Title: The True Love Look
Author/pseudonym: Tinnean
Fandom: The Sentinel
Pairing: Blair Sandburg/Jim Ellison
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Still belonging to Petfly, people.
Status: new/complete
Date:
Series/Sequel: no
Summary: Valentine's Day. To Jim, it's just another
day. Blair intends to show him it isn't.
Warnings: m/m, spoilers for Switchman and The Debt.
Orvelle Wallace and Dwight Roshman are from Three Point Shot.
Notes: This is not quite a companion piece to Just
Another Day, the Valentine story for 2003, which can be found here: https://www.angelfire.com/fl5/tinnssinns/Valentine.html
. Blair is singing Colors of the Wind. I'd like to take this opportunity to
thank Nightowl's Nest Resource Site, which has proved to be an invaluable…
um… resource. J
Gail beta'd, and I thank her muchly.
The True Love Look
Part 1/1
I knew there was true love out there. I hadn't found it, not for myself,
but that was just because I hadn't found the right person yet.
But I wasn't going to stop looking.
In my wallet was an old picture I'd cut out of the newspaper. There was
no date on it, but there didn't need to be. It was
I'd been almost six years old at the time.
Naomi, my mom, had seen them on television, the young actor and his new
bride, and she'd gone very still.
"There, baby," she'd said to me. "See that? See the way
he's looking at her? That's what true love looks like." I stared at the
couple on the television screen. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "That's
what I want."
She was living with some guy. I could never remember his name, which was
funny, because he was one of the few men my mother had shacked up with that I'd
really liked.
She stood up, went into the bedroom she shared with the guy, and pulled
her suitcase down from the closet.
"Mom?"
"Go pack your backpack, Blair. We're leaving."
She didn't even say good-bye to the guy, just scribbled a note and left
it on the pillow.
The next day, the bus pulled in for a lunch stop in the middle of
nowhere, and while we were waiting until it was time to go on again, I found a
newspaper. On the entertainment page was a picture of the actor gazing at his
bride. I ripped it out and saved it.
One day I was going to find someone who looked at me exactly like that.
****
Twenty years later. I hadn't stopped looking.
I'd just kind of … tabled my search. The world was filled with pretty
girls and good-looking guys. I didn't discriminate; I believed in being an equal
opportunity lover.
Why settle for the one, when I could have the many, y'know?
Jim Ellison, Cascade Detective of the Year and my roommate, was a little
overboard when he inferred that I'd hump everything, even a table leg, or words
to that effect. Just because I had an eye for a sweet ass did *not* mean
I couldn't maintain a little decorum.
Jim Ellison. Now there was a man with a sweet ass.
The first time I saw him was in a waiting room at Cascade General. Poor
guy had gone there for a battery of tests, trying to figure out why he was
seeing things, hearing things, smelling things that no one else seemed
to.
I was a grad student at
I'd had to just about promise … um… tutoring in perpetuity to the
nurse who was on the lookout for patients who might be of interest to me. She
faxed me a chart, and according to the pages the department fax machine spat
out, he was the perfect subject for my dissertation.
So I hot-footed it to the hospital, grabbed a lab coat some doctor had
carelessly left lying around, barreled into the room, and there he was. He had
these blue eyes that seemed to physically stroke over my body. I could feel it,
man. It was as if his fingernails scraped over my nipples, down through my chest
hair, followed the line of hair that joined my torso and groin. My dick did an
impression of an iron bar, and that look absolutely turned my brain to mush.
I mean, c'mon, why else would I make such a dumb mistake as to introduce
myself as Dr. McKay, then try to cover the gaff by telling him that was the
Gaelic pronunciation of McCoy?
Of course, those eyes'd turned to ice-blue when he opened the door to my
office in the basement of the
"Oh, no, Sandburg," I muttered to myself as I watched him take
his fine ass out of my vicinity. "You know better than to get involved with
straight guys."
But I'd still chased after him, and that was a damned good thing. I
wound up saving his fine ass when he zoned on a Frisbee, shoving him to the
pavement just before a garbage truck passed over us.
We rose to our feet. "That really sucked, man!"
"Yeah. How come you came after me?"
"I was gonna tell you to watch out for the zone-out factor."
"'Zone-out'? What the fuck is that?"
"What you just experienced."
Those blue eyes narrowed. "Fuck."
"A man of few words. I like that."
Reluctantly, he'd concluded that he needed help with his senses, and
even more reluctantly he'd agreed that I should be the one to help him.
That led to me signing on with Cascade PD as a kind of unpaid
drive-along observer. Emphasis on 'unpaid.'
Not too long after that, the warehouse I called home was destroyed when
a drug lab that, unbeknownst to me was sharing the space, blew up.
On a scale of one to ten, that seriously topped the suckage scale.
Jim, again reluctantly, agreed to let me move into his apartment until I
could find a place of my own. He gave me a week.
****
One week flowed into two flowed into three. We found a routine and
settled into it, and we actually seemed to be on the road to becoming friends.
"Going out, Chief?" Jim was sprawled on the couch, waiting for
the start of an exhibition baseball game on TV. He tipped a bottle of beer to
his lips, and I watched as his throat muscles rippled.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Don't wait up." I didn't tell him the date I
had lined up was with another guy. I hadn't told him I was bi; I liked my head
on my shoulders. And I liked having a place to stay, even if it was a teeny tiny
bedroom under the stairs.
But I forgot to take into account his senses. When I got back home,
around three in the morning, I was sated and slightly tipsy. The elevator wasn't
working, so I wobbled up the stairs. It took a couple of futile stabs before I
found the keyhole with the key and unlocked the door.
"'Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon…'"
I dropped the key. I chortled and stooped to retrieve it, almost falling
on my face when the door was pulled open.
"Had a little too much to drink, Chief?"
I reared back and would have fallen on my ass if he hadn't caught me.
"Jim, ol' buddy, ol' pal!" I looped my arm around his neck and petted
his chest. "How the hell've you been?"
My roommate started to laugh, and then his nose wrinkled. "Not as
good as you, I'd say. You smell as if you got lucky, Chief."
"Awesome, Jim!" The anthropologist in me struggled to surface
through the beer. "What can you smell?"
"Semen. Two types."
Uh oh. Not awesome.
"I don't smell anything female, so that leads me to conclude you
weren't involved in a threesome. Something you want to tell me, Chief?"
Abruptly I was sober. I unlinked my arm from his neck and backed off,
hitting the door which he must have closed when I wasn't paying attention.
"You're the detective; you can connect the dots."
"Suppose you spell it out for me."
I pushed my hair out of my eyes. "I'm bisexual. Do we have a
problem here, Jim?"
"Depends. Am I going to have to fight you to protect my
virtue?"
"Dammit, Ellison, I've never come on to you!" Much as I had
wanted to. "I wouldn't do that to a friend!" I was disappointed in
him, the homophobic shit. Boozy tears welled up, and my throat burned with the
effort to keep them from falling. "If you don't know by now you can trust
me…" I stomped past him to my room, regretting that I didn't have a door
that I could slam shut behind me.
"Don't get your shorts in a bunch, Chief. I'm bi too. I was just
yanking your chain!"
"You are?" I poked my head around the blanket that acted as my
door. "You were?" Talk about being stupidly relieved.
"Yeah. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have teased you, especially when
you're a little looped. It's okay. I don't have a problem with who you choose to
date." He sighed.
Now that the adrenaline rush seemed to have died down, the beer took
over again. I blinked blearily. He sounded disappointed. What was he
disappointed about?
"House rule number ten: don't bring any of them back here."
****
Three years later, I was still there, still in that bedroom under the
stairs.
Where I really wanted to be was in that bedroom up at the top of the
stairs.
Jim Ellison was a good cop. He wouldn't have been named Detective of the
Year if he'd been content to sit on his ass and let others do the hard stuff.
He was a good man. He wouldn't have let me stay with him otherwise,
sharing the loft, tolerating the occasional wet towel left lying on the bathroom
floor, the nagging about his diet…
I had gone from wanting to study Jim for my diss, to liking him for
himself, to being in love with him.
I worked like a bastard to make sure he didn't know I was interested in
him in more than a purely scientific way, but it sure as hell was tough.
Occasionally I'd see him as he came out of the bathroom after showering.
He'd be in white boxers, a towel draped around his neck. His chest was pale, he
didn't get out in the sun much. Well, Cascade,
It was almost completely free of hair. His nipples and the aureoles
around them were a dusky beige. I'd look at them, my mouth would water, and I'd
have to lick my lips and adjust the pants I was wearing.
He had a six pack of abs that made my fingers itch to touch, to see if
they were as hard and toned as they looked.
Lower down, I could just make out the shadow of his pubic hair. I never
dared look hard enough to see if I could trace the shape of his dick.
I had to conceal how much I wanted to trace his dick, with fingers, with
tongue...
I did such a good job of hiding the fact that I was head over heels in
love with my roommate that the guy was totally clueless.
And it left me up shit creek, because I knew I'd never find anyone I
would love more than Jim Ellison.
That didn't stop me from going out on dates, but by that point they were
strictly camouflage.
Jim, on the other hand, seemed to have hit a dry patch. This was four
straight weeks that he was dateless.
"Another hot date, Chief?"
"Yeah, I'm seeing Tammy."
"… Bambi."
"… Joe."
"You'd hump a table leg, Sandburg." I was certain that it was
my imagination that made it seem as if he paused a beat before saying,
"Have a good time."
And he was still doing his dateless phase. I began to wonder about that.
"You're not going out tonight, Jim?"
"Nah."
"It's been a while. I'd hate for you to forget what to do with
it."
"No big deal, Dr. Ruth. It's been a tough week, and besides, the
Jags are playing tonight."
"Yeah? Mind if I stay home and watch the game with you?"
"What about your date? Who are you seeing tonight, anyway? Inga?
Bette? I can't keep track of your women. Or your men."
My head shot up. Was that a note of jealousy I'd detected in his voice?
"I was just going for a beer with some of the TAs from
"That'd be nice, Chief." He smiled. It was warm and... There
was something about that expression that nagged at me. I should know what it
meant.
The announcer started screaming, and I was distracted. We both got
pretty caught up in the game.
"Hey, ref!" Jim protested and threw a handful of popcorn at
the screen.
"C'mon, Wallace! You can make that point blindfolded!" It was
my turn to bombard the television with popcorn when his teammate, Dwight
Roshman, slammed into him, causing them both to land on the court with a jarring
thud. "Ouch!"
Jim flinched. "That's got to hurt."
The game was a squeaker, but the Jags took it, and we leaped to our feet
and grabbed each other, a guy hug kind of thing.
It was a real battle not to reach up and pull his head down and kiss
that mouth that was inches from mine.
By the time I shook myself out of my stupor, Jim had dropped his arms
and backed away from me. "I'm… uh… I'm really beat. Clean up for me,
would you, Chief?" He disappeared up the stairs.
Dammit. What had happened?
And then my brain cells caught up with the messages my body had
received, and I bounced on the balls of my feet.
That had been a hard-on nudging my hip. Jim's dick had been hard. He
wanted me!
I began to put the clues together. He'd stopped dating. He'd been
finding excuses to touch me, even more than the usual hand on my shoulder or
fingers on my arm. And he had sounded kind of jealous.
Okay, maybe it wasn't love, but it was a start.
****
It took me hours to fall asleep, and my dreams had been filled with an
elusive sentinel always just out of my reach.
When I finally woke up, I was exhausted.
"Shake it, Chief. You're running late!"
Jim was gone by the time I left my room, and I sighed.
The coffee was still warm. I poured myself a cup and stared blankly at
the calendar in front of me.
February 14. Valentine's Day.
Well, well, well. I went back to that room under the stairs and got
dressed. If things went the way I hoped, last night would turn out to be my last
night in that lonely bed.
I put some bills in my wallet. The
I got through the morning on autopilot, pounding knowledge into heads
that should have been more receptive, and at
"Major Crimes. Detective Brown speaking."
"Hi, H."
"Hairboy! You… uh…you looking for Jim?"
"Yeah. I wanted to see if he's available for lunch." I'd
called ahead for reservations. Before I could say so, Brown interrupted me.
"Gee, Sandburg, he's not here. He… uh… he's out on a case.
Yeah."
"Oh. Do you know when he'll be back?"
"Nope. Not a clue. Really couldn't say." He coughed lightly.
His response to my simple question was curiously emphatic, but I was so
disappointed that I didn't pay much heed to it. "Sorry. Listen, when Jim
gets back," he raised his voice, and I assumed it was so everyone in the
bullpen could have a laugh at my expense, "do you want me to tell him he
missed out on you buying him lunch?"
"Never mind." The wheels were busy turning. I'd surprise him
with dinner instead. "Gotta go, H."
"Okay. Oh, and Hairboy? Happy Valentine's Day." He half sang
it.
"Uh… yeah, you too." I hung up the phone. That was weird.
I pushed Henri Brown and his tendency to tease us about our living
arrangements out of my mind and concentrated on my roommate. If things went as I
planned, my roommate would soon be my lover.
Jim Ellison might not be aware of it, but he was going to be seduced to
within an inch of his life tonight.
****
I had no afternoon classes. I drove my Volvo home and made a phone call.
"Buonas tardes, El Sombrero Blanco. Um… Éste
es Yelena aquí."
"Buonas
tardes, Yelena. Quisiera
ordenar..."
"I'm
sorry," she sighed, "that's all the Spanish I know."
I started to
laugh. "All right, Yelena. I'd like to order one of your special
dinners." I told her what I wanted.
"Okay.
Your name, um...señor?"
"Sandburg."
"It will
be ready at six. Adiós, Señor Sandburg." She sounded relieved to have
completed the order.
"Adiós,
Yelena." I hung up, laughing softly, and decided to clean
the loft. I dusted, dry-mopped, and changed the sheets on both our beds, just in
case we couldn't make it to Jim's bedroom.
There were some candles in the loft someplace, and I went searching for
them. We'd needed them once when Cascade had been hit with a massive power
outage. Fortunately they were odorless; his sense of smell wouldn't go haywire.
I showered, dressed in jeans and a blue
I really hoped I wasn't putting one and one together and getting two,
when there should have simply been one and one.
I grabbed my jacket and car keys; I had just enough time to look for
some music that would be the epitome of romance before I'd need to get to El
Sombrero Blanco for dinner.
My mouth went dry when I thought of kissing him while we danced. I drove
to The Whirling Disk, browsed the stacks, and wound up with a selection of CDs
with lush orchestrations.
Satisfied with what I'd chosen, I drove to the restaurant, picked up our
dinner, and headed for home.
I turned into Prospect and realized that I'd forgotten flowers. If that
wasn't a guy thing. And then that went right out of my head when I saw the blue
pick-up parked in its usual spot.
Jim was home before me.
I parked behind the pick-up, swearing under my breath. Maybe he wouldn't
pay much attention to the candles all over the loft. I hurried into 852, and for
a change the elevator was working.
There wasn't time to meditate my nerves away, but I did some deep
breathing and hoped Jim wouldn't notice.
I unlocked the door, juggling the bags, and pushed it open.
Jim was standing before the open fridge, a hand on his hip, studying the
contents, or lack thereof. He was wearing jeans and a Jags sweatshirt, and white
sweat socks. I could tell he'd showered; his hair was still damp.
"I've got dinner, Jim." I put the bags on the counter and hung
up my jacket.
"I thought it was my turn to cook, Chief." He turned to look
at me, and his eyes seemed to grow hot.
"I know, but as you can see, the cupboard is bare. We forgot to go
food shopping the other day." My
"Well, something smells good. How much do I owe you?" He
reached for his wallet.
"No, this one's on me, Jim."
"Blair, I know how much you're bringing home as a teaching
assistant. Grad students can't afford this."
"This one can. Let me do this, Jim. I…" I was about to tell
him how I felt about him, but at the last minute I lost my nerve. "You've
given me a home for three years. This is just my way of saying thank you."
"And it has nothing to do with Valentine's Day?"
I pretended I hadn't heard him. "Why don't you set the table and
pour us some wine."
"All right, Chief. What did you order?"
"Cuban style sea bass. I told them to go easy on the red pepper
flakes. Frijoles negros, ditto on the pepper. Manduros, those sweet, fried
plantains you liked so much the last time we ate at El Sombrero Blanco? A tomato
and onion salad, and for dessert, caramel-flavored custard."
"Flan?" He smiled at me over the glass of wine he offered, and
my heart turned over.
"Yeah. I'll just put some music on the stereo." I took a gulp
of wine, put the glass down, and went to find Jim's Santana CD, Lotus. I
didn't want to spook the guy with make-out music while we ate.
"That was the first CD I bought after I came home from
"Apropos, I'd say. Sit, please. I'll join you in a moment." I
lit the candles, turned out the overhead lights, and sat down.
"This is so romantic, Chief." Jim's blue eyes seemed to glow
in the candlelight. His expression was… It suddenly hit me what it was. The
true love look.
My dick, which had been half-hard since I'd walked in and seen him
leaning against the refrigerator door, became completely hard, and I shifted in
my chair.
His nose twitched. He smiled, raised his glass to me, and we began to
eat.
****
The table had been cleared off and soft sultry music was on the stereo.
"Dance with me, Jim."
The man I loved trembled in my arms. I let my hands slide
down his back, over the curve of his ass, and I pulled him toward me.
Our dicks pressed against each other. His groan was almost
silent, but I was so close I didn't need to be a sentinel to hear it. I turned
my head toward his and captured the next groan in my mouth. His breath was warm
and tasted of the wine.
"I've wanted this, Chief, since I knew you swung this
way. I saw you going out; I knew you'd be seeing some lucky guy, and I wanted it
to be me."
"I wish I'd known. I wish you'd said something. I was
so scared it would ruin our friendship."
"So was I. Why are you making a move now?"
Because I finally got the nerve, dug up the courage, bought
a ticket on the clue bus.
I cradled his jaw in my palm. "Because I just couldn't
wait any longer!"
He turned his face into the caress. His lips were parted,
and the tip of his tongue teased the skin between my fingers. He pulled back a
bit, then took my fingers into his mouth, one after the other, and made love to
them. And I trembled.
"I need you inside me, now, here! Please, I
can't wait, babe."
Jim deserved soft sheets on a soft bed, but
I lost my head. I worked his pants down off his hips, gave a stroke to his dick,
then turned him and bent him over the back of the couch. And he let me, uttering
a hoarse laugh and spreading his legs as much as his jeans would allow.
I did take the time to prepare him, using the lube I'd stashed behind a
seat cushion. I opened my jeans, ripped a condom free of its wrapper with my
teeth, got it on single-handed, slid my dick into Jim's hot, tight passage, and
made love to him.
He reached behind to settle his hands on my hips, urging me to ride him
harder. Being inside Jim was like being inside a heated velvet channel. His
muscles clenched rhythmically, and each thrust took me closer to the edge.
"Not going without you, babe," I groaned in his ear. I took
his lobe between my teeth and bit gently. "Come for me!"
He did, and I was right behind him. In more ways than one.
At least I managed to get him up the stairs to his bedroom for the next
time.
I lost count of the number of times I had him, but the last time, the
time we made love face to face, he whispered softly, "I love you."
I barely had the energy to mumble, "I love you, too," before I
fell asleep.
****
//He loves me!// I came awake the next morning to find my lover was
still dead to the world. I eased out from under the arm that was hanging onto me
possessively, turned off the alarm, and got out of bed.
My clothes were all over the floor, tangled with Jim's. I picked them
up, folded his and laid them on the chair by his desk.
//He loves me!// I glanced back at my sleeping lover, tempted to rejoin
him in bed and wake him up with a blow-job that would blow his mind, but I
needed to piss in the worst way.
I tip-toed down the stairs, and after I'd taken care of business,
showered as well. I blew into my hand and inhaled, and decided I'd better brush
my teeth while I was at it. No sense offending sentinel sensibilities.
While I was brushing my teeth, I pondered my great good fortune. Jim
loved me. Jim loved me!
James Joseph Ellison loved Blair Jacob Sandburg.
I felt like a character in one of Shakespeare's happier plays. My love
was requited.
I put on a pair of sweat pants and dropped the used towels in the
hamper, wanting to please Jim, even with that little gesture.
I'd make him breakfast, too.
I opened the refrigerator, to be reminded of the fact that there were no
eggs, no bacon, no bread or butter.
Jim was still sleeping. I stepped into my Nikes, grabbed my jacket and
the Volvo's keys, and headed out to hunt the fearsome Egg McMuffin.
****
While I was on line in McDonald's, I was struck by a brilliant idea. I
just hoped I'd have time to put it into effect. I went looking for the roses I'd
forgotten the night before.
When I got back to the loft, the shower was running. It looked like I
was going to be lucky for a second time in twenty-four hours.
I put the bag from McDonald's on the counter and ran up the stairs. The
bed had been made. Well, that was Jim, neat to the point of being obsessive.
I threw the blankets back and began to pull the rose petals from the
stems and strew them over the sheets. I stuck a finger into my mouth and sucked
at the drop of blood from the tiny puncture a thorn had made.
Then I stripped out of my clothes; I could hear the bathroom door open,
and I posed myself on the bed.
"Come and get me, Jim," I murmured, knowing he would have no
trouble hearing me.
"Chief? What are you…" He stood at the top of the stairs. A
towel was knotted at his hip, and a stray drop of water clung to his left
nipple. My tongue peeked out, wanting to gather it up. His mouth opened and
shut. "I knew I smelled flowers but I…"
"I hope you like them." I was starting to get nervous. This
wasn't going the way I'd thought it would. Jim should be jumping my bones. We
should be getting the scent of roses all over us.
"Is that where you've been? When I woke up and you were gone, I
thought…"
"What? What did you think, Jim?" I propped myself up on my
elbows.
"I always said you'd even hump a table leg."
"Jim, I don't do table legs. I don't do one-night stands. I love
you, don't you get it?"
"You do? You didn't say. When I told you last night…"
"I did too say!"
He hunched a shoulder. "If you did, I couldn't make it out."
"Well, I do love you. Dammit, you're a sentinel, Jim! You've got
these enhanced senses."
"Yeah, well, Brown was teasing me all day yesterday about you being
my valentine. I didn't want to get my hopes up. I guess I was kind of
overwhelmed."
"By me? I overwhelmed you?" I liked that. I thought I
liked that. Jim still wasn't in bed with me.
"Uh… these are red roses, Chief."
"What's your point, Ellison?"
"You know what red roses mean?"
"Yeah. And d'you have any idea how hard it is to find red roses the
day after Valentine's Day?"
"You had a hard time?" A smile was curling his lips, and the
weight on my heart started to lift.
"You could say that."
"What else could I say, Blair?"
"Say you love me again, and come to bed!"
He looked at me with that true love look, and he did.
~End~
