FAMILY SKELETONS

by

Candy Apple

Jim nuzzled the back of Blair's neck, wrapping his lover's body tighter in his arms as they lay spoon-style in the big bed. Blair didn't stir in response to the movement, his deep, even breathing continuing uninterrupted.

Guess I wore the kid out, Jim thought to himself, smiling against the mop of warm curls under his nose. Signing the major book deal with one of the nation's top educational publishers had been a milestone in Blair's life, and one he intended to shout from the rooftops...tomorrow. For tonight, it was their secret, to be celebrated in what Blair considered a sacred way. Jim had come to view sex that way, too, since he and Blair had made their commitment to each other almost two years earlier.

Jim had been Blair's first and only lover, a fact which had shocked the detective into initial disbelief. That for all his bragging and flirting, Blair was a virgin, until he gave himself to Jim one beautiful October day. Just about this time of year... We've got an anniversary coming up, Jim realized, smiling again and kissing Blair's hair.

Blair had proven to be a willing, warm and passionate lover. He could be as playful and raunchy as any partner Jim could have wished for in his steamiest dreams, but underlying all of it was love. The lust never outweighed the love, and it warmed Jim's heart to realize he had never "had sex" with Blair. He couldn't remember a time that couldn't be categorized as "making love".

The ringing of the telephone was an unwelcome intrusion on this rare moment of quiet intimacy. Blair stirred for that, grunting a little as he looked at the clock. It was only 4:15 in the morning, hardly time to rise and shine. Jim reached over him and picked up the offending instrument from the nightstand and answered it.

"Yeah?" His voice was not pleasant.

"Jim?"

"Stephen?" Jim raised himself up on one elbow, and Blair rolled over to watch him. He couldn't help reaching over to toy with a lock of chestnut hair, smiling lovingly at his partner. Their lovemaking had been explosive and unforgettable.

"Jim, it's Dad." Stephen paused. "Jim, he--he died last night. I just got the call from Aunt Elizabeth."

"What happened?" Jim pushed himself up into a sitting position. Blair sat up also, pulling his hair back out of his face, watching Jim intently. This wasn't good news, whatever it was.

"Riding accident. He missed a jump...broke his neck."

"Aw, shit. What was he doing on a horse, anyway?" Jim couldn't believe that after his father's serious heart attack the previous year, he still insisted on riding his thoroughbred horses as recklessly as ever.

"You know Dad." Stephen was silent, and so was Jim.

Blair scooted over into his arms, laying his head on Jim's shoulder. He wasn't positive what all this was about yet, but he figured Jim could use the moral support if it was something connected to his family, or more specifically, his father.

"Are you going out there now?" Jim asked finally.

"In the morning. They said there had to be an autopsy, Jim."

"That's not unusual with an accidental death like this."

"How can you be so damned clinical?" Stephen shot back.

"Look, you asked me a question...I'm sorry. I guess it hasn't sunk in yet." And when it does, then what will I feel for a man I haven't talked to in years? Who always did like Stephen better? Petty, Ellison. The old man's dead and you're an adult. Let it go. He held Blair closer and drew strength from his presence.

"Dad pre-arranged everything--after the heart attack. All we have to do is, well, show up, I guess."

"You want to meet there about nine?"

"Yeah, that would be good." Stephen fell silent again. "I can't believe he's gone, Jim," he said, his voice shaking a little. Stephen had always enjoyed a closer relationship with their father, even though he, too, had suffered from the constant push of competition with Jim and the unreasonable demands of perfection.

"I know, kiddo. You going to be all right tonight?"

"Yeah, yeah. I...Noelle's here." He referred to his current girlfriend, a pretty blonde Jim had met at Stephen's birthday party a few months earlier.

"Good."

"I know you're not alone."

"Never." Jim squeezed Blair's shoulders and kissed the top of his head. "See you in a few hours, eh, bro?"

"Yeah. Talk to you later, Jim." Stephen broke the connection.

"Jim? Your dad?" Blair asked as Jim reached past him again to set the phone back in its original spot.

"Yeah. He got thrown while he was riding. Broke his neck." Jim was amazed how clinical he did sound. Stephen was right.

"Aw, man, I'm sorry." Blair slid his arms more tightly around Jim's middle.

"Stephen thinks I'm being clinical." Jim tossed the statement out there, not really knowing what he expected from Blair. As usual, his lover came up with something.

"Shock is sometimes the first reaction to a loss like that, Jim. It might not have hit you yet what it all means. Or maybe it's like a cut that's really deep--it doesn't always bleed right away."

"Maybe."

"So...are we going there tomorrow?"

"Yeah, around nine. We'll probably just sit around the house with some of the relatives...Dad prearranged his funeral after his heart attack last year. I suppose he'll be shown tomorrow night--probably for two nights. There's a family plot in St. Anthony's churchyard. It isn't very far from the estate."

"Your mom's buried there too?"

"Yeah. I always figured he'd remarry. I never understood why he didn't." He looked down into Blair's sleepy blue eyes, which he could see clearly in the darkness, tuning his senses to his lover like he always did. "Until I fell in love with you."

"There's never going to be anybody else for me either, love."

"Forever's a long time, baby. And I'm older than you are. I mean, if something happens to me someday, I'd want you to feel that you could--"

"Jim, please, don't...I don't want to think about that." Blair closed his eyes and snuggled more tightly against Jim. "I don't want to live without you, you know that."

"But you would."

"I'd wait until I could go wherever you were. But there's never going to be room in my heart for anybody else."

"Mine either, sweetheart." He kissed Blair's forehead.

The Ellison estate was impressive and a little intimidating to say the least. A winding road carried them through acres of wooded land until the trees became sparse in a fenced in area where a large stable housed numerous thoroughbred horses. A few grazed in the cool morning sun of this perfect October day. Holding court over the woods, the stables and a sprawling apple orchard was a huge brick Victorian house. The red bricks were accented with white trimmed arched windows and a wrap-around porch, complete with all the expected "gingerbread" trim.

"It's beautiful," Blair said quietly as Jim maneuvered the Expedition into a vacant patch of cement on the circular drive between a Jaguar and a Mercedes. When Jim had shrugged off Simon's remark about his family keeping horses, Blair had no idea just how much of a privileged background he was keeping quiet.

"The only way this place was ever beautiful to me was as it was shrinking in the distance in my rearview mirror." Jim turned off the engine. "Let's get this show on the road."

"Jim?" Blair caught his arm as he started to get out of the truck. "If you don't want to tell anyone about us, I understand. This isn't the time to ruffle any feathers." Blair looked down at his ring, which hadn't budged since Jim had put it there almost two years earlier. "If you promise to put it back on me, I could take this off if you don't want to--"

"Stop." Jim covered the hand that bore the ring with both of his. "That ring comes off for no one. Least of all my father, and certainly not any other stuffed shirt who has a problem with our relationship. I never want you to take that off, unless you want to."

"Then it's here for keeps." Blair smiled and leaned down to kiss the hand that covered the top of his.

"Let's go, then."

A slightly-built, elderly woman answered the door. She was dressed in a traditional maid's uniform--gray dress and white apron.

"Little Jimmy!! Oh, look at you! You're so--so--BIG!" She gestured widely with both hands. Jim leaned down to hug her. It had been at least 20 years since he'd seen Anna, and she seemed as spry and energetic as the last time he'd seen her. She had to be 75 now, and still obviously running the household staff.

"Anna, you're as young as ever," he replied, pulling back. "Anna, this is my partner, Blair Sandburg."

"Welcome, Blair," she said, smiling and holding out her hand. He shook it readily.

"Thank you, Anna. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Come in, both of you. Everyone else is here, I think. Elizabeth and Adam were here last night, right after the accident. Norbert and Gwen arrived early this morning." She paused to motion to the two men to give her their coats. Jim did so without hesitation, and finally took Blair's from him and handed it to Anna, as the younger man didn't feel right loading his coat on a little old lady. "Stephen and his young lady--Noelle--they just arrived a few minutes ago. Oh, and Eleanor and Donald are here too. Donald was out riding with your father when it happened. Just before dusk."

"Hey, Jimbo!" A heavy set man with receding gray hair, dressed in a dark blue business suit blustered into the entry hall from what must have been the living room, which lay beyond a pair of closed double doors. Blair could almost visibly see Jim's spine stiffen out, and there was a twitch of the jaw that was usually reserved for dealing with criminal slime. Whoever the windbag in the suit was, he wasn't one of Jim's favorite people.

"Uncle Norbert," Jim returned, forcing a smile and extending a hand. The other man pumped it and then looked over at Blair questioningly.

"Blair Sandburg," Blair volunteered, smiling and subjecting his hand to one of those vise-like pumping experiences.

"Friend of yours, kid?" he addressed Jim.

"More than that," Jim responded, smiling as he slid an arm around Blair's shoulders.

"Oh..." Norbert seemed to deflate. Jim had found a way to poke a pin in the dirigible.

"Blair, Norbert is my dad's younger brother. He's a stockbroker."

"Stressful job, I bet," Blair volunteered, waiting to see if the older man had recuperated enough to speak again.

"Very, yes," he responded, forcing a smile that looked very little better than the one Jim had managed upon seeing him. "Well, the others are in the living room, so why don't you two follow me?"

Norbert recovered from the shock adequately to be polite, and Jim had to admire his spunk. It wasn't easy for many men in his parents' generation to accept two men as lovers without retching, and Norbert was doing rather well. Still, it was hard for Jim to muster a lot of fondness for him. He was loud, annoying and lecherous, an octopus the household maids gave wide berth. Anna had her own solution to this problem: she had "accidentally" dumped a bowl of iced punch very pointedly in his lap after he'd tweaked her once too often for her tastes. She informed an elated and laughing Jim, who had been watching from the kitchen door, that "that ought to cool down the old buzzard's hot pants for a while". She had only escaped dismissal because Jim's father had to admit that no one could run a household as efficiently as she could, and he accepted her abject apology that it had been a terrible accident caused by condensation on the bowl which made it slippery in her hands.

The stately living room with its high ceilings and traditional furnishings housed a bevy of expensively-dressed older people, Stephen and Noelle being conspicuous by their youth as they sat together on a sofa, being hovered over by a tall, elegant gray-haired woman in a tailored dark green dress and pearls. The moment she turned and caught sight of Jim, she hurried across the room.

"Aunt Ellie," he said with obvious warmth as they embraced.

"How are you, dear?" she asked as she held on for a few moments.

"I'm okay. Good to see you." He stepped back as she released him, and then she turned her attentions to Blair.

"This has to be Blair," she said, smiling at him. Blair looked at Jim, confused.

"Blair, this is my Aunt Elizabeth. We've kept in touch--"

"Jim told me all about you in his Christmas card--what was it? Two years ago?" She looked to Jim for confirmation, and he smiled and nodded.

"It's good to meet you," Blair said, finally recovering his manners.

"Come and sit down, you two." She led them to the two-seated couch near the spot where Stephen and Noelle sat. She resumed her own seat in a wingback chair.

One by one, the various Ellisons were heard from as the new additions to the group took their seats. Most of them hadn't overheard Elizabeth's and Jim's exchange, so it was hard to tell how many already knew without being told that Blair was Jim's significant other.

There was Adam Gregory, Elizabeth Ellison Gregory's husband, a man whose tall, straight stature was a good visual complement to his wife's. Dressed in a shirt and cashmere sweater, this reserved but pleasant man seemed much less formidable than some of the other "suits" in the room.

Gwen, Norbert's wife, was a small, nervous woman with curly hair that was probably gray or white, but dyed brown. Her hands were clasped in her lap, fidgeting with a handkerchief. She, too, was dressed in a dark blue suit. Blair wondered momentarily if she and her husband shopped for their suits together.

James Ellison, Sr.'s older brother, Donald, resembled Stephen considerably, with the exception of his hair being white. He wore a tan sportcoat and turtleneck, looking very much the part of the country gentleman. He told Jim with great regret in his voice that he had been riding with his younger brother when the other man attempted a jump over a low hedge and was thrown. He and his wife, Eleanor, had been visiting Jim's father for the past week, and had planned to return home the coming Saturday, the day when James Ellison, Sr. would be laid to rest in St. Anthony's. As Jim had predicted, there would be two nights of showings at Cascade's most prestigious funeral home.

Eleanor was a pleasant woman, slightly heavy set with carefully styled blonde hair, dressed in a pair of dark slacks and a tweed blazer, accented with obviously expensive pieces of jewelry.

"Are there any arrangements we need to make, or is everything all set?" Jim asked, groping for something meaningful to say as they all sat around in the dead man's house. He had been envying the little solace Stephen had been getting from holding Noelle's hand, and then wondered why he was envying it. He wasn't alone. Blair was sitting right next to him, willing to be as demonstrative or reserved as Jim wanted him to be. He scooped up the smaller hand in his own, pulling it from Blair's knee over to his. Suddenly, he felt less alone in the room full of blank faces.

Blair returned the pressure Jim was exerting on his hand. He had noticed how stiff and uncomfortable Jim was in this setting, and it suddenly seemed as if the man he loved was some sort of outsider among his own family. Then Blair took in the portrait above the fireplace. A tall, elegant woman with long, wavy brown hair falling over her shoulders as she stood wearing a blue evening gown which accented the blue of her eyes looked down on the gathering. Her expression was not dissimilar to Jim's.

"Your mom?" Blair asked Jim, pointing at the beautiful woman in the portrait.

"Yeah," Jim's face softened at the reference to his mother, and he seemed to forget the other relatives in the room. "She was beautiful, wasn't she?" he said, staring at the painting much the way he had when he was child. How he'd wished for her to come back, even though he didn't remember her very well. A breath of her perfume, her laughter, the softness of her touch...she'd died before he had turned four years old, and there were precious few clear memories left.

"James never did get over losing Amanda," Elizabeth commented. "She was a beautiful woman--the life of the party," she said fondly.

"You look like her," Blair said, turning in his seat to look more directly at Jim. The hair color, the piercing blue eyes...all of Amanda's elegance and presence were in her eldest son.

"I always thought so," Jim responded, smiling and squeezing Blair's hand. It felt like a lifeline back to reality in the middle of this submersion in the past.

"Her death was so tragic," Elizabeth continued. Blair happened to catch Noelle's eyes, and both exchanged a subtle shrug unnoticed by the clan of Ellisons.

"My mother's car went over the bluff we drove by on the way here. It was a slippery night, she lost control of the car, and..." Jim completed the sentence with a shrug of his own.

"We're expecting quite a few friends to stop in today," Donald spoke up, making a blunt change of subject. "A lot of folks I imagine you haven't seen in years, Jim."

"If you all don't mind, Blair and I have a couple of things we have to take care of at the department before this afternoon. We'll meet you at the funeral home by one. Viewing starts at 2:00, right?" he confirmed, standing, letting go of Blair's hand as he did.

"Yes, dear, but are you sure you can't--" Elizabeth's statement was cut off by a gentle raising of Jim's hand.

"I really need to get a few things taken care of. I'll see you all later."

Blair nodded and smiled slightly at the group, a little uneasy at Jim's hasty departure. He followed him unquestioningly, stunned that Anna appeared with their coats as they headed for the front door.

"Enough time in the pirhana tank?" she said quietly to Jim as she handed him his coat.

"More than enough." He leaned down and kissed her cheek before they walked out the door to the truck.

"You okay?" Blair asked, once they were inside the Expedition, and Jim had started the engine.

"I am now. Let's get the hell out of here."

"Jim, they were all trying--"

"Right--they were all trying, but failing. As usual. I don't know what it is...I mean, I know now, because I'm the 'estranged son', so I understand why they're like that now. But when I was a kid, it really wasn't any different. I never felt like I belonged."

"Maybe that's not a bad thing." Blair didn't exactly mean to say it that way, and was surprised when Jim smiled. "That was rude, man. I'm sorry."

"No, actually, it's the same way I feel." Jim leaned back in the seat a moment. "Sometimes I would look up at that portrait of my mother, and it looked like she felt the same way." He was quiet for long seconds. "I used to wonder if she really went off that bluff by accident."

"What're you saying?" Blair felt the bottom drop out of his stomach at that revelation. It was too chilling.

"The life of the party? How could anyone like that live in that environment for long and not feel...stifled?"

"But she had you and Stephen--why would she..."

"A moment of insanity? I don't know. She probably hit an icy patch and went over, just like everyone says. I just know that I couldn't have faced a lifetime in that group."

"It must have been hard for you, growing up." Blair reached over and held onto Jim's forearm as it rested on the armrest between them.

"This was all my mother's property, you know. Before she married my father. She was wealthy in her own right, and she inherited the estate from her parents when they were killed in a plane crash. She was only twenty at the time. She married my father a year later." Jim stared back at the house. "I often wondered if she was just a profitable acquisition for him. But then, there were times he seemed genuinely...sad without her."

"I know your dad wasn't exactly father of the year material, but don't you think he loved you and Stephen?"

"Let's get out of here for a while." Jim ran his finger under the collar of his dress shirt. They were both dressed for the funeral home, having planned to go directly there from the estate. Blair didn't actually own a traditional suit, but he'd looked appropriately somber in a black shirt and gray cotton slacks, his hair pulled back neatly. Jim stared at him for a long moment. "Would it sound too weird if I said I wanted to go home and make love to you?"

"No," Blair replied gently, lacing his fingers with Jim's and bringing the hand up to his lips for a kiss. "I think we both need to thaw ourselves out from that session."

Jim smiled at his lover, feeling that warm inner peace returning that came from being completely understood and unconditionally loved. It was a new feeling, but quickly addictive.

Jim had started something soft and romantic on the small CD player on the nightstand. He took his time undressing Blair, starting with loosening the mane of silky curls he still delighted in after two years of unrestricted liberty to caress them. Blair was working at the tie, loosening Jim's collar. Dear, sweet, sensitive Blair...goes for the first thing he saw making me uncomfortable. Jim collected both Blair's hands in his and kissed them thoroughly, fingers, backs and palms.

Without breaking their eye contact, Jim let go of his lover's hands and started undressing himself. He suddenly wanted to be close to Blair, skin to skin, and just didn't have the patience to continue with this maddeningly slow pace of discarding a piece at a time. Blair just smiled and mirrored Jim's actions, until both stood there nude, and Jim descended on his partner, tossing both of them on the turned-back bed.

He kissed and nibbled a trail down Blair's jaw and throat, pausing to suck and bite at the side of his neck. There was a little moan from Blair, whose legs came up to wrap around Jim's hips. They wouldn't need many preliminaries this time. The brushing of the two erections were sending electric jolts through both men, and Jim's almost frantic need for closeness with Blair had him fumbling in the drawer for the lube.

Jim's fury and intensity somewhat unnerved Blair. While they had shared many passionate encounters, he had never seen Jim actually in a hurry to achieve their union. After what he had witnessed in the Ellison household, it all fell into place why Jim had this ravenous need for closeness now. The last thing Blair would do is delay him in achieving what he needed. He brought his knees up further, releasing Jim's hips and opening himself wide for the lubed fingers to prepare him.

Even in his frenzied state, Jim didn't rush this phase of their lovemaking. Blair's trust was too precious to shatter it in a moment of haste. Jim loved to look into those big blue eyes while he worked his fingers gently into Blair's center. There was such love and acceptance there, complete commitment, trust...and when the lids drooped most of the way over the blue orbs and Blair tried to push down to meet the invading fingers, he knew his partner was ready.

One slow, steady, smooth stroke sheathed him to the hilt. His own eyes had drifted shut at the moment of connection, and now opened again to see Blair smiling softly up at him. Despite his breathlessness under the demand of Jim's body, Blair spoke with firm conviction in his gentle voice.

"There's nowhere in my life, my body or my heart that you don't belong, lover." He punctuated the statement by wrapping his legs around Jim again. "I love you."

"God, Blair, do you know that you're everything that's...good in my life? The best thing that ever happened to me?"

"Show me?" Blair was giving the invitation to move. As many times as they made love this way, Jim always waited for the invitation, giving Blair's body time to adjust to the intrusion so it was ecstasy for both of them.

Jim leaned down and kissed his lover, his tongue slipping between parted lips in an erotic imitation of what their bodies were doing. Slowly, he began thrusting, hand pumping at Blair's hardness in tempo with the strokes.

"Let go, lover--do it," Blair gasped, arching into the gentle thrusts. He knew Jim wanted, needed, something more intense. Blair knew he would need permission to cut loose and take it.

The younger man lost his grip on Jim's shoulders and finally lay back against the bed, hands clenching the sheets, while his lover took him in a series of passionate, frenzied thrusts that were more fierce than anything he'd ever experienced. Their cries mingled as Blair spurted his seed across Jim's belly and chest and the spasms of his muscles dragged a shattering climax out of his lover, who finally collapsed, spent, partially on top of Blair.

"Love you, sweetheart," Jim whispered breathlessly in the nearest ear. Blair smiled, wincing a little as Jim withdrew from his body. This encounter was rougher than any they'd had before, but the intensity of the sex had mirrored the intensity of the love and the need. Blair had no regrets for that.

"Love you too."

Jim gathered the smaller body into his arms, turning them on their sides.

"Did I hurt you, baby?" He nosed the curls he loved so much, taking in the scent of herbal shampoo, sweat and Blair.

"You ever hear that song, 'Hurts So Good'?" Blair smiled up at Jim. There was little point in lying to Jim about anything, because he picked up on every quickened heartbeat, intake of breath and flicker of eyelashes. "It hurt a little, but it was great. I'm fine. Actually, beyond fine, man."

"I needed you so bad." Jim enveloped him in strong arms, almost smothering him against his chest.

"It's okay, Jim. I'm fine, lover." Blair tried to return the intensity of the embrace that he thought might be leaving bruises. It was as if Jim wanted to absorb him into his bloodstream somehow, pressing Blair so tightly against himself.

"I'm sorry, baby."

"Nothing to be sorry for, lover. Anytime--any way--you need me, I'm here. Forever."

"I don't want to go back there today," Jim whispered in his ear.

"It's your dad's funeral," Blair said softly. "God, I don't blame you for not wanting to go back into that...group. But I think, maybe, you might regret it someday if you don't show up."

"Stephen's there. That's all that would have mattered to him anyway."

"Jim?" Blair pulled back a little. "What're you saying? That he didn't love you?"

"I don't want to talk about him. Not now." Jim closed the marginal distance between their bodies again.

"I think we should go back. I'll be right there, lover. Right beside you."

"Always my guide, huh?" Jim said with a distinct smile in his voice.

"Guide, friend--lover. Whatever you need me to be, Jim. Anything I have that you need is yours for the taking. You know that."

"I do, baby. I do."

Most of Jim's friends didn't know that he came from such a privileged background. James Ellison, Sr. was a very subtle millionaire, living a quiet life on his country estate and making his philanthropic gestures anonymously. The Ellison name had ceased to sparkle amidst Cascade high society soon after Amanda Ellison's tragic and untimely death. The life of the party, as Elizabeth had called her, had hosted the galas that had put the very young Ellison couple on the social map. At her death, her husband and their two young sons had ceased flaunting their wealth or mingling with the jet set.

The Ellison family had its origins in Seattle, where most of them still lived. Jim's father had met his bride-to-be, Amanda Holden, at a Christmas benefit concert performed by the Cascade Symphony Orchestra. Their romance had been whirlwind, and this heir to the Ellison fortune had married the heiress to the Holden fortune just three months after meeting her.

Having been raised in a wealthy urban family whose fortune was made in the stock market, James Ellison had surprisingly embraced the more leisurely lifestyle of the country gentleman with great enthusiasm. He developed a taste for horseback riding, long walks in the woods and managing the estate that had been left to his beautiful young wife.

Now he lay dead in a conspicuously expensive mahogany coffin, drenched in flowers from all sides. Stephen had arranged for the tasteful spray of red roses and fern on the coffin itself, with a dark red ribbon with gold lettering, "Dad".

At one o'clock, when Jim and Blair arrived to join the family, the funeral home had not yet begun to receive outside visitors. It was primarily the clan from the house that were there, with a few other people in Jim's father's age group talking in hushed tones with the family. This time, Stephen made a few quick strides over to greet Jim.

"I thought maybe you wouldn't come back," Stephen said quietly. Blair waited for the embrace between Jim and his brother, but it didn't happen. Even in the presence of the old man's corpse, they seemed to be retreating into their corners of the ring as they had in their youth.

"Well, I considered it." Jim rested a hand on Blair's shoulder. "I guess this guy's a good influence on me."

"There's a coat room right across the hall," Stephen directed, lapsing to the role of host.

"Thanks," Blair spoke up, nudging at Jim to go rid themselves of their coats. Back in his black shirt and gray slacks, hair pulled back neatly, Blair didn't look like a man who had been devoured in the heat of passion only a couple of hours earlier.

When they'd both rallied from that encounter, Jim had taken him again, slowly and gently this time, both to make up for his passionate roughness and to respect the soreness it had left behind. The sex had made him feel intensely closer to Blair, and he was grateful beyond words for the strength it was giving him now.

"You want me to go with you to go up front?" Blair asked as they re-entered the room where Jim's father rested.

"Please." Jim took hold of his hand, and they made their way up to the casket, which was not surrounded by relatives at the moment.

Even in death, there was a harshness in James Ellison Sr.'s face. It was a harshness Blair didn't like. He moved closer to Jim as the other man's arm came around his shoulders.

Was the elder Ellison handsome? Blair wasn't sure. He was obviously tall, with strong features and a thinning crop of white hair. But any family resemblance he saw was more toward Stephen than Jim. Blair's lover was the male image of Amanda Holden Ellison. He bore almost no resemblance to his father.

Jim wasn't sure if he was kneeling beside the casket to pay his respects or to keep from collapsing. There were so many emotions running through him at that moment, but none of them were clear. He wanted so badly to feel simple, undistilled grief. It was a painful emotion, but a clear-cut, understandable one, and he had Blair there to get him through it. But this was different. It was a sense of loss, but he queried how he could lose something he never really had. And maybe that was what he was mourning...the loss of a father--or maybe the lack of any relationship that resembled what he'd wanted from his father. And now that the man was dead, it seemed the proper time to grieve for that.

Blair's arm linked through his and then laced their fingers together as they knelt there.

After Jim's brief time at the side of his father's casket, his time seemed to be taken up in moving from one relative to the next, being introduced to friends of his father's he either didn't remember from his childhood or hadn't met during his estrangement from the family home. All the while he kept Blair at his side, relieved when the chattier half of their team would engage some annoying windbag in conversation and allow him to escape to a quiet corner.

Blair seemed well-accepted by the majority of the guests, all of whom had been introduced to him as a friend of Jim's and a consultant to the police department. He actually got involved in a lively conversation with the president of a prestigious private college in Seattle who was a former classmate of Jim's father. They debated funding issues, talked about a few similar experiences in traveling, as both had visited some exotic South American locales, and about Blair's current work authoring texts and study guides.

As the afternoon progressed, a few familiar faces made their way into the crowd, with a contingent from the police department coming in to offer their condolences. Jim seemed immediately back in his element as he greeted Simon, Joel, Ryf, Brown, Samantha, Serena and various other PD personnel.

"How's he holding up?" Simon pulled Blair aside while Jim was deep in conversation with Taggert.

"You know Jim. He's strong...but I know he's hurting a lot."

"They don't seem like a very...I don't know...a very warm bunch, do they?" Simon said quietly.

"They're not. I think Jim must have been a freak of nature in that family."

"I don't think I've seen this many luxury cars in one place since we busted that Jag dealer for peddling coke last year. I knew Jim came from money, but I didn't know how much."

"Neither did I," Blair responded honestly, smiling at Jim as he looked up from across the room where he was talking to Joel. The only time Jim looked truly content in that setting was when he glanced across the room and caught Blair's eyes.

"There's obviously major tension going on with him and his family," Simon surmised. "I take it there wasn't a lot of love lost between him and the old man, huh?" Simon watched Blair's uneasy shrug. "I'm not asking you to betray any confidences, Sandburg."

"Let's just say that like most idyllic rich families, they had their dark side." Blair paused, shuddering a little as his eyes landed on Jim's father. "I know it's tough for you guys to get away, but they're gonna expect Jim here tomorrow, and if a couple of you could get away again for a little while..."

"I'm sure Joel and I can work something out." Simon smiled reassuringly.

"Thanks, man. I know Jim'll appreciate it."

The rest of the day and evening passed much the same way, with a strained dinner at a nearby restaurant between visiting hours. The Ellison family were all polite conversationalists, reminiscing about the deceased, and making the socially correct inquiries of Blair and Noelle as to their backgrounds and careers. If they were disgusted by Jim showing up with a male significant other, they didn't make an issue of it, and Jim made no attempts to downplay their relationship.

Elizabeth and Adam made the most effort to draw Jim into the conversation, the fondness between Jim and his favorite aunt being very obvious. In the brief time James and Amanda had been married, Elizabeth and Amanda had become good friends. For whatever lack of interest Jim's father had shown in his eldest son after Amanda's death, Elizabeth had tried to counteract.

Blair had slipped out to the restroom shortly after Noelle did, and bumped into her on the way back to the table. A usually composed financial analyst, Noelle seemed as dismayed by the undercurrents in the gathering as Blair was himself.

"Nobody says anything, but I get the feeling they're all mad at each other," she commented as they headed back toward the table.

"It's like there's no...warmth. I mean, some of these people have lost a brother, some a father...it's weird. Nobody hugs. Isn't that a little bizarre at a funeral home?"

"They hug the visitors but not each other." Noelle rolled her eyes. "Now I see where Stephen gets that aloofness."

"I won't feel bad to go home tonight," Blair concluded as they entered into earshot of the table, and once again had to engage in the amenities until returning to the funeral home.

"I could drive if you want," Blair offered as Jim pulled out of the funeral home's lot.

"I'm grieving, not incoherent, Chief." Jim forced a little grin, and Blair chuckled at the attempt at humor.

"When we get home, what would you think if taking a nice hot shower and then I'll give you a massage?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, sweetheart, but I'm just not in the mood tonight." He scooped up Blair's hand and kissed it.

"I meant, take a shower by yourself, and I'll give you a massage to get you un-tensed so you can sleep. You're strung so tight it's like you're going to snap any minute, man."

"That sounds good."

Once home, Blair showered quickly and then retreated upstairs to get things ready. He gave Jim strict orders to take a shower and stand under the hot water until it went cold.

When Jim exited the bathroom, he found all the lights extinguished except for one dim lamp they often left on at night, mainly for Blair's benefit so he didn't break his neck if he made a nocturnal trip downstairs. The loft bedroom was aglow with soft candlelight, and the sounds of Jim's favorite relaxation CD wafted down the stairs to meet him as he approached the bedroom. He almost changed his mind about not being in the mood when he saw Blair, features accented by the light of the dancing candles, dressed in the blue silk robe Jim had bought him for his birthday several months earlier. His hair was finally loose now, caressing his shoulders.

"Wow." Jim just smiled at him.

"Lie down so I can get started on you," Blair said softly.

"Do you sweet talk all your lovers this way?" Jim asked, grinning as he complied, tossing the towel he'd had wrapped around his waist on the foot of the bed. He was surprised to feel the sheet come up to his waist.

"Just the ones I'm going to spend the rest of my life with." Blair planted a little kiss on the back of Jim's neck. "Now just relax, close your eyes, and remember to breathe. Nice, deep breaths. Let the music be the only thing that occupies your mind. Drift with it," Blair continued, his voice soft and soothing. Soon, gentle hands lightly coated with massage oil were working their way along the base of Jim's neck and then his shoulders, carefully kneading knots of epic proportion.

Jim filtered out everything but the sound of the music and the touch of Blair's hands as they worked their magic on his taut muscles. He wasn't sure when he lost touch with consciousness exactly, but he drifted away and soon slept soundly.

Blair felt the relaxation taking over, and soon recognized the deep, even breathing of Jim's sleep. He continued the gentle massaging until he was confident that stopping it wouldn't wake his lover. Whenever Blair let himself think of the pain all of this seemed to be reviving for Jim, he felt his own eyes filling with tears. He renewed his personal commitment to giving Jim all the love he had missed up until now as he concluded his stroking of the smooth skin that housed the strong, muscular form he had come to know and love so well. He smiled as he thought of how many times those muscles had swept him off his feet, cradled him lovingly when he cried, pulled him close in passion or protected him from danger. For someone so powerful, Jim was the gentlest person Blair had ever known. He rarely raised his voice to Blair, and he certainly never used his considerable advantage of size and strength to do anything but make Blair feel protected and cherished.

Wiping his hands on Jim's towel, Blair curled up next to his love and drifted off himself, wishing he could keep Jim in this protected little cocoon of love forever. And foolishly wishing he could give the elder James Ellison a piece of his mind.

The next day at the funeral home was much the same as the first, though Jim only agreed to stay for a couple of hours in the afternoon. It was a much easier day knowing that was all there would be to it, and with Joel and Simon's well-timed visit, the time passed uneventfully and as pleasantly as time can pass under such somber circumstances.

The morning of the funeral was another milestone, and Blair realized that sometimes, that final parting at the funeral home when the casket is closed for the last time can be wrenching.

Elizabeth paid her final respects to her brother first, with Adam by her side, holding her arm and patting her back reassuringly. They were followed by Norbert and Gwen, the deceased's younger brother making an appropriately dignified final farewell, with very little demonstrated emotion. Donald and Eleanor went up next, and Donald visibly broke down parting with his brother. He had been present at his death, and according to Jim, the two men had always been close. As he moved away with his arm around his wife, Noelle accompanied Stephen up to say his good byes. James Ellison Sr.'s younger son cried openly at the side of his father's coffin, resting his hand on the dead man's forehead, mumbling something to him that only Noelle was close enough to hear.

Jim moved forward, taking a hold of Blair's hand as he did, when Stephen moved unsteadily away with Noelle almost holding him up until he was bolstered by her, Elizabeth and Donald. Blair watched the telltale twitching of Jim's jaw as he fought with his emotions, looking down at his father. With the hand that wasn't clutching Blair's tightly, Jim covered one of his father's hands.

"Good-bye, Dad. I wish I had known you better," he whispered, a few tears escaping past his best efforts to stop them. Blair pulled his hand from Jim's and slid his arm around his waist. Jim's arm came around his shoulders immediately.

"I know it's hard, babe. It's okay," Blair murmured in a voice so low that only Jim would pick it up. "It's okay to feel bad." He ran his hand lightly over Jim's back, patting him a little.

"This is...harder than I thought," Jim whispered back.

"I know, love. I know." Blair tightened his hold on Jim.

"I'll be okay." Jim forced a little smile at Blair. When he looked down into the concerned blue eyes, that were shedding a couple of tears of their own at Jim's grief, he truly believed that.

"Ready?"

"Yeah, I'm ready, Chief." He moved away from the casket and didn't look back.

The funeral was a huge affair. While the deceased was not flamboyant or a driving force in the Cascade social jet set any longer, he was respected by those who knew him, and his wealthy, influential relatives had a retinue of friends and associates who gathered to support them.

Jim was both moved and proud of the showing from the Cascade PD, who filed into at least four of the long pews in the back of the church.

All that was left now was the funeral dinner, being held in a private dining room of the Cascade Country Club. Donald had made these arrangements personally, knowing his brother would appreciate the classy send off of an expensive dinner in an elegant setting.

"Jim, Evan Donnelly will be at the house later for the reading of the will." Elizabeth toyed with an hors d'oeuvre on her plate, not terribly interested in eating it. Jim was nursing a glass of expensive wine with equal disinterest. Blair had taken mercy on Noelle and was visiting with her while Stephen mingled with his relatives.

"Look, just have him give me a call if there's anything I need to sign. Blair and I are ready to go home once dinner is over."

"Jim, please. I know this hasn't been easy for you, but it's just one last thing." She laid a hand on his arm. "I wish that...that James hadn't--"

"Don't. There are a lot of...unpleasant memories. I don't really want to dwell on those. Blair and I'll be at the house later for the will reading. Because you asked."

"Thank you, dear." She smiled and kissed his cheek, then took her leave to rejoin her husband. It was going to be another long day.

The gathering at the house for the reading of the will was larger than the first gathering following James Ellison Sr.'s death. Nieces and nephews, cousins and a variety of friends had been invited to attend, all having been named somewhere in the weighty document Donnelly removed from his briefcase.

"You might all think it odd that we've gathered in the rec room for the reading of the will," the distinguished older man began, "but that was James' wish." He put on a pair of silver wire frame glasses, which matched the color of his carefully styled hair. "Personally, I think he just wanted to see me spreading my papers out on the pool table here instead of a normal desk." That drew a laugh from most of the people who were seated on various leather couches or chairs around the spacious, wood-paneled room.

"Seriously, this was James' favorite room of the house, so he asked that we have our final gathering at his request here. Now, getting down to the business you're all here for," he turned his attention to the will.

As he began to read, it was obvious that the elder Ellison loved the element of suspense. Donnelly was rattling off a series of minor bequests, the amounts rising as he moved from cousins to nieces and nephews, and finally to his siblings, who were all receiving hefty stock and bond bequests. Donald, who had been his closest sibling in life, received the family's summer home in Lake Tahoe. That seemed to ruffle Stephen considerably, though he said nothing. Jim, for his part, had to work to keep his attention focused at all on the whole affair. He didn't really care about swooping in and collecting the family fortune, and he knew that the money would be of no importance to Blair if he himself didn't want it.

"Last, but not least, to my son, Stephen, I leave my interest in Ellison Enterprises, Incorporated, my stock in Techtrends Software, my hunting lodge and my Mercedes Benz." Stephen's spreading smile faltered when the list ended. There was still something enormously significant missing. "To my eldest son, James, I leave what was previously the Holden Family estate: the house, its contents, the surrounding properties, the thoroughbreds of which I have ownership at the time of my death, and the funds presently in the following accounts..." The attorney read off the names of several bank accounts that were used to run the estate. "This bequest is made in accordance with what would have been, I am sure, the wishes of the late Amanda Holden Ellison, my wife."

"I don't believe this," Stephen muttered angrily. "You haven't seen him in years and he leaves you the house? I don't believe this!" He was out of his seat pacing.

"Look, Stephen, you know the house isn't that important to me. We can sit down with Mr. Donnelly here and figure something out--" Jim was cut off by another sharp response. His hopes of thwarting his father's final division between his younger brother and himself faded.

"No, that's what he wanted. For some God-forsaken reason." Stephen shook his head. "This is beyond amazing," he exclaimed, gesturing widely with both hands.

"Mr. Ellison, are you planning to contest the will?" Donnelly asked.

"No. It was his money. He had a right to do with it as he pleased." Stephen motioned to Noelle to join him as he stalked off toward the door.

"This is an abomination," Donald bellowed from his seat at the back of the room. Then he rose from the chair and strode up to where the attorney was standing. "This can't possibly have been what James wanted."

Blair watched the whole drama unfolding with a sick sense of shock spreading through his system. He had never really seen a room full of angry rich people with their dander up fighting over an estate before. From an Anthropological perspective, it should have been fascinating. But with Jim in the middle of it, it lost all of its objective research appeal. Blair rose and joined Jim, standing there in the middle of the room where he had tried to head Stephen off and offer to deal with him.

"He was certainly in his right mind, Don," Elizabeth spoke up. "To contest this now would be ludicrous. He knew what he wanted."

"What in the hell is he talking about with what our mother would have wanted? She's been dead for over thirty years!" Stephen objected. Now that he had Donald backing him up, he seemed more inclined to at least whip the subject to death, if not contest it.

"Mrs. Ellison left a will at the time of her death, gentlemen," the attorney explained. "She stipulated that in the event of her death, all of her property and assets should be left to her husband. In the event of his passing prior to hers or at the same time, she named her older son, Jim, as the recipient of her family estate. Her younger son, Stephen, was to receive a number of significant assets which would have probably been equivalent to the value of the house and properties left to Jim."

"But...but that was thirty years ago," Stephen protested.

"That's true. But your father chose to honor her wishes in his own will. The only explanation he ever offered me was that the house and grounds belonged to his wife's family originally, and he would follow her wishes in disposing of it after his death."

"You never set foot on this property once you left for military school," Donald accused, approaching Jim. "Not one single holiday did we see you at a family gathering. Now you show up here like some kind of vulture to gather up your share of the inheritance?"

"You don't know what you're talking about so maybe you ought to put a lid on it," Blair shot back at him, surprising Jim who had opened his mouth to respond and heard Blair's voice come out instead.

"I'd invite you outside to teach you some manners, but I make it a point to only fight with men," Donald snapped back.

"That's real classy, Uncle Don. I'm sure my father's memory is honored by your behavior." Jim snatched his and Blair's topcoats off the couch where they had been tossed earlier. "I'll be calling your office Monday to make the arrangements to collect my inheritance," Jim directed at the attorney. "And if you have anything else to say on the subject," he addressed Donald, "have your lawyer call my lawyer." He stormed out of the room with Blair in tow, brushing pointedly past Stephen on his way out of the room.

"I'm sorry I shot off my mouth in there," Blair said quietly once they were on the road, heading toward the loft.

"Don't apologize for standing by me, sweetheart." He took Blair's hand with the one he wasn't using on the steering wheel.

"But I made a bad situation worse."

"That situation can't get any worse."

"What do you make of your mother's will? That's kind of a surprise, isn't it?"

"Yeah, a big one." Jim smiled slightly. "Guess she was looking out for my interests even then."

"Why do you think she would have to? I mean, why would your dad...choose between you like that?"

"I don't know. Why do any parents have a favorite child?"

"They shouldn't."

"But they sometimes do, unfortunately. I'm just shocked my dad would do something like that to Stephen now. Of course, not really. If it meant more to him to give me one last dig before he left this world, he could leave me the one thing everyone else in the family wanted. Kind of confirms my position as the outsider."

"Did something happen between you two at some point? I mean, before the car incident?"

"Nothing specific. Look, I really don't feel like getting into this now."

"Sure." Blair shifted his hand in Jim's grip so their fingers laced and squeezed his lover's hand. "Whatever you do about all this, you know I'm with you all the way."

"I know. Even if I want to give it all to the local soup kitchen, huh?"

"Whatever." Blair smiled and kissed the back of Jim's hand. "Hey, what do you say we go on a picnic? It's a beautiful day."

"Yeah...yeah, that sounds great. I know just the place too."

Blair was more than a little stunned to find himself back on the Ellison estate, riding in the Expedition with a bulging picnic basket and blankets loaded in the back.

"The vultures will be cleared out by now," Jim reassured, cutting the engine and going around the back of the truck to help unload the supplies. He carried the basket while Blair carried the rolled up blankets. The sunshine was filtering through the gold, red and orange leaves of mid-October. The spot on the road where they'd parked the Expedition was heavily wooded, and Blair followed Jim carefully along a narrow path that wove between the trees.

"Where're we going?"

"Only to the most perfect picnic site in the world. Totally private, too," Jim concluded, flexing his eyebrows as he looked over his shoulder at Blair.

"Are you sure everybody's gone by now?"

"They won't hang out here now that they've picked the bones. Besides, as of right now, this is my property. What I do on it is my business."

Shortly, they found themselves in a small clearing, carpeted by fallen leaves and surrounded by towering trees. The wind blew and a shower of floating leaves fell softly around them. The sun was allowed adequate entry to combat the chill of the October air.

"This is beautiful," Blair said, almost in awe at the perfection of the spot.

"I used to come out here to think a lot. It's peaceful, and enough of a walk from the house to be inconvenient--so I could count on not getting company."

"I really love the Fall," Blair commented as he spread two large blankets on the ground. Jim set the basket at one corner and sat down next to it. Blair knelt across from him and started poking around in the basket.

"You say that about every season," Jim chided affectionately.

"Yeah, well, they've all got their moments." Blair took out a thermos and poured them each a cup of coffee.

"I really appreciate the way you...stuck around through all of that crap the last few days. It had to have been uncomfortable. I know I made it harder by letting them know about us."

"I'm not ashamed of us, Jim." Blair was digging in the basket again. "Besides, we're together for better or for worse, remember? That means the bad times too."

"We've got an anniversary coming up."

"Next week." Blair handed Jim a sandwich, and Jim made a point of catching the hand along with the food.

"I love you."

"I love you too. More than I'll ever be able to tell you."

"You don't have to tell me anything. You show me." Jim released his hand.

"After we have lunch, I'll show you again if you want." Blair looked up at him from under lowered lashes as he opened his own sandwich.

"Like I could ever not want you."

They ate lunch leisurely, talking about nothing in particular and enjoying the peace and beauty of the setting. Jim reflected on a few neutral memories of his childhood--learning to ride, his own explorations through the woods and the orchard. All of it sounded very solitary to Blair.

When they'd had time to relax a bit after lunch, Blair suddenly rose to his knees and started removing his coat. Jim began to mirror the gesture, but Blair gestured to him to stay put. Jim could already feel the beginnings of his arousal. He loved it when Blair did this.

The other man slowly removed each piece of clothing, laying it neatly aside until he was down to his jeans, which he stood to remove and slide down his legs. He peeled socks off next, and then slid his hands under the waistband of his boxers and slowly pushed them down over his hips and then let them drop so he could step out of them.

Totally nude now, Blair dropped to his hands and knees and crawled over to where Jim sat and began removing his clothing with the same maddening slowness. As was usually the case, Jim could hold out through having his coat removed and the first few buttons of his shirt opened before he pounced on Blair, caressing and devouring the sweet flesh that had been cooled by the brisk October air.

"You never let me undress you all the way," Blair pouted as he was let up for air between demanding kisses.

"You expect me to watch you squatting in front of me naked while you take forever just to get my shirt off?"

"It's foreplay, Jim. Remember that? It comes right before the pounce and maul part." Blair's tone was affectionately teasing.

"No, this is foreplay." He reached down and cupped Blair's balls in his hand and kneaded them gently.

"Oh God," Blair gasped, throwing his head back. Lying on his back on the blanket, stark naked, thighs spread wide to encourage Jim's attentions, Blair was as intoxicating a sight to Jim as he had been the first time they'd made love. Maybe even more so now because there was less fear and uncertainty.

"You like that, huh?" Jim teased, leaning forward. "How about this?" His tongue replaced his hand, licking languidly around Blair's sensitive areas, finally sucking one oval, then the other, into his mouth. Blair was beyond answering him coherently. His hips were arching up to meet Jim's mouth, his little moans and whimpers of pleasure carried on the breeze along with the leaves that fell around them. There was a loud groan when Jim pulled away.

"Wha--?"

"I'm a little overdressed for this party, baby." Jim was hastily removing his shirt and t-shirt, and smiled as Blair rallied enough to fumble with the fly on his jeans. Between the two of them, they had Jim naked in moments.

"Wow." Blair lay back on the blanket and stroked a muscled thigh in his reach. "You look like some kind of statue, man. You're so beautiful."

"Can I tell you a secret, baby?" Jim stretched out next to him, taking Blair's shaft in his hand and slowly stroking it.

"Anything," he gasped, arching into the touch. Jim smiled and kissed his lips lightly.

"I felt like a statue before I met you." He started a trail of kisses down Blair's chest until he fastened his mouth to one of the already taut nipples. He loved the way he could make Blair crazy beneath him with his hand busy and his mouth working on the sensitive little nubs lurking beneath the soft mat of chest hair. This time he was going to do everything to give Blair pleasure. He'd taken what he needed from him the last time they'd made love, and taken it none too gently either. Then he'd let Blair dote on and pamper him for the last two nights without much response. Now it was Blair's turn.

"Jim? Are you...still with me, man?" Blair panted.

"I didn't zone on you, Chief." Jim looked up into the heavy-lidded eyes and smiled devilishly. "I'm just conducting an experiment." He used his fingers to pinch at the little protrusion his lips, tongue and teeth had treated to sweet torment. "I want to know which one tastes better." He fastened onto the other nipple and picked up the pace of pumping Blair's engorged cock.

"Jim, I...I'm gonna come..."

"No you're not, sweetheart. Not yet." He slowed the pumping, and trailed his tongue down the middle of Blair's chest to his navel, where he swirled it around the little valley before continuing down to the overheated groin. "I want to figure out which part of you tastes the best." And with that, he took Blair's arousal into his mouth and began sucking in earnest.

Blair tried not to thrust too hard into Jim's mouth, considerate even in this setting as he was in every other, but he obviously couldn't control his body anymore. It stiffened and thrust upward on its own, seeking to increase the amazing sensations of Jim's mouth working his turgid flesh. Finally, Jim felt the explosion of his release, as Blair screamed his name. He loved making Blair lose control like this until he would reach down to hold his Jim's head in place just to maximize the experience.

Jim reluctantly released the now-flaccid organ from his mouth and kissed it and the musky flesh around it. His own erection ached, and he had plans for how to sate his needs. He rolled his languid, pliant lover on his stomach and began kissing a path down his spine, stroking his hands up and down Blair's sides.

"Do you know how sexy you are?" he leaned forward and whispered in Blair's ear. "Do know what a beautiful ass you have?" He reached under his lover and pulled his lower body up, encouraging him to bring his knees up under himself, presenting Jim with full view and easy access to his center.

Blair started as Jim began at his perineum and dragged his tongue in one long lap all the way up to the puckered entrance to his body.

"Maybe you taste best back here." He began lapping wetly at the upturned cheeks, frequently sinking into the crevice between them to rim the opening. Blair was mumbling and purring a little under him, too languid yet to be aroused but obviously enjoying the adoring attentions from his lover.

After such a mind-blowing orgasm, Blair was easy to prepare. He was relaxed and ready after Jim had spent only moments with a couple of lubed fingers stretching slightly. As he sat back on his heels to coat his own shaft with the lubricant he'd fished out of the basket, he admired the view of Blair there before him, arms outstretched in front of him, face on the blanket, knees tucked under him, presenting that beautiful ass to Jim in the most submissive position possible.

Jim waited and worked on his breathing. This was going to be slow and easy. Not frantic and rough.

He made his entry in a single, slow slide, hearing a little whimper from Blair when he made it all the way to the hilt. He pulled his lover up so Blair's sweaty back was against his chest, his legs falling on either side of Jim's lap as he was impaled.

"Oh God," Blair's head fell back against Jim's shoulder, and the larger man enclosed the precious body in his arms, kissing and tasting the sweat on the side of Blair's neck.

"Slow and easy, baby," Jim murmured as he started rocking his hips gently, loving Blair's incoherent moans of pleasure. Blair's hot, tight tunnel was doing all the delicious things to Jim it always did, and he groaned and began thrusting, as gently as he could manage. He was pleasantly surprised to find the beginnings of another erection to meet his hand when he reached around to stroke Blair. He had teased his younger lover about being insatiable. Blair had just given him a sultry look and never defended himself.

With mingled cries thrown to the heights of the trees surrounding them, they came together, then collapsed, spoon-style, on the blanket. Jim didn't pull out right away. He treasured these few moments of staying connected to Blair.

"So where is it?" Blair whispered.

"What?"

"Where do I taste best?" He looked over his shoulder with a slight smile.

"Do I have to pick one place?" Jim responded, squeezing Blair in his arms.

"Guess the experiment didn't work too well then, if you still don't know," Blair teased.

"Just means I'll have to do extensive testing for years and years to narrow it down."

"Do you think you'll want to do stuff like this when I'm old and pudgy?" Jim would have laughed at Blair's question, but the tone sounded serious.

"You'll never be really old, sweetheart."

"Yeah, but I won't always look like this."

"I'm not going to stay frozen in time either, Chief. And I've got a head start on you."

"You'll always be handsome."

"Yeah, sure I will." Jim chortled a bit and kissed Blair's shoulder.

"Jim, your whole family are good-looking people--tall, distinguished. You're always gonna look good."

"What makes you think you won't?"

"I don't know. Maybe that's it. I don't know. I don't know how my dad looks now--if he's old and pudgy and bald or if he was short too or if I was just the runt of his litter."

"Don't call yourself that, baby. You're beautiful. And you'll always be beautiful to me. Why do you think I'll feel any differently?"

"I don't know." Blair sighed. "I guess sometimes when I see a whole family in one place like today...you can see where you come from, who you look like...Jim, I don't really look all that much like Naomi. I mean the coloring a little, maybe...but I must look more like my father."

"You know, Chief, knowing your father isn't always a blessing. Trust me on this one." He kissed Blair's shoulder, and began shifting a little.

"Don't--not yet, okay?"

"Okay."

"I just wonder about it sometimes. Makes me feel like...I don't know. Some kind of a mutt."

"Did you ever talk to your mother about this?"

"She says she doesn't know."

"Do you believe that?"

"Yeah. She's not a liar. I wonder if he would've wanted anything to do with me if he'd known?"

"He'd have been a fool not to. You were a beautiful child, Blair. And smart. And loving. What father wouldn't have wanted you?"

"I really love you, you know?" Blair said in a shaky voice.

"I really love you too."

"Jim?"

"What?"

"I really hate what your dad did to you."

"He never actually did anything, Chief."

"He made you second best. You didn't deserve that," Blair concluded, stroking the arm Jim had around his middle. "I want you to know you'll always be first with me."

"I know that, baby. Just like you'll always be as beautiful to me as you are right now. Even old and pudgy." He cuddled Blair close and kissed his ear and then the side of his neck. "It's cold. I'll get us the other blanket." Jim slowly withdrew from Blair and found the second blanket to cover them. "Want to take a nap?"

"Yeah. This is nice here."

"If I'm holding you, it's nice anywhere."

"Are you trying to make me cry here, big guy?"

"Nope. Just enjoying spoiling you a little. Go to sleep."

"When we wake up, we can have dessert. I brought caramel apples, too."

Blair stirred first, feeling the security of being locked in Jim's embrace. The sun was waning a little, and it was getting colder. They must have dozed longer than planned. Still, Blair luxuriated in a moment of remembering their loving. Nothing made him feel more treasured than when Jim tasted him that way.

"Jim, wake up. It's getting late," he said softly. Jim stirred immediately, smiling when he saw Blair looking over his shoulder at him.

"Getting cold, too." Jim reluctantly left the warmth of their entangled limbs and started hunting down his clothes.

"Geez, this was more fun a couple hours ago." Blair was shivering as he pulled on his t-shirt and then his shirt.

"You're a sexy little devil, do you know that?" Jim teased.

"What?"

"You always stand there in front of me, bare-assed, putting everything else on before you put your pants on."

"It's easier. I mean if my shirts and my socks are on--" he paused, taking in Jim's skeptical expression and flushed. "Okay, so my ass is freezing, but it's worth it just to see how long it's gonna take you to get dressed while you're takin' in the view."

"If you're going to be a smart ass, I can think of a way to warm up your rear end, and you might not like it."

"You might be surprised," Blair shot back, reaching for his boxers. He never made it before Jim grabbed him around the waist and tossed him over one knee, bringing his hand down in a couple of loud smacks on Blair's upturned bottom.

"Still too cold?" he teased, continuing the spanking.

"Hey, let me go!" Blair yelled, angry that a laugh had broken his command. Jim wasn't actually hurting him--just making his cheeks sting a little. And the position was getting him hard again.

"Gonna behave yourself?" Jim asked, smacking down playfully on Blair's bare bottom.

"Probably not. If you don't do something with this hard-on I'm getting, I'm gonna have to go hump that tree."

"Now you're unfaithful too." Another swat.

"Jim, come on, do something for me here," he whined, unable to get enough leverage to rescue his stinging bottom or to use Jim's knee to service his painful arousal.

"Say please," Jim taunted, giving Blair's slightly warmed bottom another spank. He had barely pinkened the beloved rear end over his knee, but he leaned down and wetly kissed each cheek just for good measure.

"Puhlease," Blair gasped.

"See, all you had to do was ask nicely." Jim released him and lay back on the blanket, shimmying out of his own boxers and drawing his knees up. "So why don't you put that big power tool to some worthwhile use. Or do you just want to kneel there rubbing your ass and staring at me?" Jim goaded.

"You asked for it." Blair dove for the lube in the picnic basket--a storage spot that had made them both laugh when they packed for their outing--and returned with a coated shaft and greasy fingers, which he carefully inserted into Jim, patiently coating and stretching and preparing. He was surprised by Jim's offer. Not that they never did it this way, but Jim had never seemed to love being on the receiving end of things all that much, and since Blair did, they usually stuck with the pattern that worked.

With Jim's legs over his shoulders, Blair slid slowly and carefully into the tight passage, giving Jim as much time as he needed to adjust. Since this wasn't a common role for Jim to be in, Blair was especially careful not to cause him any undue pain when it happened.

"I'm okay. Move, baby. Get some for yourself," Jim directed, reaching up to caress Blair's cheek.

Blair took Jim at his word, pulling almost all the way back out and then thrusting back in, but not as hard as he could have. This pace was dizzying enough, and Jim's trust in him to let him do this was too precious to betray.

He kept up a steady rhythm until he felt Jim arching up wildly as he found his prostate. Relentlessly stroking the secret spot, he dragged a few ragged moans of pleasure out of his lover. He grasped Jim's erection and pumped it in time to their thrusts. The larger man beneath him stilled slightly and the spasms around Blair's shaft accompanied the spurting of Jim's seed across their bellies. Blair followed close behind with his own climax, slumping bonelessly over Jim as the heavy legs slid off his shoulders.

Blair found the energy to wriggle up to Jim's mouth for a deep kiss. Then he started giggling.

"What's so funny?"

"Jim, did you ever think what we look like right now? You're wearing a t-shirt--badly stained, I might add, and nothing else, and I'm dressed except for my shoes and my pants. And thanks to you, my butt's probably pink." He felt the rumble of Jim's laughter under him. Then large hands covered his buttocks and stroked them gently.

"I didn't hurt you did I? I was just messing around."

"You pulled your punches. Actually, it got me hard pretty fast." Blair spread his legs so he was straddling Jim's hips, letting the other man's fingers roam into the crevice between his buttocks.

"You're a shameless little slut, you know that, right?" Jim kissed the end of his nose.

"I'll take that as a compliment. Thank you." He straightened up so Jim's limp organ was nestled between his slightly warmed cheeks.

"Keep that up and we'll never get out of here. It's going to be dark soon, baby." Jim stroked the tops of Blair's thighs. "Up. Come on." He gave Blair a little thrust, and a look that meant business.

"Killjoy." Blair rolled off him and collected his underwear and jeans, completing his dressing job and putting on his shoes while Jim did the same. When they were dressed again and their supplies packed, Blair stopped Jim from picking up the basket to start back for the car with a gentle hand on his arm.

"I love you." He looked up into Jim's eyes with deep affection. "I just wanted to say that when we weren't making love."

"I love you too, Chief. In bed or out of it--forever." Jim lowered his head until their lips met in a prolonged, gentle kiss.

"This is a great place for a picnic." Blair carried the bundle of well-used blankets while Jim took the basket. He slid his arm around Jim's waist, and the taller man's arm came around his shoulders.

"Nobody packs a picnic basket quite like you do, Chief." The two men laughed as they completed their trek back to the Expedition in the waning sun of what had been a magical afternoon.

Simon granted Jim a two-week leave of absence to clear up some of the business surrounding his father's estate. Jim had surprised Blair by suggesting they spend the two weeks out at the Ellison homestead. He had acted as if all he planned to do was clean up a few personal effects and then sell the place. Now, he seemed more interested in exploring it.

Donald and Eleanor had made a hasty retreat the day after the funeral, with Norbert and Gwen close on their heels. Elizabeth and Adam remained at the house a bit longer, as nothing seemed to please Jim's aunt more than the prospect of spending a couple of nights under the same roof with her nephew.

The household staff continued to do their jobs, their salaries having been paid the week before the head of the household's death. Jim realized the responsibility would now fall to him to evaluate the staffing needs for the place. An accountant handled the actual transactions of payroll for the people who ran the stables, the orchard and the household itself, but Jim was now in the position of managing it all.

The domestic staff had been reduced to Anna, a butler named Garth, who had been with the Holden family since before Amanda Holden's parents' deaths, and one young maid who did most of the heavy housework. Anna still held court in her kitchen, since preparing meals was generally not a taxing experience with only the elder Mr. Ellison to cook for.

Anna prepared a single, posh guest suite for Jim and Blair's arrival. Apparently, Elizabeth had clued her in to the nature of their relationship, and the elderly maid had made the accommodations accordingly.

"Wow--Jim, look at that view!" Blair stood out on the balcony of the sitting room that adjoined the large bedroom, looking out over the sea of tangled apple trees below. "Man, it must be beautiful in the springtime--all those apple blossoms."

"This used to be my room, Chief."

"You're kidding?"

"No. Anna probably figured I'd feel more at home in here."

"Wow."

"I guess it is quite a view." Jim joined Blair at the railing. Seeing it through Blair's eyes, it did seem beautiful.

"So where's your stuff?"

"Long gone, probably." Jim turned back toward the room and went inside, closing the balcony doors behind Blair as he followed him. "You don't take a hell of a lot with you to military school."

"How old were you?"

"Seventeen. The car incident happened in August, so instead of spending my senior year in high school here, I went to the military academy outside of Tacoma."

"That's really harsh, man. Your senior year?"

"So what was your senior year like?" Jim sat on the edge of one of the large blue overstuffed chairs that faced the balcony doors. Blair surprised him by selecting his lap to sit in instead of the other chair. He didn't really mind. In the soft brown sweater Blair was wearing, he felt like a warm, breathing teddy bear in his arms.

"I didn't exactly have one. I mean, I got on an accelerated program in high school and started college at 16. But I know how important that year can be when you've attended one school all the way through until then. Seems pretty damned harsh even if you had smashed up his fucking car."

"It worked out okay."

"What do you think you would've done if you hadn't gone away when you did?" Blair made himself comfortable so that his head rested on Jim's shoulder.

"Gone away the next year." Jim smiled into the soft curls that were tickling his nose. "Seriously, probably gone to college, gotten a degree in something."

"You always have a plan, Jim. What were you going to do?"

"I thought about medicine for a while. I was always pretty good in the sciences. I wasn't committed to the idea 100%."

"You'd have been a good doctor."

"What makes you say that?"

"You have an amazing touch, Jim." Blair straightened a little as Jim chuckled. "Get your mind out of the gutter, man. I meant the non-sexual kind."

"You mean the sentinel thing."

"No, I mean just the way you touch me when I'm hurt. If I bump my head or feel sick to my stomach or whatever. You used to do it long before we were lovers. You'd touch whatever hurt, real gently, and for some stupid reason, it helped. Sure, your sentinel abilities applied to medicine would have...well, staggering diagnostic possibilities."

"But I wouldn't have had a guide."

"I like to think we would have found each other one way or another. Like maybe you'd have ended up at Cascade General and my student still would have known about my research and told me about this amazing doctor on staff..."

"Yeah, okay, maybe."

"How did you feel about going away to military school?"

"I was less than thrilled. The going away part was okay, except I had some good friends I hated to leave. The military part I wasn't nuts about."

"What were you like as a kid?"

"Pretty average. Played football, chased cheerleaders."

"Must've had good grades, too."

"Had to have good grades to exist around here. I pulled mostly A's in high school. A few B's."

"And played sports, too, huh?"

"This coming from Mr. Accelerated Program. You probably got A's with your eyes closed."

"I threw myself into school because it was the only constant. And it wasn't constant in terms of place, but it was in terms of being a factor in my life. I always had to be in school, even if we moved six times in one year. I could always make a name for myself with my grades. I wasn't exactly popular, but at least I had some claim to fame."

"Must have been tricky making friends."

"You're one of the few real friends I've ever had. You still are my best friend."

"Ditto, buddy." Jim squeezed him a little.

"I was a geeky little nerd with a big IQ and a hippie mom. I think 'Blair tossing' became a letter sport at my last high school." Jim had to laugh at the remark, though the reality behind it made him irrationally angry.

"Too bad we didn't run into each other in school. I would have earned myself a letter in ass-kicking watching out for you."

"Then you'd have gotten sent away to military school and I'd have been cooped up at Rainier and I'd've had all those years to miss you. Nah. This worked out just fine."

"Worked out better than fine." Jim picked up Blair's hand from its resting place on his chest and kissed it, holding it close to his face. "You like this place?"

"Right now, my favorite thing about this place is this chair."

"Tell you what. If I sell the estate, we'll keep the chairs."

"Uh-uh. Just one of them."

"It's a deal."

"You said 'if'--are you thinking about not selling it?"

"I don't know what I'm thinking yet. I've got a meeting with the lawyer this afternoon to go over some things. I'm just not jumping into anything."

"Good idea." Blair sat up straight in Jim's lap, seemingly struck with an inspiration. "Do you have any family pictures around? I'd love to see what you looked like as a kid."

"Oh, come on, Chief. What do you want to wallow through a bunch of old photo albums for?"

"Hey--no fair. Naomi showed you all of my dirty secrets. I want my shot at yours."

"I learned your dirty secrets all by myself, motor-butt."

"I think I've just been insulted."

"Flattered, actually." Jim moved his legs to dislodge his lapful, who rose to his own two feet and followed Jim anxiously as he headed for the door of the room.

"So is there an attic in this place?"

"That's where we're headed, sweetheart."

"Any good places to make out up there?" He slipped his hand into Jim's as they made their way down the wide upstairs hall to another, narrower staircase.

"I guess we can check that out too."

Jim switched on the overhead light as soon as they entered the single large room that comprised the attic. Everything was neat and clean as usual, very little having changed since Jim had gone up there as a child to play or think, or sometimes to probe the forbidden cartons of his mother's belongings.

"Those cartons labeled 'Amanda' over there--is that your mom's stuff?"

"Yeah. I used to poke around in a couple of them, but my dad didn't want them disturbed, so I never explored a whole lot."

"So what's stopping you now?"

"Nothing." Jim shrugged, realizing that for the first time, he had a chance to get to know his mother, at least as well as he could by seeing her things. Together, he and Blair took down a few of the top cartons he had never dared tamper with as a child and Blair produced his Swiss Army knife to cut the tape.

Jim opened the flaps of the first carton and didn't know quite where to begin. There were books, framed photos and other papers in this box, as if it might have been the contents of her desk. Jim settled on the floor cross-legged beside the carton, with Blair sitting at his side. He pulled out one of the framed photos. A beautiful young woman with long brown hair spilling over her shoulders wore a pink summer dress and held an exuberant-looking toddler on her lap with the same dark brown locks.

"You didn't look too happy there, man." Blair smiled at the sight of this tiny version of Jim sitting in his mother's lap.

"Check this out," Jim directed with a smile. He handed Blair a second framed photo of his mother in a bulky bathrobe sitting near the Christmas tree, watching over her elder son tearing into a package while a second, lighter-haired child sat on the floor with one finger in his mouth, regarding the camera with great suspicion.

"Enter Stephen, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Your mom was really pretty."

"She had a pretty voice too--a nice laugh. She could sing... I remember that. Not much else, but I remember her singing to me. Now if I could just remember some of the songs. They weren't kids' lullabies." Jim slid the current carton aside and opened the next one. "The rest of this stuff just looks like stationery and books and stuff. Let's try this one." Jim pulled out a shoe box that contained nothing but photos. "Oh, man, look at this." Jim snickered a little at the first of the old photos.

Most of them dated back before Amanda Holden's marriage. Jim got his first good look at his maternal grandparents. His grandfather looked just like an older version of Jim himself, which made sense, as Amanda strongly resembled her father. They were a refined-looking couple with one beautiful daughter and an impressive home that served as a backdrop for many of the photos.

"Who's that?" Blair asked as Jim passed him a photo of a man close to Amanda's age neither of them had seen before.

"I don't know." Jim looked on the back of the photo, but nothing was written there. The young man with the pleasant smile and thick brown hair was sitting on the fence near the stables, amused by the attentions of a horse who had joined him in posing for the photo.

"Jim?" Elizabeth's voice preceded her arrival in the room by only moments. "I thought I heard you two up here. Anna has lunch almost ready downstairs."

"Aunt Ellie--do you know this guy?" Jim handed her the photo from where they sat on the floor. Elizabeth sat on the edge of a trunk nearby and looked at the young man in the picture.

"Thorne Westbrook."

"Sounds like something out of Wuthering Heights," Blair commented, smiling a little.

"Yes, it does, actually," Elizabeth responded, laughing. Jim picked up on an increase in her heart rate and pulse that spoke of unease with their discussion. "The Westbrooks were good friends of the Holdens. Thorne and Amanda were lifelong friends." She handed the photo back to Jim.

"So do the Westbrooks still live in this area?"

"The older Westbrooks passed away several years ago. Thorne and his wife live in Palm Beach I think."

"Huh. Did we hear anything from them about Dad's death?"

"No. Thorne was a friend of Amanda's, really, and he didn't marry until after her death. His wife didn't know James or Amanda well, if at all."

"Oh." Jim wondered how his parents kept their friends so separate. He knew all of Blair's friends and Blair knew all of his. Even when he'd been married to Carolyn, he knew most of hers.

"Well, we probably should go down for lunch."

"Right." Jim tossed the photo back in the box and stood up, with Blair following his lead.

Lunch was a pleasant affair, with Elizabeth recalling some of the happier memories of Jim's childhood, most of which involved either his summer visits to the Gregory household or Adam's and her visits to the Ellison home. A few Christmases were recapped, and Blair appreciated her painting some sort of picture of Jim's past, since his lover seemed disinclined to do so himself.

She elaborated on how proud James had been of his son's various achievements, but Jim just smiled slightly and nodded his way through the story. Any implication that his father was proud of or pleased with him seemed to fall on deaf ears.

"I invited Mary and Kyle Jeffries over for dinner tonight, Jim. I hope you don't mind," Elizabeth said, sipping her coffee as Anna cleared the last of the lunch plates. Blair couldn't stay seated while the elderly woman cleared the table, so he had taken charge of the large serving platter that had held the sliced meats they'd used to make sandwiches, as well as a few other pieces he managed to snag with his free hand.

"I might if I knew who they were," he responded, smiling. "I'm sorry, Aunt Ellie. I just don't remember too many of the old crowd."

"Mary went to school with your mother, and Kyle golfed with your father several times every summer," she explained.

"Is he a short guy with a big nose and warts?"

"Good God, Jim," Elizabeth choked out, coughing as she cleared the coffee from her throat and continued laughing.

"Well, is he?" he prodded, smiling.

"Yes, I'm afraid he is. And he's the pretty half of the couple." It was Jim's turn to laugh.

"It's good to hear him laugh for a change," Blair commented as he dried the lunch dishes Anna was washing.

"When he was little, I used to tickle him just to see if he still could," she responded, smiling. "After his mother died, he was such a somber little thing. It was terrible seeing a family divided up that way--Amanda spoiled him while she was alive. Little Jimmy was her favorite, but his father never seemed to have a great deal of interest in him. Certainly not after Stephen was born."

"He doesn't seem to remember his mother very well."

"He was only three--well, almost four--when she died. It was a late ice storm in April. As you know, Jimmy's birthday is in July, so he was just a little shy of four years old."

"Was she happy, do you think?" Blair hoped he hadn't probed far enough to make her clam up, and he was relieved when she only paused in washing the plate in her hands to ponder the question.

"At first, I think. Mr. Ellison was a very quiet, reserved man. Even when they were first married and he was very young. Amanda was fiery. She was smart, quick-witted and had a wicked sense of humor. I've never seen anyone with quite as much style as that girl had. She spent a mint on hats alone."

"A real knock-out, huh?" Blair asked, grinning.

"She was...stunning. She didn't just walk into the room--she took possession of it. She was tall, and even as young as she was, she had a commanding presence. She could freeze one of the young maids with the lift of an eyebrow. I used to love to watch her expressions. She bored easily, and the instant you lost her interest, you knew it. Those big blue eyes of hers just glazed over and she got this vacant look--oh, listen to me rattle on," she laughed, draining out the dishwater as Blair finished drying the last of the dishes.

"I was enjoying it. She sounds a lot like Jim, actually."

"His father killed a lot of her spirit in him. But it's still there, I think." She began wiping off the countertops with the dish rag.

"Did she sing? He mentioned her singing songs that he didn't think were lullabies."

"She had extensive voice and piano training as a child. She played beautifully, and she sang to the children all the time. Usually the popular songs. Whatever she happened to like at the time. The last song I remember her singing was called 'Walk Away Renee'. It was popular right before she died. She hummed it all the time, and she sang it to Jimmy a lot. He even knew a few of the words." She paused, looking incredibly sad for a moment. "It was very silent in this house after she died. Her passing was very hard for me to get over. She was like a daughter to me. And just like you, she couldn't stand to sit still while I did all the work." She was quiet a moment, then added, "I think the saddest moment after she died was one night while I was putting laundry away in the linen closet upstairs--I heard this tiny little voice trying to sing that song by himself."

"Jim?" Blair shuddered at the image of a small child's voice, faltering its way through a song he barely knew well enough to sing, trying to fill in for his dead mother.

"I went into his room, and he was wide awake, staring at the ceiling, singing that song--or trying to. He didn't know many of the words."

"He didn't mention that."

"Maybe he doesn't remember it now. A loss like that is traumatic for a little child. Stephen adjusted very well. He was only two when she died, and he'd always been closest to his father. That wasn't entirely Mr. Ellison's doing. Amanda was almost exclusively devoted to Jimmy. She loved Stephen and she was a good mother, but she gravitated toward Jimmy. I think they were just so much alike..." She completed the sentence with a shrug.

"I know I'm probably out of line saying this--"

"I've been out of line saying everything I just said, so please feel free," she said, smiling and gesturing at the kitchen table, where they both sat to continue talking.

"Didn't Jim's father do anything to try to...help him? I mean, losing his mother would be more traumatic for Jim because he was older and on top of that, was closer to her."

"I know there's some belief you shouldn't speak ill of the dead," she said, smiling a little sadly. "And really, Mr. Ellison did the best he could. I guess. He just didn't seem to want to spend much of any time with Jimmy. I don't know if he reminded him too much of Amanda and it upset him, or what it was, but he didn't seem to...like him. He provided for him, made sure he had every advantage, but there was a coldness in it that bothered me."

"I was surprised anyone would be so harsh as to send a child to a military school over a stupid car."

"I wasn't surprised when it happened. He drove both boys pretty ruthlessly to be perfect. But there was something a little...off about it."

"What do you mean? 'Off' how?"

"It was almost like he used Jimmy to make Stephen excel. He demanded perfection, and Jimmy could usually give it to him. But for some reason, he never seemed terribly pleased when one of the little contests went in Jimmy's favor. He rewarded him, praised him in front of Stephen...but it was as if he genuinely rejoiced when Stephen did well. He expected it of Jimmy, and punished him when he didn't achieve it, but when he did do something right, he only got a mild pat on the head."

"Because he wasn't the old man's favorite?"

"I suppose. It was very subtle, mind you. But I noticed it because Jimmy did. I'd congratulate him later and he'd just shrug and say 'yeah, thanks' and sulk off to his room. His father rewarded him the same way as his brother--sometimes with dinner out, just the two of them--without Stephen, or maybe he'd buy Jimmy something he'd been wanting, or let him have a party of his friends over. But Mr. Ellison's whole face lit up like Christmas when Stephen came out on top. Jimmy saw the difference, and I think by the time the incident happened with the car getting smashed up, he was tired of the game, and felt like an outsider coming between his father and Stephen."

"Did you know what had really happened?"

"Yes. Jimmy told me the night before he left for the military school. You see, I know I was like a grandmother to him more than the housekeeper. He spent many hours sitting right where you are now, telling me about school or some pretty girl he was chasing--I don't think he felt like his father was very interested, and he knew I was. I loved having him around because he reminded me of Amanda. Well, maybe a beaten down version of her," she finished, a little sadly.

"Did it ever occur to you to say something to his father?"

"Oh, I said something." She shook her head. "Closest I came to getting fired next to throwing the iced punch in Norbert's lap."

"Now that's a story I have to hear," Blair responded, laughing.

"Another day," she replied, her smile fading. "I told him I thought Stephen was behind it because Jimmy just wouldn't do a thing like that, and Stephen was fuming about being left home from the trip to Europe. You can imagine how that went over."

"So Jim was out of the way--"

"And Stephen and his father got on each other's nerves even more because Mr. Ellison only had one son to spend all his time 'grooming'. Stephen practically fled to Harvard Business School at the first opportunity."

"Getting all the family secrets, Chief?" Jim entered the kitchen, his tone teasing. The comment made Blair uneasy though, knowing just how much Jim was capable of hearing if he was inclined to try.

"Hey, my mom told you all those embarrassing stories about me. Turnabout is fair play, man."

"Anna'll guard my honor, won't you, Anna?" Jim patted her shoulder as he deposited his empty coffee cup in the sink.

"So what's on the agenda for this afternoon?" Blair changed the subject and was relieved when Jim flowed with it.

"Elizabeth tells me we're having dinner guests tonight. She and Adam are going home tomorrow, and she wanted to get together with the Jeffries before they left. Meanwhile, I want to go through more of that stuff in the attic." Jim turned to Anna. "By the way, did you ever meet a guy named Thorne Westbrook?"

"What makes you ask after him?" she asked.

"I found his picture in with my mother's things."

"Yes, I met him. The Westbrooks were good friends with the Holdens."

"He and my mother were close friends?"

"Well, yes, they spent a lot of time together."

"He wasn't friends with my father at all?"

"They didn't really get together much after your parents were married. That's understandable."

"I guess back then the idea of men and women being friends didn't wash, huh?" Jim looked as if something were nagging at him that he wanted to explore further, but he said nothing more.

"Well, Thorne was still single, so it wouldn't have been very comfortable socially. He didn't meet Vanessa--his wife--until after your mother died."

"I see. I just wondered. Come on, Chief. Let's do a little more digging. Great lunch, Anna. Thanks."

"You're welcome, dear."

Hours of sifting through Amanda Ellison's effects didn't yield much more of interest, though Jim enjoyed getting reacquainted with his attractive and flamboyant mother. Photo albums were packed with pictures of her in many of her designer dresses and overpriced hats, fashionable for the era. It was obvious she was headed for the top of the socialite ladder. She was beautiful, wealthy and dynamic, and from all accounts, knew how to host a party that left the jet set reeling for days.

"Last one," Blair announced as he set a small carton in front of Jim, who was sitting on the floor. Blair joined him again, waiting for him to open it.

"Have I kissed you lately?"

"Not for hours and hours and hours." Blair hooked his chin over Jim's shoulder and stared up at him expectantly with his best hound dog eyes. The larger man laughed out loud, and so did Blair.

"Sorry about that." He leaned over and caught Blair's lips, pressing firmly and probing the pliant mouth with his tongue. His lover's lips parted, invited him in, and their tongues dueled wetly.

"What about the Jeffries?" Blair asked a little breathlessly as he pulled back.

"I'm not kissing Kyle Jeffries. Now shut up and get back here."

"I mean they're due here in an hour or so. If you want time to look through this first--"

"I'd rather have my way with you behind that wardrobe over there." Jim nodded across the room. He loved it that Blair could still occasionally blush, though most of his inhibitions had been lost long ago when it came to their sex life.

"Tell you what. Let's look through the carton now and you can have your way with me in that big bathtub upstairs later."

"I might tackle you right on the main staircase. This is my house now, Chief."

"Yeah, but we're not going to freak out Anna or your Aunt and Uncle."

"I guess they don't deserve to get mooned on their way down to dinner, huh?"

"Nope. But I wanna get mooned later."

"It's a date, baby." Jim laughed as he opened the final carton. "Looks like a lot of her letters. Man, it seems weird, you know? If something happened to me, how would I feel about somebody going through all my old stuff like this? Reading my letters?"

"If it was your son, and he didn't have any other way to get to know you, would you mind?"

"Probably not," Jim responded, smiling slightly.

The majority of the letters were not very interesting, since Jim didn't know most of the names he encountered. Old Christmas and birthday cards from Amanda's parents caught his interest somewhat, but they weren't terribly informative.

Finally, Jim pulled a small, pink satin-covered box from the bottom of the carton. Inside were more letters. All addressed to or from Thorne Westbrook.

"She must have been fifteen or sixteen when she started swapping letters with him," Jim commented, noting the dates. "I mean, they were friends--saw each other all the time--why would they write letters?"

"Maybe they were more than friends for a while--you know, puppy love?" Blair suggested, hoping the suggestion wouldn't be taken the wrong way. Jim just smiled.

"Maybe." He started reading while Blair sorted through some old photos again. Several minutes passed that way until Jim broke the silence. "Blair."

"Yeah?"

"It sounds like a hell of a lot more than puppy love."

"Wonder why they didn't get together if they were in love?"

"I don't know. I haven't gotten that far yet. But these are dated six months before my parents were married."

"Jim, these letters are dated after," Blair said quietly, holding up the last bundle in the box.

"Damn." Jim skimmed the first one. "Oh...my God." All of the color seemed to drain out of his face.

"Jim, what is it?"

"Read this." He handed Blair the letter, unable to answer him. Blair read the letter, written in a slightly shakier hand than the others. Amanda was pregnant, and it wasn't James' child. She had calculated the time of conception, and it corresponded with a tryst between herself and Thorne, which had fired up their relationship a couple months earlier. She poured out pages of misery, regretting having fallen for the dashing James Ellison while Thorne was studying at Oxford. Upon his return to the States, they had launched a steamy affair which resulted in her first pregnancy.

"Oh, man." Blair didn't know what to say about the yellowed pages in his hands. Amanda Holden had been swept off her feet, too fickle to stay faithful to an absent boyfriend when faced with the prospect of a handsome, attentive newcomer. Then, realizing it was Thorne she really loved, she had his child.

"He must not have known when he named me," Jim's voice came out as barely a whisper. "God, he must have hated me."

"If he did, he was hating the wrong person. Babies don't ask to be conceived or born, nor do they get to choose the circumstances." Blair carefully re-folded the letter and tucked it in the envelope. "It does make a lot fall into place about your dad, though. His favoritism toward Stephen."

"And his honoring my mother's wishes in his will by leaving me the Holden family home and none of the Ellison assets. Because I'm a Holden, not an Ellison."

"I'm sorry, love." Blair scooted over and knelt behind Jim, wrapping his arms around his neck, bringing their heads side by side.

"I don't think I can handle reading any more of this stuff right now." He closed the box of letters. "Look, I don't want to sit through that damned dinner party either."

"I'll go down and tell Elizabeth you're not feeling well, and I'm going to stay with you. Why don't you go to our room and lie down, huh? I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Yeah, thanks." Jim rose slowly and made his way downstairs, and then detoured to their room while Blair went to the first floor to find Elizabeth.

"Blair--where is Jim? The Jeffries are due any minute." Elizabeth was dressed in an attractive black dress with an occasional fine thread of silver through it. She was, indeed, an elegant lady, looking like something out of a House Beautiful magazine as she tinkered with a large floral arrangement in the entry hall.

"He's not feeling well. He asked me to extend his regrets about dinner."

"What's wrong? Is he ill?"

"I think it's just the last few days catching up with him. He needs a little down time. I'll slide down and get us something from Anna later. I'm going back up and stay with him. I'm sorry I won't meet your friends."

"So am I. Well, you take good care of Jim. I'll give the Jeffries his regrets."

"Thanks." Blair smiled at her and then hurried back upstairs.

Jim stood out on the balcony overlooking the orchard. In the encroaching darkness, the tangled black fingers of the old trees looked positively sinister. He wondered how Blair handled this uncertainty now. He had comforted his lover only the previous day about his anonymous father, comfortable himself in the knowledge of what his roots were. For better or worse, he knew his father. Now, his father was no more than a faded photograph of someone his mother, whom he barely remembered, once loved.

"Jim?" Blair joined him. "It's freezing out here."

"I guess so. I hadn't noticed."

"Come on, let's go back inside, huh?" Blair took a hold of his arm, and Jim let himself be led inside. "How about a fire?" Blair crouched by the basket of wood in front of the fireplace in the sitting room.

"Sounds good." Jim forced a little smirk and settled on the couch that faced the fireplace. The sitting room was cozy, being smaller than the elaborate first floor living areas.

"Is this set up differently than it was when it was your room?"

"A little. New furniture. I had my desk over where those chairs are now, so I could look out the balcony doors."

"You wanna talk about it, or just leave it be?" Blair kicked off his shoes and settled on the couch next to Jim, shoulder to shoulder but not grasping at him. Jim appreciated the space and the choice.

"I don't know what to say about it, Chief. It doesn't seem...real. But there it is, in her own writing..." Jim shook his head, sliding down to rest it on the back of the couch.

"You look just like your grandfather."

"Yeah, I know. But I've never met my father. That seems so...weird."

"It is when you thought you knew him all these years, and suddenly you find out everything isn't what it seemed. Shit, it's weird anyway. Who'm I tryin' to kid?" Blair smiled a little. "I mean, it's not like it keeps me up nights or anything, but I am damned curious."

"So all these years, he was just tolerating his wife's mistake. No wonder he favored Stephen."

"Jim, it wasn't your fault that your mother loved someone else, or that she had a child with another man. Maybe it wasn't even really your mom's fault. I mean, we don't know what her marriage was like, or how she felt about things."

"All my life, I never felt like I belonged in this family. Now I know why."

"Look, your dad should have made a decision and stuck with it. He should have either raised you as his own or disowned you so you could be put in a home with people who loved you. To keep a child and then just tolerate them is...well, it's torture for that child. I know. I was tolerated often and wanted seldom when it came to Naomi's boyfriends. A lot of them put up with me to get close to her, and a few really liked kids, or specifically liked me. But the ones you knew were just tolerating you, putting up with you like you were a gnat flying around their faces--that didn't feel too great. I can't even picture how that would hurt if you loved the person who treated you that way."

"Tolerate is a good word. He put up with me. But when it was my turn to get the praise or the reward, it was like he was disappointed or something."

"You still have your mother. That hasn't changed. She still loved you, and you were made from love--and your real father is still alive, according to Elizabeth."

"I'm not going to disrupt his life now, Chief."

"He loved Amanda. Maybe for him to just see you--he might be thrilled. It might not have been his choice not to be part of your life."

"I've been an adult a long time. He could have looked me up."

"And disrupted your life? Come on, Jim. If he thought Amanda wanted you raised as an Ellison, and didn't want to continue their relationship, pulling at you like a wishbone would have been cruel. Maybe he loved you and your mother enough to let go of his side."

"You think I should look him up now?"

"You could always call him, or write to him. You don't have to show up on his doorstep and complicate his life." Blair watched the fire building momentum. "I always thought I'd just like to at least see my father. Talk to him maybe. I wouldn't even care if he knew who I was."

"Maybe that's what I should do. Meet him for some other reason."

"He'd take one look at you and know who you were. You look too much like your mother and grandfather to pull that one on him."

"Stephen should know." Jim looked around and laughed a little. "It's funny. I was just thinking about maybe keeping this place a while. Once this gets out, if anyone contests the will, they'll probably win."

"It doesn't have to get out. Besides, it's not like you were adopted or anything. And if your dad knew about it, and left you the house anyway, that would probably hold up."

"Maybe."

"I think he was trying to give you what your mother wanted you to have."

"This whole things seems...surreal."

"I know." Blair's stomach growled.

"Why don't you go see if Anna can fix you something?" Jim suggested, patting the offending stomach affectionately.

"I'll get something for both of us. You've gotta eat, lover."

"Why? Am I going to need my strength later?"

"Maybe sooner if you're good." Blair got up and kissed Jim quickly as he passed him to sneak down to the kitchen.

Anna made up a tray with two plates of the seafood fettucine she had prepared for the evening's meal, fresh bread sticks, a bottle of wine and two glasses. With Blair's assurances that he could make it upstairs with all of that, she wished them a goodnight and went back to overseeing the dinner party.

"Room service!" Blair called cheerily as he knocked on the door with his foot. Jim opened it and took the tray from him as Blair hurried in and closed the door, wine and glasses in hand.

"Anna really outdid herself. I thought she'd fix us a couple sandwiches."

"I guess she had enough, so we got our share." Blair followed Jim to the small table and chairs in the corner of the room.

They shared the delicious meal in relative silence. Jim had a lot to think over, and he loved Blair for his understanding in curbing his usual chatter.

After dinner, wine was sipped in front of the fire, Blair curled up against Jim under one large arm.

"Do you like it here?" Jim finally asked.

"I've only seen a few of the rooms--and one really great picnic spot," Blair responded, grinning devilishly.

"Remind me to show you the roomy shower stall in the bathroom later."

"I think it's beautiful here."

"Do you like the idea of being rich?" Jim asked, honestly interested in what Blair would think of the idea if it were a real possibility, as it was now.

"As long as I've got you, I'm the richest man in the world. And that's not just mushy stuff, Jim. I mean it." Blair set his wine glass aside and shifted himself into Jim's lap and waiting arms. "Money's good for a lot of things. But only if it makes us both happy. I don't need it. I don't need anything but you."

"Have I told you lately how glad I am you're around?" Jim asked, setting his wine on the end table and squeezing Blair's body in a tight embrace.

"Once or twice." Blair relaxed against Jim. "I guess I'm trying to say that I think being rich could be fun, and we could probably do some worthwhile things with the money. But I don't need it to be happy."

"You know, seeing my fath--seeing the man I thought was my father laid out in that casket...it just really brings back how fast things can change. He was healthy, relatively young to die, just fine one minute and the next...in one instant...he's dead." Blair felt a little tremor in Jim's indrawn breath, even more pronounced as he exhaled. He straightened and pulled out of Jim's lap, kneeling next to him on the couch.

"Just because he wasn't your father by blood doesn't mean you can't grieve for him. And just because he wasn't father of the year doesn't mean there's something wrong with you if you feel bad he's dead."

"Damn it!" Jim stood up and started pacing. "I feel... God, I feel like I shouldn't...care," Jim began, his voice shaking slightly. "I should hate the son of a bitch! I should be glad he's dead! Shit, he never cared anything about me anyway--I should be glad he got what he deserved!" Jim spun around to face Blair, his face a mixture of rage and pain, tears welling in his eyes. "Part of me hated him... When I left here...when he sentenced me to a fucking military academy...I wanted to kill him!" Jim shouted at Blair, as if he were just releasing at that moment all the anger he'd felt as a teenager. "So now I've got what I want. And after all the...the shit...he isn't even my father!" Jim turned again and leaned his elbow on the mantle, running his hand over his forehead. "It's like he found a way to take away my right to grieve after he was dead."

"Nobody needs permission to grieve, lover," Blair responded softly.

He jumped in surprise as Jim cleared the mantle with the sweep of an arm, sending various fragile nick-knacks flying and shattering. Then he moved to a small end table and kicked it, propelling the lamp to its death. He grabbed a heavy marble statuette off the sofa table and started to hurl it when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. Blair ducked.

As if all the life had drained out of his body, Jim crumpled to his knees there on the floor in the middle of his destruction, letting the statue drop with an unremarkable thump on the carpeting. Tears finally fought their way to the surface, and Blair felt a chill run up his spine as he recalled the night of Danny Choi's death. This was similar, but there was no cry of anguish. Just Jim quietly falling apart there on the floor.

There was a knock at the door. Figuring Jim needed him to get rid of whomever it was more than he needed anything else at that moment, Blair went to the door and eased it open only enough to poke his head out to greet the visitor.

"I heard noises--like things breaking...?" Elizabeth was genuinely concerned, but Blair figured the last thing Jim would want would be to share this moment of grief with any more people than necessary.

"We're okay. I caught my foot on the leg of one of the tables and knocked over the lamp."

"I can have Jayne clean that--"

"No, I'll pick it up. No problem," Blair replied, cutting off her offer to have the maid clean up the mess.

"All right then. Just let me know if you need anything."

"We will. Thanks, Elizabeth." He returned the smile she gave him as she turned and went back down the hall toward the stairs. He closed the door behind him and looked over at Jim. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor now, head in both hands, shoulders shaking slightly with still-constrained grief.

Blair went over to the man he loved most in the world and knelt next to him, coaxing the larger form into his arms until Jim's head rested against his chest.

"Come on, lover. Let it go. Just let it rip." Powerful arms squeezed him in an almost strangling embrace as Jim's grief jarred both their bodies.

"I...almost...hit you."

"You woulda missed. You might have a deadly aim with a gun but you can't hit the broad side of a barn when you pitch," Blair teased, getting a horrible choking sound out of Jim that was a little chuckle warring with the tears. "It's okay, love, I'm right here. You'll feel so much better to get all this out. Just relax and let go. Relax..." Blair's voice softened into its gentle coaching tone. "Love you so much. More than anything in the whole world." Blair was relieved to feel the steel bands wrapped around his body loose a little.

"He wasn't...even...my father."

"That doesn't matter--it matters, but it doesn't invalidate your grief. Or the fact you thought of him as your father. In everything but DNA, he was. And just because he wasn't perfect doesn't mean you didn't love him. You know what they say about a fine line between love and hate. Sometimes we feel passionately enough about someone to hate them because under all the layers, we love them, and when they hurt us, it's the ultimate betrayal." Blair felt another tremor of sobs at that statement. "That's it. Let it out, babe. Let it go. You've had so much shit to deal with. Nobody should have to do it all at once."

"This...is...stupid but...I miss...my mother."

"Oh, God, Jim, it's not stupid. Somewhere deep inside, you remember her--how much she loved you and how much you loved her. That's not stupid at all," Blair responded softly.

"I'm glad...you...minored...in psych," Jim managed, seeming to relax a bit.

"You are, huh?" It was Blair's turn to chuckle a little.

"Right now, I feel...like I'm crazy." He was getting his voice back, though he seemed content to let Blair hold him there on the floor.

"Everything just hurts and it's all mixed up because you're tired and you can't handle all this crap being tossed on you at once." Blair ran his hand up and down Jim's back in long strokes. "Grief tires you out, makes you vulnerable."

"Who did you lose?" Jim asked quietly.

"A good friend. Kinda like us...only without the sex."

"Always the poet," Jim kidded.

"Yeah, that's me. Anyhow, we met when I was seventeen, and he went to Rainier too. He was a freshman--another bookworm. We could talk for hours and hours and hours about everything."

"What happened?" Jim pulled back now, trying to wipe at his eyes but giving up when Blair insisted on cleaning up the tears with kisses instead. When he was finished, Jim's face wasn't much drier, but he was smiling, and that was more important.

"He died in a hunting accident over Thanksgiving break. The bizarre thing is, he hated hunting." Blair snorted an ironic little laugh. "He used to say he was going to organize an armed militia among the deer."

"So how'd he end up hunting?" Jim asked, smiling. Blair's friend sounded like another version of Blair himself.

"His dad and uncle were heavy into deer hunting, and they worked him over until he agreed to go. He was a lot like me--jumps at gunfire...shit. Jumped at gunfire. I still don't like to talk about him in the past tense." Blair shook his head.

"What was his name?"

"Eric Quinlan. Anyway, Eric invited me to come home with him over Thanksgiving, because Naomi was on a retreat and I was going to be by myself. The day before break, I got a real killer dose of the flu, and I had to practically shove him out of the dorm to go home. We were roomies for a few months once we could maneuver getting rid of our other roommates." Blair looked sadder than Jim could remember seeing him look in a long time. "I spent so long kicking myself for urging him to go. If he'd stayed with me, he'd have gotten the flu, and I'd have helped him through it, and he'd be an English teacher in some high school somewhere. But I didn't want to fuck up his holiday, so I told him to go. I was just going to move between the bed and the toilet for two or three days, and I could do that alone."

"You didn't want to ruin his Thanksgiving. That's a natural thing, baby. It was the generous thing to do."

"Yeah. I guess. Anyhow, I guess he went out with his father and uncle with the understanding he wasn't going to fire a gun. He'd go along though for the camaraderie, and the visit, since his uncle hadn't visited the family in, like, ten years or something. The long and short of it is that he got in the crossfire between another hunter and a deer, and he died instantly. Just like that. Poof!" Blair clapped his hands together to illustrate the point.

"Did someone call you?"

"His mom called me the night it happened--the Friday after Thanksgiving. I was real weak, but at least the symptoms had eased a little, so I got in the heap of a car I had at the time and drove to Salem--Oregon, not Massachusetts," Blair clarified, forcing a smile. "The point is, I felt like somebody had ripped my guts out, and for a long time, stuff that should've been minor set me off big time, and I didn't feel like I could cope with anything because all of me was already busy trying to recover from the grief."

"You never mentioned Eric before."

"It was...what, 12 years ago now? I've tried to leave it in the past."

"What did he look like? Another neo-hippie witch doctor type?" Jim teased. Blair smiled.

"Hang on." He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and went to the middle of the photo section. Jim found himself looking at the well-worn picture of a slightly studious-looking young man with wire-framed glasses, a mop of dark hair and a pleasant smile.

"He looks...friendly," Jim said honestly.

"Yeah. He actually didn't mind hanging out with the weird teenager who was in college too early." Blair tucked the wallet back in place. "Jim, this isn't about me."

"I just wanted to know how you knew so exactly what I felt like."

"I think loss is almost universal. We've all suffered it at one time or another. You have yourself before, but you always make yourself be tough. Strong. You've gotta cut yourself some slack when you're hurting, lover. There's nothing wrong with that."

"My fath--oh, hell. The old man didn't tolerate a lot of whining and carrying on. And let's face it, Chief--military school and the army aren't exactly geared to self-actualization. Guys who sit around sniveling get eaten alive."

"This isn't a barracks, and it's not a dorm at the school from hell, and it isn't even your old man's house anymore. And I still think you're the strongest person in the world--crying doesn't take away from that."

"On some level, I know that. I just...God, I envy you sometimes. You just...feel things. I don't know. I guess I have to figure out if it's okay first."

"You feel it. It's the outward expression you control. That's when this guy goes into overdrive," Blair said affectionately, stroking Jim's jawline.

"Don't I have any secrets left from you?" Jim caught the hand and kissed its palm, holding it close to his cheek.

"Do you want any?"

"There's an ambiguous question." Jim's tongue snaked out and traced the line from Blair's palm down his wrist. The other man snatched his hand back as if he'd been bitten.

"I meant secrets. Geez. And you called me motor-butt."

"You are a motor-butt. Once I get the motor running, it's next to impossible to stop it."

"Flattery will get you...in my pants." Blair straddled Jim's lap and hung his arms loosely around the larger man's neck. "Wanna throw me on the floor and fuck me silly?"

"You're going to spoil me with all these romantic words, Chief." Jim paused to enjoy a prolonged kiss. "But," he said, pulling back, "I think I already 'fucked you silly' the other day, and I don't plan to do it again. I told you the first time we made love that I would never fuck you. When I said that, I meant I'd never just pound away at you to take what I wanted. That's what I did that day, and I'm not proud of it, baby."

"You oughtta be. Man, I came so hard I looked like the fountain at the Cascade Mall's food court."

"There's one place I won't be able to stop for a hot dog anymore." Jim laughed easily.

"Besides, you didn't do anything without my okay. Jim, I told you to let go and take what you wanted. You were all ready to be as gentle as I wanted you to be. You didn't take anything I didn't offer freely."

"But I did hurt you. I knew you were sore when we made love again."

"You didn't do any damage, and I'm fine. If I'd been hurt, we wouldn't have been making love again right afterwards."

"So how do you like it? Hard and fast or slow and easy?"

"I like it with you." Blair captured his lover's mouth and refused to relinquish it for long minutes of sliding their tongues together, tasting each other. Jim pulled back reluctantly, with a disappointed look on his face. By now, with Blair ready and willing and a few minutes of kissing, he was usually sporting a healthy hard-on. Nothing was happening.

"I guess it's just not gonna happen tonight, baby."

"It's just not what you need right now. Wanna get in bed and just cuddle for awhile?"

"What about you?"

"I'm not exactly raging with desire either. I mean, if you were in the mood, I'd enjoy myself. I always do." Blair caught Jim's chin as he started to look down. "Oh. My. God. You're blushing!"

"Sandburg, if you make fun of me for this--"

"I'm not! I just...I mean...I never figured out a way to do that before, and you look so damned sexy sitting there...blushing! Because of me! I've done everything--I've gotten in positions naked that would make a yoga master groan and you can sit there and lick my butt like it's a popsicle and keep your cool."

"You're crude, do you know that?" Jim put a hand over his lover's mouth. "Dirty-mouthed little motor-butt." He removed the hand and kissed Blair quickly. "Since when did making me blush become a goal?"

"Since I never saw you do it, man. I've seen you do damn near everything else now."

"You're pushing your luck."

"Gonna spank me again?" Blair teased hopefully, wiggling his hips in Jim's lap.

"Soon. You need one, that's for sure." Jim pulled him into a tight embrace. "I love you more than my life, Blair. Don't you ever forget that." Jim had felt such a rush of love for Blair for having led him from the pit of anguish into joking around and indulging in stupid, raunchy banter, that he had to do something to show him.

"You are my whole life, Jim. You've been my reason for living for a long time. Always will be." Blair seemed choked up now. "And if you ever die on me, I'll...never speak to you again."

"Guess that rules out dying then. You'd go nuts if you had to keep your mouth shut that long."

"Promise me I won't ever have to bury you, Jim. I can't do it."

"Hey, sweetheart, come on. Don't cry." Jim inwardly kicked himself for making Blair relive his friend's death. It was obviously a very painful memory for Blair. And why not? Eric was probably the only long-term buddy the transient Blair ever had except for Jim himself.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, still crying. "It's just...you're older...than me...and sometimes...I get scared...that you...you'll go...first...and..."

"Shhhh. I'm right here, baby. The thought of losing you scares the hell out of me, too. That's the scary downside of loving somebody a lot, Chief. Being afraid to lose it, and hurting when you do. But it's all worth it, don't you think?" He felt a nod.

"Man, look at me." Blair pulled back and wiped at his face, sniffling.

"Look at both of us." Jim shrugged as Blair looked at him. Suddenly, his lover burst out laughing. As usual, it was contagious. Jim tipped back on the carpeting until he was laid out on his back, and Blair flopped on his own back, at a right angle from Jim, the back of his head on Jim's stomach. Neither heard the knock at the door or Elizabeth coming in to check on her poor, under-the-weather nephew.

And there they were, sprawled on the floor, laughing like drunks, broken objects all over the room.