Hanging out with Blair was surprisingly easy, really. It wasn't the tense, wordless affair the Jim had feared it would be. It hadn't been that long since Danny, and since a single event had changed things between them, maybe forever. He hadn't meant to let it happen, he just needed right then, and Blair was there. Blair was always there.
How long had it been like that, really? Since the first day they had started working together? The first time Blair'd come to his apartment without a professional agenda? He hadn't noticed, hadn't thought to keep track. His life had become measured in Before Blair, and After Blair. What had ever had that kind of impact on his life before? Not even Peru.
Shaking his head to clear it, he leaned back into the shoddy couch, focusing on the movie. Larry had curled up against his left hand side, snatching up the popcorn that he dropped. Though he'd never admit it in a million years, it felt kinda homey.
Yeah, he could handle a lot of nights like this, just him and Blair and some popcorn, an old movie or too. He could do without the chimp but hey, you can't have everything. Nights where you didn't have to think about anything but a world in black and white and the company you were keeping.
He hadn't been expecting the explosion.
"You mean to tell me that all the time you've lived here, you never once suspected you lived next door to an ice lab?" An hour of packing Blair's smoke-stained and oftentimes wet belongings had put more than a bit of a damper on Jim's mood. He might have just left, but he knew that he could no more do that than drop Blair from his life. Just wasn't going to happen. In a way he even owed him, because Blair had been there for him.
"Oh, man. I swear that place was deserted." Blair dumped another box into his already crammed car and turned to Jim. "I mean, last week I did start to hear some strange noises in the middle of the night, but uh... I coulda sworn it was just, like, the plumbing--" He turned back to his car for a moment to greet his barbary ape, and Jim felt a tiny clench in his heart. "--like, you know the rodents or something. I don't know."
"Is this all your stuff?" Jim interrupted him, not insensitive to Blair's distraught state but just wanting to get away from the scene.
"Yeah, it's most of it. I'll have to try to come back tomorrow and put the rest into storage. This is just the worst, where'm I gonna stay?" Blair looked at Jim as he started moving towards his truck and Jim knew, just knew what he was thinking.
"I don't know. A hotel? A hostel? Something?" he suggested, fending off the question. It was the one thing he couldn't handle right now. Being with Blair was cool, sublimating the feelings they'd both exhibited into friendship and close camaraderie. If Blair stayed with him, that was all out the window.
"That's fine for me," said Blair, "but what about Larry?"
Yeah, I know where you're going with this and I can't let you. "Put him in a kennel. You'll figure it out." He tried to turn away before Blair's eyes claimed him. Tried to make a getaway before his resolve failed him. Blair backed him up against his truck.
"I can't do that to him. I mean, my project's due next Friday. Unless..." There is was, the eyes, pleading with him. Blair didn't seem to know what he was asking. Couldn't he see that staying with Jim could, in a single moment, turn itself into something significantly more? Or maybe that kiss hadn't seared itself into Blair's soul, like it had into Jim's.
"Nonono. No. Don't...forget it. Just forget it." He brushed off the unspoken request the only way he could, with feigned indifference. Blair wasn't buying it.
"C'mon Jim. Jim please please please. My back is up against the wall here. Man, I got nowhere else to go." There is was with the eyes again, pleading with him and impossible to resist. Jim felt his resolve crumbling.
"I just not a big fan of animals in cages," he temporized. He couldn't even have convinced himself with that one.
Blair seemed to sense he had the advantage. "Larry? Larry, he's no problem, man. No trouble at all! I mean, he's been around people his whole life. In fact, he's more human than most of my friends."
"And that's supposed to reassure me?" said Jim, a half-grin creeping onto his face. He made another attempt to get into his truck. To leave, and leave things the way they were. Blair's voice brought him back.
He closed his eyes as he continued to beg. Even when I can't see them, your eyes get me. "Jim, one week. One week and I promise, I promise we'll be out of your hair. Come on. One week, man."
Jim caved. "All right, look. One week. You or the gorilla act up and you're out. All right?" He let his frustration with the situation permeate his speech. Why'd you have to ask? If you hadn't asked then I wouldn't have had to say yes. He walked past Blair, not even looking at him as he spat out those last words. We're in for some big changes, partner, and I don't think either of us is quite ready for them.
"He's not a gorilla," Blair told him, yet again. The confidence was back. "Look, you already hurt his feelings..."
"You know, I'm already beginning to regret this," said Jim as he picked up the bags he'd dropped next to the Blair's car and put them into his own truck.
Blair caught his arm before he got into the truck. "You aren't, are you?" For a brief moment, Jim wondered whether he was talking about the situation at hand, or the one that had begun days ago. The one that hadn't left his mind. Jim didn't answer, and Blair didn't let go. "Jim, maybe it's time we talked about this."
"About what?" he asked, his voice steady.
"About what happened between us. That isn't a normal partners-under-stress thing, I know that much." Dammit, the eyes again. Concerned and questioning and deep.
"I really don't think now's the time, Chief." Jim climbed into his truck. "I'll meet you back at my place, just park in the lot. We'll work things out from there." Is he thinking what I was thinking? Did it matter to him, or does he comfort everyone that way? Blair had caught him at his most vulnerable...and also at his strongest. But he still wasn't guessing what Jim was feeling, now that there was some distance from the incident.
Blair backed away towards the Corvair. "Yeah," he said. "Guess we've got a lot to work out. Come on, Larry, time to go."
Blair drove away first, and Jim watched him go.