kinkfest | The Sentinel (Jim/Blair) (Reply)

Title: The One Where Jim Eats and Blair Talks
Author:

misura
Rating: PG
Warnings: Nope.
Summary: Life wasn't fair, work sucked, and Blair had really nice lips. (A lunch in the life of Jim Ellison.)

There was something different about the french fries at Wonderburger today, Jim decided, only he just couldn't quite decide whether it was the sauce or the fries themselves, and he was afraid that if he'd ask one of the employees, they'd think he was a little strange. Besides, odds were they didn't know either - they probably couldn't even taste anything different.

Jim sighed. Being a Sentinel sure wasn't all fun and games (although the part where he got to have Blair following him around and acting all concerned and just so /interested/, like Blair was some sort of big puppy and Jim was his ... whatever it was that puppies liked best in the whole world, /that/ part was kind of nice, actually.) He was almost afraid to try his burger next.

Dipping his last few fries into the sauce, it occured to Jim that maybe he should have eaten them without, au naturel, as it was. That would have been the proper way to investigate this case of fast-food restaurants dastardly changing their methods of preparation (or the recipe for their sauce) without having the courtesy to inform their customers first.

Of course, fries without any sauce lacked taste; Jim never ate them that way, and he didn't know anybody who did. Thus, it was safe to assume he wouldn't have learned anything at all by eating his last few that way - he had nothing to compare their taste to, after all.

Still, it was a bother to go for fast food and discover it wasn't the same as last week anymore. Jim wasn't quite sure if the change was an improvement or not, but, well, it simply wasn't /right/. Fast food, death and taxes were supposed to be things one could depend on, and Jim had already discovered that death wasn't as absolutely certain as he'd thought it would be.

Also, Blair had a really nice mouth.

Jim blinked, stopped chewing for a moment, then mentally shrugged and decided there were a lot worse things to think about than Blair's mouth, and the way his lips looked perfectly suited for kissing, and the way he shaped his Os and As. French fries and sauce being definitely among them.

Still ...

"Did you notice anything different about your french fries?" Jim asked.

Blair's lips parted, forming a perfect O. Or, okay, not such a perfect O, but all the same, it made Jim wish this wasn't their lunch-break, which would be over in another fifteen minutes, after which he'd have to go back to sorting out files and wishing it'd be time to go home already. (Jim didn't really wish for any Sentinel-business to show up, because it mostly involved people getting injured and such, and anyway, that kind of stuff simply /happened/ whether or not he wished for it. Last time he'd wished for it to be to be five though, Blair had dragged him off to 'take a look at something' and by the time Jim had gotten back to his desk, it had been five minutes to five, and several people had told him he looked a little red and should go home early, just in case he was coming down with something.)

"What?" Blair asked, looking like he wasn't sure if he was annoyed or simply taken aback.

"Did you notice anything different about your french fries?" Jim repeated.

"I didn't order any," Blair said, his tone implying he felt Jim shouldn't have either. "You haven't heard a word of what I just said, have you?"

"I was eating," Jim pointed out, quite reasonably if he did say so himself. "I was busy." Jim considered if he should elaborate, tell Blair /what/ he'd been thinking about - not the french-fries-part, obviously, but the part about Blair's mouth.

Blair's expression made it clear he did not consider this anywhere near a proper excuse. "I'm buying you lunch. The least you could do is listen to me."

Jim considered making a crack about it being a crime to try and bribe a police-officer, but decided it probably wouldn't go over well. Blair, apparently, was in a mood to pout, and it'd take a lot more than a lame joke to make him change his mind.

"Anyway," Blair continued, "as I was saying before, there's this tribe in Central Africa where they - "

Jim sighed and tuned out the rest of the sentence, focusing on the way Blair's lips shaped the words he wasn't listening to instead. Maybe if he asked nicely and worked quickly, he could beg the afternoon off early. Maybe pigs would fly. Maybe Blair would stop nagging him about this whole marriage-thing soon.

" - and I know you've got some vacation coming up." Blair paused for breath. Jim wondered how this whole 'you need to take a vacation'-thing tied in with his duty as a Sentinel to defend Cascade from evildoers. "It'd mean a lot to me."

Jim would have been more impressed if his apartment hadn't been cluttered with things that 'would mean a lot' to Blair, ranging from ceremonial shields, via dreamcatchers and pottery, to a life-sized statue of what Blair was convinced was a genuine homo atlantius (bought for fifty dollars at a local flea-market, and nearly responsible for having wrecked Jim's car).

"Listen, I'm not going to travel to the middle of nowhere just so we can get married," Jim said, a little louder than might be advisable in a public place. Several people looked up. A woman who might have been his grandmother glanced at Blair, before bobbing her head in approval and giving Jim a wink.

"It would mean a lot to me," Blair said, again.

"But it wouldn't to me," Jim said, deciding he might as well use his reputation as a cynic with no sense of romance. "I'm fine with the way things are. I don't need some witch-doctor to splash us with berry-juice and lock us in a hut together for a day and a night without drink or food to feel married to you."

"That's ... either very sweet or extremely insensitive." Blair frowned, then brightened. "You /were/ listening. Well, it turns out there's actually a lot of different ceremonies people use to get married. For example, the ancient Indians used to - "

Jim took a bite of his burger, relieved to discover it tasted the same as always, and started looking at Blair's mouth again, knowing Blair would get the hint eventually, stop talking and suggest they'd go somewhere a little more private. The paperwork could wait, after all.