Hold Glaciers
by Fabella

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Notes: This is what comes of vidding with the episode ‘Love and Guns’. I desperately needed a missing scene here, because re-watching that episode so much is enough to break your heart. Not run through a beta, as per usual.

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When Blair finally came out of his room, driven by a hunger that was relentless despite the gnawing ache in his heart, he found Jim at the sink. He was a solid presence, real time, shoulder blades moving beneath his shirt as he did the dishes. Glaciers weren’t as implacable and steady as Jim.

“I saved you some noodles,” said Jim, tone blessedly without color.

Good. The less mention of Maya the better.

“Thanks,” Blair said, then winced, hearing the scratch of his unused voice. He cleared his throat. “So, uh, how was your date? Any chance we’ll be seeing this one a second time?”

Jim shrugged, speaking over the running water. “We, Chief?”

“We as in you, of course.”

Jim didn’t reply and Blair nudged Jim aside a moment so he could take a bowl down from the cupboard. As he was spooning some of the noodles out of the tupperware dish, Blair noticed that his fingers were shaking and clenched them harder around the handle of the spoon. God, he was hungry. It wasn’t fair how hungry he was.

A hand touched his shoulder. Blair startled, knocking over the wine glass Jim hadn’t washed yet. The last red dregs that had sat at the bottom dripped with slow, purposeful intent toward the counter, and Blair quickly reached for a hand towel.

“Sorry,” Blair said as he frantically began mopping it up, kept scrubbing even after the drops had been wiped away. The hand tightened around his shoulder, pulling, tugging, drawing him away from the counter. “I’m sorry.”

Except she couldn’t hear him, wouldn’t hear him, didn’t understand.

Blair couldn’t meet Jim’s eyes when he turned around, couldn’t bear to show Jim the hole in his face where his composure should have been. Jim’s throat was pale, except for a minor love bite just beneath his ear, the slightest hint that teeth had been applied. Oh, God, he’d wanted to take a bite out of Maya, to assuage the ache that had sprung up within his stomach at his first sight of her.

The hand on Blair’s shoulder moved over and up, cupping the nape of his neck beneath his hair, fingers damp with soapy water, exerting only the slightest pressure. Blair found himself moving forward inevitably, gravity pulling him, holding him, binding him with his forehead against Jim’s sharp collarbone. Hurt spiked through him, and he shuddered.

“I don’t think there’s gonna be a second date,” Jim said blandly, and Blair couldn’t think through his confusion, couldn’t understand why Jim was holding him and telling him this. “She’s nice company, but I think her taste in perfume is irritating enough that we won’t be forming a life-long bond.” Jim’s other hand came up to swipe gently down Blair’s back, before settling securely at the middle. “I guess you can never tell, huh?”

Jim was saying something Blair should be hearing. The space between his words seemed important, like unspoken verbs that would free him from his confusion, but Blair was still hungry and his heart felt a thousand pounds heavy in his chest. Even Jim’s steady hands and rock-hard shoulders couldn’t make Maya’s floral scent stop clinging to his nostrils, couldn’t completely banish the way she’d given him love and hate in single breath.

“I love her, man,” Blair whispered, pressing his face harder against Jim, inhaling the scent of laundry detergent, pasta, and dull sweat. “I just do.”

Jim hummed, saying nothing more. He only stood still and was himself, a brick wall with no intention of ever moving. It was right letting Jim hold him; it was warm, and it was the safest place Blair could ever imagine being. If he could have crawled inside Jim, hidden away between Jim’s heart and lungs to lick his wounds free from infection, he would have. Blair dropped the towel and wrapped his arms around Jim’s sturdy ribs, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing...

The end

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