. Follow my voice. This is not the time to get into this, man, it is really not, wrong time, wrong place. You wanna whack me for it you can do it later, just come on now and snap out of it, big guy. You can do it. This totally sucks. No wonder you zoned, blind-sided out of the blue like that. I am so sorry, man. C'mon, Jim, follow me back."

The crystal blue eyes remained blank, staring at nothing. Okay, so it wasn't sight he was zoning on. And the only smell around here was blood and fish guts and Simon's cigar, which hadn't changed since they got there, so it couldn't be his nose. Unless he'd bitten the end off his tongue he wasn't eating anything, and the only thing touching him was his clothes. Blair heaved an unhappy sigh. It was sound. Something in what he'd said had wound his Sentinel up in so many knots he'd zoned, and now Blair the Shaman had to wave his magic wand and untangle the cat from the yarn. And he had a nasty feeling he knew just what it was that had  twisted Jim into a pretzel. God, how he wished Incacha had left an instruction manual behind. The irreverence of his thoughts barely hid his growing fear that Jim now knew that his Guide loved him, and that knowledge had sent the big guy into a tail spin. Unfortunately, since sound was the sense he was zoning on, he'd have to reach him another way.

Jumping up and down in front of him like a semaphore flagman on speed wouldn't work in this situation -- too many other people around, and wouldn't that act get his observer status yanked in a heartbeat. Much as he'd love to reach up and kiss his Sentinel senseless, that also wouldn't go over well, and considering how insensate Ellison already was, it might not be the best plan anyway. No burnt feathers presented themselves as a cure for the zone-out version of the vapors, so that just left touch.

With a deep breath, pushing his own desire back into his subconscious with a supreme effort of will, Blair stripped the lightweight leather glove off Jim's right hand and began to massage it, not letting up on the stream of encouraging words just in case hearing should kick back on-line. Long, strong, surprisingly elegant fingers for such a big man, artist's hands, musician's hands. Across the callused fingertips, along the fleshy pad outlining the palm, the base of the thumb, lingering in the depth of his palm, tracing lines and bumps of knuckles in a smooth, soothing motion, Blair gradually called Jim back from the darkness.

There was a familiar, warm tickle of sound running just under the frantic recital of need and retreat playing in his ears. Gradually he became aware of another sensory input -- warmth, running gently all along his hand, between his fingers, over his knuckles. A scent slowly wound its way into the mix, slightly salty, herbal, tangy and spicy ... Blair. Blair-scent. The feedback loop didn't recede, it simply added these other elements to his universe, and the combination of explicitly expressed desire, scent, touch and warm voice overwhelmed the fear of loss. It also triggered an unexpected side effect.

The absolute shock of becoming erect in reaction to his Guide's near presence was like a bucket of ice water poured over Ellison's back.  Not his front, unfortunately, since the erection didn't disappear.  Arousal adding to confusion mounting atop out-of-kilter senses caused him to shift abruptly from zone-out to full awareness, and with that awareness, complete embarrassment at his body's betrayal made him pull just as abruptly from his Guide's grip. The stream of reassuring words stuttered to a stop. His hearing kicked in, and he could hear Sandburg's heart rate pick up, and feel the heat of a blush burning off the body so near, too near, his own.

He had to get a handle on this. Had to figure out what the hell was going on.

Had to get rid of this hard-on.

Jim turned away from Sandburg and stared sightlessly at the glinting sunlight on the water, trying to regain his balance. He didn't see the brief flash of pain cross Blair's mobile face, before all expression vanished behind a tightly controlled mask.

From one kind of zombie to another, it looked like to Blair. Jim needed him, as usual, to pull him out of the abyss, but this time the normal warmth of a quick reassuring touch was absent. Quite the reverse, in fact, Jim had jumped away from him as if he was radioactive. Shit. For a moment that stretched like ten years, minimum, the weight of what he had lost settled on his shoulders, then he forced it away. The next few minutes would tell him just how tanked his life was. Just what he had lost with his runaway mouth.

After all, what use was a Guide to a Sentinel who couldn't even stand his touch?

Blair took a deep breath, then another, reaching for his center, willing his pulse to calm down and the blood to sink back away from his skin. His world was spinning away from him, and he grabbed for his composure with both hands,  drawing in control with each breath. When Jim finally turned around to face him, he lost that breath, and fought to get it back.

At least there was no ice in the eyes.

No warmth, either.

"Uhm, Jim, you okay, there?" His turn for the stupid question, the social amenity offered up when nothing else was available to fill the void.

"Yeah, Chief." He sounded distracted, but he was present again.

"So, what triggered the -" Shut up, man, don't go there. Changing tack mid-question, he continued on with scarcely a wobble in his voice. "So, we're finished here, then, right? Back to the grind, paperwork awaits, all is right with the world..." His words trailed off in an unconscious plea for reassurance.

"Um-hm." Ellison turned toward the truck. He made no move to touch Blair, or bump against his shoulder companionably as was his habit. Blair swallowed harshly against the pain in his throat, and resolutely trailed along behind him.

So. It never happened. The big guy hadn't heard a word. Nothing to react to, so he didn't have to get pissed off, didn't have to admit that he knew that his male partner had the hots for him, didn't have to throw him out on his ass, didn't have to affect the partnership, didn't have to force the Sentinel to lose his Guide.

Why didn't that make him feel any better? He cut off the unproductive train of thought and climbed into the passenger seat beside his friend, and pretended not to notice how Ellison made damned sure they didn't touch all the way back to the loft.

It was a long drive home, followed by a longer evening of strained silences and aborted touches. Jim knew something was happening deep inside, where he tried not to look, at the emotional center he did his best to forget he had. It was deep, and vulnerable, and every time he left it open he took a hit. He had a sneaking suspicion if that happened this time he might not recover.

His instinct was to touch, and he found himself reaching out for tactile reassurance from the calm center of his disordered universe. Only to find that the center was the cause of the most recent emotional storm, and that the mental chaos increased with proximity. So his fingers would close and his hand would drop before that contact was made, and he would retreat back into his confusion. He knew, on some level, that he was hurting his partner, but he didn't know what else to do. He had to figure this out, had to work at it, through it, find an answer he could live with. Then he could explain it to Sandburg. As soon as he could explain it to himself.

After a few days, things felt more like normal around the loft, and the pressure eased a little. As it did, everyday concerns pushed the confusion aside, but it still remained, an uneasy nibbling at his thoughts. He knew he would, eventually, handle it the way he handled everything. He would let it simmer, and his subconscious would either find a way to deal with it or decide it couldn't be dealt with. If the former, he would act. If the latter, he would keep a lid on it and hope like hell things could stay the same.

He didn't know what he would do if they couldn't. And he wasn't about to think about that right now. He'd face it when, and if, he had to. Not before.

He still kept his hands to himself.

Over three weeks of stonewalling later, on a perfectly routine morning during a perfectly routine call to a perfectly routine murder, his time schedule went to hell in a hand basket.

The tension had risen to the point that Blair was actively avoiding his partner except when he was actually working with him. He'd hidden in his room and called it studying. He'd stayed late at his cubbyhole of an office and claimed mid-terms, thankful that if Jim did know they were nowhere near time for exams the detective didn't let on. He walked as closely as always with his Sentinel at crime scenes until the deliberate distance the other man put between them hurt too much to accept anymore, then he'd found excuses to absent himself from the station as much as he safely could. There were no zone-outs, so he guessed the senses were staying safely in-bounds.

He'd never been more miserable in his life.

Holed up in the four feet of shelf space and overcrowded desk at the University that was becoming his second home, refusing to think about what was happening at his first home, Blair took a deep breath and slammed the stop button on his CD player. For some reason the Celtic Winds weren't calming him the way they usually did.

Some reason.

Like he didn't know the reason.

Love unacknowledged was a burden, but a bearable one. Love admitted and blatantly rejected was a pain in the ass, as well as regions north. But love confessed and treated as nonexistent was a source of constant energy drain, as he tried his hardest to pretend that everything was just exactly the way it had been before he opened his mouth, offered his heart, and crammed his fucking foot so far down his throat he'd choked himself.

He loved the big guy, with everything in him. And just lately, when those clear, unshadowed blue eyes would meet his with the appearance of friendship and that big body would stay carefully clear the hell away from him, Blair hated him just as strongly. The confusion between his heart and his needs was driving him insane. He couldn't think straight, couldn't separate his love for Jim from his anger at him, couldn't divide his need to be Guide to the Sentinel from a nearly overwhelming need to beat the shit out of Ellison the man. He wanted to throw Jim on the floor and screw him blind, wanted to get in his face and scream, 'LOOK AT ME!' Wanted the other man to see him, look at him and truly see him.

Admit the truth. Yes, no, maybe, anything but 'it didn't happen.' Because it had. And the only person dealing with the consequences was Blair Sandburg.

His self confidence illusory at the best of times and nonexistent when it came to Jim, Blair sat and stared blankly at the watery sunshine trying to force its way in through the one very small window to the side of his so-called office. Letting this eat at him, when it was so obviously not bothering Ellison in the least, was making Blair hate himself nearly as much as he was starting to hate his best friend.

Which was almost as much as he loved him.

Throwing his pen away from himself with an exclamation of disgust, he decided to take a walk and try to clear at least some of the cobwebs from his mind. If he didn't do something soon, his anger and resentment would mix with the unrequited lust brewing through him and explode into something ugly. He had to get a handle on it before it got that far. He couldn't bear to lose what he did have, just because he couldn't have it all.

Somebody'd been really pissed off on this one, was the first thing that went through Ellison's mind as he looked at the sprawled body of the large young man at his feet. Small arms fire directly to the face had obliterated what had been, by all accounts, a handsome set of features. A football player, not a name player so they wouldn't have too much publicity, but a student, a son, a brother to someone. And it had happened on campus, so there would be the usual concerns for the safety of all these young people, many far from home for the first time, and the usual hue and cry. It had happened before, and it would happen again. Especially when a boy cheated on a girl, and the girl was from Texas and knew how to use a handgun.

He walked away from the body, leaving it to forensics, and moved to the side of the crime scene to talk to the first of the eyewitnesses. It was straightforward, and there were enough people who'd seen what happened, that it was more formality than anything. But formalities ensured justice was done, when it could be done, and he wasn't about to skip them. With his back to the scene of the crime, concentrating on the frightened witnesses, he missed seeing the new arrival on the scene.

Blair had noticed a small crowd gathering, and more importantly, the yellow tape that marked a crime scene. Wondering vaguely what was going on in his relatively quiet corner of the university, thinking he'd take the chance to say hi to his friend Laurel if she was one of the campus cops investigating, he stepped forward toward the taped off area.

As he got nearer he realized that he knew the uniformed officer guarding the line. He nodded at the man, who nodded back and waved him through, obviously used to seeing Sandburg at crime scenes with Ellison. Blair took a quick look around, and, not seeing his partner, glanced at the center of all the attention.

His stomach would have heaved if he hadn't been completely frozen.

It was Jim.

Broad shoulders, long arms, a sweater he didn't recognize, must be a new one, that really wasn't his color, there was blood all over the place, the short brown hair was barely even messed up, his face was missing, when did he get those boots?

JIM.

He didn't realize he'd fallen to his knees until a strong hand tried to lift him to his feet. He ignored it and curled into a fetal ball, eyes riveted on the ruins of the man splayed across the blood-sodden grass.

His face. It was missing.

Mid-question of the fourth person giving her account of the same exact event and the fourth positive identification of the killer, already in custody, an anomaly in his surroundings hit Ellison. He'd picked up Sandburg's heartbeat a few moments before, unconsciously monitored it for long enough to make sure all was well, and carried on with his questioning. Then it went haywire.

There was a massive spike, almost as if the heart had skipped a beat then tried to catch up all at once. When it resumed its rhythm was nothing like normal, too fast, too frantic, too frenzied. Jim broke off and whirled around, scanning the crowd for his Guide. He was taken aback by the sight of Sandburg curled up in a ball, shaking off a concerned-looking uniform who was trying to help him up. Stuffing the notepad in his pocket he was at Blair's side in three strides.

"Chief?" He reached gentle hands out to his partner, touching him voluntarily for the first time in nearly a month. An electrical shock seemed to travel from his hands all the way through his body, but he blocked it out and concentrated on his distraught friend.

Dazed eyes with huge dark pupils nearly swallowing the irises stared at him as if he was a ghost. Strong hands uncurled from around a sturdy abdomen and attached themselves to his shoulders, and he found himself with an armful of shivering Sandburg. Reacting instinctively, he wound one arm around the smaller man's back, drawing him up close, and raised the other hand to stroke the back of Blair's head, patting the curls soothingly. He shook his head at uniform's concerned look, and the other cop backed off to give the partners some privacy.

Blair eventually stopped shaking quite so hard. Freed of some of the worry that had enveloped him like a shroud, Jim was disconcerted to feel his body begin to react to his buddy's closeness. His head felt like it was floating, dizzy from Blair's scent rising from the sable hair so close to his face. His hands had migrated from cupping to caressing, and the solid muscle under one and soft curls clinging to the other were beginning to get to him. His throat dried out, his brain froze up, his body turned up the heat. Feeling an erection begin to nudge into Blair's stomach, he did the only thing he could do to try to protect himself from this self-betrayal.

He stepped back.

FAR back.

Cleared his throat. Dropped his hands. Thought about ice.

Lots of ice.

When he finally got himself back under a semblance of control, he tried his voice. To his relief, it worked. "What happened here, Sandburg? Friend of yours? You okay?"

A single shiver ran the entire length of his partner's body. Huge dark eyes stared at him for a long moment, then blinked and looked away. They were closed and shuttered when they returned to meet his again.

"It was nothing, Ellison."

He'd never heard that tone in his Guide's voice before. It was … completely dead. He started to ask again, to insist on an answer, but for some reason the words wouldn't come out. After clearing what felt like a boulder from his throat, he tried a request, trying to get a response, any response, that would give him an idea on how to handle this.

"Can you give me a hand, here? I need some help," he thought quickly, "examining the body." He winced, then carried on. Great move, Ellison, if the guy's a friend that'll really be good for the kid. "Unless he's a friend-"

"I don't know him from Adam," Blair interrupted in that same dead voice. Jim shot him a concerned look, but the other man didn't seem to notice.

"Anchor me? So I don't zone out?" There was a hint of plea in there. Sandburg always responded well to being needed.

Completely uninterested eyes glanced up at him, then back down at the body. "Sure thing, man. Just lead the way."

Feeling distinctly uneasy but not having a clue what to do about it, or even what 'it' was, the detective did just that.

It hurt like nothing he had ever felt in his life.

It was nothing.

His feelings were nothing, his reaction was nothing, the dead man was nothing. The rejection, this last painful rejection, was nothing. His hope was nothing.

He was nothing.

Going into Guide-mode on autopilot, Blair helped Jim focus his sight and smell, and came up with three pieces of evidence that he was sure would be helpful in the case.

Whatever the case was.

That was nice.

Blair couldn't breathe.

For a heartbeat there he'd been in a black hole. Then redemption, in the form of a solid wall of Jim, holding him, alive and well, with a face that hadn't been blown off by some madman. Strong arms holding him together, keeping him from flying apart.

Pushing him away.

Falling away from him.

In a huge fucking hurry.

Like he was contaminated. Or dirty, or worthless. Definitely unwanted.

He smiled mechanically, told Ellison he had a staff meeting to go to and wouldn't be able to meet him later at the station. Heard and even processed that the detective would be late in, had to cover a stake-out, see him in the morning.

Why?

Nodded goodbye as the men carted the corpse off to the ambulance and got through the business of cleaning up after violent death had visited. Blair knew the feeling. He'd just been gutted, after all. Saw the hand extended automatically toward his shoulder only to be pulled away before it actually made contact.

Made it back to the bathroom down the hall from his office before he threw up.

Decided not to cry. It wasn't worth it, it was nothing, after all.

Stared at the wall for two and a half hours. Snarled at a student who was stupid enough to stick his head in the doorway and interrupt Sandburg's contemplation of that self-same wall.

Made absolutely no decisions, because his brain had shut down. Allowed every self-destructive impulse he knew so well to swamp him, locked safely in his little room surrounded by his quiet books, alone with the evidence of his failure. For if he were not a failure he would not be alone.

Chasing his own tail.

Fuck that.

Two hours and a fast change later, Blair Sandburg went on the prowl. If his partner didn't want him, he'd find someone who would.

It had been a very weird week for James Ellison. He had barely seen his partner, and he found himself missing his friend. Eight days of nightly stake-outs coupled with Sandburg's suddenly increased duties at the University had conspired to keep their contact to a minimum, but Blair didn't seem to be minding at all.

Maybe he wasn't as in love as he had thought he was.

Not surprised by the shaft of pain that went through him at the idea, since he'd been giving the matter some heavy thought in the long empty hours on watch, he found himself staring at his roommate covertly. There was a strange nervousness about Sandburg's movements, a restless energy that seemed out of place on the younger man. He couldn't quite figure out a way to ask what was wrong.

And he smelled different, too. Muskier, somehow, moister. Shaking off the strange thought, he noticed that Blair wasn't eating his dinner.

"You okay, there, Chief?" he asked tentatively. For some reason he felt like he was having dinner with a powder-keg, and a thoughtless remark would be the spark to set it off. Blair shrugged off the question and pushed his salad around with his fork. Biting his lip, Jim tried changing the subject. "Sorry 'bout all the late nights. I was hoping it'd be tied up by now."

"Uhm-hm." Complete disinterest.

Jim felt totally at sea. He wasn't used to this stranger wearing Blair's body, and he was tempted to grab him, shake him, and demand to see the pod. Gritting his teeth to fight back that temptation, he tried yet again. "Can you join me on the stake-out tonight? It's Saturday, shouldn't be any need for you to go into school tomorrow." 'I miss you,' he transmitted as hard as he could, but Blair's usual telepathy was totally on the blink.

"Sorry, man, got something to do. I'll catch you later."

With that, he was up and gone. Jim stared at the nearly full plate, the empty chair, and the still reverberating front door. That was it. When this case was wrapped up, he and Sandburg had some serious talking to do.

Then he was going to kiss the stuffing out of the little bastard, right before he loved the stuffing out of him.

He was no longer in denial. All the puzzle pieces fit neatly into place.

Smiling to himself at the prospect, he scraped and washed the dishes, gathered up his jacket, and went on his way to work.

Standing across the street from the loft, waiting for a clear spot in the traffic so he could go back inside and get the coat he'd completely forgotten in his haste to get away from his partner, Blair saw Jim smiling to himself as he let himself into his truck and drove off toward headquarters.

That son of a bitch.

Everything was right in his world. Everything was golden.

For a brief moment his mind flashed to the feeling of wholeness and safety he'd felt, coming to in the hospital after being poisoned by a golden drug, with his partner sleeping in the chair beside his bed. Jim had come instantly awake, leaning forward to check on him, as if he'd been listening for him even in his sleep.

He would pay the world if he had it to get that feeling back.

Leaving the coat behind, climbing stiffly into his own car, he headed the opposite direction.

Three hours of heavy cruising later, he was being eaten alive by a slender man a couple inches taller than himself, with short brown hair and warm brown eyes, good hands, great legs and a nice tight butt. Blair hadn't the faintest idea what the guy's name was, even after hearing it three times. A small part of his mind was sitting in the corner, not-so-quietly having hysterics, shrieking that he was acting like an irresponsible slut and a stupid one at that, picking up strangers when everything he ever wanted was back at home … well, on stake-out at the moment, but at home when he wasn't at work. The other 98% of his mind flipped his conscience the finger, reminded the babbling idiot that everything he ever wanted had made it crystal clear he wasn't wanted back, and half a loaf was better than none. Or, to put it more bluntly, a zipless fuck was better than none at all and no hope of ever getting one.

Feeling completely reckless and not a little hopeless, he untangled himself from the seeking hands holding him, and smiled over his shoulder. "Come home with me." It wasn't a request, it was an order, and it worked, as he'd known it would. As he led the way out into the darkened streets toward his car, Zipless trailing along behind, one thought seeped through.

To hell with the house rules. If he couldn't have the sex he really wanted in the loft, then he'd take the sex he could get.

The gods of fortune were smiling on Detective Ellison. The break he'd been wanting for days and nearly given up on getting finally came through, less than two hours into his shift. The suspects were rounded up, subdued, cuffed, Mirandized, booked and tossed in cells in no time flat. His report seemed to write itself, and three and a half hours into his shift, Simon gave him the nod to take the rest of the night off. No cases pending, well, none with anything hot on them, and a day of paperwork ahead of him, after his Sunday day of rest. A day he was sincerely hoping would be full of explanations, apologies, understandings … and badly needed lovemaking.

He could hardly wait.

As he was walking out the door, he heard his telephone ring. For a good half second he considered answering it, then changed his mind. If it was important, they'd call him at home. He couldn't wait to get back to the loft and see if Sandburg was back from wherever he'd left to in such a hurry. Maybe they could start those explanations tonight. He was totally focused on getting home to his Guide.

He didn't see the small red light on his cell phone that should have reminded him to charge the battery. And he didn't hear Ryf call him as the elevator doors shut.

"Sorry, Blair, you just missed him."

"Missed him?" the voice on the other end of the line was disbelieving. "I thought he was on stake-out, man, what happened?"

"Wrapped it up early," Ryf cheerfully announced. "He's on his way home now. The captain told him to get outta here, his good mood was makin' the rest of us antsy."

There was dead silence over the line.

"Sandburg? You there?"

"Yes." It was almost a hiss. Ryf looked at the phone in disbelief.

"You okay, dude?" He didn't sound okay. There was a small sound, like a hiccup, then a soft, "yeah. Bye." And the line disconnected. Ryf wrinkled his brow and thoughtfully cradled the receiver. Then he shrugged. Whatever furball hairboy had crossways, Ellison would take care of it. He always did.

Blair laid the telephone gently on the counter and looked across the living room into his opened bedroom door. Zipless was getting naked, and looking expectantly at Blair, waiting for him to join the fun. He weighed his options, wondering, briefly, if he actually was out of his mind.

Jim was on the way home. He knew that. He'd called just to make sure he wasn't and found out the opposite. Jim would have a freakin' fit if he found Blair fucking a stranger, a strange man, in the loft. He knew that, too. The safest thing to do would be to call Zipless a cab, or take him away now, find a motel, get fucked, come home, pretend everything was normal, deal with Jim not touching him, until the next night when he could go out and find another zipless fuck to tide him over. Keep his Sentinel's friendship, in whatever form he was allowed to enjoy, for as long as he could keep on pretending. Keep snatching whatever contact he could from whomever he could find. Keep closing his eyes and pretending it was Jim.

He toed off his shoes, shimmied out of his jeans and dropped them in front of the couch.

"'Bout time," the pleasant, clueless young man with the dark brown eyes leered at him.

"Fuck me." The shirts made a trail into the bedroom. A trail a blind man could follow. "Hard. Deep." Socks stripped off as he stretched one-armed and posed, curling his fingertips around the lintel, showing off his body to its best advantage. "Make me scream when I come." He was really tired of pretending.

The brown eyes turned black. Zipless reached for him, biting and licking, sucking and pinching. Upended on the bed, careless fingers jabbing at him, spit and lube dripping, a condom rolled on as fast as possible, he closed off his mind and listened to the silence and the sound of the stranger panting.

He heard the footsteps on the stairs, and pushed backward against the cock stuffed into his ass. By the time the key turned in the lock, he'd maneuvered them both so that his face was toward the head of the bed, so Ellison wouldn't need Sentinel senses to see just exactly what he had passed up. He reached one hand down toward his groin, hoping to find even a hint of an erection, not surprised when the flaccid length of his penis defeated him.

Zipless was moving faster, close to coming, grunting as he pumped hard, rocking Blair's entire body with each thrust. Feeling oddly removed from what was happening to himself, what was about to happen, Blair deliberately tightened his ass around the intruder as he heard footsteps stop in the living room. Forcing himself to move, he turned his head sideways.

Ellison was standing in the middle of the room, statue still, staring at his face. Disbelieving cerulean blue met parched cobalt, and the world stopped for the space of heartbeat. A complex mixture of defiance, pain, shock and anger shimmered in the air between them, the two of them somehow out of time with what was happening around them. Then whoever the hell he was shifted forward, groaned loudly, and came, hard. Blair rode out the storm, utterly detached, eyes wide open and staring at nothing, tears finally streaking down his face, as Jim walked back out the door.

He'd practiced all the way home. For the past week he'd been thinking up and discarding various conversations he could have with Sandburg, everything from 'we should just be friends' to 'I want to fuck you raw' to 'it's been a long time for me but I hear it's just like riding a bike -- you never forget.' He'd never been good at this talking stuff, preferring to let his actions speak for him. But for Blair, he'd try.

Nothing had prepared him for what he'd found waiting for him.

Distracted with all the things he needed to say and trying to find a way to say them, he hadn't noticed the atmosphere in the loft until he was all the way in the door. Then the scent had hit him like a hammer in the face … heavy, musky, sweat and pre-ejaculate, heated skin and body fluids combining to create an unmistakable odor. Then the sound had assaulted him … skin slapping against skin, grunts of air expelled from lungs with the effort of thrusting, shifting material against hard knees and hands, the squeak of the bedsprings. A rapid heartbeat, unfamiliar to him, and the normal pulse of his Guide, only slightly hurried. His feet had carried him the rest of the way into the loft, and his eyes had unerringly focussed on the one thing in this universe he had never expected to see.

Hard, wet flesh encased in thin rubber entering his Blair's ass, over and over. Sentinel sight gave him every detail before he could wrench his eyes away from it, only to find himself staring into Blair's wide-open, fully cognizant, screamingly defiant dark blue eyes.

The world had stopped. Broken into pieces. Re-formed itself into something he did not understand.

Then the stranger forced himself into his view again, grunting and arching, and he backed away, not thinking, not breathing, just watching, unable to close his eyes until the door cut off his vision. Cursed with Sentinel acuteness, the sounds and the smells followed him into the street. Just past the back wheel on his truck, he lost his dinner into the gutter, violently. Shaking, holding onto the side of his truck bed for balance, spitting the foul taste from his mouth, he tried to dial down his hearing.

All the goddamned dials were stuck. He heard every fucking word.

"… that was incredible."

The slurred words, mumbled into the hair stuck to the back of his neck, barely registered with Blair. Trapped under the sweaty, limp weight of Zipless No-name Whoever the Hell he was, he just wanted it to be over.

The wording stuck in his mind, replayed itself, and forced what could have passed for a laugh from him. Oh, it was over, all right. He'd seen that, he was positive, in Ellison's eyes. So not cool, man, so very uncool. The guy wasn't a homophobe, but he'd made it plain as day he wasn't interested, and it hadn't been enough. Blair'd had to rub his nose in it. In his own house. He lay there, trying to get enough air in his lungs to keep from getting light-headed, and wondered what it was in himself that led him so unerringly to the absolutely wrong thing to do in any given situation. Paying no attention to Zipless Nameless pulling out and cleaning up, he thought back over his relationship with the Sentinel.

Reader's digest condensed version. Fantastic subject or not, he should have given him a pass the first time Ellison slammed him against the wall and he enjoyed it. Every time the other man had touched him and he shivered should have been a red flag. Being besotted enough about him to jump out an airplane, pass up study opportunities lined with gold, get doped up and shot up and blown up … he obviously was totally nuts. Falling in love with a straight man was insane. Falling in love with a straight cop with a military background who relied on him for platonic friendship, in the new-fashioned meaning of the phrase, was criminally stupid.

He was brought back to the present by wet, sloppy lips chewing at his ear. Barely restraining a shudder, thinking he should feel like a total loser if he could feel anything at all, he took advantage of a momentary shifting in weight to roll out from under Zipless. Shrugging off the other man's hand, he nodded toward the pile of clothes next to the bed.

Interrupting his now-unwanted guest's lustful chatter with no remorse, he lied, "It's been great, man." As great as taking a bullet to the brain. Only a little more painful, 'cause he was still alive to feel it. "But my roommate will be home soon, so you have to split."

Eighteen minutes of meaningless compliments that he paid no attention to later, Zipless wandered down the stairs and headed for the cab Blair had made him call. Sandburg lay on his bed, stared at the ceiling, and wondered if there were faster ways to commit suicide than what he was doing.

Of course, if they were fast, they would defeat the purpose. Thinking hard, ignoring the ice covering his emotions, he tried to figure out what the purpose was.

Oh. Right. Punish himself for being stupid enough to fall in love with Jim Ellison. Punish Ellison for being stupid enough to try to pretend it had never happened. Prolonged suicide as punishment for criminal stupidity. He supposed it made sense, somewhere, to someone. Maybe, eventually, it would make sense to him.

Good thing Naomi didn't know. Given what she'd taught him, if she found out he was using sex to punish anyone, much less himself, she'd kill him.

If Jim didn't kill him first. For breaking the house rules, if nothing else.

He supposed, looked at objectively, the son of a bitch was attractive. For a worthless, nameless, bastard of a home-wrecker. Jim's stomach heaved again as he watched the stranger with the satisfied smile on his face climb into the cab. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to pull his gun out and shoot the fucker.

Fucker. Oh, Christ on a crutch. That was exactly what he was. And the fuckee was the one he wanted to shoot. Or beat to a pulp, that would be slightly more satisfying. He wanted to rip the little punk into so many little pieces they'd never be able to find them all … then he wanted to put all those pieces back together, erase the last several hours, explain earnestly that he finally figured it out and he loved Blair just as much as Blair had seemed to love him, then take Blair to bed and never let him out again.

A wash of lust swept through him, elevating adrenaline levels already too far into the red zone, and he found himself running up the steps two, sometimes three at a time. Conflicting urges of anger and pain fought with disillusion and fledgling love. Acting on blind instinct since his brain had shut down completely from shock, he nearly broke the door down flying into the loft. Thankfully he hadn't locked it in his precipitous flight a short time before, or he'd've had a door jamb to replace.

"Sandburg!" It came out a cross between a bellow and a growl, but perfectly recognizable. Blair deigned to turn his head on the pillow, but remained sprawled on the bed, staring at him.

"What?" The normally rich voice was still strangely flat, no nuance of emotion evident in it at all.

"Get your ass out here!" Great, Jim thought dimly, go over all drill sergeant on the kid. That should impress the hell out of him.

"Get fucked," Blair returned calmly, then turned his head to present his profile to Ellison, staring at the ceiling.

That was the final straw. Jim was overwhelmed with the sensory imprint still on the room from the recent sex, with anger at Blair's blasé attitude toward the whole situation, with his own complete lack of control. With the fact that he'd opened that little place deep inside himself, again, and he'd left it too late, and he'd been right, he wasn't going to survive taking this hit.

He wasn't going down alone.

He was in Blair's room, grabbed the younger man up around the waist and dumped him on his ass in the middle of the living room floor before Blair even realized he'd moved.

"Enough of this shit is enough!" Jim was so incredibly pissed off he was practically incoherent. He clenched his fists at his side to keep from picking Sandburg up and slamming some sense into that dense, gorgeous head. "What the fuck do you think you were doing?! Who the hell was that sonovabitch?"

Blair sat there and stared at him. There was no response at all for the longest time, then he gave a one-shouldered shrug, not seeming to care that he was sitting stark naked with an enraged man built like a brick wall towering over him, glaring lethally, looking ready to pound him to a pulp. "Nobody."

"Nobody?" Jim ground out. "Somebody was screwing you in there, Chief, I know, I saw it. You made damned good and sure I saw it!"

Another little shrug, and Jim lost his temper completely. Descending on the smaller man, he had him up, shaken, tossed on the couch and pinned there. This time, he actually got a reaction from his partner.

"What the fuck is your problem, Ellison?" The cold, hard tone didn't sound like anything he'd ever heard from his Guide. A stranger wearing Blair's face and Blair's thoroughly used body was staring up at him as if he didn't know who Jim was. "You don't want it, you made that crystal clear, so why should you care if I give it to someone, anyone, else? Is this some sort of territorial shit? Neanderthal, man, way Neanderthal. I don't want him but he's my bone and no other dog better come sniffing around? News flash, Ellison -- it's my bone and I'll fucking well give to anyone I want to-"

Before the ugly words could destroy him any further, Jim leaned forward and covered the moving mouth with his own. He had to stop this, Blair had it backward, wrong, wrong, wrong … The body under his hands exploded into action and he found himself using every trick of training and superior mass to keep the writhing man pinned. Finally, he blanketed Blair with his body, lying full length on him, trying to get through the mindless rage to the man he knew. Distracted by the slide of bare skin and soft body hair, every movement magnified by Sentinel touch even through his clothes, caught up in the taste of Blair's mouth, his hands tightened around Blair's wrists and pulled them up over his head. Blair arched in response, apparently fighting to free himself, and accidentally ground his pelvis into the erection Jim hadn't realized he had. Electricity shot through both bodies at the contact, and everything froze.

When the ice thawed, it melted off with a vengeance. From feeling nothing at the beginning of the argument, to feeling like an observer in an alien land again, to finding himself flaming out under the heat of Jim's body, Blair felt like he'd lost several layers of skin and was just a mass of nerve endings being held over a butane torch. Then Jim kissed him, and his brain exploded.

All the angry, frustrated reasons he'd had for acting like a fucking moron flew right out of his head. All there was in the universe was his Sentinel, finally touching him again. Dimly he realized that this touch was going to result in a whole bunch of bruises, dismissing the thought as soon as it occurred to him. It didn't matter, because he had finally broken through the wall. Then his arms were stretched out over his head and he made a whole new discovery.

Jim wasn't just pissed. He was turned on. Totally turned on.

This put a new slant on the situation. Blair relaxed into the hard grip holding him down, no longer fighting. He softened his mouth, inviting Jim's tongue inside to play. One leg fell to the side, allowing Jim's pelvis to shift forward, and bringing that nice hot cock right where he wanted it, between his thighs. Jim, for once, reacted like he was supposed to, and froze in shock.

Now maybe they could talk this out like rational people.

Jim pulled back and stared down into Blair's face. The normally clear azure eyes were cloudy with anger and arousal. Blair bit back on his own nearly desperate hunger and found himself smiling up at his partner.

"I love you." The soft words threw Ellison for a loop. Blair could see his confusion all over his face. His smile broadened. "We've both been really stupid, but before this goes any farther I had to remind you of that."

Jim looked at him, not saying anything, looking like he wasn't going to say anything in the next decade or two. Looked a little like he'd swallowed his tongue, in fact. Used to this reaction from the man any time emotions were brought into play, Blair nudged the erection still poking him in the belly and wriggled experimentally. A look of near-pain crossed Jim's face, and he was content. Okay, fuck first, talk later. It would work.

He tugged gently at the hold Jim had on his wrists, making it plain he wasn't trying to go anywhere. The bigger man suddenly seemed to realize that he was squashing Blair and made an abortive move to shift off. Before he could get away with it, Blair hooked his other leg over Jim's waist and held him captive.

"You're not going anywhere, Ellison." He slipped one hand free of the now loosened hold, and pointed at his jeans, next to the couch. "Back right pocket."

Jim obeyed the order unconsciously. Digging around with one finger, he popped a condom out of the pocket and stared at it.

"Put it on." Blair injected every ounce of Guide-command he could into his voice, hampered as he was by an out of control libido and gut-clenching expectation. Jim responded appropriately again, and Blair's grin nearly stretched his face apart. Splayed as he was, loosened by previous activity that night, and aroused to a fever pitch from sheer anticipation, it was easy for him to angle his pelvis, cant his knees, and guide Jim home. Three easy pushes and they were fitted together as tightly as two humans could be.

Finally.

Eyes open, mouths gasping for air, they stared at one another, not quite believing where they were and what had happened. Then Blair had to move, and the little encouraging shudder was all it took to trigger Jim's motions. Blair felt more full than he had ever been, full to the heart, full to the throat. Jim angled himself to best advantage, and struck a spark deep in Blair's body, and all control was lost. Screaming his new/old/forever lover's name, Blair came, hard enough to lose himself in warm blackness as he lost consciousness.

Dials still stuck on high as they had been since he made the discovery of Blair with a stranger earlier, their lovemaking was a combination of sensory overload and mental astonishment to Jim. Blair took control, which was a damned good thing since his brain felt like it had melted out all over the couch. One strong leg holding him in place, the other spread out to give him access, his Guide made him the gift of his body along with his heart.

Part of Jim felt that he should still be angry, that there was something sacrosanct here that had been spoiled. Something deeper and more elemental was too busy doing a victory dance to care. Then Blair began to move beneath him, and any attempt at thought vanished. He was pure sensation, zoning on the heat clenching around him, the scent rising up from the body below him, the incredible depth of those eyes staring up at him. The taste of that mouth, the clutch of those hands, the thrust and parry between them. Then a convulsion ripped through Blair and pulled him in after, helpless, caught in the riptide. His name scraped across sensitive ear drums as Blair screamed, then all the light in the world was sucked away, along with all the oxygen, and his mind flew apart in a million different directions as his body contracted to a pinpoint of intense sensation, exploding with and into the other half of his soul.

When he came to himself, he was dizzy, lightheaded with relief and satiation. Blair's heart was beating normally, if a little slowly, underneath him, and they were glued together from groin to mid-chest with Blair's semen. He shifted away and his lover simply sprawled there. As he carefully withdrew and looked for someplace to dispose of the condom, he realized that Blair hadn't roused yet. Tossing house rules completely to the wind, he tied it off and dumped it on the nearest available surface -- Blair's jeans -- and began to stroke that beautiful face.

"C'mon, Chief, come out of it." Fingertips mapped every line and curve, from the silky lashes to the softness of full lower lip, the shadow cleft in his chin to the tender skin under his ear. Eventually those lashes lifted, and Blair blinked up at him.

"Wow." His voice was rusty from screaming. Jim thought it was the single sexiest thing he'd ever heard in his life.

"I'm sorry." He'd been told in the past that he kept others out. He'd driven Carolyn to divorce, and eventually clear out of the state. He'd driven Stephen away, and he'd driven Blair into acting like a … well, a slut. And there hadn't been any reason for it, except his own inability to come to terms with his emotions. Shutting people out was his specialty, so when they got hurt because of it, it was his fault.

Blair looked at him uncomprehendingly. "For sending me so high I passed out? I'm thanking you for the single most intense sex I've ever had and you're apologizing? Something's not right here, Jim."

"You're right, it's not." A flare of pain darkened Blair's eyes, and Jim hurriedly tried to explain. "Not with this -- I mean, this, being together, that's right. More right than anything in my life." The ringing sincerity behind the words got through to Blair, and he relaxed fractionally.

"Then what's wrong, Jim?" he asked gently.

"Me. I should have told you." He reached down and kissed Blair, a tender peck that caused a smile to replace the last of the confusion on the younger man's face. "Didn't quite know how to say it. I was working it out, and it finally hit me. I love you."

Blair swallowed heavily, and stared at him for a long moment. "Since when?" A trace of anger crept back into his voice. "Since you saw me giving it to someone else and the ownership urge kicked in?" He bit his lip as soon as the words slammed out, but he didn't try to draw them back in or apologize for them.

"Since I looked at an empty chair and a full plate and realized I need you like I need to breathe." Jim sat up and pulled Blair up beside him, snagging the afghan with one hand and drawing it around them to ward off the chill. "I don't … talk about stuff real well, Chief."

"I noticed," came the dry response.

Jim cuffed the back of his head lightly and continued, his voice painful in his throat. "I had to work through it, on my own, sort it out. I'd finally gotten a handle on it, was going to talk to you tonight, tell you what I'd figured out." A strangled sound interrupted him, and he looked down to see Blair's eyes closed, face pale and strained with a mixture of remorse and remembered pain. "What happened, Chief?"

Silent for a moment, obviously rejecting the urge to ask if it wasn't obvious what had happened, Blair took a deep breath.

"I didn't mean to tell you I was in love with you. It was a slip of the tongue, Jim, under stress. I knew you were totally straight-"

"One of these days we have to talk about presumptions based on appearances, Chief," Jim put in wryly. Blair flashed him a small grin and continued.

"-but you stopped touching me. You've always touched me, man, since the first day we met-"

"And I'm still slamming you around. I'm sorry, Bla-"

"Would you shut up and listen for a minute?" Jim drew back slightly at the muted roar from his Guide, and nodded agreement. Pulling Blair up closer to his side, he nodded for him to go on. Blair glared at him for a few seconds, then relented and grinned at him. "Okay. So, I'm, well, I'm missing you. I mean, you're right here, but you're not with me, you know? It gets harder and harder to pretend that everything's okay when you keep treating me like I've got the Black Death."

Jim couldn't hold back the protesting movement at that statement, but he did keep quiet. Blair had lost any trace of a grin at this point, all the pain and anger of the last few weeks showing on his face.

"I felt like a total loser. You didn’t want me. You didn't give the impression that you could stand to even touch me, much less love me, and it got heavier and heavier trying to act like everything was right in the world. So I got stupid. I get that way when I'm pissed off. I had this need to affirm my attractiveness with someone, anyone, and this hopelessness about ever getting what I really wanted -- that'd be you, man. It all came to a head when I saw that football player dead at the U. I thought it was you, Jim."

A quiver ran throughout the sturdy frame, and Jim reacted by drawing him into as close an embrace as he could manage.

"I needed this then, man. I needed you to touch me, so I'd know, really know, that you were okay, that you were alive and hadn't left me. And you pushed me away. Felt like I'd been punched in the stomach with a two by four."

"Oh, shit, Chief." He couldn't believe his own reaction had hurt his partner so badly, and that Blair had gotten it so backward. "It wasn't that I didn't want to touch you."

Blair drew back and stared at him disbelievingly. "Then why the hands-off?"

Jim felt the blush starting in his toes. "I, uhm, kept getting a hard-on."

Blair stared at him for a very long time before he lost it. "You WHAT?" he bellowed at his partner. Jim ducked his head.

"Every time I touched you I got hard, and it was confusing me and I had to figure out what the hell was going on!" Jim tried to bellow back. It came out more like a plea for understanding.

Blair dropped his head in his hands. Even with Sentinel hearing Jim couldn't make out what he said. "What was that? I missed it."

Weary blue eyes stared up at him through a tangled fall of hair. "I'll say you did, big guy. Your body's never steered you wrong before. You should've listened to it this time, too, and we both would have been a hell of a lot better off. This is so typical. We get caught in a situation that can only be handled through communication -- so you ignore your body and I ignore what my mind's telling me, and we both end up doing stupid things and getting pissed off and wasting time-"

Jim kissed him again. When they finally broke apart, they were wrapped around one another on the couch, gasping for air, and they'd lost track of the conversation. "Do-over?" Jim asked hopefully. Blair stared at him thoughtfully, then reached up to kiss the end of his nose. It tickled, and Jim wrinkled his face up before smiling down at his love.

"Talk to me this time," Blair quietly demanded.

"Will do, Chief. Oh, and Blair?" Jim ran his fingers through Blair's hair, cupping his skull and forcing the younger man to maintain eye contact. "If you ever feel the need to go catting around again, warn me first. I have some leathers upstairs. I think you'll like them."

Enjoying the momentary speechlessness his own command had engendered, Jim swooped down and covered the half-opened mouth with his own. On top of discovering a relationship that he had a bones-deep feeling would last him the rest of his life, there was an added bonus to being Sandburg's lover.

He'd finally found a way to shut the kid up.

~f~i~n~