Blair Sandburg Seizes the Day
by Mab
He meditates a lot, while Jim orbits around him, anxiety the attracting force rather than gravity. When he's not meditating he's thinking, running over checklists in his head, planning out the arrangements for the next few weeks, he's – all right. Enough bullshit. He's worrying like fuck, and then he has to go back to meditating again.
Jim likes to play up the Wonderburger and candy obsession to jerk Blair's chain, but even allowing for the fact that Jim doesn't eat as badly as he likes to pretend, the loft's kitchen never has seen such a profusion of fruit and vegetables and packages that read 'organic', 'pure', and 'unprocessed'. Jim perusing the Moosewood cookbooks (and taking notes) is an image that Blair doesn't dwell on too often. It ought to be comic but it's not; his ability to appreciate ironies is dampened at the moment.
"Want some orange juice, Chief?"
"Yeah, sure, thanks." He's on a totally irrational orange juice kick, ever since Judith told him that bland foods like apple juice and bananas would be the way to go for next week. Judith is practically his guru these days. Blair props his chin on one hand and watches as Jim's hands, long-fingered and strong, don't so much press as coax every last drop of juice from the fruit, the rinds very nearly caressing the tacky little plastic juice squeezer.
"There you go." The juice is placed in front of Blair on the table and he takes a moment to admire the vibrant depth of colour, before he picks it up and sips and shuts his eyes as the rush of tart and sweet hits his mouth. He's ridiculous. There's going to be orange juice again soon enough.
"Doing it for you, Chief?" Jim asks drolly.
"Oh yeah." Blair opens his eyes again. Jim's voice might be amused but his eyes are coolly assessing. "Thanks." Jim nods his head, then sits there, giving the table top the thousand mile stare. He's very handsome in his abstraction but then Blair sees their old mutual friend, the jaw twitch. He reaches along the table to put his hand on Jim's shoulder. "The thanks is sort of a blanket thanks. As in thanks for everything, thanks for being a good friend..."
Jim stands. "It's okay. I get the picture." His hand gets in on the twitching, as if Jim would like to swoop down on Blair's glass and bear it off to the kitchen but that precious juice isn't finished yet. Jim turns and heads for the kitchen anyway. "Want to check out a movie tonight?" he asks. "Something mindless?"
"Why not? Let's see what sort of swine Hollywood is laying before the pearls."
"That's you, Sandburg. A total jewel."
Blair lays his hand on his heart in affected modesty. "Damn straight, man, damn straight."
Jim smiles but it's thin, somehow, just a surface veneer, a pretend expression. He goes to the fridge and starts arranging the contents in a superfluous way, since Jim's fridge is surely the most pristinely clean and organised fridge in Cascade, possibly the entire Pacific North-west. Blair watches for a moment or two before determination overcomes him and he rises to his feet and marches over. He gently shoulders Jim out of the way and removing the tub of blueberries from one hand and the head of broccoli from the other, he replaces both in the fridge and shuts the door. Then, since Jim's hands are still open-palmed in front of him, he clasps them in his own and kisses them.
The rigidity under his touch isn't exactly unexpected, like an animal's stillness under a predator's regard. He doesn't let it deter him. He observes, he analyses – and so does Jim. Blair is not prepared, however, to wait for joint results from this process any longer. It's time to toss the dice, turn the card, do or die.
"I may be a good friend but you don't need to kiss my hands to show I'm appreciated." It's a good try from Jim, but dry, surprisingly enough, needs some breath behind it to make it believable.
"No problem, man. I'm only kissing them because they were in reach. I could lay one on your mouth – with some cooperation," Blair says pointedly, measuring the respective labial heights of a five foot seven inch Blair Sandburg in relation to a six foot James Ellison.
Blair still holds Jim's hands so it's obvious when Jim tries to draw back. "I'm not interested in being your carpe diem bisexual experience, Sandburg." That smarts, but James 'attack is the best defence' Ellison no doubt thinks he's being cruel to be kind.
"If I thought I was expecting you to martyr yourself to my sense of curiosity –" Blair begins.
"Wouldn't be the first time."
"Oh, touche. First blood. But seriously, Jim. I've given this a lot of thought and I think that we should just go with the moment. As in this moment. Here. No martyrdom required." He gets up as close as he can. "Totally the opposite."
Blair lifts a hand to draw Jim down – a gentle, coaxing touch – and Jim stoops, but so stiffly that Blair half expects a creaking noise. Jim's face remains stern as Blair kisses him with an almost chaste brush of his lips, but despite that stoic readiness there's a small gasp at the touch. Blair manages, just, not to take advantage, just repeats that gentle press of mouth to mouth.
Jim straightens, not moving. One hand is still caught in Blair's. The other hangs at his side. Blair waits as hope starts to sour – he's guessed wrong, he's made fools of them both, and he's nearly ready to let go and babble his stupid, humiliated apologies, when Jim smiles. It's a small smile. Rueful.
"I don't know, Chief."
Blair's hand is going to cramp, he's clenching Jim's hand that hard.
"The question is, what is it that you don't know?"
A big sigh comes out of Jim, up from the gut, slow and wistful. "Maybe we should wait a while. Give you something to look forward to."
"You think I wouldn't always look forward to this? Come on." Blair wants this right now; has, he believes, always wanted this, the sweet and the acid that's Jim Ellison, better than a thousand glasses of orange juice. He's still waiting, even though he doesn't want to wait any more. He can feel the hesitation as Jim gently cups Blair's neck, thumb pressing under his jaw, palm assessing the warmth of Blair's skin to discover what Blair already knows – that he feels fine, damn it.
"I'm offended," Blair says, faux sweetly. "You don't think that I would have made my move if I couldn't satisfy expectations?"
"I know you, Chief. You wing it all the time." There's resigned sweetness in Jim's face, and a wondering hunger. Something unwinds in Blair, a happy unspiralling that burrows into his chest and his gut.
"But I'm good at it, man." He lifts his head in unmistakable demand, and this time the kiss is opened mouth. Blair has lost his grip on Jim's hand but he doesn't mind so much. Jim's making himself useful. "You know, you should probably not empty the whole bag of tricks this time round. I like your idea of giving me something to look forward to."
Jim laughs at that, a rough, half-distressed bark, and they're so close that Blair could swear he's laughing too.
Author's note:
The whole point of this story was to write about an idea without explicitly mentioning the idea.When I posted this originally, people wanted to know what was wrong with Blair. I picked Hodgkins Lymphoma as my plot device. Yes, there is chemo in his future, but also a reasonable chance of recovery.
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