Blair watched from the kitchen, making tea, as Jim stood at the balcony door. He was staring out at the rain, one hand pressed against the glass, obviously miles away. It was 2am, and, like most nights since he had gotten home from the hospital, Jim wasn't sleeping. At first, Blair had thought it was the pain from a bazillion bruises, abrasions and cuts. Being battered half to death by a flash flood had left both of them aching masses - not to mention the pain of one *major* bang on the head for Jim.

He had finally found something from an apothecary in Chinatown that seemed to help the discomfort, but Jim still wasn't sleeping. Even when he was upstairs in bed at night, Blair knew he was awake. He didn't question how he knew - he just knew.

Going back on active duty hadn't helped either. It just made the circles under Jim's eyes deeper, and the fatigue of keeping pace added to the sleeplessness.

The odd thing was, his roomie didn't seem particularly upset or agitated about not being able to sleep. He had a serenity now, down deep under his self-confidence, that made Blair wonder if he would ever again see the completely freaked, out of control cop he had first met.

Smiling at the memory, he went to stand beside his friend, leaning against the frame and sipping his tea. They stood that way a while, companionable in the silence, watching the rain slip like tears down a crystal cheek.

It was the creak of the glass from the pressure being exerted on it that alerted Blair that Jim was not as at peace as he had thought. Alarmed, he quickly ditched his cup, and grabbed at the other man’s wrist. "Jim! What's with you, man! Like you need *another* cut!"

Jim stared down at where his hand was pushing against the glass, totally detached from its actions. He ignored Blair's effort to knock it away, and watched it press even harder. Nothing. He felt nothing. Oh, he knew the glass was going to break, he could tell from the minute cracks that were beginning to radiate out from his fingertips. But it was just information passing by, nothing to do with him.

"Nothing," he whispered.

Frantic, not able to force Jim to move his hand, Blair used an old trick to move *Jim*. He ducked down slightly and rapped him hard, just behind each knee, making them sag, throwing the lean body off balance. As he did, Blair pushed Jim backwards, sending both of them tumbling to the floor. He rolled away completely, half expecting a bellow of outrage and a punch.

Instead Jim lay on his back, and looked over at his roommate. "That didn't feel like a zone," he said mildly.

"I don't know *what* it was, and if you do it again, I'm going to dial 911 and you can explain while they're taking you away!" Blair shouted as he scrambled to his feet.

Running a hand over his face, Ellison had the sense to look apologetic. "How long do you think they'll keep me when I tell them it seemed like a good idea at the time?"

"I'll bring my grandchildren to visit you on Sundays." Blair relented, walking over to offer a hand up.

The Sentinel took it, raising unsteadily, head turned away from his Guide. "I'd better get some sleep; I've got a court date in the morning."

Blair stared after him as he made his way up the stairs. //Just like that, he's going to ignore this? Uh, huh, no way.// He only hesitated a moment, then he bounded up the stairs after him.

"Look, man..." his voice trailed off as he hit the top of the stairs. Ellison was laying on his stomach, fully dressed, on the edge of the bed farthest away from the stairs. Every line of the man's from - from the face turned stubbornly to the wall to the one clenched fist he could see - told Blair that this was a person who had had enough.

Almost he went back downstairs; almost, not wanting to hurt him any more. Instead, he sat on the other side of the bed, leaning against the headboard, and waited quietly. After a few minutes, the rigid limbs next to him relaxed fractionally, and he whispered, "How long has it been since you've had a night's sleep?"

A pause, then, "I don't remember. Since the hospital, maybe."

Blair winced, glad Jim couldn't see him and hoping he didn't feel it through the mattress. "Jim, I know you're trained to take stuff like that, but sleep deprivation is dangerous. Do you have any idea why?"

"Why it's dangerous or why I can't sleep?"

Snorting, Blair shook his head, and Jim turned to face his partner. "Chief, I don't know. It's not nightmares, bad memories, or guilty conscience. Nothing like that. I lie here and my brain won't slow down. No particular thoughts - like channel surfing in my head." Jim reached out and caught a corner of the sweater Blair was wearing, idly rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger.

"I'm not sure, but I think it's starting to get to my senses. They're still there, but," he sighed, and caught up a fistful of the fabric, "they're not real, or not important somehow."

Tilting his head back, Blair thought. He couldn't remember anything like this mentioned in the sentinel sources he had studied, or any of the stories he had heard. He knew about sleep deprivation, of course. What grad student didn't? In extreme cases, he did seem to remember something about hallucinations, but couldn't recall if that were student hearsay or an actual study. Not that any study took into effect someone who probably spent sleepless nights counting heartbeats - of someone a block away.

Blair turned to ask his partner just how much distraction his senses were at night, and found his friend sound asleep, one hand still clutching the sweater. Ignoring the soft aching in his chest, he started to scoot off the bed, only to find that the grip Jim had on his clothes was not a light one. He tugged experimentally, and, when the resting man stirred restlessly, immediately ceased. After a moment's thought, he tried to slip out of the sweater, but couldn't manage it without a little more slack in the fabric than Ellison left him.

Finally, he just lay down, and tried to get comfortable. Yawning, he decided he would out-wait the older man. Sooner or later he would turn in his sleep, and Blair would make good his escape then. Again he yawned, then grabbed the edge of the blankets and pulled them over himself as best he could. Might as well be warm, too.

Still wondering how long it would take for Jim to roll over, Blair fell asleep, too.
 
 

Having spent a lifetime waking up in unusual places, Blair handled finding himself alone in Jim's bed with... relief. He couldn't tell if it was because Jim hadn't bounced him out when he got up or because Jim had actually slept through the night.

Unsurprisingly, Jim didn't even mention it the next time they saw each other. He also didn't sleep again that night. Or the next. Or the next. Worried, Blair began to watch his partner closely, and what he saw sent him way past worried.
 
 

Simon Banks didn't bother to look up from his paper work when he heard the tap at his door - whoever it was could wait until he was ready to deal with them, and the way the day had been going, *deal* with them was exactly what he was in the mood for. "What!"

The door opened just a crack, and Sandburg carefully waved a white handkerchief through it.

Torn between snarling and smiling, Banks settled for waving an irritable hand in the general direction of 'come in, already' and kept his eyes on his work. Inwardly he debated; if he kept Sandburg waiting, the student's fidgeting would annoy him. If he got it over with, whatever was up had about a 50% chance of going past annoying.

To his surprise, the observer sat quietly, literally on his hands, and waited. Finally, admitting to himself it was wrong to take his bad mood out on someone who didn't even work for him, he looked up and said, "Ellison's doing the Braxton case door-to-door check. Probably won't be back for hours, yet."

"I know, I wanted to talk to you without him being able to hear." At Banks' raised eyebrow, Sandburg shrugged. "I'm worried about him, Simon. He's not sleeping, and I'm not sure, but I don't think he's eating, either, unless someone reminds him. When he *does* eat, it's mechanical - you know, whatever's on the plate goes in his mouth and minutes later he couldn't even tell you what it was. What really gets me is that he isn't reacting to his senses any more. Not irritation, not hyper sensitivity, nothing."

Simon leaned back in his chair, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. "I know what you mean. Some smart ass put salt in the sugar, and Ellison's reaction, five swallows later of his 'sweetened' coffee, was to rinse out the cup, pour another, and drink it black. His *only* reaction."

Blair threaded his fingers through his hair, thinking hard. "Man, I don't know what's worse: that he didn't notice or that he didn't yell.

"I've been doing some reading on sleep deprivation, and this isn't that - at least, I don't think so. Or maybe it's just how Jim reacts to it."

Hiding a look of sympathy, Simon said gruffly, "Sandburg, it is not your responsibility to know everything there is to know about this Sentinel thing. You can't. Now, what do you think we should do?"

The smile was brief, but there. "Got any really boring stake-outs?"
 
 

"Man, Simon's been in a bad mood this week, but sticking me with this.... It isn't even the main target; just a back up the guy might use. " Jim's grousing was good-natured, and delivered while he sat on his spine, behind the wheel of the truck.

Never looking up from his laptop, Blair let the complaints wash over him. So far, his plan was backfiring. This was the second night on this stakeout, and Jim was as alert as ever, even if he did look like hell. He had hoped that a change in schedule - sleeping during the day, up at night - might help.

Instead, the cop seemed to be busier than ever, now that he didn't have to worry about disturbing a roommate whom was trying rest. Though Blair had adjusted his schedule so he could be on the stakeout too, Jim simply left the loft when Blair was sleeping.

Stifling a sigh, he looked at his partner from the corner of his eye. At least Jim seemed relaxed, and there hadn't been a repeat of anything like the night he almost broke a window with his bare hand. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. He *had* slept that night.

Why that night? What had been different? //I was in bed with him.// popped into Blair's head, freezing him in place. //Uh, uh, no way. Coincidence. Besides, what difference could it make if I were in the loft, in the room, or in the bed?//

In his mind's eye he clearly saw Jim's hand wrapped in the hem of his sweater. //He was touching me. Or almost.// He ran over the night a dozen different ways and it always came back to that. After fifteen minutes of staring blankly at the screen, he knew he was going to have to test the theory.

Snapping close his laptop, he stretched and made a show of moving around the truck. He poured some coffee from the thermos, put away the computer and got out a book, peered out the windshield as if checking the weather. The end result left him in Ellison's personal space, which he invaded further by starting a conversation on the contents of his book, dumping it in Jim's lap - obstensively for him to check it out - and leaning into the big man to tap on the pages, when he was making a point.

Whether it was the not too thrilling conversation or the contact, eventually Jim drooped, eyelids heavy, and he settled comfortably into the corner of the truck, against the door. He stretched his long legs out, into Blair's side of the truck, and, instead of pulling his own out of the way, Blair put his legs over Jim's, complaining as he did that he wasn't being left any room.

Five minutes later Ellison was asleep. Blair spent a long evening looking out for the suspect and trying to fit what he knew into something that made sense.
 
 

The next night, at 3am, Blair quit trying to sleep himself, and went to stand at the bottom of the stairs. He stood in the dark loft, thinking furiously, trying to decide what to do next. He had had Simon pull Jim from the stake out; it was pointless. His partner *still* wasn't sleeping and the only thing he had learned seemed useless. Well, maybe not useless, but he had no idea how Jim would react if he announced he had the perfect thing to help him catch some z's, I want the left side of the bed, you ok with the right?

Jim called down the stairs. "If this is some new test, I don't like it, Sandburg. Up or down, now." The words were stern, but the tone was amused, and it encouraged Blair to move.

Ellison turned on a small light beside the bed, then leaned on his side, supported by his elbow, head on palm, and waited. Sandburg peeked around the edge of the top of the staircase. "Uh, sorry to bother you, man..."

"But since I wasn't sleeping anyway," Jim filled in for him, pausing with eyebrows raised.

Taking a deep breath, Blair mentally squared his shoulders and stuck out his chin. "Actually, I thought I might help you with that."

"Chief, I'm too tired for one of your experiments. And I'm *not* drinking anything whose ingredients I can't pronounce."

"Hey, the stuff helped the pain didn't it?" At Jim's reluctant nod, Blair went on. "You'll be relieved to know this doesn't involve anything nasty tasting." He finished climbing the steps and sat on the bed.

"Actually, I thought a little regression therapy might be in order. You, know," he improvised, "doing things the way you did them when you were little and were having trouble at night. And since your Mom and Dad aren't here to crawl in bed with, and, well, mine's too small..." he trailed off, bullshit forgotten.

The temperature in the room dropped 15 degrees, and, for the first time in months, Blair felt this man was a stranger to him. Jim's face had closed completely, and his friend had left the room, leaving only the cop behind. "Thank you, but, no thank you."

"Jim, you have got to get some sleep, and this is the only thing I can think of that might work!"

"No, thank you." The Sentinel’s voice was below freezing now.

Stubbornly, Blair went on. "You look like hell, you aren't eating, and you wouldn't notice if someone set your hair on fire. How long before it starts to affect your work? How long before some other person pays because a cop who isn't fit is on duty?"

He was playing dirty with the last, but he had to get through to Jim. The person most likely to pay for a bad bust or bad timing was Jim, and Blair couldn't go through that again. For a split second Blair was back in the forest, kneeling over him, his forehead resting the cold, unmoving flesh of his partner.

Jim got out of bed and started to get dressed. "I'm doing my job, and unless Simon is saying different, being a little tired isn't hurting it - or me - in the least."

He pulled on his shirt, and Blair, without thought, stood on the bed and caught him by the lapels, pulling him so that they met nose to nose. "You know, don't you?" Blair accused. "You know the only time you've been able to rest is when I've been with you. And you know why. That's why you're over-reacting *now* after dealing with it without so much as a blink. That's why you're trying to run."

Automatically, Jim had raised his hands to catch himself when he had been yanked him forward. Now, under his hands he felt the pounding of Blair's heart, the heat and rush of blood. But scent told him that it wasn't anger causing that reaction; it was fear. His Guide was terrified.

He froze, staring into Blair's eyes. Praying he wasn't misunderstanding Blair's reaction and the reasons for it, he answered honestly. "Yes. Yes, to all of it."

The emotion fueling Blair collapsed into confusion, and he could only return Jim's gaze. They stood like that for an moment too long, then Jim gently pulled away, turning his back to him, and took off the shirt he had never gotten quite on. Blair sank down in a heap on the bed, still lost, moving only when the other man went to the opposite side and crawled in.

Blair stretched out on his side, his back to Jim, and waited for him to turn out the light. After he did, they lay back to back, the width of the bed between them, the silence painfully heavy. Finally he turned, and laid his hand on Jim's bare back. "Jim? Why? What happened?"

He felt rather than saw the shrug. "I died."

"Jim, you never..."

"Yes, I did. You and Simon were working so hard to get me breathing, you didn't notice my heart had stopped." Blair felt the shrug again. "I watched you, you know. Listened to you - funny, Simon never did anything but count, but it's hard work trying to clear someone's lungs, so I guess he didn't have the breath." There was an unmistakable smile in his next words. "On the other hand, you never shut up."

Jim rolled until he was on his other side, facing his partner. It caused Blair's hand to rest on Jim's chest, but he left it there. Reaching out with his free hand to capture a lock of Blair's hair, he gently running it through his fingers.

"Then there was someone with me," he went on, "I don't remember who, and he showed me a beautiful place and told me I could go or stay. It was ok either way. "

"NDE," Blair said softly. "Near death experience. Why didn't you say something?"

"Because you would ask me why I didn't go, and I didn't think you'd want to hear the reason."

A long minute later, Blair asked, "The same reason you need me with you to sleep?" Jim seemed determined to find each lock and smooth it at least once through his fingers. Despite the conversation, Blair felt himself relaxing, instinctively moving closer to the gentle tugs and pulls. "Jim." he said when he wasn't answered.

"I wanted to stay with you. Have as much time as I could with you." Jim said finally. "If I sleep, I lose being with you." He was quiet for a moment, then, leaning closer to Blair, he went on. "But if you're beside me - then, even asleep, I know I'm with you, and it's ok to *be* asleep."

The silence lasted, again, but it was a comfortable one this time. Absently Blair stroked the hard chest under his hand, remembering again the agonizing trip back to the truck, after the flood. Jim had been holding onto to his jacket so tight they hadn't been able to pry his fingers loose at the hospital. At the time, he had accepted it as natural.

He sighed; he had accepted so many things about their relationship: mothering the sentinel, trying to get him to eat right, take care of himself: worrying when some new twist of Jim's abilities put him at risk until they had them figured out: putting up with the controlling rules despite not liking rules in general at all. It had never occurred to him to question any of this.

Or to question why, that if it had been any other man, no matter how important to him, who had needed him to be in bed with him, his reaction would have been 'UN, huh, no way.' Not, 'how do I convince Jim to let me.' Like he accepted how perfectly natural it was to him to lay his cheek against the muscle he had been petting.

Jim cupped the back of Blair's head, and nuzzled the top of it. "One more confession, Chief." Blair nodded, to let him know he was listening. "The only thing that has been real to me since I came back is you."

A slow curl of heat twisted Blair's middle. Never in his life had he heard such naked need and caring in someone's voice. He cuddled closer into Jim's chest, slipping an arm around his broad back. "So why try to run? I mean, all I was offering was to be in the same bed."

Jim enfolded the smaller man in his arms completely, and pressed his erection into Blair's thigh. "Because I was afraid you would find this." They gasped simultaneously, then Jim brought his lips to within a fraction of Blair's. "Because I was afraid I would do this." and he claimed the soft mouth waiting for him. The kiss was tender, just a brush of flesh to flesh. Then he rolled away, onto his back, breaking all contact with Blair. "Because I was afraid you would be the one to run, only you wouldn't come back."

Feeling abandoned, Blair licked his lips, then scooted forward until he had fit himself along Jim's side. "I'm not going anywhere." Blindly he found Jim's mouth again, and traced the lips there with the point of his tongue. He whispered, "And I liked it when you did this." Jim shivered from the infinitesimal breeze cooling his lips. "And I want you to find this," he finished, grinding his growing hardness against Jim.

When he moaned, Blair took advantage and kissed him again, slipping his tongue inside, this time to explore and taste thoroughly. Soon he was moaning, too, and Jim was trying to take off the few clothes they wore. Trying not to lose contact with that incredibly hot kiss, Blair wiggled out of his T-shirt and shorts, then moved as tightly into his new lover’s arms as he could. Jim rolled them to their sides, then threw a leg over Blair's hip, encouraging him to thrust against him by slipping a hand down to the small of Blair's back and pressing rhythmically.

As new as it was to both of them, it still felt too good to last long. Blair threw his head back, gasping for breath, then whimpered as his body clenched, spilled. Jim dropped his head onto Blair's shoulder as his climax thundered through him, leaving him whispering Blair's name over and over.

Blair felt Jim begin to soften into sleep, his body heavy and comforting against his own. He trembled at the edge, himself, a little reluctant to let the peace and joy fade just yet. As he was about to surrender, Jim began to stir restlessly, his head tossing on the pillow.

Capturing it, Blair drew it down onto his shoulder, and began to stroke the back of it, petting the short, soft hair. "Shh. Its ok, babe. Sleep, I'm here."

"Stay?" Jim muttered questioningly.

"Promise."

The End