FIC: The Sentinel: About Those Issues: Slash: J/B: FRT
Title: About Those Issues
Author: escargoat
Fandom: The Sentinel
Words: approx. 3,706
Pairing: J/B - slash
Rating: FRT to really low FRM depending on your sensibilities.
Summary: While paying off a debt to a fellow anthropologist, Blair learns more about Jim’s sex life than he wanted to know. Humor.
Disclaimer: The Sentinel is owned by people and companies who are not me. I’m making no money off of this endeavor.
Warnings: Umm, sex toys and talk of using them in anal situations
A/N: This was written for the fifth round of TS_Ficathons. The theme this round was Vices. Each participant was assigned a drink, a dessert and a drug. My prompts (assigned by my fellow writers as I was the mod) were as follows:
Drink: Harvey Wallbanger
Dessert: Hot Fudge Sundae. Cherries, chopped nuts and whipped cream optional.
Drug: amyl nitrate or poppers
A big thanks to Mab for performing the beta on this for me. Any mistakes found are completely mine.
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Blair forced himself to browse the shelves at a leisurely pace. Keeping his eyes open at a normal level, he wandered about the store trying to take note of where the cashier and the sales person were at all times while trying to appear like he was shopping instead of observing. Mentally, he tallied up the number of other customers shopping and tried to make notice of their reactions as well.
If Jim only knew the sacrifices that he made in order to be with him on the job so much…
Who was he kidding? Jim would laugh his ass off if he knew the payment that Blair was currently making on his IOU to a teaching fellow for covering his classes last week.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Heather was a beautiful, intelligent woman and a good teacher. His students never suffered in her capable hands. Blair though, Blair was suffering. Somehow he had failed to notice that Heather had gotten a steady boyfriend. So instead of the dinner and movie that she usually chose for payment, she had roped Blair into participating in her latest anthropological study.
It was a fairly interesting topic that would probably sell well to the less academic set: a study on how people react to non-typical shoppers. Middle aged housewives in grunge wear stores, biker gang members in fancy candle shops, Blair Sandburgs in female geared sex shops…
What the hell did he ever do to Heather anyway?
The Lady’s Assistant was marketed as a place that sold sex items that women really wanted. It was run by women for women. And Blair was starting to lose track of the suspicious and unwelcoming glances he was receiving. It was time to just buy something, and get his pert little butt out of the damn store already.
Seeing a brightly lit display with some handmade signs, he wandered over to it hoping that it was a sale rack so that he didn’t have to spend too much money.
“Have a dripping good time with your new hot fudge sundae,” the signs proclaimed. “Chop out the nuts, but still have that full feeling of satisfaction. Great for popping your sex toy cherry! Comes with complimentary tube of whipped cream lube!”
Apparently female geared didn’t necessarily mean that there was tact anywhere involved.
Horrified that anybody would insert anything that looked like a misshapen string of ice cream blobs into any bodily orifice, Blair turned around abruptly and grabbed a random toy off of the shelf behind him.
“Oh, excuse me,” a strangely familiar female voice buzzed in Blair’s ear.
Feeling like he was stuck in a bad horror movie, Blair slowly turned his head to find himself looking into the bemused, and slightly sad, face of Jim Ellison’s ex-wife.
“Carolyn.” He smiled uneasily as he tried to nonchalantly pretend that he did not have a dildo in his hand.
“Blair, I uh, didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Yeah, well, I was on my way home,” he heard himself stammer.
Carolyn flushed a bit, and Blair suddenly realized how his words had been taken.
“I mean, that is to say…”
Carolyn put up her hand in a classic ‘stop’ gesture. “It’s okay, really. I was very happy to hear that you stuck with Jimmy. He, he needs somebody I think. I had just hoped… well I guess I had hoped that his problems with our sex life were because he was in denial. I thought when he took up with you that being with another man might be what he was looking for.”
Blair stared stupidly at her because his brain was mightily protesting processing any of the information that she had just given him.
“I know it isn’t really any of my business anymore. You’ve been with Jimmy for almost three years now, so it must not bother you.”
“I, uh, no nope doesn’t bother me at all. Jim’s uh… thing in the… bedroom? With, uh, toys?” He babbled uncertainly.
Carolyn smiled indulgently at him. “I’m happy Jimmy found you. I don’t think that he could’ve found anybody more open minded. I tried, really, but I just couldn’t live in an abnormal relationship with my husband.”
Blair just continued to shoot a strained smile at her because he couldn’t think what he was supposed to say to a woman who apparently thought he was in a kinky gay relationship with her ex-husband.
“So, uh, what brings you here? Not to Cascade, Serena mentioned you were in town for a court case, but umm, you know here?”
“Oh, I’m here to collect a comparison sample of a specialty gag. We’ve got a suspect that claims rough sex gone wrong with malfunctioning equipment. This store carries the same gag, so I’m here to pick some up for testing. As long as I was in town, I figured I might as well stop by. Plus, this way the suspect can’t claim that the store where he purchased the gag only sold us good copies so they wouldn’t get sued.”
“Oh, well, uh, good luck with your gags, uh case,” Blair said cheerily as he waved goodbye with the hand that wasn’t carrying a phallic object in a box.
The cashier sneered at him and dawdled coming over to assist him with his purchase, but Blair barely remembered to note how long it took to receive service. He was too busy trying to figure out how he was going to forget the conversation that he’d just been subjected to.
He was still trying to avoid thinking the words ‘Jim’ and ‘kink’ while he was driving home, so it took a while to register that his cell phone was ringing. That, it turned out, wasn’t a good thing because there was a very irate Simon Banks on the other end.
“Where the hell have you been, Sandburg?”
“I was running a few errands, and I left my cell in the car to charge.”
“Great, well I need you to come take Jim home because I am up to my eyeballs in press members and lawyers right now,” Simon grumbled.
“What? Simon, what’s wrong? What happened?”
“Seems that Jim busted a certain high profile politician accepting a bribe of cash and cocaine from a certain high profile drug dealer in a dance rave downtown. It being Jim, a fight naturally broke out while he was arresting the suspects. Some of the other club patrons had been carrying poppers, and guess who managed to inhale some of the good stuff?”
“Oh, man, how’s he doing? He didn’t, you know the side effects of…”
“He’s fine now Sandburg, although he kept mumbling something about ‘blue jungle time’… In any case he’s okay, but says he’s got a terrible headache. The doctor cleared him to go home, but he can’t drive himself.”
“I’ll come get him,” Blair assured the other man as he threw his blinker on to take him to the hospital instead of the loft.
He completely forgot about the package sitting on the passenger’s side floor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I’m fine.” Jim protested weakly as Blair shoved a pair of sunglasses in his direction the instant that he wedged Jim past the passenger’s side door.
“Sure you are,” Blair agreed amicably as he slammed said door shut and went around to get in the driver’s seat.
“It’s just a little headache.” Jim began again as soon as Blair was in the car.
“Didn’t say that it wasn’t, man.”
“Are you trying reverse psychology on me, Sandburg?”
“No, nope, c’mon, Jim, man, buddy, why would I do that?” Blair almost squeaked.
Jim grunted and rubbed his throbbing temples.
“Hurts pretty bad, huh?” Blair asked consolingly.
“Well, I’m not going out to repeat the experience if that’s what you’re asking. Felt like the whole world got put on pause, and I was stuck in the middle of a porno movie. Half expected to see that damn panther roaming around.”
“Is that what it feels like when you have your visions? The slowing of time, and, uh…”
“Sensual?” Jim interrupted with particular emphasis on the word and a warning glare.
Blair took the hint and nodded earnestly. “Right… Sensual.”
Jim sighed and snapped, “I’m a sentinel. What do you think?”
What Blair thought was that he really wished he had never wanted to know about Jim’s sex life.
“I guess I was thinking about it from the spiritual aspect, you know? Not that, uh, you, uh got, uh…”
“Is there something wrong with you, Sandburg? Because you’re acting like you’re the one who got dosed with the happy drugs.”
“Nothing wrong with me, maybe those drugs are still messing with your senses?”
Jim grunted noncommittally to that, but fell silent which was his way of saying ‘maybe you’re right.’ Blair felt like a heel because he’d just led his best friend down the primrose path, and he’d used the sentinel thing as an excuse. Still, there wasn’t much room left to go backwards. Not unless he admitted that he was jumpy because he’d just found out that Jim’s marriage fell apart because of his kinky tendencies.
The rest of the ride was completed in silence, and it wasn’t until Blair had pulled into his parking spot that he remembered the shopping bag sitting next to Jim’s feet.
His attempt to grab the plain brown bag was aborted by his friend’s helpful hand.
“I got it, Chief. I think I can handle carrying a bag for you.” Jim all but snarled in an obvious attempt to not look like a complete cripple.
Blair backed off and walked sedately behind Jim each excruciating step to the door of the loft, eyeing the bag all the way there.
“Here we are. Home sweet home. See? I can even get the key in the lock.” Jim said as he all but shoved the small piece of metal in.
“Great, that’s great, Jim. Really, really…”
“Great?”
“I was going to go for stupendous, but whatever works for you, man.”
Jim shrugged and tossed Blair’s bag on the table.
“We have any of the good beer left, Chief?”
“Beer? You want beer? Jim, don’t you think that you’re in enough pain?”
“Already have a hangover, so I might as well have a few beers. Besides, it might mellow me out.”
Blair didn’t think he agreed with that logic, but he couldn’t actually deny Jim alcohol as his partner wasn’t on any medication at the moment, the poppers had probably worked their way out of his system, and Blair wasn’t his mother. Besides, he was much more concerned with figuring out a way to get his purchase off the table without Jim noticing.
The door to the refrigerator creaked open as the surly detective began his hunt for ‘the good stuff,’ so Blair took that as his opportunity to abscond with his sack. Stealthily, he sneaked over to the edge of the table. His hand was about to wrap itself gently around the paper sack when the phone began to ring.
A crashing sound in the kitchen followed by a muttered curse informed Blair that the phone had startled his partner more than it had him. It also told him that he should probably answer the phone before Jim could get to it.
“I got it,” he said cheerily as he grabbed the handset out of Jim’s grasp.
His partner glared at him, but didn’t make any attempt to remove the phone from Blair’s fingers. Instead he stalked over to the corner where he kept the broom and mop so that he could begin cleaning up his beer.
“Hello? Oh, Mrs. Durken, no. No, I’m pretty sure that we don’t have your mail up here.”
Jim’s disgusted grunt at overhearing the conversation gave Blair a reason to glare at him. Mrs. Durken was a sweet, if slightly senile, old lady. Jim’s opinion of her was that she was a conniving, manipulative shrew who was trying to set them up with her granddaughters.
Resolutely, Blair turned his back on his partner and continued his conversation with their elderly neighbor. That was a mistake. Jim’s animal spirit wasn’t a panther just because of all the big mystical associations. At heart Jim was just plain a cat complete with nine lives and an irresistible desire to look in brown paper sacks.
“I’ll let you know if your mail shows up. You too. Bye.” Blair hit the off switch on the phone and turned to give Jim a stern lecture on neighborly friendliness. The words died in his mouth.
Jim had not only removed the sex toy from its bag, he’d removed it from its box as well, and the picture of manly Jim Ellison thoughtfully fingering a dildo was forever burned into Blair’s retinas.
“…” Blair’s words refused to come out of his throat as he stared, horrified, at his roommate.
“The ‘Harvey Wall Banger. Guaranteed to stick to any wall, any time. Ride and writhe to your heart’s content,’” Jim read off the box solemnly.
“Learn something new every day I guess. Just don’t go peeling the paint off the walls with this thing, huh, Chief?”
“You…” Blair felt his face turn a dangerous red color as irritation, anger and mortification all decided that flushing was a great answer to his internal conflict.
“Hey, now. It’s your body, Sandburg. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with a little experimentation. Just, you know, didn’t figure you for that kind of guy.”
“It’s not mine! I mean, it is mine, but it isn’t what it looks like!” Blair protested.
Jim smiled indulgently at him like a parent who had just caught a child with his hand in the cookie jar. “Of course it isn’t.”
Blair snatched the synthetic penis out of Jim’s hands and tried to shove it back in its box. “I’ll have you know that this is part of an anthropological experiment.”
“Yeah? What experiment was that exactly? A study on the societal impacts of items that are cheap knock-offs of lousy drinks?”
“No, and Harvey Wallbangers are good, man. I’d think that you’d show more respect for a drink named after a fellow surfer.”
“Just because I golf doesn’t mean I drink Arnold Palmer’s, and I thought that the drink was invented by some marketing scheme.”
“Whatever,” Blair mumbled in reply as he struggled with the plastic packaging.
“I certainly hope that you’re going to take more care with inserting that when you use it.” Jim commented bemusedly.
“Well I’ll just call you for help if it gets stuck. You being an expert and all,” Blair snarked back.
The room dropped a few degrees, and Blair silently wondered if he should pretend ignorance or admit that, yes, there was indeed a story behind that last remark. The ignorance route was definitely the best option. After all, there was nothing inherently condemning in his words. They could easily be ones that he would’ve chosen before he knew of his partner’s more kinky tendencies.
He heard Jim inhale a deep breath through his nose, and waited for the other man to center himself.
“Fuck.” Jim swore heartily.
“Fuck?”
“You have some goddamn twisted luck, Sandburg. I can’t believe… What did Caro tell you anyway?”
“Carolyn?”
“I can smell her on you, Chief. Don’t go pretending otherwise. You’re the one who put me through all the bloodhound tests in the first place. You think that I didn’t learn to recognize her scent?”
“Yeah, well okay. Look she may have… misinterpreted our relationship, but she wasn’t saying anything in a mean spirited way. She was totally only being supportive, only, well she kind of might have mentioned that you were a bit… Which is so totally not any of my business and you don’t need to worry about it ending up in my dissertation at all. I swear.”
“Ah.”
“Ah? That’s all you’ve got to say?”
“What do you want me to say? Deny it? I’m not going to if that’s what you’re expecting, so you can be happy. One big fucking mystery solved. ‘The Reason James Ellison Couldn’t Stay Married’ is officially closed.”
“Hey now, don’t go putting words into my mouth.”
“I don’t need to put them there. Caro did it for you. Yes, I’m a big perv, okay? I’ve got unnatural desires. And you know what else? I could totally live without it, but it feels good. I screwed my relationship up with Caro because I, I…”
“Apparently really hate yourself and have a poor sexual self image?” Blair supplied testily as he threw the box and sex toy back down on the table. “I cannot believe that you think I’m standing here making some sort of judgment about your preferences. I’ll admit I was a little surprised, but Jim, my mother has probably slept with more men and women than I ever will. Do you see me wandering around shaking my bony finger at her?”
Jim looked away, apparently having the good grace to feel ashamed.
“Furthermore, I think I’m insulted. I know you and the kind of person you are. It takes two to make a marriage work, and I’m guessing that you told Carolyn about your more unusual proclivities before your honeymoon, right?”
Jim nodded.
“Well it’s hardly all your fault then.”
“So it really isn’t going to bother you that I, that I like…” Jim trailed off with an awkward sweep of his hand towards ‘Harvey.’
“Oh for God’s sake! It’s a fucking dildo. Which, you know, is kinda its purpose in life - fucking. But then again, some people believe that we only live to reproduce, so fucking is our purpose too, which means that you aren’t a pervert for liking, uh, phallic assistance.”
Jim stared at his partner for a moment before solemnly asking, “‘Phallic Assistance’?”
Blair grinned in relief at the teasing tone that had reentered Jim’s voice.
“So if you weren’t bothered by my, you know, why were you so jumpy?” Jim asked.
Blair frowned. Wasn’t that the sixty-four thousand dollar question? It wasn’t really the embarrassment of knowing such a private secret about his best friend, and it certainly had nothing to do with his own open mindedness about sex. If he was truly honest with himself, he’d have to admit that the knowledge threw him for a loop because it made the possibility of ‘what if’ come up. All those moments that he’d let slip by unacknowledged were suddenly right back in his face pointing out the sheer potential that he had with Jim.
Which was just plain stupid because being open to sex play didn’t in any way mean that Jim was open having sex with another man.
Realizing that he hadn’t answered his friend, Blair pasted on a calm look and replied, “Well, I guess, I mean I’m curious - Carolyn didn’t give specifics you know? And seems how I already know…”
“Aww, Sandburg. I’ve got a headache here.”
“A headache that you had forgotten all about.”
“Sandburg!”
“No, don’t tell me, you like dog collars. Or, or you’re really into playing with feathers. I could see that man, even before your senses came back on-line they were still there. Or maybe you like something more robust? Whippings? No, wait those would be hell on your skin.”
“Oh for crying out loud, it’s got nothing to do with being a sentinel. I have a prostate. It feels good to play with, and sometimes I like a little something more substantial. Okay? Happy now? Can we let the subject drop?”
“Yeah, yeah, subject dropped,” Blair said as he went back to trying to put ‘Harvey’ into its packaging. Frustrated with the entire way that the night had gone and aware that Jim was looking at him speculatively, Blair shoved unnecessarily hard and ‘Harvey’ bent in an unnatural way.
“You just broke your new dick.” Jim commented dryly.
“Yeah, well he was a cheap date at least, so I don’t have to feel bad about not getting lucky.”
“Well, he’s just bent a little. You can pop him back into shape.”
Blair shrugged. “I like my men a little bent. I mean, if they aren’t, then they’re not interested in me.”
“And you want to know if I’m a little bent too?”
‘Harvey’ fell from Blair’s fingers and hit the floor. He and Jim both stared down at the dildo.
“I’m guessing that means I’m correct?” Jim stated as he bent over to gently retrieve the toy.
“I… No!”
“Because I think I might be. Just a little bit. Not as bad as ‘Harvey’ here, but… The most intimate experience of my life happened in a blue jungle with a spirit wolf.”
“I…”
“I told you I was a perv.”
“Well, okay then. I guess, I mean, was it just… When were you planning on telling me that?”
“I wasn’t, but then you came home with that, and well, let’s be honest. You don’t buy something that big and that anatomically correct when you’re doing straight guy experimentation. There are lots of other options out on the market if you just want a little action back there.”
“So based on this you assume that I want your Harvey to get introduced to my more intimate places?” Blair tried to sound affronted, but his tone was off because there was a pretty big part of him that did actually want that.
“Am I wrong?”
“Well, no.”
“Thought not.”
“I’m not just jumping in the sack with you though.”
“Didn’t ask. Wouldn’t want that, and not to sound cliché here, but I’ve got a headache.”
“So… what do we do then?”
“Well, I’m going to go to bed, so you can go have a good time with ‘Harvey’ if you want. Tomorrow we can go out on a date. Sound like a plan to you?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Good. Oh, and Sandburg? Just so you know, nobody ever buys that ‘anthropological study’ line anymore,” Jim informed him with a gentle pat on the shoulder before he turned and made his way up to his bedroom.
Shaking his head in disbelief, Blair plucked his toy up and headed off to his own bedroom.