by
saraid
Waking, Jim immediately looked at the clock. The red numbers glowed with a serenity he'd been unable to achieve tonight himself.
2:04.
Sitting up, hand reaching under the pillow for his gun, he scanned the loft with his senses wide, trying to decide what had woken him.
The hair on the back of his neck was standing on end, an eerie sensation.
Something was wrong. Big wrong, serious wrong.
Where was Blair?
Rising from his bed like Triton from the sea, gun held high and to the side, wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else, Jim padded warily down the stairs into the living room. When he'd given up and gone to bed earlier Blair had been brewing tea, the lemon-grass and ginger one that Jim recognized as part of a preparation for meditation. Now the room was empty, and he couldn't detect Blair's heartbeat in the loft.
It was a beautiful night. He probably went up to the roof, to sit under the stars. With a brief smile Jim expanded his hearing until he caught that sound, the steady rhythm that he built his life around. Slow, evem peaceful. Not sleeping, but not here, either.
Going back upstairs to put on some jeans, he tucked the gun back into it's place, thinking about his friend. Something was bothering Blair, something big. Although Jim had tried, in his macho we-don't-talk-about-emotions-we're-men way, to discover the source of the problem, he'd had no luck. Blair knew he was trying, he recognized that routine from Jim now, but apparently he didn't want to play.
And that hurt.
Halfway up the back stairs, the ones that led to the roof, where they had, over the past couple of years, stashed a couple of chairs and a large, really old, seriously beat-up chunk of carpet Blair had scrounged from the side of the road someplace and cleaned back to a faded version of it's original emerald-green color, Jim paused.
That feeling washed over him again. Eerie, almost electric. Like the earth itself was calling to him...
oh, shit.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he threw himself onto the roof. Sentinel eyes narrowed in on the younge rman, sitting in full lotus on the rough comfort of the carpet. Hands at ease on his thighs, bare chest rising and falling slowly, curly hair barely stirring in the lighyt breeze that relieved the muggy June heat.
Even knowing it was an emergency, knowing that their lives were probably in danger, and that they were in the worst possible place for this -- even knowing all that -- Jim couldn't help but steal a few precious seconds just to look, and wish.
Longing filled him. A desire kept buried too long and too well rose abruptly, only to be ruthlessly shoved back under the weight of his soul, in hopes that it would eventually drown in the darkness there.
"Blair!" his shout made the smaller man twitch, and open his eyes wide, blinking.
"Jim?" confused, not quite here yet.
That feeling ran through Jim like an angry wasp buzzing and this time he heard it.
The earth was moving.
Not the way he wanted it to, either.
Grabbing the younger man by the upper arms, Jim lifted him effortlessly to his feet, looking for a safe place. Risk the stairs? Try the elevator?
The sound grew louder and Jim wondered why no-one else could hear it.
"What's going on, Jim?" his Guide, practically inhis arms, not fighting the closeness.
"Earthquake." he said sharply. "It's starting now, I can feel it, hear it."
"Earthquake? In Casacde?" brushing right past the unbelievable aspects of that, Blair jumped right to the part that delighted his scientific little heart. "You can feel it? Whatdo yo mean, feel it? Dogs have been known to predfict earthquakes, man, there's even one who could tell when his owner was going to have an epileptic seizure...what's it feel like?" he kept talking, seeming unaware that Jim was dragging him back toward the stairs.
The stairwell was an enclosed space, no windows, concrete stairs....
They both heard it now...a low, threatening rumble. Blair snapped his mouth shut and gripped Jim's arms.
"Oh, shit."
"My words exactly, Chief."
Together they ran for the flat door that opened to the roof. They were on the other side, with the long raised skylight that lit Jim's room between them and it. Glancing, Jim knew they didn't want to go around, that would put them way too close to the edges of the roof. Falling off would be beyond not good. Blair was going to jump it, Jim could see that and his heart slammed intohis throat. Raching out, he grabbed Blair's shoulder and slowed him down, forcing him to stop and get his balance before attemtping the four-foot leap.
Climbing over himself -- they could feel the tremors that were starting to shake the building now -- he took Blair's hand to help the shorter man over it.
And the earth moved.
Jim shouted a word - "Blair!" and the younger man yelped comically as the plexiglass and the wooden structure that supported it crumbled beneath them.
The fall was mercifully short, and the landing surprisingly soft. Chunks of wood and sharp pieces of the plastic rained down over them as the building contunued to shake, and Jim rolled Blair under him, protecting the smaller man with his body.
In another few seconds it was over.
Opening his eyes, Jim stared around, amazed disbelief taking over his features.
They were on his bed. Surrounded by the remains on the skylight. His dresser-top was cleared, everything shaken to the floor, and the lamp on his nighttable had fallen over and broken... but they were fine.
Well, he was, anyhow. Realizing that he still had Blair pinned beneath him -- and how many times had he fantasized about that, huh? -- he rolled off his friend and checked him for injuries.
Hs sensitive fingers ran over sweat-slicked skin and through soft curly chest hair and heaving flanks, finding only a few minor scratches from the fall, before he looked up, and into the wide blue yes.
Wide blue eyes that were rapidly darkening, shining with somehting other than fear.
Taking a deep breath, trying to control his body's reaction to that sight, Jim let himself notice other things.
The smell of musk mixed with Blair's sweat, drowning out the sour scent of fear. The bulge in the jeans the younger man wore, all the more noticeable because of the ragged rip in the upper inner thigh of the denim that let Jim see there were no boxers beneath the pants.
Raising his eyes to meet Blair's again, Jim let that poor abused feeling surface at last. It gasped for air once and then poured itself through his sky-blue eyes, to be met by an equally tormented emotion in Blair's gemstone-blue.
Blair raised a shaky hand and ran a finger along Jim's jaw, feeling the lightly scratchy promise of bristles-to-be.
"Man, if you even knew how long I've wanted to land in your bed."
"Is that what's been bothering you?" As if they were disconnected from his brain, Jim began brushing the debris from the bed. It fell to the wooden floor with quiet clattering sounds.
Blair nodded.
"I didn't know how to say it."
"Neither did I." the emotions that flowed between them began to twine together. With the worst of the mess cleared, Jim reached for the man he loved and pulled him into his arms, sliding down to lie on his side and pull him close. They wrapped around each other and held on tightly, Blair's head on Jim's chest, Jim's face pressed into the soft curls.
"Hey - is everyone okay?" raising his head from the smooth skin, Blair looked suddenly worried.
"Yeah, I was checkong. Mrs. Wilson is upset because several of her Precious Moments figurines were broken, and there's a lot of mess, but it seems that no-ones hurt. It wasn't a very big quake."
"I've never been in one before. Well, there was that tremor in Costa Rica..."
The words were cut off by a kiss.
Just a soft press of lips to his.
With a soft moan Blair opened his mouth and tightened his hold and asked for more. Hungrily, Jim gave it to him.
They kissed, and it was as good, as hot and sweet and fulfilling as they had both known it would be. Finally breaking away, they panted. Blair's eyes flickered around the dark room.
"Simon will be calling soon, I bet."
"There're probably looters already out." Jim agreed softly.
"I'll go with you." hugging tightly again, Blair dropped hs head to kiss the hollow of Jim's throat. "I don't think I could stand to be apart from you right now."
"I couldn't leave you if my life depended on it." Jim echoed the sentiments, his hands beginning a tentative but eager exploration of Blair's back and shoulders and thighs.
The cellphone rang downstairs.
"I guess the lines are down." Blair whispered. "What will we do when we get back home, Jim?"
Rolling so that Blair lay under him, tense and quivering just a bit, Jim leaned to brush butterfly kisses over his wonderful face. "We're going to clean up, and then we'll come up here and go to bed."
The face broke into an almost-shy grin.
"I don't have much experience in this area, man." the normally exhuberant voice was half-embarrassed.
"We'll figure it out." kissing those full lips again, slightly swollen now from that first burst of passion, Jim pulled back and grinned.
Below, the phone rang insistently.
"And then what will happen?" Blair still looked a teensy bit worried.
"Don't you know, Chief?" teasing, Jim ran ahand down the furred stomach lightly, drawing a shivery moan.
"Tell me, Jim." a gasp and the long-fingered hands caught at his.
"The earth will move."
With those words Jim Ellison rolled out of bed, pulling his lover with him, and padded back downstairs. Time to be the Sentinel. Time to protect the tribe.
With his Shaman, his Guide, always by his side.
End
