Pandora's Box
Pandora's Box.
Jim/Blair, Alex/Naomi
prompt: quid pro quo
Rated: ADULT (f/f and m/m)
( Chapters 1-3 ) ( Chapter four ) ( Chapter Five ) ( Chapter 6 ) ( Chapter 7 ) ( Chapter 8 ) ( Chapter 9 ) ( Chapter 10 ) ( Chapter 11 ) ( Chapter 12 ) ( Chapter 13 ) ( Chapter 14 ) ( Chapter 15) ) ( Chapter 16)
STOP: Two chapters in two days. Yes, that's right, I had a mini-spurt. It happens when I FINISH A WIP!!! Yep, that's right, this one is done. You have the sex, the hints of the future, the happily ever after, the reappearance of Naomi, and lots of opportunities to wonder about the Sentinels who woke up when four headstrong people (two Sentinels and two Guides) stirred the universe.
Chapter 17
Blair looked back at the camp. The pillar in the center had a circle of bare ground around it since the grass never had a chance to grow. It had been a gift from Mexico, a jaguar pillar from the original Temple of the Sentinels. The scientist in Blair had been horrified at the idea of ripping a part of history away from its home, but the pillar fit here. The stone was happy to be home with Sentinels. And Blair was clearly a little too far onto the spirit plane if stones had feelings.
They should probably put stone pavers down or just haul in concrete. Stone pavers would last longer with the weather up here. About half the tents were on wooden platforms to keep them out of the mud when it rained, and some industrious group had started a log building back near the treeline.
“A new temple rises,” a voice said in an approving tone.
“It looks less like a temple than a survivalist camp,” Blair said as he looked over at Incacha. The ghost shaman crouched down near the base of a tree and used his teeth to strip bark from a white sliver of wood.
“It’s not the way I would have done it.” Naomi came out from behind a tree and looked down at the camp. There were about four dozen Sentinels now despite the bad weather. The road had become a parking lot, and the local grocery store was ecstatic about the sudden influx of large numbers of soldiers, all of whom ate like horses. When Hannah had come out of her coma, she’d pretty much eaten her own body weight in food every other day. Blair was starting to think the obsession with high-fat food was a survival trait for Sentinels, but the sheer volume made it easy to get the local store to stock the Sentinel friendly products. And locals were really good about randomly changing street signs and confusing reporters so that Sentinels got a break from being the center of the public’s attention.
“Yeah, mom, I know.”
Naomi smiled down at him and then dropped to the ground and crossed her legs. “But you’ve done a good job.”
“Good enough that you’re going to stop trying to lure Sentinels away?” Blair asked.
“Who? Me?” Naomi blinked at him with exaggerated innocence, and Blair rolled his eyes. There were Sentinels who wandered away - men and women whose voices called to him in dreams and then vanished.
“I heard that some Sentinels are feeling compelled to avoid us. I mean, really, Mom. It’s not like we’re out there looking for people. I have all the Sentinels I can handle, so making me out to be the boogey man is so not cool.”
“I never said you were the boogey man,” Naomi said with a huff.
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, Mom.”
“Or smoke bombs,” Naomi countered. “I always tell Sentinels that I’m proud of my little boy. You and Jim are quite good at making the military bend.”
“But you think we should keep Sentinels out of the military altogether,” Blair guessed. Sometimes Blair wondered if Naomi was as free-spirited as she liked to believe because she clearly wanted to pull them all out. Hell, he’d be thrilled to keep Sentinels away, only Sentinels were people with these weird little beliefs. Like they believed they should be able to choose their own work.
Auden had lasted three weeks in the first camp before Leading Seaman Adam “do not make a Batman joke” West showed up to guide him. They were back on a ship and happy to be at work within a month. Oh, they were good about sticking around for a while. Then Danny Griffin took a liking to a military attaché named Peter Lotherman sent out by the Army and Hannah and Sims stabilized enough to take a serious hating to each other and Clark Bechtel started seeing invisible animals. Life just started going on whether they were ready or not and somewhere along the line, it started seeming normal to have so many Sentinels around. However, Auden and West didn’t want to be part of the new Sentinel reality. They were happy to announce to the Navy they were Sentinel and Guide, and then head back to their ship. Of course, a few weeks after that, they were sharing a bed. That had caused a few more ripples, but Jim’s bluntness had managed to finally just embarrass certain officers into silence, and regulations changed again.
“The military is their choice,” Blair said. Naomi didn’t want to hear the rest of the argument, and Blair was too tired to make it.
“I’m just offering an alternative, Sweetie. Alternatives are always good.”
Blair smiled. “Yes, mom, they are.” Certain Sentinels were too suspicious of any organization to deal with the military regulations that seemed to seep into the Cascade camp no matter how many times Blair told them they weren’t military here. Rank didn’t matter here. Rules included respecting others and respecting yourself enough to get help if you were in danger of zoning. That’s it. Looking at the structure of the camp going up in the Cascade Mountains, Blair was pretty sure they’d made their own rules despite him.
Flashing him one of her brightest smiles, Naomi turned her attention back to the camp. “Besides, it’s not like the Sentinels are all here. You’re pinned down to this place and Alex and I can search the rest of the world.” She gave him a knowing smile that suggested she thought she’d won. Before Blair could figure out how to answer that, she changed the subject. “How’s Jim?”
“Cranky as a bear. He says that if they can’t stop asking his advice on every little thing he’s kicking them all off his land.”
Naomi laughed. “Well, at least he’s not encouraging dependence.”
The very thought made Blair laugh. “No, not so much.”
Incacha came to sit at Blair’s other side. “The temple rises. It is as it should be.”
“Men.” Naomi rolled her eyes. “Yes, you have your temple, but you don’t actually need a visual representation of power. Power is like sand… it runs through your fingers and vanishes on the breeze. However, some people become so focused on their penises that they can’t see that.” She stared at the camp, and Blair knew she was looking at the large center pillar. “Of course, that’s not you, Honey.” She patted his arm and managed to make it perfectly clear that she did consider it him even as she said she didn’t.
“I hear you, mom.”
Naomi turned and smiled so widely that her eyes crinkled up. “I’ll give Alex your love.” With that, she blinked and vanished. She really was better with the spirit plain than he was. He had to wait for something to startle him out of a vision.
“It is as it has always been,” Incacha said. “When I saw Enqueri, I saw the stone that stood in the storm. I did not know if the storm would appear to awaken the power.”
“That would be my mother,” Blair said dryly.
Incacha nodded. “The storm awakens the sleepers, the stone protects them from the wrath of the winds. The universe is balance.”
“So, Jim only won because the universe wanted him to?”
Incacha stared down at the camp. Looking at it with an anthropologist’s eye, Blair could see why Incacha had called it a temple. The stone pillar stood in what a Greek archeologist would call a cella-the central room. A pronaos or front greeting area was forming near the informal parking lot and newly arrived Sentinels put up their temporary tents there. The opisthodomos had the more permanent tents-huge things with wood platforms. A rough column structure was even appearing. Several trees had been stripped of lower branches and their bare trunks used for anchors for laundry lines and privacy screens. It was a sort of ragged, pathetic temple, but it was getting there.
“The stone and the storm must exist together, but whether the storm or the stone prevails, that is what humans must decide.” Incacha rested his hand against Blair’s shoulder for a moment, and then he too was gone. Blair looked down at the camp, and as much as he loved his mother, he was voting for the stone every time. Some days this felt too chaotic, so Naomi’s storm would have been like standing in the middle of a hurricane.
Jim’s jaguar came and sat next to him, the heavy, hot weight comfortable against Blair’s leg. “Did you catch that?” Blair asked.
“Most of it,” Jim said, but his voice was a distant shout. He was climbing the path, but it would be some time before he got up here and could wake Blair from the vision. Meanwhile, Blair ran his fingers down the jaguar’s back, feeling the strong muscles under his hand. The peace lulled him deeper into the vision and mist rose until Blair could see a temple, a strange combination of steel and hand smoothed stones in hundreds of various colors and textures that rose above the treeline with the forest growing right up to it. Lower buildings in irregular shapes tucked into slopes all around the central building.
Men and women wandered through the trees and standing on terraces that led into the center of the temple-no glass to keep the outside air from drifting through. An odd bus with a CPD logo stood in the parking lot of hand-cut stones. Sentinels practiced on the stones. They’d stand a hundred or two hundred feet away and try to cut a stone that fit so perfectly, down to the millimeter, that it locked into place without mortar. That’s how the temple was built, too. One stone at a time. Every Sentinel who came through put at least one stone in place. The construction tickled something at the back of Blair’s memory. Kids spilled off the bus, but as they ran, they vanished into the mist. The temple faded and Blair was surprised to see the camp reappear, the CPD bus gone, the children gone.
“The Commissioner wants to come up and make a case for Sentinels to join the police department. He said that since prosecutors have been running your cases for years, Cascade could offer them a chance to work in the civilian world without having to be the center of their own little publicity storm because they’re the only Sentinel in town. I guess he figures staying in town with the Sentinel Supreme Commander would shield them from that,” Blair told Jim.
Blair couldn’t hear an answer, but he imagined Jim was somewhere below him cursing him out brilliantly. The press might not have landed on that particular title, but they did tend to call him the Chief Sentinel or the Sentinel Prime, which Jim complained made him sound like a Transformer. One reporter insisted on calling him the Sentinel Champion while another had settled on the term Praefectus. Jim cringed every time someone even used the word, even in jest. Most reporters used phrases like most prominent or original Sentinel, although Jim wasn’t exactly original. There were others before him, and Blair was starting to believe thousands would follow. However, he could feel the world struggle to find a comfortable groove and settle into it. They just had to make sure they found the right groove. This was work that would outlast all of them.
A hand fell on Blair’s shoulder, and Blair blinked as the world shimmered and colors shifted slightly, the warmth of Jim’s jaguar vanishing as the cat dissolved into the air. Blair smiled up at Jim. “Thanks man. I am so not good with pulling out of trances.”
“Call me Supreme Commander again, and I’m shoving your head in the toilet and giving you a swirly,” Jim threatened with a glare.
“Oooo. Now that sounds like a threat. I should report you to a cop friend of mine,” Blair said. Jim’s eyes narrowed into an expression that might have looked aggravated on someone else.
“You should consider the circumstances before mouthing off, Chief. Isolated in the woods, far enough for newer Sentinels to not hear you… you’re rather vulnerable out here.” Jim stalked forward, and Blair could imagine his spirit guide him that strong body guiding it. Blair started to get up, but before he could, Jim leapt.
Catching Blair by the stomach, Jim shoved him back down to the ground so fast that Blair squeaked. It was a manly sort of squeak, sort of, but sometimes he just forgot how strong Jim was and how much he liked to be crowded.
Opening his mouth to make a token protest, Blair was cut off when Jim kissed him, his hot body pinning Blair to the ground while Jim’s mouth did nasty, nasty things that short circuited all of Blair’s higher order thinking. Jim pressed his tongue in deeper and then groaned, the vibrations travelling right through to Blair.
Instinctive, Blair reached out, grabbing a handful of pine needles before he changed tactics and reached up to grab Jim’s shirt. One of Jim’s hands stroked down over Blair’s neck and to his arm where Jim’s fingers pressed so deep that Blair was pretty sure he’d have four matching bruises with a thumbprint on the opposite side, but he couldn’t care less. He was hungry. Starving. The new Sentinels took so much time, and Blair wanted more. He needed more.
Jim pulled back, and Blair gulped at the air, his head spinning and his cock so hard that Blair was afraid it might break.
“You’re cute when you’re speechless, Chief,” Jim teased.
“Fuck you,” Blair shot back without any particular heat. He was too horny to care about an insult that was probably true. Emasculating because no man liked to be cute, but true nonetheless.
Jim leaned in closer and licked the sensitive skin behind Blair’s left ear, making Blair cry out and shiver. Fuck. One lick had left him ready to come in his pants. “How about I fuck you?” Jim whispered before nipping at Blair’s ear.
Arching his back, Blair moaned and grabbed at Jim’s shoulders. “Fuck, yes,” Blair agreed. Top, bottom, sideways, upside-down… he didn’t care how he got laid as long as he got to have some intense and private sex with his lover.
With a chuckle, Jim leaned in and pressed a kiss to the spot behind Blair’s right ear. “Sometimes I have this fantasy.”
“Hmmm?” Blair squirmed, his cock uncomfortably tight in his pants, but it was the best kind of hurt.
“You’re spreading yourself thin trying to help everyone, and I come in and grab you. I slip by hand around your mouth to cover your screams and I pull you to my car.” Jim covered Blair’s mouth and then pressed small kisses to each of Blair’s eyelids, forcing him to close his eyes. Oh yeah, Blair was so going to come in his pants. “I tie you up and throw you in the car and run away with you. I take you back to that lake where we went when Alex was after you, and I spend all week ravishing you.”
Blair snorted behind Jim’s palm.
Jim’s lip quirked. “Okay, ravish might be a little over the top,” he admitted with a shrug. “But I keep you tied up. I feed you and at night I put you on your stomach and I fuck you until you’re begging to come.” Jim’s voice got softer and softer until Blair had to strain to hear him. Then Jim nipped Blair’s right ear, and Blair bucked up, gasping through his nose.
“Someone likes that plan,” Jim said, his hand slipping down over Blair’s cheek and shoulder.
“Someone likes that plan a lot,” Blair agreed. He did. “Only maybe-” Blair was going to suggest that maybe they shouldn’t do it with so many new Sentinel in camp or maybe they shouldn’t do it with the commissioner demanding to come up. He couldn’t think of a dozen things to say, but he couldn’t say any of them with Jim kissing the life out of him. Jim’s tongue swept through his mouth, pressing deeper.
When Blair was kissed to the point of language-incompetence, Jim pulled back and kissed a trail down over Blair’s neck before nipping at the front. Blair yelped, and Jim sucked the offended skin, taking the sting out but leaving a mark that would be visible for days.
“Caveman,” Blair complained, but then Jim was unbuttoning his shirt and Blair didn’t care if his lover was a primitive throwback who liked to mark his territory. Actually, it was sort of hot. Hot like Jim’s hands which were roaming over Blair’s chest. A thumb rubbed Blair’s nipple hard enough to make it hot, and Blair thrashed under Jim’s touch.
Leaning in, Jim pressed a chaste kiss to the abused nipple before humming so the vibrations traveled through Blair’s skin, making him feel like he was the Sentinel with nerve-endings turned up too high. Jim braced his hand against Blair’s chest and pushed himself up, his second hand pulling at his own buttons. When Blair reached up to help, Jim gave little more than an inarticulate growl before sacrificing the last two buttons and ripping the shirt off.
Okay, that was hot. Blair never had a lover that stuck around long term, and here they were years into their relationship, and Jim still lost control and sacrificed buttons. Now that was love.
“Where was I?” Jim asked, looking down at Blair with an expression that looked like the wolf about to pounce on its prey. He gave a lazy smile. “Oh yeah.” Jim shifted forward so his weight pressed into Blair’s cock.
“Fuck. I mean… fuck.” Blair gave a keening cry as Jim rubbed Blair’s other nipple until it was hot and sore before leaning down to lick at it. Blair’s fingers dug into Jim’s arms and he arched up, silently begging for more, but Jim continued his slow torture.
Jim began silently rocking forward and back, his body mimicking a sexual act they couldn’t do with clothes on, and Blair started making little pained moans of pleasure and pain. That reached Jim. Shifting off Blair’s cock, he quickly stripped them both of their pants, laying the jeans on the ground under Blair. Blair would complain about getting treated like a fucking doll, but 1) he was too horny to care and 2) the damn pine needles stuck him in some very uncomfortable places. So Jim could Mother Hen all he wanted.
“Shit I’ve missed you, Chief. I thought it was bad when you were writing your dissertation, but Dr. Sandburg has even less time.” Jim settled himself between Blair’s legs, his knees on the jeans he’d spread on the ground.
Blair pushed himself up so that he could run his fingers down Jim’s cheek. “Feel free to chain me to the nearest piece of furniture any time I’m not taking care of myself or my Sentinel or my lover,” Blair said, his voice solemn, edging on the guide voice that compelled Jim to obey.
Jim’s eyebrow quirked. “Out here it’s going to be rope and the nearest tree,” he warned.
“Which also works, but next time, bring a quilt,” Blair said with a smile. The seriousness of the moment passed, and with another wolfish grin, Jim looked down at Blair’s hard cock. The tip was already damp with a bit of precum and Blair’s balls felt too damn full to be healthy. “One touch and I’m coming like a fucking firehose,” Blair warned.
“No you aren’t,” Jim disagreed. Before Blair could ask what that meant, Jim caught the base of Blair’s cock and squeezed just hard enough to make Blair shout, his whole body stiffening in a need to come even though the pressure against his cock prevented it. The pleasure and the pain both sat on a knife’s edge of need, and then Jim leaned down and took Blair in his mouth, his cheeks puffing out as he slid down on Blair’s hard cock.
Blair screamed, his arms going wide and his finger digging deep into the ground as he tried to find some handhold. Jim hummed, and Blair’s cries settled into a keening mewl, a helpless whine of need and pleasure. A slick finger slipped inside Blair, and even with Jim’s hand at the base of his cock, Blair came with a shriek and a wave of white pleasure that melted every bone in his body. Blair lay against the earth, his arms spread wide and his lungs gasping for breath.
Jim collapsed next to him, and in some distant corner of Blair’s brain, he noted Jim’s softening cock pressing against Blair’s leg. Even with the nip of the coming winter in the air, Blair felt hot, like he had to shed heat before spontaneously catching on fire.
Beside him, Jim breathed heavily, each breath a puff of hot air against Blair’s neck. They lay in the cool air for a long time before Jim cleared his throat. “You okay?”
“I didn’t get fucked,” Blair complained softly, but he did it with a grin.
“Smartass,” Jim said. “You watch it. I’m going to kidnap you and tie you to a tree for a good fucking the first chance I get.”
“Promises, promises.” Blair smiled wider. When he’d been a kid and caught his first glimpse of the Burton Sentinel manuscript, he’d had no idea what the future held. None. He’d been a stupid kid standing at the edge of a cliff going, ‘hey, let’s jump off this.’
Jim pressed a kiss to Blair’s neck. “I’m glad you did jump, Chief.”
Blair lay there, wallowing in the silence for a moment before his eyes popped open. “Did I say that out loud?”
Jim slowly opened his own eyes. He tilted his head and studied Blair for a few seconds. “Nope,” he finally offered.
“But. How?” Blair’s mouth fell open.
“Well, if we’re going to let the Commissioner up here, which we really should since he’s given me the leave time, you know we’re going to have a dozen more requests by the end of the week. Let’s go set up procedures for recruiters.” Jim said, his voice all business. Reaching out for his jeans, he pulled them out from under Blair and started shoving his long legs into them.
“But. I didn’t… You heard me!” Blair finally spit out.
“Yep,” Jim agreed.
Before Blair could gather any more missing brain cells, Jim had pulled his shirt on and was heading down the trail with a whistle. Well hell. Telepathy. New, weird-ass agenda item number 217. Blair was going to run out of years long before he ran out of weird-ass. A chuckle echoed through the forest. It sounded suspiciously like Incacha even though it must have been Jim. It must have been. Blair pulled his pants on and headed back down the trail toward the new Temple of the Sentinels, Cascade Mountains, Washington.
Jim/Blair, Alex/Naomi
prompt: quid pro quo
Rated: ADULT (f/f and m/m)
( Chapters 1-3 ) ( Chapter four ) ( Chapter Five ) ( Chapter 6 ) ( Chapter 7 ) ( Chapter 8 ) ( Chapter 9 ) ( Chapter 10 ) ( Chapter 11 ) ( Chapter 12 ) ( Chapter 13 ) ( Chapter 14 ) ( Chapter 15) ) ( Chapter 16)
STOP: Two chapters in two days. Yes, that's right, I had a mini-spurt. It happens when I FINISH A WIP!!! Yep, that's right, this one is done. You have the sex, the hints of the future, the happily ever after, the reappearance of Naomi, and lots of opportunities to wonder about the Sentinels who woke up when four headstrong people (two Sentinels and two Guides) stirred the universe.
Chapter 17
Blair looked back at the camp. The pillar in the center had a circle of bare ground around it since the grass never had a chance to grow. It had been a gift from Mexico, a jaguar pillar from the original Temple of the Sentinels. The scientist in Blair had been horrified at the idea of ripping a part of history away from its home, but the pillar fit here. The stone was happy to be home with Sentinels. And Blair was clearly a little too far onto the spirit plane if stones had feelings.
They should probably put stone pavers down or just haul in concrete. Stone pavers would last longer with the weather up here. About half the tents were on wooden platforms to keep them out of the mud when it rained, and some industrious group had started a log building back near the treeline.
“A new temple rises,” a voice said in an approving tone.
“It looks less like a temple than a survivalist camp,” Blair said as he looked over at Incacha. The ghost shaman crouched down near the base of a tree and used his teeth to strip bark from a white sliver of wood.
“It’s not the way I would have done it.” Naomi came out from behind a tree and looked down at the camp. There were about four dozen Sentinels now despite the bad weather. The road had become a parking lot, and the local grocery store was ecstatic about the sudden influx of large numbers of soldiers, all of whom ate like horses. When Hannah had come out of her coma, she’d pretty much eaten her own body weight in food every other day. Blair was starting to think the obsession with high-fat food was a survival trait for Sentinels, but the sheer volume made it easy to get the local store to stock the Sentinel friendly products. And locals were really good about randomly changing street signs and confusing reporters so that Sentinels got a break from being the center of the public’s attention.
“Yeah, mom, I know.”
Naomi smiled down at him and then dropped to the ground and crossed her legs. “But you’ve done a good job.”
“Good enough that you’re going to stop trying to lure Sentinels away?” Blair asked.
“Who? Me?” Naomi blinked at him with exaggerated innocence, and Blair rolled his eyes. There were Sentinels who wandered away - men and women whose voices called to him in dreams and then vanished.
“I heard that some Sentinels are feeling compelled to avoid us. I mean, really, Mom. It’s not like we’re out there looking for people. I have all the Sentinels I can handle, so making me out to be the boogey man is so not cool.”
“I never said you were the boogey man,” Naomi said with a huff.
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, Mom.”
“Or smoke bombs,” Naomi countered. “I always tell Sentinels that I’m proud of my little boy. You and Jim are quite good at making the military bend.”
“But you think we should keep Sentinels out of the military altogether,” Blair guessed. Sometimes Blair wondered if Naomi was as free-spirited as she liked to believe because she clearly wanted to pull them all out. Hell, he’d be thrilled to keep Sentinels away, only Sentinels were people with these weird little beliefs. Like they believed they should be able to choose their own work.
Auden had lasted three weeks in the first camp before Leading Seaman Adam “do not make a Batman joke” West showed up to guide him. They were back on a ship and happy to be at work within a month. Oh, they were good about sticking around for a while. Then Danny Griffin took a liking to a military attaché named Peter Lotherman sent out by the Army and Hannah and Sims stabilized enough to take a serious hating to each other and Clark Bechtel started seeing invisible animals. Life just started going on whether they were ready or not and somewhere along the line, it started seeming normal to have so many Sentinels around. However, Auden and West didn’t want to be part of the new Sentinel reality. They were happy to announce to the Navy they were Sentinel and Guide, and then head back to their ship. Of course, a few weeks after that, they were sharing a bed. That had caused a few more ripples, but Jim’s bluntness had managed to finally just embarrass certain officers into silence, and regulations changed again.
“The military is their choice,” Blair said. Naomi didn’t want to hear the rest of the argument, and Blair was too tired to make it.
“I’m just offering an alternative, Sweetie. Alternatives are always good.”
Blair smiled. “Yes, mom, they are.” Certain Sentinels were too suspicious of any organization to deal with the military regulations that seemed to seep into the Cascade camp no matter how many times Blair told them they weren’t military here. Rank didn’t matter here. Rules included respecting others and respecting yourself enough to get help if you were in danger of zoning. That’s it. Looking at the structure of the camp going up in the Cascade Mountains, Blair was pretty sure they’d made their own rules despite him.
Flashing him one of her brightest smiles, Naomi turned her attention back to the camp. “Besides, it’s not like the Sentinels are all here. You’re pinned down to this place and Alex and I can search the rest of the world.” She gave him a knowing smile that suggested she thought she’d won. Before Blair could figure out how to answer that, she changed the subject. “How’s Jim?”
“Cranky as a bear. He says that if they can’t stop asking his advice on every little thing he’s kicking them all off his land.”
Naomi laughed. “Well, at least he’s not encouraging dependence.”
The very thought made Blair laugh. “No, not so much.”
Incacha came to sit at Blair’s other side. “The temple rises. It is as it should be.”
“Men.” Naomi rolled her eyes. “Yes, you have your temple, but you don’t actually need a visual representation of power. Power is like sand… it runs through your fingers and vanishes on the breeze. However, some people become so focused on their penises that they can’t see that.” She stared at the camp, and Blair knew she was looking at the large center pillar. “Of course, that’s not you, Honey.” She patted his arm and managed to make it perfectly clear that she did consider it him even as she said she didn’t.
“I hear you, mom.”
Naomi turned and smiled so widely that her eyes crinkled up. “I’ll give Alex your love.” With that, she blinked and vanished. She really was better with the spirit plain than he was. He had to wait for something to startle him out of a vision.
“It is as it has always been,” Incacha said. “When I saw Enqueri, I saw the stone that stood in the storm. I did not know if the storm would appear to awaken the power.”
“That would be my mother,” Blair said dryly.
Incacha nodded. “The storm awakens the sleepers, the stone protects them from the wrath of the winds. The universe is balance.”
“So, Jim only won because the universe wanted him to?”
Incacha stared down at the camp. Looking at it with an anthropologist’s eye, Blair could see why Incacha had called it a temple. The stone pillar stood in what a Greek archeologist would call a cella-the central room. A pronaos or front greeting area was forming near the informal parking lot and newly arrived Sentinels put up their temporary tents there. The opisthodomos had the more permanent tents-huge things with wood platforms. A rough column structure was even appearing. Several trees had been stripped of lower branches and their bare trunks used for anchors for laundry lines and privacy screens. It was a sort of ragged, pathetic temple, but it was getting there.
“The stone and the storm must exist together, but whether the storm or the stone prevails, that is what humans must decide.” Incacha rested his hand against Blair’s shoulder for a moment, and then he too was gone. Blair looked down at the camp, and as much as he loved his mother, he was voting for the stone every time. Some days this felt too chaotic, so Naomi’s storm would have been like standing in the middle of a hurricane.
Jim’s jaguar came and sat next to him, the heavy, hot weight comfortable against Blair’s leg. “Did you catch that?” Blair asked.
“Most of it,” Jim said, but his voice was a distant shout. He was climbing the path, but it would be some time before he got up here and could wake Blair from the vision. Meanwhile, Blair ran his fingers down the jaguar’s back, feeling the strong muscles under his hand. The peace lulled him deeper into the vision and mist rose until Blair could see a temple, a strange combination of steel and hand smoothed stones in hundreds of various colors and textures that rose above the treeline with the forest growing right up to it. Lower buildings in irregular shapes tucked into slopes all around the central building.
Men and women wandered through the trees and standing on terraces that led into the center of the temple-no glass to keep the outside air from drifting through. An odd bus with a CPD logo stood in the parking lot of hand-cut stones. Sentinels practiced on the stones. They’d stand a hundred or two hundred feet away and try to cut a stone that fit so perfectly, down to the millimeter, that it locked into place without mortar. That’s how the temple was built, too. One stone at a time. Every Sentinel who came through put at least one stone in place. The construction tickled something at the back of Blair’s memory. Kids spilled off the bus, but as they ran, they vanished into the mist. The temple faded and Blair was surprised to see the camp reappear, the CPD bus gone, the children gone.
“The Commissioner wants to come up and make a case for Sentinels to join the police department. He said that since prosecutors have been running your cases for years, Cascade could offer them a chance to work in the civilian world without having to be the center of their own little publicity storm because they’re the only Sentinel in town. I guess he figures staying in town with the Sentinel Supreme Commander would shield them from that,” Blair told Jim.
Blair couldn’t hear an answer, but he imagined Jim was somewhere below him cursing him out brilliantly. The press might not have landed on that particular title, but they did tend to call him the Chief Sentinel or the Sentinel Prime, which Jim complained made him sound like a Transformer. One reporter insisted on calling him the Sentinel Champion while another had settled on the term Praefectus. Jim cringed every time someone even used the word, even in jest. Most reporters used phrases like most prominent or original Sentinel, although Jim wasn’t exactly original. There were others before him, and Blair was starting to believe thousands would follow. However, he could feel the world struggle to find a comfortable groove and settle into it. They just had to make sure they found the right groove. This was work that would outlast all of them.
A hand fell on Blair’s shoulder, and Blair blinked as the world shimmered and colors shifted slightly, the warmth of Jim’s jaguar vanishing as the cat dissolved into the air. Blair smiled up at Jim. “Thanks man. I am so not good with pulling out of trances.”
“Call me Supreme Commander again, and I’m shoving your head in the toilet and giving you a swirly,” Jim threatened with a glare.
“Oooo. Now that sounds like a threat. I should report you to a cop friend of mine,” Blair said. Jim’s eyes narrowed into an expression that might have looked aggravated on someone else.
“You should consider the circumstances before mouthing off, Chief. Isolated in the woods, far enough for newer Sentinels to not hear you… you’re rather vulnerable out here.” Jim stalked forward, and Blair could imagine his spirit guide him that strong body guiding it. Blair started to get up, but before he could, Jim leapt.
Catching Blair by the stomach, Jim shoved him back down to the ground so fast that Blair squeaked. It was a manly sort of squeak, sort of, but sometimes he just forgot how strong Jim was and how much he liked to be crowded.
Opening his mouth to make a token protest, Blair was cut off when Jim kissed him, his hot body pinning Blair to the ground while Jim’s mouth did nasty, nasty things that short circuited all of Blair’s higher order thinking. Jim pressed his tongue in deeper and then groaned, the vibrations travelling right through to Blair.
Instinctive, Blair reached out, grabbing a handful of pine needles before he changed tactics and reached up to grab Jim’s shirt. One of Jim’s hands stroked down over Blair’s neck and to his arm where Jim’s fingers pressed so deep that Blair was pretty sure he’d have four matching bruises with a thumbprint on the opposite side, but he couldn’t care less. He was hungry. Starving. The new Sentinels took so much time, and Blair wanted more. He needed more.
Jim pulled back, and Blair gulped at the air, his head spinning and his cock so hard that Blair was afraid it might break.
“You’re cute when you’re speechless, Chief,” Jim teased.
“Fuck you,” Blair shot back without any particular heat. He was too horny to care about an insult that was probably true. Emasculating because no man liked to be cute, but true nonetheless.
Jim leaned in closer and licked the sensitive skin behind Blair’s left ear, making Blair cry out and shiver. Fuck. One lick had left him ready to come in his pants. “How about I fuck you?” Jim whispered before nipping at Blair’s ear.
Arching his back, Blair moaned and grabbed at Jim’s shoulders. “Fuck, yes,” Blair agreed. Top, bottom, sideways, upside-down… he didn’t care how he got laid as long as he got to have some intense and private sex with his lover.
With a chuckle, Jim leaned in and pressed a kiss to the spot behind Blair’s right ear. “Sometimes I have this fantasy.”
“Hmmm?” Blair squirmed, his cock uncomfortably tight in his pants, but it was the best kind of hurt.
“You’re spreading yourself thin trying to help everyone, and I come in and grab you. I slip by hand around your mouth to cover your screams and I pull you to my car.” Jim covered Blair’s mouth and then pressed small kisses to each of Blair’s eyelids, forcing him to close his eyes. Oh yeah, Blair was so going to come in his pants. “I tie you up and throw you in the car and run away with you. I take you back to that lake where we went when Alex was after you, and I spend all week ravishing you.”
Blair snorted behind Jim’s palm.
Jim’s lip quirked. “Okay, ravish might be a little over the top,” he admitted with a shrug. “But I keep you tied up. I feed you and at night I put you on your stomach and I fuck you until you’re begging to come.” Jim’s voice got softer and softer until Blair had to strain to hear him. Then Jim nipped Blair’s right ear, and Blair bucked up, gasping through his nose.
“Someone likes that plan,” Jim said, his hand slipping down over Blair’s cheek and shoulder.
“Someone likes that plan a lot,” Blair agreed. He did. “Only maybe-” Blair was going to suggest that maybe they shouldn’t do it with so many new Sentinel in camp or maybe they shouldn’t do it with the commissioner demanding to come up. He couldn’t think of a dozen things to say, but he couldn’t say any of them with Jim kissing the life out of him. Jim’s tongue swept through his mouth, pressing deeper.
When Blair was kissed to the point of language-incompetence, Jim pulled back and kissed a trail down over Blair’s neck before nipping at the front. Blair yelped, and Jim sucked the offended skin, taking the sting out but leaving a mark that would be visible for days.
“Caveman,” Blair complained, but then Jim was unbuttoning his shirt and Blair didn’t care if his lover was a primitive throwback who liked to mark his territory. Actually, it was sort of hot. Hot like Jim’s hands which were roaming over Blair’s chest. A thumb rubbed Blair’s nipple hard enough to make it hot, and Blair thrashed under Jim’s touch.
Leaning in, Jim pressed a chaste kiss to the abused nipple before humming so the vibrations traveled through Blair’s skin, making him feel like he was the Sentinel with nerve-endings turned up too high. Jim braced his hand against Blair’s chest and pushed himself up, his second hand pulling at his own buttons. When Blair reached up to help, Jim gave little more than an inarticulate growl before sacrificing the last two buttons and ripping the shirt off.
Okay, that was hot. Blair never had a lover that stuck around long term, and here they were years into their relationship, and Jim still lost control and sacrificed buttons. Now that was love.
“Where was I?” Jim asked, looking down at Blair with an expression that looked like the wolf about to pounce on its prey. He gave a lazy smile. “Oh yeah.” Jim shifted forward so his weight pressed into Blair’s cock.
“Fuck. I mean… fuck.” Blair gave a keening cry as Jim rubbed Blair’s other nipple until it was hot and sore before leaning down to lick at it. Blair’s fingers dug into Jim’s arms and he arched up, silently begging for more, but Jim continued his slow torture.
Jim began silently rocking forward and back, his body mimicking a sexual act they couldn’t do with clothes on, and Blair started making little pained moans of pleasure and pain. That reached Jim. Shifting off Blair’s cock, he quickly stripped them both of their pants, laying the jeans on the ground under Blair. Blair would complain about getting treated like a fucking doll, but 1) he was too horny to care and 2) the damn pine needles stuck him in some very uncomfortable places. So Jim could Mother Hen all he wanted.
“Shit I’ve missed you, Chief. I thought it was bad when you were writing your dissertation, but Dr. Sandburg has even less time.” Jim settled himself between Blair’s legs, his knees on the jeans he’d spread on the ground.
Blair pushed himself up so that he could run his fingers down Jim’s cheek. “Feel free to chain me to the nearest piece of furniture any time I’m not taking care of myself or my Sentinel or my lover,” Blair said, his voice solemn, edging on the guide voice that compelled Jim to obey.
Jim’s eyebrow quirked. “Out here it’s going to be rope and the nearest tree,” he warned.
“Which also works, but next time, bring a quilt,” Blair said with a smile. The seriousness of the moment passed, and with another wolfish grin, Jim looked down at Blair’s hard cock. The tip was already damp with a bit of precum and Blair’s balls felt too damn full to be healthy. “One touch and I’m coming like a fucking firehose,” Blair warned.
“No you aren’t,” Jim disagreed. Before Blair could ask what that meant, Jim caught the base of Blair’s cock and squeezed just hard enough to make Blair shout, his whole body stiffening in a need to come even though the pressure against his cock prevented it. The pleasure and the pain both sat on a knife’s edge of need, and then Jim leaned down and took Blair in his mouth, his cheeks puffing out as he slid down on Blair’s hard cock.
Blair screamed, his arms going wide and his finger digging deep into the ground as he tried to find some handhold. Jim hummed, and Blair’s cries settled into a keening mewl, a helpless whine of need and pleasure. A slick finger slipped inside Blair, and even with Jim’s hand at the base of his cock, Blair came with a shriek and a wave of white pleasure that melted every bone in his body. Blair lay against the earth, his arms spread wide and his lungs gasping for breath.
Jim collapsed next to him, and in some distant corner of Blair’s brain, he noted Jim’s softening cock pressing against Blair’s leg. Even with the nip of the coming winter in the air, Blair felt hot, like he had to shed heat before spontaneously catching on fire.
Beside him, Jim breathed heavily, each breath a puff of hot air against Blair’s neck. They lay in the cool air for a long time before Jim cleared his throat. “You okay?”
“I didn’t get fucked,” Blair complained softly, but he did it with a grin.
“Smartass,” Jim said. “You watch it. I’m going to kidnap you and tie you to a tree for a good fucking the first chance I get.”
“Promises, promises.” Blair smiled wider. When he’d been a kid and caught his first glimpse of the Burton Sentinel manuscript, he’d had no idea what the future held. None. He’d been a stupid kid standing at the edge of a cliff going, ‘hey, let’s jump off this.’
Jim pressed a kiss to Blair’s neck. “I’m glad you did jump, Chief.”
Blair lay there, wallowing in the silence for a moment before his eyes popped open. “Did I say that out loud?”
Jim slowly opened his own eyes. He tilted his head and studied Blair for a few seconds. “Nope,” he finally offered.
“But. How?” Blair’s mouth fell open.
“Well, if we’re going to let the Commissioner up here, which we really should since he’s given me the leave time, you know we’re going to have a dozen more requests by the end of the week. Let’s go set up procedures for recruiters.” Jim said, his voice all business. Reaching out for his jeans, he pulled them out from under Blair and started shoving his long legs into them.
“But. I didn’t… You heard me!” Blair finally spit out.
“Yep,” Jim agreed.
Before Blair could gather any more missing brain cells, Jim had pulled his shirt on and was heading down the trail with a whistle. Well hell. Telepathy. New, weird-ass agenda item number 217. Blair was going to run out of years long before he ran out of weird-ass. A chuckle echoed through the forest. It sounded suspiciously like Incacha even though it must have been Jim. It must have been. Blair pulled his pants on and headed back down the trail toward the new Temple of the Sentinels, Cascade Mountains, Washington.