this series didn't quite take off and so there's only one story in it. but it's a good story  :)

The crowd was loud, twenty thousand people talking at once, shifting in their seats, flipping through programs, munching on popcorn. The pieces of apparatus were arranged geometrically on the floor; rings, horse, p-bars and uneven, the vault and the big flat springy square of the floor itself.

Quieting, the crowd all stared as the contestants started coming out onto the floor.

An announcer stepped in front of the idly panning camera. Short and blond, she had the pretty smile of a professional television personality.

"Welcome everyone, to the final night of gymnastics competition. Tonight we'll find out who is going to be on America's Men's Olympic team for the year 2002. Let's go to Dan, on the floor, the athletes are just coming in after their break from this morning's grueling competition."

A tall dark haired man, Dan towered over the athletes that surrounded him, and the television audience had to wonder why he'd been sent down there and not the blond. Uniformly short, the tallest of the guys was no more than 5'8", and even at that he towered over the shorter ones. The average seemed to be 5'4" or so.

"Thanks, Tacy." Dan said cheerfully. "There have been so many great stories in this competition, it's hard to choose which one to concentrate on, but I think we all agree that this young man here is the one to watch tonight."

Grinning, he reached out and patted the tallest young man on his shoulder. Wearing a yellow-and-dark-blue striped windsuit, the gymnast had longish curly brown hair and wide blue eyes. Beard stubble shadowed his jaw, and there were two silver hoops in his left ear.

And a small rainbow triangle patch on the shoulder of his jacket.

"Blair Sandburg, the comeback kid. Tell us how you're feeling now, Blair. You quit the sport to pursue your doctorate degree in Anthropology and then, with no explanation, came back after a four-year absence to try for the Olympics. Everyone is asking, why did you do that?"

Looking rather annoyed, Blair shrugged. His hands moved expressively as he answered.

"It's not that big a deal, man. Like I've been saying all along - I was working on my dissertation and I realized that I'd given up a chance to do something I really waned to do. After all those years of work, I needed to follow through to the end."

"And that meant the Olympics." Dan asked.

Blair nodded. The others had left and were settling on benches, pulling off their sweats, etc.

"Ranier was very generous, they gave me a chance to rejoin the school team. And I did so well at Nationals that it just seemed, like, well, I should keep going. I can finish the dissertation later. I won't get another chance at this."

"During your year off you made some serious changes in your personal life as well."

Taking a step back, Sandburg seemed to be holding onto his temper.

"I don't talk about the gay thing." He said firmly. "It doesn't have anything to do with my performance here."

Dan looked irritated, but continued smiling, and then a tall man, bigger than Dan, came over and touched Blair's arm. Also wearing a windsuit in the Ranier colors, he cocked his head at Dan.

"Coach Ellison." Dan greeted him. "You've been asked to be an assistant coach for the Olympic team. Have you decided if you're going to take that position?"

"Depends on well he does." Ellison gave Blair a small shake. "That means he needs to get over there with everybody else."

The young athlete looked grateful as he slipped around the bigger man and joined his teammates, who all looked sympathetic.

Flexing his hands, Ellison ignored Dan and turned to study the gymnasium. Dismissed, the reporter turned back to the camera.

"Well, Tacy, that's all I'm going to get down here. Let's go to camera three to watch the final round of the vault..

Picking it up smoothly, his partner spoke as the camera turned to follow the progress of one small, stocky young man down the runway and off the springboard.

"And this is the leader in this even, Steven Toll, just 18 this month. He's a little young for a male gymnast, the sport requires a level of muscular development that men don't usually achieve until their early twenties. This means that tonight the first and second place spots are being held by the youngest and the oldest in the competition, Steven Toll and Blair Sandburg."

She rambled on as the competition continued. The crowd seemed to become more focused whenever Sandburg

performed. Every time he left the floor the applause swelled, and Tacy commented on his popularity with the audience.

"America loves an underdog."

The camera panned to show his mother, a small, pretty red-headed woman who sat with a tall black man and a teenage africa-american boy.

"Sandburg has brought his own cheering section from his university." She smiled as she said it. "Of all our competitors here tonight, he's the only one that trains at his university and not at one of the three major coaching centers in the country. This allows him time to work on his doctoral dissertation and teach as well. So not only is he a world-class gymnast, he's a college professor as well. All at the age of 28, which is actually old for the sport."

Ellison was there every time Sandburg left the floor, wrapping a towel around his shoulders, rubbing them, encouraging him.

"Two more events left, and we have the makings of a miracle here, folks." Dan said, joining Tacy in the broadcast booth again. "For Sandburg to make the Olympic team after a four-year hiatus would pretty much put him in miracle territory. For him to be the top-all-around doing it would be over the top."

"This morning Sandburg bobbled his landing off the uneven bars, which is usually his best event. His comparative height allows him to move very smoothly on this apparatus, but this morning he lost that."

A clip flashed onscreen, showing the twisting double-back landing that Sandburg had fallen out of. It looked painful and Ellison had been on the floor beside him almost before he hit the ground.

"See that?" Tacy pointed at the playback. He was limping when he left."

"But the doctor cleared him to continue the competition." Dan added. "And here he is now, with his personal coach Ellison right there behind him. Tacy, Ellison is motioning the spotter aside - is he going to spot Sandburg?"

"It looks like it. I've seen this done before, and after this morning I can understand it."

She said it seriously. "Sandburg can't afford an injury at this stage."

"Let's watch and hope he can land it this time." Dan nodded.

A hush hovered over the gymnasium. For this final round, with only ten athletes competing, they were only doing one piece at a time. so there was nothing to distract from him.

Ellison's big hands closed around Sandburg's waist and hoisted him to the high bar.

"That's interesting." Dan commented.

"Starting on the high bar is allowed under international rules." Tacy said. "But I've never seen it done before."

The twang of the bars as he released, the slap of his hands as he grabbed - Sandburg was really flying through the air tonight. As Tacy talked the audience up to his big release move everyone seemed to collectively hold their breath, and then all sigh at once as he seemed to fly over the bar and just barely touch it before flinging himself back into space.

"Now the dismount - this is what hurt him this morning..." Tacy seemed to hold her breath.

The same big, bold, twisting-and-turning dismount that had taunted him eight hours earlier now tossed him into the air. As he came down, eyes searching for his landing spot, Ellison took a step forward, preparing himself, but Sandburg landed with a solid thump, arms out to his sides.

He quivered, feet glued, knees bent...

and then straightened, and threw his arms up triumphantly.

The crowd roared.

Tacy was saying excitedly "He did it! He did it!" and Ellison grabbed up the smaller man and whirled him in an enthusiastic hug.

But as soon as he put Sandburg down it was clear there was a problem. The younger man took one step and his left leg crumpled under him. He fell, face contorted, grabbing at the leg and curling around it.

"We're going to take a break, we'll be back after these messages with a report on Sandburg's condition..."

Tacy seemed subdued and unhappy. Even Dan looked shocked.

"Ow." Blair muttered, sounding pissed. When Jim continued to rub carefully around the heavy bandage that was holding the icepack to his wounded knee, he said it again, but louder this time. "OW."

"Lie back down." Jim scolded, using both hands on the smaller man's heavily muscled chest to push him back.

"It hurts." Saying it conversationally, Blair allowed himself to be pushed back to the pillows of his double bed in the hotel room they shared.

"You were lucky." Ellison scolded. "You need to do what Dr.Dan said and give it plenty of time to heal."

"I guess that means you're going to be carrying me around for a while." Blair sighed, closing his eyes. Then he grinned.

"I can think of worse things."

"You're a brat, Sandburg." Ellison said softly, stretching out on the bed next to him. Turning his head, the gymnast snuggled close and sighed again when Ellison wrapped an arm around him.

"This is the best thing about being out." He mumbled, the pain killers were beginning to take effect.

"What?" Not following the thought, Jim carefully arranged himself next to his sleepy, injured lover.

Blinking his eyes open, Blair smiled sweetly, looking far younger than his claimed 28 years.

"Since nobody else wants to share a room with me I get stuck in here with you. That works out pretty well for me."

"Me too, Darwin." Smiling, Jim rewarded the thought with a kiss, only to feel Blair moving against him, rolling slightly to press his burgeoning erection into Jim's thigh. "Hey, you're hurt."

"This'll make it feel better. Help me sleep, too." Blair argued softly, licking his lips when Jim pulled away. "We don't get so many opportunities that we can just let them pass, lover."

"If you can be quiet." Jim grinned. Their relationship had been an up-and-down excursion into secrecy, with hotel rooms and pillows stuffed into mouths to ensure that it stay that way. To blow it here, on the same hotel floor as the rest of the competitors and their coaches, would be sheerest folly.

"Keep my mouth busy." Blair almost purred, pressing closer. Kissing him, open-mouthed and slow, Jim carefully rolled to his side and pulled Blair's injured leg to the front, using one hand to hold the curly head in place while he propped the injured leg on pillows with the other.

Slipping a hand into the loose shorts he'd just put on the younger man, he found Blair's cock waiting for him, eager and drooling. Closing his fist around it, he swallowed the moan that shuddered up from Blair's chest.

With his reactions slowed by the injury and the drugs, Blair held out for some little while. Jim kissed him and stroked him and caressed him, loving every second of it. This was much calmer than their usual encounters, less frantic, and he liked that.

He liked everything about this young man.

Loved him, in fact.

And he was infinitely grateful that feeling was returned, almost with amazement, but the object of his affection.

Humping slowly into his hand, Blair kissed him, nostrils flaring as he sucked air through his nose, both of his own hands traveling Jim's body, loving the clean cut, silky feel of it.

Eventually he got his hands into the waistband of Jim's windsuit and stroked him as well, and then they were both too close.

With a grunt Blair came, pressing harder and harder into Jim's hand, trying to make it last longer, and Jim joined him, letting the wave of happiness sweep him along with it.

They caught their breath and then Jim got up and changed into pajamas. Gently he bathed his young lover and then lay down with him again, after deliberately messing up the second bed in the room and rinsing out the washcloth he'd used.

"So what are we going to do at the Olympics?" Blair asked, sleepy but still wanting to talk.

"We'll be careful. And then we'll be free to start our life together for real." Jim cuddles him close, Blair's head on his chest.

"Think it'll still be the same, when we aren't hiding it?"

"It will be better, sweetheart." Jim assured him, earning an elbow in his side for the endearment. "Much better."

"Cool. I believe you." With that last thought Blair let his eyes finally close and then sighed, slipping easily into sleep.

After a moment spent admiring him, Jim did too.

<done>

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