DISTRIBUTION: 852 Prospect, okay. Anywhere else
probably okay, but please ask.
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: None
KEYWORDS: Slash, First Time, Angst, Jim/Blair
SUMMARY: Jim longs for Blair but is afraid to speak.
DISCLAIMER: Blair, Jim, Henri, Rafe, and Simon belong to Pet
Fly, Inc.
DEDICATION: For quercus, of course.
FEEDBACK: Welcome. Send it to
geoffrey2@cox.net
Blair Is Brave
By Geoffrey
November 6, 1999
I could go upstairs. It's an option; eleven o'clock is a reasonable bedtime for someone who has to get up at seven. I've had a long day, and I'm tired. But what I really want is to be near Blair, who's in the living room in his usual paper grading position, crosslegged on the floor with his back against the sofa. There are blue books stacked before him on the coffee table. He's been silent for a long time, but I can change that.
I go over there and flop down on the couch, pulling a pillow under my head at the same end where he's seated. "Hey," I say brightly.
Blair chuckles softly, but doesn't turn around. "Hey."
"Whatcha doin'?"
"Gradin' essays." And he is too, he hasn't stopped just because of my interruption. "What're you doin'?"
"Nothin'." I'm grinning at him, but he can't see me.
"Okay."
Now he ignores me. That's okay; I can entertain myself. I punch the pillow into a more comfortable shape and lie on my side, staring at Blair's hair which is tied back in a ponytail.
Sometimes, when things are quiet and Blair is near and the potential for sudden threat arising is low, I permit myself to focus on one thing and zone out. This evening I make a journey through Blair's hair, starting with the split ends of one honey-colored strand and imagining myself hiking along it, tripping over the scaly cells, stepping over bits of dust, and ducking underneath the other strands that get in my way. Normally I try not to zone out by looking at people; our bodies carry too many things we don't really want to know about. But it's different when it's Blair, and besides his hair is relatively clean, so I follow this one strand up into the dense thicket that's pressed together where the ponytail is tied, and pretend that I live there, in Blair's hair, and he takes me with him everywhere.
"Jim."
I think I hear something.
"Jim."
I definitely hear something, and I let it summon me back to the living room.
"Jim."
"What."
"Don't zone." He says it matter of factly, not even turning around, as if being a Guide is just a momentary distraction from the right and proper task of grading essays. He's scribbling something in the margins of one.
"Okay."
Guess I'll do something different. But nothing comes to mind, so I squirm into a new comfortable position and close my eyes and think about what I really want, which is to sleep with Blair tonight, and how to make it happen, which I don't know. And in a few minutes, wrapped in the vision of that, I begin to doze.
"Jim. Go to bed." Blair speaks low, and his voice travels straight to my gut. It's later; I must have really fallen asleep.
"No, I'm good." I open my eyes for a moment, in time to catch him looking back over his shoulder at me.
He turns back to his work. I'm awake now, so I think more about the image that made me drift off.
One night, two weeks ago, I slept with him. It was only sleep, and only for a few hours, but it was good, safe, and I want it again, want to feel the Blair-weight of him beside me, and smell his Blair-scent, and hear his Blair-heart.
It was the during the earliest hours of a Tuesday morning, after we came home from a terrifying night that nearly cost us both our lives. We were staked out down the street from a meth lab near the docks, waiting for a big-time trafficker from Denver to make an appearance, when we were discovered. As fast as I heard them coming there were so many of them surrounding us that we never had a chance, and there was no time to contact Rafe and Henri who were staked out at the end of a different block.
The thugs dragged us into the back of a warehouse to interrogate us, then kill us. They decided to make a statement and do us execution style, gagging us and binding our hands and feet and making us kneel beside each other. I thought that was the end for us. Part of me was glad we would die together, but I hoped they'd shoot Blair first so he would never have to watch it happen to me.
We got lucky -- the gunman was interrupted by someone calling him to come up front. We were left there alone on our knees, unable to speak but at least together, and we exchanged a last long look, unable to tear our eyes away from each other. I hope he read the messages I tried to convey. That I was sorry. That I loved him. From him, I felt forgiveness, or maybe that was wishful thinking.
We've talked about that night but not about that moment, and I don't think we ever will.
At any rate, luck was followed by a miracle. Henri and Rafe had called for backup when we missed our check in, and the cavalry came over the hill in the nick of time. We heard the gunfire and the shouting but it was long minutes before Henri found us in the back and set us free.
Blair shook with adrenalin for an hour while we stayed at the scene until it was secured, and until all the arrests were made and all the drugs taken away. He sat in the truck for another hour while I finished up with Simon, and by the time we could go home he had stopped shaking. We were both exhausted but he was less so, so he drove and I rode shotgun and it was almost four by the time we got in the door. Once inside he went straight to the toilet and then to his room, and I took my turn and then stood in his doorway to say goodnight, and he looked at me.
"What a night, huh?" The last word caught in his throat, and suddenly he was there, trembling again, in my arms. Not crying but just tucking himself against me, burying his face into my neck and shoulder. Needing contact. I pressed my face against the side of his head, and we held each other like that for a minute or two until he released me and stood back, meeting my eyes with his. Blair is brave.
"Sleep down here," he whispered.
I understood what he was asking. I was afraid of dreaming too. "Yeah. Okay."
It was only three hours before morning. We both fell asleep right away, not touching, not even facing each other, yet not alone. We didn't dream. Ever since then I've been thinking about how it felt, and wanting to feel it again. It was safe. It was right.
Tonight, lying here on the sofa with a direct close-up view of the back of Blair's head, I wish I were as brave as Blair.
I have it on excellent authority that most of my responses are fear-based, with my fears usually expressing themselves as anger and agression. But it's different when I'm as tired as I am right now, and need something so badly. I'm left with a fear that's inexpressible. All I want in the world is to spend this night with Blair, but it's beyond me to make it happen.
He finishes grading the last test, and stretches out his legs, turning sideways to look at me.
"Jim," he begins. I don't know what he sees in my expression, but whatever he was going to say falls aside and he just looks at me until I give up and look away. His breathing hitches, and he speaks again. "What's the matter?"
I can hear his concern for me. Whatever's wrong, he means to fix it, if I will only let him. If I'm going to tell him anything, I have to tell him now. But I lie here, hating myself, for I am too afraid.
"Jim?"
His voice calls me back to him and I hold his gaze for one heartbeat, then close my eyes. He expects an answer. I must say something, anything.
"I can't ask."
"Ask what?" he says, but I say nothing.
I am a coward, but Blair is brave, and Blair is compassionate, and Blair, because he loves me, can read my mind.
"Oh, Jim." He strokes my forehead, and the words sound like, "there, there," -- meant to comfort me. "Come on. Get up. Come to bed." He tugs at my shoulder and I let myself be led.
With one hand held against the middle of my back, he guides me into his room, then places his hands on my shoulders and turns me around toward him. "All right?" He lifts one hand and strokes the side of my face, drawing his thumb once over my cheekbone, and then again under my eyebrow.
"Yes," I answer. His hands fall away and he leaves me there while he visits the bathroom. When he comes back I'm still standing there, lost and found, and he breathes out a short chuff and shakes his head at me while he strips down to his shorts.
"Get undressed." He turns out the light and gets in bed. I still haven't moved. "Jim."
I place my clothes over the back of the chair and crawl in beside him, lying very flat and still. I'm where I want to be, feeling thankful, and I don't want to do anything to ruin it. Blair props himself up on one elbow alongside me and feels for my face since he can't see me, finding my forehead and, to my surprise, bending over to kiss me there.
"Is this what you want?" He kisses me again, slowly, on the bridge of my nose, and then kisses each eyelid before pulling back to wait for my answer.
"Yes," I say, reaching up to touch him.
One more time he brings his head down to mine, and this time he kisses my mouth. I open myself for him and he tastes so sweet. I think to myself Blair's tasting me too, and that's the kind of thing that pleases him. I think this is how it's supposed to be, this is what I will do; I will open myself to Blair and let him experience me, all of me, in any way he wants. I relax, and Blair flows over me and I am willingly washed away.
In the morning I wake, wrapped around and almost lying on top of him. I know I must be heavy and start to move away, but this wakes him and he pulls me back and smiles up at me. Groaning, falling against him, I make him laugh and he reaches around behind me and swats my rump.
"Ow." I'm sore; he's not. He rubs the sting away, and kisses me once, affectionately, and then again, deeply and lovingly. By the time he pulls back we are lying side by side, and we remain that way, gazing at each other. Then he smiles at me so knowingly that for a split second I think he's somehow come inside my mind. I take a short breath, startled, and he waits for me to say something.
This is my time for courage. Last night I vowed to myself that I would give him all of me, and right now I need to make an offering of words but I choke on them, closing my eyes tight and looking away because, even after everything Blair's done for me, I cannot do this. A lifetime spent repressing my feelings won't allow it.
Blair must understand, because he lifts his hand and runs it over my hair, petting me softly until I can look at him again. I am a coward but he is brave on my behalf. He grips my neck and says, gently, "You love me."
"Yes," I whisper, and he releases my neck to wipe away the tears I didn't know were running from my eyes. I pull him into a desperate embrace and hold him as hard as I can, wrapping my arms around him and tangling our legs together. He holds me equally hard, and I bend my mouth to his ear because now I can say it -- he's freed me to say it -- and I do. "I love you. I love you, Blair."
"I know," he tells me, rocking me back and forth to calm me down. "It's okay." We lie together like that, eventually loosening the embrace and settling into a quiet pile of limbs and bodies. After a few minutes of quiet kissing he lets go, sitting up and grasping my knee. "We have to get up," he says, resigned. He's right, I know.
"Yeah."
"Go to work," he continues.
"Come home," I counter.
"Change the sheets," he leers, and I laugh and rise up, and suddenly it's a race to the shower and the start of a new day.
- end -
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