Control Issues Epilogue
Rated ADULT
"Letting Go"
"So, how is my hero tonight?" Blair asked with a smirk as he came through the back gate into their small garden terrace off the back of their place. The sun was just a sliver in the corner, while the rest of the terrace was in shadow, but Jim sat reading his paper anyway. Blair sometimes marveled at how easily he used his Sentinel senses now, after years of turning on the lights even when he didn't need to.
"Stuff it, Sandburg," Jim warned in his best cranky voice. Blair just smiled more.
"Not a good day? That Van Dijk case still giving you grief?"
Jim looked up from his newspaper, put his coffee down on the small mosaic table and pinned Blair with an evil glare. Blair bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
"The Van Dijk case is giving me grief because I can't investigate it. The whole point of a private investigator is to have the matter stay private. It's hard to be private with half the fucking city following me. One of the vultures actually fell in the Oudegracht trying to get a picture of me."
"Okay, ick. That's not the cleanest water in the world," Blair said as he let the garden gate latch and lock behind him before dropping his briefcase on the table and taking the chair across from Jim. "Did you fish him out?"
"He got himself in, he got himself out," Jim said darkly. "I'm not some caped crusader who rescues kittens from trees and idiot reporters from canals."
"No, you're just the guy who single-handedly took out a terrorist group who had taken hostages and shut down the Utrecht Zuilen station. I think that qualifies you for caped status, so would you prefer red or blue? A nice superman theme might look nice with those legs of yours." Blair gave his lover a wink and then grinned at the feral expression that might have sent lesser men running away while peeing their pants.
"Sandburg," Jim snarled. "I can't get my work done. Johan Van Dijk can't wait for the information he needs." Scrubbing a hand across his face, his anger suddenly turned to worry.
"Oh man, yeah. You're right," Blair agreed as he remembered the old man who had shown up on their door, which doubled as Jim's office for his very discreet detective agency, staff of two. Okay, staff of one and a half because the university kept Blair busy enough researching Sentinels and speaking at fundraisers and presenting research that he didn't get to work with Jim nearly as much as he would like to. He adored his research, and he could see the changes slowly seeping into society as more and more researchers turned their attention toward innate Sentinels, but he missed the adrenaline of police work. "I don't think you're getting rid of the paparazzi any time soon, not unless someone else takes on terrorists and saves a bunch of children single-handedly," Blair mused.
"I'm about ready to volunteer with a terrorist group to help them plan something just so someone else can play hero," Jim sighed.
"I hear you," Blair nodded. "Can I help?"
"If you have some time tomorrow, I could use some help on the Van Dijk case."
"Cool! What time to you need me?"
"When are you free?"
"Name the time, man, and I'm all yours." Blair held his arms out to indicate just how much of him belonged to Jim.
"Listen, Chief, I know you have meetings tomorrow, so I'd rather work around your schedule."
"Oh man, no problem. I do have a legal right to take time off for any Sentinel-related business, so meetings-schmeetings."
"Junior, I am not playing the Sentinel card," Jim almost growled. Blair blinked at the sudden anger, but then it wasn't like he didn't have a hang-up or two himself. Jim had certainly earned his right to be a little overly sensitive on this issue, even if he didn't have to wear a collar or sign all his money over to Blair. His driver's license still labeled him as a Sentinel and restricted him from driving during any police or government declared emergency, and he couldn't carry a weapon, not even when he held a private investigator's license.
"Jim," Blair said carefully, "this is so not about you. I want to use the Sentinel card because I have a meeting with Kees Rotmensen to talk about department budgets, and man, I just don't care. However much they give me, I'll spend, but this happy shit with politicking to get more just gives me indigestion."
"Chief, I'm not saving you from Rotmensen. I just need about three hours of your time tomorrow, so let me know when you're free."
"I suppose if I come home at four that will give Rotmensen an hour to torture me with budget numbers," Blair sighed. "You know, feel free to have those Blessed Protector instincts kick in here," he suggested. Jim just picked up his coffee and started drinking again, the paper still draped over his lap.
"When a gunman grabs you, I'll get right on it, but you're on your own with Rotmensen. The man gives me the creeps."
"Nice, he gives the special ops soldier the creeps, and you still throw me to him," Blair said with exaggerated resignation.
"Yep. You can take care of yourself, Chief."
"So, do you need help with your senses or do you want me to play decoy for your fan club?" Blair asked as he kicked off his shoes. Leaning back in the chair, he stretched out a leg and let his socked foot rub Jim's thigh. Jim's eyebrow went up, and the corners of his mouth twitched. A little more, and Blair'd get an honest smile out of him.
"I think Van Dijk's oldest is the one selling the company secrets. I planned on staking out Han's place, but he has white noise generators all over that mansion of his. I need this taken care of because I have a new client: a teenage girl disappeared during a summer trip. Her friends last saw her at Dom tower, and the police have told the parents that they've run out of leads."
"Oh yeah, it's time to take care of the Van Dijk case," Blair agreed. The industrial espionage case wasn't like most of Jim's cases, but the old man's pain had really bothered Jim, so he had taken the case. "So, we go and you listen right past those white noise generators of Junior's. Man, those things are like pointless with Jim Ellison, Sentinel extraordinaire on the job."
"Extraordinaire?" Jim sounded almost amused. Okay, there was more exasperation than amusement, but there was some amused in there.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, but this is my fantasy here, so just go along with it," Blair suggested as he moved his foot to the inside of Jim's thigh, pressing closer to the growing bulge he could just imagine. The newspaper rattled as Blair's foot moved.
"Despite the fact that Eli has identified two innate Sentinels with senses just as powerful if not more powerful than mine?" Jim asked, his lips twitching again as Blair stretched as far as he could without falling out of his chair.
"Whatever," Blair dismissed them. "Man, they are not nearly as cool. I bet they never saved a whole train station full of hostages from terrorists. They don't have their own entourage."
"Let's not bring that up, please," Jim said dryly, and then Blair's toes reached home, and he made a little strangled gasp. Blair smiled.
"What the Sentinel wants, the Sentinel gets," Blair agreed.
"What about what Jim wants?" Jim asked, the amusement gone as something shifted just below his psychological landscape. Blair hesitated and then pulled his foot back so he could stand up.
"Oh man, I'd do anything for Jim," Blair said as he walked around to Jim's side and let his hand rest on Jim's shoulder. "What's up?"
"Nothing, Blair."
"I'm not buying it, Ellison."
"Just drop it." Jim stood up, dumped the paper on the table and headed into the bedroom through the double doors.
"Oh no," Blair said as he grabbed his briefcase and darted after his lover. "Don't shut me out, Jim. You know I get all insecure and weird when you shut me out."
Jim stopped near the tall dresser, his hand resting on the top as he stared at the wall.
"Oh man, who did what to you today?"
"It isn't that."
"Okay, so no one did anything to you. Who said what to you today?"
Blair watched Jim pick up an envelope from the dresser and toss it at him. Blair dropped his briefcase as he caught the fluttering paper in both hands. Pulling the flap open with trembling hands, Blair tried not to think about all the things that could have gone wrong: his mother, Jim's father or brother, the Dutch citizenship process. When he finally got through the first paragraph, his heart started to slow down.
"Hey, we so knew this would happen," Blair said gently.
"You have now officially given up your life for me," Jim said, his voice tight and clipped.
"Hey, you officially gave up your life when the military figured out about your senses. Me? I just changed locations. I'm still researching Sentinels. I'm still getting my adrenaline fix, although not as much as I might want, but hey, I can always spend more time working with the agency if I want to. My life is nowhere near given up, man."
"You can't go home."
"I am home," Blair said as he dropped the nasty, but ultimately powerless, letter from the Sentinel Institute on the floor and stepped to Jim's side. They hadn't planned to go back to the states, and the Netherlands wouldn't extradite for contempt of a Sentinel court summons. "Man, I am going to go all sap and mush on you if you don't get that truth through your head, Ellison, and I'm not sure you're going to survive a full case of Sandburg sentimentality."
"I don't know, I survived your mother," Jim pointed out dryly.
Blair smiled, and Jim finally answered with a smile of his own. "Yeah, yeah, you saved her baby from being a cog in the machine," Blair nodded, "but that was Sandburg sap turned on 60%... maybe 70%. I'm threatening to give you both barrels of lovey-dovey mush about how you are my life, so don't make me go there."
"Blair, I shouldn't be your life. And by choosing me… that warrant takes away some pretty important choices."
"You are an important part of my life, but does it occur to you that I like the fact that when we work on cases, it's one at a time and not like when Simon would dump a dozen active cases on us at once? And then the university… oh man, it is so much better to be a respected professor than a teaching fellow. And you know I loved teaching, but really, focusing on research and writing and playing guest lecturer--I'm in fucking heaven. And I love this city. The homophobia and xenophobia and general lifeophobia in Cascade sometimes drove me totally nuts. So, don’t go playing the martyr, Ellison. I didn't give up much to be with you, and I got a thousand times more than I lost."
"Sandburg sap?" Jim asked, but at least now he asked with a smile.
"Hell, yeah. It's also truth." Blair reached up and rested a hand on Jim's chest, feeling the warmth from his partner and wondering what it would be like to be a Sentinel, to feel the blood throb and hear the heart beating and identify every fiber under your fingers. Blair could only feel the smooth cotton of Jim's shirt and study his partner's face for some sign that he'd cut off Jim's incipient attack of guilt.
"Utrecht has been good to us," Jim offered.
"Totally…. that café in Rotterdam."
" Kroket," Jim agreed, licking his lips as he mentioned the deep fried meat and bread treat that Blair still called a stick-shaped heart attack. Blair rolled his eyes.
"The National Library," he countered.
"Inspector Visser over in Apeldoorn."
"Wait, I'm happy for one of the best known collections of rare manuscripts in the world, and you're thankful for stick-up-his-ass Visser?"
"He's a good cop," Jim shrugged, but his smirk grew. "Besides, you just like the banned erotic section." It didn't take a Sentinel to know that Jim was now officially screwing with him.
"Asshole," Blair huffed as he started fingering the buttons on Jim's shirt, plucking them open one at a time, tugging when they didn't come open quite fast enough for him.
"Mevrouw van Wingerden over on Poortstraat street."
Blair stopped long enough to give Jim a curious look on that one. He shrugged. "She does great work with torn shirts and ripped buttons."
"Okay, those get ripped more from the chasing and jumping hedges and occasionally taking out armed terrorists than me," Blair complained, but he did slow down on the last button. Jim's shirt fell open, and Blair traced the strong muscles, letting his finger follow one valley to the center of Jim's chest where he then traced the line down the center of his chest to his pants.
"However things get ripped, I'm grateful to mevrouw van Wingerden," Jim whispered as he brought his hands up. He brushed Blair's hair back with one hand and loosened his tie with the other. "You look uncomfortable in your professor getup," Jim commented as he pulled the tie off.
"Oh, man, you have no idea," Blair answered as his cock throbbed in his pants, but from Jim's smirk, he just might know. Blair slipped his fingers into Jim's waistband, pressing until his fingertips just brushed the curled hair inside and then waiting as Jim unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it down off his shoulders. Jim bent down and kissed Blair's shoulder, and Blair took the opportunity to open Jim's pants.
"Whoa, playing naughty, Jim?" Blair asked when a thick and heavy cock immediately appeared. "The commando going commando."
"Can the jokes, Junior. I didn't exactly have time for laundry this week."
"Oh yeah, you were busy being the big hero," Blair said as he pushed Jim's shirt off and started pulling Jim back toward the bed.
"Do you have to keep bringing that up?"
"Yep," Blair cheerfully agreed. "Jim Ellison—soldier, hero, son, lover, occasional asshole. I love every part of you."
"Blair," Jim said, and then he fell silent. Blair tilted his head back, inviting Jim to show how he felt since the big man was never going to enjoy words as much as Blair did. Immediately, Jim brought his mouth down over Blair's, kissing Blair until he couldn't do anything but ineffectually cling to Jim as every bit of blood disappeared south.
When Jim finally pulled back, he had a calmer expression, and Blair just about ripped the button off his own pants as he struggled out of them. With a knowing smirk, Jim pushed his pants off, leaving them on the floor as he moved to sit on the edge of the bed.
"Oh man." Blair stopped himself there. He didn't say how he had never still wanted someone so much two years into the relationship. He didn't say that he still needed Jim as much as he needed to breathe. He didn't say that the look of love in Jim's eyes still made him want to cry with joy. Being raised by a mother, Blair sometimes talked too much, but with Jim sitting naked on the blue bedspread, Blair decided that words just didn't explain enough.
Blair stood with his legs straddling Jim's knees as he bent down to kiss him. Jim leaned back, returning the kiss so enthusiastically that Blair's hands reached out for some support, landing on Jim's shoulders and then slowly pushing the other man to his back. Blair hummed into the kiss and then ended it only to place a series of kisses along Jim's shoulder.
Jim's cock was hard and thick, but Blair just ignored it as he caressed Jim's shoulders and hips and tweaked Jim's nipples and reverently kissed Jim's neck. Blair allowed himself to indulge in a feast of touching and tasting, hands and mouth skimming over skin that turned to gooseflesh under his lips.
"Chief," Jim sobbed the word. Blair took a deep breath and stopped before he made Jim come before even getting to the good part. Normally he would love to see Jim that out of control, but today he wanted something more. Today, he wanted to make Jim forget anything except how lucky they were to be here, to be happy, to have a home and a bed together. Blair used his hands on Jim's hips to urge him to turn, and Jim rolled and then crawled to the center of the bed. When he spread his legs, Blair hissed as he fought to find his own control.
"Problem?" Jim asked in his sarcastic voice.
"Go on, laugh it up, Ellison. If I come all over the bedspread, you're the one who's not getting any," Blair pointed out as he grabbed the lube from the side table.
Jim opened his mouth with some retort, but Blair slipped a finger inside and pressed hard against that small raised gland with the power to distract him. Jim gasped and his whole body shuddered as he lowered his head onto his forearms and started panting.
"Shit," Blair said softly. Jim's back rolled as the muscles tensed and surged under the skin. Adding a second finger, Blair moved to kneel between Jim's thighs. Now Jim rocked slowly forward and back in time with Blair's fingers. With his free hand, Blair stroked a rounded hip, resting his palm on the skin as he felt the muscles contract.
Hurrying now, Blair added a third finger, and Jim arched his back like a cat, the muscles standing out as he strained. He knew what Jim needed. Blair hurried a little more, spreading his fingers as Jim's body opened.
"Do it already," Jim hissed.
"Fucking backseat driver," Blair complained with a smile as he grabbed the lube and slicked it over his own erection. The feeling of his hand over his sensitive cock nearly made him come. He gritted his teeth and ordered himself to not come the second he was inside Jim. As a grown man, he shouldn't have this much trouble with control, but he did. Every damn time, he did.
Blair lined up and slid slowly forward. The head of his cock slid past the muscle before Jim thrust backwards, arching his back as he impaled himself on Blair's cock. Blair's hands landed on Jim's ass as he struggled to show a little restraint. Jim pulled slowly forward, rocking toward the head board, and now Blair took control of their coupling, driving forward with enough force to really make Jim feel it. Jim's head came up as his back arched.
"Yeah. Fuck yeah," Jim groaned and Blair started thrusting, gripping Jim's hips for leverage as he rammed in as hard as he could without hurting himself. Blair could feel it the moment Jim slid away from conscious thought and existed only in the moment. The muscles in his back contracted, making a landscape of perfection as Blair set a brutal pace. Blair's eyes watered from the pleasure and pain of needing to come, but he held off as Jim made small incoherent noises and fisted the bedspread.
With one hand braced on Jim's back, Blair reached under and grabbed Jim's neglected cock in his lube-smeared hand. Lost in some sort of sensory moment, Jim didn't move. He just breathed harder and his ass tightened around Blair's cock as Blair pumped it a few times. Then Jim started coming, and the strong, still body stretched and writhed, every muscle clenching until Blair cried out and started coming.
Jim bucked, forcing Blair still deeper and then he collapsed onto the bed. Blair collapsed on top of him, his long curls sliding across Jim's back and making him shiver. Still trying to catch his breath, Blair started squirming back.
"Shhh," Jim muttered, and Blair stilled. Jim's hand lay on the bed, his fingers stretched out, and Blair put his own hand over Jim's as he relaxed, allowing his shrinking cock to slowly pull from Jim's body without helping it.
"Love you," Jim said into the pillow.
"I love you too," Blair said as he kissed a strong shoulder. Laying on their bed in the fading light of day, Blair could honestly say that he loved Jim more than anyone else in his life. He finally slipped free, and Jim slowly stirred. Blair shifted to the side so Jim could roll to face him. The same hands that had killed Kincaid slowly stroked Blair's cheek.
"Feel better?" Blair checked. Jim had a pretty blissed out expression, but Blair had learned that appearances sometimes deceived.
"It got the job done," Jim said as he pursed his lips in amusement.
"Asshole," Blair huffed before Jim pulled him into a one-armed hug.
"That's what you get for fishing for compliments on your mind-blowing sexual skills," Jim pointed out.
"Whatever, man." Blair let his arm rest against Jim's waist as he dozed in the arms of his Sentinel.