AUTHOR: PEJA

FANDOM: THE SENTINEL

PAIRING: Jim/Blair

RATING: NC-17

ARCHIVE: WWOMB , all others ask first.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Redundant as it is after all this time, I have these words running around in my head. 'They have to be purged, so I'm purging them once and for all. This piece follows the sentinel 2 piece I did back before last season began. Read it if you want. Or don't. This one's for me.

Oh, and since Petfly has already given their impression of what happened, guess that makes this an alt universe piece.

SERIES: Well, duh.....sequel to New Beginnings, which can be found in the Sentinel index on WWOMB as for if there will be a following, well, that's up to the boys.

FEEDBACK: If you want the well to produce, you have to prime the pump.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own them, but they live in the cage in the corner of my den. But that's another story....called Character Gripes

********

NEW BEGINNINGS: PROMISE ME FOREVER

by
PEJA

Blair hesitated at the door of the loft, looking around. Jim saw the still too-pale skin blanch until he swore the bone beneath the flesh was easily discernible. He braced himself, ready to catch him if he should faint dead away.

But Blair was stronger than that. Swallowing, he gulped air that tasted of the incense he’d favored for so very long. Incense that only Jim-do-you-have-to-smell-up-the-place-with-that-Ellison could have burned since he'd been away.

A quick glance at the man behind him confirmed the thought.

"I wanted to have some part of you here even while you were gone."

That sent his heart beating faster. "No pressure, man. Remember?"

Jim's nostrils flared, scenting the terror on him. Not simple fear, but absolute, heart crumbling terror. "Blair..." he said, reaching for him.

Blair darted out of his reach. "No, not yet." he almost screamed the words, then from a safe distance, raked a trembling hand through wild curls. "Look, I'm sorry, man. Just don't touch me, okay."

"I don't understand. I thought you liked it when I touched...."

"I did....do, only not right now."

Jim's shoulders hunched as if he'd suddenly taken on the weight of the world and he accepted his part in the destruction of one Blair Sandburg. If only things had been different. If he'd talked to Blair before things got so far out of hand...Or even at the end, instead of throwing him out lock, stock and tribal masks. If he'd kept his guide close instead of tossing him to the she-cat and getting him killed.

But Blair wasn't dead. He was standing right here before him...Rejecting him, and that rejection was acid on Jim's own soul, killing him as surely as the gun at his temple.

"Look, man, before......" Blair cast around, choking on words that ate at him. "You have to understand. Your touching me before was..... safe. Sort of like I had a right to be here. Now...." A wild look pinned Jim to the floor. "It's not safe anymore. I thought I belonged....."

"You did," Jim shot back, taking a step forward, and watching Blair retreat back several more. "You do belong here."

"Do I?" Blair blasted him with the words. "Till the next time. Till I do something you judge me guilty of without a trial and throw me out again."

"No. Never."

"Yeah," Blair snorted. "Yeah right."

"Blair....."

"Ah, I can't do this. I thought I could, but I can't."

"Blair....."

"Look, I gotta go, Ellison. I gotta......"

Jim blocked the door with his body "I love you."

Blair lost the wild look as a stunned expression covered his features. "Wha..."

"I love you, Sandburg. I want to spend the rest of my life making up for what I did to you. Want to give you back the safety I ripped away. Hell, I'll sign over everything I own to you. You'll never have to worry about being thrown out again. The loft is yours if you just stay."

Blair gaped at the man who held his heart in his callous hands.. "I don't want to take this place away from you, Jim. It's your home."

"Not without you in it. When you refused to see me in the hospital then disappeared without a trace it hit me that you were what made this place home, not just four walls to keep out the weather. You, with all the insanity that whirls around you keep me from going insane. I need you. Love you If you walk away from me now, I'm a dead man walking."

Blair threw him an angry glare. "That's not fair."

"Fair? I don't want to be fair. If I'm fair you walk away. I can't let that happen. I won't. Not without a fight."

Blair did a cocky jump on the balls of his feet, saying, "Oh, I get it, You're gonna use force to keep me here? Is that it?"

"If I have to." Jim answered softly.

Blair thought that one over. "Man to man....or wolf to panther?"

"Does it matter?" Jim asked. "In either state I'm the stronger. The cat to the canine."

"Just because I'm smaller you think...."

"Size has nothing to do with it. I'll win because I'm fighting for what we both want. Your fighting out of fear. That makes me stronger every time."

"No..."

"You wouldn't have come here in the first place if you didn't want to be here as much as I want you here. Deny it if you can."

If Blair were hooked up to a Richter scale he would have registered ten.

"Are you going to lie to me, Blair. Are you going to tell me you want to leave this loft. To leave me?"

"Oh yeah right," Blair snorted. "Lie to the original human lie detector." He turned his attention to the balcony, watching the sun slowly set. "Damn you. Damn you to hell. Why couldn't you just let it go."

"Let you go, you mean."

"Yes. This is just opening up new wounds. The end result is going to be the same. Too much has gone under the bridge."

"And make another mistake?" Jim demanded. "I can't do that. We've already made too damn many mistakes. Wasted too damn much time. Hell, we almost lost each other forever. I'm tired of being half a man, Blair. I want the other part of me. I want you."

"Jim...."

"Blair, I know you're scared. I know I did that to you, but I swear I'm not going anywhere ever again. And by all that I hold dear, on your very life, neither are you."

With that, Jim snatched Blair by the arms and hauled the squirming man into his arms, holding him securely until he tired himself and settled into a restful slump against Jim's warm chest.

"Don't fight what we both want, Blair," Jim whispered against his guide's dark curls. I love you. I've got you and this time I'm not letting go. Never again."

"Promise me forever," Blair whispered, looking into Jim's desperate gaze. "I'll take today."

"You'll get a million tomorrows and more," Jim pledged, claiming Blair's satin lips in a slow exploratory kiss. Blair's mouth opened under his, and Jim deepened the kiss, ravishing Blair's mouth completely.

Coming up for air, Blair said, "Whoa, big guy. We still need to talk."

Jim tilted an amused glance his way. "I bet you talk in bed, too."

"You don't know?" Blair asked, blushing. "With your hearing?"

Jim's laugh was musical. "You babble like a brook, lover. Awake and asleep."

Blair punched his arm playfully, then suddenly went quite still.

"What is it, Blair?"

The smaller man met Jim's eyes. "I'm scared, Jim. More scared than I've ever been. More scared than with Lash."

"I know," Jim said, brushing the riotous curls back from Blair's face. "So am I. But I meant everything... everything I said. I won't push you out of the loft....Or my life again. Trust me, Blair. Just this one last time. Trust me."

Blair ducked his face against Jim's chest, his compact body shaking with sudden restrained laughter.

Jim eased him back and tilted his head up. "What?"

Blair wiped the laugh-tears from his eyes. "Remember what you said when I asked you to trust me?"

Jim frowned thoughtfully, then joined in the merriment. "I said, coming from you, those were two of the scariest words in the English language, or something like that."

Blair nodded. "Ditto."

"Ditto?"

Yeah, ditto."

"Yeah," Jim reaffirmed. "Ditto."

Blair leaned heavily against his sentinel's broad chest. "Jim?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm tired, man."

"Bed?"

A quick smile. "Yeah, bed."

Jim eased his guide out of his arms. "All right." He stepped back. "We can finish this tomorrow."

Blair's face fell. "You don't want...." he cut off the question with a tired sigh. "Night, Jim." he said, moving heavily toward the French doors to his small room.

"Blair?" Jim called.

"Yeah?"

"Sleep with me tonight."

Blair froze halfway across the room.

"I won't push for more. Just, please, Blair, I need to hold you while you sleep. To know you're here. Alive, and mine. Blair, don't make me sleep alone again tonight."

Blair remained motionless, trapped in his imaginings.

"Blair..."

A whirlwind of muscle and curls hurtled into Jim's arms, swarming over him in nothing short of desperation. Jim lifted his lover high in his embrace. Blair wrapped arms and legs around the bigger man, latching onto him like an octopus.

"I love you, Sandburg," Jim rasped

Blair cuddled into Jim's neck. "Make love to me, big guy. Mark me as yours tonight."

Jim ravished his mouth hungrily before asking, "Are you sure?"

"I need you, Ellison," Blair told him. "Need you bad."

Jim didn't need any more coaxing. He bounded up the stairs with a seductively squirming Blair in his arms. By the time he made the bed and flopped, twisting so Blair landed on him, onto the bed, Jim was past questioning anything.

"Want you," he said, shredding the buttons from Blair's flannel shirt in his haste.

"Hey, that was my best....."

Jim swallowed the rest with a ravishing kiss. His tongue plundered Blair's open mouth, tasting, testing, devouring the scent and flavor that was uniquely Blair.

"Mine," Jim said, making long strokes with his tongue along Blair's exposed throat and jawline.. "Mine," he repeated, while his hands jerked at the back of the black tee. "Off," he growled, scraping his teeth over cotton covered nipples..

Blair shivered under the voracious attention lavished on his body, but obeyed, tossing off the shirt and scrambling to strip Jim of his own before he plastered himself on his lover.

"Ahhhh. Feels so good," Jim purred, smoothing his hands down Blair's silken back.

"Mmmmph," Blair managed, lost in the sensation of skin on yearning skin.

"Jeans," Jim commanded. "Off."

Blair complied with a five alarm wiggle, stripping Jim down seconds later. The head to toe contact sent a violent explosion sizzling through the lovers.

Blair slid sensuously over Jim, growling hungrily. The desperate moans encouraged Jim to reach between their bodies and grasp both cocks in one strong hand before he started to move under his lover. Blair caught on quick and matched him thrust for thrust, sending their temperatures through the roof.

After a few strokes, Jim slowed the play. "Want you inside me. Want you to make love to me."

Blair made a strangled sound in his throat, "You sure?"

Smoldering eyes met across the length of gleaming skin. 'Yes."

"Jim, we're a little unprepared for that sort of game here, don't you think? I don't want to hurt you?"

"Drawer." Jim murmured, reaching into a low stand and pulling out a vial of oils. "Prepared now."

Blair stared at the vial for a long moment, then said, "You've done this before?"

"Blair...... I need you now."

Blair swallowed the questions running through his head telling himself they would talk later...About a lot of things. "Roll over, big guy."

Jim didn't need any encouragement. Blair suddenly found himself face to ass with the best looking pair of cheeks he'd ever seen. Mesmerized by the feast before him, he bent to kiss first one perfect globe then the other, getting a desperate growl from the man beneath him.

Grinning like a child set loose in a candy store, he dry massaged the flushed flesh set out before him. The pleasured sounds coming from Jim pushed him forward and he added some of the vanilla scented oils to the play, letting his slick fingers play where they would....teasing his lover by not touching the most sensitive area that begged for attention, but circling and tracing every square inch except Jim's asshole.

"Blair..." Jim growled, pressing back toward the hands playing over him.

"Patience, big guy, Blair purred, separating Jim's cheeks and letting his silky hard cock tease the crevasse there .

"Oh, god......Blair...."

"Shush, luv. We're getting there," Blair whispered as one oiled finger played at Jim's entrance....pressed forward past the ring of muscle and foraged into unclaimed territory.

Jim thrust back, fucking himself on Blair's finger. "More."

Blair ignored him, listening instead to what Jim's body was telling him, slowly preparing the way for himself with another finger and moments later yet another one. By the time he felt his lover was ready, Jim was thrashing desperately beneath him while a low keening rumbled through his chest.

Finally Blair removed his fingers and oiled his impatient flesh before pressing up against the sanctuary he had prepared for himself. "Tell me what you want, big guy." he rasped, barely able to restrain himself, but wanting to wring one more bit of torturous pleasure out of his lover.

"You. Put your cock in me, Blair. I'm dying for wanting you."

And with that, Blair eased into Jim's ass. "Oh god, yes."

Jim, beyond control, thrust back forcing Blair balls deep into him. "Claim me," he chanted. "Mark me."

The words pushed Blair past any restraint and he pounded into his lover, bringing them both to the heights and over way to quickly for either of them.

As they settled back into the real world, Jim pulled Blair into his embrace. "Mine," he told the smaller man. "Now and forever.".

Blair grinned sleepily. "Promise me forever. Give me today."

THE END??