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“I’m going to get some air,” Blair murmurs softly. He picks up his leather jacket and shrugs it on, determinedly ignoring the concerned frown that appears on Naomi’s face.
“Would you like company?” she asks, equally quiet.
At the center of three tables shoved together, Simon, Joel, H, and Rhonda all stare intently at their hands, choosing discards carefully and sliding them clockwise, like Hearts holds the infinite knowledge of the universe. (It’s more like the game holds the infinite possibility of cash, if the stack peeking out of Rhonda’s purse tucked under her chair is any indication.) On the far end, Jim, Megan, and Rafe hold an animated discussion; Rafe is pointing at Jim with a fork, Megan’s free hand is busy sneaking french fries off Rafe’s plate during the distraction, and Jim’s stern voice rising above the din is the only indication Blair gets of its contents (the comparative cuisine of their respective native lands, apparently).
Blair’s stomach turns over; he’s suddenly glad he only managed to choke down a bite or two of his abandoned salad. “Nah.”
His mother’s cheek is cool as he gifts it a quick kiss. She rests a gentle hand on the nape of his neck, squeezes. A silent I hear you.
No, he wants to say. No, I don’t think anyone does. He swallows past this—this—thing, nameless and enormous, building thick in his chest, bubbling into his throat. “Why don’t you join those three yahoos over there?” Thank God his voice is steady, normal. “Sounds like they need someone cultured to set them straight.”
Naomi laughs. Jim’s glare cuts across the tables as if saying I resent that remark, because of course he heard, but there’s a (fond? Snap out of it, Sandburg, always wanting what you can’t have) smirk on his face belying any severity. Blair waves a friendly hand at him, message received and understood—and then maneuvers through the press of bodies to slip out of the brightly lit pub.
He’s not sure where he means to go. He just starts wandering in the steady stream of rain, letting his dragging feet lead him down the sidewalk. But he’s not used to this, after a scarce few days—the curious eyes that flit his way, the prying faces that turn in their judgment—and how arrogant, to believe events might have turned out otherwise.
This is what I would have given Jim, Blair remembers in a renewed cascade of horror, the truth that’s been stalking him day and night; this is what my friendship was worth, and even the muted sky and dreary architecture is watching, pressing, so Blair reacts as the prey he is.
He runs.
He weaves through the evening crowd, boots pounding the slick pavement. He runs while the rain flies in his face, his hair frizzing around his head as water slowly but surely soaks him to the bone.
And when his lungs burn and his sides cramp and he has to stop lest he tumble headlong, he catches his balance against the side of the nearest building. He looks up, scrubbing the droplets out of his eyes, and nearly expects to be turned into a pillar for his folly, right here.
The Cascade PD. Of course.
Even when I'm trying to get away, I end up turning back.
It’s by stubbornness alone Blair stumbles inside, fishing his water-logged observer’s pass out of his pocket for the night guard’s perusal. After the barest glance he’s waved through casually as anything; other shifts recognize him well enough for all the times he’s shown up at odd hours. It’s astounding, honestly, the lack of observation—can’t the officer see him unsteady at his very foundations?
Not yet, he commands himself shakily, smacking the button that’ll lead him to Major Crimes. But he doesn’t linger in the bullpen, or even on the floor itself, tracking instead to roof access. Following the battering tug in his gut, following Zeller’s shadow that haunts these repaired hallways (Megan’s shoulder and Simon’s torso), the echo of the bullet that whizzed past his head (why was I spared), following the ascending stairs (Jim’s leg), shoving the door open and letting it slam behind him as he paces into the open air, and now, now—
Blair’s knees buckle beneath him. His hands scrape against the grit as he slumps, fingers clenching into fists. “Why?” he howls.
Grief cracks open his heart, a bleeding tsunami, and then he’s sobbing, the rain pelting his back as he hyperventilates, lips forming a rasping Kaddish around every wheeze—
“Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’meih raba—”
(how do I mourn a life still breathing)
“—b’alma di v’ra chiruteih—”
(my memory will never be a blessing)
“V’yamlich malchuteih b’chayeichon uvyomeichon—”
His voice breaks, his mind spins wildly, and the frantic prayer disappears beneath the brink—
Like drowning,
Like no way out,
Like the end of everything.
***
After twenty minutes, Jim starts to worry.
He’s not trying to babysit or condescend. Blair’s proven, over and over, that he can successfully face the nastiest criminals in Cascade (except, except). Hell, Simon wouldn’t have agreed to Jim’s proposal of offering Blair a full-time detective position—wouldn’t have sat alert in his hospital bed just yesterday, grumbling good-naturedly over a sad-looking turkey sandwich and lime jello, thumbing through paperwork with a poorly concealed smile—if he hadn’t believed in it wholly, too.
But—earlier, in the bullpen, Blair’s subdued “everybody's safe and out and happy” when he so clearly looked miserable, lays heavy like foreboding on the back of Jim’s neck. He’d thought… fuck, he’d thought a lot of things. That maybe tonight Blair just needed a temporary change of scenery while processing all these changes. Neutral ground. A reset with people who cared about him—who, whether they knew the truth of the dissertation or not, supported Blair without question.
I don't think Simon's going to want me hanging around.
You’re wrong, Jim should have said immediately, instead of threading Blair’s insecurity into a joke, Christ. We wouldn’t be the same without you. I wouldn’t be the same without you—so be my partner permanently, wouldja?
Instead, he let Blair stew in false conclusions, self-deprecating for too long before the punchline, and then still uncharacteristically quiet all the way down on the other end of the table once the team had made their way to the restaurant. As far away as he could get without leaving, Jim thinks sourly. And then you let him go without a single word anyway. Bang up job on that partnership thing, Ellison.
He doesn’t even have time to wallow in his own stupidity before the thought—no, the drive—emerges, fully formed: Are you gonna sit there and complain, or do something about it?
Jim is already rising, reaching for his cane when a noise captures his attention. A high, keening note, so faint he almost thinks he’s imagined it.
(Except, except—)
Something stirs in him, raw and hot and sharp; he blinks, and his vision ripples jungle-blue.
Any other day, he would try to shake free. Any other day, he would try to deny. But it’s not just Jim-the-sentinel whose every vigilant sense is on high alert; it’s Jim-the-cop with well-honed instincts screaming; it’s Jim-the-partner finally taking the goddamned hint.
(Come on in, man…)
“I’m ready!” he calls desperately. “Show me!”
He jolts when a shadow streaks across his path—the black jaguar, leaping toward the pub’s entryway. It lands gracefully in the doorframe, meeting Jim’s eyes with insistent demand before yowling and racing out of sight.
It’s in a daze that he follows, sight no longer blue but still feathered. He realizes only belatedly that the scent of CK One wavers close by, irritating his nose; that there are slender fingers digging into his elbow, a firm grip steering him around tables and patrons; that the evening rain falls chilly on his skin.
(…the water’s nice.)
“—put up with your nonsense for so long, I’ll never know.” Megan’s voice, low and urgent and irritated. “Damn it, Jimbo, I’m not the expert here, so it’d be a great help if you’d just—”
Jim halts. Megan falters in her momentum and Jim steadies her in turn, catching her carefully on her uninjured shoulder. “Sandburg,” he explains, holding her in place just a little bit tighter to emphasize his point; she needs to understand. “I’m going after him.”
She peers at him through the mist, confusion giving way to concern, finally—
“Phone!” she suddenly exclaims, getting—whoa—handsy, patting pants and jacket pockets before finding the cell tucked into the inner lining of his coat. The unimpressed stare she gives him at the rise of his eyebrows clearly exclaims don’t flatter yourself, and she presses speed dial 1 before holding it up for both of them to hear.
He can’t even be mad at her unashamed eavesdropping when he’s got a more immediate problem: no answer. Not even a ring-through, just straight to a prerecorded message.
“I’ll drive. Wait here.” She bounds away toward the tiny off-street parking lot.
He could argue the point. He can call the verbal sparring like a tennis game he’s already seen—his own sniped the hell you are, even if you didn’t have a sling I don’t trust you to drive as far as I could throw you, her lobbing back well you have a tetchy leg and I hear you’re on your third vehicle so you’re not any better, and I think between the two of us we can play nice and be a whole adult, don’t you?—
But she’s here, and willing to help, and he doesn’t have time.
She pulls up in a squeal of tires, car sliding into a puddle and splashing water all over his shoes and onto the hem of his slacks, dear God—but he climbs in as quick as his gait allows, buckling in securely. “You go where I tell you, no matter how crazy,” he orders brusquely. “If I zone again, you’re on your own. Don’t stop until you find Blair.”
“Got it.” Megan’s face is drawn, serious. She doesn’t move an inch, not even when horns start blaring behind them. “Where to?”
Jim forces a breath, slow and steady. “I am… relaxed,” he mutters, and begins an assessment:
Cascade. Dim, evening fading to night. Decreasing visibility, except for the street and vehicle lights that waver beneath sheets of rain. Impediment to search.
Car, enclosed. A point of steady, mostly quiet focus. Non-threatening as a singular object, irrelevant to search despite likelihood of rough handling.
Megan. Friend/protect/respect, part of his People. Safe and familiar. Benefit to search.
Again, hours-old perfume. That unpleasant synthetic base underlying it all… above it, something spicy. Nutmeg? Lighter notes of bergamot and violet… and—coconut, wait—
Megan and Blair lingering by Simon’s office, unnoticed by almost everyone, as the team cheerfully disperses to gather coats and crowd into the elevators. A knot forming in Jim’s stomach as he watches Blair press his face into the crook of Megan’s neck, his arms wrapping carefully around her waist.
Blair mumbling, “It’s clear now;” Megan’s sharp intake of breath before her face softens in painful sympathy; Jim looks away, troubled and tongue-tied and—
(What are you obfuscating this time?)
He rolls down the passenger window far enough to catch the nighttime air; Megan glances at the water droplets dripping onto the interior but wisely stays silent. Hand tightening around the handle of his cane, Jim follows that wisp of scent (Blair’s soap, doesn’t belong on her don’t think about that right now!), forcing his sight to narrow tighter and tighter in its wake.
In the encroaching darkness, the bright eyes of the jaguar shine back at him.
“Five blocks,” he intones. His voice is strange, dulled, but it takes nearly all his focus to keep from spiraling as he swings between awareness and extending his senses. “Then right.”
He barely notices the car moving, Megan hastily swerving out into traffic to the sound of more horns. Nothing else matters while the jaguar paces just out of sight, its urgency stuck like claws in Jim’s chest, dread bleeding like an open wound.
Where are you?
***
Once, the sea parted on Blair’s word.
He managed a daring step onto the dry bed, the far desert shore glinting in the sunlight—and then he was consumed by the miracles he tried to create. Walls crashing in, a vicious pulse into his lungs, the struggle of limbs fruitlessly clinging to life.
I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.
The consequences for questioning too loudly, demanding too much, aiming too high.
He tried again, harder, more, it’ll be different, I’ve learned, I’ll be better—
(guilty conscience,
there’s nothing to say,
why don’t you just let it go?
it was your life…
…you were right)
—but accepting failure is easier, now.
The water falling around him in steady showers is gentler than he deserves. Blair shivers, the only movement his body seems capable of. Otherwise he’s numb, tilted listlessly onto his side, cheek smashed into the dirt, gravel stuck in his curls. His hand clutches a fistful of small pebbles.
Stones to mark me, he observes distantly.
His stinging eyes start to slip shut, but then—
Then, the brush of something soft against his skin startles him to alertness.
With difficulty, he raises his aching head, focusing through the blur. That the Cascade skyline is gone—that he’s no longer laying on a barren roof, but in an overgrown forest—that everything is tinged in blue—
It almost seems inconsequential because there’s a wolf standing by his elbow, staring at him, through him, down to his very soul.
“Hey, man,” he says, his hoarse whisper echoing like a scream in the sudden, muffled silence. “I know you.”
I think I’ve been you, he wants to say, but he’s so tired, and he can’t force any more words from his mouth. Does that mean it’s time to go?
As if it’s heard Blair’s thoughts, the wolf nudges him with its snout. Gently, at first; more assertively when Blair doesn’t move. Obediently he reaches out, sinking careful fingers into fur. Reluctantly leaning against the solid warmth so he can struggle to his knees—then to his feet, when the wolf whines and tugs at his sleeve, pulling him forward.
Blair sighs wearily, scrubbing at his face, but falls in slow step alongside.
These shifted surroundings (real? A vision? Does it matter?) aren’t quite the jungle he remembers, though. Not from hazy recollections, laying weak in a hospital bed while being pumped full of oxygen. Not the mystical reckonings he’s tried to pry from Jim, word by torturous word. For every lupuna standing tall, bough stretching across the sky, pale flowers gleaming, there’s a cedar laid heavy with pomegranates, glistening silver instead of red.
The sight is so incongruous, he doesn’t even question where the wolf leads; Blair is still staring in wonder, perplexed and overwhelmed and mesmerized. He gains strength as he walks, and when the wolf darts away from his hand—jumps up from the ground, onto the ledge of a rock outcropping—he follows. He follows until he’s standing next to his companion, peering down at a motionless, shining lake, a spark of curiosity, of energy, beginning to stir within him.
***
One moment, the jaguar is racing down the street, having allowed the car to keep pace for the last few minutes—
In the next, it disappears as if it never existed.
“Stop.”
It’s torn painfully from Jim’s throat, almost as painful as the vertigo rushing to meet him headlong. There’s a migraine already pounding behind his temples, behind his eyes; nausea curdles in his gut; his whole body feels scraped raw, inside and out. He’s never gone so deep for so long—not purposefully, anyway—while trying to keep simultaneous focus on the world around him. It’s too damn much, and for a second he longs for Blair so fiercely it could strangle him alive.
But as Megan slams on the brakes and he slides forward in his seat, caught by the belt strapped across his chest, he doesn’t need to push any farther to know that Blair is here. He can hear Blair’s heartbeat—can feel it, like it’s pulsing behind his own sternum.
Words are difficult, right now, with every sense pulling him away from Megan and into the unknown, but he manages a gruff, “Phone on, Connor. I’ll call if I need you.”
The smile Megan tries for doesn’t reassure either of them. “Good luck, Jim. Bring him back, all right?”
***
It feels wrong to disturb the peace here, to mar it with things loud and disruptive—so Blair keeps his movements small, his suddenly-found voice no more than a rasp. “What do you think?”
The wolf looks up at him, tilting its head.
“Exactly!” He punctuates the soft exclamation with a softer laugh. “The water does look nice, doesn’t it?”
He’s about to crouch and touch it—because he never learns, does he, insatiably relentless, and what’s the risk if he really is being led somewhere he can’t harm anyone ever again?—when the still surface begins to bubble. He only gets a glimpse of the churning water, though, before a brilliant white light pierces the surface, so blinding he throws a hand in front of his eyes.
It lasts for a second. It lasts for an eternity. But eventually the light fades, and Blair blinks away the burn and lowers his arm and—
“I know you, too,” he gasps, because he does. Oh, God, he recognizes this being hovering before him, wreathed in writhing prisms and colors Blair has no names for, so fluid they nearly look like flames. It was waiting for him in the jungle, bright and welcoming, warm like a smile, a glimmering question to the yearning in Blair’s heart—
(are you ready?)
But then Jim’s pull was stronger (it was Incacha who guided me how to bring you back), and Blair turned away from this otherworldly, unknown radiance in the dark, leaping toward promises made (it’s about friendship; you need me), toward a single moment of sublime ecstasy—
And then Blair choked into consciousness, floundering reborn in a new world he thought shared, but Jim wouldn’t even look at him.
(I don't know if I'm ready…)
The being gleams, a powerful beacon in the blue dusk. “As I know you, B’nei Yisrael. But here you have dwelled too long, and now you must make a choice.”
Its voice holds thousands.
The minyan Blair joined at fifteen under the shadow of the Western Wall, a hundred plus strong with covered eyes and swaying bodies, reciting the Sh’ma as one. The vibrant, rhythmic drums and singing of the toque de santo, hidden in a little corner of NYC Blair visited the first time for credit, but returned just because he wanted to. The desperate words of a dying man, Incacha’s bloody hand and dark stare holding Blair fast, Jim’s bewildered shock as he translated he passes over the way of the shaman to you—
Fresh tears trickle down Blair’s cheeks; his hands are shaking when he claps them over his ears, a futile attempt to block out the buzzing that grows steadily louder. His skin feels electrified, flayed, like he’s trying to channel an entire universe.
“I…” He licks dry lips, clears his throat; he can barely hear himself speak. “I don’t understand!”
***
Jim is halfway across the sidewalk before the proprietary edge—the territorial imperative, in Blair’s words—registers.
Back to the station? What the hell is going on, Chief?
Though it’s a bit difficult to storm through the double doors with a limp, the glower he knows he’s wearing must be enough to let him pass the front desk without comment. Though he tries not to regress into his ‘hotshot on Vice’ days—hasn’t wanted to in the last four years or so, not even when things were so fraught between him and Blair they seemed unsalvageable—the prior reputation it’s garnered him comes in handy when needed.
It’s almost too easy to track Blair through the building. If not for Jim’s senses alight like a damn Christmas tree, the small puddles of water creating a clear trail would be evidence enough—but the evidence just doesn’t make sense. Even if the repairs to the bullpen hadn’t been finished by now, half of Major Crimes’ regulars are still out of commission for at least the next week, Jim included. There are no cases to check up on, no files or reports to run.
He’s still brooding as he trudges up the stairs to the roof, a heavy preoccupation tangled with no small amount of frustration (uneasiness) at Blair’s carelessness. Going for air is one thing, but trekking who knows how many blocks across town in the rain and then staying out in it is quite another. And all this apprehension (fear) about Blair being lost somewhere out there when he was here the entire time, Christ—
Jim pushes the door open, and the split-second realization strikes hot and damning as a gunshot.
No. No.
Thank God for decades of training that propel him forward, abandoning everything but this moment—training that doesn’t let him think about the last time he approached someone standing on a slippery ledge over a death drop, training that doesn’t let him think about Blair cold and still and—
“Hey, buddy.” Jim keeps his voice even and measured, regular speaking volume; he’s careful not to drag his cane in the gravel with each step. “What are you doing?”
Blair doesn’t move; he doesn’t even act like he’s heard. He stands staring into the night, clothes and hair plastered to his body, looking—looking drowned—
(do not lose it, you cannot lose it, control right fucking now)
He mentally calculates the distance each time he inches forward, a constant countdown like a ticking bomb—always accounting for the lunge needed, the weakness in his leg, the risk of missing. He approaches from the side in a vain hope that anything he says might make any damn bit of difference, that maybe he’ll see a crack in the flat nothing of Blair’s face, some sort of sign…
“Why don’t you come down so we can talk, huh?” Jim asks, forcibly calm, breathing through the panic that threatens to ricochet (though this sight is already burned into his memory, ready to slot into the rotation of Jim’s Traumatic Nightmares: The Greatest Hits). “It’s kinda hard to have a conversation with you up there.”
***
From one blink to the next, the being is hovering before him, close enough to touch—and it does, so hot it’s just shy of painful, weightless yet directing, pulling Blair’s hands away. It feels wondrous that he’s not burned, and Blair studies his wrists in amazement; more wondrous even still that his head no longer feels like it’s about to explode.
“Prophet. Diviner. Shaman.” Now, it’s a hum no louder than the rustling of leaves. “Many names for the joining of human and holy. Forward, and your challenges are ended. Back, and they have yet to begin.”
It takes a long moment, but then it clicks, and—
“Oh, no,” he protests, sick suspicion curling tight around his chest, squeezing. “Oh, no, no, no. You’re telling me that I—”
The wolf barks, short and sharp, dancing playfully around Blair’s legs.
Abruptly it doesn’t matter who or what is in front of him because what the fuck— “No matter what Incacha or anyone else said, I’m not anything!” Blair throws up his arms, exasperated. “I’m not worthy—”
“Those called never are.”
“I failed my future, I failed the people who helped me, I failed the people I was trying to help, I failed Jim—”
“You will always fail.”
He points sharply, fiercely. “You’re not making a great case!”
Silence. Blair swallows heavily, presses a hand to his eyes hard enough he sees stars.
“You don’t need to,” Blair whispers, an answer to an unspoken question. (are you ready?) “I… knew, somehow. I should have been dead ten times over before Alex finally got to me. Even then, it didn’t stick.” He looks up, out at the bright, shimmering water—glances over his shoulder at the darkened, murky forest—and when he faces his own guide again it’s with a wary certainty of his decision. “How?”
The brilliance oscillates with a glow that almost seems pleased; encroaching warmth creeps over Blair’s skin. “All you need do is reach for the gift you have been given.”
Blair complies, grasping, tightening his hands like he can capture the surety of the light, bring it with him.
“Fear not, Moshe Yaakov ben Naomi.” Oh, that is a smile forming the name Blair hasn’t heard in years, that not even Jim knows; it leaves him stunned and breathless. “You have been found.”
Blair doesn’t even feel the push before he starts falling.
***
Jim is so attuned to the chance of any movement that he spots immediately the moment Blair starts to raise his arms to the open sky, like he’s reaching for something only he can see—
“Please,” Jim croaks, losing ground against the shards of icy terror lancing through him. He’d get on his knees if he thought it would help, not too proud to beg, never too proud, not when Blair’s life is at stake (still too far away, oh, God). “Please don’t do this. Whatever it is, Blair, we can fix it, you and me. Just—just give me a chance to—”
—the moment his body wobbles—
“No!” Jim shouts, cane clattering to the ground, pain not even registering as he vaults to the edge, reaching, straining, his only frenzied thought you’re not going alone, not this time—
And his hands connect, fisting hard in Blair’s jacket, dragging with every reserve of strength he has; Blair falls— oh, Christ, thank fucking Christ, Blair falls back, tumbling on top of him.
They end up in a heap on the roof as Jim’s leg gives out, limbs tangled, forehead to forehead. Blair is sodden, teeth chattering, words flying at a frantic pace—but his face is so alive. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, there was a jungle but it wasn’t your jungle and—”
“Hey, hey, easy,” Jim soothes. His heart races, about to pound out of his chest, and he clings tighter, trying to ground Blair as much as Blair’s always grounded him. By the way Blair quiets—stills—shares the same puffs of breath cloudy in the chilly air, eyes open and attentive and trusting—he’s succeeding. (Thank you, thank you, thank you.) “Plenty of time to tell me what happened. It’s gonna be okay, Chief, I promise.”
I’m not going to let you go, not ever again.