His Master's Voice 8
By CatMoran
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. I don't own the canon characters or concept; I do own this story.
Summary: We continue with the saga of a sentinel and his vampire.
Give me an "H"! Give me a "C"! What does that spell? Blair gets an owie!
(Please don't throw rotten tomatoes, Blair can't eat them!)
Warning: Not beta'd.
His Master's Voice 8
By CatMoran
*****
Jim had surprisingly little difficulty convincing Blair to give him a reprieve on the testing until that evening. His nerves were shot, and he found he was actually looking forward to the boredom of paperwork.
*****
Jim pulled the truck into a parking space and zeroed in on the distinctive clatter of Blair's typing. He smiled. Some things, thankfully, would never change. Not if he had anything to say about it.
He walked through the loft, tossing his keys into the basket and setting bags of groceries on the kitchen counter as he went. Stopping at Blair's door he knocked.
"Come on in."
Jim pushed the door open just enough to allow himself to slip into the room. "Hey Chief. Finding anything interesting?"
Blair looked up from the computer screen. "Interesting, yes. Useful? That's open for debate."
"How so?"
"Well, with this Goth subculture that a lot of people are still into, it's hard to tell what might be truth and what's part of their fiction. Still, it's interesting. I may spend more time studying them later. It could be a fun paper: 'The Goth Subculture as Analyzed by a 20th Century Vampire'." Blair grinned. "What'ya think?"
Jim chuckled. "I think that had better be an anonymous paper, Chief."
"Yeah, probably." Blair shut his laptop down as he spoke. "So, we ready to start the test again?"
Jim nodded. "Let me put the groceries away, first."
"More groceries?"
"I need food too, you know," Jim countered. "And I got you more tomatoes."
Blair smiled. "Thanks, Jim."
Going by Jim's rules, it was nearly an hour before Blair was standing, blanket free, by the balcony doors. "Jim, I *can't* go out there wearing the blanket, it'll look weird!"
"You're right, it will look weird." Jim shrugged. "But you're not going out without it. Maybe if we wait until dawn? There'll be fewer people around."
"Jim, it's sunny out *now*. If we wait until morning, it'll be cloudy and we'll just have to do this all over again."
"If you want to avoid looking weird, we may not have a choice. Of course, weird's relative for you." Jim grinned.
Blair ignored the jibe and looked around the loft, thinking. "How about the roof?"
"What about it?"
"If we go out on the roof a lot less people are going to see us."
"Just the people gawking out of their office windows."
"Well, it's fewer people, anyway. Come on, let's go."
Unable to think of a good reason why the roof wouldn't work, Jim picked up the blanket and followed Blair.
Once on the roof, Blair stifled a groan of boredom as Jim meticulously timed the exposure of a single finger to the sun. "Jim, can we sit down? This is going to take forever."
"If you're tired we can always wait 'til later to do this." Jim replied.
"No... let's just get it over with."
An eternity later, only 15 minutes by Blair's obviously defective watch, Jim announced, "Looks good. Either the myths are nonsense, or I should buy stock in this sunscreen."
"Does that mean I can get rid of the blanket?" Blair asked hopefully.
"Yes, but *slowly*, Sandburg!"
"Right, slowly. He wants slowly." Blair grumbled as he *slowly* opened the blanket. Finally, his face was uncovered. He turned to Jim and smiled...
...then crumpled to the rooftop with an unearthly shriek.
In horror, Jim yanked the blanket closed around the crumpled figure, and hefted him into his arms. Without a thought for the difficulty of carrying the heavy, whimpering bundle down the stairs, he darted for the roof access. He had Blair down the stairs, into and through the loft and to his closet in record time.
With shaking hands he unwrapped his friend, terrified at what he might see. With a gasp, he dialed his sight as high as it would go; all he saw was pale, unmarked skin. Running his hands over the other man's face and arms, he felt a slight warmth. Blair was still moaning.
"Blair, what's wrong? What hurts?" Jim demanded.
Blair gasped through a clenched jaw, "My eyes."
Reaching up, Jim pulled the sunglasses off his friend's face. Blair's eyes were shut tightly. "Blair, try to open your eyes."
"I can't."
"You can't, or you won't? Come on, help me out here, buddy. I need to see them or I can't help you."
"Jim, if I open my eyes you'll be mesmerized." Blair ground out.
"Try to look away from me when you open them. *Please*, Blair. I can't help if I can't see what's wrong."
With effort, Blair opened his eyes. Jim stared.
"Jim, are you ok? You still with me, man?" Panic edged Blair's voice.
Shaking himself, Jim forced himself to behave as the trained medic he was. "Yeah, right with you, Chief. Just try to relax, I want to see what we're dealing with here."
"Right." Clenching his jaw tighter, Blair tried to stop the moans that were still forcing their way out.
At first, Jim thought that his friend's eyes were all iris. Examining them as closely as possible, he could see just the barest pinprick of a pupil. Other than that, he could see no damage, but he wished he could somehow examine Blair's retina. //Yeah, like I'd even know what to look for.//
"Blair, you can close your eyes for a minute. I'll be right back, I'm just going to get some stuff from the bathroom." He stood and hurried across the hall. He grabbed the eyedrops he used when his own eyes were irritated, then ran cold water over a washcloth. Wringing it out, he hurried back to the closet.
"Ok, Blair. Open your eyes and tilt your head back, I'm going to put these drops in."
Blair nodded tightly, then relaxed slightly as the drops spread over his eyes. "Feels better. How do they look?"
"You can close them now. And they look like we need to blindfold you the next time you go outside."
"But do they look ok?"
"They look fine. Now lie back, I'm going to put a cool washcloth over your eyes."
Blair did as he was told, and Jim carefully folded the washcloth and placed it over his eyes. Jim sat back and looked at his friend. They'd agreed that Blair should sleep in the closet until they were certain of the long-term affects of sunlight. But he hated to leave him here alone, when he was still in distress.
Making a decision, he gently nudged Blair. "Can you sit up for just a minute?" Blair did, and Jim ignored the question on his face. He crawled past Blair, into the corner of the small closet, and sitting tailor-style he arranged the edge of the blankets over his lap. "Ok, you can lay down now."
Blair settled back, with his head in Jim's lap. "Jim, what...?" Unsure what he wanted to ask, Blair let the question trail off.
"Just go to sleep, Blair." Jim rearranged the washcloth to his satisfaction, then gently stroked the other man's hair, hoping to soothe him.
Soon, they were both asleep.
The End
(c) CatMoran 2000