New Sentinel fic - -The Couch
Title: The Couch
Length: 3900 words
Rating: R. Slash.
Pairing: Jim/Blair
This one has been muttering at me for weeks to just finish it, already; I'm finally kicking it out of my house in self defense so I can work on Moonridge stuff in peace.
Many, many thanks to janedavitt for beta reading this. I so much appreciate your help in making this better, Jane! ::hugs you grateful hugs::
The Couch
His arm was flying, unattached to his body; which was cool. Except it didn’t last -- his upper arm fell back against the side of his ribcage and a moment later his hand landed on something right in front of him and bounced, very slightly.
Huh. Reattached. Apparently.
“Up.” And with audio.
By the time Blair surfaced enough to translate the sound into a word it was followed by another.
“Out.” Wrong. Sleep.
The hand now shaking his shoulder obviously didn’t agree with the sleep idea. He protested with a “What?” that ended up coming out less like a reasonable question than a mumble into the pillow -- a somewhat petulant mumble, yeah, but the shoulder-shaker probably deserved it.
Hey, nice pillow. No lumps. Really smoo-o-o-th pillowcase.
Blair forced an eyelid halfway open. Night. Wonderful. Waking up was one of those things a person shouldn’t have to do in the dark.
“Get up and go downstairs to sleep.” At home, then, not on a date, because that was Jim’s voice. Impatient; Simon must have called about a case or something --
Wait… go downstairs? What was wrong with -- smooth, not-lumpy pill-- Oh.
Jim’s pillow. Right.
“Why?” Not what he should have been asking, Blair realized with suddenly increased coherence. Not when the answer was why not.
“You’re a menace in bed, Sandburg. I’m tired of the thrashing octopus routine; take your sixteen arms and legs downstairs.”
Okay, that had to be an exaggeration. Sure, he did a little tossing and turning from time to time; who didn’t? But everything was currently present and accounted for, and he seemed to be occupying a perfectly polite and ordinary amount of the bed. Off to the side, even, not like he was climbing Jim in his sleep or any--
“Up and out.” That was punctuated with a push against Blair’s back and a tug on the sheet twisted -- inexplicably -- beneath him, which rolled him nearly off the edge of the bed.
“Nice, Jim.” Blair got to his feet and pushed his hair out of his face with a grimace. “Dick.”
Not bothering to look for his clothes, he flipped off Jim’s shadowy grumbling form and shuffled cautiously down the dark stairs and into his room. Flopping down on his own uncritical bed should have felt good, except --
“Shit! What the …oh. Ow.”
“Sandburg.” That sounded less like concern than complaint.
“Forgot the books.” Like Jim cared; the three distinctly pissed-off body parts that had just landed on uncomfortably unyielding objects didn’t belong to him. Blair rubbed the afflicted areas with annoyance. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Jim’s fault he’d forgotten why they’d ended up in Jim’s bed instead of on the futon. Blaming Jim sounded tempting, though. So what if he didn’t have a leg to stand on, morally.
Or a bed to sleep in, unless he cleared it off first. Which would mean turning on the light and being careful -- sweeping all the books and painstakingly organized crap onto the floor would be instantly gratifying, but it would leave him with a bitch of a mess in the morning and be a little hard on the books. And it wasn’t their fault, either.
And it was the middle of the night, probably, and he was standing in his room being fair to his own personally created inanimate chaos like it actually cared.
Hell, maybe it did.
Okay, couch, then. Except -- fuck. ‘For Christ’s sake, Sandburg. Not on my couch.’ Jim had nearly stroked out at the thought of getting any stray molecules of free-range spunk anywhere near his sofa. And while it wasn’t like Blair hadn’t made use of Jim’s handy bedside box of Puffs, he'd maybe been a little casual about it. By that last time, anyway. Still, toss on some sweats, hit the couch, Jim could just --
Of course, except for the not-couch part, the whole thing had been his own idea in the first place. Blair paused in his bedroom doorway, frowning.
Damn.
So, yeah, bathroom first. Clean up and get some sleep.
He sighed and headed to the bathroom. It was understandable, in a way, the couch thing. Jim had a killer excuse for being environmentally over-aware; genetics as anal imperative. Which was actually -- ow. The hand Blair had been using to think with smacked against the bathroom door-frame, just hard enough to override the residual throb where his right thigh had been jabbed by Devereux's Basic Problems of Ethnopsychiatry. Probably. It had felt like the Devereux, anyway. Although it could have been Sussman.
Ow. Okay, so the couch thing was actually valid. Logical. It was reasonable. It was -- it was total stick-up-the-ass unreasonable, was what it was. Jim wasn’t going to be up for any halftime action during Jags’ games just because he didn’t trust the scotch-guarding?
Total stick-up-the-ass unreasonable. Which Jim was way too good at being.
Of course, Jim was good at a lot of things, some of which weren’t unreasonable at all.
And hell, it was Jim’s loft, after all. Jim’s couch. Jim’s choice.
Jim’s unreasonable choice.
Blair finished cleaning up, flushing the toilet after he pissed -- hey, what was life without self-expression? -- and pulled on the sweats he’d grabbed on his way out of his room. Good enough. Or as good as he planned to get, anyway.
The loft was deeply quiet as he navigated cautiously through the dark into the living room and stretched out on the couch whose upholstered sanctity he’d just preserved. With a yawn, he tugged the afghan around himself and closed his eyes. Sleep. He was short on sleep, way short, like always. Since he wasn’t doing Sentinel stuff or U stuff or cop stuff, or having sex, or doing the social stuff that tended to sooner or later let him have sex, he really, seriously, needed to be sleeping. Now.
Sleeping. Which he’d been doing, before being compared to a mutant cephalopod and tossed out of bed. And if Jim was like that with all his dates no wonder his social life sucked.
Not that that had been a date. Nothing like that. God, no.
Nothing like that.
Sleep… sleep.
Now would be good.
Maybe he should make some decaf. Or maybe not -- coffee was never the same after they’d castrated the beans. Not that it mattered, anyway; he was pretty sure he’d pitched the last of Jim’s chemically decaffeinated crap last week.
Tea, though -- yeah. Tea. Nature’s Sominex, not yet corporately fucked with to serve sleep-deprived humanity. Valerian, maybe. Or chamomile. Passionflower… Nope, not going there. Passion -- well, sex; passion was way too suggestive a word, under the circumstances -- was the reason he was lying here on the couch, awake; which made the sarcasm level of his passionflower tea just a little hard to take at the moment.
Okay. Meditation. Perfect solution. He didn’t need sarcastic tea or -- nonexistent -- neutered coffee in order to go to sleep. He just needed to take a couple of deep breaths, choose the right mantra, find his peaceful, ever-present center. That was all. No problem.
Perfect solution.
Except maybe it would be good to know what time it was. Blair squinted pointlessly toward the fuzzy green glow of the VCR clock and sat up. Glasses. His glasses were on the coffee table -- no, end table. No, on top of one of the stereo speakers. Which was weird.
Glasses on… 1:42.
Okay. Good to know. Blair put his glasses on the coffee table and lay back down on the couch, pulling the afghan up again.
The refrigerator motor hummed. Jim was breathing evenly. Slowly. He couldn’t hear Jim breathe when he was in his own room, just when he was out here. On the sacred couch.
The virgin couch.
But surely not -- Carolyn had lived here with Jim, right? They’d been married two years and the couch had never been christened?
Even after the divorce?
Christened. …Christine. Man, he’d been on the road to christening the couch that night himself. If Jim hadn’t come home early -- but by then he’d already flashed on --
Whoa. Not going there. Over it. Totally.
And, it was good, really, to be sleeping out here, because Jim hadn’t yelled down a pointless insult when he’d flushed the john, and normally that would mean Jim had to be dead. But Jim breathing meant Jim wasn’t dead, and he could hear Jim breathing; and he wouldn’t be hearing Jim breathing if he was sleeping in his room instead of out here on Jim’s supposedly celibate couch. So it was good, really.
The refrigerator motor clicked off and he could hear Jim even better.
Man, it just wasn’t fucking possible that Jim had never had sex on the couch with someone, never jerked off sitting here. Just not possible, genetically-fueled imperative to protect the upholstery or not.
Which meant -- shit -- it was just sex on the couch with Sandburg that was the big turn-off.
Shit. What, Jim, I've got crabs or something? Wonderful. At least Jim could triple-wash his fucking Sandburg-infested Pima cotton sheets, keep the loft safe for… for… whatever. Not democracy. Not Ellison.
Okay, stop -- this was just a little low-self-esteem fostered paranoia talking, right? Jim was Jim. Jim didn’t usually eat spaghetti on the couch, either. But that wasn’t because he didn’t like spaghetti. Spaghetti was just more… active than, say, popcorn. More exuberant.
Yeah, that made sense. Jim was just being careful about the exuberance factor. Okay.
Like Jim had never let anybody else get exuberant on this couch. Yeah, right.
Blair snaked a hand out from underneath the afghan and snagged his glasses back from the coffee table.
1:56.
Fucking-Sandburg infested sheets.
1:57.
A small rustling noise came from upstairs. Jim got to toss and turn. Of course, one minor rustle wasn’t exactly tossing and turning. And sure, it was Jim’s bed, Jim’s to toss and turn in if he wanted to.
Alone. Or with whoever -- whomever, whatever -- the hell he wanted to toss and turn with. Or whatever he wanted to do with whoever the hell it was.
Probably somebody despicably gorgeous. Probably female, and gorgeous, and Jim would look at her with that --
Okay, sleep deprivation talking here. Had to be. It wasn’t like he’d been picking out the rings, planning on moving into Jim’s bed exclusively or permanently or anything.
Not that Jim had offered.
Which was good, because Blair hadn’t expected him to. Or wanted him to. So not.
Just a little convenient sex between friends. Nothing wrong with that. And Jim obviously wasn’t losing any sleep about it.
Prick.
2:10.
The refrigerator motor clicked on again.
Just a little convenient sex. No reason for Jim to be losing any sleep about it.
2:19.
Crap. He should be doing something. Something useful -- working on the diss, going over notes for class, grading papers. Making spit wads and shooting them at the kitchen sink. Just lying here was a total waste of time.
The refrigerator motor clicked off.
Maybe it was the couch? Yeah. It had to be the couch, which was usually way more comfortable than this. He crashed on it all the time when he was working out here, but he and the couch were clearly not simpatico tonight.
It wasn’t the couch’s fault, though. Not entirely, anyway. Blair had to admit he wasn’t doing his part in the get-comfortable process -- he was long past post-orgasmically-inert comatude, but he was lying here like he’d been glued to the cushions, despite the way his elbow was going numb against the sofa back and the fact that his left ankle had been intermittently itching since possibly forever.
2:25.
Transmogrified. That was it. The sofa had been transmogrified from Crash HQ to the Couch of Immobile Exile.
2:28.
‘It wasn’t the couch’s fault’?
What was up with all the misapplied anthropomorphic fairness-to-furniture shit tonight, anyway? He was a scientist, for fuck’s sake.
Blair turned his head two inches so he could glare more effectively at the back of the sofa. Whose fault it wasn’t, in the first place. Glaring at whose fault it more likely was would require hauling ass to the bathroom and facing the mirror.
If there was any fault.
But there wasn’t any fault; everything was okay. Right? He wasn’t pissed at Jim, Jim wasn’t pissed at him, he and Jim were still solid. No harm, no foul, everything was fine, everybody was happy. Everything was fine. Hey, Jim hadn’t said no, right?
Okay, he hadn’t said yeah, sure right away. But he hadn’t once said no.
Just: not on my couch.
Then: get out of my bed.
2:47.
His ankle was itching again, and again, he wasn't scratching it, and that was just… strange. Blair chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. Not moving was just not him.
Strange.
The furnace clicked on and the rush of blowing air covered the sound of Jim breathing upstairs.
So he was lying here on the consolation-prize couch, not moving a muscle, except for sucking in oxygen -- okay, sure, his heart was beating, involuntary muscles -- and messing with his glasses -- 2:49 -- because…
Because, yeah, if he moved, he’d be up off the couch. Doing something. Something stupid, probably.
Oh, shit. He would, wouldn’t he.
Doing something. Stupid, really.
3:16.
The furnace blower stopped. There was Jim’s slow, peaceful breathing again. Like none of this mattered to him.
Not that it should matter. If it mattered… man, there were a couple of ways that could go. Either it’d matter as in 'What the fuck did you talk me into?' and 'Let me get the door for you, Sandburg, so I can slam it on your ass on your way out.'
Or it’d matter as in… as in… more. Meaning something. Meaningful.
Yeah, well, if it’d meant something to Jim, he wouldn’t be down here sleeping -- make that not sleeping -- on the fucking couch, would he?
The no fucking couch. Blair sighed. There was a sigh from upstairs, almost an echo, and another rustle. Then even slow breathing again.
3:42.
Shit, Jim was strong. Big fucking turn-on. Taking the Ellison muscles out for a couple of personal spins around the block had been way --
No, no, not going there. Not while lying out here on Jim’s repressed couch. Christ. His dick had already gotten him in enough trouble over the course of his life, possibly even during the past twenty-four hours, and he was so not catering to its current greedy twitch with any serious mental replays while he was lying out here on Jim’s repressive couch. Not tonight, anyway.
Nice to have some solid physical data to jack off to in the future, though.
A soft sound from upstairs that wasn’t quite a snore. Nice that Jim was sleeping so peacefully, too. No reason for him not to be, of course.
And things would be… fine. Normal. Breakfast in the morning -- scramble some eggs -- hell, bacon, why not, maybe some hash browns -- the Guatemalan coffee, there was still some of that cinnamon bread for toast, or he could make a doughnut run -- not that anybody alive really needed to eat doughnuts, but still, Jim would --
Oh, shit.
Jim was right. Courtship rituals.
3:58.
Why the fuck hadn’t he just gone out and cruised a couple of bars?
It wasn’t like he’d had to do this. Sure, Jim was… Jim, and hotter than all nine circles of hell combined; but it would have been incredibly way smarter not to put any wear and tear on the Sandburg-Ellison status quo.
If he had.
But he hadn't, right? Nothing had changed. Really. He hadn’t changed. Jim hadn’t changed. Nothing had changed. Everything was fine.
Everything was fine, because nothing would change. He’d date people, Jim would date people, everything would be fine. Status completely quo.
Which was fine.
4:01.
Nothing would change. He would still date people, Jim would still date people.
Everything was fine.
4:02.
He would date people, Jim would date people.
Jim would date people.
Jim would --
No.
Blair was halfway up the steps to Jim’s bedroom before he realized he’d pretty much thrown over the whole not-moving thing and gone with the doing-something-stupid thing. He stopped and leaned against the wall. Hard.
It had been his idea. And neither of them wanted -- Jim didn’t want --
No. Not moving; yeah, that definitely should have been the plan to stick with. Blair stared at the indistinct shape that was Jim’s body, or as much of it as he could see from where he was standing. Oh, yeah. Not moving. Good plan.
Of course, he should never entirely rule out the doing something stupid plan. Especially if he was going to forget to -- dammit -- breathe until he ended up sucking in an involuntarily loud breath that would cause the object of his undefined and probably indefensible impulses to sit up with a groan. Obviously, and inconveniently, awake.
Shit. Okay -- just a midnight sortie for his clothes. Jim could buy that. Jim wouldn’t leave a single pair of socks out in the cold -- and he hadn’t last night, either; which had been a little hard on the ego even if it had also been kind of a bizarre turn-on, Jim carefully shaking out and folding every last stitch of his clothing, for God's sake, like it all wasn’t going in the hamper in the morning, anyway -- so Jim could just damn well buy that Blair was on a simple clothes-collecting mission. Even at… uh, four-whatever.
A little more oxygen wouldn't exactly hurt. Which was weird, because there wasn't any reason to be standing there toying with the thought of hyperventilating.
Okay, or any reason to be standing there at all.
“What do you want, Sandburg?” That sounded… tired? Yeah, like Jim wasn't the one who’d been sleeping. For hours. Peacefully.
Like always. By himself.
Except when he wasn't, when he was sleeping with somebody else, anybody else but --
No.
Oh, this was not good.
Blair leaned harder against the wall, feeling the pounding of his heart against his ribs. He had to clear his throat, twice, before anything would come out. “I was wrong.” Shit, not what he’d meant to say at all.
Time to start talking about his jeans and the Henley he’d tossed over toward Jim’s desk that Jim had bitched about, or his boxers. Or his socks.
“Wrong about what?” Jim asked, and Blair couldn’t read his voice, and it was really lousy timing for Jim to suddenly learn how to do that.
“About, uh… this." Crap, that sounded like he meant -- "Not this," Blair waved his free hand urgently toward Jim and his bed. "I mean, uh, about not wanting… more.” Oh, crap. What was wrong with him? He was pressing hard enough against the wall to leave brick-marks against his arm even through the sleeve of his sweatshirt, but he had the feeling that if he stopped leaning against the brick he’d fall.
Spineless.
"I want more." And still talking, dammit. “I want… you and me. Us. I want us.” Still talking, and if the stupid couch had just been halfway fucking reasonable he'd be asleep right now, not running -- stumbling -- off at the mouth, saying God alone knew what.
“Why?”
He couldn’t tell anything at all from Jim’s voice. Not that Jim was saying anything much. Or doing anything. Just sitting there.
Waiting. Shit. Now what?
Okay, somebody was breathing too fast here. And it wasn’t Jim.
It was Jim, though, who moved first, getting up after an impossibly long silent minute and coming over to the top of the stairs and standing there. Which didn't help; it was too dark to see Jim clearly, to read his eyes; it’d be too dark even if Blair climbed the rest of the stairs and got right in Jim’s face. Like that was going to happen, considering Blair would have to stop becoming one with the wall first -- not currently an option; it was him and the wall, unless he was going for him on his ass at the bottom of the stairs.
“Why?” again, from Jim.
God, he couldn’t read anything in Jim’s voice. So not good.
Blair closed his eyes, which he recognized for the mistake it was when the no-man’s-land he was standing in did an un-negotiated vertical shift that made him lose contact with his wall and he had to grab for the railing. Funny how that turned out to be Jim’s arm somehow, with Jim’s hand hard against his other shoulder.
Okay, maybe that was better than the wall.
Or maybe it was worse. He couldn’t tell.
He couldn’t tell. It had been so fucking easy to talk Jim into having sex -- he’d had to talk him into it, sure, but this was -- this wasn’t -- he couldn’t do this, whatever it was he was doing. Jim didn’t want it. Did he? So he couldn’t do this, even if he could do this, it wasn’t --
“Why?” Jim asked for the third time -- and Blair was counting -- but this time Jim’s voice was different, even if Blair still couldn’t read it.
He opened his eyes, but there wasn’t nearly enough light to see what he needed to see in Jim’s face. They were standing there on the stairs, his hand gripping Jim’s wrist, Jim’s other hand clamped on his shoulder; halfway between the bed and the couch, between everything. Neither here nor there.
He couldn't talk Jim into this -- shit, maybe he could, Jim always --
Oh, God.
He could, couldn't he, maybe; but Jim didn't want --
"Blair…" Jim's voice was different again, guarded, and wasn't it an enormous help to finally be able to read that, but somehow it was enough to free his own voice.
"Do you?" Okay, non sequitur. But a lot more practical than Jim's Socratic whys.
And way more effective, because Jim was answering, even if in that same cautious voice, was saying, "Are you sure?" Except that wasn't an answer, either, it was just another question, and fuck, this was impossible, Jim didn't want -- why the hell hadn't he just stayed on the fucking couch -- but he couldn't not answer Jim's question, not say something, and… shit, he knew the answer, anyway.
Sort of. He just hadn't known that he knew it. Hadn't wanted to know, probably. Protecting himself. Because man, he was never going to regret the sex, but Jim didn't want more than that and that fucking hurt, now that he knew he knew.
"Blair." Again. And so goddamned guarded.
Guarded.
Protecting himself.
Jim?
Oh, shit.
He had to answer Jim. Had to say yes. Or no. Had to say something. Jim wasn't going to.
God, Blair wasn't going to either, apparently. He needed words, the right words, and he didn't have any. He couldn't say anything.
Jim wasn't saying anything, either. But now he was pulling Blair up another step, sliding his hand up Blair's shoulder and cupping the fingers around the back of Blair's neck, stroking his thumb along Blair's jaw. Breathing a little faster.
So maybe he was saying enough. Maybe they both were.
To start with.
Length: 3900 words
Rating: R. Slash.
Pairing: Jim/Blair
This one has been muttering at me for weeks to just finish it, already; I'm finally kicking it out of my house in self defense so I can work on Moonridge stuff in peace.
Many, many thanks to janedavitt for beta reading this. I so much appreciate your help in making this better, Jane! ::hugs you grateful hugs::
The Couch
His arm was flying, unattached to his body; which was cool. Except it didn’t last -- his upper arm fell back against the side of his ribcage and a moment later his hand landed on something right in front of him and bounced, very slightly.
Huh. Reattached. Apparently.
“Up.” And with audio.
By the time Blair surfaced enough to translate the sound into a word it was followed by another.
“Out.” Wrong. Sleep.
The hand now shaking his shoulder obviously didn’t agree with the sleep idea. He protested with a “What?” that ended up coming out less like a reasonable question than a mumble into the pillow -- a somewhat petulant mumble, yeah, but the shoulder-shaker probably deserved it.
Hey, nice pillow. No lumps. Really smoo-o-o-th pillowcase.
Blair forced an eyelid halfway open. Night. Wonderful. Waking up was one of those things a person shouldn’t have to do in the dark.
“Get up and go downstairs to sleep.” At home, then, not on a date, because that was Jim’s voice. Impatient; Simon must have called about a case or something --
Wait… go downstairs? What was wrong with -- smooth, not-lumpy pill-- Oh.
Jim’s pillow. Right.
“Why?” Not what he should have been asking, Blair realized with suddenly increased coherence. Not when the answer was why not.
“You’re a menace in bed, Sandburg. I’m tired of the thrashing octopus routine; take your sixteen arms and legs downstairs.”
Okay, that had to be an exaggeration. Sure, he did a little tossing and turning from time to time; who didn’t? But everything was currently present and accounted for, and he seemed to be occupying a perfectly polite and ordinary amount of the bed. Off to the side, even, not like he was climbing Jim in his sleep or any--
“Up and out.” That was punctuated with a push against Blair’s back and a tug on the sheet twisted -- inexplicably -- beneath him, which rolled him nearly off the edge of the bed.
“Nice, Jim.” Blair got to his feet and pushed his hair out of his face with a grimace. “Dick.”
Not bothering to look for his clothes, he flipped off Jim’s shadowy grumbling form and shuffled cautiously down the dark stairs and into his room. Flopping down on his own uncritical bed should have felt good, except --
“Shit! What the …oh. Ow.”
“Sandburg.” That sounded less like concern than complaint.
“Forgot the books.” Like Jim cared; the three distinctly pissed-off body parts that had just landed on uncomfortably unyielding objects didn’t belong to him. Blair rubbed the afflicted areas with annoyance. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Jim’s fault he’d forgotten why they’d ended up in Jim’s bed instead of on the futon. Blaming Jim sounded tempting, though. So what if he didn’t have a leg to stand on, morally.
Or a bed to sleep in, unless he cleared it off first. Which would mean turning on the light and being careful -- sweeping all the books and painstakingly organized crap onto the floor would be instantly gratifying, but it would leave him with a bitch of a mess in the morning and be a little hard on the books. And it wasn’t their fault, either.
And it was the middle of the night, probably, and he was standing in his room being fair to his own personally created inanimate chaos like it actually cared.
Hell, maybe it did.
Okay, couch, then. Except -- fuck. ‘For Christ’s sake, Sandburg. Not on my couch.’ Jim had nearly stroked out at the thought of getting any stray molecules of free-range spunk anywhere near his sofa. And while it wasn’t like Blair hadn’t made use of Jim’s handy bedside box of Puffs, he'd maybe been a little casual about it. By that last time, anyway. Still, toss on some sweats, hit the couch, Jim could just --
Of course, except for the not-couch part, the whole thing had been his own idea in the first place. Blair paused in his bedroom doorway, frowning.
Damn.
So, yeah, bathroom first. Clean up and get some sleep.
He sighed and headed to the bathroom. It was understandable, in a way, the couch thing. Jim had a killer excuse for being environmentally over-aware; genetics as anal imperative. Which was actually -- ow. The hand Blair had been using to think with smacked against the bathroom door-frame, just hard enough to override the residual throb where his right thigh had been jabbed by Devereux's Basic Problems of Ethnopsychiatry. Probably. It had felt like the Devereux, anyway. Although it could have been Sussman.
Ow. Okay, so the couch thing was actually valid. Logical. It was reasonable. It was -- it was total stick-up-the-ass unreasonable, was what it was. Jim wasn’t going to be up for any halftime action during Jags’ games just because he didn’t trust the scotch-guarding?
Total stick-up-the-ass unreasonable. Which Jim was way too good at being.
Of course, Jim was good at a lot of things, some of which weren’t unreasonable at all.
And hell, it was Jim’s loft, after all. Jim’s couch. Jim’s choice.
Jim’s unreasonable choice.
Blair finished cleaning up, flushing the toilet after he pissed -- hey, what was life without self-expression? -- and pulled on the sweats he’d grabbed on his way out of his room. Good enough. Or as good as he planned to get, anyway.
The loft was deeply quiet as he navigated cautiously through the dark into the living room and stretched out on the couch whose upholstered sanctity he’d just preserved. With a yawn, he tugged the afghan around himself and closed his eyes. Sleep. He was short on sleep, way short, like always. Since he wasn’t doing Sentinel stuff or U stuff or cop stuff, or having sex, or doing the social stuff that tended to sooner or later let him have sex, he really, seriously, needed to be sleeping. Now.
Sleeping. Which he’d been doing, before being compared to a mutant cephalopod and tossed out of bed. And if Jim was like that with all his dates no wonder his social life sucked.
Not that that had been a date. Nothing like that. God, no.
Nothing like that.
Sleep… sleep.
Now would be good.
Maybe he should make some decaf. Or maybe not -- coffee was never the same after they’d castrated the beans. Not that it mattered, anyway; he was pretty sure he’d pitched the last of Jim’s chemically decaffeinated crap last week.
Tea, though -- yeah. Tea. Nature’s Sominex, not yet corporately fucked with to serve sleep-deprived humanity. Valerian, maybe. Or chamomile. Passionflower… Nope, not going there. Passion -- well, sex; passion was way too suggestive a word, under the circumstances -- was the reason he was lying here on the couch, awake; which made the sarcasm level of his passionflower tea just a little hard to take at the moment.
Okay. Meditation. Perfect solution. He didn’t need sarcastic tea or -- nonexistent -- neutered coffee in order to go to sleep. He just needed to take a couple of deep breaths, choose the right mantra, find his peaceful, ever-present center. That was all. No problem.
Perfect solution.
Except maybe it would be good to know what time it was. Blair squinted pointlessly toward the fuzzy green glow of the VCR clock and sat up. Glasses. His glasses were on the coffee table -- no, end table. No, on top of one of the stereo speakers. Which was weird.
Glasses on… 1:42.
Okay. Good to know. Blair put his glasses on the coffee table and lay back down on the couch, pulling the afghan up again.
The refrigerator motor hummed. Jim was breathing evenly. Slowly. He couldn’t hear Jim breathe when he was in his own room, just when he was out here. On the sacred couch.
The virgin couch.
But surely not -- Carolyn had lived here with Jim, right? They’d been married two years and the couch had never been christened?
Even after the divorce?
Christened. …Christine. Man, he’d been on the road to christening the couch that night himself. If Jim hadn’t come home early -- but by then he’d already flashed on --
Whoa. Not going there. Over it. Totally.
And, it was good, really, to be sleeping out here, because Jim hadn’t yelled down a pointless insult when he’d flushed the john, and normally that would mean Jim had to be dead. But Jim breathing meant Jim wasn’t dead, and he could hear Jim breathing; and he wouldn’t be hearing Jim breathing if he was sleeping in his room instead of out here on Jim’s supposedly celibate couch. So it was good, really.
The refrigerator motor clicked off and he could hear Jim even better.
Man, it just wasn’t fucking possible that Jim had never had sex on the couch with someone, never jerked off sitting here. Just not possible, genetically-fueled imperative to protect the upholstery or not.
Which meant -- shit -- it was just sex on the couch with Sandburg that was the big turn-off.
Shit. What, Jim, I've got crabs or something? Wonderful. At least Jim could triple-wash his fucking Sandburg-infested Pima cotton sheets, keep the loft safe for… for… whatever. Not democracy. Not Ellison.
Okay, stop -- this was just a little low-self-esteem fostered paranoia talking, right? Jim was Jim. Jim didn’t usually eat spaghetti on the couch, either. But that wasn’t because he didn’t like spaghetti. Spaghetti was just more… active than, say, popcorn. More exuberant.
Yeah, that made sense. Jim was just being careful about the exuberance factor. Okay.
Like Jim had never let anybody else get exuberant on this couch. Yeah, right.
Blair snaked a hand out from underneath the afghan and snagged his glasses back from the coffee table.
1:56.
Fucking-Sandburg infested sheets.
1:57.
A small rustling noise came from upstairs. Jim got to toss and turn. Of course, one minor rustle wasn’t exactly tossing and turning. And sure, it was Jim’s bed, Jim’s to toss and turn in if he wanted to.
Alone. Or with whoever -- whomever, whatever -- the hell he wanted to toss and turn with. Or whatever he wanted to do with whoever the hell it was.
Probably somebody despicably gorgeous. Probably female, and gorgeous, and Jim would look at her with that --
Okay, sleep deprivation talking here. Had to be. It wasn’t like he’d been picking out the rings, planning on moving into Jim’s bed exclusively or permanently or anything.
Not that Jim had offered.
Which was good, because Blair hadn’t expected him to. Or wanted him to. So not.
Just a little convenient sex between friends. Nothing wrong with that. And Jim obviously wasn’t losing any sleep about it.
Prick.
2:10.
The refrigerator motor clicked on again.
Just a little convenient sex. No reason for Jim to be losing any sleep about it.
2:19.
Crap. He should be doing something. Something useful -- working on the diss, going over notes for class, grading papers. Making spit wads and shooting them at the kitchen sink. Just lying here was a total waste of time.
The refrigerator motor clicked off.
Maybe it was the couch? Yeah. It had to be the couch, which was usually way more comfortable than this. He crashed on it all the time when he was working out here, but he and the couch were clearly not simpatico tonight.
It wasn’t the couch’s fault, though. Not entirely, anyway. Blair had to admit he wasn’t doing his part in the get-comfortable process -- he was long past post-orgasmically-inert comatude, but he was lying here like he’d been glued to the cushions, despite the way his elbow was going numb against the sofa back and the fact that his left ankle had been intermittently itching since possibly forever.
2:25.
Transmogrified. That was it. The sofa had been transmogrified from Crash HQ to the Couch of Immobile Exile.
2:28.
‘It wasn’t the couch’s fault’?
What was up with all the misapplied anthropomorphic fairness-to-furniture shit tonight, anyway? He was a scientist, for fuck’s sake.
Blair turned his head two inches so he could glare more effectively at the back of the sofa. Whose fault it wasn’t, in the first place. Glaring at whose fault it more likely was would require hauling ass to the bathroom and facing the mirror.
If there was any fault.
But there wasn’t any fault; everything was okay. Right? He wasn’t pissed at Jim, Jim wasn’t pissed at him, he and Jim were still solid. No harm, no foul, everything was fine, everybody was happy. Everything was fine. Hey, Jim hadn’t said no, right?
Okay, he hadn’t said yeah, sure right away. But he hadn’t once said no.
Just: not on my couch.
Then: get out of my bed.
2:47.
His ankle was itching again, and again, he wasn't scratching it, and that was just… strange. Blair chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. Not moving was just not him.
Strange.
The furnace clicked on and the rush of blowing air covered the sound of Jim breathing upstairs.
So he was lying here on the consolation-prize couch, not moving a muscle, except for sucking in oxygen -- okay, sure, his heart was beating, involuntary muscles -- and messing with his glasses -- 2:49 -- because…
Because, yeah, if he moved, he’d be up off the couch. Doing something. Something stupid, probably.
Oh, shit. He would, wouldn’t he.
Doing something. Stupid, really.
3:16.
The furnace blower stopped. There was Jim’s slow, peaceful breathing again. Like none of this mattered to him.
Not that it should matter. If it mattered… man, there were a couple of ways that could go. Either it’d matter as in 'What the fuck did you talk me into?' and 'Let me get the door for you, Sandburg, so I can slam it on your ass on your way out.'
Or it’d matter as in… as in… more. Meaning something. Meaningful.
Yeah, well, if it’d meant something to Jim, he wouldn’t be down here sleeping -- make that not sleeping -- on the fucking couch, would he?
The no fucking couch. Blair sighed. There was a sigh from upstairs, almost an echo, and another rustle. Then even slow breathing again.
3:42.
Shit, Jim was strong. Big fucking turn-on. Taking the Ellison muscles out for a couple of personal spins around the block had been way --
No, no, not going there. Not while lying out here on Jim’s repressed couch. Christ. His dick had already gotten him in enough trouble over the course of his life, possibly even during the past twenty-four hours, and he was so not catering to its current greedy twitch with any serious mental replays while he was lying out here on Jim’s repressive couch. Not tonight, anyway.
Nice to have some solid physical data to jack off to in the future, though.
A soft sound from upstairs that wasn’t quite a snore. Nice that Jim was sleeping so peacefully, too. No reason for him not to be, of course.
And things would be… fine. Normal. Breakfast in the morning -- scramble some eggs -- hell, bacon, why not, maybe some hash browns -- the Guatemalan coffee, there was still some of that cinnamon bread for toast, or he could make a doughnut run -- not that anybody alive really needed to eat doughnuts, but still, Jim would --
Oh, shit.
Jim was right. Courtship rituals.
3:58.
Why the fuck hadn’t he just gone out and cruised a couple of bars?
It wasn’t like he’d had to do this. Sure, Jim was… Jim, and hotter than all nine circles of hell combined; but it would have been incredibly way smarter not to put any wear and tear on the Sandburg-Ellison status quo.
If he had.
But he hadn't, right? Nothing had changed. Really. He hadn’t changed. Jim hadn’t changed. Nothing had changed. Everything was fine.
Everything was fine, because nothing would change. He’d date people, Jim would date people, everything would be fine. Status completely quo.
Which was fine.
4:01.
Nothing would change. He would still date people, Jim would still date people.
Everything was fine.
4:02.
He would date people, Jim would date people.
Jim would date people.
Jim would --
No.
Blair was halfway up the steps to Jim’s bedroom before he realized he’d pretty much thrown over the whole not-moving thing and gone with the doing-something-stupid thing. He stopped and leaned against the wall. Hard.
It had been his idea. And neither of them wanted -- Jim didn’t want --
No. Not moving; yeah, that definitely should have been the plan to stick with. Blair stared at the indistinct shape that was Jim’s body, or as much of it as he could see from where he was standing. Oh, yeah. Not moving. Good plan.
Of course, he should never entirely rule out the doing something stupid plan. Especially if he was going to forget to -- dammit -- breathe until he ended up sucking in an involuntarily loud breath that would cause the object of his undefined and probably indefensible impulses to sit up with a groan. Obviously, and inconveniently, awake.
Shit. Okay -- just a midnight sortie for his clothes. Jim could buy that. Jim wouldn’t leave a single pair of socks out in the cold -- and he hadn’t last night, either; which had been a little hard on the ego even if it had also been kind of a bizarre turn-on, Jim carefully shaking out and folding every last stitch of his clothing, for God's sake, like it all wasn’t going in the hamper in the morning, anyway -- so Jim could just damn well buy that Blair was on a simple clothes-collecting mission. Even at… uh, four-whatever.
A little more oxygen wouldn't exactly hurt. Which was weird, because there wasn't any reason to be standing there toying with the thought of hyperventilating.
Okay, or any reason to be standing there at all.
“What do you want, Sandburg?” That sounded… tired? Yeah, like Jim wasn't the one who’d been sleeping. For hours. Peacefully.
Like always. By himself.
Except when he wasn't, when he was sleeping with somebody else, anybody else but --
No.
Oh, this was not good.
Blair leaned harder against the wall, feeling the pounding of his heart against his ribs. He had to clear his throat, twice, before anything would come out. “I was wrong.” Shit, not what he’d meant to say at all.
Time to start talking about his jeans and the Henley he’d tossed over toward Jim’s desk that Jim had bitched about, or his boxers. Or his socks.
“Wrong about what?” Jim asked, and Blair couldn’t read his voice, and it was really lousy timing for Jim to suddenly learn how to do that.
“About, uh… this." Crap, that sounded like he meant -- "Not this," Blair waved his free hand urgently toward Jim and his bed. "I mean, uh, about not wanting… more.” Oh, crap. What was wrong with him? He was pressing hard enough against the wall to leave brick-marks against his arm even through the sleeve of his sweatshirt, but he had the feeling that if he stopped leaning against the brick he’d fall.
Spineless.
"I want more." And still talking, dammit. “I want… you and me. Us. I want us.” Still talking, and if the stupid couch had just been halfway fucking reasonable he'd be asleep right now, not running -- stumbling -- off at the mouth, saying God alone knew what.
“Why?”
He couldn’t tell anything at all from Jim’s voice. Not that Jim was saying anything much. Or doing anything. Just sitting there.
Waiting. Shit. Now what?
Okay, somebody was breathing too fast here. And it wasn’t Jim.
It was Jim, though, who moved first, getting up after an impossibly long silent minute and coming over to the top of the stairs and standing there. Which didn't help; it was too dark to see Jim clearly, to read his eyes; it’d be too dark even if Blair climbed the rest of the stairs and got right in Jim’s face. Like that was going to happen, considering Blair would have to stop becoming one with the wall first -- not currently an option; it was him and the wall, unless he was going for him on his ass at the bottom of the stairs.
“Why?” again, from Jim.
God, he couldn’t read anything in Jim’s voice. So not good.
Blair closed his eyes, which he recognized for the mistake it was when the no-man’s-land he was standing in did an un-negotiated vertical shift that made him lose contact with his wall and he had to grab for the railing. Funny how that turned out to be Jim’s arm somehow, with Jim’s hand hard against his other shoulder.
Okay, maybe that was better than the wall.
Or maybe it was worse. He couldn’t tell.
He couldn’t tell. It had been so fucking easy to talk Jim into having sex -- he’d had to talk him into it, sure, but this was -- this wasn’t -- he couldn’t do this, whatever it was he was doing. Jim didn’t want it. Did he? So he couldn’t do this, even if he could do this, it wasn’t --
“Why?” Jim asked for the third time -- and Blair was counting -- but this time Jim’s voice was different, even if Blair still couldn’t read it.
He opened his eyes, but there wasn’t nearly enough light to see what he needed to see in Jim’s face. They were standing there on the stairs, his hand gripping Jim’s wrist, Jim’s other hand clamped on his shoulder; halfway between the bed and the couch, between everything. Neither here nor there.
He couldn't talk Jim into this -- shit, maybe he could, Jim always --
Oh, God.
He could, couldn't he, maybe; but Jim didn't want --
"Blair…" Jim's voice was different again, guarded, and wasn't it an enormous help to finally be able to read that, but somehow it was enough to free his own voice.
"Do you?" Okay, non sequitur. But a lot more practical than Jim's Socratic whys.
And way more effective, because Jim was answering, even if in that same cautious voice, was saying, "Are you sure?" Except that wasn't an answer, either, it was just another question, and fuck, this was impossible, Jim didn't want -- why the hell hadn't he just stayed on the fucking couch -- but he couldn't not answer Jim's question, not say something, and… shit, he knew the answer, anyway.
Sort of. He just hadn't known that he knew it. Hadn't wanted to know, probably. Protecting himself. Because man, he was never going to regret the sex, but Jim didn't want more than that and that fucking hurt, now that he knew he knew.
"Blair." Again. And so goddamned guarded.
Guarded.
Protecting himself.
Jim?
Oh, shit.
He had to answer Jim. Had to say yes. Or no. Had to say something. Jim wasn't going to.
God, Blair wasn't going to either, apparently. He needed words, the right words, and he didn't have any. He couldn't say anything.
Jim wasn't saying anything, either. But now he was pulling Blair up another step, sliding his hand up Blair's shoulder and cupping the fingers around the back of Blair's neck, stroking his thumb along Blair's jaw. Breathing a little faster.
So maybe he was saying enough. Maybe they both were.
To start with.