The Observer 11
Aug. 15th, 2007 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lit_galThe Observer (11/17)
Sequel to "The Witness"
beta'ed by Beta'ed by Kitty_poker1 and Slashpuppy and Janedavitt
ADULT/SLASH
Previous parts
Warnings: Puppy play, dom/sub, bondage
Sequel to "The Witness"
beta'ed by Beta'ed by Kitty_poker1 and Slashpuppy and Janedavitt
ADULT/SLASH
Previous parts
Warnings: Puppy play, dom/sub, bondage
CHAPTER ELEVEN
***
Jim woke, instantly knowing something was wrong. His fingers went to the arm, but everything felt normal, and the swelling had vanished in the night. Without opening his eyes, he felt the other side of the bed and found nothing.
"Damn it," Jim growled as he cracked one eye open and looked around the dimly lit room. The alarm would be going off soon, and no way had Sandburg gotten up before the alarm. Jim swung his legs out of bed and padded downstairs. Sure enough, Blair was still sitting at the table, one arm flopped out on the table top, his head resting on it, his other hand still resting on the computer keyboard, and his hair flopped over his face.
Jim picked up the old-fashioned alarm sitting near Blair's laptop and looked at it. The little arm for the bell had been pushed back down at some point. He wondered if Blair had forgotten to set the alarm or if he'd just ignored it when it had gone off. Jim brushed the hair back from Blair's mouth and revealed a sizable drool stain on Blair's arm, dribbling down onto the table.
"Nice," Jim muttered as he looked at it. New house rule: no drooling on the table. Since it was too late--or too early rather--to get Blair to bed, Jim moved quietly to give him a few extra minutes of sleep. Hopefully, Blair had got some rest last night because it was going to be a long day.
"Tonight you're sleeping upstairs in chains," Jim whispered to the sleeping man. "You aren't doing anyone any favors wearing yourself out." Warning delivered, Jim headed for the shower.
Jim bolted out of the showers minutes later when the phone rang. Dripping onto the floor, he grabbed the phone on the third ring, but the sound hadn't interrupted Blair's drooling.
"Ellison," he said softly as he headed back for the bathroom.
"Jim, the task force is official," Simon offered without any 'hello.'
"Tell me you got me on it," Jim begged as he pushed the door shut.
"You owe me. I've been here since five this morning, but you're heading up the Cascade division. Now, don't get upset, but Carolyn is on this one."
"Carolyn?" Jim asked as he frowned at the mirror.
"Collins talked to the FBI, and their profiler agrees with him. The bomber is most likely to focus on Cascade, so Tacoma is sending new two guys, ATF is sending two, and the FBI is sending a special agent. We'll make up the rest of the task force, which means Carolyn is going to be in on this for technical support."
"Working with Carolyn isn't a problem," Jim said dismissively. "But why is Tacoma sending new guys?"
"Shay isn't exactly up for an investigation," Simon pointed out sarcastically. "Besides, their captain does not like the idea that they're being targeted. He seems to think that The Switchman will try to take Collins out again if he stays. That's also why the FBI announced that you're heading up the task force; they seem to think that will prevent The Switchman from targeting other investigators. But, Jim, this also means that if this goes bad, the blame is falling on your shoulders."
"They're buying Sandburg's interpretation of the Switchman's motives," Jim said, trying to keep the smugness out of his voice. From the heavy sigh on the other end, he guessed he'd failed.
"Only because their profiler agrees. They wouldn't just base an investigation on a graduate student's ramblings."
"I didn't either. I simply listened to them as a source of potential leads," Jim countered.
"Fine. But between Collins and Brown, they have the profiler convinced that Sandburg is some kind of wunderkind. I hope you plan on being there to pick up the pieces when he can't deliver the way these guys seem to think he's going to."
Jim stopped, his razor halfway down his cheek when Simon made that comment.
"I'll take care of Blair," Jim said quietly as he finished the stroke.
"Jim, you're getting tangled here, and the longer I know Sandburg, the more I'm getting worried for both of you."
"Simon, I'm not having this conversation again. How many died yesterday?"
Simon didn't answer right away, and Jim focused on shaving with the phone tucked into the crook of his neck. "We were lucky. Only three. The little girl Sandburg pulled out, a Joseph Kirby, age 62, and Darla Simcox, age 43. We have three more still in critical at the hospital, but it could have been a lot worse. If this had happened a few weeks later when it was colder and fewer people were out with their boats, this could have been a disaster."
"So, Blair's right. This guy is ready for the grand finale. He's going to come after me sooner or later, Simon."
"Yeah, well, he can't have you, Ellison. You owe me too many favors. Besides, I deserve a chance to give you some of the gray hair you've given me over the years."
"Just do me one more favor," Jim asked.
"Do I want to hear this?"
"Keep the task force away from me. I'm going down to the marina to try and track a boat owner."
"Jesus Christ, Ellison. You just asked me to get you on the task force, and now you're avoiding them? You're the head of the task force; what exactly am I supposed to say to these people?"
"I'm the head of the task force so that they have someone to blame if it all goes wrong; they'll be just as happy to avoid me as I am to avoid them. I just need a little time to investigate before getting caught up in paperwork, Simon. The feds want requests in triplicate to wipe your own ass, and I just don't work that way."
"One day, Ellison, you hear me? You have one day, and then I want your ass in here playing nice with the other kids on the playground."
"One day, Simon. Got it," Jim agreed.
"Yeah, right," Simon snorted. "Go follow your marina lead." The phone went dead. Jim smiled as he dropped it and soaped up the other side of his face. For all his complaining, Simon was a good man, and Jim wouldn't want to work for anyone else.
Out of curiosity, Jim focused on his hearing, struggling to hear if Blair was up and about yet. The drag of his razor across his face turned into a roar, and the building itself seemed to moan for a second before Jim could hear the steady breathing and slow heartbeat in the main room. Jim quickly finished and then rinsed his face before going out to find Blair still asleep, the steady heartbeat unchanged.
"Chief, rise and shine. You have class to teach this morning," Jim said as he shook Blair's shoulder. Blair muttered and smacked his lips with a slightly disgruntled expression. "Correction, you have to wash the table and then teach class this morning."
"Jim?" Blair asked as he cracked his eyes open. He pushed himself up, and Jim could see the wince as his back protested.
"Note to self, do not sleep at the table."
"You can consider that a new house rule," Jim agreed, "right after the rule about no drooling on the table."
"Oh man. Okay, that's actually a rule I can get behind because that's kinda..."
"Disgusting?" Jim filled in.
"Yeah," Blair agreed as he headed for the paper towels in the kitchen.
"What happened to going to bed at midnight?" Jim asked casually as Blair ran a paper towel under the faucet.
"I had to check every case by hand, and I was almost through when the alarm went off. I only needed a few more minutes, but I guess I fell asleep." Blair wiped the table and then stretched his arms over his head as his back popped. "I won't be doing that again. Man, you have one seriously uncomfortable table."
"I wouldn't know; I've never tried to sleep on it," Jim said dryly as Blair tossed the paper towel out and came back to pack up the laptop.
"Okay, I have the disk with all the names I could find, listed by lawsuit and filing date. Hopefully, one will either mean something to you or match with one of the background checks. Just let me change shirts, and we can go." Blair started for the stairs.
"Blair, you have class this morning; it's Thursday," Jim pointed out. "Call my cell phone when you're done, and I'll swing by the university and pick you up."
"You don't need to. I called Kiersten and asked her to cover my class this morning, so I'm all yours," Blair said as he hesitated. "Oh man, I didn't even think about the enhanced smell. I should shower. Can you wait five minutes?"
"You what?" Jim demanded as he stared at Blair.
"I'll be out in five minutes," Blair answered, ignoring the actual question as he dashed for the bathroom. Seven minutes later, Blair came running back out of the bathroom with a towel, his unwashed hair pulled back into a pony tail, dripping water as he hurried up the stairs.
"Slow down, you're going to break your neck," Jim yelled after him. The towel came flying over the railing at him, and Jim could hear soft cursing as Blair got tangled in his own underwear.
"For god's sake, Sandburg, I'm not in that much of a hurry."
"I'm coming, I'm coming."
Jim snatched the fallen towel from the floor and draped it over the back of a dining room chair as he leaned against the pillar and crossed his arms. No way was the kid putting his career on hold for Jim's job. Jim was drawing that line in the sand right now. Blair came rushing back down the stairs, one shoe on and carrying the other.
"Okay, I'm ready," he announced as he sat on the stairs and pulled his last shoe on.
"You're not going," Jim told him. Blair paused in the middle of tying his shoes and looked up.
"What?"
"Forget it, Chief. I know you want to be involved with this case, but you are not going to put your job in jeopardy to spend time on this obsession. So, you are going to the university and teaching your class, and when you've finished with your responsibilities, I'll pick you up."
Blair stared at him stunned, and Jim stared right back, unwilling to compromise on this point. If Blair wouldn't put himself first in this relationship, then Jim would.
"You know, Ellison, you can really take the cake sometimes. What the hell gives you the right to tell me what to do with my job?"
Jim paused in the face of Blair's growing anger, but then he set his jaw. "I know you want to help, but you can't put this case ahead of your job. You have your own life, Chief. I'll find this sicko."
"Oh, for god's sake. Jim, you have the mothering instincts of a, well, pretty much any wild animal mother. However, I'm a grown man. You want to control my sexuality, and I am there with you, but you do not have control over what I do with my job."
"I control whether you ride with me or not."
"You don't let me in that truck, and I will follow you all day in my car."
"If I use lights, you can't keep up with me."
"I'll speed."
"I'll arrest you." Jim stepped forward, his arms still crossed.
"God save me from alpha males," Blair sighed. "You just fucking would. Listen, Mother Ellison, I do not owe you an explanation. However, I do not want to stand here and get in a metaphorical pissing contest with you because I already know I'll lose. First, Kiersten owes me because I covered her class for her. And since she's graduating, I either get the favor this semester, or I lose it, man. Second, me taking time off has nothing to do with the case. I have the legal research done, and I could just give you the disk. I'm going along because of your senses."
"What?" Jim had obviously missed something.
"Your senses," Blair repeated. "Once this thing with the police department is over, I'm going back to my research on heightened senses, and this is the ideal time to get some data on you. Three senses heightened--that's as many as anyone I've found. And I have a chance to go along with you and see if the senses make a difference in your investigation now that you're more self aware. I really wish I had baseline data on you, to determine whether the senses were triggered by the danger or just became more noticeable. I mean, have other cops commented on you knowing things when they couldn't figure out how you knew them?"
"My senses? You're coming along to observe my senses?" Jim asked.
"It's my dissertation, or at least it will be after my ride-along ends. Man, I am a big boy. I do not need you to tell me how to handle my job, and I am going along with you if I have to cling to the back bumper of the truck riding a skateboard."
"But." Jim just stopped. He had no way of answering that without losing more face. "The senses are gone," he lied instead. Blair looked at him strangely. "I woke up and everything's back to normal." Jim shrugged as he headed for the door. Blair grabbed his pack and followed.
"Everything's gone? Nothing unusual at all?"
"All perfectly normal," Jim confirmed as he headed for the stairs. That should leave Blair winded enough to just stop asking questions. Now Jim just had to figure out a way to evade Blair's questions in the truck. His stomach clenched at the thought of this conversation, something dark and fetid and bloated bobbing just under the surface of his memory. He pounded down the stairs faster, Blair falling behind as Jim hit the bottom and slammed the door open to the muggy Cascade air.
Blair still hadn't dropped the issue by the fourth marina. "Come on, just try to hear the birds over there," Blair asked as he followed Jim up the ramp. A few boaters were working on the pier, and Jim intended to ask them about the speedboat. Boaters noticed each other, so even if the Switchman had lied on official marina records, someone must have seen something.
"I'm working, Sandburg."
"I'm trying to work. But I have this really grouchy test subject."
Jim turned and glared, but Blair just smiled sweetly and blinked up at him. Rolling his eyes, Jim headed for the first boater.
"Morning. I'm Jim Ellison, Cascade Police Department, and this is a civilian observer with the department, Blair Sandburg. Do you have a minute?"
The older man frowned up at Jim's badge from where he was crouched on the pier adding a new screw to the ladder on the side of his boat. He pulled himself up and stuck the screwdriver in his pocket.
"Sure. This about the explosion yesterday? I wasn't even around."
"Only partially," Jim assured him. People didn't like getting involved in big cases, or at least many people didn't. He shrugged reassuringly as though this wasn't nearly as important as that. "We're just trying to find a witness, someone who drives a white speedboat, a Windy, with green trim."
"No, I haven't seen anything like that around, sorry." The man stood there awkwardly, and Jim nodded.
"Thanks anyway. You do see it, give me a call." He offered a card. The man took it, and looked at it, but Jim really didn't have much hope.
"Yeah, if I see anything like that," the man agreed before climbing up onto his boat.
"Well, this is going well," Blair whispered softly.
"Don't start, Junior; you're the one who invited himself along," Jim warned as he started to the next pier that stuck out into the ocean. Halfway down that pier, he could see a woman sunning on the deck of her ship.
"Aha!" Blair exclaimed triumphantly.
Jim turned and looked at him.
"You shouldn't have heard that," Blair announced, poking a finger towards Jim.
"Sandburg," Jim warned as he started walking again.
"Man, you only *think* the senses are gone. They're right there, just waiting for you to figure out how to use them. This could be huge, Jim. Enormous."
"Legally questionable," Jim pointed out. "Do I have to get a court order allowing me to use my enhanced hearing on a stakeout? If a suspect has an expectation of privacy and I listen in, I'm on some shaky ground in court."
"But the senses are normal. I can give the court at least a hundred cases of enhanced hearing, all documented. I've even written two papers on the connection between enhanced senses and creativity."
"Great, if I need a reason to take up finger painting, I'll have you explain it to Simon. But Chief, this is my job."
"Exactly, and the senses are part of you doing your job."
"You're like a bulldog with a bone," Jim sighed. "I'm starting to wish I had one of your gags here."
"Yeah, yeah, you can gag me later. But listen, Jim, this is a normal part of who you are. It saved my life. It saved Collins and Shay. Who knows how many times these senses have saved someone? You need to learn to--"
Jim reached out, putting fingers over Blair's lips. Tilting his head, he struggled to find what had caught his attention. "I hear something," he whispered. Metal scraped against fiberglass, followed by the softer brush of fibers. Rope or sail.
"What is it?" Blair whispered back, leaning forward so that his hands rested against Jim's back.
"Shhh," Jim admonished, annoyed with how loudly Blair had spoken. Focusing on the pier, he could hear the whorl-whip of a rope zipping through a pulley.
"I.." Blair started, and Jim growled. The man had the good sense to fall silent. A strange feeling of deja vu settled in Jim's stomach as he focused on those faint sounds.
"Damn it," a woman's voice cursed. He heard the faint tones of a dialing phone. For a second, the sound vanished under the crash of waves hitting the side of the boat and the creaking of wood.
"We're moving the final stage up." The woman's voice broke free of the waves and Jim scanned the marina for it. She had to be in one of the nearby boats.
"I don't care. Ellison is going down. I'm going to hurt him as badly as he hurt me when he took my father. So, you can either sell me the stuff, or I'll go somewhere else for the supplies."
Jim strained to hear the voice on the other end, his vision graying out. "Veronica, you're--" The words slipped away and Jim slid into a darkness where nothing existed.
***
"Jim, come on. No leaving the observer by himself, man. I'm about to call 911 if you don't wake your ass up, and you're totally freaking me out." The worried tone in Blair's voice dragged Jim back into a world where the sunlight threatened to burn out his eyes.
Throwing up an arm, he shaded his eyes and staggered back until Blair's hands at his waist helped balance him.
"Shit. You scared me out of two lifetimes of growth, man."
"Blair?" Jim struggled with his thick tongue.
"Unless someone knocked me out, dragged me off and then replaced me with a doppleganger, yeah. Of course, as out of it as you were, I'm not sure you would have noticed."
"What?"
"Man, you have been out of it for over five minutes, and in terms of seizures, that's a pretty significant one."
"Seizure?" Jim turned to Blair, leaning on his shoulder when his own legs threatened to collapse. "I don't have seizures."
"And that's the weird thing. I would swear that was a petit mal seizure, but primary generalized seizures, the absence type anyway, are almost always in children. But you checked out on me."
"The suspect."
"What suspect?" Blair looked around the marina, slightly panicked.
"I heard a woman. She's moving the timetable up. She's going to make me pay for taking her father."
"Oh shit," Blair breathed. "A few boats left, but I didn't even notice them. Man, I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault, Chief. Oh fuck, the light is strong," he cursed as his attempt to open his eyes led him to press them closed and put a hand over them to stop the red flares from invading the darkness.
"Let's get you in the shade. Just lean on me, Jim," Blair said as his arm tightened around Jim's waist. Jim could only stumble after him, his hand still covering his eyes as a drop in temperature told them they'd reached the shade of the small gatehouse near the parking lot of the pier.
"Okay, we need to get your vision under control," Blair muttered, but the sound was almost lost in the fast thumping of his heart. Even with his eyes closed, green light filled his vision, mottled as the sun filtered through the jungle canopy.
"Like a balance," Incacha said as he set a small branch on top of a rock where it tilted but then stilled. "Listen too much and the branch falls." Incacha moved the branch and it tumbled off the rock.
"I can't hear the birds, no one could," Jim argued. He just wanted to go back to the hut. He was here to defend the pass, not listen to this mumbo jumbo about being some kind of freak.
"Do you want them to call you a freak?" his father's voice intruded into the memory.
"Balance," Incacha demanded his attention again. "Allow someone to hold the other end, and you can reach the birds," Incacha explained calmly as he replaced the branch, but this time he held the short end while the long end extended over the rock.
"Fuck," Jim cursed, "not now."
"Hey, I think now would be a great time to get this under control because 911 is still totally an option. Not a good one, but an option," Blair disagreed. "I think I know what's going on, but I'm clueless about how to make this any better, so try and work with me here, Jim."
"Lost my balance," Jim admitted, hating it even as the words escaped.
"What?"
"With my vision. I lost the balance," Jim repeated.
"Oh. Okay, so that means that you just have to find the fulcrum again. Come on, if you lost your balance, that means you can find it. Find the point at which the light is just normal. Just, I don't know, slide around until you can find it."
Jim held Blair's shoulders and slowly the red glow behind his eyelids faded until he could risk cracking his eyes. Blair was looking up at him, worry etched deep into his face.
"Man, if you ever scare the shit out of me like that again," he breathed, and then he was plastered to Jim's front, strong arms wrapped around Jim, holding him.
"I'm fine," Jim promised as he let his cheek rest for a minute on the top of Blair's head. Then he released his own death grip, and they separated enough so that Blair could look up at him. He did feel fine, but Blair was looking at him in a way that made his disbelief silently obvious.
"I feel fine. And I've never had seizures before. Maybe..." Jim grasped at straws, not wanting to deal with the one explanation that now nudged his memory. "Maybe she slipped me some drug somehow."
"She?" Blair demanded.
"The suspect, Veronica. She was talking to someone on the phone, saying that she was moving the final stage up. She wants revenge because of what I did to her father." The name sounded familiar, but maybe the seizure or the drugs had scrambled his brains. Jim started down the central walk, listening for the woman's voice, but he could only hear sea birds crying through the cloudy sky.
"Jim?"
"I don't hear her now. Shit." Jim slapped his hand down on the flat wood rail as he stared across the boats moored here.
"Oh man. It's true," Blair breathed softly. "Can you read that?" Blair asked as he pointed off to the far side of the marina to a white sign with red lettering.
"Mooring costs $7.14 per foot per month, including leasehold tax," Jim read.
"Oh man," Blair breathed again, and this time Jim glared at him. "I can't read that."
"So I have better eyes than you do."
"No, Jim, I can barely see red squiggles on the white, and I have perfect vision with my glasses on. No one could read that from here."
"What are you saying?" Jim asked, his guts tightening. He didn't want to be different. He wasn't a freak.
"Man, you're it."
"Sandburg," Jim growled. "I'm heading back to the precinct."
"A Sentinel! You're a Sentinel. You have four enhanced senses, and the odds of your smell being enhanced without your taste being affected are negligible. And then the seizure. Burton called that a zone out. You're a Sentinel."
"One of your tribal protectors?" Jim asked suspiciously. He wasn't tribal, and right now, he was feeling more homicidal than protective. He crossed his arms, but Blair totally ignored his forbidding body language. Instead, he turned and turned back as though he couldn't decide what to look at. Smiling brightly, he bounced on the balls of his feet.
"It fits. Burton described Sentinels as having a companion who would watch their back because sometimes so much sensory input would come in at once that they just stopped. It makes sense. The brain gets too many neurons firing at once, and a seizure is the normal response. Man, you're a Sentinel."
"Normal response?" Jim demanded. "Freezing in the middle of a crime scene is a normal response? How the fuck do I turn off this normal response?" Jim demanded.
Blair froze mid-bounce, looking up at Jim."I don't know."
"Then use that famous brain of yours, get out your books, and find a way," Jim demanded before he turned his back and stormed back toward the truck.
"But, Jim," Blair protested as he chased after him. Jim ignored the little warning of dread in his stomach that told him not to turn away from his partner. Everyone else knew the cocky, mouthy, indomitable Blair, but Jim knew how fragile that facade could be. "You're a walking crime lab, a living observation post."
"It doesn't help if I can't do my job," Jim growled, ignoring the frisson of fear at the idea that he'd left Blair alone. For those five minutes, Blair had been alone in the middle of pursuing a mass murderer. Alone and undefended. He unlocked the truck door, but Blair wasn't going around to his side.
"Without your senses, you would not have heard that. I have excellent hearing. Hell, my students claim I have bat-hearing because I can hear a sarcastically muttered complaint from 50 feet, but I didn't hear anything out there. You got that it was a woman named Veronica who doesn't like that you did something to her father."
"Without my senses, I would not have left you out there undefended," Jim snapped back as he whirled on his partner. "You're an unarmed observer. If Veronica had come up behind us, what would you have done? I have no business taking you into situations if I can't defend you." Jim clutched the edge of the door so hard that he could feel his fingers strain and cramp.
"Jim," Blair said softly, moving forward and resting a hand on Jim's arm.
"No." Jim narrowed his eyes and turned his back on Blair before getting in the truck. He slammed the door and then waited as Blair went around to his side. "You either figure out how to turn this off, or I'm going on desk duty until we get it sorted." Jim wasn't angry. His hands gripped the wheel until his knuckles turned white, but he wasn't angry--just realistic.
Blair opened his mouth several times before closing it silently. Finally he found words. "Burton talks about what triggers the Sentinel abilities--a manhood ceremony or a time alone in the wilderness. I can see if anything would give us a clue about how to turn it off."
Blair didn't sound happy, but Jim didn't need him happy, he just needed to be able to do his job.
"I know you'll find something, Chief," he said with an encouraging smile before he started the truck.
***
Jim woke, instantly knowing something was wrong. His fingers went to the arm, but everything felt normal, and the swelling had vanished in the night. Without opening his eyes, he felt the other side of the bed and found nothing.
"Damn it," Jim growled as he cracked one eye open and looked around the dimly lit room. The alarm would be going off soon, and no way had Sandburg gotten up before the alarm. Jim swung his legs out of bed and padded downstairs. Sure enough, Blair was still sitting at the table, one arm flopped out on the table top, his head resting on it, his other hand still resting on the computer keyboard, and his hair flopped over his face.
Jim picked up the old-fashioned alarm sitting near Blair's laptop and looked at it. The little arm for the bell had been pushed back down at some point. He wondered if Blair had forgotten to set the alarm or if he'd just ignored it when it had gone off. Jim brushed the hair back from Blair's mouth and revealed a sizable drool stain on Blair's arm, dribbling down onto the table.
"Nice," Jim muttered as he looked at it. New house rule: no drooling on the table. Since it was too late--or too early rather--to get Blair to bed, Jim moved quietly to give him a few extra minutes of sleep. Hopefully, Blair had got some rest last night because it was going to be a long day.
"Tonight you're sleeping upstairs in chains," Jim whispered to the sleeping man. "You aren't doing anyone any favors wearing yourself out." Warning delivered, Jim headed for the shower.
Jim bolted out of the showers minutes later when the phone rang. Dripping onto the floor, he grabbed the phone on the third ring, but the sound hadn't interrupted Blair's drooling.
"Ellison," he said softly as he headed back for the bathroom.
"Jim, the task force is official," Simon offered without any 'hello.'
"Tell me you got me on it," Jim begged as he pushed the door shut.
"You owe me. I've been here since five this morning, but you're heading up the Cascade division. Now, don't get upset, but Carolyn is on this one."
"Carolyn?" Jim asked as he frowned at the mirror.
"Collins talked to the FBI, and their profiler agrees with him. The bomber is most likely to focus on Cascade, so Tacoma is sending new two guys, ATF is sending two, and the FBI is sending a special agent. We'll make up the rest of the task force, which means Carolyn is going to be in on this for technical support."
"Working with Carolyn isn't a problem," Jim said dismissively. "But why is Tacoma sending new guys?"
"Shay isn't exactly up for an investigation," Simon pointed out sarcastically. "Besides, their captain does not like the idea that they're being targeted. He seems to think that The Switchman will try to take Collins out again if he stays. That's also why the FBI announced that you're heading up the task force; they seem to think that will prevent The Switchman from targeting other investigators. But, Jim, this also means that if this goes bad, the blame is falling on your shoulders."
"They're buying Sandburg's interpretation of the Switchman's motives," Jim said, trying to keep the smugness out of his voice. From the heavy sigh on the other end, he guessed he'd failed.
"Only because their profiler agrees. They wouldn't just base an investigation on a graduate student's ramblings."
"I didn't either. I simply listened to them as a source of potential leads," Jim countered.
"Fine. But between Collins and Brown, they have the profiler convinced that Sandburg is some kind of wunderkind. I hope you plan on being there to pick up the pieces when he can't deliver the way these guys seem to think he's going to."
Jim stopped, his razor halfway down his cheek when Simon made that comment.
"I'll take care of Blair," Jim said quietly as he finished the stroke.
"Jim, you're getting tangled here, and the longer I know Sandburg, the more I'm getting worried for both of you."
"Simon, I'm not having this conversation again. How many died yesterday?"
Simon didn't answer right away, and Jim focused on shaving with the phone tucked into the crook of his neck. "We were lucky. Only three. The little girl Sandburg pulled out, a Joseph Kirby, age 62, and Darla Simcox, age 43. We have three more still in critical at the hospital, but it could have been a lot worse. If this had happened a few weeks later when it was colder and fewer people were out with their boats, this could have been a disaster."
"So, Blair's right. This guy is ready for the grand finale. He's going to come after me sooner or later, Simon."
"Yeah, well, he can't have you, Ellison. You owe me too many favors. Besides, I deserve a chance to give you some of the gray hair you've given me over the years."
"Just do me one more favor," Jim asked.
"Do I want to hear this?"
"Keep the task force away from me. I'm going down to the marina to try and track a boat owner."
"Jesus Christ, Ellison. You just asked me to get you on the task force, and now you're avoiding them? You're the head of the task force; what exactly am I supposed to say to these people?"
"I'm the head of the task force so that they have someone to blame if it all goes wrong; they'll be just as happy to avoid me as I am to avoid them. I just need a little time to investigate before getting caught up in paperwork, Simon. The feds want requests in triplicate to wipe your own ass, and I just don't work that way."
"One day, Ellison, you hear me? You have one day, and then I want your ass in here playing nice with the other kids on the playground."
"One day, Simon. Got it," Jim agreed.
"Yeah, right," Simon snorted. "Go follow your marina lead." The phone went dead. Jim smiled as he dropped it and soaped up the other side of his face. For all his complaining, Simon was a good man, and Jim wouldn't want to work for anyone else.
Out of curiosity, Jim focused on his hearing, struggling to hear if Blair was up and about yet. The drag of his razor across his face turned into a roar, and the building itself seemed to moan for a second before Jim could hear the steady breathing and slow heartbeat in the main room. Jim quickly finished and then rinsed his face before going out to find Blair still asleep, the steady heartbeat unchanged.
"Chief, rise and shine. You have class to teach this morning," Jim said as he shook Blair's shoulder. Blair muttered and smacked his lips with a slightly disgruntled expression. "Correction, you have to wash the table and then teach class this morning."
"Jim?" Blair asked as he cracked his eyes open. He pushed himself up, and Jim could see the wince as his back protested.
"Note to self, do not sleep at the table."
"You can consider that a new house rule," Jim agreed, "right after the rule about no drooling on the table."
"Oh man. Okay, that's actually a rule I can get behind because that's kinda..."
"Disgusting?" Jim filled in.
"Yeah," Blair agreed as he headed for the paper towels in the kitchen.
"What happened to going to bed at midnight?" Jim asked casually as Blair ran a paper towel under the faucet.
"I had to check every case by hand, and I was almost through when the alarm went off. I only needed a few more minutes, but I guess I fell asleep." Blair wiped the table and then stretched his arms over his head as his back popped. "I won't be doing that again. Man, you have one seriously uncomfortable table."
"I wouldn't know; I've never tried to sleep on it," Jim said dryly as Blair tossed the paper towel out and came back to pack up the laptop.
"Okay, I have the disk with all the names I could find, listed by lawsuit and filing date. Hopefully, one will either mean something to you or match with one of the background checks. Just let me change shirts, and we can go." Blair started for the stairs.
"Blair, you have class this morning; it's Thursday," Jim pointed out. "Call my cell phone when you're done, and I'll swing by the university and pick you up."
"You don't need to. I called Kiersten and asked her to cover my class this morning, so I'm all yours," Blair said as he hesitated. "Oh man, I didn't even think about the enhanced smell. I should shower. Can you wait five minutes?"
"You what?" Jim demanded as he stared at Blair.
"I'll be out in five minutes," Blair answered, ignoring the actual question as he dashed for the bathroom. Seven minutes later, Blair came running back out of the bathroom with a towel, his unwashed hair pulled back into a pony tail, dripping water as he hurried up the stairs.
"Slow down, you're going to break your neck," Jim yelled after him. The towel came flying over the railing at him, and Jim could hear soft cursing as Blair got tangled in his own underwear.
"For god's sake, Sandburg, I'm not in that much of a hurry."
"I'm coming, I'm coming."
Jim snatched the fallen towel from the floor and draped it over the back of a dining room chair as he leaned against the pillar and crossed his arms. No way was the kid putting his career on hold for Jim's job. Jim was drawing that line in the sand right now. Blair came rushing back down the stairs, one shoe on and carrying the other.
"Okay, I'm ready," he announced as he sat on the stairs and pulled his last shoe on.
"You're not going," Jim told him. Blair paused in the middle of tying his shoes and looked up.
"What?"
"Forget it, Chief. I know you want to be involved with this case, but you are not going to put your job in jeopardy to spend time on this obsession. So, you are going to the university and teaching your class, and when you've finished with your responsibilities, I'll pick you up."
Blair stared at him stunned, and Jim stared right back, unwilling to compromise on this point. If Blair wouldn't put himself first in this relationship, then Jim would.
"You know, Ellison, you can really take the cake sometimes. What the hell gives you the right to tell me what to do with my job?"
Jim paused in the face of Blair's growing anger, but then he set his jaw. "I know you want to help, but you can't put this case ahead of your job. You have your own life, Chief. I'll find this sicko."
"Oh, for god's sake. Jim, you have the mothering instincts of a, well, pretty much any wild animal mother. However, I'm a grown man. You want to control my sexuality, and I am there with you, but you do not have control over what I do with my job."
"I control whether you ride with me or not."
"You don't let me in that truck, and I will follow you all day in my car."
"If I use lights, you can't keep up with me."
"I'll speed."
"I'll arrest you." Jim stepped forward, his arms still crossed.
"God save me from alpha males," Blair sighed. "You just fucking would. Listen, Mother Ellison, I do not owe you an explanation. However, I do not want to stand here and get in a metaphorical pissing contest with you because I already know I'll lose. First, Kiersten owes me because I covered her class for her. And since she's graduating, I either get the favor this semester, or I lose it, man. Second, me taking time off has nothing to do with the case. I have the legal research done, and I could just give you the disk. I'm going along because of your senses."
"What?" Jim had obviously missed something.
"Your senses," Blair repeated. "Once this thing with the police department is over, I'm going back to my research on heightened senses, and this is the ideal time to get some data on you. Three senses heightened--that's as many as anyone I've found. And I have a chance to go along with you and see if the senses make a difference in your investigation now that you're more self aware. I really wish I had baseline data on you, to determine whether the senses were triggered by the danger or just became more noticeable. I mean, have other cops commented on you knowing things when they couldn't figure out how you knew them?"
"My senses? You're coming along to observe my senses?" Jim asked.
"It's my dissertation, or at least it will be after my ride-along ends. Man, I am a big boy. I do not need you to tell me how to handle my job, and I am going along with you if I have to cling to the back bumper of the truck riding a skateboard."
"But." Jim just stopped. He had no way of answering that without losing more face. "The senses are gone," he lied instead. Blair looked at him strangely. "I woke up and everything's back to normal." Jim shrugged as he headed for the door. Blair grabbed his pack and followed.
"Everything's gone? Nothing unusual at all?"
"All perfectly normal," Jim confirmed as he headed for the stairs. That should leave Blair winded enough to just stop asking questions. Now Jim just had to figure out a way to evade Blair's questions in the truck. His stomach clenched at the thought of this conversation, something dark and fetid and bloated bobbing just under the surface of his memory. He pounded down the stairs faster, Blair falling behind as Jim hit the bottom and slammed the door open to the muggy Cascade air.
Blair still hadn't dropped the issue by the fourth marina. "Come on, just try to hear the birds over there," Blair asked as he followed Jim up the ramp. A few boaters were working on the pier, and Jim intended to ask them about the speedboat. Boaters noticed each other, so even if the Switchman had lied on official marina records, someone must have seen something.
"I'm working, Sandburg."
"I'm trying to work. But I have this really grouchy test subject."
Jim turned and glared, but Blair just smiled sweetly and blinked up at him. Rolling his eyes, Jim headed for the first boater.
"Morning. I'm Jim Ellison, Cascade Police Department, and this is a civilian observer with the department, Blair Sandburg. Do you have a minute?"
The older man frowned up at Jim's badge from where he was crouched on the pier adding a new screw to the ladder on the side of his boat. He pulled himself up and stuck the screwdriver in his pocket.
"Sure. This about the explosion yesterday? I wasn't even around."
"Only partially," Jim assured him. People didn't like getting involved in big cases, or at least many people didn't. He shrugged reassuringly as though this wasn't nearly as important as that. "We're just trying to find a witness, someone who drives a white speedboat, a Windy, with green trim."
"No, I haven't seen anything like that around, sorry." The man stood there awkwardly, and Jim nodded.
"Thanks anyway. You do see it, give me a call." He offered a card. The man took it, and looked at it, but Jim really didn't have much hope.
"Yeah, if I see anything like that," the man agreed before climbing up onto his boat.
"Well, this is going well," Blair whispered softly.
"Don't start, Junior; you're the one who invited himself along," Jim warned as he started to the next pier that stuck out into the ocean. Halfway down that pier, he could see a woman sunning on the deck of her ship.
"Aha!" Blair exclaimed triumphantly.
Jim turned and looked at him.
"You shouldn't have heard that," Blair announced, poking a finger towards Jim.
"Sandburg," Jim warned as he started walking again.
"Man, you only *think* the senses are gone. They're right there, just waiting for you to figure out how to use them. This could be huge, Jim. Enormous."
"Legally questionable," Jim pointed out. "Do I have to get a court order allowing me to use my enhanced hearing on a stakeout? If a suspect has an expectation of privacy and I listen in, I'm on some shaky ground in court."
"But the senses are normal. I can give the court at least a hundred cases of enhanced hearing, all documented. I've even written two papers on the connection between enhanced senses and creativity."
"Great, if I need a reason to take up finger painting, I'll have you explain it to Simon. But Chief, this is my job."
"Exactly, and the senses are part of you doing your job."
"You're like a bulldog with a bone," Jim sighed. "I'm starting to wish I had one of your gags here."
"Yeah, yeah, you can gag me later. But listen, Jim, this is a normal part of who you are. It saved my life. It saved Collins and Shay. Who knows how many times these senses have saved someone? You need to learn to--"
Jim reached out, putting fingers over Blair's lips. Tilting his head, he struggled to find what had caught his attention. "I hear something," he whispered. Metal scraped against fiberglass, followed by the softer brush of fibers. Rope or sail.
"What is it?" Blair whispered back, leaning forward so that his hands rested against Jim's back.
"Shhh," Jim admonished, annoyed with how loudly Blair had spoken. Focusing on the pier, he could hear the whorl-whip of a rope zipping through a pulley.
"I.." Blair started, and Jim growled. The man had the good sense to fall silent. A strange feeling of deja vu settled in Jim's stomach as he focused on those faint sounds.
"Damn it," a woman's voice cursed. He heard the faint tones of a dialing phone. For a second, the sound vanished under the crash of waves hitting the side of the boat and the creaking of wood.
"We're moving the final stage up." The woman's voice broke free of the waves and Jim scanned the marina for it. She had to be in one of the nearby boats.
"I don't care. Ellison is going down. I'm going to hurt him as badly as he hurt me when he took my father. So, you can either sell me the stuff, or I'll go somewhere else for the supplies."
Jim strained to hear the voice on the other end, his vision graying out. "Veronica, you're--" The words slipped away and Jim slid into a darkness where nothing existed.
***
"Jim, come on. No leaving the observer by himself, man. I'm about to call 911 if you don't wake your ass up, and you're totally freaking me out." The worried tone in Blair's voice dragged Jim back into a world where the sunlight threatened to burn out his eyes.
Throwing up an arm, he shaded his eyes and staggered back until Blair's hands at his waist helped balance him.
"Shit. You scared me out of two lifetimes of growth, man."
"Blair?" Jim struggled with his thick tongue.
"Unless someone knocked me out, dragged me off and then replaced me with a doppleganger, yeah. Of course, as out of it as you were, I'm not sure you would have noticed."
"What?"
"Man, you have been out of it for over five minutes, and in terms of seizures, that's a pretty significant one."
"Seizure?" Jim turned to Blair, leaning on his shoulder when his own legs threatened to collapse. "I don't have seizures."
"And that's the weird thing. I would swear that was a petit mal seizure, but primary generalized seizures, the absence type anyway, are almost always in children. But you checked out on me."
"The suspect."
"What suspect?" Blair looked around the marina, slightly panicked.
"I heard a woman. She's moving the timetable up. She's going to make me pay for taking her father."
"Oh shit," Blair breathed. "A few boats left, but I didn't even notice them. Man, I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault, Chief. Oh fuck, the light is strong," he cursed as his attempt to open his eyes led him to press them closed and put a hand over them to stop the red flares from invading the darkness.
"Let's get you in the shade. Just lean on me, Jim," Blair said as his arm tightened around Jim's waist. Jim could only stumble after him, his hand still covering his eyes as a drop in temperature told them they'd reached the shade of the small gatehouse near the parking lot of the pier.
"Okay, we need to get your vision under control," Blair muttered, but the sound was almost lost in the fast thumping of his heart. Even with his eyes closed, green light filled his vision, mottled as the sun filtered through the jungle canopy.
"Like a balance," Incacha said as he set a small branch on top of a rock where it tilted but then stilled. "Listen too much and the branch falls." Incacha moved the branch and it tumbled off the rock.
"I can't hear the birds, no one could," Jim argued. He just wanted to go back to the hut. He was here to defend the pass, not listen to this mumbo jumbo about being some kind of freak.
"Do you want them to call you a freak?" his father's voice intruded into the memory.
"Balance," Incacha demanded his attention again. "Allow someone to hold the other end, and you can reach the birds," Incacha explained calmly as he replaced the branch, but this time he held the short end while the long end extended over the rock.
"Fuck," Jim cursed, "not now."
"Hey, I think now would be a great time to get this under control because 911 is still totally an option. Not a good one, but an option," Blair disagreed. "I think I know what's going on, but I'm clueless about how to make this any better, so try and work with me here, Jim."
"Lost my balance," Jim admitted, hating it even as the words escaped.
"What?"
"With my vision. I lost the balance," Jim repeated.
"Oh. Okay, so that means that you just have to find the fulcrum again. Come on, if you lost your balance, that means you can find it. Find the point at which the light is just normal. Just, I don't know, slide around until you can find it."
Jim held Blair's shoulders and slowly the red glow behind his eyelids faded until he could risk cracking his eyes. Blair was looking up at him, worry etched deep into his face.
"Man, if you ever scare the shit out of me like that again," he breathed, and then he was plastered to Jim's front, strong arms wrapped around Jim, holding him.
"I'm fine," Jim promised as he let his cheek rest for a minute on the top of Blair's head. Then he released his own death grip, and they separated enough so that Blair could look up at him. He did feel fine, but Blair was looking at him in a way that made his disbelief silently obvious.
"I feel fine. And I've never had seizures before. Maybe..." Jim grasped at straws, not wanting to deal with the one explanation that now nudged his memory. "Maybe she slipped me some drug somehow."
"She?" Blair demanded.
"The suspect, Veronica. She was talking to someone on the phone, saying that she was moving the final stage up. She wants revenge because of what I did to her father." The name sounded familiar, but maybe the seizure or the drugs had scrambled his brains. Jim started down the central walk, listening for the woman's voice, but he could only hear sea birds crying through the cloudy sky.
"Jim?"
"I don't hear her now. Shit." Jim slapped his hand down on the flat wood rail as he stared across the boats moored here.
"Oh man. It's true," Blair breathed softly. "Can you read that?" Blair asked as he pointed off to the far side of the marina to a white sign with red lettering.
"Mooring costs $7.14 per foot per month, including leasehold tax," Jim read.
"Oh man," Blair breathed again, and this time Jim glared at him. "I can't read that."
"So I have better eyes than you do."
"No, Jim, I can barely see red squiggles on the white, and I have perfect vision with my glasses on. No one could read that from here."
"What are you saying?" Jim asked, his guts tightening. He didn't want to be different. He wasn't a freak.
"Man, you're it."
"Sandburg," Jim growled. "I'm heading back to the precinct."
"A Sentinel! You're a Sentinel. You have four enhanced senses, and the odds of your smell being enhanced without your taste being affected are negligible. And then the seizure. Burton called that a zone out. You're a Sentinel."
"One of your tribal protectors?" Jim asked suspiciously. He wasn't tribal, and right now, he was feeling more homicidal than protective. He crossed his arms, but Blair totally ignored his forbidding body language. Instead, he turned and turned back as though he couldn't decide what to look at. Smiling brightly, he bounced on the balls of his feet.
"It fits. Burton described Sentinels as having a companion who would watch their back because sometimes so much sensory input would come in at once that they just stopped. It makes sense. The brain gets too many neurons firing at once, and a seizure is the normal response. Man, you're a Sentinel."
"Normal response?" Jim demanded. "Freezing in the middle of a crime scene is a normal response? How the fuck do I turn off this normal response?" Jim demanded.
Blair froze mid-bounce, looking up at Jim."I don't know."
"Then use that famous brain of yours, get out your books, and find a way," Jim demanded before he turned his back and stormed back toward the truck.
"But, Jim," Blair protested as he chased after him. Jim ignored the little warning of dread in his stomach that told him not to turn away from his partner. Everyone else knew the cocky, mouthy, indomitable Blair, but Jim knew how fragile that facade could be. "You're a walking crime lab, a living observation post."
"It doesn't help if I can't do my job," Jim growled, ignoring the frisson of fear at the idea that he'd left Blair alone. For those five minutes, Blair had been alone in the middle of pursuing a mass murderer. Alone and undefended. He unlocked the truck door, but Blair wasn't going around to his side.
"Without your senses, you would not have heard that. I have excellent hearing. Hell, my students claim I have bat-hearing because I can hear a sarcastically muttered complaint from 50 feet, but I didn't hear anything out there. You got that it was a woman named Veronica who doesn't like that you did something to her father."
"Without my senses, I would not have left you out there undefended," Jim snapped back as he whirled on his partner. "You're an unarmed observer. If Veronica had come up behind us, what would you have done? I have no business taking you into situations if I can't defend you." Jim clutched the edge of the door so hard that he could feel his fingers strain and cramp.
"Jim," Blair said softly, moving forward and resting a hand on Jim's arm.
"No." Jim narrowed his eyes and turned his back on Blair before getting in the truck. He slammed the door and then waited as Blair went around to his side. "You either figure out how to turn this off, or I'm going on desk duty until we get it sorted." Jim wasn't angry. His hands gripped the wheel until his knuckles turned white, but he wasn't angry--just realistic.
Blair opened his mouth several times before closing it silently. Finally he found words. "Burton talks about what triggers the Sentinel abilities--a manhood ceremony or a time alone in the wilderness. I can see if anything would give us a clue about how to turn it off."
Blair didn't sound happy, but Jim didn't need him happy, he just needed to be able to do his job.
"I know you'll find something, Chief," he said with an encouraging smile before he started the truck.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 11:38 am (UTC)Damn Jim for thinking that just because he can control Blair's ass that he also controls the kids life.
Damn Jim for lying to Blair in the first place! There is no room for mistrust in any relationship!
Damn Jim for not telling Blair about Incacha, Peru, His father...
And damn him for expecting poor Blair to 'turn it off'!
Stupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupid
Fucking Alpha male...
... MORE!...
no subject
Date: 2007-08-17 02:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 03:50 am (UTC)I love that Jim is more realistic about his senses.
Can't wait to see what will happen when Blair is ready for bed, LOL.
Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-17 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 05:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-17 02:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 05:26 am (UTC)kw
no subject
Date: 2007-08-17 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-17 02:40 am (UTC)Did I mention...?
Date: 2007-08-16 10:43 pm (UTC)(Maybe TV should give up on script writters, and hire slashers to write the shows?)
Re: Did I mention...?
Date: 2007-08-17 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 10:49 pm (UTC)I love how excited Blair got, but then how he calmed down to take care of Jim.
Very cool.
I can't wait for more.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-17 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-18 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-18 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 08:32 am (UTC)That was a very clever way of explaining the dial thing in a new way. Very concrete.
Laurie
no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 01:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 07:41 pm (UTC)Taking things better, but still wants them turned off. Oy. And they got clues... but how do they tell the /others/ how they got em??