Work Text:
Eyeballs
by Kittie
Jim was wrenched from a deep sleep by a vague, uneasy feeling. It took him several seconds to figure out exactly what had awakened him, but when he registered his guide's rapid heartbeat and gasping breaths, he leapt out of bed and rushed downstairs, ready for any eventuality. What he found stopped him in his tracks, his own heart immediately slowing, his fear fading away to confusion. Blair was sitting up in bed, his hair wild and loose around his face, and he was rooting around under his covers as if looking frantically for something. "Uh, Chief? What're you doing?"
Sandburg gasped, then squinted at Jim in the darkness. "Jim, oh man, you gotta help me, I can't find 'em!"
Jim stepped carefully into the room, unsure of what exactly he was dealing with. "Can't find what, Sandburg?"
"My eyeballs! I kept takin' 'em out, man, it was just a neat trick I could do, but it got harder and harder to put 'em back in, and now I can't find 'em, man!"
"Your... eyeballs?" Jim looked hard at Blair's face. Yep, eyeballs were still where they were supposed to be. He chalked this one up to yet another excursion into The Sandburg Zone. "Your eyeballs are in your head, Chief."
"No they're not, Jim, I told you, I couldn't get 'em back in!"
"But you're looking at me."
"Yeah, man, I can see without 'em, but everything's blurry. C'mon, help me find my eyeballs, Jim, please! Use your Sentinel sight. They're in my sheets somewhere, they haveta be.... Oh, man, Jim what if I lost 'em for good!" Blair was really starting to get upset by now. His heart sped up even more and his eyes (still in his head) began to tear up. Jim thought hard and fast or a solution. "Okay, look, why don't you turn on the light? It'll help you find them. I'm gonna go get a mirror, so it'll be easier for you to put them back in your head, okay?"
"Okay, Jim, but you'll help me look, right?" Blair stopped rummaging under his covers for just a moment, his gaze full of gratitude and trust.
Jim swallowed hard against the protective instincts that welled within him at that pitiful look. "Yeah, Chief, I'll help." He hurried into the bathroom and took the hand-help mirror out the the cabinet, making it back to Blair in record time. Blair had turned on the light as he'd suggested, and was carefully examining every inch of his sheets for a glimpse of the elusive eyeballs. Jim thought he looked absolutely adorable--in a completely platonic way, of course.
"Here," he said gruffly, shoving the mirror into Blair's hands. Then he made a big show of scanning the sheets with Sentinel sight. "Aha! Found 'em!" He curled both hands into fists, as if cradling something fragile in each palm. "Want me to put 'em in?"
Blair nodded slowly, and Jim raised his hands to Blair's face, placing one hand over each eye. Then he pulled away slowly, and raised the mirror for Blair to see. "Open your eyes, Chief, they're back."
Blair did, and the look of wonder and euphoria that graced his face lit the room with its brilliance. "Wow, thanks Jim! You found 'em!"
"Yeah. Now turn off the light and go to sleep, Chief, okay?"
"'Kay." Blair was already losing his battle with sleep--not that he'd ever really woken up in the first place. He burrowed down under the covers, and as his breathing slowed and deeped, Jim switched off the light and tiptoed from the room.
The Sentinel smiled to himself as he headed back to his own bed. This would be great blackmail material one day.
End