By Mab

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Warning: Quietly R for sexual references and language.

Remarks: From a post Sentoo story that just wouldn't come together.

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The visions had stopped, but the dreams hadn't. He'd wake up, sweating, with a mess of spilled semen across his front, or worse, he'd wake up hard, and have to make a conscious decision about what to do with a hard-on that was a response to vivid dreams of Blair in his arms on that damn beach. Blair, not Alex. Blair's mouth was warm and welcoming. Alex's kisses had reminded him of a bible quote he'd heard as a child, about the devil going about as a lion seeking to devour. The gentle kink of Blair's hair under his palms was a sweeter pleasure than the sleek fall of Alex's artfully careless style. The feel of Blair's own hard-on against him was worth more than all the musk of female arousal that had surrounded them.

He wondered bitterly why he couldn't have dreamed all this before. It wasn't as if he hadn't known that Blair was worth wanting. Before that crazy mess of a nightshift, there'd been times when he was aware of a gentle lift in chest and gut as he watched Blair move, when Blair smiled a certain way, but he'd been happy to let it be. It was a pleasure that could be explored another time, when the dissertation wasn't between them. If he'd dreamed all this before, maybe he'd have been safe from Alex - maybe Blair would have been too. And how the hell was he supposed to tell Blair about this after everything that was between them? The day after he'd sneaked into the men's room with Blair's chapter, he and Blair had ended up in a painful and painstaking discussion, where Blair had apologised for the careless teasing in the truck and then carefully talked through all the items that Jim had taken such issue with.

Jim had ended up feeling like a prick and a fool, but for a man with more than his share of pride, that was still surprisingly less painful than the thought that Blair regarded him as a coward and emotional cripple. But feeling like a prick and a fool still weren't comfortable feelings. Acknowledging that Blair meant well didn't get rid of Jim's suspicion that he'd been an idiot to ever agree to being Blair's subject. That suspicion had coloured his attitude to Blair, and then whatever the hell it was between him and Alex had happened; the rivalry in Cascade, and the sexually charged mental communion in Sierra Verde.

And now he didn't know what to do with *this* sexual charge. Sometimes he chose to ignore his arousal, deciding that it didn't matter if he ended up with the bluest balls in creation. And other times, he summoned up every memory he could of when things were okay between Blair and him, and he imagined a gentle slide from friendship into loving. In those fantasies Blair might be gently acquiescent, or cheerfully aggressive, and Jim was a little frightened by just how powerfully affected he was by the thought of Blair in his bed in any circumstances.

His memories of the fountain alternately elated and terrified him. It was impossible, and it had happened anyway, and the thought of what it all might mean still roiled his stomach. But he *had* brought Blair back, and if the light of the merge between them had illuminated some unexpected desires, then it also gave him hope that those desires were more than just greedy dreams. If they were irritable with each other sometimes, well, that was stress. It had been a stressful time. Too stressful to talk about at first, and that had turned into a habit.

He decided he had to give Blair time. Blair was finding it hard after the fountain, after the temple. He was off-balance, and needed to right himself somehow, needed to heal. It never occurred to Jim that what he thought of as a demand upon Blair might have been part of the healing that his friend needed.

Fin

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