lit_gal | Power Play 7

Jim/Blair Slashiness
Part of the Guidelines Universe. Oh, and look what guidelines won!

Awards... does an ego good

"Chief, get back in the car," Jim growled as he watched his guide come trotting down the street, closing the distance between Rafe's car and his truck.

"Not a chance, man. Back at Fielding's place, you had a cover, and I'm cool with that… okay, not exactly cool, but whatever. Anyway, you have no business snooping around Carasco's place, so if you get caught, there's no cover for me to blow." Blair slowed to a walk as he got closer to the truck, stopping a few feet away to stand with his arms crossed with a clear 'make me' expression.

"If I get caught, I don't want you anywhere near me."

"I'm going to be with you so you *don't* get caught," Blair shot back. Jim looked past Blair to Rafe who stood near the brown sedan. The man held his hands up in a classic surrender pose and backed up a step. Jim sighed. Leave it to him to pick the world's most stubborn guide.

"This is—"

"Dangerous, police-business, unsafe, yadda, yadda, yadda." Blair made little 'yadda' motions with his hand as he nearly chanted the words. Then he angled away from the road and headed up the hill.

"Blair," Jim nearly growled.

"Look, unless I miss my guess, we've got a good mile, mile and a half hike up to the house, so can we do less complaining and more actual walking?"

Jim started after Blair, grabbing the man's arm. With a yank, he brought Blair back down the hillside and crashing into his chest.

"Geez, big guy. Didn't know you were into exhibitionism," Blair joked breathily as he braced a hand on Jim's upper arm.

"Sandburg," Jim warned him.

"Jim," Blair mimicked his tone. "No way am I staying behind. You're going to have to use your senses up there, and I'm going with you. That's what guides do, and if you leave me behind to sit and do nothing…" Blair stopped, his words failing him, and Jim could hear the tremor beneath the voice. Blair stood still, leaning heavily against Jim's chest for a moment, and then he pulled himself free. Jim studied the body language, the stiff back and narrowed eyes and tight mouth that all screamed Blair's distress.

A flash of Rob in his captain's uniform formed in Jim's memory: the man ordering Jim to back off the testosterone, the man laughingly punching Jim's arm, the man screaming Jim's name in agony as another rod pushed into his flesh so that Jim could smell the burning flesh and blood. A dark part of him uncurled and wanted nothing more than to handcuff his guide to the car where he'd be safe. Jim reached out and grabbed Blair, crushing him to his chest as he fought back the swelling memories and the nausea they brought with them.

"Jim?" Blair whispered as arms went around his waist, and Jim struggled to separate the smell of that distant land and the sound of screams from the present where his whole, safe guide stood in his arms.

"I don't want you hurt," Jim admitted as he rested his cheek on the top of Blair's head. He gritted his teeth to get the next part out. "You stay behind me, and you do what I tell you to. If I say run, you run, and you don't look back."

"I won't leave you," Blair answered as his arms tightened around Jim's waist. Those words echoed in Jim's mind, the promise he'd whispered to Rob as his guide stood at the bottom of that trap, eyes black with fear and sour sweat smell like rotting fish laying on a sea shore. Jim breathed through his mouth trying to escape the scent. He fought with his instincts, reminding himself that the man in his arms was Blair and not Rob.

"Chief, if I say run, you will go get help. You aren't a soldier or a cop," Jim said as he pulled himself out of his memories and straightened up. His rough stubble caught at Blair's hair so that long curls clung to his face. Jim reached a hand up to wipe his face free of the strands that tickled at his lips and cheek.

"God, it's like hugging a cocker spaniel," he complained.

"Hey, you try getting hugged by a porcupine," Blair shot back as he pulled away, smoothing his hair back down, but Jim could still see the concern as Blair studied him carefully. Jim started up the hill, deliberately ignoring Rafe who must have wondered what the hell they were doing.

"You stay behind me and do what I say, or I will give you the mother of all whisker burns," Jim threatened.

"Bully," Blair complained mildly, but Jim noticed the man also waited until Jim got a step ahead of him before following. "Now just remember, keep focused nice and wide with all the senses. Don't let yourself get distracted," Blair whispered. Jim relaxed into the moment as his senses expanded, the sounds and scents from thousands of sources flowing past him.

"I still wish you'd stay at the car," Jim groused.

"Dream on, fuzz boy," Blair answered, and Jim just grunted as he hiked up the hill and kept in the shadow of the trees as they approached the perimeter of Carasco's property.

"What now, oh great god of special ops?" Blair asked as they looked at the wire fence that divided open land from the crime lord's property.

"This would be a lot easier if the feds weren't being such dicks," Jim commented as he eyed the wires and listened to the electronic hum of circuits. Pulling Blair around to the far side of his body, he started walking the fence line with his guide beside him.

"Aren't they always?" Blair asked.

Jim paused, confirming a squirrel as the source of a scratching sound before answering. "Yeah, but they had Carasco under surveillance without informing us. And they could get a federal search warrant within the day."

"But… I thought… do you have any evidence Carasco killed Fielding?" Blair paused, and Jim absent-mindedly pulled him back into motion without taking his eyes off the fence.

"Federal warrant wouldn't be for Fielding, but that doesn't mean they couldn't poke around."

"Man, that's…"

"Chief, now is not the time for a civics lesson. Carasco is the bad guy, and we use the tools we have to use to catch him."

"Still not cool. And if I had a vote, I would call breaking into his property not cool, too," Blair whispered. Jim stopped and considered a limb, mentally weighing himself and his partner before continuing to walk the fence, their footsteps grinding the leaves into the damp soil.

"If I were a cop, yeah," Jim agreed. "But I'm a thug hired by Wallace to break in here and look for drugs or money. If I happen to find evidence of a murder, it's covered under the inadvertent discovery exception."

"Man, bogus. Supreme Court never should have reinstated that exception," Blair muttered.

"Look, can we please have this discussion some other time?" Jim stopped and glared down at his partner.

"Hey, just saying," Blair shrugged, and Jim jerked his thumb toward a tree.

"Can you climb?" he asked. Blair looked at him strangely for a second and then followed the direction of the thumb to the tree.

"No problem. Up and over?" he asked as he headed for the tree in question.

"Yeah, just don't touch the wire," Jim agreed. Blair clambered up the tree, quiet curses the whole time, and Jim followed. "Straight out on that limb, and then drop onto the other side," he said as Blair reached the right branch.

"No shit, Sherlock," Blair grunted, and Jim clenched his teeth to avoid saying something back. As they moved into enemy territory, his stomach tightened, and he could feel something cold settle into his skin… something that made him want to break anyone who came near Blair.

Blair dropped down to the other side, rolling slightly but avoiding the wire at the last second. Jim hadn't realized that he had stopped breathing until he started again, dropping down next to Blair in a few seconds. The trees were thinner on this side, the shadow of each tree falling separately across the hill like bars. Jim stepped into one of the shadows with his back to the tree, and pulled Blair to his chest.

"Hear something?" Blair hissed.

"I need to listen," Jim whispered back, and Blair froze in place, his heart pounding so hard that Jim could feel the vibrations of it in his forearms as he held Blair around the chest. Using that to center himself, Jim leaned around the trunk of the tree and looked across the grounds to the brick mansion, focusing until he could see through the panes of glass with their white trimmed wood.

Focusing, he caught one heartbeat downstairs. Compared to his guide's heartbeat, the sound was faint and muffled. A second and third beat came into focus, even farther away. Jim struggled to find their source.

"Anyone?" Blair whispered so softly that anyone else would have heard only a breath, but Jim gave a short nod as an answer.

"I can't tell how far they are," he admitted after struggling to focus. In the USSP, he'd learned to use background noise to identify distance and even provide a rough triangulation for location, but he struggled to just follow the faint beats.

"Where?" Blair breathed.

"The house."

Blair squirmed in his arms, and Jim glared down, frustrated at having his concentration broken.

"Oh man, you can hear heartbeats in the house? Oh man. That is…" Blair hesitated. "That's so cool!" Jim almost smiled at the raw enthusiasm.

"Can it, Chief. This isn't some test," he growled instead

"Yeah, but that must be a good 500 yards away. No way can they hear us, and you're picking up their heartbeats. We are so testing this."

"After Wilke leaves," Jim promised as he pulled Blair back to his body, reversing their positions so that he pressed Blair's back to the tree, leaning his own body in to keep his guide still. A burst of pheromones caught him off guard, and he felt his body tighten in response.

"Chief, you have issues," he complained as he loosened his hold. The pheromones faded, but still drifted around him as he studied the house.

"Normal human reaction to stimulus and danger," Blair whispered back, and Jim shook his head as the world suddenly sharpened. The edges of the bricks came into focus so that he could see the pores in the material and follow the grain of the wood trim under the white paint. The heartbeats he was tracking intensified. If someone had ordered him to describe it, Jim could only say that the sounds became somehow shiny, as though they stood out from all the background, their tempo shining brightly in his ears. Since that didn't make sense, even to him, he said nothing. He just leaned into Blair again, focusing as he placed two heartbeats in the house, their sounds echoing through the rooms, and one on the far side of the house.

"Okay, we're clear," he said as he came out from the shadow of the tree, holding his arm out slightly to the side to keep Blair behind him. Without waiting for an answer, he started toward the house in an easy lope that left Blair panting to keep up. Jim kept up the pace until they reached the house. Then he pushed Blair up against the brick and listened for any sounds of alarm.

Beside him, Blair wheezed and leaned over to brace himself on his knees. Jim pushed him upright again.

"You'll catch your breath faster," he whispered as Blair gave him a withering look, about all the man could do as his face glowed red and his heart pounded madly. Hearing nothing, Jim started edging toward the back side of the house, listening as the third heartbeat vanished under the sound of a small engine… a lawnmower or small tractor. The machine moved away, taking the heart beat with it, and Jim reached the corner of the building, glancing around it.

"And what…" pant, "exactly are we looking for?" Blair gasped.

"Whatever we find," Jim answered as he turned the corner and settled in on his knees behind a large bush. Blair moved into the dark space next to him, and Jim draped an arm over the man's shoulder as he focused on hearing.

A maid sang softly to her music, the hum of her vacuum cleaner hiding the actual tune. A television played a rerun of some old mystery movie. A woman's voice spoke in Spanish on the phone. Now that he was closer, Jim could hear two more heartbeats: the one who had driven the tractor/lawnmower back to the garage on the far side of the property talked to someone else about pests in the orchids.

Jim looked around. Sure enough, a greenhouse stood not far away. So, Jim had either heard a code word or was about to investigate some dangerous aphids. Nodding his head toward the structure, Jim carefully eased out of the bushed and hurried to the insubstantial door. He pulled a cloth from his pocket and wrapped his hand before he grabbed the doorknob. Locked. Pulling at it, he easily popped the lock with just brute strength.

Beside him, Blair stood with the red in his face centered into blotches and his eyes dark with either excitement or fear… those two emotions looked the same. Jim took a deep breath and decided that it was mostly excitement with only a few sour wisps of panic. Jim took one look around and then slipped inside the building, holding the door open for Blair who had wisely jammed his hands deep into his pockets.

"Okay, breathe easy, don't get too focused on any one thing," Blair whispered. Jim would have snapped that he knew how to do his job except that the words did his calm his stressed senses, making him aware of even the air moving across his skin.

"Blood," he whispered as he turned toward the pungent smell.

"Oh man. Okay, don't get focused in too tightly, just let yourself follow the smell," Blair said as a hand came out to rest on Jim's back. Jim wandered the rows of orchids lined up on tables, ignoring the damp smell of earth and the tart scent of growing plants. Turning a corner he spotted the chair, red drops patterned in an arch around the feet and a rust smear along the edge of the table.

"Oh man, is that blood?"

Jim ignored his guide as he focused in. The drops bulged at one side, the shape pointing back at the chair, so this blood hadn't just fallen. The pattern suggested a quick cutting motion, a knife swung with enough force to send drops spiraling out into the air. Focusing in on the edge of the table, he could see how blood had been forced into the grain of the wood. Reaching out, he could feel a slight ridge where something sharp had run across the table, making the wood bulge slightly on either side.

"Shit. He killed someone here, didn't he?" Blair asked, the warm hand now leaning more heavily against Jim's back.

"Probably," Jim agreed. The blood wasn't enough to kill anyone, but the caustic fear-scent had soaked into the wooden chair. Jim moved and ran sensitive fingers over the warm grain, feeling tiny furry bits where the grain had been ever-so-slightly broken exactly where ropes would have most effectively tied a prisoner to the chair.

Jim reached in his pocket and took out evidence bags. Using the edge of his knife, he scraped bits of blood from the table and floor into separate bags, scribbling something on each before sealing them and jamming the tiny things into his pocket.

"Let's get out of here, Chief," Jim said. Only then did he hear the heartbeat closing in on them. Footsteps pounded right at them, and Jim felt the panic twist in his chest as he grabbed Blair and pushed him under a table. Damn. No cover. Jim stopped breathing as he knelt down, pulling his gun and putting himself between the door and Blair who crouched under the table frozen and now stinking of terror.

"Oh shit."

Jim put a hand up to his guide's mouth, afraid that even that small breathy curse could attract the enemy. Blair's hand closed over his wrist, holding him, and Jim pushed himself partially under the table, pulling Blair to him as the world darkened. The enemy stood at the door, and Jim focused his eyes on the shadow he could see through the frosted glass. He wouldn't lose Blair, no matter what he had to do. The door started swinging open, and Jim crouched lower as he waited for a chance to attack.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

betagoddess.livejournal.com

CONGRATULATIONS!

You sure deserve an award!

=>}

From:

Power Play 7

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags