Imaynata  by JR
e-mail:  jrr42@yahoo.com

Completed February 10, 1998.  Originally published in the zine ‘852
Prospect’ available from The Presses  (ThePresses@aol.com).

Written in season 3, this story takes place in the aftermath of the 
episode ‘Girl Next Door.’

***DO NOT POST, ARCHIVE, ETC  WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF
THE AUTHOR***

Disclaimer:   Jim, Blair, Simon, and everyone else you recognize are owned
by UPN and Pet Fly Productions and are used without their permission.  
This story is not intended to infringe upon any copyrights, nor is any profit 
being made from it.  

All feedback is not only welcomed, but nicely begged for.

~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~

	‘Imaynata.’  

	It was at the dinner table that those words once again popped into my
head.  Blair had cooked another one of his exotic, looks-like-something
-from-the-bottom-of- a-shoe-but-doesn’t-taste-half-baked meals.  It was a
shame I was too lost in my thoughts to enjoy either the food or the company.

	‘Imaynata.’  Four simple syllables in an obscure tribal language,
forming a simple question that would forever change my life.  I can still see
that moment as plain as day: Incacha bleeding to death on my sofa here in
Cascade.  He was the Chopec shaman who found me when my helicopter
crashed all those years ago in Peru.  The man who tended my wounds, who
taught me to be what I was destined to be, a sentinel.  Incacha took me into
his tribe, into his hut, and one night, into his bed.

	I had forgotten most of what happened to me during those eighteen
months after I was rescued and returned back to civilization.  I don’t think
I’ll ever know whether I blocked those memories out on purpose, or if my
mind shut them away as some kind of coping mechanism.  Whatever the
cause, for over five years they stayed hidden in some far recess of my mind
along with all of my sentinel abilities.  

	‘Imaynata.’  When my heightened senses returned, I thought I was
losing my mind, until an annoying little grad student showed up and told me
he knew exactly what was happening to me.  The little con-artist.  ‘Had a
vague idea’ would have been a more accurate description.  Somehow, he
managed to worm his way into my job, my home, and my heart.  Now, I
can’t imagine my life without him in it.

	‘Imaynata.’  I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  No matter what I tried
to do to distract myself, I just kept coming back to it.   I got irritated
when I couldn’t get the words out of my head, and when I get irritated it’s 
my nature to take it out on whoever happens to be unlucky enough to be around
me at the time.  

	And who else was around me more often than Sandburg was?

	I’d been blowing up at him pretty regularly over the past couple of
weeks.  We’d both been hit with so much in such a short period of time. 
Between Incacha’s death, that little stunt Sandburg pulled by withholding
evidence during that basketball case, and finally chasing my Guide over what
seemed like most of the State of Washington after getting kidnapped by a girl
he’d asked out...it was probably safe to say that I was just a little
tense.  The crazy part was that none of those things were the reason I’d 
been so short-tempered with the kid lately. 

	‘Imaynata.’  It was reason enough.

	It wasn’t as though Sandburg didn’t have a lot to agonize over in his
own right.   Just a few days earlier, his poor taste in women caught up with
him.  Sandburg was kidnapped and passed around by this grungy girl named
Iris and her little drug-dealing friends like an unwanted stepchild.  And
believe it or not, that was only a minor problem in his life as of late.

	No, Sandburg still had bigger issues on his mind.  He was still feeling
guilty about the murder of his friend, Janet.   He blamed himself for asking
her to get involved in one of our investigations; and when she tried to give 
us the information she uncovered, she was killed for it.  As if that wasn’t 
bad enough, Incacha passed the way of the Shaman over to Blair as he was
dying.  Sandburg didn’t mention it after that day, but I could easily see the
unease he felt with receiving such a legacy.  

	Not half as uncomfortable as I felt about it.  ‘Imaynata.’

	Sandburg was silent as he finished clearing the table.  Moving the
short distance into the kitchen, he started filling the sink with hot water.  
It was a routine that we followed almost nightly.  One of us does the dishes
while the other clears the table.  Usually, Sandburg fills the time by talking
about some aspect of his day; whether it’s about some new test he thought
up to torture me with at some point, or about his classes, or even the case
assigned to us; his mouth is always running at light speed.  That night,
however, he never uttered a word.   And when Blair ‘I-could-talk-to-a-post-
and-get-its-life-history-in-ten-minutes’ Sandburg gets withdrawn and quiet,
it’s a safe assumption that something is drastically wrong in his universe.

	A quick glance at the kitchen showed that Sandburg had not only
finished washing the dishes, he had dried them and completely cleaned up the
hundred or so pots he had used to cook the unpronounceable meal he’d
prepared.  With no other chores to distract us, and hours before it was
appropriate to escape to the safety of my bed, the same feeling of unease that
I’d been experiencing for the past couple weeks crept back over me.

	I was alone with Sandburg.  Damn.

	He moved back to the couch and picked up the stack of term papers
he was grading.  With nothing else to do, I crossed over to the windows to
stare out over the bay.  Anything to avoid looking at or speaking to
Sandburg.   Putting up the front that everything was A-okay took a lot more
out of me than I wanted to admit.  Now, without any distractions to keep me
from the edge, I knew it wouldn’t take much for the kid to set off the tension
that had been building inside me for the past three weeks.  More importantly,
I knew myself well enough to know that my unease would come out as
uncontrollable anger.   

	‘Imaynata.’   I can still hear myself shouting the word over and over
to Incacha.  I desperately needed an answer before he bled to death, yet I
was terrified that he would tell me what I already knew.   The word echoed 
in my head, only this time in English.

	‘How?  How could I take him?’	

~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~

	Despite my need for quiet, I’ve always hated uncomfortable silences. 
There is a difference between the two; the former comes from peace and
tranquillity, whereas the latter is simply when you have something to say, but
don’t know how.  So there we were, Sandburg and I, neither of us knowing
what to say to the other.  

	It used to be like this when he first moved into the loft.  Before I
learned to tune the kid out at will, Sandburg used to chatter incessantly
anytime we were in the same room, a habit that got on my nerves quite
frequently.  Once he figured out how annoying constant sound was to
someone with sentinel hearing, he did his best to give me absolute quiet. 
Always extremes with Sandburg.  The problem was that silence was *not* a
natural thing for the kid, and having to maintain it set *him* on edge.    It
took awhile to find a balance, but like everything else about the two of us,
we did it eventually.  

	Who’da thought?  Certainly not me at the beginning.  

	I mean, think about it.   Here was this kid, who had basically invited
himself into my home -- not that I put up much of fight about it.  A
neo-hippie from a world that was totally alien to me.  How do you
communicate with someone that is separated from you by a generation gap
wider than the freakin’ Mississippi?  I was his lab-rat, for all intents and
purposes.  The way he used to watch me so closely, not only irritated the hell
out of me, it made me wonder exactly when he was going to start walking
around in a white lab coat, carrying a clipboard.

	Then a funny thing happened.  Well, it wasn’t really funny; it was
more like terrifying.  A psycho named David Lash kidnapped Sandburg.  I
can still remember the moment I realized that things had changed drastically
between Sandburg and me.  It happened right after I busted into the loft to
find it in shambles.  It was the moment when I realized that Sandburg was
gone, taken by a homicidal maniac who had already killed at least five other
people.  That’s when I realized that at some point, Blair had become one of
the most important people in my life.

	When I raced down to the station, the only thing that I kept thinking
about was how much I would miss him -- his inane chatter of all things trivial
and obscure; his half-assed attempts to live up to my house rules; his 
strange, exotic cooking.  And  most of all, I would simply miss the friend 
who was always there for me no matter what, no questions asked.

	After we got Sandburg back safe and sound, things started to change
more rapidly.  Despite all of Sandburg’s annoying habits that bugged the shit
out of me, we started to gradually get closer.  There was only one thing that
really bothered me, though.  No matter what angle I looked at it from, I
couldn’t understand why the kid stayed.  Even the dissertation thing didn’t
seem to cut it for me.  I mean what paper could possibly be worth all of the
injuries, all the shit that he willingly went through just to be at my side?

	From what I’d seen from the kid, ‘commitment impaired’ is a major
understatement.  Hell, having to choose a pair of socks in the morning is
almost enough to make him run screaming from a room.  I watched him
bounce around from project to project at school, not to mention woman to
woman in his social life.  Sometimes I wondered whether or not he would
leave skid marks if one of his girlfriends wanted to make a date any longer
than a week in advance.

	The point I’m trying to make -- yes, there is one-- is that from what
I’d seen of Sandburg’s behavior, the thought of him leaving was always in
the back of my mind.  I used to have nightmares about it; dreams where I
would come home from work to find all of his things gone from the loft. 
Each difficult case, I wondered if it would be the one where the kid decided
he’d finally had enough, had his life endangered one too many times by my
job.  Not that I could blame him.  With some of the things he’s been through,
not to mention the shit he puts up with at the station, I’m surprised he
didn’t make tracks after three weeks in my dirty little world.  I’ll say 
one thing for Sandburg;  he’s a tenacious son of a bitch when he wants to
be.  For some reason unknown to me, he stayed.  And with each new day and 
each new case, my fear of abandonment slid further and further into the 
back of my mind.

	And then the shit hit the fan.

	The trust we had managed to establish was sorely tested a year ago
when Sandburg got the offer to go on that expedition to Borneo.  I swear to
God, even the time Carolyn told me she had filed for divorce didn’t hit me as
hard as the news that the kid was seriously considering the offer.  I felt
like someone had just removed my heart through my nose.  For the first time
since my senses came back on-line, I was absolutely terrified of something.  I
was afraid of losing him.  

	Maybe I shouldn’t have been so worried.  Jesus, every time I think
back to that moment when I looked up and saw the kid tumbling out of the
fuselage of that cargo plane screaming my name in absolute terror, I can only
shake my head in wonder.   

	I was never so glad to have him around as when my senses started
going on the fritz once we were in the jungle.  Even though Sandburg felt
helpless, just having him there to listen calmed me immeasurably.  I never
told Sandburg that the threat of his departure was why my Sentinel abilities
fritzed out in the first place. 

	Okay, I see I need to give an explanation for that last comment.  I
don’t know how to explain it, but I *need* to have a guide to function as a
sentinel.  The real reason I lost my abilities when I returned back to
civilization was that Incacha was no longer there to act in that capacity for
me.  That’s also why they reemerged on the Switchman case.   Now, I’ve
never been one to give much credence to spiritual mumbo-jumbo, but when a
black panther keeps showing up out of the blue, it tends to make a man
reconsider his beliefs.   My spirit guide knew that Blair was out there,
waiting to find me.  

	Something else happened to me out there in the jungle.  My spirit
guide told me that I had to make a choice of whether or not to accept my
sentinel abilities; and if I did, it would cost me my soul.   I knew at the
time the price I was going to be required to pay.  It was Blair.  I knew that 
if we made it back to civilization, there was no way I was going to let him 
go on that trip, no matter what means I had to use to keep him with me.  

	With my decision made, most of the memories of my 18 months in
Peru came back to me as well.  I remembered some of the details that I had
all but forgotten, including Incacha and the night we bonded ourselves to
each other as Sentinel and Guide.  I’d never needed to take that step with
Sandburg, thank God.  As devoutly heterosexual as he is, I didn’t think he’d
be too thrilled with the concept.  After all, he’d been acting as my guide for
over a year without taking that final step.  I never had the heart to tell him
just how much more we could be if we did, though.  

	At the time I was more worried about getting Simon and his son,
Daryl, back to safety; so I let the matter drop.  I decided to deal with it
once we got back to Cascade.  As it turns out, I didn’t have much to worry 
about.

	“It’s about friendship,” he said when we returned.  Never in my life
have three little words meant so much to me.  Blair turned down the
expedition of his own accord once we returned to Cascade.  I can still
remember the exact moment perfectly; the scratches on his face from the
jungle, the seriousness in those amazing eyes of his, even the rich timbre of
his voice.  But most importantly, I remember the absolute feeling of relief I
felt when I heard those words and knew that he wasn’t going to leave me.

	Something happened in that moment; something that, no matter how
hard I tried in the year that followed, I could never really understand.  With
that simple statement, all of what Sandburg would refer to as ‘my cosmic
tumblers’ clicked into place.  I took those words to mean that the kid was
making his version of a commitment to me, that he was in this for more than
a paper.  At the time, I thought it was enough.

	In some respects, it was.  Over the next few months that followed,
our friendship steadily grew stronger.  Built on the foundation of our
relationship as Sentinel and Guide, each case, each obstacle, even each
woman brought us closer and closer together.  

	It’s a tricky thing to explain, our friendship.  We are so many things
to each other;  sentinel and guide, partners, teacher and student, older
brother, younger brother, hell, sometimes even father and son.  I like to
think we learn from each other.  I’ve done my best to teach him
responsibility and give him the structure he seemed to need, even 
though he wasn’t aware of it.  In return he’s taught me to relax and 
enjoy some of life’s freedoms, something I wasn’t even aware that I 
sorely needed.  We were always there for each other.

	But is he willing to do this?  Is he willing to give himself to me, the
way Incacha did, to let me mark him as my own?  

	Please understand, Blair and I have been partnered for almost three
years now.   Maybe it’s presumptuous of me, but I like to think that I know
him better than anyone, even Naomi.  That, however, doesn’t mean much. 
The truth of the matter is that despite all evidence to the contrary; we are a
lot alike in some respects, especially when it comes to being extremely
private people.

	Most people look at the two of us and see total opposites: the
uptight, silent, brooding cop, and the outgoing, personable, devil-may-care
anthropologist.  The only thing that proves is that appearances can be
deceiving.  Yeah, I guess it’s safe to admit here that some of my attitude
is a front.  Well, maybe about 10% or so.  With Sandburg, it’s a different 
story.  About 90% of his personality is a front.  Oh, make no mistake about 
it, that kids blows more smoke than a forest fire.  He always has one story 
or another to tell about some long-dead society or another, but if you listen
carefully it’s easy to see that all of those little factoids and anecdotes
keep him from having to discuss anything that even approaches an emotionally
deep topic.  I heard a saying once:  “talks a lot, but doesn’t say much.” 
Whoever uttered those words for the first time must have met Sandburg in a
previous life.

	I guess what I’m trying to say is that I had absolutely no idea how
Sandburg would react if I told him that I wanted him.  I mean, sure, Blair is
liberal as hell, a free-thinker who would never be opposed to the idea of two
men being together.  But it’s a whole different ball game when it’s you with
another man, not somebody else.  I had no idea how he would react if I told
him.  

	That wasn’t the only problem.  The truth was, I had absolutely no
idea *how* to tell him.  It’s not like I’ve ever propositioned a guy before,
well outside of some undercover assignments in Vice.  Last time, it was
Incacha who came to me, not the other way around.  How was I supposed to
go up to my best friend and say ‘hey, you know, if we sleep together at least
once, we will bond our souls as sentinel and guide; not to mention you would
finally receive all the knowledge that my Shaman is supposed to have’?   I
could almost see the skid marks on the pristine wooden floor of our loft.

	No, no, no!  I wasn’t about to risk the most important friendship of
my life, no matter what the rewards would be.  Blair functioned as my guide
for three years, and did a damned fine job of it too, I might add, without
taking that final step.  No, things were just fine without me throwing an
enormous monkey wrench into the works.

	If that was the case, then why did I feel so guilty?  Like I was
cheating Sandburg of the opportunity to choose his destiny for himself? 

	Maybe because I knew that was exactly what I was doing.  

	‘Imaynata.’  How could I take him.

	But I couldn’t.  I couldn’t have him for just one night.  I loved him
too much, and the thought of living the rest of my life with only the
memories from one single encounter was unbearable.  More to the point,
having him near all the time was difficult enough for me to manage now, as
badly as I wanted him; but to have him once and let him go would push me a
little closer to insanity every day.  I couldn’t do it.  

	I guess that leaves us back where we were almost a year ago. 
Together in proximity, separate in spirit.  Just when did somebody sneak in
and throw all these eggshells on the floor of our loft?   It wasn’t as if I
didn’t already know the answer.  

	‘Imaynata.’  Now what the hell was I going to do about it?

~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~


	I looked into the glass and caught Blair’s reflection in one of the
panes.  I wasn’t really surprised to see him staring back at me.  By that
point in time, nothing about him really surprised me anymore.  At 28, he’s 
done and seen more in his life than I’ll probably ever do in mine.  Maybe I 
should sue the army for not living up to it’s ‘be all you can be’ slogan.

	My eyes were locked onto Sandburg’s hazy reflection.  I saw the
unspoken question in his eye before he sighed and looked down to finish the
paper he was grading.  It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but knowing him
like I did, I knew this was Sandburg’s ‘I-know-you’re-on-edge-but-acting-
like-everything-is-fine-so-two-can-play-at-that-game’ behavior.   

	I can see the puzzlement my last statement caused, so let me take a
time-out for a little ‘Behavioral Sandburg 101’ lecture.  Now, when
something is bothering me, the kid is usually on me like a pit-bull, trying to
get me to talk about the aforementioned something.  As with most rules,
there is an exception to this; and in this particular case, the exception
was in effect.  If Sandburg thinks that it’s something *he’s* done that’s the
cause of my bad mood, the kid clams up tighter than a damned mollusk.  I
guess he figures that if he can keep quiet enough, maybe I won’t explode on 
him.  I hate to tell him this, but seeing him creep around like an errant 
schoolboy does more to set me off than those times when he actively tries 
to drag it out of me.  End of lecture.

	And so there we were.  I had one nerve left and Sandburg’s version
of the silent treatment was grating on it like a dancer doing an Irish jig.  I
closed my eyes and sighed.

	When I opened my eyes, Sandburg’s deep blues were staring back at
me in the window.  There was an expression on his beautiful face that I had
never seen before, and for some unknown reason, it irritated me that I
couldn’t interpret it.  Usually I can read his face as easily as I could a
Dick and Jane book.

	His eyes never left mine, as he finally broke the stalemate between us. 
“All right Jim.  What is it?”

	“What’s what?” I replied.  Okay, not my best dodge, but hey,
sometimes being the brawn half of our partnership works to my advantage.

	“C’mon, Jim.  Give it up.”  Those blue eyes bore into me via the
reflection.

	“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Sandburg.”  I didn’t spend
all those years as CIA liaison without learning anything.  Deny, deny, deny.

	The music continued without pause.  “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not
to bullshit a bullshitter?”  I let silence be my answer, but Sandburg wasn’t
having any of it.  I jumped a little from the sudden noise as he slammed the
stack of papers against the coffee table.  “Look, man.  I’ve already
apologized for all the crap with Iris and the heroin.  What, do you want to
hear it again?”

	The irritation in his voice pushed me that much closer to the edge. 
Taking a deep breath to control my temper, I raised my eyes to look out over
the water.  Sometimes I get the impression that Sandburg can read my mind. 
This, however, was not one of those times.   Everything about me was
screaming ‘let it go, Chief,’ and yet the kid ignored the warnings.  

	I could feel those intelligent eyes boring holes into the back of my
head.  It was a battle of wills, and as stubborn as the kid is, he was no
match for me this time.  The unease that had come up between us for the 
past three weeks was way too close to the surface for my liking.  It had 
been building up like methane over a swamp, and the only thing I saw was 
Sandburg standing in the middle of it deliberately trying to light a match.

	After what seemed like an eternity, Sandburg finally broke the new
silence that had settled over us.  My eyes returned to his reflection and I
gasped slightly at the anger I saw oozing out of his every pore.  His eyes
reminded me of the bay during a bad storm; deep blue marred by the raging
currents just under the surface.  His face was usually eager and innocent, but
at that moment it seemed almost cold and aloof.

	“This isn’t about today, is it Jim?” he accused.  Shaking his head as if
answering his own question, he began his inquisition.  “What *is* going on
with you, man?”

	“For the last fucking time, Sandburg. There is *nothing* going on,” I
insisted through my clenched jaw.  Ooohh, now there was an intelligent thing
to say.  I bet they were just waiting to give me my Mensa card after that.  I
should have just waved a red flag in front of the kid; it would have saved
time.

	I guess I should point out that this was where I got my first surprise
of the evening, because the next thing I knew, Blair exploded like nothing I’d
ever seen before.

	“Oh Christ, spare me!  What in the hell is going here, what’s
happened to you?  Ever since the Chopec showed up, you’ve been treating
me like a I’m some kind of goddamned stranger and I am so *fucking* sick
of it!” Sandburg raged.  “I’m your friend, and damn it, if that’s not enough,
I’m your guide!  Now quit shutting me out and tell me what in the fuck is
bothering you!”

	A small part of me was shocked.  I don’t think I ever heard him curse
so much in all the time that I’ve known him.  But like I said, only a small
part of me was surprised.  The rest of me was livid.  Something about his
outburst triggered one of my own.

	“My problem is that you’re just *a* guide, not *my* guide” I spat.

	“And just what in the hell is that supposed to mean?” Sandburg
yelled.

	“Jesus, Sandburg, I wouldn’t even know where to start,” I threw
back at him.

	“Well, you’ve been brooding about it for weeks now.  Don’t tell me
even *you* couldn’t reach some kind of conclusion in all that time,” he said
with the same kind of contempt he usually saved for rogue CIA operatives
and local militiamen.

	That was low, even for Sandburg.  It also told me exactly where we
stood.  Although the kid is a lot stronger than most people -- myself included
-- give him credit for, he’s simply no match for me physically.  The problem
was that this little argument was being held in the verbal arena, where he had
the decisive advantage.  Sandburg was a pastmaster when it came to using
words as a weapons, and that little jab at my intelligence was simply a
reminder that we were playing on his field.  Of course, I can see exactly what
he was doing, now that I’m looking back on it.  At the time, though, I was
way too pissed off to bother analyzing the situation.

	Anger welled up inside me at the insult.  With every bit of sarcasm I
could muster, I met Sandburg at the level he had sunk to.  “Oh come on,
Professor.  You can do better than a cheap shot like that.  Oh, wait, maybe
I’m getting ahead of myself here.  After all, you do have to actually *finish*
your thesis before I can call you that, right?  Or are you just planning on
playing cop-wannabe for the rest of your life.”  As soon as the words were
out of my mouth, Sandburg recoiled as if I’d just shot him.  

	Ladies and gentlemen, there you have it.  I, James Joseph Ellison,
Sentinel of the Great City and Blessed Protector of Blair Sandburg, finally
managed to push said Blessed Protectee past the established boundaries of
his temper.  In simple English, the kid lost it.  Once the initial shock
over my words passed, he moved straight into a level of outrage that I never 
guessed he was capable of reaching.  It was the kind of sheer fury that was 
so intense, he was going to have to work hard just to get back to being 
majorly pissed off. 

	“*THAT?*  That’s what this whole thing is about?  My goddamned
dissertation?”  The anger that clouded his deep blue eyes faded, quickly
replaced by a look so cold, it could have frozen vodka.  The way his eyes
narrowed sent a chill down my spine, as did the sneering tone of his voice.  I
had pushed too far, and now he was going to push back.  “I never realized
that you had such a low opinion of me, Ellison.  ‘Cop-wannabe’ huh.  Man, I
must have made you look so bad down at the station in front of all your
big-bad cop friends.”

	I could hear his heartbeat racing at speeds that should have been
reserved for marathon runners.  As he spoke, Sandburg moved over to the
coffee table and began shoving his laptop and the stack of exams he needed
to grade into his backpack.  Once it was zipped up, I saw him fish in his
pocket for his keys.   Then to my ultimate horror, he set about removing the
one that unlocked the deadbolt to the loft from the ring.

	“Thanks, Jim.  Thanks for reminding me why I never let anybody get
close.  I forgot the rule that says people only use you until they don’t need
you anymore. Do you think you can grant me the simple courtesy of not
throwing my things on the street tonight?  I’ll come for the rest of my
stuff.”  

	I was in shock.  The only thing I can remember about that moment
was the little voice in the back of my head chanting:  ‘Too far, too far, you
pushed him too far.’
	
	Fortunately, he paused at the door for another barb.  “Oh, and Jim,
try not to get your ass blown off when you zone in the middle of a shoot
out.”  With a twisted sneer, he took one last parting shot.  “Have a nice
fucking life, Ellison.”

	As soon as he opened the door, I found some portion of my sanity
again.  Just what in the hell was I doing?  All I can say is, thank God
instinct took over.  I wasn’t even consciously aware of my actions as I 
called out to him.

	“Blair, please!” I can’t remember another time my voice sounded so
needy and helpless.  Moving of their own volition, my legs quickly covered
the space that separated us.  I grabbed him in a hug, clinging to him
desperately, as a disoriented apology rambled from my mouth.  “Please, I’m
sorry.  I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I said that.  Please Blair, I need
you...”

	With those last words, I felt a minute bit of the tension in his body
relax.  Maybe it was some kind of guide instinct, maybe it was the tone of my
voice, or the apology I offered; whatever the reason he shrugged my arms off
tiredly and pushed the door closed.
 	
	It surprised me when I saw him suddenly close his eyes as if seeking
divine patience.  He took a deep breath and held it for ten seconds, a
technique he’d long tried to teach me to control my own temper.  It never
seemed to work for me, but it must have had some positive effect on him.  
Just a moment later, his eyes opened and he moved to the kitchen to boil
some water for tea.  I studied him carefully, the economy of his movements
and the combination of hurt and lingering anger in his eyes told me that the
matter was *far* from over.

	“Get out, Jim,” he said without even looking at me.  All the life and
animation that usually exuded from him was gone, leaving an empty shell
that only resembled Blair Sandburg before me.  

	It took a minute for his words to register.  When it finally hit me, I
felt a quick swell of resignation at being asked to leave my own home.  He
must have realized what I was thinking.  

	“I didn’t mean out of the loft, I just meant out of the room.  Go
upstairs, or on the balcony, or something.  I need to process this, and I
can’t do it with you here.”

	With a jerky nod, I retreated upstairs to my bedroom.  I extended all
of my senses to monitor my guide -- not only to insure that he was okay, but
also to make sure he didn’t try to slip out of the loft.  Blair’s heart rate 
was still elevated, but it was slowly returning to normal.  I didn’t realize
that I had my hearing turned up quite so high until the teapot boiled, it’s 
whistle deafening me momentarily.  I missed him pouring the water and opening 
the teabag, but I did hear him settle into the sofa.  The familiar sounds of
one of his meditation breathing patterns started a minute later.  Suddenly, I 
felt as though I was invading his privacy, so I did my best to tune out the 
sounds of his respiration.

	There was nothing else I could do for the moment but wait until he
calmed himself enough to hash this all out.  Sitting ramrod straight on the
edge of my bed, I watched the minutes tick by on the clock.  For the first
time since my sentinel abilities emerged, I found myself praying for a zone
out, desperately wanting to lose myself in the oblivion that I can only find 
in that state.  Just my luck, my thoughts were far too scattered to 
concentrate long enough on any one of my senses to zone.

	An old feeling crept over me, the same kind of anxiousness I used to
experience as a kid when I knew I was going to be punished sometime in the
near future.  It was a special kind of helpless fear, one that I hope I never
have to go through again.  Time seemed to stop as I watched the digital
clock by my bed.  It took every ounce of willpower I had not to peek over
and check on my guide, but somehow I knew he would take it as another
betrayal of his trust.  No.  He had asked for time alone, and it was my
obligation to honor his request as completely as I could.

	Forty-five minutes passed by before I heard him call up to me in a
normal tone of voice.  Eagerness and guilt warred with each other in my
mind as I slowly made my way down the stairs.  I can only imagine that I
must have looked like a Christian going off to face the lions as I moved
across the living room and found a seat at the opposite end of the couch
from my guide.

	We stared at each other for awhile, neither of us quite sure where to
begin.  After an eternity of silence, Blair finally spoke.  The usually
soothing timbre of his voice was marred by the hint of steely determination 
that underscored it.  “I’ve seen you at your best, and I thought I’d seen you 
at your worst, but I was wrong.”  I started to apologize again, but the words
died on my lips when he stopped me with an open hand.  “Let me finish.  I
don’t know what in the hell happened earlier.  I’ve never seen you go off like
that.  But I will tell you this.  If you *ever* do that to me again, I’m
history.  I’ll be so gone, you won’t even have a license plate to track me by,
understand?” 

	All I could manage was a jerking nod of my head.  “I’m sorry, Blair. 
You didn’t deserve any of that, and I’m sorry that I snapped.”

	   “I know, Jim.  And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry, too,” he replied
with a touch of tenderness in his voice.  I could have cried in relief when I
heard it.  It gave me hope that maybe -- just maybe -- we could work
through this.  “Now that’s been said, let’s try to sort this out.”

	The calmness in his voice caught me off guard.  It always amazed me
at just how mercurial Sandburg could be.  Oh, don’t get me wrong; I knew
that our friendship had just taken a heavy blow.  In the span of a few
seconds, I’d manage to destroy the level of trust we’d worked so hard for
two years to achieve.  I owed it to both of us to try and talk through this,
despite how much I hated opening up about any of my feelings.  I’d hurt him
enough for one night; and if I didn’t talk now, the damage I’d done would
probably be irreversible.

	“I’ve been going back over it in my mind.  Maybe we should start
with that crack about my dissertation.” Blair began.

	‘*Start*?’ I thought to myself.  Damn.  Despite my pledge a few
seconds earlier, I’d hoped that Blair had forgotten about my guide comment.  
Sighing deeply, I turned to face him with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner
about to go before a firing squad.  “A couple of weeks ago, you admitted
that you had been stalling finishing up your dissertation, and it’s been
bugging me ever since.”  I could see Sandburg’s mental wheels turning until
the spark of recognition flared in his eyes.  “That night in your old truck, 
the night Janet was...” he trailed off as the memory of our disagreement hit 
him.  We’d had words over the topic as I searched for Incacha.

	“Killed,” I supplied.  “That’s why I didn’t want to bring it up before.
I know that it’s still pretty fresh for you.”

	“I’m okay with it,” he stated gently, unable to hide the sadness in his
expression.

	“Liar,” I replied softly.  “I know it’s hard, Chief, but you saw the
police report.  She went downstairs almost as soon as she hung up the
phone.  Even if we’d left the loft as soon as you finished talking to her, we
still wouldn’t have made it in time.”

	“I know, but it doesn’t make it any easier.”  I reached out to put a
hand on his shoulder, wanting to lend him some of my strength.  He managed
to give me a small smile, thanking me for the emotional support.

	We sat that way for a few moments before he went back to the
original topic.  “Why does it bother you so much that I haven’t finished my
thesis?”

	I brought my hand up to massage away some of the tension in my
neck as I tried to find the words to express my feelings on the subject.
“I...I don’t know why exactly.  Maybe it’s just me.  You know me, I can’t 
stand to leave a project unfinished.”

	Okay, it was a lame answer.  I knew it, but so did Sandburg.

	“Huh-uh, Jim.  There’s more to it than that,” he admonished.

	Rather than try to come up with an answer, I decided to turn the
tables on him.  “Why have you been stalling on finishing it?”

	Surprised by the question, Blair stammered out his answer.  “I...I
thought w..we went over this.  I’m kinda worried that once it’s finished, I
won’t have an ‘official’” he made quote marks in the air with his fingers,
“reason to keep my observer status.”

	“C’mon, Chief.  You’re the King of Obfuscation.  I’m sure we can
come up with another perfectly good reason for you to stick around.  Simon
and I have been discussing it...”

	His eyes widened in shock as he interrupted me.  “*Simon*??” he
asked incredulously.

	I laughed a little for the first time in what seemed like ages.  “You
know, for someone who is supposed to be a trained observer, I would have
thought you’d’ve had Simon figured out by now.   I meant what I said when
I told you he’s developed a tolerance for you.  If you ever tell him I told
you this, I’ll flat out deny it; but I think he’s come to respect you in some
ways.  Well, maybe not your methods, but definitely your strength of
character.”

	Blair’s face lit up like a Christmas tree as the words registered with
him.  We sat there grinning at each other for a moment before he returned
back to the matter at hand.  “Y’know, Jim, it’s not like I haven’t given any
thought on ways I can keep my Observer status.  Maybe once I finish my
dissertation, I can work on a series of articles based on the story we’ve been
using so far.   Y’know, the whole closed-society of the police force thing. 
I’m sure I could find some journal or another that would be...” 

	It was at that point, I found the courage to ask about one of my own
personal fears.  “What happens when you finish it?  I mean, what happens to
your status at Rainier?”

	I could see Blair’s brows knit together in confusion.  “I get my
degree, I become a Ph.D., and if they have an opening, I teach,” he said
slowly as he tried to figure out where I was going with this.

	“And what happens if there aren’t any openings?  What do you do
then?” I hammered out the questions, leading him to where I wanted him to
go, just as if I was interrogating a witness.

	“Well, I’ll apply at other schools nearby, I guess.  Or find something
else to tide me over until something opens up somewhere.  Or I can apply for
a field study, that kind of thing.”

	“Ah,” I said as if I’d just found enlightenment.  “And what happens
to us?   I mean, what happens when some great opportunity comes up that
requires you to go halfway around the world on some expedition, or if you
get a job offer from a college on the East Coast?  If you’re busy going off to
who-knows-where or working a 9 to 5 job, who’s going to watch my back?” 
I could see it in his eyes as he finally figured out what my point was. 

	“Jim, *I’m* your guide.  You gotta know that I’d never leave you if
there was a chance that you’d zone out...”  His voice steadily grew softer, as
if he were afraid to continue.

	“What is it, Chief?”  I followed his eyes as they fell to lap.  He was
playing with the two small silver rings on his middle finger and thumb.  It
was a habit that annoyed the shit out of me, but when I saw his distress, I
let it go.  I could see that he wasn’t going to tell me what was obviously
disturbing him, so I decided to push a little in an ironic reversal of our
normal roles.  “C’mon, Chief.  We need to clear the air between us.  I don’t 
want another repeat of what happened earlier, okay?  So, c’mon, talk to me.” 

	With his head bowed, Blair looked like a small child, terrified of
having to confess for some misdeed.  When he still wouldn’t meet my eyes, I
reached out a hand and gently began to stroke his cheek.  The gesture
seemed to paralyze him for a moment.  I almost pulled my hand away, afraid
that I had crossed the line of acceptable casual contact.  Blair surprised me
by closing his eyes and leaning into the touch ever so slightly.

	The contact must have given him some measure of comfort, because
after a short pause, he began to speak in a tone so low, I needed to use my
sentinel abilities to hear it.  “I...I’ve...uh...I never asked you...that
is...I just assumed that you wanted... m-me t-to stick around after...I 
mean...I’m s-sure you wouldn’t m-mind h-having the loft b-back to yourself...”

	“Oh God, Chief,” I whispered as I closed my eyes in anguish.  How
could he even think that I wouldn’t want him, wouldn’t *need* him with me? 
‘Maybe because you never told him,’ I thought, disgusted at myself.  ‘Maybe
because you were so busy berating him for his mistakes.  Maybe because you
didn’t thank him or praise him for all the little things he does to make your
life easier.  Maybe because all you did was lay down a bunch of house rules
that were a constant reminder that he was encroaching on your territory?’

	While I was mentally kicking myself about eight different ways, I
reached out and pulled him into a hug, holding him tightly in a display of
what I was unable to articulate at the moment.  I don’t think I’ve ever been
so relieved as the moment his arms flew around my waist, using all of his
considerable strength to squeeze me tight enough to make my ribs ache.  One
of my hands crept up to tangle in the silky curls while the other rhythmically
stroked his back in an effort to relieve some of the tension that had him
coiled tighter than a spring.

	“Listen to me carefully, Blair,” my quiet whisper was laced with pure
steel.  “Don’t *ever* think that I don’t want you here.  You are my partner;
and more importantly, you are my friend.  This is your *home,* Blair, for as
long as you want it to be.”

	A dry sob escaped from him, muffled by his cradled position in my
arms.   A small chuckle escape from me as the irony of it all hit; the sound
causing Blair’s brow knit in confusion.  “I was just thinking about what a
pair we are:  I’m terrified that you’re gonna bail as soon as you finish your
thesis, and you’re thinking that I expect you to leave once it’s done.”

	Blair managed a small smile and laugh of his own, but still kept his
arms around me tightly.  I have no idea how long we stayed that way,
clinging to each other as if we could keep the whole world at bay.  It could
have been minutes, it could have been hours; either way, I was grateful for
the opportunity just hold him in my arms.  

	Relaxing a fraction, I opened up my senses, allowing them to be filled
with Blair.  My hand was still tangled in the silky mass of his hair.
Carefully I rolled a curl between my thumb and finger, enjoying the feel 
of each individual strand as it came into contact with my skin.  The sweet 
herbal scent of his shampoo tickled my nose, merging and mixing with his own
natural smell.  However, it was the heat from his body where it came into
contact with my own that was driving me insane.  There was little I could do
to prevent my growing level of arousal that was causing my blood to go
south.  I was already halfway hard when Blair suddenly pulled away to pin
me with absolutely lifeless eyes.  He seemed to contemplate what to say
before he opened his mouth to release the words that ended up cutting me to
the quick.

	“So, I’m your friend and your partner, but I’m not your guide.”

	As soon as he said it, my jaw hung open in shock.

	“That’s what you said earlier, isn’t it?  ‘I’m *a* guide, but I’m not
*your* guide?’”  

	I was amazed at how calmly he recited my words back to me.  To be
honest, I’d forgotten about it as my desire for him grew.  The fight we had
just an hour or so ago already seemed like a lifetime in the past.  All I knew
was that I felt drained by the emotional bloodletting we’d already done, and I
was nowhere near ready for this particular conversation.  So I pulled a
‘Sandburg’, trying to verbally dodge the topic.

	“Chief,” I said in my most placating tone as I shook my head.  “I’m
sorry I said that, I was angry and just wanted to get a rise out of you.”

	One look at his face told me he wasn’t buying any of it.  In fact, Blair
looked hurt that I even tried.  He jumped off the couch, avoiding the arm I
threw out to prevent the move.

	“Don’t, Jim.  Just don’t.”  

	The tone of warning in his voice scared the shit out of me, wringing
an apology from my lips before my mind even had a chance to form the
words.  “I’m sorry, Chief!    Don’t go!” I pleaded, but to no avail.

	Blair crossed the room to stand in front of the windows, unknowingly
duplicating the same stance I had hours ago.  Time stood still as I waited to
see if he would walk out the door, and out of my life.  Eventually, I started
to wonder whether he found it as annoying as I did, to be silently dismissed
in favor of the view.  

	When he turned suddenly to face me, I could see his eyes flare.  I felt
paralyzed as I waited to see what his next move was going to be.  As it was,
I’m still surprised I didn’t have a stroke over what he said when he finally
spoke.

	“Imaynata.”

	His gaze could have pierced through solid rock.  Those normally
expressive blues were studying me as if I was one of the ancient artifacts he
authenticates.  It felt like those beautiful azure eyes were looking
straight to my soul, as if they sought to find the truth hidden there.

	“What did you say?” I asked, surprised I could speak at all
considering the size of the lump in my throat.  Oh, I knew damned good and
well what he’d just said; I only wondered if *he* knew what those words
meant.

	“Imaynata,” he repeated.  “I believe the English translation is
something along the lines of ‘how’, depending upon which Peruvian tribe
you happen to be speaking to at the time.  Of course,  by adding ‘ta’ to the
end of ‘imayna’ it changes the nature of the word into a question.”

	From the way he spoke, he could have been lecturing one of his
Anthro 101 classes, not sending me into cardiac arrest, which happened to be
exactly what he was doing.  My heart was beating so fast, it wouldn’t have
surprised me in the least if it leapt out my chest and started doing a
step-show on the floor in front of me.  I was sure he could hear it from
halfway across the room, it was pounding so loudly.

	“H-how did you...” I managed to stammer.

	“Remember when Incacha was dying?  When he grabbed my arm? 
You translated everything he said into English so that I could understand. 
You told me that he passed the way of the Shaman over to me, and that he
wanted me to take you to where the animal spirit lived.  I told you to tell
him that I didn’t know how.  Remember that?”

	As if I could forget?  The events that happened in those few minutes
were forever burned into my memory.  I noticed that Blair was waiting for
some kind of signal from me, so I nodded to let him know that he could
continue.

	His eyes never wavered from mine as he resumed his explanation. 
“’Imaynata.’  You kept repeating it over and over, but Incacha didn’t have
the strength to answer you.  I was so...overwhelmed at the time -- what with
Incacha dying, you needing to get your sentinel powers back on-line,
wondering how I was supposed become this Shaman -- anyway, I really
didn’t think much about it until later.  After everything kinda settled down a
little, those words kept popping up in my head.  I thought maybe you were
just calling out to Incacha, since that was the only thing in Chopec you never
bothered to translate for me.”

	I’m ashamed to admit it, but my hopes soared momentarily, that Blair
would accept that I was simply telling Incacha to hold on or something like
that.  I should have known better.  My luck was never that good.

	Blair continued his speech without even bothering to take a breath. 
“I contacted a Professor down at UCLA who specializes in Peruvian tribal
cultures to find out more about the role and responsibilities of a Shaman in
the tribe, so I ended up asking him about it.”

	A pained expression crossed that beautiful face.  “When he told me
what it meant, it didn’t make any sense, Jim.  I remember you asking how I
was supposed to guide you to where your spirit animal was, and how he got
this look, like you knew exactly what you were supposed to do.  You knew,
didn’t you, Jim?  That’s why you looked so surprised.  That’s why you kept
shouting ‘imaynata’.  Didn’t you want me to be your guide and Shaman?”
Blair’s eyes rose to meet mine, filled with hurt and accusation.

	‘What is he talking...’ I thought to myself before I realized that Blair
had totally misinterpreted the meaning of the words, putting the emphasis on
the word ‘him’.  I called his name to get his attention, to try to explain,
but Blair kept on going without giving me the chance. 

	“I mean I know I’m a pain in the ass from time to time, but I was
sure that you wouldn’t have put up with me all this time if you didn’t want
me as your guide.  But then I started...” Blair trailed, his eyes moving down
to study the floor.

	“Started to what, Chief?” I prompted.  As much as I did *not* want
to have this conversation, I was curious about what Sandburg was unwilling
to admit.  I patted the cushion next to mine, hoping that he would find it
easier to open up if he were more comfortable.

	Blair took me up on the offer and moved over to the couch, but he
chose to leave some more distance between us than what I had indicated. 
Fidgeting with his rings, he spoke quietly.  “I started having these dreams.”

	“What kind of dreams, Chief?” I asked softly, careful to ensure there
wasn’t a single hint of humor or disbelief in my voice.  Oh, I knew just how
serious this was, but I needed to make sure Blair knew it as well.

	“I’m in the jungle,” he began in a hushed tone.  “I look around for
you, but I can’t find you anywhere, so I start running, hoping to find you or
maybe your spirit guide.  It never happens.  Each dream I go deeper into the
jungle, and in each dream, something happens to me -- I fall into a hole, get
caught in a snare, shot with an arrow  -- every time I scream your name, but
each time I do, I hear a voice in my head.  It always say the same thing,
‘claim him.’  I call out, begging for someone to help me, but nobody comes,
and...and I die.  I die alone, Jim; scared and alone.”  Blair’s voice rose in
both pitch and volume as he talked, the memory of his fear raising him to a
level of panic.  

	I was trying my best to calm him down, but nothing I did helped.  He
had already worked himself into a frenzy. “Tell me what you think that
means!” he demanded.  He grabbed my arms, his fingers painfully digging
into my biceps.  

	“Sandburg!  Stop it!” I shouted to get his attention.  The sound of my
voice must have reached him.  Blair’s grip on my arms relaxed just a bit and
some of the wildness left his expression, but I could still feel the small
tremors that were racking his body.  I looked carefully into his eyes,
half-afraid of what I knew I would find there.  I was right.  

	“You already know what it means, Blair,” I sighed tiredly.

	An odd look crossed his face, something in between panic and
disbelief.   “You h-have to claim my...body,” he whispered as a shiver ran
through his small frame.
	
	My throat had closed up completely, so I nodded to indicate he had
got it in one.  I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind as he
thought through the implications for what was probably the first time.  It’s 
one of the things that irritates me the most about Sandburg.  Yeah, the kid 
comes up with some great ideas, it’s just that he never seems to think about 
the consequences of his actions until he’s already in up to his neck.  Now 
maybe he would understand why I’d tried so hard to avoid this confrontation 
at all costs.

	“Animals...genetic throwb...marking territ...panth...”   Sandburg was
talking to himself, one of his habits when he’s working through a difficult
problem.  Even with my heightened hearing, I could only make out a few
words here and there.

	Suddenly, Blair eyes flew up to meet my own, the deep blue color
they only turned when he was afraid.  “Do panthers mate for life?”

	“I don’t know, Darwin.  Besides, in case it’s escaped your attention,
neither one of us is a panther,” I joked weakly.

	Blair ignored me as he kept trying to put all the pieces together.  “In
my dreams, the voice says ‘claim him’.  Does that mean I’m supposed to...” 
He left the sentence unfinished, almost as if he were afraid to find out the
answer.

	Not wanting to miss a single microsecond of his reaction, I didn’t
even blink as I responded in a hushed whisper.  “Yes.  Both of us.  It’s...” I
swallowed as I struggled to remember how Incacha had described it to me so
long ago.  “It has to be an exchange,  taking...and giving.  It’s the only
way.”

	Blair still had that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look, visibly bracing
himself before he asked his next question.  “And, is it a...” he paused as he
searched for the best word, “permanent thing?”

	“It doesn’t have to be,” I answered honestly before I even thought
about how it would sound to the scared man standing in front of me.

	“But...do you *want* it to be?” Blair asked, his voice and posture
both timid as hell.

	It was my turn to freeze.  If I said too much, I might just lose Blair
for good.  Nothing like thinking that your best friend, who you thought was
straight as an arrow,  wants you to play the little missus for him on a
nightly basis.  I knew I needed to tread very carefully, so I did the first 
thing that came to mind:  I steered the conversation off on a tangent.

	“Chief, this,” I paused as I gestured into the air to indicate the
situation, “this is the final step as sentinel and guide.  We don’t *have*
to do this, we can keep working together just like we have been for the past 
couple of years.”

	“Final step?  What happens if we do decide to do this?”

	I swallowed hard, already anticipating the onslaught of questions my
next words were going to bring.  Sometimes Sandburg was so predictable. 
“It...bonds us to each other, allows us to meet where the Spirit Guide lives. 
I’m not sure how to explain it other than we become part of each other,
literally and figuratively.”

	He gave me that damned ‘I’m trying to follow what you’re saying’
look; the one where his head is tilted forward, his mouth is slightly opened,
and his eyebrows are pinched in concentration.  Usually I love it when he
looks at me like that, his curiosity is so sweetly endearing.  But I digress.

	“Bonded? Sooo, what exactly are you saying here?  Telepathy? 
Empathy?”  Sandburg’s hands flew into action, accentuating his every word. 
One of these days, I’m going to test a little theory of mine to see if his
hands and mouth are somehow hard wired to each other.  It shouldn’t be that
difficult to test, all I need are my handcuffs.  God, the visual alone from
that thought caused my blood to rush straight to my groin.  It took every bit 
of willpower I had to get my mind back on track.  The last thing I wanted to 
do was have this conversation with a hard-on; like Blair wasn’t startled 
enough already. 

	I shook my head.  “Calm down, Chief.  It’s not anything that
dramatic, well, at least not the way you’re making it sound.”  As I finished
my statement, Blair’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.  

	Uh-oh.  ‘Batten down the hatches,’ my mind screamed as I watched
Blair’s clever little mind fit the last piece into the jigsaw puzzle.  This
whole thing must have thrown him more than I originally suspected, since it 
took him so long to reach the obvious conclusions.   

	“You did this before, with Incacha.”  The tone of jealousy in his
voice took me totally by surprise.

	“Yes.  He was my guide, Chief,” I answered, hoping that would
explain it all.  

	Did I mention before that I wasn’t *that* lucky?

	“Is that the reason you never mentioned this little addendum to the
guide job description?  What, was I just the second-rate understudy until
Incacha could track you down, or until you could go back to him?” Blair’s
voice was dripping sarcasm by the time he finished.

	For my part, I was torn between being pissed off and being flattered
by his jealousy.   Although his words were meant to hurt me, they had my
heart dancing while my hormones jumped around in my body like little tiny
cheerleaders.  If losing Blair was my greatest fear, then the idea of him
actually being in love with me was my most cherished and secret desire.

	“You were never my second choice, Blair,” I said, hoping that the
use of his given name would show him just how serious I was.  “If anything,
Incacha was the second-string quarterback for me.”  I could see that my
word alone wasn’t going to be good enough, Blair needed more from me this
time.

  	“When I was rescued from Peru, the team that pulled me out gave me
some time to gather my things and say my good-byes.  Incacha wasn’t just
my guide, he was also a powerful shaman.  He knew that I would be leaving
the Chopec before the people in D.C. even discovered the wreckage from the
crash.  Incacha told me before I left that I would always be a sentinel as
long as *I* chose to be.  I think he knew some of what was going to happen 
when I got back, that I would lose my abilities until the time was right.
Don’t you think it’s odd that my senses came back on-line just before you 
found me, Chief?  As much as I’d like to blame pure luck or bad timing, 
that’s just too much of a coincidence for me.”

	Blair seemed to ponder my words, so I took the opportunity to press
onwards.  “If my word isn’t enough for you, then take Incacha’s.  When he
was dying, he passed along the way of the Shaman to you, Chief.  Don’t you
see?  *You* are the one who is supposed to be my guide.  Incacha *knew*
that we hadn’t taken that final step, so he gave you his blessing, his
encouragement to take your place as my guide.”

	Silence descended over the loft after that, it’s presence like a living
thing, unnerving me.  Even the normal sounds that come from the city
seemed muted in the background.  I have no idea how long we stood there,
but as my legs were starting to cramp from the lack of activity, so I eased
further back into the couch.  Blair followed my lead before speaking again.

	“Tell me what happened with Incacha,” he asked quietly.

	I raised my eyebrows as I relayed the story.  “There isn’t much to
tell.  He was the shaman for the Chopec, took me in after they found me
wandering around the jungle two weeks after I buried the last of my team
members from the crash.  My abilities had already begun to show themselves,
which freaked me out even more than losing my team.  But Incacha knew
what was happening and began teaching me how to use my senses to benefit
the tribe.  I lived with him and his wife in their hut...”  

	At the mention of Incacha’s wife, Blair’s eyes got as round as
saucers.  “Yes, Chief, he was married.  One night after we came back from
scouting the jungle around the village, we went back to the hut.  I was kinda
surprised that Caanei wasn’t there, but I guess she knew what was going to
happen.  Incacha told me what we needed to do and that it was necessary to
make me stronger, better able to protect the tribe.  At first, I thought it
was some sick joke or something, but then the tribe’s medicine woman came in
and explained to me why it was necessary, so I gave in.”  I ran my face in my
hands, as if it could somehow shield me from what I was about to divulge.
	
	“I didn’t have the first clue what I was supposed to do.  Christ, like I
had any experience at all with men?  Yeah, right.  I started to freak out, but
Incacha started talking to me in that guide voice.  You know, that tone of
voice you use has got to be a genetic ‘guide’ thing.  Incacha had it, so do
you.  Somehow, it reaches through and relaxes me like nothing else can,”  I
said as aside while I shot Blair a mock-glare.   I could almost see Sandburg
trying to compose the title for the new chapter in his dissertation as he
considered my opinion.  “Anyway, once he got me calmed down,
we...well...”  There was no way in hell I was going to finish that particular
statement.  I could already feel the telltale tingling sensation as a blush
crept up from my neck to my forehead.  

	“Yeah, Jim, I get the picture,” Blair grinned wryly at me, getting
some enjoyment out of seeing me embarrassed for a change.  I heard his
breathy chuckle as he openly stared at the sight of Jim Ellison actually
blushing.  I don’t do it very often, so he took full advantage of the
opportunity when it presented itself.  

	The smile was long gone by the time he asked, or maybe I should say
stammered, his next question.  “Did...um...that is...did you...”

	Knowing exactly where he was going with it, I let him squirm as I
waited for him to get the words out.  Cruel?  Maybe.  But I sure as hell
wasn’t gonna be the only one with a red face during this conversation.

	“...um...did you, like, enjoy it?”  Jesus, I’d seen women deliver babies
in less time than it took him to get that sentence out of his mouth.

	“I wouldn’t say that I enjoyed it.  I mean, it was so awkward, not just
physically, but it was something I was taught was wrong all my life,
y’know?”  I shrugged, my own non-verbal way of telling Blair that I didn’t
know how else to describe it.

	Apparently, he got the message.  I watched as the spark of interest in
his eyes was quickly replaced by something that bore a pretty close
resemblance to despair.  Wanting to know what put it there, I asked him
bluntly.

	When he refused to look at me directly, I grabbed Blair’s chin to get
his attention.  With a heavy sigh, his head rose slightly, making me wince as
he scored a direct hit with that ‘Sandburg Puppy-dog Look.’  The sadness in
his voice when he spoke squeezed my heart like a giant fist.

	“I can’t, Jim.  I can’t do...this...with you.” 

	“What?  Why?” Vocabulary?  Just try coming up with a brilliant line
of dialogue when your heart is being ripped from your chest.

	The strange thing was that the same emotions I was feeling were
plastered all over Blair’s face.

	“C’mon, Jim, listen to what you just said.”  As I thought back over
my words, Blair kept right on going.  “You said you didn’t enjoy it, that you
did it because it was your duty, a part of your responsibility to the tribe. 
You talk about it like it’s another chore to do.  ‘Oh, I have to go to the
doctor; or I have to take the trash out tonight.  Gee, I have to fuck Blair so
he can be my Guide.  I don’t think so!’”

	“Blair!  You’ve got it all wrong...”  I tried to explain, but he was on a
roll, fueled by his misplaced outrage.

	“Do I, Jim?  Do I really have it so wrong?  You’re a heterosexual,
white male in a career that is, as a general rule, traditionally homophobic. 
That you’re willing to do this, well, I guess it’s admirable, but I won’t let
myself be used like that.”

	Was I stunned by his tirade?  Not even close, I passed stunned and
moved straight into devastated.  I can’t think of a word powerful enough to
describe how hurt I was over Blair’s low opinion of me.  That was probably
why I said what I did next. 

	“You think I’m homophobic?”  I ground out, accompanied by a bark
of ironic laughter.  “That’s rich, Sandburg.  That’s really rich.  If I’m so
damned homophobic, then tell me, Professor, why the hell am I in love with
my straight *male* roommate!”

	Pindrop, anyone?  Blair’s mouth opened and closed a few times, so
like the guppy I often tease him of resembling.  I was shaking like a leaf
myself, none to steady after the suicidal jump I had just taken off that
cliff.

	Then, without so much as a second of warning, Blair flung himself
against me, pressing his mouth tightly against my own.

	Unprepared for Blair’s sudden attack, my mind scrambled to sort out
the barrage of information my senses were reporting to it all at once.   My
eyes, already dilated from the soft lighting in the room, were unable to
focus, lost in the sea of sapphire blue before me.  The menagerie of smells 
that combine to form what I can only describe as ‘Sandburg’ assaulted my
olfactory sense; shampoo, deodorant, shaving balm, his own natural scent,
were all underscored by a trace of fear and the rising musk that only came
from sexual arousal.  My nerves were dancing from the electricity that lanced
through my skin every place our bodies touched.  The heat from his body
alone was enough to roast marshmallows; but when added to my own rapidly
rising temperature, I’m surprised we didn’t just spontaneously combust right
there in the living room.  I could hear it all, too, from the small, nasal
breaths of air he was drawing to the soft moans of approval that emanated 
from the back of his throat.  

	Sure, I’d experienced most of those sensations at some time or other.
Granted, not in the context or the intensity that I was getting at the
time.  All at once, it was pretty damn close to overwhelming.  

	But nothing could prepare me for my first taste of Blair.  Ambrosia. 
Isn’t that what they called it?  The food of the ancient gods that was so
succulent, so wonderfully pleasing, it turned the mortals who tasted it into
gods themselves?

	Ambrosia had nothing on the sweetness of Blair Sandburg’s mouth.

	It would have been so easy to lose myself in my first real taste of
Blair.  I mean, think about it, how often does one get the opportunity to
‘taste’ another person?  See my point?  With the one still-functioning brain
cell I had, I somehow managed to keep from zoning out, though.

	And then it hit me.  *Blair* was kissing me, throwing himself -- quite
literally, I might add -- at me.  My most secret desire, my most powerful
fantasy, was finally within my grasp.  No pun intended.

	With animal ferociousness, I wrapped my arms around his middle and
held on for all I was worth.  My lips, frozen by shock up until that point,
suddenly thawed to move in a hungry dance against his.  Within seconds I
could feel the increase in temperature as friction and lust came into play.
His lips were softer than rose petals, gently teasing and forcefully
tormenting by turns.

	I couldn’t control the moan of desire that escaped from my throat as
his tongue brushed against my bottom lip.  Almost reflexively, my own
tongue came forward to meet, then caress his.  What began as a tentative
taste soon escalated into an all-out battle for dominance, pressing and
retreating from my mouth to his own.  I took my time exploring the warm
cavern of Blair’s mouth, one of the many parts of newly-opened territory on
his body.  Within minutes, I learned all of its secrets; the ticklish spot
on the roof of his mouth, how a sweep of my tongue in between his lower lip 
and teeth caused him to quiver with need.  Patiently, I allowed Blair to
reciprocate before we moved onwards in mapping each other’s responses.

	His throat was next.  Licks, nips, kisses, and bites covered every
square inch of flesh, only stopping when I reached the collar of his shirt. 
Moaning in frustration, I grabbed two handfuls of the material and attempted
to rip it apart, but to my extreme displeasure, the buttons held.  

	Sensing that I was way too far gone to handle the problem myself,
Blair took matters into his own hands, literally.  His elegant, nimble fingers
traveled a slow, sensual path from my shoulders to my waist.  Once they
reached their destination, he pulled the hem of my shirt free and slid the
offending garment over my head.

	Once the shirt was off, Blair moved back slightly to look at what he’d
uncovered.   He reached out to touch my skin, only to jerk his hands back at
the last second, as though making contact would burn him.  Of course, as hot
as I was, it might have been a legitimate concern.

	“It’s all yours, Chief.  Yours to touch, yours to kiss, to lick, whatever
you want.”  My invitation was mostly meant to reassure, however it also
dragged a moan of pure desire from his throat.  My own cock leapt in
response at the sound, the movement caught by Blair’s sharp eyes.

	In light of the carte blanche I’d just granted him, Blair’s hands drifted
downward to my belt.  He seemed to hesitate for just a moment before ever
so gently caressing my raging erection through the fabric of my pants.  I
cried out involuntarily at the jolt of electricity that seemed to run
through me at the simple touch.  My God!  If it was this good now, how was 
I ever going to survive the rest of our encounter?  Call me suicidal, but I 
was aching to find out.

	As always, Blair was one step ahead of me as he continued his
strokes to my straining erection.  With a quick glance up to meet my eyes, he
lowered his head to lick slowly from my Adam’s apple to my right nipple. 
Already hard from my level of arousal, Blair carefully laved the nub before
carefully worrying it between his teeth.  He continued his torment until he
sensed that I was close to coming in my pants.  With a soft, parting kiss to
both nipples, Blair straightened himself into a standing position and
raised an eyebrow playfully at me.

	“Bound and determined to kill your sentinel tonight, Chief?” I
managed to say in between gasps for much needed oxygen.

	“Bound?  Hmm.  Maybe some other time,” Blair retorted before the
teasing sparkle in his eyes turned to a more sensuous look.  “No, tonight I’m
only interested in becoming *your* guide and making you *my* sentinel.”

	A shudder ran through me at the huskiness of his voice, the words
themselves were the commitment, the promise I had so wanted to hear.  I
answered him the best way I could manage in my passionate state by planting
a bruising, open-mouthed kiss on his pouting lips.  He matched me kiss for
kiss, holding out until I was the first to draw away for a much-needed breath.

	With his eyes dilated to the point of almost total blackness, Blair
wantonly ran the backs of his fingers up and down my chest, slowing only as
he grazed my aching nipples.   Despite his successful act of seduction, the
shy look he flashed up to me was heartwarming and endearing.  “Maybe it’s
time to take this to a bed.”

	Nodding in agreement, I reached out to take his nimble hands into my
own larger ones.   Backing up slowly, I led us to the stairway up to my
bedroom, hiding a small laugh as Blair’s eyes widened in surprise.  I heard
his already rapid heartbeat start pounded double-time as the whole situation
finally became real to him.  Oh shit.  I didn’t think I could keep it
together if he backed out at that point.

	We were half-way up the steps before I found the courage to ask him
what was wrong.	

	“I...uh...” As if his rapid pulse rate wasn’t enough of a giveaway,
seeing Sandburg tongue-tied was simply the icing on the cake.  I stopped him
dead in his tracks as I moved up another step to put some physical distance
between us.

	“Blair,” I said gently, speaking as I would to a frightened animal,
“this only happens if you want it to.  We can leave it right here, right now,
pretend this never happened.”  ‘It would kill me, but I’d rather be dead than
do something that would drive a wedge between us down the road,’ I added
to myself.  

	He shook his head.  “No, Jim.  I want this.  I’ve...wanted this for
awhile now.  But I’ve never...”

	“Chief, I’ve only done this once before myself.  We don’t have to...do
everything tonight.  We can take this as slow as you’d like.”

	The relief in his face was evident.  Nodding his acceptance, he flashed
me a shaky smile before taking the next step on the stairway.  “Let’s just see
what happens, okay?”

~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~

	Undressing Blair proved to be more torturous than any other
experience I’ve ever had in my life.  As that glorious body was uncovered, I
found myself praying that I would live to be an old man.   It was going to
take me that long to give each inch of flesh the fervorent tribute it
deserved.  It was a daunting task, but I’ve always loved a challenge.

	If my visual inspection of Blair was intense, then his examination of
me was igniting.   Under his close scrutiny, I felt like a god come to
life.  The awe in his face quickly registered in other parts of his body as 
his impressive erection rose rapidly.  Oh, I’d overheard enough speculation 
by the women down at the station to have a passing curiosity about the size 
of Blair’s prize.  I’d even seen him in the buff a time or two when tardiness 
forced us to share the bathroom in a morning rush.  But, even my imagination 
couldn’t prepare me for my first sight of Blair fully aroused.

	Jesus, I hoped to hell that he would be gentle with me when the time
came.  Whoops, another pun.

	Instinctively sensing his nervousness, I waited for Blair to make the
first move.  It didn’t take long before he leaned in to brush his lips softly
against mine.  However, the gentle contact lacked the passion of our earlier
kisses.  I didn’t need sentinel abilities to feel the tension pouring off
him in waves, so I offered a backrub to help him relax.

	Grateful for the temporary reprieve, Blair eagerly climbed onto the
bed facedown with his head cradled in the safety of his forearms.  Knowing
that straddling his body would only add to his unease, I kneeled by his waist
and shifted his loose, flowing hair off to one side.  Reaching into the
nightstand for some of Blair’s home-brewed liniment, I squirted some into
my hands before I started to work on his shoulders.  

	Muscles quivered then relaxed as I kneaded my way down his back. 
A symphony of moans and sighs informed me of his approval until they were
joined by the rocking of his hips as he began undulating against the
mattress.   I hadn’t even reached his lower back before the restless motions 
became full-blown thrusts.

	“God!  Jim!  I need more!” Blair cried as he rose up on all fours. 
Anxious to meet his demand, I ran a hand across one smooth globe of his
ass.  “N-no!  Please...my cock...touch my cock!” he panted.

	Without any hesitation, I reached out to fulfill his request.  The touch
of my hand made him hiss in pleasure as my first tentative strokes quickly
became more confident.  The awkwardness of his position made it difficult
for me to maintain the rhythm he liked best, so he scurried up the bed to give
me better access.  He ended up kneeling by the pillows, holding on to the
tension wire that serves as a banister between my bed and the open space
above the living room for balance.

	As tempted as I was to move in behind him, I was still somewhat
nervous that he would get spooked if he felt my hard cock up against his ass. 
Besides, it was plain to see that Blair wasn’t going to be able to keep from
coming much longer; but if he had half the stamina he’d bragged of in the
past, this orgasm would only take the edge off for him.  My decision made, I
kneeled off to his left side in order to have a clear view of him in profile.

	Watching Blair sexually excited is truly a sight to behold.  His eyes
were closed, his face twisted in determination, all under a fine sheen of
glistening sweat from his efforts.  His concentration seemed so inwardly
focused, I might have thought he’d forgotten that I was even there except for
the fact that my name escaped from his lips with every panting breath.   

	My eyes roved past the diamond-hard nipples before I caught sight of
a few gleaming drops of pre-come dripping from the slit of his cock.   I
swept the precious semen up with my thumb; adding the slick moisture to the
liniment already on his erection to ease the friction to his sensitive
flesh.  It wasn’t long before I felt the subtle swelling that indicated 
that Blair was quickly approaching climax.

	“Jimjimjimjimjim...Oh God, Jim!  I’m coming!  I’m coming!”  Blair’s
wail reverberated in my ears as I watched his body tighten up, then convulse
in that strange mixture of pleasure and pain.  Of all the erotic sights
I’ve seen in my life, nothing can ever match the sheer sensuousness of Blair 
in the throes of orgasm.  From the rhythmic tensing of his buttocks, to the
contortions of his face, to seeing the semen explode from his cock, the
streams bursting from his body. 

	Once the last feeble spurt covered my hand with his essence, Blair all
but collapsed against me, fighting hard to pull air into his overworked
lungs.  I took his weight, carefully lowering him back to the mattress with 
small ‘shushing’ noises.    Although my own erection was starting to ache 
with need, I ignored it in favor of caring for the beautiful man in my arms.  
I kept my hearing attuned to Blair, relaxing only as his respiration slowly 
returned to normal over the passing minutes.

	“Oh.My.God.Jim.” Blair managed as soon as he was able.  “That
was...I...I...”  It gave me great pleasure to know that I, Jim Ellison,
managed to render Blair Sandburg incoherent by means of sex.  Despite my 
desire for him, I had been a little concerned that my ignorance when it came 
to the mechanics of sex between men would be a problem.  I’d never been so 
happy to be wrong before.

	A glance at Blair showed a puzzled expression on his face. 
Tightening my arms around his sweaty body, I nuzzled my face into Blair’s
damp curls.  “What’s wrong?”

	“Why didn’t you...I mean, I was more than willing.”

	“Relax, Chief.  You were so close to the edge I thought it’d be better
to wait.  Besides, you looked like you enjoyed it.”  I answered calmly.

	“Enjoyed it?  Jim, I *died* a few minutes ago.  My brain is D.O.A.,
my body just hasn’t caught up yet.”  His look of serene satisfaction as he
made the comment brought a easy smile to my face.

	“Yeah, well you’re gonna be D.O.A. tomorrow if you don’t clean up
the little mess you made on my pillow.”  My smile turned into laughter at
Blair’s disgruntled expression.

	Once his breathing evened out, his glance dropped nervously down to
my still-straining cock.  Although the little rest period took some of the
edge off of my arousal, I was still as hard as a bone.  I could see an inner 
debate waging behind Sandburg’s lowered eyelashes as he decided what he wanted
to do next.

	Reaching out to run a single finger along my erection, Blair glanced
up at me coyly.  “You seem to have a problem here, Jim.  Are you ready to
take me?”

	“Chief...Blair,” I corrected, “you don’t *have* to do this...” 

	Smiling sweetly, Blair shook his head.  “*Have* to?  No.  *Want*
to?  Yes.” I was about to protest -- he should have known better than to try
and lie to me, especially when I could hear his heart racing as he made his
offer.  “Jim, I’m not lying to you, I’m just nervous, the same way I’d be
nervous if we were going to do this a month or a year from now.  It’s been
such a long time since I was a virgin at anything, what do you expect?”

	I laughed a little as I tried to picture Blair losing his virginity with 
a girl for the first time.  I made a mental note to one day ask him how it
happened, since this was not the time.

	Kissing him tenderly before we went any further, I ran a hand
through the hair on his chest.   I was surprised at the silkiness of it’s
texture, expecting to find it wiry and coarse.  As my hand once again made
its way towards a nipple, I rolled the still-hard flesh in between my finger 
and thumb.  My sensitive skin noted the increased heat coming from the 
tightened skin, as well as the holes left from piercing.

	Pulling away from his mouth, I tried to satisfy my curiosity.  “Why
don’t you wear your nipple ring anymore?”
	
	Sapphire blue eyes popped open at the unexpected question.  “Huh? 
Oh, the nipple ring.  It’s hard to explain.  God, I don’t believe I just said
that,” he said as he rolled his eyes at his own unintentional pun.  “The ring
makes me *really* sensitive, y’know?  Constant stimulation.  It can
be...distracting sometimes, so I don’t wear it as often anymore.”

	“Oh,” I answered simply.  “Have the holes started to close up at all?” 

	“No, I make sure to put it in every now and then.  It’s kind of a pain,
literally, but I don’t want to have to get the piercing redone.  It hurt bad
enough the first time.”  Suddenly, Blair pegged me with a suspicious look. 
“Why do you ask?”

	I grinned ruefully at him.  “I was just wondering.”  A single glance
told me he wasn’t buying it.  “I always thought your nipple ring was very
sexy, okay?” I finally admitted.

	Cocking an eyebrow, I saw that familiar devilish glint return to his
eyes.  Reaching up with both hands, Blair worked one of the hoop earrings
out of his lobe.  Once the ring was freed, he flashed me a sultry look before
his hand dropped to his chest, using the backs of his fingers to tease the
already-firm peak.  

	If I thought the sight of Blair teasing himself was hot, it had nothing
on the moment when he reached his free hand up to his mouth and
sensuously licked two of his fingers.  I moaned aloud as I watched the
elegant digits disappear into his mouth, only to be worked over by his agile
tongue.  It wasn’t long before the saliva-slick fingers returned to wet the
already taut skin of his nipple.  Crooking a finger, Blair wordlessly motioned
for me to come to him, a task that I was more than willing to undergo. 
Leaning forward, I took a deep breath before blowing carefully against the
damp flesh.  I was about to start licking again when Blair’s hand insinuated
itself between me and my destination.

	“Not yet, Jim.  Too much can make it painful.”  I sat back and
watched Blair’s fingers as they worked the ring through the hardened nipple.

	Before I could comment on it, Blair finished inserting the hoop.  I
took a moment just to admire the exotic sight, the silver metal gleaming in
the soft light amid the mat of hair on his chest.  What had I ever done to
deserve such a beautiful guide?  

	I voiced my thoughts aloud, charmed by the slight blush that rose up
his body.  Blair’s cock was already half-erect thanks to the efforts of
putting the ring back in place.  It was time.

	Starting slowly, I resumed stroking his manhood, relishing the feeling
of it hardening under my touch.  As soon as it reached fullness, my hand
traveled downwards to caress his balls, kneading the sac gently until he was
moaning his approval.  Never stopping in my ministrations, I grabbed the
liniment off the nightstand and opened it one-handed, squeezing a generous
portion onto my fingers.

	Blair seemed to be accepting of my actions up to that point, so I
nudged his legs further apart, exposing his most vulnerable place.  Seeing
him spread-eagled like that, so openly trusting of me, did something to me.  I
felt like I needed to repay him somehow for his unquestioning faith in me.

	I still don’t know where the idea came from, I mean it’s not like I’ve
ever wanted to suck a guy’s dick before; but the urge to take Blair into my
mouth was overpowering.  Leaning forward, I pressed a gentle lick up the
shaft of his cock as my finger carefully caressed the delicate flesh of his
perineum.

	The result was electric.  With a hoarse cry, Blair arched up from the
mattress, seeking more of the contact.  I was only too happy to oblige.

	Emboldened by his response, I took the tip of his cock into my mouth
and ran my tongue repeatedly over the slit.  At the same time, I rubbed my
finger as gently as I could manage over the entrance to his body.  Timing my
motions carefully, I engulfed several inches of his length at the exact same
moment as I pushed my finger past the tight muscles of his anus.

	To my surprise -- and delight I might add -- Blair gasped in pleasure
at the dual sensations.  Always a quick study, his hips quickly settled into a
rhythm, up into my mouth, down onto my finger.  It wasn’t long before he
was begging for more.

	“Jiiiiim, oh God, please...Oh! Yes!...Feels so good...” The litany of
words continued as I added a second, then later a third, finger into the slick
confines of his ass.  The bitter, salty taste of pre-come grew stronger on my
tongue as he continued to thrust into my mouth.

	“Jesus!” Blair swore as his whole body convulsed upwards from the
bed.   Worried that I had done something wrong, I stopped everything that I
was doing until Blair protested.  “No!  Oh God, I don’t know what you did,
but do it again,” he panted.

	Cautiously, I moved the fingers still lodged deeply in his passage.  As
Blair’s body shook again, I focused on my sense of touch long enough to feel
the small protrusion under my fingers.  Confirming it as the source of Blair’s
intense pleasure, I rubbed the bump again to find the same results.

	“That must be your prostate.  I’ve heard that it can be quite a rush,” I
offered, but Blair was too far gone to comprehend.

	“Pleasepleaseplease...wantyou...now...gotta...have...” he gasped.

	With a departing kiss to his throbbing erection, I withdrew my hand
and coaxed him onto his hands and knees.   I barely remember lubing my
cock and placing it against him, but I will never forget the first moment I
moved forward through the resisting muscles into the heated flesh of his ass.

	If not for Blair’s cry of pain, I probably just would have kept right on
going until I was balls deep, but the hurt in my guide’s voice froze me in
place.  His muscles were clinched tightly around me, all my efforts at
preparing the way apparently temporarily forgotten.  As carefully as I could
manage, I leaned over to rub his back soothingly.

	It wasn’t long until I felt him start to relax, the muscles slowly
loosening to allow me further entry into his body.  Once I was fully inside, I
paused to let him adjust to the feeling of being penetrated.  I could feel him
shaking from the strain, yet his moans were rapidly switching from pain-filled
to lustful.

	Blair first gentle rock backwards took me by surprise.   We quickly
settled into a rhythm that grew stronger as we continued.  Blair’s hand
snaked under his body to tease his cock, But I managed to discourage him. 
“Don’t!...You still...have to...take me,” I managed to grunt in between
thrusts.

	God, he was so hot and tight.  No woman had ever given me such
pleasure, nor had my one encounter with Incacha.  We fit together so
perfectly; it seemed as though Blair’s body had been made just for my
pleasure alone.  His inner muscles caressed my cock as our movements grew
faster, and it wasn’t long before I found myself on the edge of orgasm.   

	“Give it...to me... Jim...come for me...oooh...yes...let me...feel
you...coming...”  His demanding words threw me headlong into climax, my
body convulsing as my semen shot out of me in long throbbing spurts.  The
sound of distant, passionate cries was overpowered by the loud roar of a
jungle cat.  For a split second, I could have sworn that I was back in the
jungle, or more precisely, I was in the dream-scape where my spirit guide
lived.

	A sudden movement under me brought me back to reality.  The loft,
my bed, Blair; I was crushing Blair, my weight pinning him to the mattress. 
He was talking in that soothing tone he uses when I zone, yet I could hear
the breathless urgency in his voice as he struggled to get air into his
constricted lungs.

	With a small kiss to Blair’s shoulder, I pushed back onto my knees
and withdrew as carefully as I could manage from his body.  Before he could
squirm away, I zeroed in with my enhanced sight to check for any tears or
damage our lovemaking might have caused.  There was a little blood, but
nothing to be overly concerned with for the time being.

	“Are you okay, Blair?” I asked, just to be sure while I used a
discarded T-shirt to tidy us both.

	“Okay?  Okay is like a *major* understatement,” he mumbled into a
pillow.  Displaying all of his lithe grace, Blair turned over, giving me an
excellent view of his weeping erection.  One look at me and a breathy
chuckle escaped from him.  “Oh man, look at you.  I think I can actually see
your aura!  Talk about...”

	Whatever else he was going to say was cut off as another animal
growl echoed through the loft.   The sound didn’t surprise me much, I guess
I was growing a little used to seeing and hearing the animal version of my
spirit guide.  However, I was shocked as hell when Blair jumped at the growl
as well.

	“What the fuck?” he asked with wide, fear-filled eyes.  “Jim, did you
hear that?”

	“Yeah, Chief.  I heard it.”

	Blair was offset by my nonchalance at the prospect of having a large
jungle animal in our home until understanding finally dawned on him.  “Wait,
that’s your spirit animal, isn’t it?”

	“Yes, I heard him a minute ago, too, when I was coming,” I
explained calmly.

	“But I’ve never been able to hear it before, why now?  Why not when
we were...” Unable to find the proper words, Blair used hand gestures to fill
in what he couldn’t say.  As if he needed to.

	“I don’t know, Chief.”  Another roar ripped through the air.  “I think
he’s trying to tell us something.  Like maybe we’re not finished yet?” I
suggested with a raised eyebrow and a glance down to Blair’s still hard
erection.  Smiling wickedly, I reached out to give his nipple ring a soft
twist, pulling a gasp out of him.

	‘Ah, youth.’ I thought to myself as I watched him get completely firm
again. Blair wasn’t about to let me do all the work this time, though. 
Repositioning me on my back, he moved one pillow under my head before
working a second under my hips.  Realizing exactly what he had in mind, I
looked at him in surprise.

	Flushing under my scrutiny, Blair murmured out an excuse.  “I want
to see your face, if that’s okay with you.”

	“Blair,” I whispered at his tenderness.  Kissing a gentle trail down my
body, he by-passed my nipples, which were still extremely sensitive after my
recent orgasm.  Not sure what else he was supposed to do, Blair started
massaging my chest just as I had done to his back earlier.  Despite my own
nervousness, I felt myself relaxing under his calming touch.

	Ignoring what was left of my earlier hard-on, Blair caressed my balls
for a moment before reaching over for the tube of liniment.  Once he
squeezed some into the palm of his hand, he shut his fist, warming it before
coating his fingers with the thick substance.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it
was so cold,” I apologized when it hit me that I hadn’t offered the same
courtesy to him.

	“No big deal, besides, I’m willing to bet that you’re going to be a lot
more sensitive than I was,” he replied as one of his fingers began rubbing
between my cheeks.  Taking his time, he waited until my muscles unclenched
to give him more access to my lower regions.  I was kind of embarrassed by
how good it felt; so good in fact, I actually hissed in pleasure when his
finger began to gently circle my hole.

	“Blair!  Stop teasing!” I ground out between clenched teeth.  He
must have heard the warning in my voice, because the next thing I knew, he
slid the knuckle of his index finger into me.

	Given how hyper Blair normally is, I have to admit he showed the
patience of a saint when it came to preparing me.  Time lost all meaning as
he loosened the tight ring of muscle in my ass, making sure I was ready for
every inch I took, for each finger he used.  When he finally found my
prostate, I just about jumped through the ceiling.  My God!  I’ve never felt
such blinding pleasure from a simple touch before.  My erection came back
with a vengeance, and before long, I was actually begging him to take me.

	All my pleas fell on deaf ears.  “We’re not in a hurry, Jim.  I want 
to make sure that I don’t hurt you.  I never want to hurt you,” he reassured
me.   He continued to stretch me with his hand, constantly adding more 
liniment to ease the way.

	My sanity quickly took the high road by the time he withdrew his
fingers and prepared his dick.  Oh, what a sight that was.  He’d been hard for
so long, his erection was purple, straining proudly away from the dark nest
of hair.  The scent of his pre-come was heavy in the air as he ran a
linament-free finger over the tip of his cock.  Gathering the thick liquid on
the pad of his finger, Blair brought the semen-coated digit up to his mouth
and smeared the salty pre-come all over his pouting lips.  

	Moving carefully into position over me, Blair leaned forward to let
me lick the bitter fluid from his mouth.  The taste of his essence exploded in
my mouth at the same moment as his cock penetrated me for the first time. 
Moaning from the intrusion, I felt as though I was being torn in half.

	“Ooooh Jesus, Chief!” I swore as he pressed forward slightly.  I was
headed for a major zone out from the pain when Blair shifted his weight to
one arm, using his free hand to drag my head back for a bruising kiss.  I
didn’t understand it at the time, but when I later realized what he did, I
couldn’t help but marvel at his ingenuity.  Unable to speak due to his
supreme concentration on not just pounding into me outright, he was using
my sense of taste to keep me grounded from zoning out my overwhelmed
sense of touch.

	By the time he released my mouth, the pain had already faded into a
dull ache.  Not exactly pleasurable, but nowhere near as debilitating as it
was at first.  Surprised to find him frozen in place, I opened my eyes to
find him staring back at me in wonder.

	“Oh God, Jim.  I’m inside you, I’m a part of you,” he said, awed by
the realization.  I was beyond words at that moment, so instead I smiled and
pressed my hips upwards to signal that I was ready to start.  With a smile of
his own, Blair pulled back an inch or two before gently pressing forward.

	His confidence grew; every stroke becoming bolder and deeper.  He
followed the pace that I set with my counter thrusts.  The friction generated
by our movements stimulated my cock, but not enough to bring me off. 
Once again, Blair instinctively sensed my need and reached down to stroke
my erection.  The multiple stimulations were driving my sense of touch right
off the scale.  Only the sounds of lovemaking kept me from drifting off into
nothingness; the sighs, grunts, and moans each movement wrung from our
lips; the slapping together of flesh slicked by sweat; even the quiet
squeaking of the mattress as it swayed under our efforts kept me grounded.

	A particularly deep stroke of Blair’s cock brushed against my
prostate, starting a chain reaction that swept through my body like a runaway
train.  “Blair...I’m gonna...oh...oh...gonna come...baby...” I warned as my
muscles started to tighten in anticipation.

	“Go...on...come...giveittome...giveittome...” Blair ordered as his final
strokes become uncontrolled pounding.

	It was all I need to send me over the edge.  I could feel the abused
muscles in my ass clenching rhythmically around his hard cock as I came into
his hand and over both of our stomachs.  My orgasm triggered Blair’s as I
felt his erection swell before the warm jets of his semen shot deep inside
me.  My last conscious memory was Blair screaming ‘I love you’ before passing
out on top of me.

~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~

	I was back in the dream jungle, easily discernable by the dim blue
glow everything seems to have there.  The panther was pacing in front of me,
waiting to get my attention.  Once he had it, he moved forward to nuzzle his
face into my palm.  I petted him roughly once before scratching behind his
ears, earning a reverberating purr as a reward for my efforts.

	Without any warning, the panther took off at a dead run into the
jungle.  I followed him at a ground-breaking pace, surprised by the excessive
energy I felt at the moment.  Blair once mentioned something about how the
physical state of my corporeal form wouldn’t matter here, only my mental
state would have any effect on my spirit.  In layman’s terms, if my body was
beaten to a bloody pulp in the ‘real world’, it wouldn’t make a difference
unless I was stressed out by it.   I can’t explain it any better, Q & A is the
professor’s job, not mine.

	Anyway, we ran for a while, the panther and I, before we came upon
the ruins I had visited on my last few trips with my spirit animal.  The large
black cat leapt gracefully up onto a ledge of what was once a temple.  He
paced back and forth a few times before the metamorphosis from Spirit
Animal to Spirit Guide began.

	When I was in Peru to rescue Simon and Daryl, my spirit guide
resembled an ancient warrior.  He told me that I needed to make a choice, to
be an ordinary man or a sentinel.  The last time I was at the temple was after
Incacha’s death.  Without a true guide in the ‘real world,’ I had only my own
knowledge to fall back on for advice.  That was why I saw a version of
myself when the panther transformed.  Deep down I knew what my
obligations were; not only as a member of the Chopec tribe, but also as an
officer of the law.  I’ve been told that acknowledging a fear is half the
battle in overcoming it.  I was terrified of the responsibilities that came 
part and parcel with being a sentinel.   I guess in the end, I just needed 
to remind myself of that fact.

	I watched my new spirit guide emerge from the crouched form of the
panther, not in the least bit surprised when the finished product turned out 
to resemble Blair.  I say ‘resemble’ because there were so many differences
from the man I had been just making love with in the loft not too long ago. 
This version was larger and more serene than my energetic roommate was.  
He was dressed in traditional Chopec clothing, the face paint barely
distinguishable in the wash of the blue glow that seemed to appear on every
surface in this place.

	“You have finally taken your true guide, Sentinel,” he spoke, much
deeper than I was used to hearing from Blair.

	“Yes, and he has taken me,” I replied, stating the obvious.  

	Black eyes, endless in their depth met my own.  “He is now beginning
his journey as Shaman.  You will serve him well, Sentinel.  You will guard
him, as is your duty,” my spirit guide admonished.

	“I always have, but will I be able to keep him safe?”  It felt strange
asking about Blair in third person when in a way, he stood right in front of
me.  

	“The path for a sentinel and guide always holds danger.  But know
this, Sentinel.  He is your last true guide.  He will need your strength to
aid him as he learns the way of the shaman.  You must be prepared to help him
find his way, just as he aids you in your journey.”

	With sudden insight, I realized what it was exactly that I was seeing. 
This was Blair, his strength of character unencumbered by his physical body. 
This was all of his vast knowledge and wisdom, without the curiosity and
inquisitiveness that dragged his concentration off in a million tangents at
the same time.  This was the heart and soul of the man I loved.

	I couldn’t hold back my smile as I agreed to the terms my spirit guide
had just laid out before me.  Blair’s face began to melt and within seconds,
the black panther was once again pacing in front of me.  With a growl that
split the jungle air, it leaped forward, merging into my chest.

~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~

	Startled to find myself back in the loft, my first awareness was the
weight pressing down upon my chest.  Blair’s long, silky curls tickled my
chin as I felt his body jerk in shock.  The sudden movement caused his limp
penis to slide from my body.  The knowledge of separation dragged deep
moans from both of our throats.

	Still a little disoriented from my mental wanderings, I took a lock of
his hair into my fingers and toyed with it while I compared the body on top
of me with what I had seen in the spirit plain.  After a short time, I was
finally able to reconcile the two.  Blair was Blair, no matter what form he
took.  My friend, my guide, my partner, my roommate, my shaman, my
lover.   
	
	All of my emotions were echoed in the deep blue eyes in front of me. 
Just out of curiosity, I was tempted to ask what Blair had seen in his own
journey.  Was his spirit animal was the same panther that guided me, or did
he have another species to represent him.  Along that same line of thought, I
wondered what form his spirit guide took.  Maybe Incacha, or some other
shaman was there to teach him the way.

	“You have a very beautiful soul, Jim.  I love you.”

	Guess that answered that question.

Finis