WALK THIS WAY

by

Candy Apple

(This story could fit into the canon timeline anytime prior to "The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg")

Had it not been for the shock of reaching for the volume knob at the same time Jim did, Blair might have taken more note of the little tingle he felt as their hands brushed against each other. But Jim and Blair both reaching to turn up the radio for the same song was almost unheard of, and the shock superseded all else. Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" was blasting out of the truck's speakers now as the two men rode around town, running errands and enjoying a lazy day off.

"I never pegged you for an Aerosmith fan, Chief," Jim said above the music.

"I never thought you could take music this loud," Blair countered, laughing a little. Windows down, music blaring out of the truck, spending Saturday with his favorite person...Blair couldn't picture anything more perfect.

"It's all in the internal volume dials," Jim retorted, grinning. "And there are some things that I like loud."

Both men stopped talking, listening to the rest of the song, Jim bringing the volume down a little for the next song, another rock classic both men didn't mind.

"Man, I wish I could've gotten tickets to the show next Friday. I'd love to see them live."

"You never saw them live before?" Jim asked, as if Blair had just admitted that he'd missed a vital rite of passage.

"No. And the show's sold out. I wanted to go stand in line, but I had to teach, so..." Blair shrugged.

"There must be some starry-eyed co-ed who would have waited in line for you."

"I don't date my students, Jim." Blair rolled his eyes. "Besides, I wouldn't ask someone else to stand out in the rain for three hours so I could go to a concert."

Jim thought back on how silly he'd felt doing that very thing, until he'd walked away from the Ticketmaster outlet with two fifth row seats secured. Of course, Tom Donnelly in Vice had dibs on the other ticket, since both men were fans and Tom had been the one to suggest it to Jim in the first place. Assuming Blair wouldn't be interested in one of the same bands he was, it hadn't occurred to Jim to include his partner in the activity. Since Jim happened to be the one with a morning off the day the tickets went on sale, he stood in line to buy them. Getting back inside his truck with the coveted tickets, he had told an elated Donnelly that they would be ringside for the show.

Jim sighed as he weighed the alternatives. He could outright beg Donnelly to give up his ticket, pay him about three times the face value and take Blair instead. But that was assuming Donnelly would part with the ticket willingly. This was the man who'd worn Aerosmith T-shirts to high school almost every day, much to his parents' disdain, and had a wall poster of one of the band's album covers in his living room. Barring Jim signing over his life insurance to the man, it was unlikely he'd give it up willingly.

"What's wrong?" Blair asked, startling Jim out of his thoughts.

"Nothing. I was just, uh, thinking about the concert. Too bad we can't go."

"Yeah, that sucks, man. I was thinking I could get some crappy seats if I went later in the day, but it was sold out by the time I got there. Had been sold out for about two hours, the girl at the counter told me." Blair sighed. "I did get to see Deep Purple a few years ago, so I guess I haven't missed all the legends."

"Oh, man, I remember them. I listened to them all the time."

Blair sat dumbfounded as Jim started growling out the famous opening guitar riff to "Smoke on the Water." Laughing, Blair joined in, and by the time they pulled up to the intersection, they were both loudly growling out the riff, much to the amusement of two teenagers in a rusty old car pulled up next to theirs.

* * *

"You did what?" Donnelly asked, incredulous.

"Look, man, I'm really sorry about this. I tossed the jeans in the trash and I didn't realize the tickets were in the back pocket--"

"Of all the idiotic-- I swear, Ellison, if I weren't an officer of the law, you'd be dead right now!" he concluded angrily.

"Look, I paid you double what your ticket was worth. What do you want from me?" Jim asked, palms upraised. The picture of innocence.

"I want my fucking ticket!" the other man shouted back, the opening too good to pass up.

"Look, they're going to be playing Seattle next week. Maybe there are tickets--"

"Yeah, in the nosebleed section, there probably are. Just forget it, man." Donnelly stormed off down the hall, slamming full tilt into Blair as he got out of the elevator. Without so much as an "Excuse me," he punched the button inside the elevator and the doors closed.

"What's his problem?" Blair frowned as he pointed with a thumb over his shoulder.

"Just a difference of opinion," Jim retorted, then changed the subject. "Come on. We've got some witnesses to question, Chief."

The rest of Jim's and Blair's week at the PD consisted of wrapping up the case on a carjacking that had ended in the critical shooting of an elderly man. With a solid description of the suspect and more than one volunteer to testify, both men were quite satisfied with themselves by the time they called it a day and headed home Friday afternoon, considerably earlier than usual.

"I hope you don't have any big plans for tonight, Chief," Jim said, tossing his keys in the basket while Blair headed for the kitchen, obviously entertaining thoughts of cooking dinner.

"Why?" Blair set a number of vegetables on the counter next to the refrigerator, obviously planning on laboriously constructing a masterpiece salad.

"Well, I have this extra ticket to the Aerosmith show tonight that I have to get rid of, and..." Jim trailed off, shrugging and watching as Blair froze in his movements, then spun around to face him.

"You've got what?" he asked, incredulous.

"Thought I'd surprise you. I've got fifth row seats--on the floor."

"How long have you had them? Shit, Jim, you didn't go out and pay a scalper did you?"

"Sorry to burst your bubble, pal, but I wouldn't pay their prices to buy Aerosmith, let alone the tickets. Nope, these are legit. I've had them since the morning they went on sale."

"But you didn't even know I liked Aerosmith."

"No, you're right, I didn't. But the guy who was supposed to go with me had to cancel out, so it worked really well."

"But when we talked about it--"

"It's called a surprise, Chief. That means you don't tell ahead of time." Jim laughed. "So, what do you say we change and then grab a burger on the way to the stadium?"

"I say 'let's party!'" Blair tossed the veggies back in the refrigerator and darted into his room to change. Still grinning at the unbridled enthusiasm, Jim headed upstairs to do the same. He'd have to come clean with Blair eventually about his subterfuge to make this evening happen, but that could wait. If he told Blair now, he knew the younger man would never go, knowing he was using someone else's ticket.

What the angry Tom Donnelly didn't know was that Jim had already obtained ninth row seats on the floor for the Seattle show which were tucked safely in an envelope in his dresser drawer. Feeling enormously guilty for messing up the other cop's plans for the concert, Jim had called Stephen, who was close friends with the manager of the arena where the band would be playing. Via that route, he'd gotten hold of the tickets to assuage his angry colleague. He would present them to the still-fuming Donnelly first thing Monday morning.

"Jim?! You ready yet?" Blair hollered from the front door, where he was waiting, already in his jacket, virtually bouncing in place.

"Be right down, buddy." Jim looked over the railing at the twitching bundle of energy hovering by the front door. Smiling fondly, he grabbed an old denim jacket, not unlike the one Blair was already wearing, and headed downstairs to join his partner.

* * *

Once turned loose in the arena, Blair was as bad as a kid at a carnival. Only satisfied when both of them had not only purchased, but changed into, Aerosmith T-shirts, Blair happily followed Jim to their seats. The older man had to smile at his companion, who was wearing about six purchases from the concession stands. The mop of curls stuck out the back opening of an Aerosmith cap, two new buttons adorned the jacket that was over the new T-shirt, a bandana bearing the band's name was around Blair's neck and he was cursed with a tour program he had no clue how to store during the concert. Muttering a few choice curses, Jim made a dead run out to the truck and stored the book there, since Blair was convinced that they would sell out by concert's end, and he had his heart set on keeping track of that particular souvenir.

"I hate all this preliminary crap," Blair said of the background music as they waited for the show to start. It was on the tip of Jim's tongue to admonish Blair to sit still for a moment, since the perpetual motion of the body in the chair next to him was beginning to get on his nerves. He refrained.

"We are, like, so close to the stage, man! This is going to be great! Got your earplugs?" Blair finally thought to ask Jim.

"Right here," Jim responded, pointing to his ears. He could still dial up his hearing to talk to Blair, but he'd be able to dial it way down and hide behind the earplugs when the giant speakers on the stage roared to life.

"This is great!" Blair enthused again, looking around them. "I love these crowds that show up to see the older bands. I mean, you've got teenagers--and their dads--in the same crowd. Jim--thank you so much for getting us these tickets. I still can't believe I'm here, in the fifth row! Man, Steven Tyler's sweat is gonna snap on our heads, we're so close!"

"If that's supposed to be a drawing card, Chief, I'm afraid it missed the mark," Jim responded, deadpan.

"You know, this girl I went out with used to always buy a bra to throw on stage at concerts. I mean, I thought that was about the funniest thing I ever saw. The whole point of this bra thing was women ripping them off and pitching them at the stage in fits of passion. But here's Lily, with her K-mart bag, trying to bite the clearance price tag off it before she pitched it at the stage. Man, it was hysterical," Blair recalled, laughing.

"I'm not throwing my boxers at the band. I don't care if they all dress up in drag for 'Dude Looks Like a Lady'." Jim chuckled a little. He couldn't remember having this much fun in a long time, and he knew he wouldn't have had this much fun with the other cop he'd scammed out of the ticket.

"Or get that guy from the video in the wedding dress?"

"That was attractive," Jim responded, shaking his head. Then he smiled. "Perry's tuning his guitar back there somewhere."

"You can hear them backstage?" Blair's eyes were saucers.

"Not everything. There's a lot going on. But I'd know that guitar anywhere. He's tuning up, I can hear Tyler doing something--cutting up, I think--"

"Better pull in your hearing, Jim. Don't want to get the first blast of the amps with your hearing up."

"Good thinking, Chief." Jim followed the directive.

"I can't believe you can hear them back there. Well, wait, I can believe it, actually. But it's still pretty amazing."

* * *

The concert was all they'd hoped it would be. The crowd was on its feet the whole show, bouncing and dancing to the music, and Jim found himself more than once yelling with the rest of his fellow fans, both arms in the air to cheer for songs like "Walk This Way." Laughing a little at their like minds, both Jim and Blair pulled out lighters they'd bought for the occasion to hold up in the air during "Dream On."

Through it all, Blair watched Jim with a sort of rapt fascination. He'd never seen his normally reserved roommate playing the role of a hard rock fan before, and it was quite a sight. Most of all, Blair reveled in spending this kind of time with Jim. It seemed at times like their whole lives were one serious case after the other, with a couple of stolen fishing trips here and there. If Blair wasn't running around with Jim working cases, he was up to his eyeballs in his own work at the university. Fun like this came along very rarely, and Blair felt as if he were holding onto something impossibly slippery and fleeting, trying to make the time slow down so he could savor every minute.

Blair even indulged himself in a few fantasies while he was dancing around to "Love in an Elevator"--pushing the stop button, grabbing Jim and kissing the hell out of him until his eyes popped, the two of them clawing at each other's clothes, humping in a wild frenzy to the sexy back beat of the music...

Shaking off the fantasy, Blair tuned back in to the reality of the evening--one he never wanted to end.

* * *

"Do you feel, like, WIRED, or is it just me?" Blair asked as they headed for the truck. Jim looked down at his smaller partner and laughed.

"Yeah, I feel a little wired, too, Chief. You want to go grab something to eat?"

"Sounds good."

"WonderBurger?" Jim suggested hopefully.

"Let's go, man!" Blair responded jubilantly, hopping into the truck, not caring about nutrition or cholesterol or any of the usual objections he would raise to the restaurant he had affectionately dubbed "The Grease Factory."

Seated in a booth in the nearly empty restaurant, the two men dug into their large tray of greasy delicacies.

"Did you ever see them in concert as a kid?" Blair asked Jim, who was currently enraptured with the charms of a double cheeseburger. If only he'd look at my meat patties the way he's looking at that burger's, I could die happy, Blair thought, licking a little ketchup off his finger. Here, Jim, want some ketchup? he imagined himself asking, as he licked off the second finger himself. These monster burgers were messy, but they were outstanding if you could just completely forget everything recent medicine had taught you about eating right.

"Once. My dad got tickets for Stephen and me to go see them in Seattle. It was a great show. He was friends with the guy who was part-owner of the arena."

"That's handy."

"Stephen is still friends with the manager. That's something I've got to fill you in on, Chief."

"Stephen and the guy at the arena?" Blair said, frowning.

"No," Jim responded, chuckling a little. "I sort of pulled a little scam on somebody so we could go together tonight, so you're going to have to play along, or I'm dead meat."

"Scam?"

"Don't worry--I paid him double the value of his ticket and I got him tickets to go see them in Seattle Saturday night--actually, Stephen got them for me to get my fat out of the fire."

"I don't understand," Blair said, frowning. He watched as Jim fiddled with an onion ring before stuffing it in his mouth.

"I got these tickets the morning you said you wanted to wait in line but couldn't."

"Yeah?"

"Well, I was supposed to go with Tom in Vice--we had it all set up. Then, the other day, when you told me how much you liked the band and wanted to go, I...rearranged things."

"Rearranged things? What did you tell him?"

"That I put the tickets in the pocket of my jeans, that the jeans got totaled wrestling with a perp, and that I threw the tickets out with the jeans."

"Oh, man." Blair rolled his eyes and sat back in his seat. "Jim, I...I mean I loved seeing the show, but--"

"Before you pass sentence on me here, I got him tickets for the Seattle show--ninth row, center stage. Plus I paid him double for tonight's ticket."

"I guess he isn't really suffering then, is he?" Blair responded, laughing.

"Not at all."

"Why... I mean, I appreciate you wanting me to be able to see the show, but why was it that important to go through all that?" Blair watched as Jim poked at his cheeseburger, rearranging the distribution of the pickles.

"Because you wanted to go so badly...and I'd...I thought it would be...I'd enjoy it more if it was you and me, Chief." Jim looked up fleetingly at Blair, with just the hint of a smile.

He's so fucking cute when he's shy, I think I'm gonna die right here, Blair thought, smiling back, wondering how to respond to that without scaring Jim off, but at the same time, letting him know that his feelings--to whatever degree they ran--were returned.

"I...can't think of anybody I'd have rather seen the show with. Thanks for doing all this, Jim. I really had a blast tonight. I'll never forget this."

"It was a great show, wasn't it?" Jim responded, smiling brightly as he dug into his food again.

"Yeah, but I wasn't talking about the show."

"Then what...?"

"Uh...I mean...uh...this. You and me. Um, tonight...was kind of...well, it was more... special than..."

"It was pretty special, wasn't it?" Jim responded, rescuing Blair from the verbal corner into which he'd painted himself.

"It was the best," Blair replied unreservedly. Both men smiled at that, then returned to their food.

* * *

"Sorry I woke you up, man," Blair apologized as Jim came downstairs at four in the morning to find his partner sitting on the couch.

"What's wrong, Chief?" Jim asked, sitting down next Blair and feeling his forehead. "You feel a little warm." Blair smiled at the gesture, remembering that Jim would be able to see and assess his pasty coloring even in the semi-darkness of the pre-dawn living room.

"I think I overdid it a little at the burger place."

"Been sick to your stomach yet?"

"No. I hope it doesn't go that far. I just couldn't stay in bed anymore. Look, I'll be okay if you want to get some sleep."

"Day off tomorrow, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. But still--"

"I know you don't like the over-the-counter stuff, but how about some antacid?"

"Drinking paste isn't going to make me feel better," Blair groused, wrapping his arms around his stomach and leaning back into the cushions. Almost to himself, he said, "When I wished this night would last forever, this wasn't what I had in mind."

"You, too, huh?" Jim asked, smiling. Blair turned his head where it lay on the back of the couch, looking at Jim a bit stunned. "I had a great time, too, Chief."

"It wasn't the concert," Blair confessed again, wanting to be sure that Jim was crystal clear that while the show had been fabulous, it was just the icing on the cake that was Jim Ellison.

"I know. For me, either." Jim hesitantly reached over and moved a curl away from Blair's eyes.

"Is something happening here?" Blair asked, never breaking eye contact with Jim.

"I sure hope so." Jim leaned forward slowly, then pressed his lips against Blair's, probing lightly with his tongue, waiting for the full lips to part for him. He didn't have to wait long, as Blair's mouth opened, receiving him, the sweet tongue meeting and sliding against his. Never breaking the kiss, he pulled Blair into his arms, then finally released the hot mouth he had claimed. Blair swallowed and licked his lips, a combination of nervousness and passion in his eyes as he stared at Jim.

"I... Jim, I tried not to...feel like this, but--"

"You don't have to say it, baby," Jim responded gently, kissing Blair's forehead this time. "I tried not to, too. I don't think you can turn that on and off at will. You either love somebody or you don't."

"Love?" Blair's eyes widened a little.

"Uh...yeah." Jim swallowed hard this time, suddenly fearing that he'd said too much, that he'd read this all wrong, that Blair was only sexually attracted to him without the emotional component, and now the deadly "L" word was out there...

"I love you, too," Blair said softly, reaching up to stroke Jim's cheek with slightly shaky fingertips. His hand was captured and kissed soundly, then held against Jim's face as the larger man closed his eyes, smiling slightly.

"Maybe you could get some sleep if you came upstairs with me?"

"Man, this is such horrible timing, but I really feel sick and--"

"I mean, we could lie down together, I could...hold you if you want."

"That sounds so good," Blair responded honestly, looking into Jim's eyes with all Jim could describe as open adoration. He pulled his soon-to-be lover into his arms and held him close, smiling as Blair's arms wound around him, holding on tightly.

When the two men settled into Jim's bed, they did so with the same ease as if they'd been sharing a bed for years. Blair got in first and slid over; Jim got into his usual side closest to the stairs. Blair turned his back to Jim, curling up on the bed, with Jim spooning around him, enclosing him with arms and body, Jim's head resting against his. A warm, gentle hand moved Blair's arm out of the way and took over the job of holding and rubbing the unhappy stomach.

"Perfect fit," Jim whispered into Blair's ear, then kissed it.

"We always were," Blair agreed, smiling.

"Always will be," Jim added.

"Yeah...forever," Blair concluded, smiling and soaking up the warmth of the body of the man he loved, and planned on loving, for the rest of his life.

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