Summary: Blair was used to not celebrating his birthday, he may have to start.
Sort of a sequel to my story A Home, there are some elements taken from that story and used here, mostly Blair's background. I'm fairly sure you can read this on it's own but I might be wrong.
Blair grinned at Jim, they had just finished the case and Jim handed the killer over to Henri Brown to put in a squad car.
"Ah man. Wow!" Blair exclaimed, he was still shocked sometime about the rush that came with chasing a suspect with Jim.
"I told you to stay in the truck." Jim glared at Blair.
"But what if something happened?" Blair asked innocently as they climbed into the truck to head to the department for the paperwork.
"That's what Simon and the other cops are for." Jim snapped.
"Whatever man." Blair rolled his eyes, as much as he knew his chasing after Jim worried the Sentinel Blair also knew that man was glad for his being there when things went wrong.
They road in silence the rest of the drive and Blair shook his head as Jim climbed out of the truck, ignoring him, classic Ellison avoidance technique, Blair thought almost clinically as he followed.
Two hours of quietly doing the paperwork and Blair was printing out the forms and handing them over for Jim to sign, who in turn went to file them.
Blair then pulled up a couple of back logged paperwork to complete and only looked up when a throat cleared loudly.
Blair looked up ad had to grin at Evan Lenards, an old friend from back when he had roomed with Evan's girlfriend when he was younger.
"Hey, what's up, man?" Blair asked.
"Emily called and wanted to know what you were up to tonight." Evan said.
Blair frowned in confusion, "Not much, why?"
"Come on, Blue, not even a date?" Evan teased, Evan was one of the few men at the police department that Blair had trusted with his inappropriate crush on his partner and the other cop teased him all the time about it as vaguely as possible.
"What's so important about today?" Blair asked still confused.
"You're pulling my leg right, Blue?" Evan laughed loudly, drawing the attention of the men of Major Crimes, pulling Jim and Simon to the door of Simon's office.
"Hey, man, Jim and I were on stakeout for the last twenty-four hours, and all we had time to eat was Wonderburger." Blair made a disgusted face.
"Well, that's awful, Blue Bird, I'm dragging you home to Em, she said she was going to make your favorite." Evan grinned, "I had specific orders to bring it to you for lunch tomorrow if you had plans tonight."
"My favorite?" Blair asked, "That sounds good, actually."
"Yep, so get your coat, Blue." Evan demanded, "Em hasn't gotten more patient."
"But she's gotten pregnant." Blair teased, "You guys find out what it is yet?"
"A girl. She keeps threatening to name her Blair when I piss her off."
"She still threatening to leave you for me?" Blair asked as he shrugged his coat on.
"Only when I piss her off." Evan said, slinging his arm around Blair's shoulders and Blair tried to ignore the frowns and tensing of the Major Crimes detectives.
"Which is every other hour."
"Too right, even when I'm at work I manage." Evan laughed.
Blair shook his head.
"Hey, Sandburg, this guy bothering you?" Brown asked, voice concerned as he stopped their progress.
"What, oh, oh..." Blair turned around and realized that the squad room was not just tense but very concerned about what they were seeing.
"No, I know Evan from my Undergrad, I shared an apartment with his wife Emily." Blair explained loudly, seeing the men in the room relax but also frown in confusion.
"And they often invite you for dinner?" Joel asked.
"Yeah, actually, Emily is very much pregnant and she's been put on diet restriction and apparently Evan can't cook a decent meal to save his life." Blair teased the man.
Evan scowled at Blair, "I haven't killed anyone, yet."
"'Yet'." Blair poked fun.
"Man, you're lucky it's your birthday, Blue." Evan tugged nudged Blair's shoulder.
"What?" Blair asked, as shocked as the rest of the squad room.
"You really forgot." Evan realized, the man shook his head at the ridiculous man, "Man, you are so lucky Em keeps a date book and penned your birthday in for the next five years. Come on, she baked a double fudge cake yesterday for today and it's been calling my name since she pulled it from the oven."
Evan dragged Blair towards the exit of the Major Crimes squad room, turning back to toss out, "He'll sleep over, we'll return him in the morning, bye."
The men of Major Crimes stare after them in shock.
"His birthday?" Joel finally said, "You know, Jim?"
Jim shook his head, feeling guilty for not realizing, "I don't think he's ever even mentioned his birthday to me."
"What about this friendship with Lenards?" Simon asked.
"I don't know, he's friendly with a lot of people, Simon, he walks down a street and twenty people will wave and smile at him, and those are the ones that don't stop to talk." Jim sighed, "But he doesn't socialize here like he does at Rainer, or even at the store."
"You think we should be concerned?" Simon asked.
An officer behind them snorted.
They all turned to stare at him.
"You really don't know, do you?" The officer asked.
"Know what?" Simon growled.
"Look, Sandburg is Major Crimes, he may not be a cop but he's one of us." The officer said, they nodded in acknowledgement, "Well, Sandburg knows people in every department, some of the men in Vice have asked him how to blend in on occasion when they've had to go undercover, Narcotics sometimes asks the kid about dealers, he doesn't do drugs but some of the kids he's got, well, they'll talk to him over a cop and he's got some friends that own a rehab clinic or whatever that he takes the kids to."
There was silence as the officer let that sink in before continuing, "That's not mentioning the fact he set Vera up with her fianc and has lived with or dated the wives or girlfriends of over half a dozen of the cops that work here, the rumor is the kid makes life matches and I haven't heard of a single couple he's introduced to one another breaking up." The officer snorted, "And you just call him your mascot."
The officer walked away rolling his eyes.
"You know that explains some of the comments I've gotten from the other Captains." Simon mused.
"So, what now?" Rafe asked.
"A party?" Henri suggested.
Jim shook his head as the others began making plans and throwing out ideas, wandering away and to his truck, heading home, wondering how he could make this up to Blair.
"Wanna go home." Blair whined as Evan tried to tuck Blair into the guest bed, "Bed's too hard, no Jim." Bair whined some more.
Evan sighed as his wife laughed from the doorway.
They had had a mini party with some of their old friends, the ones they had mutually with Blair and one of them had challenged Blair to a drinking contest, Evan was sure Blair had consumed at least half a bottle of whiskey and a whole bottle of Vodka, man, could Blue drink, what's worse was he never had a hangover the morning after, it was completely unfair.
"Wan' Jim." Blair whined from under a pillow, and Evan wasn't sure how he'd even gotten the pillow over his face.
"Jim's sleeping." Emily giggled.
"Nooooo, bless'd pr'tect'r. No sleep for us." Blair muttered.
"Us?" Evan prodded, he'd heard about Ellison's daring rescue of Blair from the headcase David Lash but that 'us' sounded like the whole blessed protector thing was mutual.
"Sav'd Jim when we met, garbage truck zooomed over us. Was scary, no' cool." Blair slurred.
"Ah, well, it's time for good little Anthropologists to go to sleep." Evan tried to get Blair to close his eyes.
Blair squinted up at him, "Want Jim." Blair whined instead.
Evan sighed, "Fine."
Emily laughed and wandered down the stairs to call Ellison while Evan got Blair up and safely down the stairs.
Ellison arrived half an hour later and frowned at Blair's blurry-eyed drunk state.
"One of the guys challenged him to a drinking contest." Evan explained, "He won. But he's also plastered, and refused to go to sleep in the guest room."
"Wanna go home." Blair smiled goofily as he clutched at Jim and leaned into his side, "I like home, nev'r had one before, s'nice." Blair closed his eyes as his head dropped against Jim's shoulder.
"Look, I have to ask that you hold nothing he says tonight against him." Emily said standing next to Evan, looking at Blair fondly, "Blair's birthdays have never been a big thing, if you've met Naomi you can guess why, but even when Blair got older he never made a big fuss, heck, it was a big deal if he even hung around you on his birthday. When we lived together, he just vanished, like we were about to file a missing person's report vanished, for a whole week surrounding today. He never said where he went but the same week the following year he did the same, it was four years of knowing him before he even mentioned today being his birthday and he never said anything after that about it."
Emily shrugged, "We just started to have a gathering, no presents, no big birthday declarations but Blair would hang around, and he'd tell stories, he has the best stories."
Jim smiled fondly, "He does."
"He ever tell you about his Maman?" Emily asked.
Jim shook his head.
"Ah, Maman is a trip, look forward to that." Emily smiled, "Take him on home."
Jim wanted to ask but it would mean more when Blair finally told him himself. Jim looked down at Blair, the other man had been asleep since he leaned his head on Jim's shoulder and Jim had always envied Blair's ability to sleep standing up, sometimes with his eyes open, at least when it didn't freak him out.
Jim lifted Blair up in his arms bridal style, "You mind getting the door?"
The couple walked him to the door and Jim heard Emily slap Evan as he put Blair in the car.
"Why do you never carry me like that anymore?" She asked, there was a pause, "And if you say because I'm pregnant Blair and I will run away and join that commune that is up in the mountains and baby Blair will run wild and naked through the trees."
Jim shook his head as he tuned them out and climbed into the truck to take Blair home.
Jim carried Blair up to the Loft, managing to open the door without dropping the sleeping man.
When he went to put Blair in his bed Blair blinked his eyes open and stared at him.
"Jim." Blair whispered.
"Yeah, Chief, you're home." Jim smiled at Blair as he unwound the other's arms from his neck.
"Staayy." Blair whined, clinging.
"I'm going to get you a glass of water, I'll be right back." Jim said.
"Promise?" Blair asked as he finally let Jim pull away.
"Yeah, promise." Jim said, walking away to get a glass of water to have Blair drink and a couple of aspirin for the morning.
Blair was already dozing when he returned and Jim smiled at him fondly as he helped a whiny Blair sit up to drink the water. Jim pulled away again to refill the glass for morning and Blair grabbed his wrist.
"Don't go." Blair whispered, staring up at Jim.
"I was just refilling the glass." Jim explained.
Blair shook his head, "Please, don't leave me alone. Always alone, even when so many people are here. I don't wanna be alone, s'cold, scary, stay?" Blair whispered.
Jim gazed at Blair's pleading eyes, "Okay, kid, I'll stay." Jim said instead of trying to explain to Drunk Blair that he wasn't leaving him alone.
Blair smiled and shifted over, lifting the blanket Jim had gotten him under.
Jim froze, he hadn't realized Blair meant it like that.
"Blair." Jim started but Blair's face fell and Jim sighed, "We're going to talk in the morning."
Jim climbed into the bed and let Blair tuck himself into his side with a quiet hum and Jim threaded his fingers through Blair's curls, feeling guilty for doing so when the man was out of it.
"Love Jim." Blair murmured before his heartbeat evened out and his breathing calmed.
Jim listened to Blair's heart beat, letting the soft rhythm send him into sleep as well.
Blair woke slowly, he was warm, usually he was cold, even under all his blankets and he frowned sleepily.
"Awake?" Jim asked.
Blair startled and it was probably a good thing that Jim had decided to put him on the inside of the bed.
"Jim!" Blair shouted.
"Calm down, nothing happened, you just refused to let me leave." Jim said as he sat up.
Blair buried his face in his pillow.
"Did I do anything else?" He asked, muffled by the pillow.
"We need to talk, Blair." Jim said as he stood up from the bed.
Blair's heartbeat quickened and Jim could smell the spike of fear in Blair's scent.
"Are you going to make me leave?" Blair asked quietly, turning his face to look at Jim.
"What?" Jim asked, startled, "No, I'm not going to make you leave, this is your home too."
Blair gave a hiccupping gasp.
"Blair?" Jim asked, hand resting on the back of Blair's head as he hid his face in the pillow again, "What is it now?"
Blair sniffled, turning his head, "You've never said that before."
"What?" Jim asked, confused.
"You've never called this my home before, I mean I've been calling it home, in my head, but you, you never called this my home before." Blair whispered knowing that Jim would hear it no matter how quiet he was.
Jim frowned and realized that Blair was right.
"Blair." Jim said softly, thumb stroking Blair's cheek and Jim belatedly realized how intimate this moment was, his fingers still tangled in Blair's soft curls.
"Jim?" Blair asked.
"Your friend told me to not hold anything you said against you." Jim said.
"God, what did I say?" Blair groaned.
"You said you loved me." Jim told him.
Blair closed his eyes tightly, "Jim..." He started.
"Blair, I... I want to hold you to that, whether it's just friends or more." Jim said, voice tight.
Blair opened his eyes to look at Jim, "You..., you love me like that?"
"Yeah, I know I don't really show it or say it, but yeah, I want that, but I can make due with what you can give, I've done it before." Jim said, looking away.
"Me too." Blair whispered.
Jim looked at Blair sharply.
"Made due with what I had, I mean." Blair clarified, "Maman used to say I was good at making something from nothing."
Jim shifted to lay back down with Blair, letting the man shift to lay his head on Jim's shoulder.
"Who's Maman?" Jim asked.
"Ah, Maman, they are one of the prostitutes that I lived with when I was seven." Blair said, "They are awesome, you'll like them."
"Prostitutes?" Jim asked, surprised, "Where was Naomi?"
"Can't remember, but Maman kind of adopted me and one thing you do not do in L.A is piss Maman off, they are terrifying." Blair grinned.
"Is Maman a nickname?" Jim asked, "For future reference if I meet her."
Blair looked at Jim, "Maman's isn't female, they are complicated, they prefer neutral terms, but I was so young and well, they were kind of like a mom and also a man so I started calling them Maman and they allowed it." Blair shrugged, "I never really cared, they were just my Maman, you know."
Jim chuckled, "Of course you would just find that normal."
Blair grinned against Jim's shoulder, "You know I think this might have been the best birthday I've ever had."
"Oh?" Jim asked.
Blair looked up at Jim, "Yeah, I actually got what I wanted."
Jim smiled and pressed a kiss to Blair's hair, "Yeah, me too."
A/N: I want to do a fic about the rest of Major Crimes throwing a party for Blair but I haven't been inspired for writing it yet so, we'll see how that goes.