Summary: Jim's side of Blair's Hanahaki.
Not Unrequited love.
Blair has Hanahaki.
Blair had switched soaps again. Jim hated when Blair switched soaps, he always seemed to do it just when Jim had gotten used to the old scent.
This scent though was different from the rest, floral and sweet, and while Jim thought the scent pleasent and almost soothing it unsettled him on a level that was usually reserved for the Sentinel oddities. It was worse on the days that Jim smelled new blood mixed with the scent, the days when Blair took long showers, which had become more and more over the past few months.
The same amount of time that Blair had begun to pick up bouquets of flowers, the same type of flowers, handing them to the Victims or witnesses on the crimes that they encountered and leaving one on Rhonda's desk every day. Once or twice leaving one on Megan's desk, particularly after a break up with her current boyfriend. The few times Blair left one of the flowers on Jim's desk Jim hadn't known how to react and so pretended that he didn't know who left the bloom there, just smiling softly and letting his sense of smell heighten so he could smell the undercurrent of Blair that the bloom was soaked in, forcing himself to ignore the undercurrent of blood that lingered strongly on the velvet petals.
It concerned Jim how often the smell of blood lingered around Blair, he could smell it easier when Blair breathed and he didn't understand why the blood would linger there when Jim knew that it was only Blair skin that usually broke when the student chased him on his cases.
The injuries Blair collected when he was with Jim kept making Jim rethink their partnership, it wasn't that Jim didn't think Blair could handle it, it was more how it hurt to see Blair hurt, how worried Jim was that this time or the next time he wasn't going to make it in time, that he was going to fail Blair, like he had when Blair had been trapped in a falling Elevator during the whole Gallelio debacale, if Blair hadn't thought to cut the floor from the Elevator they would have been dead and Jim didn't know what he would have done if Blair's shocky voice hadn't laughed a little hystarically and asked if the others were fine.
He'd blinked his eyes then to look at the man he was holding, the man who had threatened his partner to see him staring at him terrified, body tilted out the broken window, hands tight on Jim's wrists, feet trying to find some type of purchase on the broken windowsill, and Jim's grip had been seconds away from releasing. It would have been so easy to just... let him go. Jim would have if he hadn't been listening so desparately to the Elevator Blair was in, if he'd pulled his hearing back before he heard Blair speak, but he'd been trying, hoping to find Blair's hearbeat, even faintly and that rapid, terrified beat was a relief and an anchor. Jim dumped the man on the floor of the room they were in as Simon arrived with Joel.
Jim had been shaking and he let Simon handle their criminal and had headed to Blair to see with his own eyes that the other man was fine.
But for all that Blair seemed to collect injuries with Jim, Jim knew he couldn't ask Blair to leave, knew Blair wouldn't leave. Jim was certain that Blair would do everything in his power to keep Jim safe, even if that meant getting a police scanner and following Jim and Simon to every case they ever got, at least if Blair was right with Jim when he entered a scene then there was a chance Jim could protect him, could keep him safer than if Blair ended up with a criminal all alone without the benefit of backup.
It terrified Jim even more to think of Blair dying alone with no one knowing where he was because Blair though Jim needed him than to know how often Blair got hurt when he was with Jim on cases, at least Jim could patch Blair up enough to make it to the hospital or for the time it took back up to arrive. Jim knew for all that Jim's job was dangerous Blair was safer by his side than following behind and it terrified him.
Jim looked to the bullpen doors when he heard Blair's heartbeat, the man exiting the stairwell and talking a mile a minute to one of the beat cops. It always amazed Jim that there wasn't a whole lot of resentment in the other departments towards Blair and is position as a partner to Jim, unofficial though it was everyone knew and understood that Blair was Jim's only partner, everyone else, anyone else was temporary and secondary, even his Captain. There were of course one or two people who sneered and wondered why Blair was tolerated, treated like he was a police officer, a detective himself but they were soon set straight, told of how Blair hadn't even been an official observer yet when he had helped them with the Sunrise Patriots that had taken their station, that he'd convinced Kincade he was Vice to protect Darrel, and the rest of the people that were hostages, kept Kincade's eyes and focus on him instead of them and hadn't even looked worried or afraid.
Jim knew that none of the others knew that Blair had been telling Kincade he had lied as they climbed in the helocopter, fear of hights getting to him for a few moments but Jim had been sure to tell Rhonda how Blair had threatened the pilot with a solid voice to get him to turn the helocopter around.
And other stories had made their way around, how Blair had been dosed with golden, how he'd jumped from a plane to go after Simon and his kid, what he'd done for Joel and so many other things because while the Major Crimes Unit had the most stories others had their own. Blair was as much one of them as any of those who had come through the Acadamy, maybe more so since there was no reason Blair had to be there, he didn't even get paid to come along on the cases he did go on.
Jim had heard too how officers would whisper about the nature of their relationship, and Jim never bothered to deny it, instead if he was close enough to hear normally he'd turn to the men or women and just stare at them until they fled. He was however glad that anytime a negative attitude was voiced it was shut down by someone else, it did surprise him a little that his fellow officers would do so but soon realized that they didn't care because they seemed to know that he had something different about him, that Blair helped with it and that if they were missing or killed they wanted Jim on the Case, as they had all discovered Jim's rise in solve rates and if that meant accepting a Gay cop and his boyfriend well, that wasn't really too much in their eyes, for most of them any way, any one with a problem transfered out and was sworn to silence, silence that they kept, to Jim's surprise.
The first Jim had heard that his fellow officers knew he was special he had panicked, had been terrified and worried only nothing had happened, Jim had been without Blair and had slipped up and mentioned something that he should have had no way of knowing and the cop next to him, whose name Jim had never known, still didn't, had merely nodded and gone to check, but instead of giving credit to Jim he'd taken it and Jim had stared at the man, glad he hadn't been given credit but worried about what it meant that the man trusted Jim to have been right.
The cop wasn't the only one either, just the first and suddenly Jim had every cop and detective working with him to use his senses, believing, trusting him to know what he was talking about and it was easier when Jim didn't have to think of a lie o go with whatever sense he'd been using.
He was afraid to tell Blair that the Station knew, afraid that Blair would leave if he knew Jim had real cops to watch out for him on cases. Jim knew of course that Blair would never but Jim was so used to people leaving him when they could, a fear response Blair would call it and Jim knew it, understood it, accepted it but knowing it and changing it were two different things.
Blair left the other man and walked over to Jim and smiled, "Paperwork?"
Jim nodded, "Yeah, unless we get a call, we just finished that drug case."
Blair pulled his chair over, not that Blair knew that chair was his only, and began to type of Jim's reports, adding details and explaining away the use of Jim's senses.
It was an hour later that Blair began coughing, trying to smother them for the first few minutes until he couldn't and then Blair was standing up and trying to breath as he began choking, Jim's hands immediately moving to catch and steady the man but then Blair's body spasmed and he gagged and Blair bent a little and petels and flowers began to pour out of his mouth as Blair continued to choke and gag.
"Blair!?" Jim cried, voice panicked, as he held Blair, he could hear Blair trying to breathe and the whistle and rustle that filled his lungs, something that Jim hadn't been paying attention to.
Jim could vaguely hear Simon calling an ambulance, telling them to bring a Hanahaki kit but all Jim could see was the flowers that spilled over his desk, the same flowers that Blair had handed to so many people over the last few months.
The lingering scent of blood and Blair that had always remained on the flowers suddenly made sense and Jim felt gutted, who was it that Blair loved so much that didn't return that love to become festered and stifling as to grow in his lungs to suffercate and kill him.
"Blair?" Jim whispered as he lowered them to the floor, bracing Blair upright against his chest to help what little air keep flowing through Blair's lungs.
Blair had stopped coughing and Jim carefully pulled bloodied petals and flowers away, brushing them away from them like they were cursed.
Blair tried to smile, even as he gasped for breath.
"Sorry." Blair whispered, "I guess this is as far as I go."
"Blair." Jim said as he stared, "Why? There are..."
Blair shook his head, "Not for me. They are worth it, always."
Blair leaned against Jim's shoulder briefly as the Paramedics arrived and moved to them quickly, taking Blair from JIm and placing him on a stretcher.
"Who? Blair, Who?" Jim asked as he rushed with them to the elevator.
Blair forced another smile, eyes sad, and he pulled the oxygen mask from his face despite the protests of the Paramedics.
"You know who, Jim." Blair whispered, letting the paramedic replace the mask as they entered the elevator and Jim watched the doors close between them before he raced for the stairs, Simon following as there was no way he was going to let Jim drive himself.
Blair was settled by the time they arrived and Jim was allowed through the waiting room, while Simon waited for the doctor to arrive.
Jim entered quietly, the room smelled of chemicals but Jim could still smell the scent of flowers, the ones that were growing inside of Blair, the ones that were killing him.
"Hey." Blair turned to him and he smiled.
"Blair." Jim said.
"It's not contagous." Blair tried to joke as he shifted, he wasn't allowed to sit up, it was easier for him to breathe if he was flat on his back, but for how much longer, Jim wondered.
"I know that." Jim growled, "Don't... don't make this a joke, Chief."
"It's not very funny, is it?" Blair asked, coughing out a small flower bud, taking it and adding it to a vase next to his bed.
"No, it's not." Jim said as he sat down next to the bed, "You're not going to get the surgery?"
Blair shook his head, "No, I wouldn't trade the flowers for anything."
"How long?" Jim asked.
"A while." Blair whispered, "I made this choice, Jim, not you."
Jim looked at Blair sharply.
Blair nodded, arm moving to cradle his head and neck as he turned on his side to face Jim, "It's okay, I knew what loving you meant the moment I realized what was happening almost a year ago."
"It's me?" Jim whispered, "I'm making the flowers grow?"
Blair's breath hitched and Jim was moving, helping him readjust so air was moving through his lungs instead of being trapped.
"Who else?" Blair asked softly, eyes sad and soft, "I'm sorry I'm just another person who's going to end up leaving you."
"No." Jim said, hand grasping Blair's tightly, "You're not going anywhere."
Blair chuckled before another couple of flowers fell from his lips, "I don't think that's something you get to choose, I'm not getting the surgery and Hanahaki has a hundred percent mortality rate once it hits this stage without it. My love is permenate now."
"Blair." Jim whispered, leaning closer, "You don't need the surgery, I love you too."
Blair's eyes widened.
"I'm not just saying that, I mean it, I thought... I thought you knew, that it was obvious, I was wrong and now..." Jim whispered, "You almost died because I never said it out loud."
Blair breathed in sharply, chest rattling as air whistled through his lungs and he choked on a few flowers.
Jim's lips pressed against Blair's knuckles as he closed his eyes, "Everyone else at the station assumed we were together, and I never countered it, never thought to say anything and maybe I was afraid you wouldn't... that it was a different sort of love you looked at me with every day."
Blair laughed, "You made flowers grow inside me, Jim, how could it be anything but that kind of love." Blair looked into Jim's now open eyes, "How did you not notice?"
"I don't know, maybe it was me wanting to give you privacy, or being afraid of what I'd discover. I don't know, Blair, but never again, I'm going to keep my senses trained on you from now on." Jim vowed.
Blair grinned, "That's good."
JIm raised an eyebrow in question and Blair sighed.
"Hanahaki doesn't just go away with one declairation, it takes time, and there are chances for relapses, you might need to say you love me everyday for awhile, a lot." Blair explained softly, "And I may still cough up petals and flowers for up to a year, longer if I relapse."
Jim nodded, "I can try, do you think it has to be the words 'I love you' specifically?" Jim asked.
Blair raised an eyebrow himself, "What do you mean?"
"Well, could I say that I adore you?" Jim teased, "That you make me laugh, make me want to do better, be better, that you make me want to share everything I've always kept secret?"
Jim moved closer to Blair to whisper in his ear, "That I never want any other Guide but you next to me."
Blair blushed and pulled Jim down for a hug, burying his face in the Sentinel's neck, "We'll have to test them."
"More tests, I should have known." Jim teased fondly, "I think I'll enjoy this test though.
A throat clearing at the door made Jim pull back and step away, though his hand remained in Blair's.
"I'm Doctor Johnson, the Hanahaki expert and surgeon." The tall man said as he entered with Simon, closing the door behind him, "You must be Blair Sandburg."
Blair nodded and held out his free hand, "That's me."
"We got your test results back and I have to say I'm impressed that you've advanced to this stage and haven't had more problems before now, especially given that you've lived with the object of your Hanahaki." Dr. Johnson said as he sat, glancing at Jim, "I suppose you've resolved that?"
Jim nodded, "We have, I shouldn't have assumed that he would just know."
"No, you shouldn't have." Dr. Johnson sighed, "You know that that doesn't cure him, yes, he knows now that the feelings are there but he still has a long recovery ahead of him."
Jim nodded, "I've been informed, and we were talking about it, if it has to be those specific words or if it was just the meaning behind the words that would work."
Dr. Johnson paused, frowning, "I don't know, I suppose you could try other words but still make sure to say 'I love you' often enough. Blair will remain here for a few days to monitor the initial decrease of flowers, if they even decrease, if they do we'll release him in a few days, if they don't we'll have to talk in terms of getting the surgery.
"Once Blair is released he'll have to be careful, we don't want to put more strain on his lungs at the moment. I understand that he's an observer at the Cascade Police Department, I recommend that he take a couple days away from that."
"Of course." Simon said, "I'll make sure of that, Jim, you will be on leave for the next week at least."
Instead of argueing like he normally would Jim merely nodded.
"Jim?" Blair asked, coughing out a single flower.
"I almost lost you, Chief, a week making sure you're okay isn't a hardship." Jim said softly, looking down at Blair, "If there's anything pressing I can go in alone, I'll explain later." Jim said when Blair opened his mouth to protest.
"There will be follow up appointments to make sure the flowers keep decreasing, if you do have a resurgence it may mean that you're not being told enough, we want to keep an eye on that, we do not want your Hanahaki to get this far again if we get it under control." Dr. Johnson explained, "Unfortunately, Blair, you will always be susceptable to Hanahaki from now on, I don't know if you kept it but the first full bloom you coughed up would be a good indicator of if you are still in love with the person who gave you this round of Hanahaki. If it dies you could easily find yourself with Hanahaki involving another person."
Blair looked from the doctor to Jim, "I don't think I have to worry about that, Jim's it for me."
Dr. Johnson nodded, "I've been told that before and had the person arrive back here with a new set of flowers in their lungs."
"I understand." Blair said, "We'll keep an eye on it."
Dr. Johnson nodded, "If you have any further questions feel free to ask for me or write them down for a nurse to get to me."
The three of them nodded and Dr. Johnson left.
"What's this about working without me?" Blair asked, voice hurt.
"No, not without you, you'll aways be my Guide, Chief, but I think most of the guys have figured out that I have something that helps me." Jim explained, "They've known for awhile, but I..." Jim looked away from Blair, "I was afraid you'd leave if you knew."
"Jim..." Blair whispered.
"Knowing you wouldn't and fearing you would are two different things, I thought that if you didn't know you wouldn't have to worry about it." Jim explained.
"I always worry about you, Jim." Blair murmured, "Especially when I'm not able to be with you."
"You don't have to now, but I want you with me anyway, no matter what." Jim said, "Only one Guide for this Sentinel."
Blair smiled, and coughed lightly, spitting up two little blooms, ad Jim could actually hear the retreat of the flowers and vines in Blair's lungs, could hear the air flowing through the passage ways a little easier, a little better, could hear more air in Blair's lungs.
"So, did you keep the first full flower?" Simon asked softly.
Blair nodded, "Of course I did, it's in a small vase at Rainer."
"I'll go get it then." Simon offered.
"Thank you, Simon." Jim said.
"Get better, Sandburg, I expect you back at the station in a week for desk duty at least, then maybe I'll have readable reports again." Simon muttered.
Blair laughed, "I'll try, Simon."
Simon waved and left, leaving the two alone.
There was a long silence as Blair let his eyes drift closed and focused on breathing through the flowers and vines inside his lungs, while Jim just listened to the air moving through the vines, leaves, and flowers.
"What are you hearing?" Blair asked hours later.
"The air moving in your lungs, I can hear it whistling through the leaves and petals." Jim admitted.
"Can you tell if it's better or worse?" Blair asked.
"I can." Jim told him, "You're breathing better, and I can hear the vines shrinking, now that I'm listening for it I'll probably hear them growing, I won't let your flowers get this far again."
"They aren't mine." Blair whispered, turning to look at Jim, where the man was seated next to the bed.
"Oh?" Jim asked, "They are in your lungs."
"But you put them there." Blair said softly, "You were so easy to fall in love with that you made them grow."
"Only you would call me easy to love." Jim grumbled.
Blair laughed, "If anything, Jim, the flowers belong to us, you may have put the flowers in my lungs, but I let them grow."
Jim stared at Blair, and for all that he wished Blair hadn't let the flowers grow he knew also that Blair wasn't the type of person to not let the flowers grow where and when they would, one way or another Blair would have ended up with flowers blooming inside of him, Jim could only be glad that his love could now keep them in check, their flowers would not drown Blair in their love, not anymore.
"My Guide." Jim whispered against Blair's knuckles and listened to the shuddering and shrinking of the blooms in Blair's lungs.
A/N: Well, that was Jim's side of Flowers and a resolution as well as a small headcanon about the actual curing of Hanahaki after getting it, I know that most fics have one declaration be enough but I wanted a slightly more realistic approach, given we are talking about flowers growing in people while they are alive as a result of unrequited love, therefore My Hanahaki requires several declarations and relapses are possible if those declarations are not said enough, and (Spoiler) it's not the words that matter but the love in them that matters. Also mentioned is that a person is more suseptable to getting Hanahaki again after having it even if it is for someone else, just like any other disease.
It's just a few things I thought of while I was writing this fic, feel free to ignore for your own Hanahaki fics.