Discordance
by Jmas

Jim let himself into the loft with a vague trepidation.

Something was wrong...

Not the go-in-with-sidearm-in-hand sort of wrong, not even the Sandburg-better-have-a-good- explanation-ready kind...

Just a vague, uncomfortably near-psychic sense that all was not as it should be inside the safe haven that was his home...a definite displacement that had him seeking out his friend and roommate with all his senses long before he had fully closed the door...a sensory sweep that had become almost routine to Jim after nearly three years of Blair's tireless instruction.

The heartbeat was there...coming from behind the closed French doors, a little agitated, perhaps a little too strong. Jim could just pick up the scent of one of Blair's herbal teas...pungent and green. A glance around the living room returned few clues, Blair's things had been dumped just inside the door...not necessarily a rule infraction, but also not the young student's usual MO. Blair and his perennially work-stuffed backpack were generally inseparable.

Jim strode to the French doors and knocked lightly before entering.

His first impression was one of heat, a heat that had nothing to do with the ambient room temperature. Jim moved swiftly to the younger man who was barely half on the small bed, it looked as if he'd simply sat down and fallen over.

"Sandburg?" Jim couldn't keep the tremulous note of worry from his voice. The younger man was too hot, too totally out of things...and too damn quiet. As much as Jim complained about his friend and partner's propensity to fill up any quiet space with non-stop...even one-sided...conversation, a quiet Blair was just too surreal in Jim's experience. Even when he wasn't always entirely tuned into the words, his partner's voice was as much a part of Jim's Sentinel way of life as his enhanced senses. It was his anchor to normalcy, his steady rock of comfort amid the sea of confusion his senses often left him awash in.

Repeated shaking brought a small moan from the huddled figure on the bed. Jim took a moment to move across the hallway to the bathroom, soaking a washcloth thoroughly before returning to his friend.

With an infinite gentleness only Blair Sandburg seemed capable of arousing in him, Jim removed the younger man's jacket and loosened his shirt. Jim lightly stroked Blair's forehead and neck with the washcloth, feeling the heat transfer itself into the terrycloth all too quickly as if the fever were leaching away Jim's attempt at comfort. The thought brought an instantaneous anger to the Sentinel, nothing in his makeup would allow him to accept interference when it came to his guide.

The still form on the bed moaned softly...a whisper of raspy breath. "Jim?"

Jim smiled, not exactly relieved but much happier to see some sort of reaction in his too-quiet friend. "Yeah, Sandburg. It's me."

"Wha's up?"

"Your temperature apparently..." Jim kept his voice soft, continuing the light daubing with the rapidly drying washcloth. "How long has this been going on?"

The lax shoulders moved in a bare shrug. "Dunno...felt off all day..."

Jim was starting to get more concerned. Focusing his hearing in a way generally reserved only for the sake of Blair's well-being, Jim noted the slight harshness in stressed lungs, the minute tremors of muscles weakening from the heat coursing its way all too aggressively throughout his friend's body.

"I think we need to see a doctor..." Jim began, steeling himself for the inevitable...

"No...m'okay. Just the flu."

They'd both been over-worked and over-stressed lately...not that they didn't suffer more than their share of both at the best of times, but there'd been more than usual in the past few weeks. The younger man worked impossible hours to keep up with his teaching, his classes and his responsibilities to Jim...all of which were embraced with the utmost dedication. Blair never did anything by half-measures...it was all or nothing with the determined and stubborn anthropologist/observer/partner/friend/everything else Blair-Sandburg-who-needs-sleep-not-me found the time and inclination to achieve.

Sometimes, though, Blair tended not to leave much of himself for himself. That's when his body would rebel. Too many times Jim had seen the younger man work himself into a frenzied sort of exhaustion...proving with an amazing clarity the physical law which purported that a body in motion tended to stay in motion. Blair was living proof of that law, if not an entire sub-law unto himself.

Jim rather thought that last was most likely true. The so-called "Sandburg zone" was indeed a place beyond those laws of nature most people knew and accepted as 'normal' insofar as limits were concerned. Blair accepted only those limits as suited his needs...and there were damn few times when that rare miracle occurred. Jim had come to recognize that particular quirk, among so many others unique to his friend, long ago and usually could see the enforced limits of physical barriers too long breached coming long before Blair could work himself beyond exhaustion and into illness. He hadn't seen this one coming...

Jim shifted the smaller man over on the bed and up onto the pillows, debating with himself as to whether a visit to the doctor, willing or otherwise, was called for. Blair was pale, his skin nearly iridescent to Jim's sight with the heat radiating from it. With a mighty sigh of unfamiliar helplessness, Jim decided to wait for a while...the likelihood of seeing a doctor with anything resembling speed at that late hour was minimal. If things hadn't improved by morning, then Jim would do whatever it took to get his friend to medical care.

Jim folded the washcloth in half and left it on his friend's forehead while he moved to gather the things he would need to help his friend. The first order of business was food and fluids...Jim put a pot of soup on at a low simmer, then gathered a bottle of orange juice and one of water along with two glasses and dropped them off on Blair's nightstand. Another trip to the bathroom and he'd gathered a plastic basin leftover from one their hospital stays and filled it with lukewarm water which he also deposited on the nightstand. A return to the kitchen found the soup hot, so Jim ladled out two mugs full and raided the cupboard for aspirin and a thermometer.

Retuning to Blair's room, Jim found he had to branch out his care facility to include his friend's desk. A quick search of the dresser yielded a set of sweats, Jim figured his friend couldn't rest too comfortably in the snug jeans and multiple layers of shirts he was now wearing.

With as much gentleness as one can exert when undressing another...nearly unconscious...adult, Jim rid Blair of his outer clothes, giving him a cooling sponge bath any nurse would have been proud of before redressing him in the sweats. Blair barely stirred during the process, shivering lightly when the cooler cloth came into contact with his fevered skin, attempting to cooperate with a disjointed understanding that Jim was trying to help him. When the task was finished, Jim covered his slightly cooler friend with a sheet and a lightweight blanket.

Blair sighed, turning slightly to rest on his side as his eyes opened fully for the first time that night. "Jim?"

Jim smiled and nodded at his barely aware friend. "Yep, me again."

"Again?" Blair seemed to give that comment due consideration, finally taking in the fact that his bedroom had taken on the appearance of a hospital room. "Jim? You don't have to..."

Jim shook his head, "Quiet, Chief. It's not about 'have to'...."

That statement seemed far too complex for Blair at the moment. "'Kay..."

Jim reached for the aspirin bottle and some water. "Think you can manage to swallow a couple of these?"

Blair stared at the bottle for a long time then nodded. "Have to?"

Jim laughed gently at the almost child-like petulance. "Yes, you do," he affirmed in his best 'Sentinel knows best' tone.

Blair raised his head off the pillow with what appeared to be an extreme amount of effort. Jim put two of the aspirin into his hand and reached to steady his shaky friend as he sipped enough of the water to wash down the pills. Blair nodded and closed his eyes. "Sleep now?"

Jim wished he could get the younger man to eat, but realized what he'd already managed was miracle enough for now. Brushing a hand over the slightly damp curls at Blair's forehead, Jim was relieved to find it much cooler than it had been earlier.

Jim sat back in the small desk chair, regarding the sleeping face beside him. Blair looked so vulnerable at this moment...not an attribute Jim generally considered when thinking of his friend. For all his smaller stature, Jim never tended to think of his friend as vulnerable. Blair possessed a tenacious strength of spirit and personality that rarely allowed anyone to think of him in that way for very long. It was seeing him so terribly still that threw Jim's world-view so out of kilter.

His anchor was adrift...and so inevitably was Jim.

Jim tried to focus on that thought...

When, he wondered had his life become so entwined with that of this singular force of nature named Blair Sandburg? When had this incredible package of attitude in motion become the rock of his own formerly settled existence? Little had he known when his errant senses decided to make themselves known again, that hope and security would come in the form of a light-speed talking, smarter than the average anything, 'bend the truth but never break it' bundle of off the wall frenetic energy and commitment that would come to mean so much to an admittedly somewhat 'set in his own ways' cop.

Jim didn't like delving too deeply into his feelings at the best of times, but Blair's uncharacteristic vulnerability seemed to transfer itself to Jim himself. Jim realized that the hurt of his friend would always be such for him...a frightening thought, a thought implying that somehow, even subconsciously, Jim had allowed himself to accept that level of commitment to the relationship he had with Blair. Somewhere along the line...something in Jim had moved aside and let Blair in.

And now, Jim couldn't imagine life any other way.

For all their little arguments, largely the result of day to day adjustments to vastly divergent lifestyles, they 'worked'...as partners, as Sentinel and guide, as roommates, as friends...

Jim didn't want that to ever change.

Jim reached out to touch his friend's forehead, now cool and damp with sweat, signaling that the fever had broken. Jim sat back in the chair again and sighed deeply.

Blair was going to be fine now.

With an almost perceptible click, Jim's world shifted. The discordance that had lain over him from the moment he'd walked into the loft tonight skittered away into the quiet darkness. Blair was okay, his anchor had settled back into place. Nothing else mattered.

*fin*