Changeling by Legion

Adjusting the rear view mirror, Blair Sandburg caught sight of himself and for one heart-dropping second, didn't recognize the image. Wide eyes stared madly into themselves, the color intensified by... what? Hand shaking, he dropped it from the mirror and looked around his Volvo. Where was he going, again? And when did he decide to go? The last thing he remembered was lighting the candles for meditation and settling onto the floor.

Drawn back to the mirror, he studied his face, not understanding what he saw. His lips were swollen and sore, not from blows but from kisses he could practically still feel. There was a large love-bite just under his jaw, near his ear, and another at the junction of his neck and shoulder. Petting it with a single finger, he looked over his clothes. Whoever he'd been making love with, he must have decided to leave her suddenly. His shirt was on inside out and the buttons on his fly were done up wrong. With a closer look, he realized he wasn't wearing socks - and that his shoes didn't match.

Okay, he'd been having a good time, was interrupted, drove home quickly, and was so upset by being crashed in on, he'd flaked out. //Good theory, Sandburg,// he heard Jim's voice in his head, //except that you were *starting* the car, both of those *are* your shoes, and you don't smell girl.// The last thought had him sniffing at his hands, feeling rather foolish and deciding he'd been living with a sentinel *way* too long if he was paying such close attention to his own senses.

He looked up at the loft windows, seeing them painted by dancing candle light, and abruptly decided to go up. //I am too out there to drive - can't remember where I wanted to go, anyway.// Getting out of the car, he headed for the stairs, strangely reluctant. //Jim'll kill me if that's where I've been making out// he thought distractedly, trying not think about the rest as he went down the hall.

//Or maybe not,// he added mentally, opening the door to find his roomie stretched out flat on his stomach on the couch. His very nude, very obviously very well-laid roomie.

Jim had bite marks and scratches scattered over his back and bruises coming up on his reddened, come-streaked ass and thighs. There was a soaked pillow on the floor and the big man had another clutched to his chest as if it were a lover. The softest, sweetest smile Blair had ever seen in his life graced the man's sleeping face, and he was compelled to ease closer to the couch, half afraid of waking Jim and half afraid he wouldn't.

He had always felt that he was probably more comfortable with Jim's bisexuality that Jim was himself, despite being strictly straight, personally. The few times it had come up, he'd encouraged Jim to act on his attractions but the cop had always insisted that it was too dangerous to 'indulge.' So he should be happy for his partner; happy that he had found someone worth indulging in, that he was dealing openly with his sexuality, that he had had such a great time with his lover.

Blair hated the sentinel-stealing son of a bitch, whoever he was.

Stuffing away the thought, not willing to deal with it while feeling so strange and dislocated, he knelt by Jim's head and tentatively touched the big man's hair, uncertain as to why even as he did it.

Lashes fluttered, then lifted to show eyes lit from within by the purest blue fire of happiness. "Hey, you came back." Jim wove a hand into the hair at the nap of Blair's neck and decisively sealed the smaller man's mouth with his own.

The bubble of detachment exploded: his eyes popped wide open, his back straightened, and one hand came between them. But, though his body rejected the contact, his lips rejoiced in it, yielding in joyful recognition. Trapped between the two reactions, he was held motionless as Jim skillfully mined for tonsils, taking all the air in his efforts.

Visually searching the room madly for an explanation to his friend's behavior, trying to distract himself from precisely how *good* Jim was kissing him, Blair found his answers on Jim's shoulders. His hands had crept there, unbidden, clutching tightly at them, fitting perfectly into the fingerprints bruises already coming up on the taunt flesh.

Jerking away, he lost his balance and fell flat on his behind, arms flailing out to catch himself. Jim threw out a hand to try to help, but, panicked now, Blair scrabbled away, putting himself out of the other man's reach. "Whoa! Wait a sec, here. Wait!"

At Blair's words, the open lovingness in Jim's expression drained away, leaving a soul - destroying hurt behind it. "Blairlove... what?" he asked, hand still outstretched.

"I don't remember." Blair blurted.

"You don't..." Jim sat up, turning glacial cold in the time it took him to get his feet on the floor. "Look, Sandburg, you don't have to deluge me with bullshit if..."

Finding the cold worse than the pain, Blair hurtled himself back across the space he had just so painfully created. Locking his hands onto Jim's biceps, knowing he would leave more bruises, he repeated desperately. "*I Don't Remember!*" Through sheer determination he made his eyes drill into Jim's, putting all his respect and friendship for the man into it.

The softening was nearly imperceptible, but Jim cocked his head as if to say, 'I'm listening.'

Seeing that, Blair ran his hands apologetically over Jim's upper arms, then sat back putting his face in his hands for a moment. "Look," he said into the waiting silence, "I sat down in front of my candles, started my breathing, and then I'm downstairs in the car. Nothing in between... no wait." Steadying his respiration, he considered the gap again. "Maybe, an, uh, impression of light or brightening dark, I don't know."

At the other man's skeptical look, Blair smacked the floor. "Jim, man, please! *This* is something I couldn't lie to you about; I wouldn't risk your trust this way. You have to know that!"

Taking his turn at hiding his features in his palms, Jim admitted grudgingly, "Yeah. You wouldn't." He stood then, looked for his pants, and retrieved them from the floor where they'd been thrown, setting aside one of Blair's shoes as he did. "Okay, then." He mumbled something else, too indistinctly for Blair to understand, and pulled the clothing on.

Suddenly realizing Jim meant to leave as soon as he was dressed, Blair put out a halting hand and pleaded softly, "What happened? I *need* to know, man. I mean," and he gestured vaguely at the couch, "I don't need the, uh, details, but, oh, damn it, you want to tell me how we made it from partners to lovers without you even guessing that something was wrong with me?"

Jim flinched, and Blair could have wept at the pain he was causing his friend, but was unable to walk away without understanding. Again he made himself meet the intent regard of the other man, letting his sorrow and regret show.

"You didn't give me a chance to think, Sandburg." He said bluntly, at last. "I came in, you were on the floor, one of the candles was sputtering and smoking, I came over to put it out, you opened your eyes and flowed up off the floor and onto me, claiming me as if I had been custom designed for you."

Pacing around the room, dressing in the rest of his clothes, he went on relentlessly. "It was like someone had given you a fucking map of my body. You knew exactly how to touch me, where to touch me, when to touch me. You - and it was *you,* scent and heartbeat can't be faked, Sandburg - had me on my knees in front of you before I even took off my jacket."

He lifted the garment in question, stopping to face the grad student for the first time. Blair looked at his reddened, chapped lips, thought of how they had gotten that way and of the bruises that probably been created at the same time. Feeling rolled and twisted deep in his gut, and Blair could only sit there, mind twisting with it.

Taking his silence as prompting, Jim went on. "I swear, I *swear* I tried to back off before we went too far, but you took advantage of the way I react to my senses. When I hesitated, you, uh, you, shit.... "

"I get the idea," Blair interrupted briefly, knowing that if he set his mind to it, there were about a dozen things he could think of to do to his sentinel that would send him beyond restraint.

"After that you kept me so turned on I would have taken on your entire department - with mine looking on. When you, we.... when I finished the last time..."

"The *last* time?!"

Jim blushed. Then, grinning weakly, he tried to say flippantly, "Well, now at least I have some idea of *why* women are always flocking around you."

Blair tried on red for size. Jim seemed to like it; he drifted closer to the sitting man, then pulled himself away with effort. "Anyway, I was lying there too limp to move and you bounced up, started scrambling into your things as if you expected my heavily armed wife to come home any second. Except that you couldn't seem to make yourself leave. You put on your pants, kissed me, tried to get into the rags of your shirt, rimming my ear as you did, tossed the shirt, put on a shoe, ran into your room, ran back out, kissed me again, ran back in, came out carrying another shirt and wearing mis-matched shoes, went out the door, came back in, crawled on top of me..."

"I didn't *say* anything?"

Jim broke off his recitation, a fragment of a smile lightening the mood in the room ever so slightly. "No. Not once the entire time. And you're right. *That* should have warned me something was up." Serious again, he ran a hand over his hair. "At the time, I thought you were just panicking about discovering you weren't as straight as you thought you were - that you'd just had a man and *loved* it. " He sighed. "Going ballistic after your first time isn't that odd. But you seemed so happy about it, too. I told myself you needed some space to sort it all out, and dozed off waiting for you to get yourself together."

"Wow." Blair rose up from the floor, waving his hands in confused circles that reflected his state of mind. He paced, now, and Jim leaned against one of the support beams, looking as if the world had finally settled back into normal. "Meditative trances leave your id wide open... maybe subliminal response? Sentinel/guide connection of some sort?" He mumbled to himself trying to sort it out, stopping suddenly in front of the big cop to demand. "I didn't hurt you?" He looked abashed, then amended, "Physically, I mean. I know this has to..."

"Hush, Sandburg." Firmly Jim put a fingertip on the quivering lips. "I can deal with it. Can you?" He looked uncertain, uneasy. "If this costs us..." and he spread his hands, looking for words.

"It won't. *It won't.*" Blair promised, and did what he would have done any other time to show his partner what he meant it: he confidently gave him a quick one armed hug.

Jim returned it easily, and Blair sighed deeply. They had a lot of processing to do, but things were going to be okay. He was sure of it.
 
 

His absolute confidence in that seemed more than justified as the next few days rolled past. Neither were able to come up with anything that looked like a reason for what happened, but it didn't interfere with their lives. Though Jim kept more space than normal between them, it wasn't an uncomfortable or awkward one. And everything else was unchanged: the ease with which they worked together, lived together, bantered with one another, with their co-workers.

On his own part, the only residual concern was in his love life, and he couldn't honestly attribute that to an event he couldn't even remember. Women pleased him, attracted him as much as ever, and his encounters were as satisfying as they had always been. But he came away from them feeling as if something were missing from the act; that there should have been *more* somehow.

Even that he had no trouble dismissing, chalking it up blithely to the post-coital depression he had always been plagued with.

His confidence was shattered by blows to the bathroom door in the loft, made by his own already battered fists. Stopping mid-strike, he goggled at them as if they were attached to someone else's wrists. A quick glance around showed him a perfectly normal domestic scene: dinner half prepared in the kitchen, pasta, it was Jim's night to cook, his laptop sitting on the table, running, candles lit...

Meditation - he'd sat down to meditate because of frustration over something he was writing. Jim hadn't come home yet, but his coat and keys were in place now. Hesitantly, he spoke to the door, "Jim?"

Feeling foolish, he repeated it quietly a minute later and the door cracked open. "Sandburg?"

"Oh, shit."

"What was Larry's favorite TV show?"

"I did it again, didn't I?"

"Answer the question and nobody gets hurt, here, Chief." The humor was forced, but jolted Blair back completely.

"Uh, hockey. Seemed to favor the Philadelphia Flyers. How far, I mean..."

Opening the door completely, Jim leaned against the jamb and took in his partner's confusion. His shirt was ripped open, buttons missing, and his mouth had the same kiss-tortured look Blair recognized from the last time. But his pants were firmly in place, and Blair shot a look over himself, relieved to see himself fully dressed and intact.

"Knew it wasn't really you right away. Something about the way you held yourself..." He shrugged away the incomplete thought with one hand. "Anyway, peeled you off, tried to get some answers, but you just kept coming at me." Tapping a frustrated tattoo on the door-frame he muttered, "Didn't want to have to punch you... him."

"So you locked yourself in the bathroom?" Despite the situation, Blair couldn't stop a smile at the mental picture of the big, buff soldier and cop running for refuge like a virgin bride.

The same thought must have occurred to Jim: he smiled at the floor, ever so slightly. All he said, though, was, "I kept an ear out to make sure you.... he didn't leave the loft. Apparently whoever - whatever it is, is very single minded; he's been pounding on the door for about 10 minutes."

"No problem believing that," Blair muttered, accepting Jim's verbal distinction between himself and the body assaulting his partner. Wincing, he opened and closed his hands carefully.

Taking his wrists, Jim lifted the bruised extremities up to look them over. Without a word, he led the grad student over to the kitchen, took ice from the freezer, put it in a pan with water, and immersed Blair's hands. Jumping a little at the shock, he sighed a second later as the cold numbed some of the pain. "Thanks, man."

"It'll keep the swelling down, too. Take them out every few minutes to warm back up." Leaving Blair to do as he was told, Jim went back to fixing dinner, acting as if nothing of consequence had happened.

For a minute, Blair considered letting him get away with it. Clueless as to why it happened the first time, he had no idea how to find a way to stop it permanently, and he didn't think his roomie would appreciate a conversation that basically led nowhere. He studied the other man's set face, then his sore hands, then forced himself to face that if they didn't find some solution, they were *both* in trouble. Trouble he didn't think Jim could handle.

As casually as he could manage, he said, "I was meditating this time, too." Taking his hands out of the water, he dried them and gingerly put them in his armpits to warm.

"Mind if I suggest you do that some place else for a while?" Jim chopped tomatoes for pasta salad, then abruptly looked over at Blair. "Maybe a girlfriend's place - a *willing* girlfriend."

"Jim, I've meditated since, uh, since the…"

"Incident?" Jim said dryly, sweeping up the tomatoes and putting them in a strainer.

"Attack," Blair said firmly, putting his hands back in the water, "Brrrrr."

"Try to hang in for about five minutes before taking them out again." Broccoli landed on the chopping block. "Attack then. You think I'm the trigger?"

"Or something about you. Can you think of anything different, anything that changed around the time of the first incident?"

Giving it long thought, Jim finally shook his head, slowly. "Nothing. Hell, Sandburg, you live and work with me. If anything was up with me, you'd probably notice and call me on it. Maybe it's something in you?"

Warming his hands again, Blair wandered over to his partner, and looked at the food hungrily. Reading the look, Jim offered a floret, feeding it to Blair with an un-selfconsciousness the younger man envied. Swallowing, he shook his head. "Same old. Believe me, I've been thinking on it."

Suddenly, Jim threw down the knife. "Damn it, Chief, there has to be something causing this, something we're missing."

Fighting to keep a defensive tone out of his voice, Blair barked back, "I'm open to suggestions!" He went back to the sink and thrust his hands into the icy water with more force than he intended. "Okay, okay. From the top then.

"I decide to meditate. Once to relax, once to work out a problem. Once it was in the afternoon, next in the early evening. Same season, same weather - raining as usual. Same candles, same place, same position, same result. I find myself someplace I don't remember going! Both times you came in. Now, where are *you* in my little narrative!" The last came out angrier than he meant, but Blair let it stand.

From behind him, he heard Jim stir uneasily and begin to put away the remaining salad makings. "Coming home from work. Nothing new on the job, just routine stuff, no new cases. Didn't go anywhere else, came straight here, nothing new on the drive. First time I came close to you; the second I left you alone and after about 15 minutes you got up and came over to me."

"What were you thinking? Feeling? Experiencing sense-wise?" Blair asked the questions at random, simply running them off the top of his head, hoping to jar something significant loose from either of them.

"What the hell has that got to do with it?" Jim ground out, his own temper showing, now.

Dismissing it as Jim's normal reaction to personal questions, Blair flexed his hands and replied absently, "Look, meditating leaves part of your mind wide open; that's the point of it. Maybe I'm picking up on something from you."

"You're blaming *me* for what happened?" Jim asked incredulously.

"Not blaming. But it you could be a factor."

With deadly quiet words, Jim said, "In court, hell, even at the station, I've seen rape victims accused of leading their attackers on, inviting the violation from those animals. *You* are the last person I'd ever expect to buy into that bullshit."

Blair spun, spilling water on himself, but Jim was already halfway to the door. "Jim, man, no! I didn't mean it like that!"

"You didn't? Why don't you just come out and accuse me of forcing *you,* then? If that's the only way you can deal with fucking a man!" Grabbing a jacket, Jim was out the door before Blair could get his jaw off the floor to argue.
 
 

Blair was standing in Jim's spot by the French windows when the sentinel came home in the small hours of the morning. By the reflection in the glass, he knew his friend was tired, reluctant to deal with any more tonight. His own face in the darkened glass was as weary; though he'd only stood here most of time. His mind had skittered from thought to thought, coming back over and over to the memory of Jim lying peaceful, happy, waiting for his lover's return.

Jim looked at him, hesitated a second, then started for the stairs. "It wasn't rape." Blair said, conversationally to the balcony.

Changing direction to come up behind him, Jim shook his head. "No, it wasn't. I shouldn't...

"It was worse than rape." Putting a finger on the cool surface, Blair went on before Jim could defend him. "It wasn't real to me, you know, because I don't remember. If I thought about it at all, I thought about how sated you looked and how easily you seemed to dismiss it."

Jim put a hand on his shoulder, giving a squeeze, and Blair marveled for the millionth time at the man's inner strength. Blair took the contact for the encouragement it was and went on. "I didn't just violate your body - I violated *everything:* our roles as sentinel and shaman, our partnership, our friendship. Everything that's ever been between us has been betrayed. Damaged." Letting his face rest on the glass, Blair softly cried out, "And you stand there comforting *me.*"

"Because *you* wouldn't do any of that." Jim framed slender shoulders with large hands and eased Blair around until he was leaning on the sturdy chest waiting for him. "When I get angry or have trouble dealing with it, I remind myself that you were just as much of a target as I was and letting go gets easy." Ruefully, Jim snorted a rude laugh. "Which gets me in a whole different way, cause nobody messes with my partner."

Drawing himself up and putting steel in his back, Blair lifted his head to met Jim's worried gaze. "That works both ways. This stops. Now. I'm seeing a doctor tomorrow, and a shrink. And no more meditation at all until I've got a handle on what's been happening."

"Chief, I don't want you tearing your life up over this."

"Tough. I gotta do *something.*"

Giving a final hug, Jim let the smaller man go. "Then I'll schedule, too, for a physical, at least. Who knows, maybe sentinels go into heat or something, and you're responding to a weird testosterone overload."

Feeling his lips twitch, Blair couldn't help retorting, "Wouldn't that cause me to drink too much beer and start a fight over who should have won the Super Bowl?"

"And eat junk food. Lots of junk food. Which you would share, right, Sandburg?"

"Not the Wonderburgers, man. I mean, friendship only goes so far."

With a final pat to his arm, Jim headed for the stairs. "Just remember all the chocolate is mine and there won't be any problems." The words were light, but the quick glance Jim shot at him as he climbed held no relief whatsoever.
 
 

It was the snick of the handcuffs clicking shut that catapulted Ellison out of sleep. Deliberately keeping his body lax, he slitted his eyes and focused his hearing to get his bearings on his assailant, even as the metal surrounding his wrists locked home.

Shock kept him limp. Sitting astride him was a naked and aroused Blair, opening a bottle of massage oil and eyeing Jim's erection with what Jim could only call greed. He trickled a thin stream of the oil onto the column of Jim's flesh, and it was the movement of the man as much as the improbability of the situation that screamed that this wasn't Blair.

Despite scent, sound and the myriad of other contradictory sensory clues, he knew. This wasn't his Blair. It was happening again. After a week of pointless doctor's visits, useless research, and caution from both of them, it was happening again.

Trying not to alert the man, he tested his muscles. The cuffs were secure around the frame of the bed, but his lower body was held only by the tangle of bedclothes and the weight of his attacker. He only needed to wait until the imposter was ready to enter him, then he could make a move.

Strategy in place, he let himself stir, as if waking, since it was unlikely that anyone, no matter how tired, would be able to sleep through what was happening, especially now. He blinked, saw the false Blair stroking up and down the length of him, working the oil in, setting a pace just beyond teasing. Moaning at the contact, not entirely for the other's benefit, he shifted in place a bit, hunting for the best leverage.

Blairblue eyes smiled down at him and his plans scrambled, looking for better ideas. Jim hadn't fooled the imposter for a second; he'd known all along that he was awake, and the mischief in his smile told Jim that he probably knew exactly what Jim was planning as well.

Too late he remembered how well the other knew his body, knew how to force a response from him. As if to emphasize that, the Fakeblair slid well-oiled fingers down the crease between his legs and over the portal to his body. Like the motion on his cock, the caress there was not quite teasing, but too strong to dismiss.

He tried to scoot away, dislodge the intruder, but the stranger wearing Blair's face held him firm with his weight on one thigh. Bucking in earnest, not caring if it gave away too much advantage, Jim fought to knock the other person off, or off balance, or maybe, if luck was with him, off the damn bed.

The only response Fakeblair made was to bend over and latch onto one of Jim's nipples, sucking at the same tempo and strength his hands were using.

It wasn't possible for Jim to totally conceal the hot shocks of pleasure that drove through him, but he kept it to a soundless vibration in his chest and a barely noticeable shiver.

The false lover noticed and smiled up happily at Jim from his position on Jim's chest. That more than anything chilled Jim. The smile was so perfectly Blair's when he was delighted about something, it slammed into him harder than the intimate touch. It was difficult enough to fight the urge to give in, to admit he couldn't stop what was happening, to cooperate with the inevitable and accept the love-making from this image of his much-wanted partner. But to fight the vision of a hungry, wanting, wanting *him,* Blair was beyond his strength or will.

He closed his eyes to block it out and fought against his restraints with all he had.

It only served to wrap his legs tighter in the sheets and make the rapist move to sit on his stomach. Panting harshly, Jim rested for a second, still refusing to look at the man on him. A second later, there was a smell of fresh oil, then odd motions from the other person.

A quick glance sent him into new, stronger struggles. Fakeblair was opening and lubing himself with sure thrusts of his own fingers. Whatever person or force was behind these assaults was going to use him to take Blair. He couldn't allow that to happen!

So far the only injury done to their friendship had been to put minute fractures in it - a network of hairline cracks, like what could be seen in old china. The only thing that had sealed those fissures had been his unrelenting care in treating Blair like he always had, like friendship had always been the only thing that had ever been or could ever be between them. That his dream of soul-sweet love had never happened.

Part had also been due to Blair being able to accept the concept of *taking* a man, as long as he didn't actually have to remember it. On a rare good day, Jim sometimes even thought that he could have handled remembering, too, as long as he was sure it would never happen again.

But if Blair came to himself and found that he was the one on the receiving end... He wouldn't blame Jim, he would forgive him, and he would never, ever allow his partner to touch him again. And it would only be a matter of time until Jim was living and working alone once more.

Worn from the fight, both internal and external, Jim finally collapsed on the mattress, knees going up as much as possible to block access to his hard-on. With a soothing sound, Fakeblair laid on his chest, petting his hair, and wiggling to get into position for what he wanted. With all other avenues of resistance blocked, Jim tried the one he used least since it so seldom worked for him: persuasion.

"Don't hurt him like this." He asked, simply, not begging or demanding. "He's a good man and doesn't deserve to be used this way."

The quiet words had an effect that all his struggling did not. Fakeblair went still and half-rose on one elbow to look into Jim's face. Jim met his gaze head-on, not backing down or trying to conceal the emotion in his eyes. The smaller man cupped his face, thumb absently traveling over Jim's lips, and Jim took the opportunity to add to his argument.

Sucking the thumb into his mouth, licking the tip as sensuously as he knew how, Jim promised his compliance. Releasing the wet digit, he whispered, "You know I'm good - I can be better. I can be the best you ever had, ever wanted. Got a fantasy so dark you wouldn't ask a hooker to do it? I will. Just, just don't use me to hurt Blair."

There was more than emotion in his eyes now, but Jim paid the dampness no heed, and asked one more time. "Don't hurt him like this. Please?"

Blankness drifted over the features of Fakeblair, leaving his mouth hanging open stupidly. Before Jim could react, life filtered back in, and Blair shot back onto his heels, hands going to his mouth. "Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod." Frantically he looked around the room, down at himself, over Jim's bare body, then around the room again.

Relief as intense as sexual satisfaction battered at what remained of Jim's composure, and he snapped in reaction. "Now that you're back, Sandburg, do you think you could undo the cuffs?"

With what had to be an embarrassing squeak, Blair located the keys on the nightstand and pounced on them, nearly dropping them in his haste. After what seemed to be an interminable amount of fumbling, the handcuffs were undone, and Jim rolled to his side, hiding his very ready condition

Expecting Blair to bolt for his own room, he was surprised when his guide patted his flank and asked in an unsteady voice, "How far.. I mean, did we..."

"He stopped," Jim said shortly. "In the middle, so to speak."

"That's kinda of obvious, from this end, anyway." Blair muttered and Jim felt the sheets pulled up, presumably over the evidence of the interruption. "Jim, I was asleep this time. Not even dreaming."

"Shit. I didn't think you'd break your word. Shit." He could hear fingers running through luscious curls and the release of more fragrant scent from his partner's hair tickled at his nose. If Blair didn't get out of here, the tables were going to be turned, and this time Jim wasn't going to be able to blame but anyone but himself. Staying silent, unable to trust himself to even speak, he waited for Blair to leave.

He didn't; instead he asked quietly. "You okay? I mean, if I'm frustrated, you've got to be hurting, here."

"Nothing I can't handle." Jim put a touch of emphasis on the last word, hoping Blair would take the damned hint and get out of here!

"Oh!" Making no move to leave, Blair licked dry lips, fidgeted on the bed, then blurted, "Let me help. I mean, it's my fault."

"No! We've been over this. *You* are not responsible for what he does to me, and you do not have to take care of unfinished business he leaves behind." Jim curled tighter in on himself, practically putting his head on his knees. Blair had to get out of here, he had to!

A timid hand skimmed over his hip, heading down to where his shaft tapped impatiently on his belly. "No," he moaned.

Curling up behind him with only the sheet separating them, Blair tucked his lap up against Jim's backside. "I can't leave you like this," he whispered onto Jim's spine, his breath swirling warmly over the skin there. "Can't stand thinking of you lying here alone and hungry, with only your hand for comfort. Please. Please. Let me."

The burning brand of Blair's arousal so close to his sensitive cleft taunted him; the sting of his pheromones made him dizzy. Of their own accord his hips rocked back for more sensation, and one traitor hand covered Blair's to hotly teach his guide what stroke pleased him most. The last fragment of control he had brought his other hand up to stuff the corner of his pillow into his mouth so that his words couldn't betray him, too.

Heartbeat leaping, Blair gave a wordless cry of excitement and copied Jim's thrusts, pressing so close to his partner that the sheet was no barrier to either of them. Jim began to tremble, begging in what was left of his mind for more, and Blair went crazy, grinding into him wildly.

"Oh, good!" the smaller man moaned, shock and surprise clear. "So good! Jim! Gonna... oh, oh... cream... oh, god... "

The first spurt from Blair scalded him, even through the fabric. That heat burned all the way out of him, sending his own seed out in long jets, making him bite on the pillow to stifle the shout of joy that was Blair's name. Helpless, he dissolved in the streams, becoming nothing for a time but mindless pleasure.
 
 

The last of it faded, all too soon, and he brought himself back to reality, checking first on the man still wrapped around him. That, in itself was surprising. He had expected Blair to escape to his own room as quickly as possible, or, at least, to the other side of the bed. Not wanting to spur him into doing just that, Jim used his senses other than sight to make sure Blair was okay.

Though the heartbeat was normal for what they had been doing, and the scents, the way Blair lay against him was wrong. More a mannequin bent into position than a person willingly cuddling, Blair was skin to skin with him, but still miles away.

Wearily wondering why he didn't leave in the first place, Jim schooled himself to try to imitate sleep, thinking perhaps that was the cue Blair was waiting for. As he tried to drift, a flash of memory from *his* first time hit him.

Marveling for the millionth time at the man's courage, he rolled over and gathered the stiff form into his arms and legs, making the embrace as supportive and non-sexual as he could. Tucking the curly head under his chin, he whispered, "You're still you, Chief. This hasn't changed you, made you into something you're not."

"I enjoyed it! I just wanted to make it good for you; I wasn't supposed to like it!" Blair's voice sounded small and far away.

"As sensitive and sensual as your body is, how could you not respond to what was happening? You were left aroused, too, remember? You couldn't help it, baby, and that's part of what made it good for me."

"It helped?" There was an edge of frightened innocence in the question that touched Jim deeper than he had ever allowed even Blair to reach.

"You gave and took honestly; you didn't manipulate and deceive to get what you wanted."

"So it was good." Blair's words were beginning to slur around the edges, and he softened into the body holding him.

"It was good." Jim reassured him willingly.

"Better than the changeling?"

"Changeling?"

Managing to sound academic even while nodding off, Blair told him, "Someone put into the place of another, usually a child. Superstitiously thought to be done by fairies to explain misbehaving children."

"It fits." Jim said softly, hearing Blair beginning to fade completely.

"Second thought.. don' wanna know..." Blair patted the chest under his cheek clumsily. "don' like thinkin' of ..." The rest was too garbled for Jim to make out, but he didn't care. Snoring breathily, Blair was asleep, in his arms, and all he cared about was that he would be able to hold him for the rest of the night.
 
 

"Jim, man, wake up. Come on, I need to talk to you."

Hearing the words, but unwilling to give up the excuse to hold onto Blair a bit longer, Jim went away from the sound and back toward sleep.

"Come on, Jim! This is important!" Blair squirmed, trying to get out from under him, and Jim surrendered, opening his eyes in time to see his partner kneel up on the bed beside him.

"Sandburg," he grumbled, more because he was now Blairless than because of being awakened, "unless there are armed intruders coming up the stairs, you are in trouble."

Grinning impishly, Blair shoved the hair hanging in his face back, and said cheekily, "As if *that's* something new! Seriously, I woke up, and first thing that popped into my head was that you said that Changeling was interrupted in the middle, but you didn't say how or why he did. That could be important, cause it might show us a way to stop him permanently, and since I do *not* want to be locked in my room every night so you can safely sleep, and moving out is *not* an option here, so what *happened* Jim?"

Folding the pillow over his ears, Jim growled, "It's too early in the morning for this." He looked over at the clock, and snarled at it. "It's too early in the morning to be alive, let alone awake, and you want me to give you a report on Changeling's latest escapade? Go back to sleep. It can wait."

"Just tell me what stopped him."

"Sandburg..."

"Hey, this involves me, too. Give. Or I'll hide your white sound generators and go downstairs to check my email. Clickety, clickety, clickety..."

"All right! All right, already. He quit because I asked him to. *Now* will you go to sleep?"

Not hearing any more from his bedmate, Jim rolled back over to make himself go back to sleep.

About the time he was succeeding, Blair asked thoughtfully, "He talked?"

Punching the pillow, Jim answered, "No, I talked. He did what I asked. I've never heard a word out of him."

"But you communicated?"

"Sandburg!"

Rustling and thumping, Jim tossed back onto his stomach, reached for another pillow to hang onto, and tried to ignore the furiously thinking man next to him.

Absently Blair pulled away the second pillow and put himself in its place. "I have an idea."

Surprised past protesting, Jim cradled him close, buried his nose in his hair, and decided he would listen all night, if it kept Blair *here.*
 
 

"I don't like this." Jim looped the chain of the handcuffs through the ropes holding Blair's ankles the locked them onto his partner's wrist.

Sitting in lotus, held there by his bonds, Blair shrugged and gestured with his hands as best he could. "At the rate things are going, we're headed this way just to keep Changeling out of your bed. Maybe if we make that clear to him, he'll go away. Or tell us why he keeps coming back."

"You're assuming he's willing to try to talk with us. He's only paid any attention to what I've said *once.* Pretty thin evidence to build a case on."

"Look, there's no risk to either of us to try, is there? If nothing else, we can learn from what doesn't work."

Agreeing with a nod, and to give Blair privacy to begin, Jim went into the kitchen and made a cup of coffee he didn't really want. It was only an illusion, anyway; every sense he had was focused so intently on his partner that he knew the moment Changeling stepped in.

Coming over to loom over the man, Jim asked, "Who are you?"

Changeling looked up at him, reaching as he did, with such desperate yearning on his face that Jim had to steel himself to continue his questioning. Not listening to him, Changeling examined his bonds, testing them carefully. Finally, with a last sad look up at Jim, he started to fade away.

Not wanting to have to go through this again, Jim bent down and yanked at the crossed wrists in Blair's lap. "Oh, no you don't. Take off and when you come back, everything will be exactly the same. Understand me?"

Changeling focused on him immediately, trying to capture Jim's hands with his own. Repulsed, Jim stepped away. With a meaningful glance, Changeling's face began to blank.

Getting the message and sitting down in front of him, Jim decided that if he had to be both the carrot and the stick to get the job done, he would. Putting his hands on top of the Changeling's, he repeated, "Who are you?"

Changeling licked his lips, moving them in the shape of words, cleared his throat, and tried again. This time he produced a breathy whisper. "Dr.." He stopped, swallowing hard. "Dr. Blair Sandburg," came out soft, but clear.

Yanking his hands away, Jim spat out. "Bullshit. That's the name of the body you're wearing. My partner. Who are *you?*"

Stubbornly Changeling waited until Jim snorted in disgust and covered his hands with his own again. Closing his eyes briefly, Changeling said more strongly as he opened them. "Dr. Blair Sandburg. Anthropologist and Criminalogist. A long-haired neo hippie witchdoctor punk. Darwin, Sheckey, your little guppy." Then he winced, and moved restlessly.

Realizing he was using crushing force in his grip, Jim made himself back off. Thinking about it, he ventured, "You're using his body - maybe you can use his memories, too."

Nodding his head at Jim's theory, Changeling told him, "You changed your will last year so that I would get everything if anything happened to you. And no one knows *that* except you and your lawyer."

Sitting straighter, face stony, Jim demanded, "Then how could you know?"

"Cause I inherited it, Jim." Changeling said with a world of sadness in his voice. Taking Jim's shock for granted, he looked around the place. "Man, that pissed me *way* off. Couldn't stand to be in the loft." His features became nostalgic, fond. "But later it became the true north for my personal compass. Home. Coming through the door after a trip or expedition was like walking into one of your hugs."

Leaning forward, stretching the give in the chain to it's max he put a forefinger under Jim's chin and gently shut his mouth. "I've always wanted to thank you for that."

Snapping his teeth together to clench his jaw, Jim jerked away from the touch and got up to prowl the room. Changeling followed him with his eyes, waiting patiently for Jim to make up his mind. "Supposing, just supposing I'm willing to believe any of this. *Why* are you here?"

Changeling raised an eyebrow, and looked significantly at the spot in front of him. With a dark look, Jim seated himself again and let Changeling clasp his fingers loosely. "I didn't understand, myself at first. And I'm sorry, god, so sorry. I wish I had some way to make up to you what I did."

Reading Jim's growing impatience, and holding the sentinel's eyes, the bound man said matter-of-factly, "I'm dying." Jim started; that was what was wrong with Changeling's body language; it was the cautious, considered movements of a man who *expected* it to hurt when he did.

"No, wait, it's okay." Changeling assured him, misunderstanding the reaction. "Really. I've had a long, full life, and I'm tired now. Tired of the pain and being alone. I'm ready for whatever the next step is." He grinned suddenly with Blair's unabashed curiosity at the prospect of something new, but it faded quickly.

"When the light surrounded me, I didn't know if it was from the painkillers, or if it was finally over, but either way, I didn't care. It was warm, and felt sorta floaty, and when I opened my eyes to see you standing next to me, I wasn't surprised a bit." He dropped his eyes to their joined hands. "I missed you so much, Jim! I've always believed that when you die you're reunited with the people you've loved in your life."

"Look," Jim broke in, "If you're giving me this to get out of those cuffs, you can drop it. Sandburg and I are both ready to do this as long as necessary."

"You won't need to. I promise, though if you don't believe who I am, I don't know how much good that does. There's a few things I have to tell you, then I'll go." Taking a deep breath, obviously bracing himself, Changeling brought the back of Jim's hands up to his lips and kissed them tenderly. "First I have to tell you the one thing I've spent a life time regretting not saying while I could. I love you, Jim."

Jim wanted to be furiously angry, or appalled, or even disgusted; anything but moved to pain by the real emotion in the other man's voice and face. "Look, I'm not some TA you have to lie to the morning after. This isn't the way to apologize to me or make up or whatever."

As if he hadn't heard, Blair laid his cheek where he had kissed. Eyes closed, Changeling murmured, "Losing you was such agony, but I honestly thought it was because I'd never lost, never *had* a best friend, a partner before. I thought it was supposed to be as bad as it was. Then, about a year later I met someone special, and the first - and only - time we made love, I found myself pounding into her harder than I ever dared to take a woman before, screaming your name. When I'd finished, I went fetal and cried until I nearly made myself sick.

With a small smile, Blair went on. "She's a good woman and has been a good friend to me all these years. She let me cry, petting my hair while I did, then asked me how long I'd been in love with you." The smile became wry. "I denied it, of course, and stayed in denial until it happened again. That time it was a drunken encounter with a male TA who looked enough like you to be your younger brother. " Sighing sadly, Blair paused a second. "He deserved better treatment from me than he got. Later, I tried to make it up to him..."

There was another pause. "It made me get my life straight, though. I wanted to be able to tell you when I saw you again on the other side about the happy, successful life I had. For you to be proud of me. I pinned my heart and mind on that and got on with it. It never stopped hurting, but I learned to live with the pain.

"So when I opened my eyes after being in the light and saw you standing there..." Blair did just that, and some of the light was still in him, making them glow with pearlescent shine, "You got hit with *decades* of longing and fantasies. It must have been pretty overwhelming."

At Jim's small nod, Blair sighed again, stroking his cheek over Jim's knuckles, holding his gaze strongly. "Listen to me, Jim. You're too perceptive not to have felt how deep it was for both of us, how connected we were. You *know* I was making love with you, sharing every part of myself."

Turning his hands so that they cupped Blair's jaw line, Jim admitted slowly, "Yeah." He thought for a second, then admitted it all. "That's what made it so hard when you ran - and came back not remembering anything."

"Damn. I mean... damn! Jim, I didn't know it was real! And that's what started getting through to me. I was expecting the joy and the pleasure - but not sweat and sticky and smells and street noises and I flipped. I needed to get away, to get my head together, because when I'm with you, loving you - it's consuming. I couldn't think, can't think.

"I got bounced back into the light almost as soon as I walked out the door. Then I was here again, watching you make dinner, and all I could do was go after you. Even when I was pounding on the door, I was trying to make myself stop, to think. Same thing when I woke up in my bed. I came up to find out what was going on and realized I wasn't going to be able to talk to you until I'd driven down the lust to manageable levels."

"And you tied me down so you could have half a chance to get through to me."

Earnestly Blair scooted as close to Jim as he could get, leaning into the hold on his face. "What you said.. that's when I learned that this was reality, my reality from when I lived with you. And I didn't remember ever having been, well, possessed, so it meant I could change things. Change what happened. Jim..."

Before he could say anymore, Jim stopped him with the simple expedient of giving his lips something better to do. While Blair explored his mouth hungrily, Jim deftly undid the cuffs and ropes, then hauled Blair into his lap so the smaller man's backside was nestled into the crook of his crossed legs, Blair's draped over his thighs.

Before he could turn the kiss into something devouring, Blair broke away, gasping, and put his arms between them to create a space. "Wait..no."

"I don't want to know, Blair." Jim slid his thumbs over the cups of Blair's ears, then tunneled his fingers into the hair behind them. "It's wrong. I'm a cop; people live and die because of me; lose or gain their freedom, even their families. If I'm supposed to go, then I'm should go because more than *my* life would be changed. Maybe it's okay to change ourselves, or the people dear to us, and that's why you could do this much - give me this much. But it's wrong to do more. I *know* that. And so do you."

Stubbornness was eeking from every inch of Blair's body, and it was Jim's turn to sigh. "Look, baby, I love you so much, we both know I'll end up doing whatever you want me to. Don't ask me to risk all those lives."

"Things have already been changed," Blair argued. "Just being here has to have had some impact on me," he thumped his own chest to indicate the present day Blair.

"So give me something to tell him so that it won't bother him, and he can dismiss it. Or even forget completely, so there won't be any backlash from you coming back." At Blair's mulish look, Jim nuzzled at his lover's face. "If you can save my life without harming others, you already have. You've already influenced the one person you needed to."

Reluctantly, seeing Jim would not back down, Blair said, "Tell me that it was a disembodied soul who accidentally found a compatible body to inhabit for a while, and that it went peacefully when it realized it was messing with my karma. That's close enough to the truth that I'll believe."

"Thank you, baby." Jim rubbed his cheek against Blair's, then pulled back to look once again into the strangely luminescent eyes. "I will wait for you, Chief. I swear. I will wait."

The brightness spread, filling his vision in what should have been painful brilliance, and the man so close to him faded, changed, became older with laugh lines and wrinkles around his eyes and lips. The hair became close-cropped, with just a crown of silver curls given free rein, and the body against him became more fragile and thinner.

The love stayed the same, though, and Jim bowed his head before it to seal his promise with a kiss. It was chaste, sweet, and the light faded as he did, leaving him holding his lax, unresponsive partner. He held the kiss anyway, wanting to cherish the touch and memory as long as he could before his Blair pushed him away.

But the lips under his opened, a shy tongue tasted lightly at his own, and he knew, he *knew* that he would not have to wait for the return of the light to know this man's love.

The End