Title: Shades of Gray

Author/pseudonym: Silk

Email address: silkn1@worldnet.att.net

Rating: R

Pairings: J/B

Status: Complete

Date: 05/01/01

Category: First Times, Drama

Author's website: https://www.angelfire.com/ny4/tinsel/

Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be. Not making money doing this, either. Sigh.

Notes: Rated R for language. No sex here, just angst.

Summary: Blair makes Jim think twice about something he's been taking for granted.

Warnings: m/m, angst

*****

Shades of Gray

By Silk

“Cold-hearted orb that rules the night,

That steals the colors from our sight,

Red is gray, and yellow white,

And we decide which is right,

And which is an illusion.”

--Days of Future Passed, Moody Blues

“No! I don’t know what you mean!” Blair Sandburg threw up his hands and stalked away with a determined stride.

Everyone in the bullpen at Major Crime stared after him. Then, like a crowd watching the US Open, their eyes swung back in the opposite direction to fix on Detective Jim Ellison.

To their utter amazement, Jim did not follow Sandburg. In fact, his face showed no visible reaction at all. He merely continued to stack his finished reports on his desk. If his hands shook at all during this routine maneuver, no one but a Sentinel could have noticed.

A few minutes later, his dumbfounded colleagues watched as Jim stood up and calmly lifted his jacket off the back of his chair. “What? You’ve never seen anyone put his jacket on before?” Jim growled with just the right amount of irritation.

Everyone returned to work. But when Jim left the bullpen, their eyes slid towards the door involuntarily, seeking a clue to his mysterious behavior.

***

Slam.

The sound of the door closing reverberated throughout the loft. Sandburg winced and clenched his teeth that much harder. If there was no space between his teeth, there was no way they could chatter, right?

“Don’t you ever do that to me again, Sandburg,” Jim said coldly, never raising his voice. He didn’t have to. His body language spoke volumes. Tense, poised for…what? Fight or flight?

“Wouldn’t dream of it, man,” Sandburg muttered under his breath, knowing full well that Jim could hear him.

“I mean, what are people going to think?”

“Yeah, that’s right, Jim. That’s the important thing. What *other* fucking people think. Not me. Thanks for letting me know where I stand in the scheme of things here.”

“Well, acting like a fucking drama queen in the middle of the bullpen was stupid! You’re not the one who has to hear the whispering going on behind the scenes, y’know. You’re not the one who has to listen to the rumors flying about the fag cop and his little sidekick.”

“All right, already! I get the point! So dial it down and get over it, Jim! Live like us mortals for a change!”

Jim moved closer, his fingers pointing and warning and measuring. “Yeah, that’s right, you’re such a fucking hotshot with *words*, Sandburg, but let’s see you put your fucking money where your mouth is.”

“I don’t have any money, Jim. You’re looking at the sum total of Blair Sandburg’s pathetic life. I’m fucking wearing everything I have.”

Jim reached out a finger to caress the side of his Guide’s face and Blair shifted away, as skittish as a newborn colt. “Oh, how you do like to exaggerate.”

To Jim’s surprise, his partner’s dark blue eyes filled with tears. Since the detective could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that he had seen Blair cry, it unnerved him. “You…dick,” the younger man choked out.

“What’s going on here, Chief?”

The sound of his nickname, uttered in such a reverent whisper, mesmerized Blair. “Don’t you know?”

Jim shook his head slowly, all the while continuing to stroke Blair’s beard-stubbled cheek. Suddenly the gesture seemed both incredibly familiar and surreal. “Tell me.”

“I can’t.” Suddenly Blair couldn’t speak above a whisper.

Jim closed his eyes on a wave of almost-pain and let his cheek drift into Blair’s, seemingly by accident. The way Blair trembled at his touch was a dead giveaway. Still, Jim needed to hear the words. “Please….”

“I don’t know how—“

“Neither do I.”

“Why do I have to go first?” Blair wailed, his anguish real.

He had a point. The kid always had a fucking point. He couldn’t really hold that against him.

His tongue flicked out and licked the corner of Blair’s mouth, and Blair hissed in reaction. “There’s this.”

His lips grazed Blair’s teasingly, almost mockingly, and Blair made a little noise deep in his throat. “And this.”

Jim abruptly opened his eyes, the color so blinding, so vivid as to be unreal. “You’re not pulling away,” he said slowly.

“Can’t.”

“Now I know this is real. In the past, whenever I dreamed this far, you faded away to nothing. Like an illusion.”

He had to say it. The words were filling him to overflowing, pressing on the back of his throat, a not-so-subtle pressure that threatened to overtake his entire body. “I don’t want to fade away. Sometimes I feel like I only exist when you touch me.”

As confessions went, it was a beginning. But Jim could do better. For he was strangling on the very words that gave his life meaning, that gave his soul sustenance. His admission, when it came, was heartfelt and mixed with not a little pain. For denying Blair for so long.

“I love you, you know.” Jim’s forehead touched his, his eyes grave with intent.

Blair sighed, clearly hovering on the verge of a decision that would change their lives forever. His full, sensual mouth worked without sound, his distress evident in every pore of his face. Wariness was written in those expressive blue eyes, a remnant of being burned too many times.

But in the end, he succumbed, for this was the one question that he could not resist answering. “I love you, too,” he whispered, the words spreading like salve over the wounds they still shared. Wounds freshly reopened with callous words and disbelief and lack of faith.

“If we do this—“ he began, feeling something suspiciously like hope stinging him.

“When,” Jim corrected.

“You won’t change your mind in the morning, will you? Roll over and give me one of those snarky Jim Ellison smiles, say “It was all a fucking joke, Sandburg,” and crush the life out of me?”

Jim winced. “I know I gave you no reason to believe in me, Blair—“

“On the contrary, you gave me every fucking reason. You *are* my fucking reason for still being here, Jim. The question is…can you deal with that? Every day for the rest of your life?”

“God, yes. But can you?” Jim held his breath, expecting nothing more substantial than a kiss. “Can you go there one more time with me?”

“I think I have to.”

That was everything.

Somewhere in the distance a wolf howled its satisfaction. Somewhere in the distance a panther lay down with the wolf. At last.

End