More
by Lanning Cook

More matter, with less art.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet II, ii, 95

"Yeah! Busted," crowed Blair softly, tugging with determination at the overflowing cardboard box wedged at the very back of Jim’s closet. "For possession of a junk box. Mr. Clean’s going downtown."

"I heard that," called Jim from the living room below, sounding mildly annoyed. "Just get that thing down here so we can get this over with."

Blair grunted, then hauled the box out of the closet and into his arms. "Looks like you’ve got ten years’ worth of clothing donations in here. You know, for an anally-retentive neat freak--"

"Excuse me?"

"--you sure know how to load a junk box."

"One," retorted Jim over his shoulder as Blair struggled down the stairs, "I am not anally retentive. Two, I am not a neat freak. Just because a guy doesn’t want thigh-high piles of dirty underwear in his house doesn’t make him a neat freak, okay?"

"You’re exaggerating, man," protested Blair mildly, dropping the box onto the couch. He turned to regard his roommate with affectionate amusement, then indulged himself in a hasty, covert study of Jim’s body, which was currently poured into a tank top and tight jeans. Beautifully, dangerously tight jeans. Blair took a deep breath and veered his thoughts away from an all-too-familiar precipice "They were only knee high."

Jim caught Blair’s gaze, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, then snorted and yanked something colorful from the pile of Blair’s old clothes in front of him. Blair watched wonderingly as his friend’s face changed to something akin to surprise, then sadness.

"You’re getting rid of this?"

Blair came to his side for a better look. "Oh, that. Well, I don’t think it’s really me anymore, you know?"

Jim looked into Blair’s eyes with a wistful expression that for some reason made Blair’s throat tighten. "Not Detective Sandburg’s style, huh?"

"No, it’s not that. I just ... I don’t know," stammered Blair, unaccountably flustered by Jim’s intent regard. That old vest had wound up in the toss pile without much thought. "I haven’t changed that much, have I?"

Jim shrugged and gave him a strained smile. "Everybody changes, Chief. Four years ago you would rather have had your fingernails pulled than be a cop."

"Until you taught me what being a cop was really about," countered Blair in a soft voice, wondering what was on his friend’s mind. "We all learn and grow, man. I mean, there’s a lot more to me than style, right?"

Jim nodded soberly, still fingering the vest. "A lot more," he said absently. Then a faint smile touched his face. "You were wearing this the day we met."

Blair was surprised into soft laughter. "You remember what I was wearing?"

Jim colored slightly and scowled. "Hard to forget a get-up like that," he said in an edgy tone, tossing the vest away. "We have to get down to the church by three. Let’s get this show on the road, okay?" He started sorting the clothes with a vengeance.

Blair winced inwardly; nothing made him more miserable than inadvertently stomping on one of Jim’s sore places. The trouble was that Blair rarely understood where or what those sore places were. It was not unlike negotiating an unmarked minefield. "Yeah. Sure." Blair started pulling things out of Jim’s box, unseeing. He groped for something to say. "I, uh, remember that day too," he said uncertainly.

Jim remained stonily silent.

"You made one hell of a first impression," continued Blair, watching Jim carefully out of the corner of his eye.

Jim snorted in a manner obviously intended to convey skepticism.

"You don’t believe me? I remember every word you said." Blair pressed on determinedly. "Hard to forget somebody shoving me into a wall and calling me a neo-hippie punk, you know."

"I called you a neo-hippie witchdoctor punk," growled Jim. "And that’s what you still are." He was starting to smile again, for some reason.

"Oh, fine," returned Blair in feigned disgust, oddly pleased that Jim remembered. "Slam a guy for getting sentimental." He turned his attention back to Jim’s castaways.

Jim snorted again and was silent for a moment. "Sorry, Chief," he said finally.

Blair looked up blankly. "Huh?"

"Sorry. For the wall thing."

Blair managed a glare. "Which one?"

Jim’s tiny smile turned into a beautifully wide grin. "All of 'em."

"Oh." Blair grinned back. "No problem."

The two men smiled at each other in companionable silence for a moment. Blair wondered, as he gazed at his friend’s staggeringly seductive smile, exactly when he’d fallen in love with this big dope. He couldn’t remember. It had just seemed to grow on him, like a fungus.

Blair broke eye contact hastily and started trying to separate the usable from the unusable relics in Jim’s box. "We’d better get a move on."

"Okay," said Jim, returning to the task at hand with a sigh. "What a way to spend a day off. Remind me again why I agreed to this?"

"You remember why perfectly well - because Mrs. Dubois said it would be good for our souls," returned Blair laughingly, recalling Jim’s reaction to the diminutive matriarch’s attempt at spiritual counseling.

Jim muttered something under his breath, and Blair chuckled as he tried to untangle something from a knot of Jim’s old scarves. "Come on, Jim. She meant well."

"That old lady has it in for me," said Jim darkly. "She thinks I’m not good enough for- to you. And I think she’s packing."

Blair burst into laughter at the thought. Esther Dubois was a slight, five-foot-nothing, gray-haired, grandmotherly-looking African-American woman of 85 years. "Jim, are you nuts? That sweet little old lady?"

"She’s sweet to you," retorted Jim. "To me she’s Darth Maul in drag."

"You two just got off on the wrong foot," said Blair, pulling the last of the scarves away to reveal something made of rich, dark leather. "Just pour on the old Ellison charm and you’ll have her eating out of your hand."

"If I want to lose my fingers," growled Jim.

Blair lifted the leather in bewilderment, turning it left, right, upside down. It took him several seconds to realize what it was. "Ah ... Jim?"

"Yeah?"

"What the hell is this?"

Jim spared the object in Blair’s hands a fleeting glance. "What does it look like?"

"It looks like ... ah, leather briefs," said Blair faintly, doing his level best not to imagine Jim wearing something this revealing.

"That’s what it must be then," returned Jim nonchalantly, going back to his sorting.

"What do you mean, that’s what it must be?" demanded Blair in astonishment. "Since when are you into leather underwear, tough guy?"

"I’m not."

"You’re not?"

"Nah. Chafes like hell."

"You didn’t wear this," protested Blair in disbelief. "It was a gag gift, right? One of your old girlfriends--"

"Nope. Department issue."

"What?"

"Needed it for an undercover assignment."

"What the hell kind of--"

"I was in Vice," explained Jim off-handedly, folding one of Blair’s old flannel shirts. "Working on a male prostitution case."

"You are shitting me." Blair stared at briefs in amazement. "What was your cover?"

"Worked in a gay bar."

"Are you- Are you telling me that you were a go-go boy?" Blair’s voice rose to a squeak, his blood pressure surging to dangerous heights. Jim. His Jim. In this. Dancing.

God Almighty.

"You know I don’t dance, Sandburg," replied Jim sternly, lifting an eyebrow. "I just served the drinks and flattered the customers. Was kind of fun, actually."

"No," said Blair determinedly, spotting what looked like an evil glint in Jim’s eye, and certain that he was being had. "No way in hell. There is no way that you would ever put this on, let alone parade around in it in public, let alone enjoy it. Not even in the line of duty. No way."

Jim stopped what he was doing and gave Blair an odd look. "Why not?"

"It’s not you, man. Mr. Clean-Cut Conservative, Mr. By-the-Book, remember? Come on, you’re kidding, right?" Blair searched Jim’s face for any sign of laughter, but found none.

Jim stared at him for a moment, then without warning snatched the briefs out of his hands and stalked away.

Blair gaped for a moment. "Jim? Hey, man, where--"

"There’s more to me than style, too, Sandburg," snapped Jim, disappearing into the bathroom and slamming the door.

Blair spent a good minute examining that bathroom door in the vain hope of an explanation, but it remained as uncommunicative as the man behind it. For crying out loud. Blair punched the box in front of him in frustration. Now what? Which landmine had he tripped over this time? He had made a perfectly harmless and accurate observation. There was nobody more by the book than Jim Ellison. Jim had always taken a perverse pride in that fact. So what the hell was eating him now? The silence emanating from the bathroom was provokingly uninstructive.

Okay. Fine. Maybe it was time to take the bull by the horns. Or the panther by the ears. Whatever. Blair strode to the bathroom door and pounded on it loudly. "Hey! Don’t you think you’re a little old to be sulking in the bathroom?" Blair allowed himself to draw out the word ‘old’ to excruciating lengths. He paused, listening.

Nothing.

"Look, man, this is stupid. I didn’t say anything to get mad about, okay? You’re being a real jerk."

Still nothing.

Blair sighed and adopted a slightly more conciliatory tone. "Come on, Jim. You can’t be this pissed about me not falling for your gay bar story. What’s this really about? Talk to me." He leaned against the door, hearing movement, but no response, and forged ahead doggedly. "I wasn’t putting you down. So you’re conservative and by the book. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you’d just--"

The door wrenched inward violently, sending Blair tumbling against the man inside.

The half-naked man inside.

Blair gasped and backed away, eyes glued to the mass of rippling muscles, form-fitting leather and blazing blue eyes that moved towards him.

Make that three-quarters naked.

"Take a closer look." Jim advanced on Blair like a predator on the prowl.

"Wh-what--" The back of Blair’s legs smacked up against the back of the couch, halting his retreat. There was nowhere to go, and nothing to look at but the object of his hot, horny and heartfelt desire charging him like a wild animal while wearing a pair of hip-slung leather briefs that left nothing absolutely nothing to the imagination. Blair struggled to draw a breath. 

"See anything conservative?"

"Wh-why--" Blair stuttered helplessly, unable to drag his gaze from those unimaginative briefs.

"See anything by-the-book?"

"I- Uh, I--" 

"A cop isn’t all I am." Jim came to a stop in front of Blair and looked into his face with a fierce expression, bending so close that Blair could feel Jim’s breath and Jim’s body heat on his skin. "A Sentinel isn’t all I am either."

Blair took another stab at coherent speech. "I didn’t think that--"

"No, you didn’t. You didn’t think about it at all. You just dreamed up this image of me in that flaky brain of yours--"

"Will you let me--"

"I’m not a damn GI Joe doll," snarled Jim, grabbing Blair by the upper arms and shaking him hard. "And I’m no more Joe Friday than you’re a witchdoctor punk. There’s a hell of a lot more to both of us than that. Am I getting through here?"

Blair’s temper finally got the better of him, and he tried to break away. "Dammit, Jim, back off!"

Jim only tightened his grip and shook him again. "You think you’ve got me all figured out. You’re wrong. I’ve been a lot of places and done a lot of things that you know nothing about. You know jack squat, Sandburg."

"I said back off!" shouted Blair, trying to shove Jim away. He found himself yanked up against Jim’s hot, hard body with his arms pinioned to his sides before he could blink.

"You don’t want me to back off," rasped Jim in his ear. His voice was shaking now. "Don’t bullshit me, Chief. I can smell it on you. I’ve smelled it on you for weeks."

Blair froze. Oh, shit.  "Jim," he began in something like a squeak, then cleared his throat and started over, squirming in Jim’s arms as he tried to look him in the eye. "Man. Look. You don’t have to worry. I won’t let it- I mean, I would never do anything--"

"I know you wouldn’t," growled Jim, irritation creeping into his voice as he shoved Blair up against the sofa. "God knows I’ve waited long enough for you to do something. So I guess it’s up to me."

The words ricocheted around Blair’s unnerved mind, defying comprehension. "Wh- what--"

Jim yanked Blair’s head close and sealed his mouth over Blair’s, his tongue thrusting urgently. Blair froze for one heartbeat, then in an explosion of anger let loose a smack to Jim’s ear and a kick to his left shin. Jim pulled his mouth away, gasping.

"What the hell do you think--" began Blair with enough vehemence to be heard on the roof.

Jim promptly tackled Blair over the back of the sofa and settled himself determinedly on top of him, his chest heaving and his hands fondling half-a-dozen places at once. Blair yelped and flailed ineffectually, barely staving off Jim’s attempts to pin him.

"Are you crazy?" Blair shouted furiously. "Get off me now!"

"Pheromones don’t lie, Sandburg," panted Jim with wild eyes, pinning Blair’s wrists to the sofa. "You want me."

"I love you, you fucking asshole," blurted Blair fiercely. One of his knees barely missed its intended target and made firm contact with Jim’s inner thigh.

Jim went motionless, evidently oblivious to what must have been a painful blow. His expression of eager determination faded and broke into one of shock, then amazement, then confusion, and he released Blair’s wrists.

"I’m fucking in love with you," muttered Blair in abject humiliation, covering his face with his hands. He could hear Jim breathing hard, still leaning over him on his hands and knees, and he wondered bleakly how long it would take him to find a new place. A new best friend. A new life.

"Blair."

The voice was no more than a whisper, but even his surprise couldn’t persuade Blair to look at Jim just yet. His own face felt hot against his hands. God, could he have made any more of a fool of himself? "Yeah," he said brusquely.

Incredibly gentle fingers tugged at his hands. "C’mere."

"Huh?"

"C’mere," repeated Jim softly.

Blair found himself being carefully pulled close, held close, with his head cradled against Jim’s chest and Jim’s hand stroking his hair soothingly. They stayed that way for what seemed like a long time.

"Love you, too," mumbled Jim finally. "Love you, Chief."

Blair stirred, wondering if all the blows to the head he’d received in the past three years had finally resulted in sufficient brain damage to induce hallucinations. "Huh?"

"I said," growled Jim, "I love you, too."

"Oh." Blair considered the statement carefully. "Is that an ‘I love you like a brother ‘cause you’re an idiot and I pity you?’ Or--"

"No," snapped Jim impatiently. "It’s an ‘I love you like I’m in love with you and I want to see you naked and fuck you into next week.’ For crying out loud, Sandburg."

"Just checking," said Blair rather faintly.

"You’re a menace to my mental health, you know that?" Jim’s voice cracked.

Blair lifted his head to stare into Jim’s face as if it were the first time. Jim stared back at him with a helpless, little-boy-lost expression that made him look about sixteen years old, and Blair fell in love all over again. "Huh?" he said dazedly.

"You used to be more articulate, punk," murmured Jim with a faint smile. He leaned forward, angling his mouth toward Blair’s.

Blair moved toward him with closed eyes and parted lips, in eager anticipation of another mouth-plundering, but met only gentleness. Jim’s warm tongue explored Blair’s mouth slowly and with infinite care, as if he were mapping every contour with loving precision. The tenderness of the touch left Blair flabbergasted. Jim loved him. Him. Naomi Sandburg’s little curly-headed boy. Jim was in love with him.

Go figure.

Blair wrapped his arms around Jim’s neck and held on for dear life, not wanting it to end. Breathing was highly overrated, anyway. Why waste time inhaling when he could be tongue dancing with James Joseph Ellison, love god? Blair groaned when Jim finally pulled away, breathing hard.

"So," panted Jim, looking a little wild. "Blair. Exactly how many of your lovers have you asphyxiated?"

Blair felt a slightly lightheaded cackle escape him. "Ah ... hold on, let me count--"

"I’m not going to find a bunch of dead guys in your closet, am I?" Jim was slowly unbuttoning Blair’s shirt, smiling.

Guys? Oh. Yeah. Guys.

"Um ... nope," laughed Blair nervously. "Um ... no guys. Absolutely. No guys." He cleared his throat.

"Good," purred Jim, unbuckling Blair’s belt. "Sure fire way to kill the mood."

"Ah, Jim?"

"Mmmm?" Jim slid Blair’s fly down.

"I guess there are guys in your closet, huh? I mean, it would be good if there were, considering where we’re headed here, you know? I mean, it makes sense if your Sherpa’s been up the mountain once or twice, right? Metaphorically. Not that I consider myself your Everest, or anything. I mean--"

"Sandburg," cut in Jim with an expression that had evolved from bewilderment to impatience to dawning comprehension during Blair’s speech, "Are you trying to tell me that you’ve never been with a guy?" The amazement in his voice was palpable.

"Well, what the hell’s wrong with that?" snapped Blair, feeling oddly defensive. "It may interest you to know that in some circles never being with a guy is considered quite acceptable, okay? Just because you’ve secretly embraced the fucking eclectic ideal--"

Blair stopped as soon as he realized that Jim was laughing. Not loudly. Very softly. Nothing more than a sustained chuckle, really. Blair felt himself go hot, then cold; shades of the taunts of older, more experienced, more attractive boys from a dozen half-forgotten playgrounds rang in his ears. "Fuck you," he said stiffly, trying to shove Jim away. "You son of a--"

"No," said Jim quickly, catching Blair’s hands. Blair tried to jerk them away, but froze in confusion as Jim lifted them to his lips and kissed them. "I’m not laughing at you, babe. I’m laughing at me."

"You," repeated Blair blankly.

"Yeah. I was so ticked off because you couldn’t see who I am. But I guess I haven’t seen you either." Jim studied Blair’s hands as he caressed them. "I thought you were being a damn tease."

Blair burst out laughing at the thought in spite of himself.

"Not funny, hot stuff," growled Jim, pushing Blair back onto the sofa and pinning him again. "What was I supposed to think, with you spraying all over the place--"

"Spraying?"

"And guys ogling you wherever we went--"

"You are delusional, man--"

"And you have no clue," returned Jim fiercely, his hands sliding up Blair arms and over his shoulders to frame Blair’s face. "When you walk into a room, even straight guys turn to look."

Blair stared up at him with his mouth hanging open, shocked into silence.

"No clue," repeated Jim with a strange fascination in his tone. "No clue how fucking beautiful you are."

Blair felt the blood rush to his face, completely confused. None of his carefully casual lovers had ever said such a thing to him. "Jim. No-nobody’s been looking, man. This perception of me is ... is some sort of ... ah ... territorial response, okay? It’s not real."

"It’s real," breathed Jim, pushing Blair’s shirt open to run his fingertips over Blair’s chest lightly. "Just tell me you haven’t been looking back. Tell me."

"I haven’t," croaked Blair helplessly, truthfully. "I’ve been too busy looking at you."

The smile Jim gave him could have lit up the entire city of Cascade, and Blair found himself holding his breath at the sight. And Jim thought Blair was beautiful. Talk about a man without a clue....

"Good. But I’ve still never seen you naked," murmured Jim in a tone of mild complaint, tugging impatiently at the waistband of Blair’s jeans.

"Ah ... yeah ... well...." stammered Blair, heart pounding against his ribcage.

"Hey, you’ve seen me naked," pointed out Jim quite reasonably.

"Does ... uh ... naked count if it’s at gunpoint?" Blair tried to slow his frantic breathing with limited success.

"You’re blushing, Sandburg." Jim slid his hands inside Blair’s boxers, palms against Blair’s body, and slid both jeans and boxers over Blair hips and onto his thighs.

"It’s the ... the heat." Blair felt himself go scarlet as Jim’s hungry, dark-eyed gaze swept his body.

"I was thinking it was a little cool in here, myself," countered Jim huskily. "Let’s warm things up." He sat back and pulled Blair’s pants off, then tossed them aside.

"Dirty underwear ... on the floor?" Blair’s voice came in something like a squeak as Jim leaned over him again.

"What can I say? You’re a bad influence, Chief." Jim started to remove Blair’s shirt, but Blair fended him off.

"Your turn," breathed Blair. "Take that off." He allowed himself to touch Jim’s leather briefs, which were leaving even less to the imagination than they had a few minutes before.

Jim grinned broadly. "Not into leather, hot stuff?"

"No. I’m into you, tough guy," returned Blair rather fiercely, provoked. "Take it off."

"Make you a deal," purred Jim seductively. "I’ll take it off ... if you’ll put this on." He leaned over and scooped up the vest he had tossed away, then dangled it in front of Blair’s eyes.

Blair stared up at him in astonishment. "That?"

"That," said Jim thickly. "And nothing else."

Blair swallowed hard, certain he could actually hear certain long-held preconceptions shattering. "You know, your kinky side is going to take some getting used to."

"Turn to the kinky side, Sandburg," murmured Jim playfully, lowering his head to press warm lips and talented tongue to Blair’s throat. "You’ll love it."

Blair groaned in pleasure, delighted. "All right," he gasped. "All right, it’s a deal. Give me the damn thing." He snatched the brightly colored cloth from Jim’s hands, ignoring his friend’s self-satisfied chuckle, and exchanged his flannel shirt for the cotton vest. "There. Okay? Satis--"

Blair was flat on his back with Jim on top of him before he could finish the question, his mouth full of Jim’s eagerly seeking tongue, his arms pinned by Jim’s hot hands, his genitalia massaged to exquisite, hard agony by the slow, grinding friction of Jim’s soft leather.

"Made ... deal...." gasped Blair as soon as his mouth was empty again.

"Sue me," growled Jim, keeping a firm hold of the younger man as he lowered his mouth to Blair’s chest.

"Son ... son of a ... oh, God...."

Blair uttered something between a yelp and a moan as two fingers of Jim’s right hand found a hot spot Blair had never known he had. He let his eyes close and forced himself to relax under the ministrations of this large, benevolent sadist. It soon became something of a challenge to remember even to breathe under the onslaught; Jim’s hands and mouth seemed hell-bent on exploring every square inch of Blair’s skin, charting it, marking it as Jim’s own, and driving Blair to distraction with every means of stimulation at Jim’s disposal.

There was no denying it; the man had talent.

Blair struggled for control and lost quite happily. He’d never been made love to like this in his life, and it was as unexpected as it was overwhelming. Mr. Conservative and By-the-Book was stroking, pinching, licking, and biting places that nobody had ever thought about stroking, pinching, licking or biting, and reducing Blair to babbling imbecility in the process. Blair had often fantasized about Jim as sensual lover. But Jim as imaginative lover was a concept that blew him away - far away. Blair’s entire universe now consisted of the couch he was lying on and the man who was playing his body so skillfully, and turning every nerve cluster against what remained of Blair’s mind.

Blair became vaguely aware that some idiot in the near vicinity was whimpering and moaning and begging Jim not to stop, and fervently wished that the guy would shut the hell up. How could a man concentrate on getting himself seduced with some moron going on about ‘so good’ and ‘love you’ and ‘fuck me, Jim, fuck me’? It was ridiculous. It was-

Jim’s mouth took Blair’s cock with one long, languorous swoop, and Blair screamed in ecstatic surprise. The idiot started in again, really yelling this time, and Blair flailed his arms about in a vain effort to send him about his business. The offender eluded Blair’s attempts at pest control and persisted in his annoying vocalizations, which by now were of such a character as to convey some sort of profound religious experience.

Blair forced his eyes open and rested his gaze on Jim, whose head was bobbing up and down with the frantic rhythm of a man possessed, or determined to possess. Blair was dimly aware that there was no sign whatsoever of the disputed leather briefs, but had no time to contemplate the mystery. With a scream that probably could be heard in Simon Banks’ office downtown, he arched his back and came, reveling in the exquisite sensation of the muscles in Jim’s mouth and throat constricting around him as Jim swallowed his seed.

Blair lay panting for a moment, as close to passing out after sex as he’d ever been. He reached down to touch Jim’s shoulder. "Jim," he croaked. "Jim?"

Jim lifted his head, breathing hard, and moved up to lean over Blair, his engorged, weeping organ brushing Blair’s abdomen. That feather-light touch was evidently all Jim needed; with a shuddering groan he suddenly came, splashing semen over Blair’s chest and stomach. He continued to come for what seemed like a long time, shaking and gasping Blair’s name as he leaned over him, one hand buried and clenched in Blair’s hair.

Blair caught his breath at both the raw power and the terrible vulnerability of the man at that moment. It dawned on him that somehow - in some weird, subconscious act of pure instinct - he had allowed that very incongruity to draw him to Jim in the first place. Jim needed him ... as much as he needed Jim. Jim had been right. There was a lot more to both of them than style.

Blair took Jim’s face in his hands, overcome. "You okay?" he breathed tenderly.

"Sorry, Chief," grated Jim, not quite meeting Blair’s gaze. "Sorry, I couldn’t hold on--"

"Sorry for what?" demanded Blair in weak amazement. "God, Jim, that was the most incredible--"

"Our first time," muttered Jim. "I wanted to give you so much more--"

"More?"

Jim raised his eyes with glare. "Yeah, more!"

Blair pulled Jim closer, laughing gently; he felt the muscles in Jim’s face relax, saw his eyes soften. "You underestimate yourself, lover. More would have killed me. We’re going to have to take this in stages, okay?"

Jim stroked Blair’s hair back lovingly, every trace of irritation vanishing into tender surprise. "Sure. Anything you want, Chief. I really thought ... I mean, I thought you’d want--"

"Guess you don’t have me all figured out, either," murmured Blair, observing Jim’s confusion with a certain amount of satisfaction.

Jim looked down at him gravely. "Guess not," he admitted softly. "But I’m committed to the effort."

Blair’s eyes stung and he blinked impatiently. "Me too," he said huskily. "Love you, Jim."

Jim swallowed visibly and touched his lips to Blair’s. "Love you," he whispered. He cleared his throat and mustered a smile. "But if Mrs. DuBois ever finds out about your rotten taste in lovers she’ll skin me alive."

"Nah." Blair chuckled softly at the thought of his two formidable Blessed Protectors duking it out in the name of love. "She’s got no one to blame but herself. If she hadn’t roped you into helping us today, my rotten taste in lovers would still be a deep, dark secret."

"Yeah, I owe her one." Jim’s smile deepened.

"Me, too. She was right, you know," said Blair quietly, indulging himself in a caress of Jim’s short hair.

"Right?" Jim looked down at him in surprise.

"Yeah, tough guy," murmured Blair tenderly. "It was good for our souls."

End

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