Damn New Year's Eve.

I swear, it's worst than Christmas for making people climb out onto a ledge and seriously consider kissing the sidewalk rather than facing 12 more months of the same old same old.

At least with Christmas, you can chalk up all the negative karma and conflicted feelings to too much eating, too much drinking, too much merry-making and hindsight being requisitely 20/20.

But on New Year's Eve -- usually in the middle of a champagne-induced drunk -- there's that moment of crystal clarity when you see what you have and haven't accomplished and realize that the past year has slipped through your fingers.

Run through them, like a bottle of Tattinger's through a 98 cent colander.

Twelve months.

Three hundred sixty five days.

Eight thousand, seven hundred and sixty hours.

Five hundred twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes.

Thirty one million ... Jesus, more seconds than you can comfortably wrap your mind around.

All have fallen away, sucked into yesterday - your yesterday -- never to be seen or heard of again.

All those missed opportunities. All that promise lost.

And that's if you're just agonizing about your own life. When you consider how your existence touched others, how your actions or inactions affected them, well, you're looking at therapy bills with a cosmic price tag.

That's why I was passing on any kind of New Year's Eve celebration this year. What's more, I was alone, and not liking it one bit. I'd pulled desk duty because my partner, Jim Ellison, had to make a last-minute trip to FBI headquarters in Seattle to finish up our end of the mother of all smuggling cases. Why? Because that extraordinarily sensitive Sentinel nose of his had put Emma, Seattle's best drug sniffing Lab, to shame. He'd been the one to find minute traces of cocaine in the cargo hold of a fishing trawler. That led to his ferreting out a cache of two kilos in a cleverly hidden compartment beneath a ton of Chilean sea bass.

And since Emma's typing skills were sadly lacking (where are apposable thumbs when you really need them?), it was up to my Jim ... uh, my partner Jim to do the honors and finish all the paperwork. There hadn't been any extra funds, extenuating circumstances - or need, when you came right down to it - for me to tag along. So, he was there and I was here, the two of us separated by a monster snow storm blanketing most of Washington state.

Like that's something new.

We're holiday-challenged, I swear to God. Jim and I haven't been able to make it through any damned celebration - major or minor -- without at least one or the other taking a trip to the closest hospital emergency room or being stuck at an airport lounge in West Bumfuck, eating stale Cheetos and whatever else is left in the vending machine because something unexpected (weather front, police action, Presidential visit, you name it) has closed everything up tighter than a virgin's knees.

Jeez. That's like so harsh. I'm one and my knees are pretty flexible. Stop laughing. I don't mean virgin virgin, as in never having made the beast with two backs. I mean virgin where it counts these days, as in I've never done the horizontal mamba with a man. Parenthetically, ever wonder how it got called that? Why not the torrid tango? The flesh foxtrot? The wet waltz? (I guess when you get to the perpendicular polka, you have way too much time on your hands.)

No matter how you slice it or dice it, I've never done any of them with a man - and one man in particular: Cop of the Year and ex-Covert Ops Army Captain James "I Can Kill You With a Wad of C-4 Explosives or a Slice of Tombstone Pizza And They'll Never Be Able to Find Your Body" Ellison.

My Cascade PD partner.

My Sentinel.

My friggin' world.

Jim knows about the first two. The last one, well ... no.

Maybe, way back when I was younger, hotter, and less ... structured in my take on life, I might have been able to tell him. But now after nearly four years of the best and deepest friendship I've ever had, I think we've, well, missed our chance. Oh, Jim and I are still connected in a way that's hard to put into words. We've been together long enough that we can sense each other, know what the other is thinking, even finish one another's sentences quicker than cheese fries from Longitano's.

Jim's always seemed to have an odd sort of affection for me. It's pretty much been that way from the start. And me? Well, my feelings for the big guy have evolved, shall we say? At first, it was like observing a living action hero. After I moved in with Jim, it was like having the big brother I never had and the best friend you could only have imagined. And then, one day - one night, actually, on an oil rig with Jim in the shower and me checking out every inch of those six feet of absolute physical perfection - I began to want more. I wanted Jim Ellison -- body and soul.

But after four years, I still can't latch onto how Jim feels about me. I'd like it to be in that undeniable way that makes you get naked and laugh and sweat and shoot your brains out of your dick. Sometimes, I think I see a strange look in those Sentinel eyes of his, eyes so sensitive that they can probably peer into my soul, and maybe see the real Blair Sandburg, the one who'd love him forever. But then, whatever it is disappears.

If only he would say something. If only I could. But, it looks like the S.S. Ellison has sailed, and I'm still on the God-damned pier waving goodbye.

Funny. All the crap that happened after the dissertation fiasco, everything I went through to become a cop and an "official" adjunct to Jim's life, it feels like it happened to somebody else. Not to this guy in the mirror, the one with a hairline that's beginning to recede, sporting a few more lines around the eyes than were there before. Not old exactly, but not a kid anymore - and with enough thickening around the waist to prove it to anybody who's looking. No, this guy staring back at me through new rimless glasses is sane, sober, and ... somehow pathetic.

I guess it's because Jim's been dating again. No one special. At least, there haven't been any overnighters for him. Of course, he could be fucking and running back here, but I doubt it. He's not like ... I was going to say "me," the way I used to be. I'm not that horn dog my partner's always accused me of being. I'll let you in on a little secret. Where the ladies are concerned, I was the Prince of Hype. You know what I'm saying-- if you don't blow your own horn, who will?

Ancient history. Now with all my heart, I wish it were my partner blowing my horn, and my mind, and my cock until I couldn't stand up straight or think straight. But reality always rears its ugly head. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. And if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle.

That's why I'd decided to sleep through New Year's Eve and opt instead to take Joel up on his offer of watching a New Year's Day's worth of college football with the whole Taggart clan. He's really a nice guy. A pretty damned compassionate one, too, for someone who's been a cop as long as he has. I think Joel ... knows. True friend that he is, he's never said anything. But his would be the shoulder I'd cry on if the thing between Jim and me crashed and burned. As if Jim Ellison could have a thing with a nebishy ex-science nerd.

Not in this lifetime.

Not in my lifetime.

***

"You've reached 555-4167. Jim and I are either in - or we're not. Leave a message and one of us will get back to you. Or we won't. Ain't life a bitch?"

"Chief, if you're there, pick up."

My ratty striped boxers were halfway down my hips at 6:45 PM New Year's Eve, and my personal party favor, flopping semi-erect in my hand when Jim's call came in. Talk about bad timing. From over a 100 miles away, he effectively put the kibosh on Mr. Happy's impromptu date with 'Rosie Palmer' and her five sisters.

Luckily, I'm ambidextrous, so I grabbed the cell phone with my left and answered him. "Jim! Hi! Where are you?"

"Sandburg, what the hell kind of message is that?" Jim's voice was irritated - and like a lifesaver to a drowning man. Christ, how I missed him. "That's the first thing we get rid of in the New Year."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back to the 'Start talking at the beep'? I don't think so. I have standards, man."

"And they're all low."

"Jim. You're a real wit. At least half of one." I love banter. "How's it going?"

"I'm still at Seatac, Sandburg, that's how it's going." The gruff answer had an overlay of resignation. So damned Ellison.

"Shit."

"You can say that again."

"Shit."

"Who writes your material, Shecky? Anyway ... Looks like I'll be ringing in 2003 here with everybody else stuck at the Northwest Terminal."

I smeared pre-cum on the quilt and was just about to commiserate when the answer to my partner's dilemma presented itself. I heard a distinctly female voice calling to him in the background. "Detective Ellison, come on and have something to eat with the rest of the flight crew."

I swallowed hard. "See, Jim, your problems are all solved. I knew you still had it in you." Or in her, if she's lucky. The casualness I was aiming for wasn't fooling anybody - least of all, me. Shit. Just how jealous can I be? How long have you got to listen?

Jim had the decency to sound flustered. "Yeah, well, I guess, since I'm going to be stuck here at least until the storm clears. Sorry I won't be with you and the guys tonight."

"Well, about that, I'm pretty much going to pass on the party at Simon's."

"Why? You love that kind of stuff." Jim sounded incredulous, like I couldn't possibly pass up a party with people I see every day. Even with the mandatory "big sandwich" and beer in specialty "Ringing in the New Year" pilsners that actually glow in the dark, I'd pretty much decided to bag the PD get-together and have leftover pizza at 8, bed and a book at 9. On general principle, I'd deep-sixed even the remote possibility of Time Square and/or Dick Clark at midnight. The only balls I wanted dropping anywhere near me were attached to a Northwest passenger stewing at the Seatac Airport.

"Not all parties, I don't."

"You sure as hell look like you do at every one we've been to."

The operative word being ... we.

"And they say you're just another pretty face. Very perceptive, grasshopper. You should be a detective."

"Who's 'they'?"

"Them."

"'Them' who?"

"Them in the know."

"'Know' what?"

"What is this, the Sentinel version of 'Who's on First?' Go eat, Jim. You're starting to sound way too 'Rainman-ish. You have to work on that in the New Year."

"I'm an excellent conversationalist. An excellent conversationalist." Jim sounded happy as he did his Dustin Hoffman impression. It's so awful, it would take a half-dozen pens and three weeks to explain why. "Anyway, you making my resolutions for me now?"

"Someone has to."

"Well then, I'm going to make yours."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Well, for starters, no more dating psycho bitches."

"What the fuck --?"

"Does the name 'Iris' ring a bell?"

"Yeah. Only a little less loud than 'Laura' does."

Jim kindly refrained from referring to Maya. I held my tongue on Lila and Veronica. We both avoided female sentinel Alex Barnes like the plague she was.

"Touche, buddy. Well, my batteries are wearing down."

"Yeah? And how about the ones in your phone?" Okay, so now I was tentatively playing with fire. I live for danger.

"Chief, are you ... alright?"

"Yeah. Scout's honor." I'm sure Jim's ear could hear me doing the official kinder-Nazi salute, even as I splashed spunk on my forehead.

"Listen, chief, go to Simon's, will you? I'll feel a whole lot better if --."

"-there's someone watching me?" I don't know if I should have felt grateful or offended. I feel this way a lot.

"No. It's just ..."

"Jim, don't worry. How much trouble can I get into? Wait. Don't answer that. Trust me. I'll be fine."

"Coming from you those are still the two scariest words in the English language."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go get your flight seat straightened."

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" I heard the laugh that can make me smile in my dreams. "Well, Sandburg, I guess I'll see you when I see you."

"Happy New Year, Jim."

"You, too, buddy. Bye."

"Bye." As soon as my roommate hung up, I said the two scariest words out loud: "Love you."

Yeah. They beat 'trust me' by a mile.

***

I can't believe my eyes. Jim's not even rattled that I've walked in on him and the red-headed flight attendant. They doing it on the floor in room 852 of Seatac's Ramada, under the standard hotel warm-weather, beach-scene landscape. Jesus. Who knew he could be this easy? Apparently, all Jim needed was snow and an excuse. I should have guessed -- me being his fucking guide and all. Except I don't guide him fucking.

I guess in this surreal three-way, I'm the one who's getting screwed royally. And as Miss "Oh, baby, harder, harder" gets finished, Jim turns that Greek-god head of his in my direction, pinning me with a look that could melt sections of Antarctica.

A sheen from the carnal exertions is making him golden in the subdued lighting. My partner is the only person I've ever met who actually looks better debauched than not. And it's not really debauched. He looks like someone off Mt. Olympus who decided one snowy December evening to do a little one-on-one with a lowly mortal.

Those incredible lips are moving. I finally realize what Jim's saying. "It could have been you the first year. Or the second. Or even the third. But now, it's too late, chief. You're pretty much out of luck. Say goodbye to Cheryl, the new Mrs. Ellison and close the door on your way out?"

I guess this qualifies as the ninth ring of Blair Sandburg hell. That's the one reserved for traitors. He's schtupping a stewardess - sorry, flight attendant - and I'm the traitor because I've betrayed the possibility of us. I've waited too long. Screams of "No, Jim! It should have been me!" rock me awake. In my own bed. In Cascade. Alone. In a puddle of my own making.

Shit. I've generated enough sweat, tears and more than a little blood from where I bit my lip to choke the proverbial horse. Now, not only is the bedding come-stained, it's going to reek with all of my other bodily fluids. Very nice. Mrs. Chong, our friendly, neighborhood dry cleaner, will now consider me an animal not to be trusted with any of her marriageable daughters.

Suddenly, a shadow falls across my face. In the open doorway to my little corner of the world under the staircase stands Jim Ellison, looking like a lot of miles of bad road.

"Jim?"

"Who else, Sandburg?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Uh, unless things have changed in the last 24 hours, I live here."

"You know what I mean." Embarrassed and turning six shades of red even in the half-darkness, I scramble to find anything to throw on. Great. The first thing that hits my fingertips are the boxers I came in after Jim's call.

"Don't. They're a little ... ripe. You, too."

"You want to give me a minute, here? I wasn't expecting company - much less an audience."

"Better than the Spanish Inquisition."

We both yell "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" like the Monty Python junkies we are, then laugh at this old joke for the millionth time. "And I'm not company." Dressed in sweatpants and his favorite old gray tee-shirt, Jim looks as though he's going to take a step toward me, but decides against it.

"So ..."

"So, what, chief?"

"Uh. Hello? Snow. Like feet of it? You trapped at the airport?"

"I caught a break and hitched a ride back with Tom McNamara."

"The state trooper? Where'd you hook up with him?"

"You want a beer?"

"Jim, it's like 4 AM."

"Sorry, I'm a little wired from the trip back. He was at the airport babysitting the lieutenant governor. We got any food in the house?"

"Uh, hang on I'll get up and make you a sandwich."

"Nah. Stay where you are, Sandburg. I'll find something." I heard cabinets opening and closing, and then the unmistakable sound of plastic wrap being ripped to shreds.

"Jim, what are you having with that Budweiser?"

"Rugducks."

"Ring-dings? Beer and Ring-dings? Gross me the fuck out, why don't you?"

From behind chocolate-covered lager lips, Jim asks: "You know the definition of gross?" He's clearly been locked in a state trooper's patrol car with someone who thought sharing a string of incredibly tasteless jokes would make the time and countless miles pass faster.

I can think of at least four, but wisely, I pass. "No. What's the definition of gross."

"When your grandmother kisses you, she slips you tongue."

"Yewwwwwwww. Jesus, James!"

"Thought you'd like it." Jim's grinning from ear to ear. He's moving from the door, beer in hand, and plunks that taut, undeniably magnificent butt of his into my ratty armchair that doubles as a filing cabinet. "Sure you don't want some Ring-ding?"

"Nah. I'm good."

"You are that."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Was it my imagination or was my partner a little ... pink around the cheeks? And was he ... flirting? Before I could really say yea or nay, he looked around, then grinched up. "Jesus, Sandburg, this place is a pig sty. I take that back. You could have a bunch of pigs in here under all this crap, and who would know?"

"A herd."

"I thought that was cattle."

"It is. You can also have a sounder of swine."

"Sounder?"

"Or a singular of boars. Or a drift of hogs."

"A drift?"

"Yeah. A drift."

"Jesus Christ, Sandburg. Starting off 2003 with a lecture, are you? It looks like this year's going to be just like the last."

"Yeah. I guess." Why did I, all of a sudden, feel so sad I could fade away into the woodwork?

Jim was shifting in the chair, putting the empty beer bottle down on the floor. His face was getting that uncomfortable look that says, 'Let's change the subject. Now.'

"So, you didn't go to the party, huh?"

"No. Too much trouble."

"That doesn't sound like the party animal we all know and love."

"Do we 'all'?"

"Well, sure, chief. You're on everybody's A-list. If it weren't for you, I'd never be invited anywhere. Well, anywhere that didn't involve bringing a 'piece' along."

"Shit, Jim. Stop it. You were doing fine without me."

"Except for the thing about my senses driving me insane, you mean."

"Except for that."

"No. You're wrong." Jim leaned forward and flicked at the bottom of my foot that was protruding from under the quilt.

"Hey, cut that out. That tickles."

"I know." With a lightening swipe, my sentinel grabbed it, and nestled it in the palm of his large panther-like paw.

"Jim, cut that out, man."

"No, I don't think so." Of all the things my partner could have done next - and that includes telling me he's actually a woman who's been 'passing' - I couldn't have been more surprised. He lowered his face and kissed the top of my toes one by one.

Now, I knew I was still dreaming. Only this dream was sort of like watching a monster truck meet. You don't know how it's going to end, but you're so fascinated, you can't turn away.

"Sandburg, I've been thinking." Thinking's a good thing.

"About what, Jim?" Does my voice always sound so squeaky?

"About resolutions."

"Resolutions?"

"Yeah. I didn't follow-through on mine last year."

"No?"

"Do you always answer everything I say with a question?"

"Do I?"

"You have to work on that. It's as annoying as hell."

"What was it?"

"What was what?"

"The resolution you didn't keep last year."

Jim bent over the bed, my foot still in his hand, and kissed me square on the lips, then pressed his homecourt advantage. He pulled back and asked, "So, what do you think?"'

"What is this?"

"If you have to ask, I guess I'm not doing it right."

"I know it's a kiss. You're such a dick, sometimes. Why?"

"Why am I such a dick? Who the hell knows? I'm thinking the whole nurture/nature thing."

And then he did it again. This time, it was a big, sloppy wet kiss that went straight to my cock - and up to my heart. Jim Ellison wrapped himself around me, pulling me into the unbelievable safety and security of those strong, comforting arms. It's where I was meant to be. A little sigh escaped my lips as I rested against Jim's granite chest.

"I've been promising myself I'd tell you I love you. I've wanted you just about forever, chief. But I thought I'd sort of fucked up royally. You know?"

A thought penetrated the fog of love and lust and the promise of everything to come - including 160 lbs. of happy-as-pig-in-shit guide. "So? Why now? Why tonight, uh, today?"

"Because I hated being someplace where you weren't. I hated not being able to kiss you at the stroke of midnight."

"Just as my ball fell?"

"Very funny, Sandburg. So, let me ask you again. What do you think?"

"I think you should go for it, man. Don't screw up another year." I pulled Jim's face impossibly close to mine, began milking his lips and kissing the stuffings out of him. Boy, am I good when I'm motivated. After a few minutes of intensive non-verbal communications, Jim lurched away from me, looking flushed, turned on, and as big as a mountain. I thought this was just the best way to ring in a new year. A year that was going to see lots of changes. Like ... I get half the big bed upstairs, half the covers, half the closet space, and all the loving that Jim wants to give me.

I tried working some serious guide mojo on my sentinel to get him thinking in terms of doing the nasty. Immediately. With me.

All of a sudden, we were rubbing against one another, trying to start a fire with body parts. As I shot off, coming so hard the top of my head could be registered with NASA, I had weird random thoughts. Like, isn't it amazing how versatile the dick is? It makes whoopee, it makes babies, it makes a great conversation starter, and, in a pinch, it's a convenient place to hang your hat.

And when it's sitting in somebody else's hand, mouth or, Please God, real soon, up somebody special's ass ...

"Did you hear me, Sandburg?"

"Sure I did. What did you say?"

"I said 'Happy New Year'."

"You, too, partner." As Jim and I rolled back onto my futon, I couldn't leave well enough alone. "Hey, Jim ..."

"What, Sandburg? You wanna talk now?"

"No. I was going to ask if you wanted to blow my noisemaker?"

"Doable, chief, doable."

The End.

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Acknowledgements: Thanks to the Mongoosians who continue to shake their collective pom-poms and encourage me to continue my TS voyage.