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Super Bowl Surprise
by the lady of shalott

Prologue

The evil grin looked decided out of place on Joel Taggart's amiable features as he poured most the contents of three bottles of Absolut into a jar, topping off the remains of the vodka with tap water. *Jim Ellison, tonight you pay for that stunt you pulled.* He winced as he remembered the hideous embarrassment and the solid month of teasing he'd gone through after the gold lame' incident the other detective had engineered. But now, at last, he would have his revenge. Setting the bottles down on a sideboard, he moved on to the more prosaic preparations for his annual pre-Super Bowl party.


Blair bounced through the front door at 9pm, carrying a large foil pan of homemade lasagne. As he inhaled the delectable aroma, Taggart experienced a moment of guilt for his involvement of the young anthropologist in his plot, but he got over it without excessive soul-searching when he recalled just how much money he'd lost to Sandburg's superior poker skills over the past year. "Sandburg, great you could make it -- grab a beer and put the food over on the table."

"Thanks for inviting me, man." Blair set the pan down and started experimentally poking around at the other dishes. "Jim will be here in a minute, he was just having trouble finding a parking spot that he could fit that truck into." He picked up an eggroll and a beer. "So, you interested in a little gentlemen's bet?"

"With you? Sandburg, that's like asking me if I want to get mugged." Joel opened the door at the knock. "Hey, Jim. You get suckered into laying money down on the game with this guy?"

Blair grinned as Jim raised his hands defensively. "Are you kidding me? I'd swear the Packers were going to take it, except he's been trying to get me to bet on it."

Rafe and Brown showed up over the next half-hour, and the party got seriously underway. The beer ran out after an hour, and Joel handed out bottles of vodka, making sure that he got the extra diluted ones to Rafe and Brown with a hidden wink.

"Well, Ellison? You up for a rematch?" he challenged.

Jim shook his head with a grin. "You're just a glutton for punishment, Taggart," he said, pulling over a shot glass and cracking open his bottle. "Didn't you learn your lesson last year?"

Blair's eyes widened. "Uh, you two aren't going to have some kind of drinking match, are you?"

"Nope," Brown said cheerfully, slinging an arm around the anthropologist's shoulders and steering him over to the sofa. "We're all going to have one hell of a drinking match."

"I was afraid of that," Blair muttered in resignation.

He slid under the table with a final hiccup little more than an hour later. Jim absently reached out and caught his head before it could hit the floor, a not-inconsiderable feat of coordination given the nearly-empty bottle of vodka by his glass. "Blair's drunk," he announced loudly, carefully enunciating his words.

Rafe grabbed the slumped form and hauled him upright. "I'll just put him in the spare room."

Jim held on to Blair's other arm stubbornly. "Not gonna let him fall down," he declared. "Bless'd protect'r."

"Uh huh," Rafe said uncomprehendingly. He pointed at Jim's head to Taggart and Brown, exaggeratedly mouthing, "He's drunk too," at them. "C'mon, Jim, let go -- I'm going to put him to bed, not drop him."

Jim eyed him suspiciously. "I'll come too," he suggested, trying to get up. He stared at his legs in shocked betrayal when they refused to obey his demands and dumped him back in his seat.

"No, Jim, you stay here and drink some more," Taggart said gently, pouring another shot for him.

Jim looked at the glass, then suddenly let go of Blair. "Okay," he agreed, downing the glass. "Still c'n drink you unner table," he slurred at Taggart as Rafe carried Blair into the spare room and deposited him on the small bed there.

Five drinks later, Jim suddenly looked around in concern. "Hey!"

"What's wrong?" Brown asked.

"Where's Blair?" Jim started lifting pillows up from the couch and looking beneath them earnestly. "Need my Guide."

"What did he say he needs?" Rafe muttered to Brown under his breath.

"My Guide," Jim repeated more loudly.

"Jim, calm down, Blair's just sleeping it off in the next room. See?" Joel soothed him by pointing through the doorway, where the tousled mop of brown curls was visible against the white pillow. "Blair's fine. Here, have another drink."

Jim gulped the shot, but refused to be pacified. "Should be here, wi' me," he stated. "Sent'nel 'n' Guide."

The three other detectives just shook their heads. "I don't want to know what he thinks he's talking about," pronounced Brown decidedly.

"Should only take a few more drinks to put him under the table too," Joel whispered to the other two.

"Hah!" Jim pointed at Taggart. "It'll take more'n a few drinks!" He grabbed the bottle and chugged down the rest of it. He put it down with an air of triumph. "See!" The three conspirators indeed saw, as Jim promptly slid into a large puddle.

Joel laughed almost maniacally, rubbing his hands together. "Got him!"

"OK, so now what's the plan?" Brown demanded.

Smiling beatifically, Taggart explained.


Jim kept his eyes shut and wondered hazily why Blair was playing his damned African drum rhythms again. Then he wondered why he was playing them inside his head. "Ow," he said experimentally. As the sound reverberated around his head, he winced. *Damn hangovers.* He took a deep breath and visualized the dials Blair had drilled into him, focusing on the pain and slowly turning the dial down. He cautiously cracked open one eyelid. When agony did not ensue, he opened the other and stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling, blinking a few times. *Not bad. Sandburg's going to love it when I tell him that I can dial down hangovers.* He turned his head slightly to loosen the muscles in his neck, and found that he'd have an opportunity to inform his Guide of the discovery sooner than he'd expected.

On the pillow next to him, Blair's face was smooth in repose, brown hair pushed back in a tangle of curls that made him look impossibly angelic. Jim uncomfortably realized that Blair was lying in the crook of his arm, one leg thrown over his body. The moment after that, he realized that they were both completely naked. The moment after that, he realized that he had no idea how they'd gotten that way.

As he stared at his partner in growing alarm, Jim saw the younger man's eyes open. Blinking groggily up at him, Blair yawned a little and edged up on one elbow. "Oh man," he groaned, rubbing his forehead. "My head is killing me. Next time I try to drink with you guys, please just shoot me beforehand and save me all the misery." He pushed himself to a seated position, then started to notice the situation. "Um, Jim? Where did my clothes go?"

Jim swallowed. "I was wondering the same thing."

Blair looked at him, then lifted up the sheet and took a quick peek underneath. He put the sheet back down, blushing faintly. "Oh. Um... did something happen last night that I don't remember? Wait, stupid question. What happened last night that I don't remember?"

Flushing, Jim admitted, "I think I remember Rafe putting you on the bed when you passed out. Not much after that."

"Did he take off my clothes?"

"I don't think so..."

Blair digested that for a bit. "Um... so who did?"

"How the hell would I know?"

"OK... well... uhh... maybe we got kind of hot and just took them off ourselves during the night. I mean, you know, it's easy to feel overheated when you're dehydrated and alcohol causes dehydration..."

"Chief, it's not that warm in here."

"All right... So... maybe we were so drunk we forgot about a game of strip poker we played later on..."

"You seriously think we played strip poker? With Rafe, Brown, and Taggart?!?"

"There's a scary thought." The partners both shuddered. "I know, we probably got sick on our clothes and took them off because of that."

Jim looked over at the pile of discarded garments and sniffed the air. "No. You're starting to reach, here, Sandburg."

"What do you want me to say? 'We ripped off our clothes to have wild sex all night'?" Blair peevishly demanded.

"No!"

"Well, then you come up with some reason why our clothes did a big vanishing act!"

Jim put his head in his hands. "Look, Chief, I'm sure we just took 'em off somehow and fell asleep, and nothing happened. He climbed out of bed, grabbing for his boxers. "Come on, let's get dressed and get some coffee."

Blair rolled his eyes privately as he followed suit. "Jim has entered the denial zone," he muttered, well aware that Ellison could hear him perfectly well.

The two of them stepped out of the room to find Taggart, Rafe, and Brown sitting around the table, drinking coffee. All three men promptly started wolf-whistling as they emerged. "The lovebirds finally get up," Brown proclaimed, nudging Rafe.

"About time. We were starting to get afraid you two were going to go for another round. Though how either of you got it up last night after all that liquor..." Rafe leered at them.

Jim's face was slowly flushing into a nice carmine shade, Blair observed clinically. "You're not... we didn't... last night... what..." the detective managed in strangled tones. Blair winced as Jim descended into babbling.

Joel steered Jim to a chair and gave the red-faced man a mug of coffee. "Look, man, all kidding aside, we're your friends here," the bomb expert said comfortingly, patting Jim on the shoulder. "I'm sorry you two didn't feel comfortable telling us about this yourselves before now, but you gotta know that we respect your privacy. We're not going to go yakking about your relationship."

Blair started to worry that Jim was going to keel over with a heart attack on the spot, so quickly jumped in. "Uh, look, I hate to break this to you guys, but, um, we don't have a relationship. I mean, not that kind of relationship, anyway. And, um, I really don't know what you guys heard, but I think maybe your imaginations were doing a little overtime or something... maybe?"

Rafe and Brown were already shaking their heads. "Nice try, but we thought you two were sick at first, so we looked in on you," Brown actually leered at them a little. "You two were really going at it."

Rafe nodded solemnly. "No other way to describe it."

Joel felt a twinge of guilt at shocked expressions on the partners' faces. He glanced at the other two detectives with a raised eyebrow to see if they were ready to let Ellison and Sandburg off the hook. They nodded slightly, but Jim had already jumped into motion, snatching up his coat and heading out the door without a word.

"Hey! Jim!" Blair looked startled, and immediately ran out after the older man, grabbing his coat as he went.

"Wha-- wait! Sandburg! Hey!" Joel heaved himself out of his chair and ran out after them, but Blair was already out of hearing distance, scrambling into Jim's truck and pulling the door shut. "Oh, damn! Where's the phone?"


Unable to look at Blair, Jim nevertheless waited until the younger man was settled with his seatbelt on before pulling away, tires squealing. He drove silently, gripping the steering wheel tightly enough to whiten his knuckles.

When they pulled up at a red light, Blair attempted to break the tension. "Hey, whatever those guys thought they heard or saw, we were both drunk as lords. Hell, maybe we were just feeling sick, and their imaginations are running away with them."

"Not likely," Jim muttered, leaning forward to rest his forehead on the wheel. "Jesus."

Blair stared out the window, trying to calm the fears clamoring for attention. *Jim is majorly freaking out here. What the hell am I going to do if he doesn't want me around anymore? How could I have done something this stupid? I should have known better than to get drunk with a bunch of guys with triple my tolerance.*

The cell phone rang as they pulled into a parking spot outside the loft. Jim took one look at it and turned it off. *The last person I want to talk to right now is any one of those three,* he thought grimly, pocketing it and heading up the stairs, a subdued and silent Blair trailing after him.

A few hours later, sitting in the living room pretending to watch the irritating pre-Super Bowl shows with the tension slowly building higher, Blair gritted his teeth and dove in. "Look, Jim, can we please talk about this?"

Jim sprang up from the sofa and paced the room, coiled energy seeking release. "What is there to talk about?" he asked brutally.

"Centered, I'm centered," Blair urgently muttered to himself, taking deep breaths. "OK. Look, Jim, we were drunk, we were in bed together, something happened. So maybe this is a first for both of us in a lot of ways, but it doesn't change who we are -- unless you let it."

"How can you just sit there and say something like that?" Jim demanded, whirling on him. "How can you just act like this was nothing at all?"

Blair shot up and yelled, "Because it wasn't anything compared to our friendship, you bastard, and I'm trying not to let you destroy that because of whatever went on!" He gulped, mentally repeated a mantra, and continued in calmer tones. "Come on, man, don't shut me out. What is bothering you about this so much? I know we don't even remember what happened, but--"

Jim gave a soft, half-choked gasp, then dropped onto the sofa, staring down at his hands. "Yeah, we don't remember. But I can guess."

"What do you mean?" Blair carefully restrained himself from doing a little victory dance as Jim's rigid silence cracked. He perched back down on the couch, careful to give the other man plenty of space. Jim looked up at him and just as quickly looked away, face drawn. "Whatever happened, big guy, we're in this together," Blair encouraged gently.

"Even if I raped you?" Jim ground out.

"Huh?" Blair gaped momentarily. "Whoa! Whoa, instant replay here. Where the HELL did that come from?"

Jim looked up at him, misery now clear in his eyes. "Come on, Sandburg. Have you ever even thought about a guy that way?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Right, and-- What did you say?"

"I said yes. Come on, Jim, most people have at least considered the idea at least once in their lives. I've never actually acted on those thoughts before now, but I've been attracted to a guy a few times in my life."

"Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh.' What does that have to do with anything? You assumed that just because I'm straight that you must have raped me? Come on!"

"Look, Chief, it sure as hell wasn't the other way around," Jim snapped.

Blair thought about that for a moment. "How do you know?"

"Oh, for-- Sandburg, I could break you in half without trying hard."

"Normally, yes," Blair said in his best scientist voice. "But you were drunk, and you'd taken in a lot more alcohol than me, and I'd been sleeping for a while already. So there's no reason I couldn't have raped you."

"That's crazy."

"No more than the idea that you raped me." Blair glared at Jim, who still looked unconvinced. "Jim, whatever happened last night was consensual. I trust us both enough to be sure that you wouldn't have done something that I wasn't OK with, and that I wouldn't have done something that you weren't OK with -- well, at least we were both OK with it while drunk out of our minds," he amended. He reached out and squeezed the other man's shoulder. "Stop trying to make this your fault. We're both to blame, if you want to blame anyone. Personally, I'd rather we just worked out whatever problems we have with what happened -- together -- and went on with our lives."

Jim's taut shoulders slumped a little as he relaxed and let his head fall back against the sofa. "All right, Chief," he surrendered. "I just don't know how you take this kind of thing in stride."

"It really isn't a big deal for me. I mean, aside from raising me with the general 'free love' attitude, Naomi's been with women a couple of times."

"Oh..." Jim said, nonplussed.

They sat quietly for a few moments, then Blair tilted his head. "Hey, if you thought you were the one behind this because you thought I hadn't thought about guys before, does that mean that--"

"Don't go there, Sandburg." Jim scowled at the grinning Blair, then leaned forward with a sigh, hands clasped between his knees. "Damn. I don't think I've ever gotten so drunk that I didn't even remember the stupid things I did."

"So, you're upset because you feel like you weren't in control of what happened, and that freaks you out."

"Thanks for the five-second psychoanalysis," Jim grumbled. But he finally met Blair's eyes, and after a little bit a tiny, wry smile managed to wrangle its way onto his face. "OK, so maybe I'm overreacting," he conceded. "I just... I don't like the fact that I got trashed, and then all of a sudden I'm waking up in bed with you and finding out secondhand that we had sex, and I don't remember a damn minute of it."

Blair bounced a little on the sofa, eyes bright and mischievious. "Well, if it's just that you want to remember, we could always try it sober..." he suggested with a grin.

Jim retorted, "I don't know that I'd really want any memories of kissing you, Chief."

"Hey, I have it on excellent and varied authority that I am a great kisser."

Jim stretched his arms out over the back of the sofa, crossing his legs. "I can believe the varied part."

"Man, you are just daring me to prove it to you."

"'All talk, no action' mean anything to you, Sandburg?"

"O-kay. You want action, you got action." Blair edged closer and slid a hand around Jim's neck, moving it up until it was cradling his head.

Jim found that he was holding his breath as Blair's tongue started teasing his lips. *I shouldn't let him... I don't want this... shouldn't want this... but no point closing the barn door after...* Coherent thought ended as Blair pressed forward, his lips, soft and warm, merging gently with Jim's own as his tongue slipped further inwards, licking tentatively at his teeth. Jim instinctively reached up, hands sinking into the fragrant silk of those brown curls, his eyes closing as he was savored, devoured, possessed. *Oh. Wow.*

They overbalanced as Jim pulled Blair closer, falling back until Blair was sprawled over Jim's chest, their groins pressing together, the smaller man's legs lying between Jim's thighs. Light-headedness finally forced them apart, chests heaving deeply as they tried to pull in enough air.

"Not bad," Jim finally panted, eyes dazed.

"Not bad!?!" Blair pushed himself up indignantly.

Jim caught his head and pulled him closer. "Yeah. Not bad." He leaned forward, dialing up his sense of taste, when a banging came on the door. "Grrr."

"Grrr is right," Blair complained as Jim reluctantly lifted him up and set him upright on the couch. "Can't we ignore that?" The banging repeated, this time louder. "Guess not." He caught Jim's mouth with a quick, succulent kiss that nearly zoned the Sentinel out on his elevated sense of taste, leaving him with a silly grin on his face. "Jim? Jim, you in there?"

"Mmmm."

"Right. Hold that thought. I'll get the door. And send whoever it is away," he added to himself in an undertone.

'Whoever' turned out to be Joel Taggart, out of breath and anxious. "Sandburg! Why the hell haven't you two been answering the phone?"

"Jim turned off the ringer and the answering machine when we got in," Blair explained, keeping his body in the doorframe as a human barricade. "Calm down, man, everything's OK, Jim isn't planning to murder me and hide the body or anything."

Taggart looked annoyed. "If you two hadn't run out like bats from hell, that wouldn't even be an issue." He rolled his eyes and looked over towards Jim, who was still sitting on the couch with an absent smile on his face. "We were about to move on to the 'Gotcha!' stage of the joke."

Blair felt a hot flush crawling over his cheeks. "Joke?" he said, in what he considered a very calm and reasonable tone.

"Yeah. We were drinking watered vodka, and when Ellison keeled over, we just yanked off both your clothes and put you in bed together. Nothing happened."

"Joke?" Blair repeated.

"Sandburg? You with me here?"

"JOKE?!?"

Taggart stepped back a few paces at the infuriated expression on Blair's face, sensing the impending storm about to break. "Uhh..."

"How could you DO something like that? That is NOT funny! Man, Jim was seriously freaking out! Hell, I was freaking out! I can NOT believe you did that!"

Blair's distressed tone broke through Jim's mild zone-out, and he finally processed what he was hearing. He came up to the door, eyes absolutely cold. "Joke?" he said ominously. "That was supposed to be funny?"

Taggart defended himself, "Hey, just hold on a second! It was JUST as funny as what YOU pulled two years ago!"

Blair looked over his shoulder at Jim inquisitively. The older man looked distinctly guilty. "What did you do?"

Flushing, Jim explained, "We got him drunk and put him in a gold lame' muumuu."

"Hey, let's not forget the best part! He took pictures and put them up on the Major Crimes bulletin board!" Joel said indignantly. "I still haven't heard the end of that."

Blair laughed out loud. "Man, that's great!" He turned back to Taggart. "See, now that's funny." He thought about it a bit more. "Actually, you could have put Jim in a dress. That would be funny."

"No that would NOT be funny!" Jim interrupted the flow of brilliant ideas with a bat to Sandburg's forehead, annoyed at his backup's sudden defection.

"Besides, we've already seen Ellison in a dress."

"Taggart..." Jim growled.

"Uh, is there something you haven't been telling me, big guy?" Blair's voice was full of suppressed laughter.

"I was in Vice, Sandburg. It was an assignment!"

"He looks pretty good in a dress," Taggart informed Blair. "Nice legs."

"Pictures?" Blair asked hopefully.

"No," Jim said smugly.

Joel looked sorrowful. "They mysteriously disappeared from evidence lockup."

"Funny how that happened." Jim crossed his arms over his chest. "That still doesn't make this little setup funny, Taggart. I was seriously drunk -- what if I'd really hurt Sandburg?"

Taggart rolled his eyes. "Like you'd lay a finger on the kid. You treat him like he's made of glass. And what was all that stuff you were babbling about last night, anyway?"

"Uh... what do you mean?"

"You kept talking about needing a guide or something and how you were a 'blessed protector' or something like that. Oh, yeah, and you were yakking about something called a sentinel too."

Jim blanched a little. Blair's hand at the small of his back calmed the instant tension that arose at the prospect of his senses being discovered. "Sounds like stuff out of my research, Joel. I've been making him proofread my thesis." Blair grinned up at Jim. "Guess more of it was sinking in than I thought."

"More than I wanted," Jim muttered sourly.

"Gotcha," Taggart grinned. "Anyway, now that I've explained things to you two 'lovebirds,'" he smirked, "I'll be on my way. Running around the city on a hangover before the Super Bowl is not my idea of fun."

"Yeah, yeah, get out of here," Jim said, unable to maintain his anger over the joke.

Blair bounced on his heels a little as the door closed behind Taggart, scooting over to the fridge and getting a glass of orange juice.

"So..." Jim trailed off, automatically wandering over to Blair's side, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

"So," Blair said blandly. Jim's danger sense spiked. "A dress, huh?"

"Don't get any bright ideas, Chief."

"Hey, I bet you'd be cute in a dress. A nice floral print. With some ruffles, maybe..."

"Sandburg..."

"How about heels? Did you wear heels?"

"BLAIR!"

"Fishnets? Nah, fishnets and floral prints just don't work together..."

Jim gave up on cowing Blair into silence and resorted to closing his mouth with a kiss. Blair enthusiastically responded, pushing Jim back against the counter, one hand cupping his head, the other busy at the neck of his shirt. *I fell for that one hook, line, and sinker,* Jim decided in the brief moment before the capacity for rational thought deserted him. Instinct sent his hands sliding over Blair's back, cautiously easing downwards to caress his buttocks through the soft denim. He jumped a little when he felt Blair's hand on his chest and the soft caress of his shirt as it slid off his shoulders. He let the shirt drop to the floor, panting a little as Blair moved from his mouth and onto his throat. Suddenly he felt adrift in sensation, desire overriding inhibition with frightening ease.

Blair started working on Jim's belt buckle as his mouth latched onto one already-taut nipple, laving the firm flesh with soft, wet strokes. Jim's breathing was harshly audible, that magnificent chest rippling with tension. *Almost, almost,* he mentally chanted as Jim's pants came undone and slid down around his ankles. Blair didn't even notice that he was still fully dressed, Jim's tentative caresses burning his skin despite the layers of clothes he wore. All he could think about was getting at Jim's body, feasting on every inch of satiny skin with fingers and tongue. Tugging down the loose boxers, he instinctively slid to his knees, nails lightly running down Jim's back.

Grateful for the support of the counter behind him, Jim buried his hands in Blair's curls, every strand embracing him like warm, living silk. He stared straight ahead, eyes locked onto a minute imperfection in the paint on the wall in front of him, almost afraid to look down. Soft puffs of warmth alternated with cooler, directed breaths in caressing his groin, the almost-touch of lips and tongue a teasing promise of pleasures to come. He had to lock his knees when the first touch ghosted over his balls, one fingertip pressing with contrasting firmness against his perineum for a bare, unsatisfying instant. A faint gasp of protest escaped him as the hand moved away and Blair resumed painting his shaft with breath.

A surprisingly strong grip held his hips immobile against the counter as he was nuzzled gently, then finally -- finally! -- tasted, the very tip of Blair's tongue slowly trailing the patterns drawn just before by his breath. Then, again, only the cool whisper of air against his skin. Now a steady alteration -- a curving line traced on him by softly blown breath, then overwritten with a delicate, moist stroke, over and over until his vision was blurring with tears and his panting on the verge of transforming into sobs.

As if somehow aware of the limit being approached, Blair suddenly moved, one hand cupping a firm buttock, the other grasping Jim's rigid cock. Squeezing rhythmically, Blair began to cover the shaft from base to head with long, loving strokes of his tongue, then carefully taking the head into his mouth, sucking briefly before going back to licking. He teased the small slit on top of Jim's cock, plundering the faint drops of musky fluid before suckling the entire head once again. Slowly, he eased further down on the shaft, dragging a groan from Jim's throat. Wrapping his hand around the base, Blair closed his lips on the cock, sucking gently and steadily on the upper portion of the shaft, dancing his tongue back and forth over the head.

Nothing existed for Jim anymore but Blair's mouth and hands, the fragrance of his body and hair becoming the very essence of desire. A shudder built deep within his groin, pulsing and quickening with each succulent pull on his cock, built and divided and exploded outward as his orgasm crashed through his body and an almost savage roar burst from his lips, a primal cry of satiation and triumph.

His legs gave out, pulling his shaft abruptly from Blair's lips, his body sagging into lean, strong arms that cradled him away from the counter's edge and eased him down. Blair settled into a cross-legged position around him, nudging his head back to savoring the skin across his collarbone, lapping at the hollow of his throat easily.

Despite the tremors shaking his body, Jim fiercely pulled Blair's head back by the hair and dived down onto his lips, bruising them passionately as he seized Blair's plaid shirt and literally tore it open, hearing the buttons clatter off against the floor. He pushed it half-off, leaving the other man's arms imprisoned in the sleeves, and similarly ripped away the T-shirt Blair wore underneath. He wrapped an arm around Blair's back, pulling him in until the cool silver of the nipple ring was burning against his own chest, his other hand fumbling desperately at the snap and zipper of Blair's jeans. Then the rigid heat of Blair's cock was heavy in his palm, veins pulsing along its length like drumbeats urging him on.

Blair moaned incoherently against the crushing possession of the lips claiming his own as his body was played like an instrument, every eager wriggling movement he tried to make controlled by the hand imprisoning him against the iron wall of Jim's chest. Restrained, he found all sensation pooling itself in his cock under the insistent pumping of Jim's hand. As climax rolled upon him, he was pushed back against the counter, and wet heat covered the head of his cock for a moment as he exploded, soft whimpers escaping him.

The bitter liquid churned over Jim's tongue until he swallowed hard, mouth watering to clear his taste buds. Slowly catching his breath, he shakily pushed himself up against the counter wall, staring at an impossibly wide-eyed Blair. "What the hell just happened?" He put a hand to his forehead, his pulse thundering in his ears.

In response, Blair only made an incoherent, muzzy little noise, tucked his head into the curve where Jim's neck melted into his shoulder, and collapsed into sleep.

"Blair?" The younger man's breathing remained the even of deep sleep, his heartrate steady. Jim reached up and grabbed the edge of the counter for purchase, lifting himself gently out of Blair's embrace. He supported Blair's head with one hand as he pulled his pants back up, then crouched back down. "Dammit, Chief, don't you dare leave me alone to figure this out!" He tried shaking Blair a little, but all he achieved was for two arms to twine themselves around his neck as Blair nuzzled into him, still fast asleep. "Great."

Jim managed to get his arms underneath the sleeping body and lifted Blair up with an effort. "You're too heavy to lug around," he informed his guide irritably as he carried him to his bedroom and put him down. Untangling Blair's arms from his neck, he sat down on the edge to watch him sleep and sort out his own thoughts.

*What was going on with me there?* Jim stared down at his hands. *And what is going on with Blair? He went down on me like...* He shivered involuntarily at the memory, his cock actually twitching a little. Jim glared down at his crotch. *Hasn't that gotten me into enough trouble for one damn day? Jesus. What the hell are we going to do? We can't keep doing this.*

He rubbed his temples briefly. The hangover he'd pushed aside earlier was still nudging at his skull, and he suddenly felt a smothering wave of exhaustion. His eyelids sagged briefly as he caught himself half-falling against the bed. As sleep insinuated itself into his mind and overrode thought, Blair's arms reached up and pulled him down onto the bed. Sinking into the tangled pile of sheets and comforter, Jim sleepily heaved his legs onto the bed as Blair pillowed his head on his chest and wriggled into his arms. Wrapped up in each other, they sank into a dreamless sleep. Answers would have to wait.

- The End -