If You Could See what I See
By Patt
Word Count: 4,713
Category: Slash.
Rating: FMAO
Prompt: AU: After the incident at the fountain and Ventriss ep, Blair begins having visions but doesn’t trust Jim. He’s not ready to take that trip with Ellison and starts phoning in anonymous tips to the PD.
Summary: What does Blair do with his visions of crimes being committed?
Email: PattRose1@aol.com
Acknowledgments: Thank you to Kelly and BlueWolf and Kerensa for the beta.
Warnings: AU Blair has the gift of inner sight. Song lyrics are used throughout the story.
Blair was finding it most difficult to sleep these days. Ever since the drowning and Brad Ventriss, he couldn’t keep his mind focused for more then ten minutes. This was Blair’s fourth night of only sleeping for two hours. The dreams were so horrific that he didn’t want to go to sleep ever again.
If Blair had to guess, he would say it was dying and coming back that had given him the gift of inner sight, but he wasn’t exactly looking at it as a gift these days. More like a big fucking headache. And with this headache, he didn’t know what to do about it.
Blair leaned his head down onto his arms that were folded on his desk at his office and decided he would just rest for a little bit. Nothing drastic, just a little power nap.
The song began to play and Blair knew he was in the dream, but he couldn’t seem to wake up.
When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you’re sure you’ve had enough of this life, well hang on
Don’t let yourself go, ’cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes
Blair stopped listening to the music for a moment and looked around the room. He saw all of the blood and followed the trail to the bathroom in the run down motel. He stood in the doorway and watched as a man, very tall, with muscular build, shaved head and brown eyes gently laid the dead woman in the tub. He began to clean her up. Blair looked over to the vanity and saw new clothing, much like a very modest person would wear. He saw the dead eyes of the girl and felt sadness at not being able to help her. The man washed and cleaned the woman and then dried her off, dressed her up and brushed her hair. When he was done, she looked beautiful again. The odd looking man picked her up and carried her out of the doorway and into the living area of the motel. Blair glanced around to see if he could find anything that would tell the police where this had taken place.
The man laid his victim down on the bed and left her for a moment. He walked out of the door to the outside and Blair continued looking around the room. He saw the address of the place on the night stand, as he stood watching for the man to come back in. He took note in his mind of where this place was. He remembered it from another time. He and Jim had investigated a murder there once. The thoughts of Jim brought more sadness into his heart and the music began once more.
Sometimes everything is wrong. Now it’s time to sing along
When your day is night alone, (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go, (hold on)
When you think you’ve had too much of this life, well hang on
The bald man walked into the room and Blair got his first look at how cold and empty the man appeared. He wrapped a blanket around the woman and flung her over his shoulder and walked out the door. The last thing Blair remembered was seeing a black SUV and a dragon tattoo as the door closed. Then Blair woke up.
He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t tell Jim. He and Jim weren’t that close these days and he sure wasn’t going to tell Jim that he could see the future or the past. Blair wasn’t quite certain which it was. Blair got his tablet out and drew the face of the man that he saw, as close to what he remembered as possible. Then he drew a picture of the woman that was the victim. He concentrated on the tattoo that was on the man’s arm and drew that as well as he could. When he had been in the field, he had to draw things instead of taking pictures and thankfully he was still pretty good at it.
Blair typed a letter describing everything he could remember about what he saw.
He explained that he couldn’t tell if it had already happened or if it was yet to happen, but he needed the police to watch for this man at this place. He wiped off all of the papers, so there were no prints, and if there were, they would be smudged, put it in a manila envelope and began wiping that off too. He didn’t want this backfiring on himself. He sure as hell didn’t need that at this point in his life.
Blair took it to the post office and made sure that he was out of the view of the security camera the entire time. He didn’t want them going back and looking for the person who sent it. He mailed it off to Simon Banks. He figured Simon could do the most with it.
As he was driving home, he realized this was the fourth dream that he had about this man. He must be a serial killer. But yet, Blair hadn’t heard anything about that from Jim or anyone else. This man was still under the wire. He was keeping those bodies somewhere for himself. Blair felt sick to his stomach, something he felt a lot of these days.
And what was with that song that kept playing in his mind every time he saw this man with a woman? Blair loved REM music, but suddenly the thought of it made him squeamish.
!!!!!!!!!!
That night Blair and Jim were eating dinner in silence as usual and Jim finally said, “Sandburg, you’re going to have to forgive me some day.”
“What exactly am I going to forgive you for?” Blair asked.
“For letting Alex drown you in the fountain. I almost lost you, Chief, and I don’t want that feeling ever again,” Jim explained.
“Let’s just forget about it. You seemed to when you were at the hospital. What’s different now?” Blair continued eating, hoping that Jim would let it drop.
“I don’t want to forget about it. I want us to be like we used to be.” Jim was saddened by the lack of energy in his Guide lately and wanted things to get back to normal.
“So you’re saying you want me to forget everything that happened, including Brad Ventriss, and just move on?”
Jim knew he wasn’t going to be forgiven that night. “No, I don’t expect you to just forget it, but I would hope you could forgive me for all of those things.”
Blair smiled sadly. “Maybe someday I will, Jim. Just not today.”
They finished dinner with no more talk and while they were doing dishes Blair asked, “Anything new going down at the station?”
“We’ve had four murder sites but no murder victim. Whoever it is, they’re taking the body or bodies with him or her. We have no idea who the missing people are. We have blood to be tested but no one has been found and no one has been reported missing in the last four days anyway.”
Blair knew that Simon would get the envelope tomorrow and hopefully this would give them something to go on. Blair hoped that he would be able to help in his own small way, because lately he hadn’t helped Jim in any way possible. They had drifted as far apart as they could possibly drift. Honestly, Blair didn’t even know why he stayed.
When they got done with the dishes, Jim said, “Would you watch the game with me?”
It was the first normal thing Jim had asked for since all of this mess had happened.
“Sorry, I have tons of papers to grade. I’ll see you in the morning, Jim.” Blair walked sadly to his little room and didn’t see the look of pain and loss on Jim’s face as he left.
Blair plopped down on his futon and began to grade the papers that he had talked about. He really did have to grade papers. He wasn’t just making it up. At about 10:30, he was exhausted and decided he would try sleeping again. He could hope this mad man would take a day off.
!!!!!!!!!!
Blair woke up somewhat surprised to be in the loft. The music was playing again. As the room lightened up some, he realized he wasn’t in the loft. It was a home. Someone’s home.
‘Cause everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts. Don’t throw your hand. Oh, no. Don’t throw your hand
If you feel like you’re alone, no, no, no, you are not alone
Blair walked slowly toward the bedroom and saw the light on and saw the pictures on the wall in the bedroom. He then saw all of the blood. There was more then he was used to seeing, making him want to vomit. He looked in the doorway of the bathroom and saw a man and a woman lying there with dead eyes. The man was washing the woman in the tub, cleaning her all up, but it looked like he was going to leave the man like he was on the floor.
Blair walked back into the bedroom and saw the pictures of teens on the wall and hoped they were all gone for the night and didn’t have to witness any of this nightmare. Blair saw a picture with a frame on it that said, The Benson’s Family. Blair had to remember that.
He always noticed that there never seemed to be a mess except the blood. This man wasn’t taking things, he was just killing people and then taking them as trophies.
The bald man walked out of the bathroom carrying the now dressed woman and saw him lay her on the bed. The man left the room and Blair knew he was going for the blanket to cover her with. Blair looked out the window and saw the black SUV in the driveway. In fact, there were two. So one of them must have belonged to the Benson family.
When the man walked into the room, he shut the door to the bathroom and left the man on the floor like he was. He then wrapped the woman up in the blanket and flung her over his shoulder and began the descent down the stairs to the front door.
If you’re on your own in this life, the days and nights are long,
When you think you’ve had too much of this life to hang on
Blair heard the man’s SUV drive away and he was still standing in the bedroom. He heard moaning and realized the man was alive in the bathroom.
!!!!!!!!!!
Blair woke up with a start and got dressed as quickly as he could. He needed to find a pay phone somewhere to call this in. Mr. Benson was still alive. He could tell them who the killer was. Blair rushed down the stairs to the parking lot and got into his car. He drove quickly to the Quick Mart and pulled up beside the pay phone that was there. He got out and used gloves to call and an old shirt to put over the phone so they wouldn’t recognize his voice. He asked for Major Crimes and got Rafe. He told him what he had seen in his dream and that Mr. Benson was still alive. Rafe tried to get his name and keep him on the line, but Blair wasn’t having any of it. He hung up once he had given the information needed.
Blair was like in a walking, talking nightmare and he hated it. Why would he be seeing these things? If they could all just see what he saw, it would make it much easier to explain.
When Blair returned home, Jim was up making coffee. Blair looked at his watch and realized it was 4:40 in the morning. “Why are you up, Jim?”
“Because I’m worried about you. You don’t eat much anymore. You never talk like you used to and you’re being secretive. Where did you go this morning?”
“I went for a drive. I had another horrible dream and I had to drive around for a little while to clear my head. I didn’t think I had to tell you where I was going these days,” Blair said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to jump down your throat. I’m just worried about you,” Jim replied.
The phone rang and Jim picked it up right away. “Ellison.”
“Jim, this is Rafe. We got a weird call tonight and we went and checked it out and the caller was right. One of the couple was still in the house and he was alive. It looks like the wife is missing. It matches the murder scenes that we’ve been looking at for the last week. Do you want to check it out?”
“I’ll go right now, Rafe. Thanks for the call. Give me the address and I’ll get there right away.”
Rafe rattled off the address as Jim wrote it down on his tablet and Jim got off the phone and into the shower. Blair looked at the address and realized he hadn’t known where it was. He just knew who it was. He hoped that Mr. Benson would be all right. It would be such a shame if he didn’t make it after fighting to stay alive that long.
Jim came out and said, “Did you want to go with me?”
“No, I think you can handle it. I’m sure you’ll find the Benson house all by yourself,” Blair said.
Jim smiled as he put his gun on and walked to the door. “See you later.”
“Be careful.” Blair locked up after Jim had left and went into the bathroom for his shower. There was no way he was going back to sleep after that.
!!!!!!!!!!
Jim looked at the paper he had written the address on and knew he was almost there. He had wished Blair had come with him. Blair didn’t look right that morning and Jim was worried. When he arrived, Rafe met him at the front door and said, “Mr. Benson has been taken to the hospital already. The doctors think he might make it.”
Jim realized that nowhere on his paper did it say Mr. Benson. Rafe hadn’t mentioned a name. But yet, Blair had called him by name. Jim shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs and wondered what was going on.
Rafe said, “Listen to the call we got.”
Jim listened to the tape recording of the voice and Jim just stood there in shock. He didn’t care that no one else recognized his voice. Jim did. It was Blair. How in hell did Blair know about this? He knew damn well that Blair had nothing to do with it, because he just wouldn’t have. So what did that leave? The voice had said he dreamed this, but knew it to be true. Was Blair having dreams that could help them find the man that was behind this?
Jim went to work finding all the clues he could and realized that Rafe was right. This was the same MO from the other sites. What in hell did Blair have to do with this?
!!!!!!!!!!
Later that morning, Simon walked out of his office and had a manila envelope and showed everyone the pictures and the letter. They all read the letter and waited for their Captain to speak. “It seems like we have ourselves a helper or the killer is taunting us.”
“Simon, could I speak to you in private?” Jim asked.
“Follow me.” Simon led the way into his office and shut the door and pointed to chair by his desk. “Sit, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know how or why, but Blair is the caller from this morning. And these pictures are drawn by Blair. He’s been having horrible nightmares and not sleeping much because of them, maybe this is why. Maybe the drowning brought back something that Blair didn’t have before that.”
“What the fuck do you mean, he’s the caller. Jim, are you certain?”
“I’d bet my life on it, Simon. It’s him and he was freaked out this morning when he got back to the loft at 4:40. And when I asked him if he wanted to go with him he said that he was sure I could find the Benson house myself. I hadn’t mentioned a name. I didn’t realize until I got to the house and Rafe told me the name that I put two and two together. I don’t know what’s going on, but we need to bring him in for questioning. I don’t mean with handcuffs, sir. I mean as his friends.”
“Go pick him up. No one has to know about this besides you and me. Bring him in and we’ll talk to him together.”
!!!!!!!!!!
Jim walked into the loft and found Blair getting ready to go.
“Blair, how long have you been having the dreams about the killer? How long before you were going to tell me? Why didn’t you tell me from the start?”
“Jim, everything has been about you since I came back from the dead. You seem to have all of the power and I really didn’t think telling you about the dreams would help you. It would make you guiltier and in turn make me feel worse. I couldn’t tell you about it, I just couldn’t. How does one start that conversation out, Jim? Oh by the way, I see people dying in my dreams and I know who is killing them. Do you think you could stop him?”
“Chief, I’ve always been here for you. I would have believed you. Do you think I would have thought you made it up?”
Blair smiled. “No, you would have believed me, but you would have suffered great guilt over it and I didn’t want that. I’d like to move on and get past this.”
“Simon wants to talk to you. I had to tell him what I knew. I had to. So I need to bring you in right now and Simon and I will find out what’s going on.”
“I have a test to give today, Jim. I can’t miss it just because you and Simon need me right this moment. I’ll come in this afternoon after I give the test.”
“Do you promise you’ll be there?” Jim asked.
“I promise. Now I need to go and get ready for my students. I’ll see you in about four hours.”
Jim watched Blair walk away from him and knew that things were a lot worse then they seemed.
“Blair, am I still your friend?”
“Jim, I love you.”
“Wait a minute, how do you mean that?” Jim asked.
“If you have to ask, then you’re not ready for the answer. Now I need to go.”
“I’m ready for the answer. I love you too. I wasn’t ready to get into the water before, but I am now.”
“We’ll discuss this when we get back home tonight. I’ll see you this afternoon.” Blair walked out the door and Jim had an odd smile on his face. His heart and soul felt lighter then they had in ages. There was hope.
!!!!!!!!!!
Jim was sitting at his desk when Blair called. “Hi Jim. I’m in the parking garage now, I just wanted to let you know.”
“I already knew. I could sense it,” Jim answered.
“Cool. See you in a few minutes.”
Blair got onto the elevator and two other people got on and the elevator stopped running. The stupid thing kept doing it all week long. It would go down two floors and then stop midway on the third. They were working on it, but they hadn’t fixed it as yet it would seem. Then the music started in Blair’s head.
Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
Everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on
Everybody hurts. You are not alone
Blair looked at the backs of the two men in the elevator with him and realized one of them was bald. He was also very tall and he had a tattoo on his arm. Blair’s heart was beating like a bass drum, while the stupid music just kept playing over and over again in his head.
He pulled out his cell and waited for Jim to answer, ”Ellison.”
“Hi Jim, the elevator’s stuck and you wouldn’t believe the gorgeous tattoo that one of the guys has on his arm. It’s really nice. A dragon. You know like the dragons I draw?”
“Chief, we’ll be right there. Don’t worry. You’ll be safe in a moment.” Jim hung up the phone and called everyone into action including the repair men. The repair men were there working on the elevators anyway and got the elevator running again and when it opened on their floor, all of Major Crime was standing there holding their guns on the bald man in front.
Jim grabbed him and pulled him out of the elevator and said, “I have to take your gun, Murphy.”
“For what? What the fuck? What are you doing?” Murphy shouted.
Jim got his gun and patted him down and got two more off of his body. Once they did that, they put him in cuffs and turned him around. Blair saw his face finally since he had had his back turned to him the entire time and knew it was the right man. Blair nodded his head and walked to Simon’s office.
“We’ve got to get a search warrant and I don’t know how we’re going to do that. We have to have some reason to have one. We can’t say Sandburg had a dream and we need a search warrant.” Simon was beside himself trying to figure this out.
“Simon, is Mr. Benson awake yet?”
“Yes, we could take a picture of Murphy down and get a search warrant from that. But why did we have to arrest him today?” Simon was working it as best as he could.
“Because Mr. Benson told you about the dragon and Jim saw it on Murphy. He had to make the arrest and see if he was right. How does that sound?” Blair was good at spinning tales.
Simon looked at Blair for a moment and then asked, “Are you certain of this, Sandburg?”
“As sure as my name is Sandburg, sir.”
Jim said, “I’m going to take the picture over to Mr. Benson and see if he can ID him. I’ll call you with the info and let you get the search warrant. We need it for his car, his house, his garage and any other type of place he could keep bodies.”
“Just hurry up, we need to do this fast.” Simon pushed both men out of his office and slammed the door shut. He had many things to think about.
“Want to come with, Chief?”
“Yes, I would like to see Mr. Benson alive.”
“Remember he wouldn’t have been if you wouldn’t have called the station about it. It’s because of you that he’s alive.”
“That feels good. I like the idea of saving someone’s life for a change.”
They got into the truck and hauled ass over to the hospital.
!!!!!!!!!!
Murphy’s lawyer came into Simon’s office and said, “You don’t have any reason to hold my client. Mr. Murphy is a law abiding citizen, not to mention a cop. So I would suggest you let him go right now before he sues your ass.”
“Sit down, Carter, you might be here for a while. We’ve just gotten the search warrants for Murphy’s house, his boat, his storage shed and his vehicles and the garage. There’s a big chance he’s going to be staying with us for a while. We got a positive ID from one of the victims who was left for dead, but he lived. He said it’s your client. So we’re going with it. You might want to switch how you’re going to handle this from here on in. He’s going down.”
Carter left Simon’s office and went into the interrogation room and told Murphy what had been said and the screaming and yelling could be heard by all. Simon knew right then that they were going to find bad things at one of the places.
!!!!!!!!!!
Jim and Blair were sitting on the sofa not saying anything in particular. Both of them were thinking about how the day had turned out.
“Jim, do you ever feel bad about how you treated me after the Ventriss case?”
“Yeah, I sure do. I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot to apologize for but that’s the main one. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there when Alex killed you and left you like trash. I’m sorry that I was thinking about being with her while I was in Mexico. I’m just basically sorry about a lot of things. Do I have to list them all?”
“No, it was just nice hearing those ones listed. Thank you for believing in me all along. You never questioned my belief in who had done it, you just went with it. Thank you for being such a good friend.”
“Speaking of friend, Chief, are we going to move this to the next level?”
“I think that’s going to take some time. We need to work a lot of things out and I don’t think that we’re going to get them worked out with us sleeping together. So yes, I want to sleep with you, but no, we’re not doing it right now.”
Jim smiled. “Works for me. Now I want you to sleep tonight and see if you have better dreams. Okay?”
“Okay, Jim. I’ll see you in the morning. Sleep well.”
Both men went off to their separate rooms and got ready for bed. Blair fell to sleep almost instantly and when he woke up the next morning, there was no REM music and no awful nightmares for him to walk through. Maybe he was done. Or maybe someone higher up was just giving him a break.
Jim knew that Blair had slept well, because he had listened off and on all night long. There was no nightmare. Jim was glad of that. And if more followed, he would have to help Blair get through them too. They were best friends first and foremost. Friends did everything for each other, including sometimes forgetting what good friends are supposed to do. Jim intended to make it all up to him.
Blair walked out of his room and smiled at Jim and Jim knew things were going to be fine. Blair was back and so was he.
The end.
Everybody Hurts by REM
When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you’re sure you’ve had enough of this life, well hang on
Don’t let yourself go, ’cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes
Sometimes everything is wrong. Now it’s time to sing along
When your day is night alone, (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go, (hold on)
When you think you’ve had too much of this life, well hang on
‘Cause everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts. Don’t throw your hand. Oh, no. Don’t throw your hand
If you feel like you’re alone, no, no, no, you are not alone
If you’re on your own in this life, the days and nights are long,
When you think you’ve had too much of this life to hang on
Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
Everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on
Everybody hurts. You are not alone
