The Jamie Series #23

Promise in His Eyes.

by Gillian

Jamie scanned the letter quickly, laughing under his breath.

"What do they say?" Sean called from the kitchen.

"Dad says his back is broken and that if he has to brush the mud off anything ever again he's going to scream," Jamie reported.

Sean carried a tray over to the kitchen table and laid it down. "He's enjoying himself then?"

"Sounds like it. Blair is running around the site like a tyrant and complaining about the local politics."

"He's in his element," Sean observed, sitting down and pouring the iced tea. 

"Heaven," Jamie agreed. "Dad says Ming is a big help, and that she's fascinated by the whole dig. He thinks she'll probably get into archaeology in a big way."

"Hard to believe they're in Siberia for the whole summer," Sean marveled. 

"As soon as that sentinel reference came up in the ice mummy dig Blair was hooked," Jamie said tolerantly. "And dad had been promising him he'd go on a dig with him for years. Somehow I don't think he was expecting Siberia though."

"I'm not complaining," Sean said emphatically. "It gets us the whole house to ourselves all summer. Man, serious party time coming up." 

"Are you kidding?" Jamie said incredulously. "Dad will sniff out a party from the other side of the world. As a matter of fact..." Jamie lowered his voice dramatically. "Even now he and Blair are sitting in a tent somewhere in Siberia and dad is rubbing the back of his neck. 'I know that boy's up to something,' he's saying."

Sean laughed at Jamie's uncanny mimicking of his father's tone. "Paranoid," he accused fondly.

"It comes with the territory when your father is a sentinel," Jamie said darkly and then grinned. 

"I still can't believe my folks are letting me stay here," Sean said for about the hundredth time. "I think I'm gonna like this grown up business."

Jamie studied his young friend with an inward smile. Sean's long red hair was plaited and hung over one shoulder, tied with a leather thong and decorated with a jade green bead that matched his slightly slanted eyes. He was dressed in baggy pastel shorts and a long loose overshirt in a cool shade of lemon yellow that was currently in fashion. He looked about fourteen.

"I know what you're thinking," Sean accused, pointing across the table with the knife he was spreading peanut butter with.

Jamie tried for an innocent look. "What?"

"I'm nearly seventeen, Jamie, I don't need you looking out for me any more, ok?" 

"Okay," Jamie agreed.

"I'm serious," Sean insisted. "My parents have finally loosened the apron strings a little and I intend to enjoy my freedom."

"Sounds like a plan," Jamie said, licking peanut butter off of his fingers. "I can't recall any particular occasion when you let me stop you doing one damn thing, but if you insist on freedom, then freedom is what you have."

"Don't give me that," Sean groused. "You have been watching over me like a hen with one chick my whole life."

"You've been watching over me just as closely," Jamie reminded him quietly.

Sean looked nonplussed and then a little embarrassed. "Well, that's different," he muttered. "You're the sentinel here. You would be a sentinel no matter what. I'm just kinda your guide by association."

Jamie stared at Sean in stunned surprise. "Are you kidding?" he said at last.

Sean assumed a defiant expression. "Well, think about it. If it hadn't been me it might have been someone else. I often think Ming would have made a good Guide."

"I don't believe I'm hearing this," Jamie said incredulously. "You have been my Guide since before you were born."

"Oh, come on," Sean scoffed. "That's just a family myth."

"Bullshit," Jamie said emphatically. "I was there, Baby Sean. I don't remember a time in my life when I didn't know you were destined to be the other half of me."

A rosy flush bloomed on Sean's dusky skin. "Don't be a ass," he muttered. "All that destiny stuff is just dumb. Anyone could do what I do."

"Don't let Blair hear you say that," Jamie said, still stunned by Sean's words. "He's been my dad's Guide forever, and the two of them are inseparable."

"We are not the two of them," Sean said sharply, standing up and shoving his chair back under the table.

"What is up with you?" Jamie cried as the iced tea sloshed onto the table and the cutlery rattled.

"I don't like everything we do being compared to everything they do," Sean said angrily. "We are not like them."

Jamie felt a leaden weight descending on his belly but he knew they couldn't stop this conversation now. They had to get to the point of this.

"You mean we're not lovers," he said quietly.

Sean avoided his gaze. "I guess."

"Sean," Jamie sighed softly. "I know this has been difficult. For both of us. But-"

"Stop it!" Sean interrupted, over riding Jamie's words. "Don't pretend this has been some great sacrifice for you, James Sandburg Ellison! Your damned promise has been real convenient just lately hasn't it?"

Jamie drew in a shocked breath, the choked agony in his Guide's voice hurting him just as much as the bitter accusation. "Sean?" the young sentinel gasped. "What...?"

Sean kicked the chair and turned away. "Great, put an innocent face on it now. At the very least I thought we were still friends, and friends don't lie to each other."

Finally finding himself able to breathe again Jamie jumped to his feet, feeling the first traces of his own anger at Sean's snide tone. "I have never lied to you," he said in a low deadly voice.

Sean cast a look of shock over his shoulder, his eyes widening. "J-Jamie?" he whispered.

"You have the right to be angry with me, Sean, I've never denied that. I made that promise to our parents without your knowledge or permission."

"I'm not angry at the promise," Sean muttered, eyes still clouded with shock.

Jamie unclenched his jaw, feeling the ache of muscles over used. "Now who's lying? I've never seen you as angry as you were the night you found out."

Sean's beautiful tan skin flushed rosy red. "Well how did you expect me to react? I had geared myself up to seduce the man I loved and you hit me with that. Without even talking to me about it you promised the parents not to make love to me until I was eighteen? Gees, Jamie, I was just as embarrassed as disappointed."

"I knew that," Jamie said gently. "I expected you to be angry. I was angry myself. But if I hadn't promised, love, they would have separated us." His eyes prickled with the memory. "I would have promised anything to stop that happening again."

Sean finally turned around to face him, thrusting out one thin paw and grasping his Sentinel's hand. Jamie gripped it tightly, grateful for this reassurance despite their hard words.

"I told you, I'm not angry at the promise," Sean said softly. "Not any more. Much as I hate to admit it the parents were right. I was too young two years ago. Becoming lovers then would have been a mistake."

Jamie felt a flush of emotion covering his skin. Despite his own inner certainty that waiting to become lovers was the right thing to do, a part of him had often wondered if he was allowing himself to be unduly influenced by those that loved them both. Was the decision to wait being made only as a nod to the laws and customs of the times they lived in? If Sentinel and Guide lived in a tribe in the jungle somewhere would they have still waited?

Sean's words loosened a knot inside of him; one he hadn't even realised was binding him. "You mean it?"

Sean nodded. "I'm not sure I can explain it. It's just something I feel."

"Me too!" Jamie inserted eagerly. Sean squeezed his fingers.

"I think we needed these years as friends before we crossed that final step." Sean tightened his fingers again, lowering his head until his eyes were hidden even from the keen eyed Sentinel. "That doesn't make it any easier though, Jamie."

The Sentinel felt his heart clench. There was that pain again, that soul deep sorrow. "Sean love?"

"I suppose it was a bit much to expect you to wait. I mean, you're eighteen, a grown man." Sean choked to a stop.

"Sean what are you talking about?" Jamie stroked his fingers over the drops of moisture on the back of his hand. His Guide's tears were hot against his skin.

"Amanda Thomas," Sean whispered, then lifted his olive green eyes to meet Jamie's startled brown ones.

"Mandy?" Jamie shook his head in genuine mystification.

"Mandy," Sean repeated sourly. "Mandy who looks at me like I'm trash. If you had to take a lover why did it have to be her?"

Jamie gasped as he'd taken a punch to the gut. "A lover?" He blinked, trying to take a breath. "You think I slept with Mandy Thomas?"

"I'm not a fool, Jamie," Sean said bitterly, twisting his fingers from Jamie's lax grasp. "I may not be a Sentinel, but I can see what's going on when you're together." He grimaced fiercely. "I can smell it."

Jamie shook his head. "You're wrong, Sean," he said simply. "I don't know what you're seeing-"

"Don't you?" Sean whipped back sharply. "Don't you really?"

A flush rose on Jamie's face. "All right," he admitted. "I guess I do know what you're seeing, but it's completely one-sided. Mandy has made a couple of passes at me, but I've never responded to them, love. Never."

Sean gazed back at him with wide eyes. "That's the second time you've called me that," he murmured.

Jamie gently took his hand back. "That's because it's true. It always has been."

"You never..." Sean wiped his eyes clumsily. "You and Mandy...?"

"There is no me and Mandy," Jamie cut in. "There's only Jamie and Sean, right?"

"But you're eighteen," Sean protested. "Haven't you ever wanted..." He flushed. "You know."

Jamie smiled at the sweet flush, allowing all his feelings to show in his eyes for the first time in his whole life. "Oh I've wanted, Sean love."

Sean drew in a breath, eyes widening.

Jamie projected all his love and desire through his own eyes. "Every day I've wanted. But not Mandy Thomas, or anyone else for that matter." He lifted his free hand and cupped his Guide's round cheek, stroking one sensitive thumb over slightly parted lips. "Only you, Sean. Only you."

Sean swallowed hard, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs, moistening Jamie's caressing finger. "Jamie," he whispered, swaying on his feet.

With a self assured arm Jamie reached out and hauled him close, letting their bodies rest against one another. Sean's eyes drifted closed and Jamie felt his own control shimmer under the intoxicating press of their bodies. "I've waited a lifetime for you, Sean," he confided. "Hoping with all my heart that we would be together like this as I've always dreamed."

"I've always known this would happen," Sean whispered, eyes still closed.

"I wish I'd been as sure."

Sean's lashes fluttered as he peered at Jamie curiously. "You doubted?"

Not even trying to resist the urge Jamie laid a kiss on Sean's smooth cheek. "Not that you loved me," he hastened to assure him. "Only that we would be lovers. The heart is one thing, love, desire is something else entirely."

Sean tilted his head, considering what was obviously a new thought for him. "To me the question has always been when," he confided. "Not whether."

This earned him another kiss, a gentle touch to the corner of his lips this time. "I want you to know that it wouldn't have changed my feelings," Jamie said earnestly. "Even if you didn't want to be my lover you still would have been my friend and my Guide. If you wanted to be," he finished, somewhat awkwardly.

Sean smiled now, looking a little more certain of himself. "Oh I wanted," he whispered. His hands came up and gripped Jamie's waist, taking a tiny step and aligning their bodies even more closely.

Jamie gasped.

"I wanted, I want," Sean chanted. With eyes wide open he leaned forward, lips seeking and finding their target.

Jamie kissed and found himself thoroughly kissed in return. The memories of the painful night two years before when he had been forced to reject his hearts desire faded to a dim and distant ache. Everything he wanted and needed was here now, in his arms.

Sean pulled back, panting for breath. "But, Jamie," he gasped. "What about your promise?"

Jamie opened his eyes and examined Sean's anxious, beloved face, knowing how hard it must be for his young love to remind him of that hated promise now, when all they wanted was within their grasp.

"It served its purpose," Jamie said instinctively, from the depths of his soul. "This is the time, Sean, my friend, my love, my Guide. Right?"

Eye's shining, Sean nodded.

000

A cool afternoon breeze drifted in and Jamie shivered a little under its questing touch. Sean lifted a corner of the sheet and tossed it over their entwined bodies.

"You always take care of me," Jamie murmured languidly.

"That's my job," Sean returned lightly. He brushed a wave of hair from Jamie's brow and the Sentinel smiled up into his beloved face. "I'm sorry I ever implied it wasn't," the young Guide apologized. "I didn't mean it."

"It was the jealousy talking?" Jamie probed.

Sean nodded.

"You've been surprisingly restrained considering what you believed," Jamie mused. "If I'd thought even for a minute that you'd been with someone else..." His active imagination supplied all the emotion his body could handle and it was only when Sean squawked in protest that he realised he was grasping him so tightly he'd left marks on soft brown skin.

He loosened his grasp and begged pardon with a string of soft kisses along the abused area.

Sean stroked the crown of his head with loving fingers as he thoroughly apologized. Jamie lifted his head and found himself caught by loving green eyes. "You're so beautiful," he gasped, as if he hadn't seen these self same eyes almost every day of his life.

Long lashes swept down and covered those stunning green orbs shyly. "So are you," Sean returned.

Jamie had to grin at this unusual demure. Unfortunately Sean lifted his eyes and caught the smug smile.

"Oy," he protested, dragging out a pillow and holding it threateningly. "Are you laughing at me?"

"No, I'm serious!" Jamie protested, spoiling the declaration by chuckling under his breath.

"You liar," Sean returned, pummeling Jamie's prone figure with the pillow. He straddled his lover and delivered a series of devastating body blows with the feather filled weapon. "Smug cretin," he pronounced.

Jamie chuckled helplessly, writing under the attack. "Uncle!" he cried. "You win!"

Sean lowered his weapon, eyes narrowed as he surveyed the vanquished foe trapped between his thighs. "I do, don't I?" he mused.

Jamie slid his hands up leanly muscled thighs, sighing dreamily. "Don't you always, brat?" he said fondly.

Sean waved the fearsome weapon again. "Don't call me brat," he ordered sternly.

"What should I call you?" Jamie said languidly, sensitive fingers exploring skin and sinew lovingly.

"Sir?" Sean suggested.

With a yelp Jamie exploded into action, forcing Sean over onto his back and straddling him triumphantly.

"Sir," Jamie mocked.

"Yes?" Sean responded with bright eyes and a haughty tilted brow.

Jamie threw his head back and laughed aloud, joy cascading through him. This freedom was like a drug through his system. He rolled over and collapsed next to his lover.

"You're not taking this seriously," Sean complained, eyes alight with laughter. "We just broke your promise here. How are the parents gonna react to that, hmm?"

Jamie turned his mouth down and it was Sean's turn to laugh.

"That's got you," he crowed.

"Way to bust up a romantic moment, brat," Jamie grumbled.

"Hey, the parents have dictated our lives up to now," Sean pointed out. "And you've let them. Now you've actually broken one of the sacred rules I think I have the right to know how you're gonna handle it."

"Ah, but it's not me breaking the rule alone is it, brat?" Jamie reminded him. "I'm not the one who has to take all the blame and responsibility any more. You and I are equals now."

Sean rolled onto one elbow, obviously considering all the ramifications of this. "Equals," he repeated thoughtfully.

"Which means I don't have to come up with a way to explain this," Jamie pointed out. "We do."

Now Sean's mouth turned down. "Oh."

Jamie reached for his lover's hand and they laced their fingers together. "Yeah, oh." He caught Sean's eyes and felt reassured by the confident love he saw there. "It's not gonna be easy, for us or them."

"But we have to make them see that this is the right thing for us now," Sean finished. He rolled his eyes dramatically. "Man, I think I preferred when I could hide behind you."

"No you didn't."

"No I didn't," Sean agreed. He studied Jamie again, eyes bright. "You really are beautiful."

Now it was Jamie's turn to blush and Sean's turn to tease.

They lay together on their first lover's bed, side by side as they would be all their lives long. Olive skin pressed against sweet umber, jade eyes and brown communing silently, long red braid intertwined with dark mahogany strands.

Sentinel and Guide.

The End.

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