Chapter Text
The first night that Jim met Blair, he had been racing through some building with zero logical sense. One door would lead to a bank, and the next door would lead to a school, but he was always just on the heels of his target so he kept running, until suddenly the door opened into an entirely white space. Jim also felt aware of himself unlike any dream he had had before. In fact, it no longer felt like a dream at all. He just felt normal and cognisant, but his surroundings were unnerving.
He looked back around and the door was gone, but he did see something in the distance beyond where he had entered. He cautiously walked towards it and thought it strange that the ground of this space was pure white, and bottomless, and yet he walked like he would have done in the real world. The thing in the distance grew larger, and it soon became apparent that it was a human being, lying on the ground in a brown canvas jacket, blue jeans, and sneakers. The person had curly brown hair, and lay facing away from Jim, so he couldn’t see anymore detail. He kept walking closer.
“Can’t you just leave me alone, man?” The man on the ground asked, groaning in irritation but not moving from his position, “Are you really going to take my dreams from me too? Rather Orwellian, don’t you think?”
“What?” Jim asked, and stopped approaching.
The man on the floor rolled over to face Jim, and his blue eyes examined Jim up and down before pushing himself up to be seated and crossed his arms.
“This a test?” He asked.
“I don’t know...”
“Whoever you are, can you just leave? I get very little time to myself, and I don’t need company in my dream right now.”
“But this is my dream,” Jim explained, now starting to get irritated by the stranger’s attitude, “And I was having a fun chase sequence before entering this void, so if you’ll show me to the door, I will gladly leave you in peace.”
“Door?” The man scoffed, “Just wake up if it’s really your dream.”
“How do I do that?”
“It’s a dream... just imagine yourself waking up.”
Jim immediately wanted to say something sarcastic back, but he held his tongue, flexed his fingers into a fist and then relaxed them again with an exasperated sigh. He turned away from the annoying man, and then grumpily did as he had suggested, and the next moment he was waking up in bed.
The next night Jim was dreaming about being in a bar after work with some work colleagues. Everyone was there, including people he no longer worked with, and even some friends from childhood, and he revelled in the crowds not bothering his sensitive senses which had been a big problem in the real world for a few months now. At some point he left the crowd to get some air, and as he opened and stepped through the door, he once again found himself in the white void.
Jim immediately spun around and tried to head back through the door, but it was already gone. He sighed and looked around until he spotted the same heap of a human on the ground. When he got close enough he called out:
“What’s your name?”
The man flinched, then after a short pause he rolled over and studied Jim with a confused and surprised expression.
“Blair...” He eventually answered, “And you?”
“Jim. Why do you keep appearing in my dreams? And why in this empty space?”
“Fascinating,” Blair said as he sat up again, and furrowed his brow, “We both think this is our own dream, and we both recognise each other from last night too. Somehow, we’re communicating while we’re both asleep. Either that or you are just a complex figment of my imagination.”
“Watch who you’re calling a figment,” Jim tutted, and scanned the environment again for anything new, “My dream was more fun than yours. Mine was in a bar.”
“That sounds nice, but I’m afraid this is all you get if you come into my dreams.”
“Why?”
“It’s all that I’ll allow myself.”
Jim turned back to look at Blair curiously, and saw only an honest but sad expression had fallen over his features. Jim decided quite quickly that he preferred Bair’s other expressions a lot better. He stumbled over what to say next, then mumbled:
“You wanna come over to my dream for a bit?”
Blair laughed, a little dryly, then lay back down facing the sky, or ceiling, or whatever you called the white void above them.
“If my dreams are better than my reality then I’m scared that I will never want to leave them.”
“What’s your reality?”
Blair turned his head to look at Jim again, and this time he had a quizzical expression, as if he were trying to work Jim out again. Jim was thankful that Blair had very little ability to hide his feelings, as it made it easier to analyse him back, but what he was learning was getting more and more concerning.
“Sorry,” Blair said finally, and turned his face back upwards, “But I still don’t know if you’re a trap. Seems pretty suspicious that you’ve appeared like this twice now, when no one has ever appeared, even once, before.”
“Who would trick you?”
“Well now, if you are tricking me then you know exactly who you’re working for, and just by asking me that you hope I’ll believe you’re innocent. Then again, if you aren’t tricking me then you may be my only hope to escape.”
“Look, I still don’t completely believe that any of this is even happening, but in the real world I’m a detective, and if you’re in danger then I can help you.”
“How convenient.” Blair replied, still staring up, and giving no other reaction to the statement, “You overplayed your hand, my man. I might have believed you, but there’s no way my luck is good enough that I have magically started communicating with a detective in my dreams.”
“It’s true! I’m with the Cascade police department, my Captain is Simon Banks, I...”
“Cascade?!” Blair gasped, and sprung back up to sitting to look at Jim, “You’re in Cascade, Washington?”
“That’s where I live, yeah. Where are you?”
Blair shook his head and started mumbling to himself, but Jim could easily catch the ramblings:
“They said we had just arrived in Cascade Washington, which means it’s some kind of proximity thing, or maybe they hired someone new, or this man could really be somehow able to talk to me here because he’s close by, which means he could save me, or maybe it’s all a lie, or...”
“If you are really in Cascade then would you be able to watch the local news channel?”
Blair was startled out of his thoughts, but slowly said, “Maybe...”
“Alright. I know how we prove this. My Captain’s been hounding us to have more of a presence in the community, and doing a small interview with a local reporter would go a long way. I happen to know someone, so tonight I will make sure that I am the special interest piece at 6:30pm at the end of the news. You see me, and you’ll know I’m the real deal, yeah?”
“I can’t guarantee I will have access to a TV.”
“Well then, I’ll make it a recurring segment.”
“This may prove that you’re real, but how do you prove that I’m real?”
“I’m not sure why... but... I know you’re real. I feel like I’m awake right now, and I’ve never had dreams like this. Plus, I’m not that creative and there’s no way I would dream up half the things you say.”
Blair chuckled at that, and Jim felt happy to have alleviated just a little of the nervous energy that had been surrounding the man since the Cascade revelation.
“I really hope you’re real, Jim,” Blair sighed, “But even if you aren’t, I think I enjoy your company in my dream, so... make sure you come back, OK?”
“Come back? I’m still here...”
And then he wasn’t. Suddenly Jim was teleported back into his bar-based dream as if he had never left. He dashed to the closest door and opened it to see the inside of his work’s kitchen area. He closed his eyes and imagined waking up, then was back in bed, breathing heavily, and with a strange longing feeling that had never been there before. He had a mission to focus on, though. He would prove to Blair he was real, gain his trust, and then save him from wherever he was.