Title: Dream On
Author: Angelee
Fandom: The Sentinel
Pairing: Blair/Jim
Summary: Do dreams have any basis in fact, or are they just dreams with no real meaning?
Beta: By Bobbie. With thanks. All remaining errors are my own. With apologies.
Dream On
Jim
stared out at the ocean as he sat on a sand dune, blue eyes lost and
unfocused. He’d spent another night
tossing and turning, chasing the Sandman to no avail.
Jim had finally given up around
This had been going on for two weeks. The first dream had taken him so much by surprise he’d sat up in bed screaming. A man had reached for him, not meaning him any harm, needing him so badly, it had shaken Jim to the core. No one had ever needed him that badly before.
He tried reaching back, only to be met with a heavy veil he couldn’t penetrate, no matter how hard he tried. He’d gotten desperate to reach the other, but was still unable to do so, watching in horror as the man crumbled to the floor, curling up into a fetal position.
He shook his head, closing his eyes as he fought to clear the images from his brain. A beautiful, curly head man was reaching out to him. Big, beautiful eyes filled with tears. The Sentinel tried, God knew how he tried, but he was still unable to reach him. The need to reach this man left Jim wanting with a desperation that left him trembling and shaken to the core of his soul.
Jim sighed as he opened his own eyes. The dreams had been the same every fucking night, very rarely changing.
He understood that the curly-headed man needed him. Jim didn’t know why, just that he needed him desperately. Something inside of the Sentinel responded. Yet he was unable to do anything about bringing them together.
They were only dreams, though, with no basis in fact. Right?
Jim sighed as he watched the seagulls chase each other in the morning sky. He needed to get to work in a few hours. He wasn’t sure he could deal with it, having slept hardly at all. How was he to do his work as a Detective with Major Crimes when all he wanted to do was lay down and sleep for a hundred years?
The dreams followed, though. It didn’t matter if it was day or night. They followed. The Sentinel gave another sigh, this one deep and shaky.
He couldn’t go to the doctor and tell him he was having freaky dreams about a man. They’d think he needed to get laid; needed to let out some frustration. It might have been a good idea, certainly wouldn’t hurt, but he hadn’t been able to get an erection since the dreams started.
It was as if the beautiful man in his dreams was holding him in stasis. Jim didn’t know where or who to turn to for help.
“What the hell am I going to do?” he softly whispered. “What the fuck am I suppose to do?”
“Come to me.”
Jim startled. “W….what?” he asked, looking around, but there was no one. Not for miles and miles.
“Come to me, Jim. I need you so much.”
“Where are you?”
“I…I don’t know how to explain.”
Jim frowned in annoyance. “Try, damn it. You’ve been bugging me for weeks now. Fucking well try.”
The Sentinel heard a deep sigh. “Alright. Alright don’t get mad.”
“Don’t tell me not to get mad. You’ve kept me awake for two fucking weeks. Two. I’m about to drop.”
“I’m sorry,” the voice in is head whispered sadly.
Jim’s frown deepened. “Don’t be sorry. Just tell me what you want.”
“You’re my Sentinel. I need you. I need you so bad it h…hurts,” the voice broke.
Jim licked his suddenly dry lips. “I don’t know how to get to you. I don’t even know who you are.”
“B…Blair Sandburg.”
“I’m tired, Blair. So fucking tired.”
“So am I. I’m trying to reach you, but you’re so far away,” Blair said sadly.
Jim closed his eyes as he fought the wave of loneliness. “I know. I can’t get to you either.” Jim heard a sharp intake of breath as if Blair were in pain. “Are you alright?”
“Pain. It’s getting worse,” Blair said quietly. “If I don’t get to you soon…”
“Don’t even say it. Don’t you even fucking say it,” Jim hissed, angrily.
“My beautiful, Sentinel,” Blair whispered affectionately. “My beautiful, beautiful Sentinel.”
“How do you know I’m your Sentinel?”
“You’re the only one for me. Neither time, nor other dimensions can ever take that away from me. You are mine.”
Jim dug his fingers into the cold sand. “How do you know that?”
“There are no free Sentinel’s in this dimension. It is a world much like yours. But here Sentinels are rare. So very rare. We have to go to other worlds, other dimensions to find suitable Sentinels before the Guides hit flashpoint.”
“Flashpoint?”
“Point of no return. They need to touch, feel, care for their Sentinels with every fiber of their soul. If they can’t find them or reach them in time, they die.”
Jim startled. “Y…you’re dying.”
“Yes,” Blair told him baldly. “I’ve search hundreds of world, dozens of dimensions. No one has touch my heart and soul as you have. You are my Sentinel, but I can’t reach you,” he said wistfully, sadly.
“I’ve tried to reach you, too. Nothing I’ve tried works.”
A heavy sigh. “I know, big guy. I know. Ah!”
Jim sat up straighter. “Blair!”
Nothing for the longest time, till. “It’s alright. The physicians want to give me something for pain.”
“Take it,” The Sentinel encouraged.
“No. I want to spend a little more time with you, before…”
Jim felt his blue eyes fill with tears. “Blair.”
A sharp hiss of what could only be pain. “I… k…now. I… k…now. Goddess, it h…hurts.”
“Can’t anyone on your side help?”
“I almost bonded to the last free Sentinel, but he chose another. Last one. No more. It started flashpoint.”
Jim sighed unhappily. “Get him to change his mind.”
“Can’t. Rafe wanted Henry as his Sentinel. The bond has already formed and from what I’ve been told, it’s solid as a rock. I’m shit out of luck.”
“Oh, Blair.”
Another sound of pain. “Ah, it doesn’t matter. I’ve bonded with you in any case, even if you’re millions of miles and three dimensions away. From the minute I saw you, I knew. Rafe doesn’t come close to comparing to you. You are the most beautiful Sentinel I’ve ever seen.”
Jim wiped at the tears coursing down his face with an unsteady hand. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Jim felt the renewed sting of bitter tears. “I’m not worth dying for, Blair. Please…”
“Can’t do anything about it, Jim. I can’t reach you and you can’t reach me. I’d give anything to be in your arms right now.”
“Oh, Blair…”
“That was one of the reasons Rafe didn’t want me.”
Jim frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I’m too clingy. I like to hug and kiss. A lot. I freely share my affections.”
“Not with everyone, right?”
A weak giggle. “Jealous?”
Jim smiled, despite how fucking sad he was. “Yeah, maybe a little,” he replied softly, ruefully.
“I’m glad. No, not with everyone. Only with people I know and care about.”
“Good. Cause I wouldn’t want to have to kick some serious butt.”
Another giggle, choked back by a hiss of pain. “Ah, shit. No, we wouldn’t want that. If I were there, would you let me hug and kiss you?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“As much as I wanted?”
“You betcha’,” Jim replied, softly. “As much as you wanted, as often as you wanted. But you’d have to do something in return.”
“What?” Blair asked, the curiosity mingling heavily with the pain the Guide was in.
“You’d have to let me love you just as much.”
“Not a hardship, big guy. Not a hardship. Jim?”
“Yeah?”
A harsh hiss of discomfort sent a chill down the Sentinel’s back. “Ah. Damn. W…would we have made a good Sentinel/Guide team?”
“The best. We would have made the best team there ever was.”
“Oh, Goddess!”
“Blair,” Jim yelled harshly, in panic.
“Oh, man. Jim?” Blair called weakly, trying his damnest to calm his frightened Sentinel. “I…its okay.”
Jim reached for his Guide through the vastness of time, space and millions of miles; reaching for his hurting Guide with everything in him, and hit an invisible wall so hard it sent him reeling back in pain and shock.
It lasted all of a second before he attacked the wall again with a vengeance rarely seen, reaching for his Guide on the other side, banging on the wall again and again. He screamed his frustration and anger as the wall failed to fall.
“Let me through, God damn it. Let me through.”
It took a softly whispered voice to call him back from the edge of madness he had come so close to crossing.
“Jim? Big Guy?”
Shivering in the cool morning air, Jim closed his eyes tightly, yet the tears of anger and loss still leaked through. “Blair? I can’t reach you. I can’t and I want to so badly. So fucking badly.”
“I know, baby. I know. Easy. Take it easy. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Jim bit his lower lip hard enough to bleed. “I don’t care. I don’t fucking care.”
“You will care, damn it,” Blair told him sternly, if weakly.
Jim wiped at the blood dripping down his chin. “What the fuck are you going to do about it if I don’t? You can’t even touch me.”
“Oh, Jim, please don’t make this harder than it is,” Blair replied, sorrow coloring his voice.
The Sentinel bowed his head in shame. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Really. Jim?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think it’d be okay if I dreamed on about holding you close against me? Resting my head against that big chest of yours?”
Jim chuckled softly. “I don’t see why not.”
“You’re so warm. You’re body is nice and hard in all the right place. But your skin is still baby soft. You must use a lot of lotion to keep it this soft.”
“Come over to this side, sweetheart, and find out,” Jim taunted, gently.
“If wishes… Jim?”
“Hmm?”
“Can I touch your hair?”
“Sure baby. Touch me wherever you like. I’d love it,” Jim whispered, staring out into the ocean, watching the waves as they rolled in, feeling as if his heart was breaking.
“So soft, like velvet. Softer than velvet. I love the way you feel.”
“Thank you, baby.”
“And you’re so gentle. So careful when you touch me.”
Jim snickered. “Tell that to my wife. She used to say I was an insensitive baboon.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Ah, Goddess,” Blair hissed, in pain and anguish.
“Blair!” Nothing. “Blair!” Still only eerie silence. “Please, Blair. Please, sweetheart- answer me. Answer me, God damn it! Don’t. Don’t you fucking give up on me! On us.”
“J…Jim.”
The Sentinel gave a relieved sigh. “Here, baby. Here.”
“I…I like the endearments you have for me. It’s sweet.”
“Sweet? I’ll give you sweet,” Jim threatened menacingly, not meaning a word of it.
“D…don’t I wish?”
There was silence for a moment as both Guide and Sentinel became lost in their thoughts. After a moment. “Blair?”
“Y…yeah?”
“Do you think maybe we might be trying too hard to reach each other?”
“What?”
“Yeah, we might be trying too hard. The harder we try the less chance we have of reaching each other. Maybe if we didn’t try so hard.”
“I don’t know, maybe. I’m just so tired, Jim. I don’t know if I have the strength to try again.”
Jim grabbed a hand full of dirt, tossing it away angrily. “Don’t you give up! As long as there’s breath in your lungs, you keep fighting to bring us together.”
A weak chuckle. Jim could hear how Blair was struggling to stay alive and with him, but the battle was being slowly, agonizingly lost. “So forceful. I find that super sexy in a Sentinel.”
Jim looked up toward the cloud filled sky. “You better fucking better believe it. Where are you, any way?”
“Hospital bed. The doctors are doing their best to keep me alive while the physicists try to figure a way to get me to you. Jim?”
Jim closed his eyes as he felt the renewed sting of tears. “Yeah, baby?”
“If I ever made it to where you’re at…”
“When, sweetheart, when.”
Blair sighed softly, sadly. “When. Will you take me to Wonder Burger? Their hamburgers look really good and we don’t have Wonder Burgers here.”
Jim felt himself smile, even if it was a tiny one. “Yeah, baby. I’ll take you to Wonder Burger and get you the biggest hamburger they’ve got.”
“Cool. Ah!”
“B…Blair?”
“Hurts.”
Jim breathed in sharply through his nose. “We need to do something. You and me, Blair. We can’t wait for the physicists. I want you to sit up in the bed and I want you to reach for me.”
“We tried that already.”
“I know that, sweetheart. I know, but this time I want you to not reach so hard.”
Jim could practically see the frown. “How am I supposed to do that, when I want you so bad?”
“I know, baby. I know. Try. Reach for me, like you’re parting a pair of curtains to see what’s on the other side.”
“I know what’s on the other side,” Blair scoffed.
Jim chuckled. “All the more reason to reach for me, baby.” A sudden thought occurred to him. “Why can’t I go to you?”
“The physicists say that this plane is thinnest. Or the fabric of space, rather. You could break thru it from your side, but it could possibly kill you. In theory, anyway.”
“Wouldn’t want that.”
“Not when I’ve worked so hard to get to you. Kind of defeats the purpose.”
Jim smiled. “I’d say. You know, if anybody came by, they’d think I was crazy, sitting here talking to myself.”
“Can’t have that. I’m ready, Jim. I want to be with you so bad,” Blair whispered wistfully.
“I know sweetheart. I know. This time it’ll work. I know it will. Bring everything you’re going to need.”
Blair gave a shaky sigh. “Everything I could possibly need or want is there, in a big, buff, beautiful package.”
Jim tried to talk over the lump in his throat. “B…Blair.”
“Ready, Jim.”
“Okay. This time, gentle is the word. Reach over as if you’re parting some curtains.”
“What kind?”
Jim frowned, slightly taken back. “Huh?”
“What kind of curtains?”
“Hmm, don’t know, Gauzy, I guess.”
“What color?”
Jim’s frowned deepened. “What color?”
“Yeah.”
Jim didn’t miss the smile in Blair’s voice, even if he couldn’t see it. “Wiseass. White, with little cats all over it.”
“Cool. Nice imagery.”
“Thought so. Come to me, baby. I’m waiting.”
For the longest time, nothing happened. It was so long that Jim was starting to panic, thinking something had happened to Blair. Suddenly, just in front of him the air started to fuzz and blur, shimmering slightly in the morning light.
“Blair? That’s it, baby. That’s it. It’s working!” Jim said happily. “It’s working. Come to me. Come on, baby. I’ll let you cuddle me till the cows come home.” Suddenly, there in front of him stood his beautiful, curly haired, blue eyed Guide. “Blair?”
“Jim?” Blair replied, hoarsely.
The Sentinel barely caught him in time as the he passed out. Jim carefully lowered him to the ground. He gently stroked the pale face. “Blair?”
The Guide opened his eyes slowly. “Jim?”
Jim gave him a brilliant smile. “Yeah, baby. You did it.”
“We did it.”
“Yeah, we did,” Jim told him softly.
Blair stared up at him in wonder. “You’re so beautiful. My Sentinel,” he said, with no small amount of satisfaction.
“My Guide,” Jim returned. “How do you feel?”
“Weak, but better. Just being near you helps.”
“Wanna go back to my place? Well, our place,” The Sentinel amended.
Blair shook his head. “Not yet. Could you do something for me?”
“Anything, baby. Anything.”
“Hold me?” Blair asked so wistfully, so hopefully. “I’ve been dreaming of you holding me.”
“Yeah, baby. For as long as you like.” Jim carefully spooned himself around the body of his Guide, a Guide that had almost died trying to get to him. He pulled the slighter form closer. “How’s this?”
Blair sighed softly. “Good. This is way good.”
Jim watched the blue eyes slowly close. “Don’t fall asleep. It’s going to rain soon and we don’t want to get arrested for public indecency.”
The lids lifted slightly. “Not sleeping. Just want to rest for a bit.”
The Sentinel buried his nose in soft, curly hair. “Okay. Just for a bit, then I take you home and wrap you up in big, warm, fuzzy blankets and hold you for the next hundred years.”
“Sounds good, but for now this is good, too.”
Jim pulled Blair closer. “Yeah, for now this is good, too.”