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Jim opened his eyes.
The pale moon gleaming through the skylight filled the room with dim grey light. It washed out everything in his room, made it all look flat against the inky darkness.
He cast his hearing out. The loft was dead quiet. He couldn’t even hear the clock ticking.
Frowning, he pushed himself up on his forearms, then stuck a finger in his ear. No obstructions. Maybe he had ear wax buildup again? He opened and closed his mouth experimentally, and raised one hand to rub the spot where his jaw met his ear.
His skin felt odd under his fingers, dull and flaccid. The sheets felt wrong, too, the cool smoothness of cotton diminished, like there was a thin sheet of plastic between him and the bed.
“Chief,” he said aloud, and his voice sounded strange in the stillness, flat and muted. “Chief, I think there’s something wrong with my senses.”
Blair, lying next to him in the bed, was wrapped like a mummy in his blankets and didn’t reply.
He sighed, but even his pang of guilt at waking his partner felt blunt and distant. “Chief,” he said a bit louder, and tugged the covers away from Blair’s head.
Dread slid down his spine, cold and gelid. Bile rose in his throat.
Blair was lying on his back. Blank white eyes stared at the ceiling. His too-pale skin was mottled with dark. His wet hair spread out on the pillow like seaweed.
Jim couldn’t move. It felt like an icy hand had reached into his chest and grabbed his heart.
The apparition turned its head and fixed those pale, empty eyes on him. “Senses not working, Jim?” it asked, in a cold, bubbling voice. “We should do something about that.”
Jim woke, lurching upright in bed, a scream strangling his throat, his heart hammering against his ribs like a captured thing.
Blair sat up next to him, blinking, hair a wild frizzy corona around his head. “Huh? What? Jim? Y’okay?”
He reached out blindly and found Blair’s calf, wrapped his hand around it, felt the warmth soak into his palm. He stroked his fingertips over Blair’s skin, registering every little scratch and scar, every tiny imperfection. Only then could he take a breath, sucking it in past the tightness in his chest.
Blair put a hand on the back of his neck, strong and square-fingered and warm. “Bad dream?”
He exhaled, nodding, as the warmth of Blair’s body seeped slowly through his limbs.
“Memories of Peru?”
He hesitated a moment, then nodded again, gut churning. It was just easier to let Blair believe that than to tell him the truth.
“Aw, man, I’m sorry.”
Blair pulled him into a hug. He was still trying to get used to this. The Ellisons had not been a particularly demonstrative family, especially in times of stress, but the Sandburgs clearly had. He closed his eyes and buried his nose in Blair’s hair, taking a deep breath and letting the smell of sandalwood and cinnamon clear the last shards of the dream from his mind.