"No."

"But Jim..."

"No." Jim shook his head stubbornly, and ignored the look he was getting from everyone in the room. Blair gave him a disappointed look; Jim returned it look for look with warning and settled back on his heels.

"Come on, Jim, think of the children, man!" Blair said persuasively. "I mean, you could really do a lot here, you know?"

"Exactly, Detective Ellison," the woman in the raincoat added. "Your presence will be a huge benefit to these kids, an example of what they can become, given the right attitudes. Just think of the impact you could have."

"Exactly," Jim said back dryly. "That's why I'm not going to do it. You want a role model, go find a teacher, a fire-fighter, a rapper, someone like that. I'm a cop, I kill people, remember? How's that for a role model? On second thought," he added, "better forget the rapper."

Simon glared at him. "Don’t be ridiculous, Ellison. A detective is a perfectly good role model, and if it was any other detective they wanted in this department, you'd be the first to agree. Now, you *are* going to do this, Jim, is that understood?"

Jim simply looked past him, and his expression gave the hint that it most certainly was *not* understood. Simon growled.

"Blair!"

Blair jumped. "Uh...yeah, Simon?"

Simon gestured to his recalcitrant detective. "Will you *please* tell your partner why this is a good idea?" *Or else,* his eyes said.

Blair sighed and closed his eyes. "Come on, Jim. You *would* be a role model and an example to a lot of kids. An openly gay cop, a gay man who isn't a flaming queen, just a normal, regular, honorable guy--and who happens to be one of the best cops in the country--someone who was in the Army and fought for his country..."

"And who has a life partner in the process of getting his doctorate, another 'normal guy,' who happens to be a poster boy for the benefits of education...well...Detective Ellison, you could prove to be a really good thing for a lot of kids. A genuine hero, who'll make them redefine their boundaries and thinking. It's hard," she said ironically, "to be prejudiced against a hero."

Jim sighed and dropped the rigid stance, looking at Blair with a look that another person might have called helpless. "Chief, come on...you can't be serious. I mean, *us*?"

Blair returned his look calmly. "I think this is a good thing, Jim," he said. "I really do. And I'm going to do it."

"Besides," the woman added quietly, "you will be compensated for your appearance." Simon nodded shortly.

"That's right, Jim--the company will pay you and Sandburg to show up. Smile at the kids, try not to laugh at the puppets--just do what you do best. Be yourself. What do you have to lose?"

Jim dropped his head and sighed. "I must be out of my mind." He looked up around the room, from the barely-veiled attempt at intimidation on Simon's features to the expectant look on Blair's face to the hopeful look in the company representative's eyes--and gave up. "Okay," he said wearily. "I'll do it."

"Yeah!" Blair pumped his fist and wrapped one arm around Jim in a quick, hard hug. "You won't regret this, Jim."

"I regret it already, Chief," Jim muttered, but a reluctant smile was on his lips, and his dark look softened as he looked down at his shining lover. He shook his head ruefully as he signed the necessary papers and documents the Jim Henson Studios woman gave him. "Me on Sesame Street, who woulda thunk," he murmured, and Blair grinned.

**************

"Come on, Jim, didn't you ever watch Sesame Street as a kid?"

Jim snorted and kept drying, ignoring the tempting picture his guide made elbow-deep in suds. "Chief, Sesame Street is a bit after my time."

Blair gave Jim a half-startled look. "What--you mean you never watched it? Were you too old or something?" Jim nodded and Blair rolled his eyes. "Jim, you're never too old for Sesame Street."

Jim eyed his partner. "Sandburg, think about it. Sesame Street came out just when I was going into junior high, and what junior high kid is going to watch a kid's show of his own free will?"

Blair shook his head and handed Jim the last glass, pulling the drain for the sink and washing his hands. "I guess we just have different experiences. I mean, Sesame Street was about the only "mainstream" culture conditioning I got when I was a kid; I loved it, watched it everyday."

"You mean Naomi let you watch something as blatently normal as Sesame Street?" Jim teased, putting the glass away. Blair snickered and retaliated, grabbing Jim's discarded dishtowel, twirling it, and thwacking Jim in the butt as he passed. Jim yelped dramatically and whirled to face his partner, one hand rubbing his abused posterior.

"Oh you are going to pay for that, Chief," Jim growled, and pounced, catching Blair in a bear hug and lowering his mouth to suckle at Blair's neck. Blair moaned and squirmed, then pulled away, breathless and reeking of musk.

"Jim, you can't do that, that's going to show...Jim, we have to be on TV in two days, come on...*oh*...

**************

"Jim, I hate you."

Jim smiled and rested his chin on Blair's shoulder, meeting his eyes in the bathroom mirror. "No, you don't," he murmured absently, mouthing a strand of Blair's damp hair.

"Okay, no, I don't," Blair muttered, "but I should. I mean, come on, Jim, this is crazy! We have to go to New York today to do the filming; we'll be on TV tomorrow!"

Jim smiled and licked at Blair's ringed earlobe, located conviently close to his mouth. "It'll give the show character."

Blair actually growled. "Yeah, it'll give it character--we'll be lucky to get it by the censors. I can't believe you did that, Jim."

Jim smiled blissfully and locked eyes with Blair. "You want a reminder?"

"Jim, if you do that again, I'll...oh man..." Blair began to pant, saying half-amusedly, half-mindlessly, "Jesus, this is pathetic, I'm so easy...Jim we have to stop..."

Then there was no more talking.

**************

"Hmph. Well, someone had fun, I see." The make-up lady who was giving Blair his make-up check preparatory to his going in front of the cameras the next day tsked and glared at Blair, who met her eyes weakly.

"Uh, I, ah...it's not how it looks..." *Oh, the heck with it,* he grumbled to himself. She wasn't listening, and to tell the truth, Blair didn't feel like trying to convince her he was the innocent one. Better just to stay quiet and put up with the make-up lady's annoyance-masking-amusement.

But Jim was definitely going to pay for that, he added to himself, eyeing the matching bright red hickeys on his neck, beautifully vivid and unmistakably the product of someone's mouth, and currently resisting all efforts to be covered up by make-up.

Oh yes. No question. Jim was most *definitely* going to pay.

**************

"Okay, now you'll be standing here," the technician said distractedly, checking a clipboard, "and Blair, you'll be over here, by Big Bird. And then Big Bird says "Hi, guys, and you walk over from *there* and then..." Jim blinked slightly, bemusedly, the script in his hand being crumpled almost unnoticed by the man who was holding it. The tech sighed.

"Look, it's pretty simple, the basic idea of it, and it's all in your scripts. The two of you come on screen, and Big Bird and Oscar say hi to you. Then you'll get a bunch of kids and some puppets coming on, and Blair, you'll tell them a bit about what it's like to be an anthropologist, and what an anthropologist *is.* Jim, you'll be doing the same in the soda shoppe with Big Bird and some different kids, about what it's like to be a detective." The tec checked her charges for any more questions, then continued.

"Then we'll show Jim and Elmo, and Jim will explain about being gay, while Blair's with Cookie Monster and Grover talking about partnerships and being committed to each other. In between that will be some short fifteen-second skits, comedy stuff, you interacting with the characters on the show. And then you're done."

Jim looked at Blair, his look plainly saying, 'This is *simple*?!' Blair whapped him in the stomach and beamed at the tech.

"Thanks, Jill," he said brightly, "we really appreciate the run-down. Where do you want us?"

"Well, if you've read the script," she politely ignored the slightly guilty looks being exchanged between Jim and Blair, "you come over here and say ..."

**************

"You're a cop?" The small boy gave Jim a look of wide-eyed wonder, and Jim nodded seriously.

"That's right. I find the bad guys who'd like to hurt people, and make sure they can't hurt anyone anymore. And then I put them in jail."

"So you're one of the good guys, then? Cops are good guys? Like heroes?"

"Yeah, Sammy," Jim said softly, "cops are good guys, like heroes."

**************

"What's an anthropologist, Blair?"

"Well, being an anthropologist is a way to see what other cultures in the world are like, so I can understand them better. It's like I look at the way they live and get along, so I can learn more about the way *all* human beings interact."

"Wow." The girl was hushed for a minute. "What kinds of people?"

"Well, I've studied people who lived a long time ago, I've gone to places like Brazil and Kenya to learn about people who live in tribes far away, and right now I study the police, right at home." Blair smiled at her and the two boys sitting with him on the steps. "I study all sorts of people, all over the place."

"Wow." The kids were impressed.

**************

"Well, one reason Blair and I live together is because we're married, Elmo."

"But you're both guys, is that possible?" Elmo gave Jim a wide-mouthed look of fascination, and the four kids clustered around him looked equally interested.

"Well, not legally, Elmo, but Blair and I love each other, and we made a commitment to each other. That means we'll be there for each other, for the rest of our lives."

"Jim? What does being gay mean?" piped Elmo, and Jim smiled at the red puppet and answered him sincerely.

"Gay just means that I fell in love with a man, instead of a woman. But people who are gay live just like everyone else, and they aren't strange or freaks. They're just normal people."

**************

"Oh man," Blair enthused that evening, after they'd finished filming and had checked into the hotel they'd been furnished, "that was so *great*!"

Jim smiled, stripping off his shirt. "Yeah," he agreed. "It was better than I'd expected, at least."

Blair snorted and threw his sock at Jim. "Jim, face it, stalag imprisonment would have been better than you expected. But I mean seriously, the kids were great, the techs were *way* tolerant, man," he said, grinning; his and Jim's inexperience on a TV set had been the source of a great deal of amusement. "The puppets were way, way cool--I got to meet Ernie!" Blair gloated. "He was always my favorite--when I was five, I had a rubber ducky as well, and he was my hero."

A laugh came from the other side of the bed, as Jim slid under the covers and watched his lover getting ready. "I always figured you for an Ernie person, somehow--does that make me Bert?"

Blair got into bed and wrapped himself around Jim, nipping his collarbone. "Don't tempt me," he smiled at Jim. "I can see it now, your new bullpen nickname..."

Jim barely managed to control his dismay at the thought. "Come on, Chief..."

"And finally," Blair continued, as through he'd never stopped, "no one noticed these." He laid a finger on one of the hickeys decorating his neck, and looked sternly at his partner, who was trying not to laugh. "You think that's funny, Jim," he inquired of his snickering partner. "You think so? Well, I distinctly recall promising you that you'd pay for that, so..."

"*Ohhhh*"

The End