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B.J Sandburg Part Fourteen.
Warm softness tickled Jim's nose, and he buried his face in it, breathing deeply. Surrounded by the familiar scent he drifted, half awake, half asleep. Something was troubling him, in the back of his mind, but he pushed it away, enjoying this special place between morning and night.
Outside there was a fierce wind and rain was pelting the windows. Wrapping his arms around the slim form in his arms, Jim hummed happily, snuggling against the rounded buttocks nestled against him. The weather outside just made inside seem cosier.
His lover shifted in his arms, and Jim moaned a little, desire catching him as those buttocks shifted against him, rubbing him where he most needed it.
"Blair," Jim murmured, eyes still firmly closed.
"Mmm," Blair hummed sleepily. His nightshirt was rucked around his thighs and he sleepily tugged it up around his hips. He was naked underneath. "Ahh."
Jim wiggled, freed his trapped erection and pressed it into the inviting furrow presented, then echoed the pleased sigh. "Ohh." He thrust gently, sliding up and down, feeling the warm channel become lubricated with his precum. He lightly pressed the head of his cock against the rosebud anus, huffing pleasurably as Blair humped back further, as if inviting him in.
But Jim wasn't awake enough for the slow and gentle motions invading that virgin hole would take, nor did he have any desire to wake up completely. This sleepy languid passion was like a perfect wet dream, and Blair was the responsive dream lover in his arms.
As Blair thrust back, helping Jim fuck his ass crease, Jim reached around and pressed just the heel of his hand to Blair's mound, no subtlety here, just grinding down in time to his thrusts.
Blair bucked under his hand, throwing his head back onto Jim's shoulder as he rode him, front and back. Speeding up his thrusts, Jim finally dipped into Blair's honey, finding his sensitive centre and stroking it in a firm upward motion.
Months of practice paid off, and as if he'd pulled a trigger Blair exploded, shuddering around Jim's hand, tensing and tightening his cheeks around Jim's hardness. Thrusting a few more times, Jim followed, arching his back in a bow as he pushed forward to achieve maximum, aching pleasure, then collapsing onto Blair's back.
Barely conscious he slid to the side, aware his weight could crush the smaller figure beneath him.
"Where did that come from?" Blair mumbled into his pillow.
"Ugh," Jim explained, not very coherently.
Blair reached over the side of the bed and grabbed something, and Jim opened his eyes in time to see him swabbing at his spine. With clumsy fingers Jim helped, mopping up his own pearly strands of semen.
"Hey," Jim realised, still doped with sleep and passion. "That's my t-shirt!"
"I was sticky," Blair explained, tossing the shirt aside and snuggling in next to Jim.
"Yeah, but why is it always my t-shirt, is what I'm asking," Jim groused.
"It's your mess, so I use your t-shirt," Blair yawned, tucking is head into Jim's neck. "I thought you were gonna... You know, take me from behind."
Jim closed his eyes, inhaling the heady scent of their spent passion. "So did I for a minute."
Blair stroked his chest idly. "Do you want to do that?" he asked curiously.
Jim blinked his eyes, focusing on the ceiling. He figured Blair was in the mood to talk, so a post coital nap was looking less hopeful. "I've thought about it," he admitted honestly.
Blair was silent for a few minutes. "I wouldn't mind doing that," he said softly.
Jim's eyes widened. "You wouldn't?"
"Yeah," Blair confirmed. "But I was also thinking... We could try having sex. Real sex."
Jim's breath caught in his throat. This he wasn't prepared for.
"Intercourse," Blair expanded.
"No, Chief," Jim said firmly, closing his eyes again.
"No?" Blair repeated. "Did you say no?"
Jim yawned. "It's not morning yet, and I want to catch some Z's before seeing Steven tomorrow."
Blair sat up, tugging covers up around his shoulders, pulling them off Jim on one side.
"Hey," Jim objected, tugging his share back. He took one look at Blair's storm clouded face and closed his eyes again.
"Did you say no?" Blair asked again, ominously.
"Can we talk about this later, Chief? Okay?"
"I just offer you my virginity," Blair said darkly. "Two virginities actually. The least you can do is look me in the eye when you turn me down."
Sighing, Jim opened his eyes. Seemed there was no way that he was going to avoid this argument. "I'm entitled to say no, aren't I?' he said reasonably. "You've been saying no to this since our first kiss."
"That was a little different," Blair defended. "Circumstances have changed since then."
"You don't know that," Jim pointed out. "You're just guessing. "It could be just as risky now as it was then. I will not risk your life, Blair! I made that promise and I'm gonna keep it!"
Blair's frown softened a little. "You're worried about me," he stated. "Thank you."
"It's not as simple as that," Jim said defensively, sitting up and crossing his legs.
"Then explain it to me, Jim. Tell me what you're thinking."
"Why? So you can argue every last damn point with me?" Jim crossed his arms. "No way, Chief. I've come to the conclusion that the reason you like to explain everything in minute detail is so you can pick it apart later."
"And I've come to the conclusion that the reason you like to answer a question with a grunt is so that I can't analyse it later," Blair returned heatedly. "If you don't want me, Jim, then say so, okay? I can move back downstairs just as easily as I moved up here, you know."
"Oh, I'm well aware of that," Jim shot back. "Just last night you're talking about us as if we're on a timer or something. The minute you turn back into a man everything changes and all my feelings will disappear with the click of a switch. Well, I've got news for you, Chief, it's not gonna work out like that, okay?"
"I don't understand you," Blair appealed. "I'm trying to make sense of this, I'm trying to prepare myself for when it all changes. What's that got to do with us making love?"
"Everything," Jim enunciated slowly. "Everything." He leaned forward, face close to Blair's. "I don't think you have any idea how that will change things between us," he hissed. "Or maybe you do. How long did it take you to get used to me on top of you? Of my weight holding you down?"
"Not that long," Blair admitted self-consciously.
"Well imagine that to the power of ten. My hips between your thighs, opening you up, pushing myself in you-"
"Are you trying to scare me?" Blair interrupted hotly. "Because all you're doing is turning me on!"
"You're hopeless, " Jim said in disgust, turning his face away.
"Why?" Blair insisted, struggling to his knees and clambering around on the wide bed until they were facing again. "Because I want to be made love to like a woman? I am a woman, Jim!" His eyes narrowed. "We've been equals so far, isn't that right? Pleasing each other with hands and mouths. But you think if I take a submissive role in bed we won't be equal any more, is that it?"
"Stop analysing me!" Jim yelled.
"Then stop hiding from me!" Blair ordered. "I love you! Okay? I. Love. You."
"And now you've said it, you think you have power over me," Jim muttered viciously.
Blair drew back as if he'd been slapped. "Whoa," he said, stunned. "I guess I've just been put firmly in my place, huh?"
Jim clenched his hands into fists. "I just don't like to be pushed," he muttered.
"Because when you are, you push back," Blair said, dropping the covers and climbing from the bed. His nightshirt fell back down around his thighs, the rollicking teddy bears on the front seeming to echo Blair's reproachful stare at Jim.
"You say you've seen me as Blair all along," he said quietly. "I don't think you have. You've packed Blair away haven't you? And you refuse to acknowledge B.J. I've become some kind of in between person to you."
Jim lowered his head, jaw clenched. "I've already answered that question, Blair. I'm not going to do it again."
Blair ignored him and barreled ahead. "And if you make love to me as a woman all that changes. You might actually have to decide who I am. And who it is you're in love with."
"I never said I was in love with you," Jim said, but his words sounded lame to his own ears.
"It's dawn," Blair said, looking down at the first rays of light creeping across the floor.
********
Jim left the apartment before Blair had even emerged from his room. Outside the rain was clearing, and the new sun was appearing through the clouds. Inside, Jim was all turmoil.
How could Blair say those things about him? When Jim had stuck by him through all this weirdness, crap that would have had any other guying running for the hills. How could he accuse him of not knowing who he really was?
Blair had always been Blair to him; even Blair with breasts and round hips and that swaying walk. Even Blair flirting with men and wearing a strapless dress and giggling into his hand.
And even when he'd been lying in Jim's bed, hair strewn across the pillow as he tossed his head in anguished pleasure. When Jim had lain between his legs, parted his delicate folds, touched the tip of his tongue to throbbing flesh...
"Damnit!" Jim swore, punching the key into the truck lock and twisting it viciously. It was enough to drive a guy crazy. "How did he expect me to react, huh?" he asked himself, angling the rear view mirror down so that it captured his eyes. "Turn a best friend into a beautiful woman, put her in my home, have her gaze up at me with those adoring blue eyes. What the hell else was I supposed to do but fall in love with her?"
"Him." Jim corrected, staring into his own eyes. "Fall in love with him."
His own gaze was eloquent as it stared back at him. 'Well, make up your mind,' it said. 'Are you in love with him or her?'
"Shut the fuck up," Jim swore as he gunned the motor. "I get enough of that from Blair."
Jim aimlessly drove the streets of Cascade, watching the seldom seen sights of the very early morning unfold around him. Garbage trucks trundled along, street sweepers following behind them. Old people walked dogs, and occasionally a hardy jogger could be seen pounding the wet pavements.
Wheels swishing beneath him, Jim drove on automatic pilot, seeing it all, but taking in nothing. Blair expected too much, as always. It was all right for him to spend months believing something, but the moment he changed his mind, Jim and the rest of the world must follow suit.
Eventually Jim found himself at the docks, and he parked and sat in his car, watching the fishing boats come trailing back in, hung nets dripping and shimmering against the sky.
It wasn't true that he'd packed Blair away. He'd been living with Blair every single day, and night. It was true he'd experienced a sense of loss in those beginning days, but that had been short lived. It hadn't taken him long to understand that Blair had never left him, merely changed form for a while. That quirky sense of humour, the vast intelligence and boundless kindness were all still there, just packaged a little differently.
And his less admirable traits too, of course. His stubborn drive for knowledge, his persistence in believing everybody was interested in his long-winded stories. His moments of self-doubt.
Jim frowned. Was it self-doubt that prompted that explosion this morning? Surely not. Blair had taken to this change like a duck to water, with hardly a ripple to mark his progress. Jim was honest enough to admit he couldn't have taken that radical change with such equanimity.
But still. It must be a hell of a thing, to wake up one morning as a woman, even if you had been expecting it all your life. Jim couldn't even imagine how the world must look now through Blair's eyes. Wasn't he allowed the occasional moment of self-doubt?
Jim leaned his head on the steering wheel tiredly. He still had Steven to face this morning too, his brother's hard words from the night before echoing in his head.
Why was life so relentless?
********
Breakfast only filled the hole in his stomach, it didn't do a thing to quiet the confusion that raged inside him.
Jim tried his best to stand outside of himself, never an easy thing to do at the best of times, and judge the situation with impartial eyes. In the end, he respected Blair's judgement, enough to look seriously at his suspicions about why Jim wouldn't take that final step in lovemaking with him.
Did he really think putting himself inside of Blair would change things so much?
Well, yes. He did. Because it would. It had too.
Had he really been so worried about it before?
No. Not until last night when Blair had so casually thrown those words at him.
"Well, he won't have to worry soon. I don't know what's gonna happen to us when the year's out, but I doubt we'll go back to being brotherly anytime soon."
And that was it. Without even thinking it through Jim had gambled everything on this throw of the dice. Not even knowing the true value of the stakes he was risking, he'd put it all on the line. His friendship with Blair, his partnership. Without doubt the most important relationship of his life.
And if the dice turned against him, when this year was up Blair would walk away. Because, of course, they couldn't go back to being just friends after this intimate year.
What the hell had Blair been thinking when he let this happen?
What the hell had they been thinking?
********
The loft was empty when he arrived home, and he showered and dressed, deciding that early or not, he was going to see his brother and have it out with him.
But when he arrived at Steven's hotel it was to find the younger Ellison had checked out, bag and baggage.
"Did he have an early flight?" Jim asked the weary looking desk clerk.
"He didn't say. Just called this morning and asked for his bill to be made up."
Jim glanced at his watch. Not even nine o'clock. He wondered where Blair was.
********
Work was a bust, and by eleven Jim was sneaking out on the pretext of questioning some witness. Simon barely looked his way, and Jim was happy about it. He wasn't in the mood to weather the Captain's frowning gaze today.
He was at Rainier before he knew it, pulling into his old parking spot in from of Hargrove Hall. He had no idea where Blair's new classes were held, he'd just driven here on impulse, needing to make contact with Blair after their bad parting this morning. Even though he had no clue what he was going to say to him.
How could he make promises about what would happen once the year was over? When he didn't know himself how he'd feel?
His feet led him to the large sunny quad where he'd often met Blair after class. Students were gathered here as always, lying on the grass, camped on the wide stone benches, enjoying the cool October sun on the large flagstones.
And Blair was there, back in jeans and flannels, his old leather coat wrapped around him, a book on his knee. But he wasn't reading, he was staring over at Jim as if he'd been expecting him. Sentinel sight clearly picked up his drawn eyes and pale skin.
Jim almost turned and left. He had no answers for Blair. He stood there on the edge of the quad, keys gripped so tightly in his fist he'd later find marks on the palm of his hand. Slowly Blair marked the place in his book with a scrap of paper and packed it away in his back pack. Then he stood, dusting the grass off the seat of his pants with one hand.
Jim stood and waited as Blair walked towards him.
********
"I haven't packed Blair away," Jim said softly. "I don't know how many times I can say that before you'll believe it, Blair."
"But how can you?" Blair tugged at the sweater he was wearing where it outlined his breasts. "How can you look at this and still see me? The longer this goes on, Jim, the more I realise I need you to see me."
"I don't know how I do," Jim shook his head. "How do you stay Blair inside there? I'll admit, those first few days were a bit confusing, to say the least. But you were as confused as I was, Chief."
Blair shifted in his seat, fiddling with his unfastened seat belt. The truck was still parked in front of Hargrove Hall, around them students moved in that unending wave of university life.
"You bought condoms," Blair said quietly. "Back in the beginning." He turned a look at Jim. "You wanted me then."
"I want you now," Jim admitted thickly. "But everything's changed so quickly. We've taken so many chances, rushed in so foolishly, risking everything..."
"Risking what?" Blair asked in bewilderment. Understanding dawned. "Risking us," he said. "That's why you were so angry about what I said last night."
Jim shrugged. "I've been ignoring those fears, pushing them away. But they're not going anywhere, Chief."
"No," Blair agreed. "Maybe we did rush things in the beginning, Jim, and now the shocks faded a bit and we're starting to think. But I don't regret you and me."
"I don't either," Jim swore. "But I'm afraid I might if it costs us our friendship when this is over."
"Damn," Blair swore, shaking his head. "It's months and months away. I don't want to think about that time yet. I spent years alternately dreading and looking forward to this time as a woman, I don't want to wish it away now."
"And I hate talking about my feelings," Jim admitted, smiling crookedly.
"No kidding," Blair smiled back, just a little. "Self analysis was never your strong suit."
"That's why I keep you around, Chief."
"Oh, is that why." Blair reached out one hand and laid it on Jim's. "I wonder sometimes."
Jim gripped the small hand tightly.
"I'm not every other woman in your life, Jim," Blair said softly. "Not by a long shot. I won't turn your love against you."
"I don't seem to have much luck in my relationships," Jim admitted.
"So going after a man who turned into a woman was just another typical day in Jim Ellison's love life?"
Jim reached out and grabbed that elusive curl, winding it around his fingers. Hours before they'd sat in this same truck, his fingers winding this same soft curl around and around. "I'm not good at talking about my feelings," Jim repeated. "But I will say, I know you're not like those others. I've always trusted you, Blair. With my life, my secrets. Now I trust you with my heart."
"And with your body?" Blair whispered. "As I trust you with my body, Jim?"
Jim looked down at his hands. "Maybe I do think things will change if I make love to you."
"It's just penetration, Jim," Blair said deliberately. "We're already lovers."
Jim studied Blair's wide, open eyes.
"This morning, in our bed," Blair murmured. He touched a tongue tip to his bottom lip. "Your fingers in me, your cum spilling on me, my cum on your hands. Look at me and tell me we aren't already lovers."
Jim couldn't.
"Fucking won't change that," Blair said crudely.
Jim reached out and stilled the words on Blair's lips.
"You're hopelessly old fashioned," Blair mumbled around his fingers.
Jim leaned forward slowly.
"And romantic," Blair continued, lips parting in expectation.
"Woo hoo," someone outside the truck called, banging the hood playfully. Jim turned a narrow eyed stare on the intruder, who winked back at him impudently.
He turned back to Blair who was grinning happily. "I have a class, but I can skip it if you like?"
Jim leaned forward and took his kiss, eyes open, watching Blair's eyes glaze over and then flutter closed. "No," he whispered, drawing back. "I have some detection work to do."
********
The door opened and Steven stood before him, hair tousled, suit rumpled.
"Jim! How did you find me?"
"I looked," Jim said seriously.
Steven surveyed him for long seconds, then stood aside to let him into his hotel room. It was considerably less fancy than the previous one.
"Thanks for that, at least," he said huskily. "I wouldn't have blamed you if you hadn't."
"I nearly didn't," Jim admitted. "But it occurs to me I've let too many people slip through my fingers, one way or another. I'm not going to do that any more."
Steven tried a smile, but it was half hearted and didn't reach his eyes.
Hugs came more easily to Jim these days, and he reached out and snagged his little brother, hauling him in for a tight one. Steven was stiff in his arms for a second, and then he relaxed, wrapping his arms around Jim and returning his squeeze.
"I didn't mean all that crap last night," he said, wiping his eyes as Jim released him.
"You missed your plane," Jim said.
Steven blinked. "I took your advice," he said uncertainly. "I quit my job."
Jim nodded. "I'm glad. Let's leave it in the past, with the rest of the old baggage, okay?"
Steven nodded too, relief on his face.
********
"So, as anthropological experiments go, this one is really fucked up," Blair said thoughtfully, licking his spoon.
Jim dipped into his classic vanilla, surveying the triple swirl and fudge ripple Blair was devouring. "You think too much, Chief," Jim said authoritatively.
"No-one could accuse you of that, Jim," Blair said innocently.
He polished off the last of the ice cream and pushed the bowl onto the bedside table. "So, I was thinking. Let's just go with the flow, hmm? Follow our instincts? When it feels right, we do it."
"Heat of the moment stuff, Chief?"
Blair shrugged. "Whatever works. I assume you've still got that box you bought? All those months ago."
"Unopened," Jim pronounced.
"It had better be," Blair said glowered.
"What if it never feels right to me?"
"I'm relying on your pure carnal desires to kick in," Blair said placidly. "They haven't let me down yet."
"What was that interesting phrase you threw at me that time?" Jim mused, depositing his own empty bowl on the bedside cabinet. "Got tickets on yourself?"
Blair shook his head slowly, eye glinting. "I just know my Sentinel."
End of Part Fourteen.
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