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Disguises. Blair skidded around the corner and slid to a halt on the slick carpet. These guys had been chasing him around and around in this hotel for half an hour now, and there were only so many places to run and hide! "Okay, Sandburg, think," he muttered to himself as he crouched in a doorway. "Lost your cell phone in the alley, Jim is still back at the station patiently waiting for you, and you are running around a hotel owned by a mafia boss at serious risk of getting your head blown off. Think!" Overwhelmed by the situation and exhausted by the chase the young man leaned back against the door, and promptly fell through the doorway as it opened behind him. Panicked he jumped to his feet to face whoever had opened the door, only to breath a sigh of relief as he realized the dark room was deserted. Whoever was in here last must not have fastened the door properly behind them. Behind him the elevator pinged, signaling the doors were about to open, and without a second thought Blair leapt into the hotel room and closed the door behind him. Leaning back against the door he strained his ears for sounds of his pursuers behind him, wishing, not for the first time, that he had Sentinel hearing himself. Blair held his breath as a couple passed by the door chatting loudly. He listened as their voices faded, letting out a deep breath as they vanished. "Now for a phone," he whispered to himself, turning and instantly spotting the white cordless phone, even in the dimness of the hotel room. Just as his hand reached for it he remembered Castillo's cry of recognition when he spotted him in the alley, and the sinking feeling in his bones when he ran into the hotel, only then realizing it was staffed by the very goons he was fleeing from. What if they were listening in on the switchboard? If he phoned Jim now, they would be able to tell what room he was calling from and he would be dead and gone before his Sentinel arrived. "Okay, Blair." He curled up on one of the snowy white lounge chairs and rocked back and forward, concentrating hard. "You walked into the lion's den, you are gonna have to walk right back out of it. But how?" His restless gaze swept the room, noting the refined elegance of its appointments, the thick curtains drawn against the evening light, the neatly ordered cosmetics on the small dressing table. Unwinding from the seat as a glimmer of an idea hit him Blair crossed the hotel room and opened one of the mirrored closet doors. With a small smile just beginning to cross his lips Blair reached in and grabbed an outfit on a hanger, bringing it up and holding it in front of him. "How indeed," he said softly. 000 Jim Ellison screeched to a halt and sprang out of his truck. An eye witness had phoned in about shots being fired at this hotel, and his description of the person running from the shooters fit Sandburg to a T. "Castillo must be desperate to think he can get away with a stunt like this," Simon strode up to Jim, chomping furiously on his cigar. "In his own hotel, for god's sake!" "He's an arrogant bastard, Simon," Jim said absently, scanning the alley for clues that Blair might have been there, instantly spotting the cell phone laying in a puddle by the wall. "He was here," Jim said shortly, drawing his gun and circling the building at a run. It had taken over an hour for the report to filter to Major Crime, an hour in which anything could have happened to his partner. "Jim, wait up," Simon called behind him, and in the instant that Jim's concentration was split he ran full tilt into a perfumed young lady who slammed against his chest with great force, her tangle of dark curls flying wildly around her face. "God, I'm sorry, miss," Jim said, his attention on the front door of the hotel. "Did I hurt you?" With a quick glance down the lady's wiry body he ascertained that he had not. "Jim!" Simon skidded to a halt next to him. "Don't go off half cocked here," The captain said, just as something went 'click' in Jim's brain. With a classic double take Jim turned so fast he almost gave himself whiplash, and found himself looking down into an elegantly made up face of such exotic beauty it took his breath away. Blue eyes, lined with kohl and artfully smudged with color that made them look impossibly huge blinked up at him. A wide mouth slicked with sexy red lipstick curved into a sensual smile and the smooth cheeks creased, just a hint of blush accentuating the high cheek bones. Gaping, Jim's gaze dropped to the body in front of him, thigh high boots and a tight mini skirt of all things made the legs seems long and sexy, while the narrow strip of white thigh left exposed drew his eyes and made him swallow hard. The black skirt was teamed with a tight black t-shirt that hugged a sturdy chest and skimmed over two pert breasts. The whole ensemble was finished with an ankle length black coat that swung back and open as Jim grasped one muscled arm and held the figure away from him. "S... Sandburg?" he breathed in disbelief. Simon stopped in the middle of a word and frowned at Jim, before turning to face the smiling figure next to him. His jaw dropped, the cigar falling out of his mouth and hitting the rain soaked pavement with a hiss. "Sandburg. You have breasts," Jim blurted out. Blair looked down at his chest proudly. "Yeah, they did turn out rather well, even if I do say so myself. But we can't hang around out here, man. The goons hardly gave me a glance when I waltzed past them, but I don't think I'm gonna bear too much close scrutiny." Blair led the way around the building back to the alley this had all started in. Jim's eyes met Simon's and he quickly closed his gaping mouth with a snap, before following the smaller man. "Okay, Castillo spotted me and ordered them to get me," Blair said urgently. "I think he's still in there, if you wanna go get him." "Get him," Simon repeated numbly. "Oh, okay, get him. Yeah." He pulled his cell phone out and punched in some numbers, stepping away from the pair for a moment. As he spoke into the phone he turned and sent another spooked look over his shoulder. "Jim, you okay, buddy?" Blair said, looking worriedly at his partner's dazed face. "Chief," Jim said in a small voice. "Why are you wearing a dress?" Blair looked down at himself. "Well, I would have thought that was obvious," he said in exasperation. "I had to get past those goons in there." "So, you weren't dressed like that before?" Jim said in the tone of a man who knew the answer but just wanted to be sure. "Jim!" Blair punched his partner on the arm. "Of course I wasn't. Jeez, do I really look like I would try to get away with a mini skirt? With these legs?" Jim ignored his partner's joking, his gaze dropping against his will to the limbs in question. That strip of thigh drew his gaze like a magnet, and he suddenly felt himself overcome with the urge to stroke his hands up that pale sensual curve, under that too tight mini skirt, just to see if Sandburg had carried his masquerade right down to the skin. With a start he heard Blair anxiously calling him. "Jim!" he said urgently. "What?" Jim felt a blush stain his cheeks. "Did you just zone on my legs?" Blair said incredulously. "Don't be ridiculous," Jim brushed him away, turning to walk out of the alley. "Jim," Blair called and almost against his will the cop turned, facing the seductive and oddly disturbing picture his partner made, decked out and made up as he was. "I was thinking, maybe the lady who owns this outfit will let me buy it off her. I did kind of strain some of the seams wiggling into it." As he said wiggle Blair did a little shimmy and Jim had to clench his teeth to keep from moaning aloud. "So, should I buy it from her do you think?" Blair batted thick eyelashes at him and Jim wanted to shake him till he was jelly. He wanted to pound him into dust. He wanted to fuck him silly. "Okay, Chief," he said instead. "But only if you go get some frilly underwear to go with it." Now it was Blair's turn to gape, and with a smirk of satisfaction and not a little lust, the Sentinel turned away. The End.
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