The first thing Blair did after giving his statement a hundred times and letting Jim drive him back
to the loft was take a shower -- a long, steamy shower of the sort that was probably leaving
people in western Idaho without hot water. He scrubbed his skin, too, scrubbed it until parts of
his arms and chest were mottled red and stinging, until his fingers cramped around the loofah like
he'd never be able to let go again.
Funny how knowing exactly why people did silly, useless things never stopped anyone from going
right on ahead and doing those same silly, useless things. Not...funny ha-ha. Funny the way his
skin looked too white and too red, like if a lobster exploded all over Kiefer Sutherland, or like the
way his roommate kept jostling the bathroom doorknob and then not actually opening the door,
and all Blair wanted to do was yell "I can *hear that,* you know!" exactly like Jim had so
frequently yelled at him. Funny terrible.
Clean, clean, clean, Blair's brain was saying to him, in a funny-terrible sing-song. Go ahead,
Sandburg-- clean yourself up! Do it -- I dare you. Try.
And Blair tried, knowing it was silly and useless, and going through a mostly new bar of soap in
the process and telling himself, hey, it's not all bad. Jim had said in front of the whole department
that he'd done everything right, and Simon Banks had nodded sagely, and Blair knew they'd all
look at him a little differently now, with a little more respect. Because he *held it together* so
well under pressure.
Clean clean.
Eventually the water was annoying and not comforting anymore, and Blair turned off the shower.
It was almost morning, and Blair knew he was well beyond sleep at this point. He figured he
should go out there and help Jim repair the loft, which looked like Pompeii after its last frat party,
but it took him almost fifteen minutes to work up the courage for that.
He did try to help, but Jim glared at him and said, "I've got it under control. You sit." Jim being
a bitch to argue with at the best of times, Blair figured he might as well agree now or agree after
the yelling, so he sat and watched Jim turn those Sentinel senses on the floor, honing in on shards
of glass that were totally invisible to Blair and picking them up.
Shards of things that Blair had broken, fighting for his life. It was kind of a heavy thought, and it
made Blair feel an unbalancing mixture of pride and terror and guilt and maturity. He'd never
fought for his *life* before. Hell, he'd hardly ever broken anything before. He closed his eyes
against the sudden sense-memory of David Lash's hand on his throat, his arm locking around
Blair's leg as Blair tried to crawl further away, and suddenly he wasn't too far beyond sleep. His
head lolled back, and he lingered in muddled pseudo-consciousness, thinking, I did break that arm
-- fell out of a tree -- didn't know that, didja, asshole....
"Sandburg." Jim's voice wormed its way through the haze, or what would definitely have been
Jim's voice, if it hadn't been so mellow-sounding, almost gentle. Jim didn't sound like that, but if
he did it would be okay, because this voice was deep and calming and...and *cleansing.*
"Sandburg, come on, you're soaking the couch."
Okay, that was Jim's voice. Blair sat up and started to slur an apology, but the shock hit him at
that exact second, *the* shock, the mother of all shock, and Blair slumped forward helplessly, his
arms on his knees and his forehead on his arms. He wanted to stay balled up forever; Jim could
just set him on an end table and use him to replace the broken lamp. Stick a candle between his
toes. Whatever, as long as Blair didn't have to respond to anything ever again.
Anything...except...maybe...that touch, a strange touch in his hair, heavy and draping, and
suddenly there was a new shock in town as Blair realized it was the towel he'd slung absently
over his shoulder, and now it was smothering his hair. Drying his hair.
Jim. Was. Drying. His. Hair. This did not compute; Captain Kirk had talked robots into
*destroying* themselves by presenting them with less convoluted paradoxes than this. Jim was
drying his hair, very deliberately, wringing the moisture out into the towel, rubbing the long
strands of hair between his terrycloth-padded palms, gently laying the towel over the crown of
Blair's head and smoothing the messy, wet curls carefully backward, away from Blair's face.
Blair closed his eyes because it felt *so* fucking good, even though he was shaking because it felt
*so* twisted. Blair had had roommates before. This wasn't what roommates did. This put them
in some whole new weird place that Blair didn't have words for yet, and tonight was the worst
*possible* night for Blair's hair ("hairy Blairy....") and Jim's hands (oh, *man,* Jim's hands...) to
be having this silent discussion.
"Jim," he croaked, because he was *not* gonna do this with his hair, he wanted to be in on this
relationship discussion himself. "Jim, what are you...*doing,* man, what are you doing?"
"I dunno," Jim said, and the man didn't even have the good sense to sound disturbed by that. He
just...didn't know, like, *eh, who knows?* Bastard. Like, who knew why a guy would suddenly
want to groom his roommate, but hey, these things happen, you know?
Groom clean groom clean clean clean oh *Jesus* --
Blair jumped up, ignoring the pain of his suddenly yanked hair, and he turned on Jim, who was
sitting on the back of the couch with a wet towel in his hands and looking totally fucking calm. If
everything hadn't been pretty much busted to hell anyway, Blair might have thrown something in
that general direction, but breakage right now lacked dramatic oomph. "You son of a bitch!
Don't you dare try to clean me up -- this was *not* my fault!"
Somewhere in the back of his mind, some better-adjusted version of himself was warning Blair
that he was way out of bounds here, not making any sense, saying silly and useless things that
weren't even true and useless, just *silly.* Jim looked at him, waiting for it to start making sense,
and Blair was pretty sure he'd be there waiting for a while.
"I was attacked! I'm the victim, here! I tried to call you, man, what the fuck was I *supposed*
to do? He beat me up, he drugged me! There was nothing I could do about it, this was not my
fault! I was fucking *terrified,* you said I did a good job, fuck you, Jim, fuck you, I did the best I
could, I don't need to get clean, I didn't do anything *wrong*! There was nothing I could do, I
couldn't stop him, *I'm* the victim, I didn't do anything wrong, I didn't fuck it up, Jim, I didn't
let you down, there was nothing I could do! *This was not my fault!*"
He was yelling and yelling and the words just ran together and lost all their meaning, but he was
still yelling away like what he was saying really fucking mattered. He was just making noise and
Jim was just moving, and nothing was solid or real until he found himself pressed just very softly
against the warmth of Jim's hard chest, and then Blair latched on and pressed *harder* and just
lost himself, exploded and splattered himself in exhaustion all over Jim's skin while Jim rumbled,
"Sandburg. This was not your fault."
"I tried..." he mumbled incoherently, his jawbone striking against Jim's collarbone.
"Of course you tried. You did great. This guy was a killer, Chief -- and you're still alive." Jim's
steady, reasonable words seemed to turn a little breathless at the end, and then Blair heard the
words again, nearer to his ear, felt the angles of the words against his cheek where Jim's mouth
hovered. "You're still alive...."
The shock cleared away as quickly as it had arrived, and Blair was suddenly *full* of words for
what they were about to be, and even though it had only been a month, it felt like he'd wanted
this for ages. Jim's hands, Jim's breath, Jim's muscle and bone, and it was hell to be this lucid all
of a sudden, because with all his mental gears oiled up and turning he knew exactly how easy it
would be to turn his head and kiss Jim and he knew that Jim would let him and he knew damn
well that it was a terrible, terrible idea, and that he was a stupid fucker even for thinking about it,
which he so totally was. Thinking about it...hovering on the cusp of *doing* it....
"Jim?" he ventured, because in his experience the surest way to bring a romantic mood crashing
back down to earth was for Blair Sandburg to open his mouth and start talking. Never fucking
failed.
"What's that?" Jim answered, oblivious to impending doom.
"Man, I'm on the adrenaline high of all *time,* here."
"Probably. Yeah."
"And you have a genetic predisposition to save people. I guess it makes you feel good, huh? I
mean...you feel good, right, Jim?"
He wasn't so quick to answer this time, like he was catching on to the precarious position he was
in, balanced on the tightwire that separated the Blair Sandburg who liked to talk about why
people did the things they did and the Blair Sandburg who wanted to kiss the hell out of his
roommate and then maybe blow him for good measure. "Yeah, Sandburg" he said, and his
roughened voice was a completely intoxicating blend of suspicion and seduction, a combination
that Blair recognized as *pure* Jim, even though he'd never heard or imagined it before. "I feel
good."
Blair took a deep breath. "Jim, forget it. I'm not playing this game."
"Game? What the hell are you talking about?"
"You know, the game where you go through some crazy shit and you get stressed out and horny
and you bond and you have sex and you look back on it later and it seems really stupid and
childish and things are really awkward? Like, especially when one of you is...straight?"
Jim made a vague, irritated noise, but he didn't let Blair move one inch away. "Now, how did I
know you were going to dredge that up?"
"Jim! Don't you think it's a little bit *relevant*?"
"I'll let you know when I think it's relevant."
"Yeah, *tomorrow.* No thanks, Jim, let's deal with it on this side of the sheets."
And it seemed weird that a macho, supercop guy like Jim Ellison could be...sultry, but his thumb
skated lightly over Blair's cheekbone and his fingers skimmed the surface of Blair's hair and sultry
was the *only* word for it; Blair was overheating and his skin was feverish and he *wanted Jim*
like he'd never wanted anyone else ever. "Sandburg, don't jump too far ahead of yourself. If it's
good it's good, and if it's not, then no harm, no foul. All right?"
Blair had to reach around behind his back to take Jim by the wrists and detach his arms. "Harm,
Jim, okay? *Foul.*" Jim just shook his head, looking a little wounded, a little pissed off, and
extremely perplexed - - the exact same look he wore every time Blair ran him through a new test.
Blair had the urge to say, *This is only a test. In the event of an actual affair with your partner,
please get comfortable and clear your schedule, because you will not be getting out of bed for
days....*
Logic was not going to have any effect on Jim, none at all; Blair became sinkingly positive of that
when Jim reached for him again, cupping his big hands around Blair's face, leaning in to kiss him
*anyway,* Jesus Christ, he was being *molested* by the guy that yesterday he was convinced
he'd be lusting ineffectually after for the rest of his life. Okay, no logic, then; he was going to
have to go way, way out of bounds here, or Jim was going to kiss him and he so couldn't deal
with that on top of everything else, not tonight, while he was exhausted and half in love with this
man.
"Does this have something to do with Peru?" he asked, trying to make his quavering voice sound
professional and academically inquiring. Jim paused. "Something like, you know, they were
counting on you but you couldn't save them, and I was counting on you but you *did* save me,
and that's why you're in such a good frigging mood?"
"You can stop talking just any time now."
Blair wished that were the case. "I've been observing you now for a while, Jim, and this whole
savior complex you have is really pretty fascinating. I'm just wondering if it's a Sentinel thing or
if it has something to do with, you know, your life or your childhood or something like that.
What happened with you and Carolyn -- did she not think you were a hero, she wanted something
you couldn't live up to? How about your parents -- were there a lot of demands on you as a kid,
implicit conditions on your mother's affection? Jim, come on, you wanna have *sex* with me;
you can surely share a few formative memories with me, too. It's for the diss...."
And that was it. Easy as pie. Jim pushed him away, and Blair scuttled quickly out of reach,
folding his arms around himself defensively. "Go to bed, Sandburg."
"Hey, Jim, I just--"
"*Go.*"
Blair had never been sent to his room as punishment before -- not really Naomi's style -- but it
seemed pretty appropriate at the moment, so he took it like an adult and confined himself to his
room.
*Savior complex?* In an attempt to throw cold water over Jim's libido, had Blair *seriously*
implied that this wonderful, brilliant, gorgeous, loveable way that Jim had of using his super-
senses and his keen mind and his all-you-can-eat courage to help people who had no one else to
help them was some kind of...pathology? He wanted to take it back, to go back out there and
say, no way, Jim, I can't get involved with you because it's too scary and too soon, but I love the
way you are and I don't give a shit if it's because of your Sentinel DNA or because you weren't
breast-fed or how the fuck it happened, you're just totally a hero, my hero. Maybe he could tell
him about the Chinese and their Blessed Protectors, and Jim would get then that Blair knew it
wasn't about jobs or genes or for God's sake *complexes,* but blessings, completely about
blessings.
"Blair."
The dim light in his room dimmed even more, and Blair could see the rough outline of Jim's
shape, a dark shadow against the curtain. "Yeah?"
"It wasn't your fault. You didn't let anybody down."
Relief made Blair feel so dizzy that he had to flop backwards onto the futon or fall over. Jim had
decided that he was in shock and traumatized, rather than that he was an asshole; that was
*good.* That was Jim once again cleaning up his mess, making room for Blair to go back and fix
things, later, when he wasn't so tired and panicked and...in shock and traumatized. "Thanks,
Jim," he called back, and the shadow lifted, and the filtered light of the living room lights coming
through his curtain seemed cleaner than water.
The End