Part of the same series The Desk is part of (I haven't yet got a name for it, but I've got ideas). Also, thanks to ItsABromanceLife and to Tay for responding so enthusiastically to this idea, other wise it really wouldn't have ever been written.
I don't own Med or Cpd or their characters.
It wasn't that Will was blind. No, unlike years ago when he was intentionally not thinking about his brother, this time around Will was paying attention. Close enough attention that he caught it much, much earlier.
Just like last time however, the older brother was just as afraid of it as Jay was. Maybe more so, but for very different reasons.
It's not that Will thinks Jay's going to blow his brains out when he's on night shift (although that did almost happen once but it wasn't really Jays fault), its just that...well he's not deaf. He hears his brother calling out in his sleep, knows the nightmares are back with a passion, knows that he's not sleeping enough or when he should. Will knows Jay is spiralling backwards, can see it in almost everything his brother does.
It makes him hate himself more for all the time he ignored his brother when he came home the first time. It also makes him worry (the not eating, the insomnia, the way Jay never quite seems to be fully in the here and the now) literally every second of his day. Because Will is a only a worryer when it comes to his brother - that means when he's not fully involved with his job, he's thinking about it, about him, about how he has absolutely no idea how to help stop this before it gets worse, before he sees Jay wheeled into his ER bleeding out because he lost his grip on reality in the middle of a gunfight.
It's infinitely more stressful now, thinking about his brother being in constant danger from himself, not just the criminals. And Will knows he's probably being way to overprotective, but he knows, Mouse explained to him in no uncertain terms just how bad Jay was when they came home. Just how...how...not him. How uncaring he was.
Will can't have that. He won't have it. But he doesn't know how to stop it, doesn't know how to fix it or how to be there for Jay. He doesn't. So he worries and everytime he sees his brother and asks if he's okay the stress ties itself a little bit tighter around his lungs when he listens to the half hearted "I'm okay" while looking dead into a pair of eyes that are begging for help.
He doesn't think it's affecting his work, which is an interesting statement since he can easily acknowledge that this has started to occupy most of his free thought, this constant stream of worry mixed with different attempts to figure out the best way to approach the subject (talking about how emotions was never something easily done with Jay, talking about his PTSD is like getting a cat to play fetch, not impossible, but really, really hard).
Still. Nobody has died on his watch in the last six shifts (A nice streak he'd normally be giddy about, because in Chicago ER doctors call people at least once a night) so he assumes he's doing a pretty good job.
It's that the rest of his colleagues at Chicago Med disagree with him, so much as it is that they see the changes in their friend, and, well, a group of strong willed experienced doctors letting one of their own struggle silently just wasn't going to happen.
So after a solid two weeks of Will walking around in pure headspace, barely present in conversations and looking for all the world like he hadn't slept in days (despite the rotation of shit that ensured different people saw him like that on multiple occasions and at multiple times), they finally had enough, and of course, somehow Rhodes was elected the first person to try and spearhead the conversation.
It didn't go well.
It didn't go badly either, which was something that generally surprised Connor, who knows his relationship with will was iffy enough that talking about casual things could be a challenge, and that they weren't nearly close enough to even consider talking about things that men (especially stubborn Halsteads) wouldn't talk about even when they were drunk.
It was a short conversation, one that started when Will once again wasn't paying attention, focusing only on the paperwork under his pen and the thoughts in his head, and it took Connor actually shaking his shoulder to get him to look up.
It ended with an exhausted look and a shake of the head and a resentment filled "You can't help me and you don't care" to which Rhodes replied with an equally angry "We could if you let us!" that was lobbed at the back of the red head as he walked away. To which thing he was referring to would probably never be specified.
It did give Will an idea though. A really good, really risky idea. But he couldn't wait much longer, he'd go insane. Haley stopped in the other to talk to him about Jay, and when he heard what had been happening at work he had to physically restrain from confronting Jay that night.
It was close though, and it would have been a monumental argument, as ones between members of the Halstead family often are. Long, hurtful, and loud, all adding up to some explosive outburst from one of them that made the other walk out and probably not talk for another five years or so.
Then Jay walked through the door at one thirty in the morning, sober, exhausted, and panting in his running gear. There was an apology, along with a silent plea of fear on his face for Will not to ambush him about this then and there. And staring at the bone deep tiredness on his younger brother that shouldn't be there, that only comes from fighting something too hard and for too long.
He left it. Let Jay take off his shoes, drop his keys, and chug the rest of his water bottle. He let Jay walk right past him in the kitchen, let him almost get away before calling out his name with all the emotion and stress and worry that'd been boiling inside for the last weeks since he noticed Jay's plight. He didn't say anything afterwards, just stared through the tension between them with soft eyes.
"I'm trying Will." He whispered, to which the older brother could only respond with an equally as soft "I know."
It wasn't enough. Will still didn't know what to do, and if it was clearly affecting his work then… he wasn't going to let something happen to his brother and best friend when he knew something was wrong (doing nothing, he decided, was much worse than trying something and screwing it up).
"Me?" Choi asks incredulously, looking like Will just asked him to marry him, the beer in his hand almost flying off the table in his surprise. "Why- I mean I served yeah but I don't think-"
"Charles is still recovering, and Jay wouldn't talk to him anyway, because if he was at the point where he could openly talk to a therapist about this we wouldn't be having this conversation. I know you struggled coming home. I just...Ethan I really don't know how to even begin helping him. There's things you guys share just by being in the army that gives you a better understanding than I'll ever have. Please, I-...I need your help."
The soft din of Molly's fills the silence as the Doctor Choi sets his eyes to Will's, the sincerity in them broadcasting what unspoken plea there is left and suddenly Ethan understands exactly why Will has been so withdrawn.
"Okay Will. I'll try."
It was a plot bunny that made it to the big screen but there's been no editing so I apologize for grammar mistakes.
Reviews are sincerely appreciated.