Disclaimers: The Sentinel characters belong to Pet Fly Productions and Paramount. Written for pleasure, not profit. No copyright infringement is intended. For adult readers only.

Comments are welcomed at JBonetoo@yahoo.com

Notes: This story first appeared in the zine 'Wounded Heroes'

Pairing: Jim/Blair

Rating: NC-17 for male/male sex and some truly horrendous language

Saying Jim Ellison makes a rotten patient is like saying the Rockies are a little hilly. Or that Winnipeg in January is a bit nippy. Or that Duke has an okay hoops team.

In other words, it's an understatement. A big one. If Jim Ellison isn't the first patient to get thrown out of Cascade General, he's certainly the worst. What I want to know is, if three RNs, a couple of MDs, and a lab tech the size of George Foreman couldn't
handle Jim, how in the hell am I supposed to?

I wanted him to stay, for a whole handful of reasons. One, he still looks like shit; the left side of his face is one big bruise. Two, the cast on his leg is still drying. Three, he's a strange chalky gray, and of course he won't take any pain medication.

"Nyquil!" he kept shouting at me in a whisper. "Nyquil!"

I thought a day or two of R&R, with someone bringing him pudding every hour on the hour, sounded pretty good.

Not to Jim.

And consequently not to the ER staff, the maternity ward next door, or the chapel one floor down, all of whom could hear with perfect clarity just how much Jim did not want to spend one more minute in the hospital.

They discharged him so fast I think the desk nurse got whiplash.

He bitched the whole way out in the wheelchair, cursed my name when I wedged him in the backseat of the Volvo, and then snapped in increasing decibels the whole way home about the way I turned corners, adhered to stop sign protocol, and parallel parked.

The doctors assured me his jaw was just bruised, but I'm starting to think there might have been an advantage to their wiring it shut; Jim's a babbling brook of discontentment, and we're not even upstairs yet. Wait until he remembers to ask about the truck. Remind me to get out of whacking distance; I think he could do serious damage with that wet cast of his.

It's not the first time he's totaled his wheels -- God knows it won't be the last. Jim's sheer hell on trucks. He's on his fourth one in three years, and as soon as he's mobile again, he'll go hunt down a fifth. I think trucks quake in their whitewalls when they see
Jim coming. The life expectancy of an Ellison vehicle isn't measured in miles, but in months.

It's contagious, too. My baby, my '69 Volvo, lived thirty years without a scratch. All right, all right, her engine doesn't always sing the Hallelujah chorus, but her body held up better than most thirty-year-olds can claim until she started hanging out with the
bully on the block. Since then she's had her rear window shot out, her front end plowed in, and she darn near got herself sold for parts. Makes me wonder if it's not some virus Jim spreads to any vehicle in sneezing distance.

Well, well, he's heading for the elevators. Good for you, Jim. We'll save the fight for when we get to the loft and I tell him he has to stay in my room for a couple of days. He'll love that. He likes nothing more than folding himself into my little bed and staring
at all my piles of shit. Yeah, that was sarcasm. He's going to pitch a fit. Another fit. We're on a fit-an-hour schedule at the moment, and he's due for another one in about fifteen minutes.

Tough shit, buddy. Your bed's upstairs, and the bathroom's downstairs, and if you think I'm going to do bedpan duty, you are sorely mistaken. Nuh-uh. No way, no how. I'll carry you to the john if need be. That's a pretty funny picture, me bent over, carrying King Jim to the throne. I'm still enjoying it when he glares at me. Well, actually, The Glare is SOP at the moment, but this is a cut-through-glass glare, a need-some-sunglasses glare. Okay, okay, got it. No smiling for the duration.

Geez.

We get inside the loft without breaking any more bones, which is a little miracle all by itself since he won't let me help him, and Jim on crutches is like a camel on ice skates. It's a real shame he's so damn grumpy, because really, when you think about it, it's
pretty funny. How many cops do you know who put themselves out of commission, in the line of duty no less, tripping over a shopping-cart-wielding, eighty-three-year-old felon-in-the-making?

Thank God they were able to confiscate the creamed corn. Who knows what that might have brought on the open market.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

If Blair doesn't wipe that not-quite-smile off his face, I'm going to skewer him with a crutch and dangle him off the balcony. He's going to strain something, he's trying so hard not to laugh. Yeah, it's hilarious. A real side-splitter. Jim Ellison -- detective first
grade, ex-Army Ranger, Sentinel -- got his ass kicked by the "where's the beef" lady.

["Where'd you get that shiner, Ellison?" "A blue hair with a wicked orthopedic shoe."]

["What happened to the leg, Ellison?" "Tripped over a shopping cart, dumped out fifty bucks' worth of stolen canned goods, slipped on a can of artichoke hearts, and broke my goddamnsonofabitchfuckafuckingduck ankle."]

I think I might have to change professions. Not just change professions -- I think we might have to move. How far do you think that sordid little tale will travel? Given the usual stretch of the PD tentacles, we might have to leave the country.

I will never, ever, ever live this down.

And if Blair doesn't stop being so fucking accommodating, when I know all he wants to do is put his head back and howl, he'll wish he had left me in the hospital.

"Uh ... Jim?"

What now? He's pointing to the kitchen. No, he's pointing to his room. Oh, that's great. Yeah, that's the perfect capper to the perfect day. No, I don't guess going up and down the stairs every time I have to drain the lizard is a good idea. So sure, fine, whatever, put me in your little closet room. Who cares if I zone on all the crap you've got in there. Maybe I can just zone my way through the next few days and not have to face Simon, or the guys in the bull pen.

Or myself in the mirror.

"You want anything, man?" he asks, and when I look at him, he's got this bland, innocent, completely unBlairlike look on his face. Innocent, my ass. If he'd been with me, like he's supposed to be, instead of meeting with a study group made up entirely of
-- you guessed it -- coeds, I wouldn't be in this stupid predicament now. I'd have two good legs, an unbashed face, and my truck ... oh, dear Lord.

"My truck?" I ask him, and his bland face blanks into panic momentarily before he gets it under control.

"It doesn't look good," he says, with all the appropriate gravity. It's just a truck; I know that. I haven't even had it very long. But I liked the color, and it had a built-in bedliner and fabric seats instead of vinyl so when we took corners faster than absolutely
necessary Sandburg didn't slide halfway across the seat like he used to. It was a good truck. Rest in peace, my friend, rest in peace.

What a day. This day will probably cost me more than all of last year did. I'm going to have to either repair that truck (ouch), or get a new one (bigger ouch), and let's not even think about the damage the insurance will do to my paycheck (I think I might need those painkillers after all). And all because I had to go do my job, like the schmuck I am. Next time I'm at a stoplight and someone yells, "Stop! Thief!" I'm just going to roll up the windows and call it in. Fuck the cop shit. Fuck being a Good Samaritan. Let them track down their own canned goods.

What a day.

Remember that slow speed chase with OJ Simpson? Okay, picture that, only instead of OJ in a Bronco, it's a little old lady pushing a shopping cart down the road. And there I am, in the truck, following her at about two miles an hour, looking for a place to pull in so I can go see what the hell's going on. Well, she zigged, I zagged, and the truck went straight into a six-foot drainage ditch. Bent an axle, I know it did. I heard it go.

But I was fine. A little dinged from the seatbelt, but surprisingly unscathed. Just really, really pissed off. So I got up the embankment, and she was still rolling the damn cart, like she didn't have a care in the world. Maybe she's hard of hearing. Maybe she has short-term memory loss and forgot the lights and siren following her. Maybe she wanted to get caught; they do, sometimes.

I might have felt sorry for her if she hadn't turned on me. Gave me a kick to the ankle, turned her cart on me, and the next thing I remember I was looking at the ceiling of an ambulance and everything hurt.

Did I mention the entire sixth grade of Howington Elementary was standing on the corner, waiting for the light to change so they could cross the street to the Natural History Museum? There's a whole generation of kids who will now never choose to go into law enforcement.

What a godawful day. Blair's changing the sheets; I'll give him credit for that. If I have to live in his crate of a room, at least I won't have to wallow in his sleep smells. The day's been bad enough without adding that kind of excitement to it.

The cast feels like it weighs a hundred pounds. It's like wearing a grouper. My face is hot, and I can feel about six separate pulses from jaw to forehead. I can tell by how careful Blair's being that I'm not a pretty sight. That's good, Sandburg, you just
keep your distance.

I've got a crutch and I'm not afraid to use it.

Logistics.

Let's think about logistics. Food, bath, bed. In that order. Maybe if he's fed, clean, and rested, he'll stop acting like a complete shithead and start feeling sorry for himself like most people would in his situation. Then I can turn on the reassurance, pamper him within an inch of his life, and we'll start getting over this little fiasco. Right now he's hungry, dirty, and exhausted. No wonder he's a little crabby.

That was another understatement, in case you're keeping track.

Well, at least the litany of abuse has slowed. I guess that's a good sign. Either that, or he's just winding himself up for Round Four. Let's see if we can't get him something approaching comfortable, get some food in him, clean him up a little, and see if any
of the drugs they sent home with us will knock him out for a few hours.

"How about a grilled cheese sandwich?" I ask him. It's his favorite; guaranteed to cure whatever ails him. He curls up a lip at that.

"Tuna on wheat?" I suggest next. The lip drops back into place, but now we've got the eyebrows scrunched. "Gardenburger?"

I shouldn't fuck with him, but he's so easy sometimes. Besides, I'm faster than him at the moment.

"Grilled cheese," he mumbles.

No problem. One grilled cheese, coming right up.

They cut the leg out of his favorite pair of khakis -- insult added to injury -- and I can hear him whining about that while I'm making his sandwich. Processed American cheese, margarine, and white bread. If that doesn't make him feel better, nothing
will. He eats every bite, even the crumbs off the plate, but shakes his head when I offer to make him another one. He's drooping.

"Come on, Jim, let's clean you up a little."

"Let's? As in we? I think I can handle this by myself," he says.

"Okay, whatever. You just yell if you need anything."

I go sit on the couch while he lumbers his way to the bathroom.

One ... two ... three ... four ...

"SANDBURG!"

He made it a whole count longer than I thought he would.

Ordinarily, I would enjoy the sight that greets me in the bathroom. It's a three-quarters naked Jim Ellison, and that's a whole half more than he even needs to have naked to reduce me to a slobbering puddle. I've looked at him since he brought me home with
him. He's been looking at me even longer than that. So far we've been smart enough not to fuck around with the status quo by, you know, fucking around, and believe me, today's not the day to head into that little melodrama, but I'd have to be neutered
not to appreciate the view, and I'm entirely not neutered, and so even though he's crankier than a two-year-old who's expecting Blue's Clues and gets the PBS fund-a-thon instead, I'm scoping him out a little. Just a little. Not enough to get myself in trouble;
at least not into more trouble. Just enough to plug in the old memory so I when I'm up there in his big wide bed tonight (because, of course, he'll be downstairs in mine), at least I can have a good time.

Poor Jim. He's tangled himself up good. The shirt's gone, the pants are somewhere around his ankles, and he's got his briefs stuck on the cast.

"Would have been a good day for boxers, buddy," I tell him, and he snarls at me.

"When I get these off, I'm going to make you eat them," he says, but by now I'm just grinning at him.

"From here, it looks more like if you get them off," I tell him.

"Just help me, all right?"

"Sure, Jim." Easier said than done. I'm this close to him a lot. We work together, cook together, ride around in a truck together. And he's not 100 percent. In fact, I don't even think he's 50 percent. But he gets me going anyway. Helping a hurt guy in a cast get his underwear off shouldn't be arousing, should it? Should it? Because I have to admit, it's getting a little warm in here.

And I don't know if this is good news or bad, but Jim's not exactly down for the count, either. He's leaning on me, and I'm bending over him, trying to extricate him from his tightey-whiteys, and there's his crotch, right there. And it's not indifferent to the proceedings, if you know what I mean. We've got a line drawn; not a very firm line, or a very deep one, but we know where it is, and we're seriously skirting it at the moment. He's right there, and I'm right here, and there's a real possibility the twain are going to meet if I don't pull back, right about now, right about ... now.

Okay, okay, all is well. The shorts are off. The elastic's never going to be the same, but I'm not much worried about that. I'm a little worried about Jim, though. I think getting a hard-on while his roommate yanked off his underpants might be the final straw in this sucky day. He's looking over my head, not even making eye contact. Can't say I blame him really. That little almost collision between my mouth and his dick pretty much threw me for a loop, too, and I have the advantage of still having clothes on. He's just out there waving in the breeze.

Yeah, I think that last bit of perceived humiliation might just put him over the edge. Not to mention the fact that he's still got dirt from stem to stern. Time to squash the libido and get the man scrubbed, in some clean duds, and stretched out somewhere soft. Time for Blair the Horny to retire for the evening and Blair the Pal to step up to the plate.

I can do that.

I can.

Really, I can.

"Put that thing away," I tell him. "You could poke somebody's eye out."

Even I can hear that I'm trying too hard. He looks at me like I've grown another head and covers himself with his hand. Aw, shit. I didn't mean to make him self-conscious. He was supposed to laugh. I know it's not really funny. It's no funnier than breaking your ankle in front of a bunch of 11-year-olds. It's no funnier than having the perp you arrested hand out recipes for cornbread souffle in the holding cell.

It isn't really funny, when you look at it like that.

When you look at it like that, it's just one more thing that's gone wrong.

"It's all right, Jim," I say, backing off a little, handing him a towel. "No biggie."

That makes him snort. "Speak for yourself," he mutters, holding the towel around him with one hand and propping himself up on the wall with the other.

That's better, Jim. That's much better. If I can keep my hands to myself, and he can stop looking so damn good, despite the bumps and bruises and perpetual scowl, maybe we'll make it through this without smudging the line any more than we already have.

Let's go with that theory, shall we?

Let's go with that at least until my jeans loosen up again, and I can pretend to pretend nothing happened and everything's just like it was before.

Before I got a whiff of Jim.

Before I got a good long look at him.

Well, hell. Before everything changed.

My damn leg hurts. They shot me up with something local to dull it, but I can still feel it under whatever the dulling stuff is, and I can tell it's going to get a lot worse once that wears off. At least pain's familiar. The cast is another story.

This thing itches like a son-of-a-bitch.

Close, but not quite tough enough.

This thing itches like a motherfucker.

That works.

"Blair?" I holler out at him. I've been banished to his bin of a room while he gets the whole couch to himself. And the TV. He gave me the latest copy of Sports Illustrated from the coffee table and showed me how to play Super Tetris on his laptop, but
then he left me here to amuse myself, and I don't feel like amusing myself.

I feel like being amused by someone else.

I feel like being abused by someone else. Why not? Why not end the perfect day on the perfect note? Why not give Blair one more reason to laugh his fool head off at me? I couldn't bring it up when it happened...let's rephrase that; I couldn't talk about what happened when it came up...oh, fuck, you know what I'm talking about.

We...Blair and I...have walked this line for three years now. He can't hide how he feels from me, not with eyes, ears, and a nose like I have, and I suppose I've let a few things slide over the years -- do I ever keep my hands to myself? No. So it doesn't take a genius to figure out there's an...attraction...there. And he's a complete genius, so there's a good chance he knew before I did that he made my fingers tingle. So it's there. The line. We've glanced across it a couple of times, but we've never jumped it like we almost did in the bathroom.

It's kind of shocking, really. I don't know what I thought was going to happen, but having his face suddenly in my crotch wasn't it. And once he was there, I couldn't do anything about what happened. Dialing up the pain in my leg didn't work. Remembering the old biddy's face didn't work. Nothing worked except his breath on my dick, and that worked just fine. So there I was, filthy, aching, leg throbbing, head throbbing...and dick throbbing. Perfect. Just perfect. And then, when I'd just about decided truly nothing could make the day worse, he made some smart-ass size joke.

The little shit.

And then acted like nothing happened. Put his hands up, backed off, got me clean clothes, washed me up like I was a puppy he found at the SPCA, and herded me back into his little room. Where I've been ever since, bored out of my fucking mind, listening to the cast dry and feeling all the skin underneath it start to cringe.

He's not answering me. Maybe because I've been making him come in here every ten minutes or so.

"Blair!" Forget the question mark; we're moving to exclamation points.

"What?!" he yells back.

"This thing itches like a motherfucker."

Not that I really know what that feels like, but there's something deeply satisfying about saying the word out loud.

"Yeah, the doctor said it would probably itch," he says, totally unconcerned. "Try dialing it down."

Thanks for the tip, Darwin. Come on in here; I've got an itch you can scratch.

"I tried that already," I tell him through the door. Jesus, is that a whine I hear? Fucking pitiful. I liked being mad better. This sorry-ass shit is for the birds.

I hear him sigh. I think the day's been almost as much of a trial for him as it has for me. But he doesn't have three shades of purple on his jaw line, and he won't have to lug around a cast for six weeks. Three days like this, then they'll put a walking nub on it. They promised. Three days on crutches. Piece of cake. All I have to do is not kill someone between now and then.

He appears in the doorway, patient and impatient, both at once. "Let's try it again," he says.

He comes and perches on the side of the bed, close enough that I can feel how warm he is. Makes me wish I'd settled down long enough to get more than a pair of boxer shorts on. At the time, getting away from his helping hands was more important. Now I wouldn't mind a little more camouflage. Maybe we were better off when he was on the couch, way out in the other room.

I'm this close to asking him to scratch that itch.

And it's got nothing to do with the cast.

Remember when I said I wanted him to get over the grumps and start feeling sorry for himself? Scratch that. Sorry-For-Himself Jim isn't any easier to deal with than Bite-Your-Head-Off Jim, and it's not as easy to be firm with him. Angry Jim you can push around, shout at, give as good as you get. Pitiful Jim's just sort of...pitiful.

And Mr. Pitiful's looking really, really sexy.

He barely fits in my little bed. He's got the leg with the cast up on a pillow, with a towel under it to keep the pillow from getting cast dust and damp on it. I never would have thought of that. He's laying there, in the light of my laptop and the 40-watt on the
end table, in a pair of boxer shorts and a bright white cast. He looks completely and totally edible and I hope he doesn't need help with that itch, because I'm going to have to just sit on my hands.

Line? What line? Oh, that line? Fuck it. Red rover, red rover, send Jimboy on over.

I take a deep breath. It's not his fault he's totally irresistible like this, all hurting and almost naked like this. I'm sure he's not lying like that on purpose, with his legs spread out and one hand over his head, all propped against the pillows like that. He looks like
he's ready for someone to feed him a grape. I'm sure he's not doing it on purpose. Pretty sure, anyway. I'm less sure when he arches his back.

Gulp.

"Come on, Jim, it'll be better tomorrow," I tell him. "Why don't you try to get some sleep?"

"Can't," he says, and mules have nothing on him when it comes to stubborn. "It itches."

"Okay, okay, chill," I say, putting a hand up, but catching it before it makes contact with bare skin. That I don't need. "Let's try some breathing exercises, all right?"

He squirms on the bed, trying to get comfortable. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that's what he's doing, because otherwise, it looks like he's trying real hard to seduce me. I can see the muscles in his stomach pull when he slides down farther in the bed. The leg without the cast on it just happens to fall against my hip when he moves. His arm comes down, and he just happens to end up with his fingertips riding against my knee.

If he's not doing it on purpose, I'm going to look really stupid.

If he is doing it on purpose, I'm going to take some lessons from a master.

"Close your eyes," I tell him, and he looks at me hard for a minute, then closes them. Without his eyes to take away the focus, I see the skin around his mouth is tight, and his jaw's clenched. I wonder if he's dialing up the itch in favor of pain? A broken ankle's no picnic.

With his eyes closed and his mouth shut, he doesn't seem so fierce. He looks beat-up and exhausted. And I'm going to ignore that pup-tent under construction in his boxers for the time being. If he can pretend it isn't there, so can I.

"Take a deep breath," I tell him, and he does it. Lots of lung capacity in a chest that size. "Now let it out, slowly."

Damn, he looks good. The bruises are on the other side of his face, so there's just that clean profile to look at, which I feel utterly free to indulge in since his eyes are closed.

"Again." I watch him follow my directions and I breathe right along with him. Deep breath in, now let it out. Deep breath in, now let it out.

I can feel him start to relax in minute increments. First his shoulders drop a little. Then the fingertips at my knee twitch and open. The pup-tent's almost fully erect now, and the lines around his mouth are gone.

Part of me hopes he's falling asleep.

Part of me doesn't.

Guess which part that might be?

"Jim?" I whisper.

"Hmmmm?" is all I get.

I start to move, but his hand is on my leg before I've even got my balance shifted. "Don't," he mumbles. He hooks his hand behind my knee, holding me to the bed. "More."

More.

"More of this?" I ask. "Breathe, come on, nice and deep," I tell him, but I'm starting to sound a little ragged. He does it, he breathes for me, but he's restless. His hips are starting to move, and he's breathing faster, deeper, without my coaching.

I stare at him for a minute, and then I do it: I smear the line in the sand until I can't even see where it was anymore.

"Or more of this..." And I reach out and put a hand on the center of his boxer shorts, right over the placket, right over the heat at the heart of him.

He flattens himself down on the bed with a groan, and his hand flexes hard on my leg. "That. More. More of that," he gets out, and I'm not the only one having a little trouble stringing words together.

Under my hand he's so hot, and so alive, it's a wonder he doesn't set off sparks. I maneuver myself around, letting him keep his hand behind my knee, until I'm sitting with one leg crooked, facing him. I get the added benefit of a little bit more room for my
own dick to breathe. Not enough, but better than before. If I were doing this to myself, I'd use my right hand, but left-handed is the option open and so that's the one I'm taking. Maybe it makes it easier, doing this strange thing to this familiar man. Makes it
strange for me as well as for him. Strange, different. Strange, but good. Different, but very, very good.

His free hand is twisting in the sheet and I don't have to encourage him to breathe. He's breathing just fine -- hard and fast -- in time to his hips, which are doing all the work, pushing his dick up into my hand. He's soaking right through the cloth, slicking things up for me, little hot leaks, and I can see the head of his dick through the damp fabric.

Oh, man, is that good.

Good for me, and damn good for him.

The endorphin rush, Nature's painkiller.

Hey, it's as good an excuse is any, if an excuse is going to be needed. I always try to keep an extra in my back pocket, just in case.

I let my hand steal down the front of my jeans and rub a little, just to take the edge off, and his eyes open and zero in right there, right on my hand there on my zipper. He darts his eyes up to mine -- huge, dark pupils, half-wild -- then back down to where my hand's still stroking.

"Even it up," he says, his voice husky. Oh, mama, how sexy is he?

I can even it up; you bet I can do that. He lets go of my leg long enough for me to slide out of my jeans. I flip off my t-shirt, and there we are, even. Just Jim and me, in matching tented boxers, getting ready to get completely off.

Getting ready to scratch some serious itches.

I want his hand back on me. Now.

He's not arguing, or stalling. Smart Blair. I'm in no shape to talk about this. This or anything else. Screw the talking, and start the doing. Embarrassed has lost out completely to aroused. Hell, we're breathing like we're one person sharing a set of lungs.
There's no turning back now. There's no changing our minds. There's going to be no redrawing of lines, no strategic retreats.

I'm almost selfish enough, and almost gone enough, to grab him before he gets his clothes off and tell him to just get on with it, and I'll make it up to him later. But I don't. He's quick, stripping like a kid at camp, no finesse, just the essentials, and I can see skin.

Finally, I can see skin. This kid usually wraps himself up like he just moved here from Florida, and his blood's still thin. Socks and jeans, t-shirts, flannel shirts, chamois cloth shirts, whatever will keep the cold out. This revealed Blair is a...revelation.

He's even tossed his boxers, and I guess it would be polite to look at his face, but I can't seem to look at anything except his dick. It's at least as big as mine, maybe bigger. I'll decide later if that bugs me. That dick's making me drool. He's a beautiful sight, this hard, naked Blair.

If I'd known it would only take hours of public and private humiliation to get us here, I'd have done it months ago. Ribbing in the bullpen for the rest of my life suddenly seems a small price to pay for having this under my nose. Who gives a shit about a little
ass-kicking from the geriatric set? So what if I'm the laughing stock of the Cascade PD? I have here in front of me, waiting for my signal to pounce, one Blair Sandburg.

I don't care if I itch like a motherfucker for the entire six weeks. It's worth it.

Why is he just standing there? Can't he see I'm on a rack here? "Get over here," I growl at him. Hope he's not expecting candy and flowers. Maybe next time. Next time? Next time. I can picture a next time.

He gives me what I need. He settles himself between my legs and I open up wide to let him in. He doesn't bother to take off my boxers -- I well remember the hassle of getting them on -- he just reaches in the little flap and takes me out. I look down at that for a minute, but it makes my balls curl up and my dick twitch hard in his hand, and I'd like for this not to be over quite that fast, so I drop my head back, unclench my jaw, breathe deep a couple of times and do my damnedest not to come yet.

It's not easy. This is every wet dream of the last three years come to explosive life. It's all the times I listened to him jerking off and matched him stroke for stroke with my own hand. It's every touch and every smile he's given me, and every jibe and every cuff he's taken from me. I can hear little whimpers coming from my throat. He's leaning on me, and he's whispering, "Easy, Jim, easy, let me do the work."

Oh, God.

I put both arms over my head, open myself up as wide as I can, and he slides one hand up my stomach and settles it over my heart, drawing on me with his fingernails. Staying still doesn't seem possible, but now he's holding me down, using one hand to hold me and the other to drive me stark raving up a wall.

His hand on my dick feels...I can't even tell you. Right. It feels right. It feels like that's what supposed to happen; like it should be there. I don't know how he knows what to do. He knows exactly what to do. I suppose it's what he does to himself.

Slide, grasp, slide.

Over and over, until my hips know the motion and it's slow and easy, and there's no pain in this world. None at all. The only thing I feel is good. He's making me feel so good. The bed's creaking, and when I look down, I see him humping the sheets, that
smooth butt gliding up and down to the same rhythm as his hand. Bring him up two feet and he could slide right inside me, hump me instead.

"Jim, I'm ..." he can't get it out, but I know. I know. He's moving faster, the bed's shaking, his hand's trembling on me, and I did it, I made it, I can go now, I can let go now, because I held out longer than he did. I held out long enough to hear what he
sounds like close up, in front of my face, not down the stairs with dialed up hearing, no, right here with me, where I can see him. I can see his eyes slide shut and his mouth open up on a breath, and Jesus, I can smell him, smell him come.

That's what does it. Not the last slidegraspslide, not the fingertip on my nipple. It's the smell of his skin, and his come, and his sweat. It's his hair, brushing my thigh when he puts his head down on me. It's feeling his heartbeat pounding up into my body through the sheets. It's opening my eyes wide and looking down at my dick in his hand -- in his hand.

That's what does it. I think I bonked him in the head with the cast -- I'm thrashing around a little bit. Now I can smell me, mixed with him. Never thought I'd smell that. It's not bad. Weird, but not bad.

No, not bad at all.

Makes me think next time I get to be the one holding the dick.

Makes me want to start from scratch.

We're going to have to renegotiate the plan for the next three days. He can forget about my sleeping in his bed. For one thing, he just came all over it. I'm not sleeping in that mess.

Besides, it's not big enough for both of us.

Well, that worked out pretty well.

Not that I'm expecting some revolutionary change in his behavior based on one itch-suppressing orgasm. No, I'm pretty sure that Surly Jim is here for the duration, or at least until he's mobile.

In the meantime, it'll be my job to keep him amused, in one-legged clothes, and with a full stomach. And we'll make it his job not to bite the hand that feeds him. If he's got to be horizontal for a few days, being nice to me will get him further than snapping.
I'll consider it an exercise in positive reinforcement, because I can think of all kinds of good things to do with him when he's horizontal.

Hey, if it works, it works.

Think about it: Pre-handjob? Itchy and cranky. Post hand-job? Feeling no pain. In fact, he's completely conked out.

Let's hear it for non-traditional medicine.

The End.