You Threw Me Off A Cliff - a Sentinel Fanfiction
You threw me off a cliff!
From the Sentinel Fic prompt: Marry, Shag, Throw off a Cliff
Author’s Note: so um… I’m a little late what with this being a February prompt but… in my defense I just joined the community today.
Summary: An innocent game puts Jim on bad terms with Blair.
Pairing: Jim/Blair
Rating: PG13 for language and allusions to future sex
Genre: humor
Spoilers: none really, takes place after episode 4: The Debt
The paper had gone around the office as a joke. You wrote down your answers to the question above and then passed it around so others could see the answer. Jim had been in a pretty good mood and played along. It was his first mistake.
Sandburg, Simon, Rafe. Marry? Shag? Cliff?
It was supposed to be funny. It was a joke some of the girls had put together and the paper was only getting sent around to the guys. Jim was the second person to get the paper and noticed, with a twinge, that the first would have shagged Blair if these were his options. He was pretty sure he could figure out who it was from the handwriting if he really wanted to. Jim didn’t want to risk someone recognizing his handwriting as being the one wanting to marry Blair, so he began thinking about his options. Shag, surely would be taken as a joke, but then he’d have to cliff Simon or Rafe, which didn’t sit well either…
“Come on Ellison. You’re supposed to write down your first reaction not think about it,” someone said nearby. Startled, Jim wrote a name in each box, not particularly paying attention to where they went. That was his second mistake.
Blair went home before him so as to get in some study time, taking with him his bag and a paper that Rafe, with a grin, had handed to him. Jim was curious, but didn’t ask either what the paper was. That was probably the third mistake he’d made that day.
When he got home and found Blair leaning against the kitchen counter, no dinner to be seen and glaring, Jim assumed the younger man had simply had trouble getting back alone and wrote it off, bringing up a neutral subject to chat about and hopefully take Blair’s mind off whatever had happened. That wasn’t just the fourth mistake of his day, it was the worst.
“You cliffed me and you want to talk about ordering Chinese food?!” Jim, stunned, focused his attention on the piece of paper in Blair’s hand. Son of a bitch…
“Sandburg…”
“Don’t you ‘Sandburg’ me, you cliffed me!” Jim decided to take the defensive on this one.
“How do you know it was me? The whole office was playing-“
“I’ve been living here how long? Do you really think I don’t know what your handwriting looks like? It’s utter crap by the way.”
That wasn’t true, Sandburg had mentioned more than once how impressed he was with Jim’s handwriting (generally it was “pretty good for a cop” but Jim took it as a compliment).
“Where did you get that, anyways? You weren’t there while we were passing it around,” it was a stupid question - Jim already had the answer - but he need to buy time to think his way out of what was turning into a fully fledged Sandburg Tantrum.
“Rafe gave it to me. Apparently they forgot to tell you that once the game is over they give the answers to the people in the question,” Blair’s face went from burning with anger to just upset. “How could you cliff me, Jim? I thought we were closer than that,” Jim opened his mouth to respond but Blair just kept going. “I mean, I know that a man like you wouldn’t be able to honestly say you’d have sex with me,” Ellison was fully prepared to refute that statement “but in most cultures marriage and sex are mutually exclusive parts of life, you could have said you’d marry me without sex even crossing your mind. But you cliffed me.”
“Blair, listen-“
“No one cliffed me! No one! Simon got cliffed more than I was!” Blair waved the paper at Jim and the Sentinel snatched it, hardly believing his ears.
Sure enough, looking down the ‘Cliff’ column, Jim only saw Blair’s name once. Shit.
“Looks like a lot of people want Rafe out of the picture…” Jim said slowly, thinking of how to sort things out with his Guide. That casual statement was his fifth mistake that day and it wasn’t even 8 pm yet.
“RAFE?!” That shriek would have hurt a deaf woman’s ears from across the street. For a Sentinel only four feet away it was like someone had dropped an anvil on his head. “You want to talk about Rafe getting cliffed?! I got screwed and hitched to the entire department except for you! My partner, my Sentinel threw me off a cliff!”
“Blair, calm down…” that was mistake number six and Jim didn’t realize until a second too late.
“CALM DOWN? You threw me off a cliff!” Blair reached up and pulled at his loose hair. Jim winced on his behalf. “You would sooner kill me than shag or marry me, that hurts Jim. I thought you liked me enough not to kill me.”
“Blair, I wasn’t thinking. I just-“
“That’s the problem!” Blair shouted, hands thrown into the air. “You aren’t supposed to think! You write down your first impulse, your unconscious thoughts, and you unconsciously wanted to kill me!”
“No, Blair, I was over thinking it and I-“ That particular wording was a bad choice and the seventh mistake of the day.
“You consciously wanted to kill me?!” Blair stared at him and the hurt in his eyes made Jim’s heart stop, and not in a good way.
“Blair, that’s not what I meant.”
“You wanted to kill me on purpose?” the younger man looked away, appearing for all intents and purposes, to be in the early throes of hyperventilation. “Jim you should have said something! What am I still doing here if you want me dead?” Jim started toward him, slow enough not to cause alarm. “I can’t believe that you-“ Blair looked up to him just in time to watch as the Sentinel grabbed him by the collar and pulled him in for a hard kiss.
After a long moment Jim pulled back and calmly met Blair’s stunned gaze. This was the first good idea he’d had all day.
“Blair, I do not want you cliffed,” Jim said with a lot more control that anyone would have expected of a normal man. Blair only stared at him, mouth slightly open. “I want you in the bed, on the couch, against the wall, and even flat on the floor. I want you thrown down on the counter maybe, but I don’t want you thrown off a cliff,” with a slight smile the Sentinel gently pushed his Guide’s chin with a finger until his mouth closed. “Now, we’re going to go upstairs and I’m going to prove just how much I don’t want you thrown over an imaginary - or real - cliff, ok?” With a slight nod from the other man to spur him on, Jim slipped an arm around Blair’s waist and led the smaller man to the stairs.
Jim was going to credit this as the best idea he’d had in years. Voicing the fact that this was the greatest idea he’d had in year (and therefore not in forever) turned out to be the first mistake he made later that week, but that’s a different story.