In Search Of

by Francesca and James Walkswithwind

"Jim, Jim...where the hell are you, man?"

"That's 'wherefore art thou.'" Jim's correction floated up from below.

"I'm up on this balcony. Where are you?"

"I'm down here. Hold the fuck on." Blair peered over the balcony into the darkness, watched as James Ellison heaved himself up the rose-trellis with grunts and groans.

"There's stairs inside," Blair suggested helpfully.

"Up yours," Jim retorted, flinging one leg over the side. "The script says climb."

"Yeah, well, the script also says I've gotta refer to our, uh — " Blair fumbled for the script, hidden underneath his flowing gown. " — 'bud of love' in about a minute."

Jim rolled his eyes. "Our bud of love?"

"Yeah," Blair said, shrugging. "It's supposed to prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. You know, by summer's ripening breath. "

"God, who wrote this crap?"

"Shakespeare, I think," Blair said, frowning.

"Yeah, well, I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. I'm all scratched up from those damn roses," Jim complained, flinging a hand in their direction.

"You don't like it?" Blair asked, waving the script in his face. "Did you see how this fucking thing turns out? I don't die once — I die twice."

Jim frowned and took the script from Blair's hand. "What is this, hurt-comfort or something?"

"This is a mistake, that's what this is. And this dress isn't my color."

"At least you aren't wearing tights." Jim gestured down at his legs. "Thorns go right through this stuff — not to mention I feel like I'm mooning everybody."

Blair leered. "Hey, the tights are the best part!"

"Very funny." Jim took the script out of Blair's hand and read. "So now what? Can we start necking?"

"No, no, you have to... look, we're here." Blair leaned over and read for a bit, then pointed.

"You tell me your kinsfolk will kill me if they find me here? What kind of place is this?" Jim looked towards the window to Blair's bedroom.

"It's a tragedy, man. Now, come on!"

Jim blinked. "A tragedy?" He dropped the script.

Blair sighed. "Haven't you been listening to a word I've been saying? I die. You die. Everybody dies, okay? Tragedy, you dig?"

"What — no nookie?" Jim looked horrified.

"There's some ambiguous nookie, like, between the lines," Blair explained.

Jim took off his soft velvet cap and hurled it onto the floor of the stone balcony. "Well why the hell are we doing this one, then?"

"Hey, don't get all snappy with me," Blair protested, raising his hands. "You didn't want to do the Scottish one — "

"The kilts were itchy," Jim complained.

" — or the ancient Greek one, or the sci-fi one."

Jim frowned. "Which one was that?"

"That was a great one — you remember. Twenty-third century? Gay marriages totally legal?"

"Yeah, yeah — but the earth was under attack by aliens!" Jim objected. "And then the government kidnapped me, and forced me to work for them. We never got to have sex in that one, either."

"Picky, picky," Blair said, adjusting the conical hat with the flowing veil.

"Look, let's just reconsider our options, okay?"

Blair folded his arms and looked at Jim, waiting. Jim took a moment to figure out what their options were.

"What about the one in Rome?" Jim suggested finally. "Togas are OK." He tried to recall the details of that one, but after digging through what seemed like a thousand scripts recently, they all seemed to blur.

"The one where you die, you mean?" Blair arched an eyebrow.

"Oh." Jim scratched his leg, and cursed when his fingernail snagged on the tights, creating a run. "Would you look at this? Jesus Christ..."

"I know you already voted against it, but what about the western?" Blair asked, hopefully. "We got to have sex a lot, according to the script."

Jim gave Blair a confused look. "What western?"

"You know, the one where you and... er... oh." Blair looked guilty and clammed up. At Jim's fierce glare he admitted, "Actually that one was me and a young Clint Eastwood. Private fantasy, nevermind."

Jim sighed and leaned against the railing. "All right, look — at this point I'm in favor of going back to that Victorian thing."

Blair immediately started shaking his head. "Oh, no, no, no, no."

"Come on, Blair. We both got to be guys. We got to fuck a lot. The mustaches were kind of cool."

"Yeah, right. Except sodomy is illegal during that whole damn time period. Oh, sure, it all goes swimmingly until the Oscar Wilde trials and the resultant police crackdown." Blair was still shaking his head. "No, way, man — I'm not doing any more hard time."

"All right, all right," Jim relented. "Let's go back to the pile, find something new." He pushed through the doors into Blair's bedroom and sighed as he looked at the towering pile of scripts.

Behind him, Blair followed, dropping his hat and a few other accouterments Jim couldn't identify. He pulled the dress off as well, revealing a comfortable shirt and bike shorts.

Jim picked a random script off the top of a pile. He sighed. "Death in Venice. They don't even disguise it, do they?"

"Come on, that's the literature pile. Try this pile." Blair pulled a much thinner script off a pile of equally thin scripts "Here — Blair Does Dallas."

"No."

Blair looked up. "Why not? You wanted sex, no death."

"Yeah, well, I'd like to talk to you sometimes, too. Beyond 'get the lube' and grunting."

Blair rolled his eyes. "Fine. Sex, talking, no dying. Anything else you'd like? Fries, a coke?"

Jim laid back on the bed, flipping through another script. "Yeah, and a sandwich."

Blair hit him with a handful of scripts.

Jim grabbed one and flipped it open. "Hey, this sounds cool. I get to be this millionaire playboy, you get to be this circus acrobat — "

"No, no, I read that one. There are tights in it."

Jim looked confused. "Really?"

"Yeah, just wait. The tights come later."

"Screw that, then." Jim tossed the script aside and picked up another one. "Hey, here's one where I'm Marc Antony and you're — never mind, Chief."

Blair picked up yet another stack of scripts. "How about one of these?"

"What are they?" Jim glanced over, not yet interested.

"They look like serials — lots of action." He waggled his eyebrows.

Taking one, Jim skimmed through it. "Cops, huh?"

"Yeah?" Blair looked interested. He frowned when Jim threw the script down. "What's wrong?"

"I am not wearing 70s collars."

Blair had picked up the script. "But these jeans! Jim, come on!"

"No. Did you see that white sweater?" Jim shuddered.

Blair rolled his eyes. "OK, fine. How about this one? You can wear a uniform."

Jim looked. Then mildly he said, "Blair, if I ever wore a hat like that one, I'd hope someone would shoot me."

"But a red serge jacket! You'd look so hot." Blair began crawling up the bed, towards Jim.

"And jodhpurs. No."

Blair flopped down on the bed, grabbing yet another script. "Wanna be immortal and carry a sword?"

"I thought we said no death."

"I said 'immortal', Jim."

"Yeah? What's the sword for, then? Why can't we find something normal, simple. Where we can talk, have sex, not have to die."

Blair held up a script. "Two Jedi?"

Jim glared. "Two words - Emperor Sidious. No."

"God, I can't believe you're being so damn picky. Anything's better than this — chiffon, daggers and goddamned iambic pentameter." Blair sighed and picked up another script, started skimming.

Jim flipped through a vampire story with a sigh. "How do you feel about being undead?"

Blair nodded vaguely and said, "Put it on the side. We might get desperate."

"At least the death thing is right up front. We die first, then get to talk and have sex afterwards." Jim stopped talking, noting the smile that was slowly spreading across Blair's face. "What?"

"Oh, man, I've got it," Blair said happily, sitting up. "I have totally fucking got it!"

"What?"

"Get this, " Blair said enthusiastically. "We're both guys. You're a cop with heightened senses. I'm a graduate student in anthropology. We live together! We can totally boff like bunnies. And yeah, I die once, but I come right back and nobody even seems to notice!" He hugged the script to his chest. "I'm telling you man — this is it!!"

"Wait a minute, die once? Come right back?" Jim tried to grab the script from his partner, but Blair was waving it around excitedly.

"Yeah, just a drowning, but I get better."

"Undead again?" Blair shook his head and started to reply, but Jim asked, "Immortal? Magic? Monty Python?"

Blair glared. "Would you listen to me? I'm telling you — we can have sex. We can talk, we don't have to wear any silly outfits — unless you count that jungle camouflage, and I rather like you in that."

The admission derailed Jim's protests about the dying. "You do?"

"Oh yeah. Are you kidding? Face paint, a little 'fierce Jungle Jim' glaring going on... oh man, I'm yours. And let's not even talk about the Kevlar."

"I get to wear that in this?" Jim finally got a hand on the script.

Blair nodded eagerly. "And we live together. You know what that means?"

"You'll cook and I'll have to learn to accept a messy living room?"

"Besides that."

"What?"

Blair leapt forward, knocking Jim back onto the bed. He landed on top of Jim, in a very compromising position. He grinned. "It means I don't have to pay rent!"

Jim smiled up at him. "I'll take it out in trade."

Blair shivered. "Oh, yeah, man. Totally."

Jim arched up underneath Blair — between his tights and Blair's bike shorts there wasn't a whole lot keeping their erections apart.

This was it. They were so close now.

"Okay," Jim whispered hoarsely. "Let's do it. Wardrobe!" he called out, and instantly two pairs of jeans, two shirts, two pairs of boxer shorts, and four socks — two argyle, two white — fluttered down from the sky.

Jim reached for a flannel shirt.

"Actually, man, I think that's mine," Blair said.

"But it's my size," Jim pointed out.

Blair shrugged. "So I stole it from you. It's still mine by default."

Jim shook his head. As the room began to shimmer around them, as props and furniture were altered, Jim looked down at the clothes, then back at his partner.

"Why don't we forget the clothes for now? Filming won't start for at least an hour."

"I like the way you're thinking," Blair said, rushing to unhook Jim's velvet doublet with shaking fingers.

Jim grinned and grabbed the hem of Blair's t-shirt. "You're sure there's no catch here?" he asked. Blair raised his arms so that Jim could pull the t-shirt up over his head. "Oh — a nipple ring," Jim breathed.

Blair looked down at his own chest and grinned. "Cool! Bonus! Is this a great place or what?"

"It seems almost too good to be true," Jim said as Blair worked the doublet down his arms, exposing his broad, hairless chest. "How do we die in this universe?"

"That's the best part," Blair said, leaning forward to lick Jim's left nipple. "We don't die. We get canceled."

"Ah, bliss," Jim said, and pushed Blair down onto the bed.  

The End