Sideline
by Mab
Jim was prowling again, a tense movement back and forwards across the apartment – to the balcony, to the kitchen, a quick check of the fire door in Blair's room, a cat-like stalk up the stairs to his bedroom, an equally silent return to the living area.
Blair looked up from the scatter of police-work texts and notes spread across the dining table. “I'm getting tired just watching you. What's going on?”
Jim sat down on the couch but his eyes were again on the view out the balcony doors.
“Restless.”
“I think my observational skills are up to that much. Why are you restless?”
Jim scrubbed his palms across his face. “I don't know. It's been crap at the department and yes, I'm moody as hell and I would appreciate not being psycho-analysed in my downtime.”
“Except it's not your downtime, Jim, because you're pacing this place like a caged animal.”
“Fine. I'll pace outside, where I won't disturb your concentration.”
“I wasn't so worried about my work. I was worried about you.”
Jim shot upwards from the couch. “Christ, Sandburg. Not everything about me is your problem to fix!” Blair said nothing, just rearranged the books and notes in front of him with suddenly shaky hands. Displacement activity, he thought.
Jim's voice calmed, softened into an attempt at neutrality, although his face was as unyielding as stone. “I should get out of your hair. Go for a walk, maybe have a beer.”
“Yeah, you do that.” Blair remembered a time when he could tease information out of Jim, like an angler going for fish. Having to chisel granite for every little nugget tired him, and scared him. Pissed off all of a sudden, he retorted, “Get some air. Try and come back a human being.”
Jim, stiff-backed, turned and left.
Two weeks. Two weeks until Blair graduated from the academy; and he was hoping like hell that the thing that was making Jim restless wasn't Blair Sandburg. He thought - he hoped - that he could probably stand to know that; but he wished that Jim would say something, anything, because the avoidance was driving Blair crazy.
Jim came back a couple of hours later. He cooked Chinese food, in what Blair knew was unspoken apology, so he complimented Jim on how good it was, with pretty much the same purpose. They watched some sports on tv, and through all that activity Blair had the feeling that Jim was only half there. Blair turned in for the night, and the next he knew, he was coming out of sleep with a thumping heart, and Jim's hand over his mouth.
“Get some clothes on, and then stay close.” Jim was carrying his gun, and Blair nervously dressed in the dimness of light bleeding through the window of his room from the lamp in the living area. He screwed his feet into sneakers without socks and followed behind Jim as his friend cautiously opened the door into the hallway, and went through with a speed intended to ambush anyone lurking there. Satisfied that the hall was safe, Jim gestured and Blair travelled in his wake, until they were down on the street. Jim still held the gun, and Blair wondered what any passers-by would think. Hell, he didn't know what to think.
Jim stood still, very still, his head tilted in a way that Blair knew from hours of observation, of tests, of experience of dangerous situations. Then with a curse, Jim was off across and down the street to the parking lot where Blair usually left his car. Jim sprinted, Blair close behind, and then he stopped short.
“What is it?” Blair demanded
“I don't know.” Jim spun around wildly, with none of his usual graceful precision. His eyes scanned the cityscape darkness. “I thought – I was sure that someone was watching. God, I could feel the hair going up on the back of my neck.”
Blair tried to keep his voice encouraging. “So reach out with your senses, man. Can you hear anything? What about smell?”
“If I reach out any further I'll zone,” Jim said furiously. He turned again, his gun still held at the ready, and then he let it drop, his shoulders slumped in angry confusion. “Looks like I woke you up for nothing.”
“Not for nothing, Jim. You've got good instincts. Something set you off.”
Jim headed back to their building, his face set in embarrassment. “Doesn't take much to set me off the last few days.”
“It's okay, man. I haven't been Mary Sunshine either.” Blair looked up at Jim. Somehow in the walk back to the loft, they had moved in closer and closer; their arms brushed as they walked across the road. It had been a while since they crowded each other's space like that, although Jim hardly seemed aware of it. His face was distant, for all the physical closeness. Blair sighed. “We still don't know what happened tonight.”
“Nothing happened.” But for all that Jim was dismissive, he directed Blair into the hallway first with a hand around his arm before turning back to the street, a sentinel on alert, searching for - what? “Let's get back inside.”
The elevator creaked its way to the third floor. “Think I'll make something herbal,” Blair said. “It was a little chilly out there.”
“If it'll get you back to sleep.”
Jim was still standing very close to Blair, even allowing for the confined space. Blair smiled. “Busy day tomorrow. Hell, man, only two weeks before I'm a real cop.”
“Yeah. Two weeks.” Jim didn't sound enthused. He looked very tired, and his closeness was suddenly oppressive to Blair, not comforting at all.
“And I can see just how much you're looking forward to it,” Blair snapped.
“Stop being so goddamned touchy. I'm not enthusiastic about anything at,” Jim looked at his watch, “shit. Two-thirty in the morning.”
“Sorry,” Blair muttered.
Jim said nothing, just strode down the hall as the elevator doors opened. Once inside, he dropped on to the couch, his gun held loosely in his palms.
“You should get some sleep, too,” said Blair.
“I don't need to sleep right now.”
“Yeah, right. You look dead on your feet. I'll make you something,” Blair offered.
“I don't want anything,” Jim said sharply, and then he shrugged and a tired smile appeared on his face. “Just worry about your own sleep, Sandburg.” His head bowed, and stayed down. “Go on.”
Blair went.
The Volvo needed work and Blair was waiting for a pay check before he got it repaired. Getting to the academy meant buses, which wasn't so very bad because Blair was a people-watcher from way back – including the back of the bus. The cheaper bus section ended about a block before Prospect, and Blair tended to get off and walk. It didn't save a lot of money, but he liked the exercise anyway. Disembarking from the bus's comparative warmth, he hunched his shoulders against a chill wind and, jamming his hands into his pockets, turned west towards Prospect. Last night's weirdness weighed heavy in his mind as he tried to figure out if it was a sentinel thing or an Ellison thing. He kept thinking about something that Naomi had said to him before she left, in a belated reversion to maternal font of all wisdom.
“It's a terrible burden, Blair.”
“I don't mind, Mom,” he'd told her earnestly. 'I don't. I promise.”
She'd looked at him with troubled eyes. “I was thinking of Jim, sweetie. But you know him better than I do.” Blair did know Jim better, so why did he need his mother to point out how Jim hated to be beholden? And that meant that Blair tried to hide his grief over the necessity of giving up his academic career, over letting a wondrous discovery be considered lying, tacky drivel, because he didn't want Jim to think he regretted anything. He didn't. He could mourn change without regretting the choices that led to change; he could mourn the old and still look forward to the new – but try explaining that to James Ellison.
Or rather – not explaining that to Jim Ellison, because too often Blair remembered how it felt to futilely address an angry Jim who kept turning his back every possible way. So you turn into some passive-aggressive piss and vinegar artiste. Way to be psychologically mature, he thought. He was working on a new mantra with a specifically personal focus – 'moving forward in hope and courage' - when he heard Jim's voice. He started in surprise.
“Sandburg. Get in.”
Jim was leaning across the seat to hold open the door of an unfamiliar, dark blue SUV. Blair met Jim's eyes for moment, read the tension in Jim's body as he leaned across the car interior, and then he got in and slammed the door behind him.
“I've never had you pegged as an impulse shopper, so I guess that when you tell me what this is about, it won't be cheerful news.” Oh, and this was a good start to re-evaluating his interaction with Jim.
“It could be a lot worse, Chief.” Jim squeezed Blair's forearm with fervent energy. His face was alight with satisfaction and relief, in contrast to the tired, withdrawn man who'd left the loft that morning. He let go of Blair, and pulled out into the traffic.
“So. What the hell is going on?”
“We're going on a road trip.”
“And me without my toothbrush.” They drove straight past 852 without stopping, on a route that would take them out of the city. Blair leaned against the head rest, and tried to swallow back fear. “This whole riddle wrapped in an enigma thing is getting on my last nerve. What is going on?”
“I need you to keep your cool over this.”
“So what is it already?” And then the clues of Jim's restless irritability, his intent attention of the previous night, fell into place and Blair asked, “It's another sentinel?”
“Yeah.” Such a short, scary answer.
Blair took in a slow breath. What were the odds of another sentinel being a psycho like Alex? He comforted himself that surely the chances were low. He'd always wondered how much of Jim's behaviour in that little episode was related to the threat that she presented, and how much to sentinel territoriality. Looked like he was going to have a chance for comparison.
Blair looked around inside the car, noted what looked like packs and camping supplies in the back. “So what's with the great escape?” He was proud that his question came out in a neutral tone. Would it have killed Jim to have confided in him before? But he was doing it now.
“It's complicated. God, you know what happened last time.” Blair did indeed know what happened last time. Jim had been so deeply tuned to the extended reality of his sentinel abilities that Blair had been afraid that he would never again register the more mundane world where everybody else, including Blair, walked. And then Blair had died and come back. Jim had tracked Alex with visions. So much for mundane. He shivered.
“Where are we going? Why don't we go see Simon?” Maybe Simon didn't always appreciate the more mystic side of working with a sentinel, but the thought of his sturdy pragmatism was comforting.
“We don't need Simon. We need to get to Utah.”
Blair was briefly silenced by utter astonishment before he bleated, “Utah?” He swallowed, recovered some of his voice. “What the fuck is in Utah? Besides a really famous choir?”
Jim flashed Blair a brilliant, febrile smile. “Sandburg, you need to settle down. Frustration is a pollution – isn't that what your mom said one time?”
“So how about you help me with my frustration?”
Another odd smile. “Love to, Chief. But not yet. Just relax and enjoy the ride.”
Blair slouched resentfully in his seat. “And what's going to happen when I don't turn up at the academy bright eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow?” He glanced sideways at Jim. There was an unexplained light in Jim's eye, secret and conspiratorial.
“We'll worry about the academy when we have to.”
Blair thought that he hadn't heard the word 'we' used so much between the two of them for a long time. It wasn't making him feel better.
They cruised at a comfortable speed across Highway 2. Blair was possessed of a toothbrush and other toiletries and a couple of changes of t-shirt and underwear, courtesy of a blitzkrieg speed stop in some small no-name town. Jim had hustled him through the shopping, always so close to Blair that he could nearly feel the other man's body heat. All efforts at interrogation were fruitless. Jim brushed off Blair's questions, sometimes with good humour, sometimes with irritation.
“Are we driving through the night?” Blair asked. “Because if we are, then you'd better take a break at some point and let me do some of the work.” There was no answer and he looked at Jim. “Are you okay?” In the fading light Jim's face was pale and drawn.
Jim hesitated, looking almost as if he'd forgotten how to speak, and then urgently pulled over onto the shoulder.
“I…” His arms hugged across his chest, and his hands crawled like restless spiders up and down his arms.
Blair undid his seatbelt in concern and turned to put one hand on Jim's shoulder. “Jim, say something. Are you okay?”
Jim said nothing. He was shivering, and Blair grew increasingly alarmed. “Come on, let's get you out of the driver's seat here.” Blair scrambled out of his side and hurried around the car to open Jim's door. He laid a hand on Jim's forearm. “What's wrong? Are you in pain?” Jim sat with his head bowed, his arms still wrapped around his ribs as if he needed to hold himself together. “Jim, you tell me what's going on or I'm calling 911.”
Jim lifted his head and looked at Blair. “No! No hospital!” He swallowed convulsively and Blair barely avoided being spattered as Jim leaned out of the vehicle and vomited onto the road verge.
“Shit! That's enough, man, I don't care what you say, we're finding an emergency room.”
Jim spat a couple of times. “There's water in the back. Get me something to rinse my mouth.” Blair stepped over the mess to open a rear door and find some bottled water. He handed it to Jim, who seemed a little better for his purge but was still white.
“No doctors. They can't help anyway.” He looked up at Blair and there was that secretive look in his eyes again, and inappropriate humour. “It's only a little travel sickness.”
“Damn it…this isn't funny.”
“Sorry.”
Blair raised his eyes in exasperation. “I'll help you get over this lovely puddle here and we'll swap seats.” He reached for Jim, awkwardly trying to support his weight and keep their feet out of the vomit on the ground. They managed it, just, and Blair hooked Jim's arm over his shoulders and walked him around the back of the car. Jim leaned heavily against him, and Blair thought that Jim wasn't the only one who was sick. It was good to feel the big man's weight and body heat up so close, to have an arm around his waist, and Blair was angry with himself. Jim's just thrown up, his internal voice rebuked, and you're thinking about copping a feel. He carefully guided Jim into the passenger seat, and just for a moment, Jim leaned his head against Blair.
“Been a long time,” he sighed. Then he pivoted and lifted his legs into the car, and Blair shut the door and got in on the driver's side. The bottled water Jim had used was still on the seat. He passed it to Jim, who took it wordlessly but didn't drink any more of it.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just find a doctor straight away.”
“Because a doctor can't help and because we've got a limited time frame here. Drive for now. We might be able to sleep later. I'll tell you if I think it's safe.” Jim leaned his head back on the head-rest and shut his eyes.
“I'm so glad you'll tell me if it's safe. It'll be about the first thing you have told me!”
“Just drive, Sandburg.”
Blair looked at his hands gripped whitely around the steering wheel. “No.”
Jim roused from his exhaustion.
“Stop playing games. Just start the fucking car and go.”
“I'm not playing. And we're not going anywhere until I know what's going on.”
Jim turned and put a hand on Blair's knee, gripped hard enough to hurt. “I told you it's another sentinel and we don't have much time. That's all you need to know.”
“Like hell. Tell me what's going on.”
Jim stared at his hand on Blair's knee and then with a shaky movement lifted it and held Blair's chin. “He thinks he owns you,” he said thickly, “but he doesn't have a fucking clue.” Jim's hand was cold, but the contact burned into Blair's skin. Sure, Jim had touched him before; they were always touching, at least, they had always touched, even during the last few months from hell; but this was different. Blair felt the heat of a blush travel his face; felt a knot of heat tangle itself in his gut, distracting him from sudden fear.
“The other sentinel's after me? He? Do you know who he is?”
Jim dropped his hand. “He can't have you.” He turned away from Blair, leaned back once more and shut his eyes. “Just drive, Chief. Come on, please.”
Blair pushed out a breath. “Jim…Given what happened last time we met a sentinel, I'm kind of antsy about this deep, dark secrecy thing you have going here.”
Jim looked at him again. His eyes blazed with unleashed ferocity. “Nobody is going to hurt you. Nobody. I promise.” His voice was low, uncompromising.
“Ah, screw it.” One big breath in. “ Okay, I'll drive, but I want something that sounds even vaguely like an explanation sometime real soon.” Blair pulled out on to the highway. “Fucking Utah,” he muttered.
He drove on for several hours, peering into the dark on the interstate, cursing the occasional drivers who didn't dim their brights for oncoming traffic. Jim dozed quietly, waking periodically.
“I'm not so bad now. Want me to drive?”
“Next rest bay.” It took half an hour, and they swapped seats. Jim drove on and it was Blair's turn to doze. He would turn as he tried to get comfortable, and see Jim's clear cut profile, dimly visible by the light of passing traffic, thrown into shadow and light by the glow of street lamps marking towns and turn-offs. It was comforting somehow, just being with him in silence. The inside of the vehicle was a time machine back to an easier way of being together.
They stopped to eat at a truck-stop. The fluorescent lights glowed weirdly pale after all those hours in the dark, and the clink of cutlery and the noise of the kitchen were too loud even to Blair.
“Man wasn't meant to eat this much grease ever, let alone at four-thirty in the morning,” he growled over the menu.
“Just pick something so we can eat.”
“Fine. Bacon, pancakes, OJ and coffee.”
“Such a good Jewish boy,” Jim teased, his voice still a little hoarse.
Blair flipped his middle finger and waved the hand in coiling spirals practically under Jim's nose. “Would you like a lecture as to exactly how long this gesture's been obscene?”
“Bring on the obscene. I can take it.” Jim's voice was lazy and appreciative, and something in Blair's stomach did a pleasurable, tilting roll, even as he made mental comparisons between their previous experience of another sentinel and this. They were sitting in a truck-stop in the middle of nowhere with another sentinel in pursuit of them (in pursuit of Blair) and Jim was flirting with him. And Blair liked it. You're just grateful that he's mentally with you instead of being in sentinel lala land, Blair told himself. But no way was that the whole truth.
They ate, although Blair noticed that Jim left much of his meal. “Still not feeling so hot?” he asked, inclining his head towards the leftover food.
“I'm okay.”
“Bullshit.”
“So I'm not that great. But it's not anything to worry about.”
“Is it because of the other – one?” He felt weird about not simply saying 'sentinel' but safer to be circumspect in public.
Flirtatious Jim was gone, to be replaced once more by a closed-mouth, irritating man. “Sort of.”
“And is this the point where I futilely seek an answer and you refuse to give it – again?”
“Yeah.” Jim stood up and went to the counter to buy some chilled juice. That done, he gestured at Blair. “Come on.”
Out in the parking lot he said, “Listen. We've somewhere to get to, and when we get there, I'll explain everything.”
Blair held out empty hands in a gesture of despairing confusion. “If you say so. But – damn it, there'd better be a good reason for all the cloak and dagger. Tell you, man, my imagination is starting to get a little wild here.”
“Nothing new then, Chief.”
Blair looked up at Jim. Even allowing for the lights of the lot, his face looked washed-out and shadowed. “Do you want me to drive again?”
“Yeah.”
“It'd be safer for us to get some real sleep. You know that.”
“When we're closer. When we're closer, I'll know if we can take the time.”
Blair considered that he only had to indulge the slightest of mental gymnastics to convince himself that he wasn't actually driving at all. The SUV was staying completely still, while Idaho spooled past him like an old time movie special effect: Lewiston, Idaho; Cascade, Idaho (which made him smile in a punchy sort of way); Boise, Idaho.
“Hey, Jim. You awake?”
“More or less.”
“We're on Interstate 84. We might be in - ta-da! – Utah soon. And it might be good if you drive, because even my capacity for staying alert on bullshit and coffee is about to be exceeded.”
“Okay, pull over when you can. I can drive. We'll get to Salt Lake City and I'll review things.”
“You couldn't review them now?”
“Salt Lake. If we're lucky we can get some sleep there, and I'll explain then.” Jim smiled, warm and apologetic, and totally present. “You'll need a clear head for the explanations, anyway.”
With the driving transferred, Blair watched a little more of the great American landscape go past his window, until relatively open land became increasingly urbanised once more and they were negotiating the turn-offs in Salt Lake City, heading for the southern end. Jim stopped outside a park, and got out of the car. He walked out onto the grass, walking the perimeter of the grounds like an inspection, while Blair trailed alongside with a patience that was born of tiredness, and the desire for observation. Jim was sensing something, and there was always a bone-deep satisfaction for Blair in watching Jim use his abilities.
“Okay,” Jim murmured and turned himself to face one direction across the park. Blair couldn't see why – it was just a view of trees and open ground. A children's playground lay to their left. Jim shut his eyes and lifted his chin, and Blair remembered a small ravine in Peru, and triumphantly enjoyed the fact that Jim did these things without even thinking about them anymore. Jim stood there, his eyes remaining shut, an expression of intense concentration on his face. Then he paled and swayed, and Blair grabbed at his elbow. “Whoa! You okay?”
“I'll be okay.” But Jim's face was drawn again, and the stubble on his unshaved jaw stood out darkly against the sweaty pallor of his skin. “Good news, Chief, I think we've got time for a break.”
“Happy days. Because you look like shit, man.” Jim was leaning hard into the arm supporting him. “And I'm really, really looking forward to my explanation.”
“Gotta love that Sandburg tenacity.” Jim still looked exhausted, but the sweat was drying in the breeze of the early afternoon, and his voice was teasing. “You drive, find us a motel.”
“You're going to trust my sense of direction?”
“Desperate measures.”
“Bastard,” Blair replied, but he opened the car door, and watched with the tender care of a worried mother as Jim settled into the passenger seat.
Jim reached into the dashboard compartment and flipped a guide book into Blair's lap when he got into the car. “There you go, Hawkeye, find us a trail, heading south if you can.”
Blair's navigational abilities rose to the occasion and the two men let themselves into a motel room a short time later. Blair dumped his bag on the shelf by the door and eyed the beds with relief. Dozing in the car just didn't replace real, lying down, head on a pillow sleep. Jim sank onto the bed nearest the door, and pushed his shoes off, toes dragging at the heels. Then he sat still, head bowed, elbows resting on his thighs.
“Want me to tuck you in?” Blair asked, only half jokingly.
“Your watch has an alarm setting?”
Blair nodded, realised that Jim wasn't wearing a watch himself. He frowned.
“Four hours, no more,” Jim said
Blair shrugged. “Okay.”
Jim looked up at him then. “Blair, don't take this the wrong way, but…”
“What, Jim?”
“I want you to sleep in the same bed with me.”
The wash of heat went from Blair's toes to the top of his head, and he could see embarrassment, but also desperate hope, on Jim's face.
“Ah, yeah.” He groped for something to say. “Okay, so another sentinel, territorial instincts are fully aroused, the blessed protector siren is wailing full blast…” And this was so much better than it was with Alex. Blair was getting just about as much information, but at least he was with Jim, and Jim wanted him close.
Jim shook his head, but he was smiling. “Exactly, professor. But I think we need sleep more than we need analysis. Right?”
Blair nodded, and took off his own shoes, put his watch on the nightstand. Jim stripped as far as t-shirt and jeans before he stood up and dragged back the bedcover and got in between the sheets.
“I don't bite,” he muttered sleepily, as Blair hesitated, suddenly unsure that he hadn't just fantasised the offer of sharing the bed. “Come on, you're the one preaching the evils of sleep deprivation.”
It's just a bed, Blair told himself. With Jim in it. Get over yourself. He got in, and laid his tired head on that plain, white-covered motel pillow and sighed. He wondered if he was too wired to sleep, and turned his head to look at Jim. Jim's eyelids were half-closed but they opened wide just for a moment, as if Jim was surprised to see Blair there, despite his invitation. Then, with a very sweet smile, Jim's eyes closed and within seconds his breathing dropped into a deep, slow pattern. Blair watched him for a minute or so, anxiety still wanting its way but having to fight hard against tiredness, and Blair dropped off into his own rest.
He woke before his watch's alarm went off. He was warm, maybe even too warm, and that was due in large part to the living heat that was tucked up close behind him. Jim had one arm around Blair's waist, and his breath blew moist and gentle across Blair's nape. Blair lay there, and acknowledged that resting in Jim's embrace was good, even if it was only because of some sentinel freak-out. They'd deal with this, whatever it was, and then Blair would probably have to offer reassurance that what happened in sentinel freak-outs stayed in sentinel freak-outs. But for now…He shifted slightly, trying to push back some of the blankets. Backing up a little more against Jim, Blair realised that his friend had quite the boner snug against Blair's ass.
More heat swept through Blair. Okay, normal male reaction, Jim was asleep and didn't know, and maybe it was time for Blair to get the hell out of this bed. And then, Jim's arm tightened across his waist.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Blair answered back. He lay very still. “We're still inside that four hour window of yours, which is good, and I'm feeling more alert, and you've still got explanations…” He stopped, because Jim's hand had moved from his waist to lightly cup his groin.
“Jim?”
“Your heart's going wild there.” A gentle roll of Jim's hips gave Blair's heart more reason to beat wildly. “Are you okay with this?” Jim's voice was deep, and softly pleading.
“What if I'm not?”
“Then I guess I jerk off in the bathroom and we don't mention it again.”
Blair tried to sift the sensations running through him – startled surprise, even a little fear; but there was excitement too, and arousal. He shut his eyes, and saw Jim kissing Alex, the distracted hungry way he'd clung to her. He thought of nearly four years of being with Jim, living with him, working with him, figuring out what it meant for Jim to be sentinel, and hell yes, he wanted to figure this out too. If the influence of another sentinel meant that Jim felt like sex with Blair, then clearly it was a phenomenon that needed investigation.
“I'm okay, I am absolutely okay,” and then Blair sighed as Jim worked his other arm under his neck to reach across Blair's chest, and curled that long body even tighter around Blair. The arm resting under him snagged in his t-shirt and pulled it up. Jim's hand ran up and down the line of body hair, skimming along the waist of Blair's pants before it moved up to flick teasingly at Blair's nipples. The hand at his groin deftly undid belt buckle, buttons and zipper, and reached inside the fly of Blair's pants.
Blair bucked and grabbed the arm across his chest like it was the protective harness of a rollercoaster ride, because Jim had never touched him like this before but that was loop the loop time right there. Jim indulged a couple of provocative strokes before his hand was gone, and Blair whimpered a protest.
“Just making things easier, Chief.” Jim's hand, big and warm, so warm, spread across the top of Blair's buttocks to half push, half drag his pants and underwear down. Blair lifted his hips, and listened to the rustle of material and the jingle of the belt buckle with what felt almost like a sentinel's sensitivity. His clothes slid down, rough against his skin, and he kicked awkwardly, unable to reach to push them off entirely. He tried to loosen the hold that Jim had, just for a moment, but instead it tightened. Jim's leg slid over Blair's.
“You still okay?”
“I'm great, but there's this thing called reciprocity. Plus my pants are seriously tangled around my legs.”
“Reciprocity is good, but maybe I like you just the way you are now.” This pronouncement was accompanied by tiny nips all along the back of Blair's ear, and another of those toe-curlingly wonderful strokes along his dick. Then Jim planted some tiny sucking kisses against Blair's neck, little touches that budded at the warmth of Jim's tongue and then blossomed into distracting coolness as Jim moved his mouth, and the moisture left behind sought the air.
Blair giggled – god, he was high as a kite on sex and nerves. “So this is one of those territorial things is it?”
“If you like.” The hand at his groin wandered down to gently fondle his balls.
“Yeah, I like. God.”
The maddeningly pleasurable touches stopped. Jim reached down to his own clothes, and Blair felt the rub of Jim's knuckles against the small of his back and his ass, the bounce of the mattress as Jim wrestled his own clothes off. If Jim's erection had felt big trapped behind his jeans, it felt enormous as it rested nakedly against Blair's skin, and Blair tensed. Jim's voice soothed him. “It's okay, not that, I know you haven't done this before.” Blair sighed, caught between the heat and pressure of the hard-on against him, and Jim's hand returning to his own arousal. “One day, I'll fuck you one day, and you'll love it, promise.” Jim's hand was moving steadily now, his hips rolling gently into Blair.
Blair pressed his face hard against the pillow, still holding on to that supporting arm, but reaching one hand back to slide it over Jim's flanks, to grab at the hip that flexed into him. Warm silky skin lay under his hand, strong muscle pushing against him.
“Maybe I might want to fuck you.”
The hand busy on Blair's dick faltered, and then Jim moaned, “Yeah, yeah, I want that, you fucking me, god,” until he remembered what he held and resumed the stroking. Blair writhed under the touches, the weight of Jim's body alongside him, holding him steady against the surge of pleasure that was coming, Blair was coming, and he cried out. Jim sank his teeth into Blair's shoulder through the cloth of his shirt, moaned through his teeth before he released the skin.
“Turn around. Turn around now.” Blair struggled around, still cradled in Jim's arm and it was a sweet aftershock to pleasure to see Jim pulling at his own dick with the hand that was still damp with Blair's semen. Jim's eyes were lit with pale blue fire, but Blair saw the light in them only for a moment before Jim kissed him, and that was another sort of fire, even for a man who'd just come and hard. He kissed Jim back, taking one hand down to rest against Jim's hand, which moved roughly and determinedly until Jim pulled away from Blair's mouth. Blair watched him, watched his face contort, felt Jim's arm pull him tight to drag him in even closer, saw what it looked like when Jim came.
They lay there, and Blair nuzzled at Jim's shoulder. “If this is just some weird thing, because of the other sentinel, that's okay.”
Jim tensed at that.
“Sorry,” Blair said.
“No, no, you're right to put our minds back on business.” Jim leaned up on elbow and stroked Blair's hair back from his face. “I really shouldn't have done that.”
“I disagree.”
Jim's kissed him affectionately. “Maybe you would. But we'd better get going. Time to set records for fastest possible showers, Chief.” He got off the bed. Blair noted that Jim had managed to shuck his jeans and shorts and he leaned up to finally do the same for himself. But first he was pleasantly distracted by the sight of Jim Ellison in nothing but a t-shirt. He smiled happily. The view was spectacular. Who needed to drive three states? He just had to get Jim to take his clothes off.
He remembered how those long legs had felt, tangled in his own, and then he went cold with incomprehension. Jim was beautiful. Blair had always thought so. He would think that Jim's scars were beautiful too. But there was one scar that wasn't there, that ought to be there. The small narrow line where Zeller's bullet had ripped across Jim's leg, just above his knee.
Information was just that. Information. Blair tried to analyse this piece of data. Because the part of his brain that was used to dealing with plain facts was telling him that the man that Blair had driven through the night with, the man who had touched him with those gently passionate hands, wasn't Jim Ellison at all.
He ought to talk to Blair about the dreams. Everyone's dreams were weird, the brain's sorting house of its experience, but Jim couldn't even be normal in his dreams and the recent ones were no exception. Jim's nights were reviews of the past as seen through a distorting mirror.
Things that never happened (but maybe they should have, eh Jimmy?). Coming home the night that Blair was making out with that Chinese girl, remembering the kaleidoscopic whirl of the candle light, the scent of sex drifting on the tiny thermals created by the flames. He remembered Blair's frustration – all of it: the disrupted sexual arousal; Blair's frustration and fear that he couldn't put the memory of Susan Fraser's face out of his mind; his frustration and anger at what he saw as Jim's suggestion of distance, something that Jim saw as no more inherently unreasonable than Blair's efforts to be academically professional about the sentinel study. No more distance, no more. Jim crossed the wooden floors of his home and he knelt in front of Blair and his hands parted the open shirt that Blair wore, and some frustration at last was finally released.
And after Lash was dead, so much easier to comfort Blair, to comfort himself in the big bed upstairs, easier than the back-side numbing vigils he actually kept for two weeks on and off in Blair's little room, until Blair sheepishly insisted that he was okay, and that really Jim didn't need to worry so much. Other dreams too – Blair sitting astride him, wearing an appreciative, lustful smile and very little else. Lunches on the grass in the grounds at Rainier. Blair frowning over case files at the PD. Just like any other memory, but skewed with the knowledge that they were lovers, and tainted with a sense of waste and grief and threat.
Dreams were the sorting house – but he couldn't sort. Waste and grief? That made a certain sense. He was still coming to terms with the dissertation mess and it was going to take a while. He dreamed Blair's strained face as he spoke to the news cameras, and he stood outside himself, arms crossed, sardonically enquiring, 'Got a clue yet? Figured out what you don't want to see?'
Threat? He was dreaming about fucking his friend, but that wasn't what was scaring him. There were things that maybe he should have raised with Blair before now.
But one dream – that one always left him sick and sweating. The hunt for Dawson Quinn; watching Blair go down with a bullet wound in his leg – that was a bad memory, but not as bad as his dreams. In his dreams, he and Simon dragged Blair into the mine, laid him down, and in the dim light Jim felt through Blair's jeans, which were dripping wet, sodden with blood. Jim's hands were painted red, because the femoral artery was blasted open, and they had nothing, nothing except a few strips that Simon uselessly tore from his undershirt. Not enough, and as they dragged Blair up for the second retreat further into the darkness, Jim could hear Blair's heart stutter, hear the beginning of the rough, irregular breathing that signalled a body suffering an urgent lack of oxygen.
Blair whined in hurt desperation as Simon lifted the injured leg to rest against his shoulder and ruthlessly pressed the edge of his hand into the pressure point, but shock and blood loss was already pushing everything down, way down. Jim knelt by Blair's head and held his hand, watched the life force flicker back and forth like the candles that first time in the loft, and then die. And Jim cried out to his dreaming self, no! not the way it happened, and his voice came back in anguished echo, yes! you stupid fucker, this is what we brought him to, he never should have been there, and what the hell have you learned since?
And he woke up the two nights that he dreamed that, feeling like he had to leap out of bed and fight something, something was coming, and there was only the loft still about him, and Blair sleeping the sleep of a hard-working police cadet in the room below. Jim sat up in bed and tried to distract himself from the sickness in his gut with the sting of sweat in his eyes as he swiped at his face.
Two weeks. Two weeks until Blair graduated, and maybe this was simply some weird expression of anxiety, a way of working out Jim's fear that there was no going back now, no way to even pretend that Blair could be safe and sound in academia. He could hear Blair now – 'oh sure, man, and Borneo would have been a walk in the park, and here's a hypothetical question - are you sure that you think that I can cut it as a cop?' Because if anyone in the loft was hypersensitive these days, it wasn't James Ellison. So Jim cut Blair some slack, because he knew that the kid had serious processing to do.
That was what he told himself, until the night that he knew, he knew that someone was out there, watching, and he ran out on to the street like any gun-toting nut, as crazy as he'd been when Alex came to town. That made him take stock, after they came back to the loft and he'd sent Blair to bed again. That was another night where he spent part of it in vigil, sitting on the floor by Blair's bed, listening to Blair breathe, and marvelling at how damn still he was when he was asleep. Jim didn't leave until nearly five in the morning.
He was going to have to talk to Blair about this. It was a sentinel thing, which was Blair's bailiwick, and besides, Jim owed him a little professional trust. He was going to owe a lot of it to Blair, very soon, and he might as well start now. He went to work and took sour pleasure in being Jim Ellison, hard-ass, all the day, much to Simon's disgust. By the early evening he was convinced that lightning was about to strike, or the earth to heave, and determined that he wasn't going to repeat one mistake, he drove to the academy, intending to pick Blair up. Pity about the road construction. Pity that Blair wasn't carrying his cell phone because he couldn't pay the costs right now, and was stubborn about accepting even Jim's stealth efforts at help, such as never suggesting that it might be time for Blair to buy groceries.
Blair wasn't home when Jim got there. He didn't come home at all, and Jim stood at the balcony, accepting necessity, and let the sentinel do whatever the hell he wanted.
.
Blair had made speedy choices before, and right now he had approximately the amount of time that 'Jim' would take for the fastest possible shower. Five minutes at best to decide if he was mistaken or crazy, and what to do with his decision. Maybe it was just the light, he told himself hopelessly, but no. The soft early evening sun was flatteringly clear on the beautiful and damningly unblemished skin on those long legs, and Blair was quite sure that Jim hadn't taken any time out for cosmetic surgery recently. He wiped his body with the bed sheet and quickly pulled his clothes into decency. Then, with a dry mouth and hammering heart, he stooped to look in the other man's bag. Well, look at that, what a surprise. A gun, with a silencer on it. A wallet with an eye-opening amount of cash. There was even a driver's license, in the name of James Ellison. Also, at the bottom, there was a dog eared and annotated copy of Blair's dissertation, out of the box in his bedroom.
Blair took the gun, checked it with competent hands. Hadn't he been refining just this exact skill the last few weeks? There was the unarmed self-defence as well, but he wasn't planning to take this man on that way. Time for a little distance here. He positioned himself in the narrow space between the beds, readied himself as much as he ever could and waited.
Blair didn't have to wait long. Out he came, naked and, to Blair's eyes, arrogantly confident in it. The worn t-shirt was held in one hand. He stopped at the sight of Blair at the ready and aiming a gun. The t-shirt dropped to the ground, and the hands rose, not in the traditional gesture of surrender, but in the way of a friendly enquiry. “So, what do you think you've figured out, Chief?”
“You're not James Ellison. And don't call me that.” Blair was proud of his voice – it was controlled and cool. Very professional. He felt like a thin paper shell around a big space of nothing, but his hands were completely steady.
The man in front of him stayed calm. Then his mouth quirked in amusement. “Last time you pointed a gun at me, at least I had on some pants.”
“What?”
“Golden, Sandburg. The parking garage. And I am Jim Ellison.”
“Don't lie. Jim Ellison has a scar on his left leg, above the knee. You don't.”
The other man ducked his head briefly as if embarrassed, then lifted it to look Blair in the eyes once more.
“Damn. I really shouldn't have done that.” One hand gestured with odd vulnerability at the rumpled bed.
“You're right,” Blair answered. “You really shouldn't have.”
Jim, or whoever he was, raised an eyebrow. “You want to pass me my jeans? Not that I can't answer questions in the buff if I have to.”
Blair quickly crouched and threw the jeans, watched as 'Jim' pulled them on.
“What are you doing with that copy of my dissertation?”
“I can't take anything electronic back with me, and I thought you'd be less likely to miss that one.”
“You had time for a pretty thorough search, didn't you?” Damn, there was anger coming through there.
“Yeah. I did. Sit down, make yourself comfortable.”
“I don't think so.”
The other man shrugged, a lazily beautiful movement of muscled shoulders. “Suit yourself. I guess this means I get the chair.” And slowly, keeping his hands spread by his waist, he sat in the small easy chair. He kept his eyes always on Blair. They were steady, assessing, and strangely happy.
“We're still working to time limits here, so I'll tell you the truth and you can tell me I'm full of shit, but you can do it while we're on the road.” The man in the chair took a breath. “I bet you were a science fiction buff when you were a kid. All the bright kids are, right? Did you watch Star Trek in the reruns, Chief?”
His manner was so exactly Jim's in a teasing mood that it made Blair even angrier, convinced that he was being mocked. “Just tell me what's going on. Who are you?”
“I'm James Ellison.” He leaned forward, those blue eyes intense, pleading. “And I come from a place that's mainly like here, but just a little different. Alternate realities, dimensions, whatever you want to call it.” His mouth twitched briefly into a grin. “And I know you want to call the men in white coats, but bear with me just a little longer.”
Blair started backing away from the crazy in the chair, wanting to be between him and the door. Said crazy began to stand and Blair took two more hasty steps back before he stopped.
'Just stay where you are.”
“What are you gonna do? Call the desk? Call the cops? I'm James Ellison. I have his finger prints, I have his DNA, and then your James Ellison is going to get here all fuelled up in a righteous sentinel rage and the shit's really going to hit the fan. I'm going to go back where I belong, if you'll just give me the chance.”
Blair grasped at the one thing that he knew as truth in that statement. “My James Ellison? So you'll admit that you're not him?”
This James Ellison smiled. “Let's just say I'm a Jim Ellison. Like I said, science fiction stuff. Twilight Zone. Bet you watched that in reruns too.”
The gun was getting heavy in Blair's hand. “You are grade A fucking nuts.”
“You taunted Lash with how he couldn't be you. He was wearing that favourite brown corduroy jacket of yours, the one you had to get patched when one of Kincaid's men nearly shot you. I told you after that you did everything right.” The quiet voice roughened with emotion. “I was so proud of you. Jesus, you were brave.”
“You weren't fucking there.”
“Or what about the last time you held a gun on me. Now that was a show and a half. I was blind and you were crazy, but you listened to me, you were out of your head on the shit they laced the pizza with, but you still trusted me.” He moved forward towards Blair, a tall, handsome man, wearing only a pair of faded jeans, armed with nothing but a softly persuasive voice. “I told you that you could save the world, that you had to clap your hands, because you couldn't fight the fire people with a gun.”
Blair realised that he couldn't use a gun to fight this man, either. Not this man who looked like Jim and moved like Jim and spoke with the cadences of Jim at his most gentle. “You trusted me, Blair. And all you have to do is trust me now.” Not this man who gently moved into his space and took the gun out of his hands. Blair waited to see if the reward for the folly of listening to that soothing voice would be a bullet through his head. “There you go,” Jim said quietly. Still with the gun in his hands, he stepped back, went to his bag. “How about you have a shower, Blair, freshen up. We'll get on the road again, and you'll get your shit together enough to ask me about a million annoying questions.” Jim seemed to quite look forward to those questions.
Blair took one look at him as he stood there in the early evening light. Jim stood tall but relaxed, and his head was slightly tilted in a gesture that Blair knew enough to interpret as 'so, what are you doing next, Sandburg?' A shower, a brief retreat into the normality of a generic motel bathroom, suddenly seemed like a great idea. Blair went in, started the water and pulled his undershirt over his head before he realised that he didn't want to put the same shirt and boxers back on. They were well-worn after more than twenty-four hours on, and he sure as hell couldn't go back into the main room with Jim's confident naked surety. He ducked back to his bag, head down, ignoring his companion, who was pulling on shoes and socks.
He grabbed a change of underwear and a t-shirt, still in their wrappers, and dashed back into the bathroom without a word. Then he took off the rest of his clothes, enduring an intense flush as he remembered his last experience of the drag of his pants and underwear against his skin. Whichever way he cut and served this little conundrum, he was in so much trouble.
He shampooed and soaped himself automatically, and considered the way that his world had been rocked to its foundations once more. Jim, but not Jim. He thought bitterly that the spectacular hand-job should have been a clue. Other options? Some other sort of impostor, with as thorough a line in research as in plastic surgery? Door number one – Rod Serling; door number two - John Woo.
Your James Ellison is going to get here all fuelled up in a righteous sentinel rage
“Oh my god,” Blair muttered. Whether his Jim thought he was with the other by choice or under duress, sentinel instincts were definitely going to be in play. He dried himself as quickly as he could and then headed into the other room, and picked up the motel phone, only to find a strong hand clamped around his wrist.
“Whoa there.”
“I've got to call Jim,” Blair protested, mentally reeling under the dizzy surrealism of saying that to the man who restrained him.
“Why?”
“Why? Why the hell not? He doesn't know where I am, or whether I'm safe, but you clearly think he's after us, and I'm not supposed to at least try to contact him?”
And he was absolutely heading for door number one, because he knew that look, the look of Jim Ellison tamping down anger and frustration; all the better for it to explode out later. The possessive, yearning expression was a new thing though.
“No. We can't afford the time anymore. I know you, Sandburg; there'll be no such thing as a short explanation.”
“Then you go on without me.”
“No!” The denial hung loudly in the air. “I…look, I can manage the senses okay, but I do better with a little guidance. And there's the sickness. Somebody to share the driving is safer.”
“That's why you came after me? For my guidance and amazing driving skills?”
Jim's eyes crinkled in amusement. “That and the pleasure of your company.” Blair pulled at the grip on him, stepped back away from the phone. Jim let him go, and Blair looked up at him.
“And my ability to ask about a million annoying questions?” Blair had one right now that he wasn't sure he wanted to ask. If this Jim Ellison was what he said he was, if their worlds were so similar that Jim could correctly recount details of some of the more intimately scary moments of their life together, then where was Blair's counterpart?
“Yeah, that too, but let's get going.”
Blair nodded, and watched as tiredness crept back over Jim now that he had Blair's acquiescence. He put on the rest of his clothes and stuffed his meagre belongings into the cheap backpack they'd bought along with the other items. He wished that he'd shaved before he dashed out of the shower. He thought of the Jim left behind in Cascade, and felt anxiety, but also a dull relief. No wonder Jim had been moody. He would have sensed another sentinel, but also sensed only himself. Jim, his Jim, had been connected to Alex, and reading between the lines, he was connected to this Jim Ellison too; he was following them, and Blair pursed his lips in speculation. Maybe it might simply be better to get his companion on his way.
They loaded their bags into the back seat of the SUV. “Any particular reason you want to keep ahead of my Jim?”
Jim Ellison, and Blair decided that he was going to have to call him Ellison, this wasn't Jim, shrugged. “Just don't want any time-wasting arguments. The universe won't explode if we shake hands, if that's what you're wondering.”
Blair batted at his chest in exaggerated relief. “Good news. Where are we going now?”
“The Tushar mountains.”
“Because your way back's there.”
“Yeah.”
“So why were you here in the first place, man?”
“Exploration.”
“It's all just for the wonder of pure science, then?”
Ellison checked the road as he pulled out. “Exploration is about seeking advantage as much as it's about scratching curiosity.”
“Advantage?”
“There's several teams. One place, there was a major intelligence scandal, hugely damaging any way you called it. The lynchpin of that hadn't been found out in our 'verse. She'd still caused trouble, a lot of it, but we could shut her down a little more discreetly at least. Some places are a lot different – different technologies, new patents. It all works out.”
“Teams?” Blair asked. “So, where's yours?” There was silence. Where was this man's Blair Sandburg? “Lone wolf Ellison, huh?”
“Like I said, you can't take electronics through the rifts. Anyone can feel the damn things up close, but you move too far away you risk not being able to find it again, they're almost always in isolated places and they only stay open for limited periods of time. They shut down, they open up again without any particular pattern. So teams go through, to make a lifeline for the men and women who go out to explore the new place.”
“But a sentinel can feel the - rift?”
“Yeah.”
Blair tried wrapping his mind around that idea, looked out at the utterly mundane blacktop ribboning ahead of them. “How does it feel?” he asked in a hushed voice.
“Wrong. Just wrong, Chief.”
“But you go through anyway.”
Ellison grinned. “It's a job.”
“So how come you stopped being a cop and decided to be an inter-dimensional secret agent instead?”
There was a snort from Ellison. “Cheesy, Sandburg. But at least it's better than calling me a caveman.”
Blair waited, but the man next to him said nothing more. “Hey, I'm still asking my annoying questions here.”
There was no answer. “Why did you give up being a cop, Jim?” Blair's use of Ellison's first name was quite conscious, and Blair felt like a manipulative shit, especially when it worked.
“It was time for a change.”
“Something happened. To your Blair Sandburg.”
“You died.” Ellison's voice was flat.
Been there, done that, would rather not do it again for, say, another fifty years. “And that's where you're wrong, because I did not die, man. He did, not me.” Blair's voice was too loud in the car's confined space. 'Not me' was a pulled-back, resentful mumble.
It was getting dark, harder to see Jim Ellison except in occasional dull-lit flashes of street and car lights. “You're right. Not you.”
“How? How did he die?”
“When we went after Dawson Quinn. That crazy survivalist bastard who followed him.”
Blair huddled into his seat. “I did get shot when he opened up on everyone.”
“Yeah. You got shot all right.”
There was only the sound of the SUV's passage down the highway, the noise and vibration of travel. Ellison suggested after a while that Blair check the maps in the dashboard. Blair had a feeling that it was make work, because he was sure that the sentinel knew wherever they were going. It was a welcome distraction for all that. Finally, Blair started questions again.
“Why come here, to this - place?”
Ellison shrugged. “We can open rifts up now, but we don't know what's on the other side beyond some pretty rough parameters. There were men and women who never came back while the scientists measured those up. I knew I was coming through to something pretty similar to my own place, but the devil's in the detail some of the time.”
“Inter-dimensional pot-luck, huh.”
“Pretty much.”
Blair burst out laughing. “My god, I can't believe I'm having this conversation.”
Ellison chuckled. “Yep. It's pretty weird and unlikely. Right up your alley, Chief.”
“Why take my dissertation? Whoever you're working for knows you're a sentinel. Why do you need my work?”
The humour was gone from Ellison's voice, but he answered the question.
“Different places, different perspectives. Different Sandburgs.”
“You've done this before? Made contact this way?”
“This is the only time I've directly contacted you. There was one place where I had the chance to do a little research and another team followed up for me one other trip, so I know about four sentinel/guide relationships if you count my own place.”
“Doing a little sentinel research on your own account?”
“Something like that. Four sentinel/guide relationships. And you and your Ellison are the only ones who aren't lovers. Hell, one place they're married.”
Blair decided that when he heard news like that he wanted to be able to sit in a half lotus while contemplating some gently flickering candle-light – not be stuck in the cab of an SUV.
“And I need to know this, why?”
“You're the anthropologist with the sentinel fixation. But no, you're going to be a cop soon.”
“I like working with Jim.”
“Yeah, guess you must if you gave up your career and your reputation for him.” The tone was brittle, mocking even.
“He's my friend.”
“Your friend.” He'd heard that tone too from Jim Ellison – the bland repetition that pronounced 'liar'
Blair was glad he wasn't driving. Something suffocating moved in his chest. “That's right. My friend,” he replied. “And thanks so much for the chance to give informed consent to the sex this afternoon.”
Ellison winced. “I'm sorry about that. It was a stupid impulse, and you have every right to be pissed about it.” He sounded regretful, although not necessarily for the deception. “But you went up like the fourth of July when I touched you.” If he'd gloated, Blair didn't know what he would have done – but it would have been an action totally unsafe in a moving vehicle. Instead, Ellison's words were a measured judgement, and almost sad.
“That is not the point. The point is that you…” But Blair knew that part of his anger was grief that it hadn't been his Jim after all. “Fuck, I don't know why I'm even talking about this. You don't need me here. Why check up on me, why get your team-mates to do a little research for you? Shopping around for a replacement, are you?” Blair was startled by the ugliness of his tone; but the undercurrents in the interaction between him and Ellison were unnerving him. “I'm not your Blair Sandburg.”
“You are so damn close, though.”
“And how can you be so sure?” Blair's own words came back to him. You had time for a pretty thorough search, didn't you? “Did your search for 'advantage' include reading my journals?” No answer. “You bastard!”
“I'm not in this business for the finer points of etiquette.”
“God, you didn't just do a quick break-in for the dissertation. Did you make yourself at home? Have a beer? No wonder Jim was going crazy.”
“For what it's worth, I think he was crazy before I ever showed up.”
“You know what? I'm not interested in your opinion! Why don't you just let me off and I'll thumb myself a ride back home.”
“No way. There's a good chance I'll have another bout of sickness. Sometimes the rifts affect me like that. If you want to make sure that me and my inconvenient facts are out of your hair, then you stick with me until I've gone through.”
Blair pushed an irritating tendril of hair off his face. “I'll see you through, but you can forget any idea that I'm interested in playing rebound man.”
“I don't expect that.” No, Blair thought, but you like the idea anyway.
There was quiet in the SUV for perhaps half an hour when Ellison pulled over. “Time for you to drive, Sandburg.” He lurched out of the door, and then stood leaning against the side of the vehicle. Blair sat in his seat, still angry, and unwilling to offer any particular care. Then Blair saw Ellison double over and sink out of sight. He hastily scrambled out and ran around the side of the car to find Ellison kneeling on the ground, hugging his arms around his shoulders.
“Hey,” Blair murmured. “Hey, Ellison?”
“Help me up here, will you?” Ellison reached out an arm and Blair took it, helped haul the man upright. He leaned heavily on Blair's shoulder. “That one took me by surprise. Definitely time for you to do the driving again.” Blair helped Ellison around to the passenger seat. The wan illumination of the car-light showed the sweat on his face, and Blair felt unwilling pity. He hid it, because he doubted that this man wanted that emotion any more than his Jim would. He sighed a little. His Jim. The man in front of him noted the sigh and smiled at him with tired gratitude. “Thanks. I know that…Just - thanks.” Not his Jim Ellison, but so damn close.
Jim wasn't sure how long he stood on his balcony, his instincts wheeling like a compass needle put next to a magnet. Trying to think about what his instincts knew was no good, because what they told him was crazy. Instead he grasped at the most important thing: that if he didn't find and follow that weird shadow, the sense that everything was askew, then he was going to lose Blair. He'd thrown that damn badge at his friend in the bullpen, all misguided nonchalance, because he was still trying to pretend that Blair gone wouldn't be catastrophe. Catastrophe loomed again, and he put no more than the basics into a bag and got into his truck with an automaton's attention.
The long hours of lonely driving pushed his limits. He couldn't properly adjust his night vision, and the lights of other traffic were distracting at best, and a torment at worst, an almost literal spike into his eyes. The truck interior was too noisy, the vibration through the steering wheel made his hands ache. The sharp toxins of gas and plastics coated his sinuses and mouth. He ignored it all as best he could and focused on the chase, following the indeterminate trail left by - whoever he could sense. He wasn't ready to really think about who had Blair. The only important issue was that he find where Blair was.
The closer Jim got to his goal, the more he was aware of something else; the sensation that thunderclouds were gathering across the pale evening-blue Utah sky, although it remained clear and unthreatening. The feeling stayed with him, a sense of external disaster to add to the fear that Blair was slipping out of his reach. He didn't note the name of the place where he stopped briefly to eat, just took in enough nourishment to lift his flagging attention, and drove on, driving the truck and driving himself.
He stopped in Beaver, eyeing the mountains, knowing his direction and destination but not his route. He bought maps of the parks and surrounds, and if the attendant looked a little askance at Jim's unshaven face and forbidding manner, Jim didn't give a damn. Urgency spurred him on, along with that thunderstorm threat. Not long now, not long before whatever it was happened. He drove into the mountains, along winding access roads, before he crossed to a narrow trail that took him to the shores of a small lake. He stopped then, and got out. It was dark and still and cool, and the lake water barely lapped in restless ripples at his feet. Jim breathed in the scents wafting on cool, humid air. He saw a disrupted glow some miles ahead; the diffused lights of a vehicle, patterned by the trees all around.
He got back into the truck and began to drive along the shore, sometimes driving partly through the water itself, following the tracks and depressions that were clear in front of him. The trail moved up the slope, up what looked more like a hiking trail than a road. He left the truck at the bottom, moved by some impulse that he didn't understand but chose to obey, and started to walk. It was dark under the trees, but he could see enough. He was drawn on, knowing that he'd be in time, even if he didn't know what for. The night noises of the forest and the animal life resolved into the murmur of snatches of conversation.
“… can't know everything just from reading something that I wrote when I was stressed and pissed off.” Blair's voice.
“I can figure out a few things.” And that was strange enough to put a shiver in him. He'd heard his voice as it sounded to others often enough; listened to it replayed off tape transcripts, his occasional unwilling tv appearances. But this was different. He realised that he didn't even know if Blair understood he was with an impostor. He heard the crackle of a fire and abruptly he smelled wood smoke.
The noise of an idling engine broke into his hearing, and he tramped determinedly towards it, despite the unpleasant prickle of sensation that ran over his skin. Bad moon rising, he thought irrelevantly. Jim walked on, found an SUV parked, the engine idling and the lights on, shining into the trees. It was a concession to the man with ordinary vision, giving him light to carry on for as long as practical. The vehicle was fairly much stuck where it was, unless a driver was prepared to take it in reverse back down the trail.
That oddly familiar voice spoke again. “You could go through with me, if you wanted.” It was tentative, something that Jim rarely was, but he held his breath at the words, which answered one question and set up another altogether.
“Why would I want to do that?” Blair's voice was steady and curious.
“It'd offer some spectacular anthropological opportunities, even if all you did was sit on base somewhere and analyse data.” A scouring fury rose in Jim. As if this was about anthropology! He knew what that bastard wanted, and he wasn't getting it.
“I don't think so, man. It'd all be too weird, and I don't mean the science fiction stuff.” Blair's voice was gentle. It led Jim on like thread through a labyrinth. “You know I'm right.” And Jim bet that the other liked that just as much as Jim liked it when Blair was right about what Jim didn't want to know. But this time, Jim felt triumph. That was his Blair. His Blair.
And if Jim could hear the two of them talking, then the other also knew that Jim was out there, approaching and ready to see the interloper go back empty-handed. There was no more speech, until Jim heard Blair's voice again, sharp with enquiry.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” The other sounded weary. They were all tired, Jim thought. The prickle on his skin grew worse.
“Nothing my ass.” Blair's voice rose. “Jim? I guess that might be you. We're waiting.”
Blair still spoke at a conversational level, indeed kept talking in a low monologue. “It's been kind of strange and I'm tired, but I'm okay, man.” The effort at reassurance passed over Jim. Blair trusted him, and Jim suspected by association trusted the man he was with, and Jim knew that sometimes that trust was misplaced. Eventually he guessed that he was close enough he could shout and be clearly heard. He had his gun in his hand, he realised, as he finally stepped out into a good-sized clearing, to see the two men sitting by a small fire. One of those big flashlights lay lit on the ground, sending its beam across the clearing. Both men stood at his approach. Blair was smiling. The other wasn't. He looked grim and exhausted. Then Blair saw the gun, or maybe he simply recognised Jim's stance in the dim light. He put his hands up in front of him, palms out in denial and protest.
“Hey, Jim, cool it, put that away.”
Jim had never really thought about how he and Blair looked together. He had caught glimpses of them occasionally in the reflections of glass doors and windows, but it wasn't an issue to him. Now he watched as Blair's companion put a hand on his shoulder. Did Jim touch Blair that way? He knew the rumours that sometimes ran through the department. If he'd ever touched Blair with that expression on his face then no wonder there were rumours. Blair turned to put an arm around the other's waist, and Jim felt nearly sick with jealousy. It didn't matter that he could see his double sway and lean, it didn't matter that Blair's action was probably no more than simple compassion.
Something caught his eye, at the far end of the clearing. Jim remembered years-past school science labs, sprinkling iron filings onto paper to watch the patterns of force made when a magnet was placed underneath. There were shapes like that forming in the air at the far side of the clearing. The air wavered in front of him, and a more physical sickness filled Jim, leaving him sweating.
“Get over here, Sandburg.” Blair hesitated, and Jim snarled, “Get over here. Even if you can't see it you have to feel it!”
“Hey, Ellison. No need to panic. It just means that my ride's here.” Jim finally looked his enemy in the face, and it was himself. Nothing new, then.
“Get. Away. From. Him.” He wanted that bastard's hands off Blair.
“So what happened in this life, Jimmy? Because I never really figured myself for a chicken-shit dog in the manger.” The voice was openly taunting. “Hell, if anyone knows you're not that straight, it's me.”
“Not helping here,” Blair sing-songed. But to Jim's suspicious relief, he cautiously let go his hold on the other, stepping back with his hands at the ready, watching his companion for any signs of weakness. Jim didn't know how the other could stand it. The growing force hazed Jim's vision. He looked at Blair, narrowed his vision to assess Blair's state, and saw the fine hairs standing up on Blair's skin. Maybe he didn't sense everything but he felt some of it. Blair turned and took one step forward before Jim's double forcefully yanked him back in a grip that Jim knew too, one that painfully discouraged any urge to struggle. Locked in that hold, Blair was forced back a couple of steps, closer to the power growing only thirty feet away.
Jim sighted down his gun, but it was hard to focus. “Think you could shoot me?” a familiar voice asked. Jim's hands were sweaty, his vision blurred. The two struggling figures were outlined against a dirty purple light that cast blotchy shadows across their faces.
“Try me. Or are you too busy hiding behind him?” His tongue was heavy in his mouth, and he didn't know if he could shoot. Jim knew how to do self-destructive, but this was a whole new level. “Let him go.”
A scornful voice rebuked him. “Back to what? Some pokey little downstairs room? Upstairs was our bedroom four months after we met.”
Blair panted out, “You told me that all I had to do was trust you.” He was held rigidly against the other's body for a moment, and Jim saw an almost duck of the head, knew that the other was smelling Blair.
“That's right, Chief. That's right.” The voice was a reassuring murmur, back-grounded by a sizzling noise growing in the air. Jim knew that he no longer had any chance of safely taking a shot even if he wanted to. Everything was distortion in front of his eyes, but not so distorted that he couldn't see the strain go out of Blair's body, as he relaxed back against the grip that held him.
“Just, just wait a minute,” Blair pleaded. A hand reached up to pet soothingly at the arm squeezed across his chest. His head tilted back to rest willingly against the other's shoulder. “Will it hurt?”
There was suspicious hope in the quiet voice. “It's weird. You'll probably throw up on the other side. But you'll be okay.” No! Jim wanted to scream it. No, he won't!
Blair's voice was coaxing. “Not like this, Jim. Come on.” The other kept a tight grip on Blair's wrist but he relaxed the hold enough that Blair could turn. Then he stroked a hand across Blair's cheek. Blair leaned into the caress, and Jim couldn't keep back a noise of denial. He choked back anything more. He owed Blair, he owed him some trust and he watched and waited, swaying in the increasing currents of force that swirled around them.
“Okay then,” Blair breathed, his voice nearly lost in the growing noise. The other smiled, a blindingly happy expression that froze in a rictus of outraged pain as Blair's knee struck hard into his groin. Even then, the other's hand stayed locked around Blair's wrist as he fell forward, dragging Blair into a doubled up stand. Blair wrenched his arm away and took a few stumbling steps towards Jim, his hands outstretched, his face creased with strain and fear. Jim tried to step closer, saw the other one haul himself from his knees, and take one unbelieving, betrayed look back before he ran crab-like across the open ground and launched himself into the pulsing energy ahead of him.
There was a noise like the wreck of huge machinery, shrieking and unbelievably loud, but mercifully short, and everything in front of Jim's eyes turned a bruised, mottled purple. He couldn't see anything, couldn't see Blair and he crashed to the ground, felled by vertigo and animal terror as everything around him and within him convulsed, and then settled once more into uneasy calm.
There were echoes in his head of that appalling noise but Jim also heard a voice, low and soothing, although beginning to sound pissed off. There was rough grit and twigs under his body, and a scent that he didn't know how to describe hung in the air. There was firm warmth under his head, and he turned towards a more familiar and comforting smell, trying to clear the taint of the unknown odour. His hand clenched more tightly around what it held – material that might be soft but which was crunched into ridges and spikes against his palm and between his fingers.
The voice ran on, Blair's voice, and incredible relief ran through Jim even though he was too confused to summon much else. “Okay, man, it really is time that you got it together here. I know that you're sort of present and correct because you've just moved, Jim, and there's that death-grip thing you've got going with my shirt, so come on, I know that was incredibly weird, I know that your senses probably went completely batshit crazy, but I'd be grateful if you just – y'know – say something. I'm not fussy about what…”
“Blair.”
Blair's torso hitched in a relieved gasp. “Yeah, that's right, Jim, Blair.” Reluctantly, Jim gave up his position, his handful of Blair's clothing, and pushed up on his hands to sit. The fire still sent out a weak flicker of light, but the flashlight was dead. Jim looked into Blair's face. There were just the two of them, sitting small and alone on the ground under an enormous and cold starry sky. There were pine-needles under his hands, along with rough dirt and pebbles.
Blair's eyes were huge as he struggled to see in the near darkness. “Are you okay?” he asked in a rough voice.
“Yeah. You? You were closer to whatever that was.” He looked past Blair to where all that energy had opened to swallow down the night air, but there was nothing now, except for a lingering sense memory that jangled along his skin. Of that other James Ellison there was no sign.
“I'm okay, Jim, no problems.” The stink of fear lingered on Blair, but it was clear that he spoke the truth. Jim still couldn't forbear putting his hands on Blair's shoulders and leaning in to observe Blair every way possible; sight, scent, sound. Blair tensed and rolled his shoulders against Jim's hold. Unwillingly, Jim let go.
“Told you, I'm okay.” Blair stood, and offered a hand to Jim. Jim took it, grateful for the contact and the comforting warmth in the chill night. Rising to his feet, he inhaled once, and sneezed.
“Whoa.” Blair was startled.
“It's okay,” Jim muttered, “it's just - a weird smell.” His ears were ringing as well as everything else, and he put his balance into the keeping of his grip on Blair's hand.
“I think I smell it too, sort of metallic?”
Jim shrugged. “Maybe. Sharper than that to me.”
Blair looked around. “I guess that we should go back to the car. It's not so far, and there's more gear in it, I don't even know exactly what, but he had a heap of stuff in the back.” He shivered. “God, it's cold.”
“That'll be shock.”
Blair laughed, a high, silly sound in the night. “Ya think? Not just the elevation?”
“We should get away from here.”
Blair's eyes flicked back nervously across the clearing. “Is it still dangerous?”
Jim shook his head. “We should just get away.” He stepped forward, all determination, until he was pulled up by Blair's inertia. Blair lifted their joined hands a few inches.
“Is this babes in the wood here, Jim?”
“It's dark, Sandburg.”
“Damn sentinels. All the same,” Blair said cryptically. He made no explanation, but he made no effort to free his hand, either. Jim led them through the darkness under the trees, until they came to the SUV. The engine was silent, the lights dead.
“Interesting,” Blair drawled, letting go of Jim to feel his way around the metal chassis. “Okay, driver's side, keys,” Jim heard the click of the key twisting in the ignition, but that was the only sound. The engine didn't even whine. Jim stood by the door, smelling the interior, permeated as it was with a confusing and occasionally infuriating mix of scent. It smelled the way any vehicle might after hours of occupancy, Blair's smell familiarly mingled with his own – but it wasn't his scent. He had never been in this SUV. A wave of anger overwhelmed him, together with bitterly uncertain triumph. Had Blair chosen him, or just a cosmic belief that he ought to bloom where he was planted?
“This isn't going anywhere.” Blair sounded wearily disappointed.
“My truck's further down the trail.”
“How far?”
Jim opened his mouth to answer, and then paused. He wasn't entirely sure how long he'd walked.
“Jim?”
“I…uh… don't know. Maybe an hour. I think.”
Blair bowed his head and rubbed steepled fingers across his forehead. “Oh, man, you've really been operating in primal mode, haven't you?”
“How else was I going to find you? For whatever good that was.”
Blair leaned back against the head rest, a look of startled hurt crossing his face.
“Not like you exactly needed my help in the end,” Jim hastily explained, cursing his own exhaustion. Hurriedly, he turned to practical matters. “If we clean out the back of this, we can put the back seats down and sleep in here, go back down the trail when it's light.”
“You'll be okay? The territorial thing won't bother you?”
Jim's lips drew back in a snarl of a grin that he was glad Blair couldn't see.
“He's not here, Chief.”
“Yeah, but…”
Jim headed to the rear of the SUV. “Stay where you are. You can't see anything and I'll get this done quicker on my own.”
Blair had clambered onto his knees to peer over the edge of the seat towards the gloom of the back. “Is there going to be enough room?”
“I don't need the Hilton, Sandburg,” Jim growled. “I just need some rest, and you'll go better down the trail with some sleep and some light anyway.”
“Yeah, okay.” Blair's voice was troubled, and Jim didn't want to think about why that might be. They could rest, sheltered from the cold without the hassle of setting up the small tent which he unceremoniously heaved into the vegetation. Water and food he set into the passenger seat, and shook out two heavy weight sleeping bags, still smelling of whatever shop they'd come from.
“Okay,” Jim declared. Blair climbed out and felt his way to the back hatch. The suspension bounced under his weight as he climbed in. Jim wondered why he noticed this now, rather than before when Blair was in the front.
“I can tell it's not the Hilton, man, no fancy chocolate on the pillow.” Blair's voice was quietly manic.
“No king-size bed either. Just as well that you're an average sort of size.”
“You're the one who didn't want to mess around with the other gear.” Jim made no comment. If he admitted that he wanted, needed even, to know that the mix of smells in the SUV interior was Blair's and his, he figured that 'primitive atavism' was one of the politest things that Blair might find to say. He kept silence instead and watched as Blair wriggled around in a hunched way, clearly trying to get into his sleeping bag without taking up any more room than was absolutely necessary. Used to a Sandburg with no compunction about invading Jim's personal space, this care irritated him.
“I can live with your elbows and knees. Settle down.”
With a sigh, Blair did so. He had barely enough room to lie full-length. Jim was forced to curl. Blair shuddered, in cold or shock, and Jim reached an arm out of his bag to lie across Blair's shoulders. Blair twitched massively, and turned to face him. “I'm fine, just let me rest! I'm not some fucking fire hydrant that you need to mark!”
Jim buried the offending hand in his sleeping bag.
“Sorry, sorry,” Blair murmured.
“Rest then,” Jim said. Despite his utter fatigue, he watched Blair in the dull illumination afforded by the filtered night stars and sentinel sight, he watched him for a long while. Blair stared at the roof of the SUV and then turned towards Jim, staring sightlessly towards him. Then he blushed, something that Jim felt rather than saw, and turned the other way. Eventually Jim subsided into uneasy dreams, where Blair stood at the edge of a cliff staring out at an enormous disembodied mouth, which viciously inhaled. Jim, too late, snatched at his friend but he was gone, whirled away, and Jim was left with only with a few strands of curly hair caught in his fingers.
Jim woke to a pale dawn, and his hands tangled in the rough silk of Blair's hair. There was condensation on the window glass and the inside of the SUV was cool, and fuggy with the smell of two men in close quarters. Jim was cramped and sore, his back and his legs, and his shoulder and arm, because somehow in the sleeping dark his arm had slipped under Blair's neck, and Blair now lay huddled into the curve of Jim's body. Blair hummed and turned restlessly. Jim's fingers caught at his hair and Blair winced, and woke. Jim watched as Blair went from sleep to alertness with unusual speed for someone who was no morning person.
Blair wriggled up onto his elbow, before he scrambled out of the cocoon of his sleeping bag. “Gotta piss, man” he muttered, and shivering he stepped out into the mountain dawn. He walked perhaps twenty feet from the SUV and had his piss. Jim watched him, the bowed head, the steam of warm urine rising into the air, and decided that Blair hadn't wanted to escape the cramped space just to empty his bladder. He climbed out the back and stretched, trying to ease the aches in his body while he waited for Blair to finish, to pull his clothes together.
“Did he hurt you?” Jim stalked a cautious approach towards Blair, who wheeled around, the model for some ideal of total exasperation.
“No, he didn't hurt me. Totally the opposite, although of course I thought he was you, not stalker Jim from the fucking nth dimension.” Blair was talking faster and faster as his hands flailed like the broken vanes of a windmill. “He didn't hurt me, and I probably shouldn't even think of telling you this except that between that damn sentinel connection and the way you could smell my third last meal and god knows what else if you wanted, you're probably going to guess anyway!” Blair took a couple of agitated steps away, and Jim stepped forward to shadow the movement.
All those dreams. All those memories of the other, and Jim said simply, “You had sex with him.”
Blair coughed out a laugh, a small, heartbroken sound, and turned away. “Yeah, yeah, I did. I thought he was you and now everything's totally screwed, I mean, it's all completely fucked up.”
“No, it isn't.” Jim took those last few steps and gathered Blair against his chest without trying to turn him. Blair didn't fight it, just stood with his back resting against Jim, and there it was, a fanfare of mixed messages clamouring out of touch and smell. Yielding and resistance. Welcome and rejection. Jim tried to encompass what Blair felt while dealing with his own chaotic feelings. Anger, that Blair was used and imposed upon; jealousy, because something that should have been Jim's had been taken.
Blair spoke again, his voice low and nervous. “Oh fine, you're going to go all territorial sentinel on me because you're still half nuts, I mean not that I'm any better, because if you can imagine anything completely more insane I don't want to know about it…”
Jim needed to ask a question and briefly placed his palm against Blair's mouth, the warmth and softness breathing into his skin.
“Why does it have to be fucked up?”
Blair stood rigidly tense in his arms. “Oh, please. Look at what happened with Alex, who I hope like hell you never would have touched if you were in your right mind, and when you're back in your right mind this time you're just going to shrug and say, 'Sandburg wants to get into my pants, so what?' I don't think so.”
Jim looked down at the top of Blair's head. With just a few inches surrender, it could rest against his shoulder. There were traces of coarse dirt griming the curly hair; Blair must have been forced to the ground just as Jim had been by the forces that rent the mountains last night. There was an element within Jim that wanted to shrug, and tell Blair that Jim wanted into his pants too and why not start here and now? He ran one hand down the plane of Blair's belly, rested his fingers against the waistband of Blair's pants with gentle insinuation. With a low sigh, Blair leaned his head back, but the smell of distress reached Jim, and the frantic heartbeat wasn't at all that of arousal. He put away desire because it was inadvertently cruel. Other instincts would have to do, and he put both arms across Blair's chest in as reassuring a hug as he could.
“You're the guy who preaches the holistic approach. What if I actually integrated what the sentinel wants, and what that stupid bastard Jim Ellison wants? What then, Chief?” He tilted his head down to see Blair's face. Blair's eyes were shut, and Jim almost thought he could see the warm air of his speech travel across Blair's skin to stir those long eyelashes. So easy, it would be so easy to take Blair back into that damn SUV, and prove that Blair was his. As if the press conference hadn't spoken eloquently to that. Perhaps it was more to the point to prove that he was Blair's. The cool morning air wouldn't matter. His chilly friend could be very adequately warmed between a layer of sleeping bags and Jim's own body.
“I guess it depends on what you want.”
“I want things not to be screwed up.”
Blair swallowed. “Yeah. That'd be good.”
“I want you to stay with me, and be a cop – if that's what you want.” Because how different in the end was he from that other sad bastard? They were both willing to go to extremes to keep Blair.
Exasperation again. “Jim, I am fine with being a cop. And so help me, if this is some guilt thing,” and Blair's hands came up to anchor against Jim's arms across his chest, “I will hit you. Swear it, man.”
“Last I saw, a quick knee to the balls was more your style.”
“Maybe, but I don't think I have the element of surprise any more.” Blair's head had bowed again. Jim suspected that he was looking at the clasp of their hands and arms.
Experimentally, he pressed a gentle but lingering kiss to Blair's temple. Sentinel touch registered a quick wave of heat across Blair's skin. “We're going to go home, and figure out an explanation that'll cover our asses.”
Blair interpolated a small, worried noise and muttered, “Shit. The academy. The last thing I need is to look unreliable.”
“We'll think of something.”
“And get Simon to back us up?” Blair sounded pensive.
Jim sighed. “We can tell him there was another sentinel. I think we should gloss over exactly who.”
Blair snorted. “Oh, good plan. Wish I could gloss it over.”
Jim wanted Blair facing him, and with relief found that Blair accepted his effort to turn him, although his hands hung at his side.
“Blair. It's okay.”
Blair looked up at him, a long, searching look.
“There's this guy who reckoned you weren't that straight. Said that he should know.”
Jim gazed down into Blair's familiar, beautiful face. “Maybe he was right at that.”
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