Hey guys! I've been sooooo stuck for inspiration (and time) lately, but I've had this half-written for a while so I finally made time to finish it, so I hope you like it!
In case anyone was wondering, the quote in the description, 'Human nature is to fall in love, fall in lust, crave physical touch' is from a Sophia Bush interview, which she quoted in response to a question of the romance of Chicago PD.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. If I did, 1x08 would've ended like this.
Human nature is to fall in love, fall in lust, crave physical touch, all of that, really.
She never realised how much Nadia's leaving would affect her. How, when watching the sun dip behind Chicago's high rise flats, all she can think of of is the light being sucked from an alley somewhere down-town, the image of Nadia lying helplessly burned into her brain. As the darkness begins to consume her, Erin goes back to that place inside of herself, riddled with insecurities and emphasis on flaws. She sees herself years earlier. She sees herself in Nadia.
She finds herself craving. Everything and nothing. She craves cigarettes, even though the last time she was smoked was when she was seventeen, and she can still feel the stinging in her lungs on her particularly cold day. She craves warmth; despite the fact she stands by her window with bare arms and a bare heart, baring herself to the city. She craves him; in spite of pushing him away.
In the darkness and silence she feels the pounding of blood in her ears, and it's almost haunting. As she's drawn to the window and view, like a moth to a flame, she's baffled by the idea that in one of the busiest cities in the world, she can feel more alone than ever.
Erin tries Nadia's number four more times, reaching voice mail with every attempt. She hovers on each one, contemplating whether or not to leave a message. Each time she battles against it, telling herself any words would be futile. What do you say to a girl who's ready to give up on the world?
Unaware of how much time has passed since her last attempt to reach Nadia, Erin barely hears the soft knocking on the door, echoing off the empty walls. With zombie-like composure, she uses every ounce of willpower to drag her body to the front of her apartment. Her fingers linger on the cold, brass doorknob, and she relishes the few seconds that she's actually able to feel something. It sure beats feeling numb.
"Hey." His presence welcomes the ghost of a smile on her face. Because she feels found. She feels as though she has a purpose, and is not just a wandering soul searching for existence. Because he's there.
She swallows and steps aside; she doesn't need words in that moment. After closing the door behind him, she follows her partner back into the cold, empty 'living' room. She welcomes him to sit, but like her, his choice is standing.
"You didn't come to Molly's." He squints and his brow is furrowed with what she deciphers as concern, but quickly wipes the observation from her mind. "I just wanted to check you were alright."
"I'm fine." While her innards begin to crumble, her facade remains unfazed, hoping he can't sense the aching and breaking inside her. She adds a smile for good measure, but as he closes their distance with an additional step, she gets the sense he can read her like a book.
"You know I'm here, right?" She just then notices the colour of his eyes, highlighted under the dim lighting. She notices the lines across his face, telling her a thousand different stories that she aches to memorise, to repeat, to understand. She notices the freckles by his nose, and wants to create a constellation from them. "I'm here."
Her heart begins to dance to the music in the air; the music of his exhalations and her inhalations. As he takes a further step closer she wants to tell him how broken she is. She wants to paint him the picture of her life, from start to finish and all the details in between. She wants him to know how she got the scar on her collarbone, how her eyes flutter when she's nervous, how she's ticklish along the lower left of her side. She wants him to know it all. And then the scariest thought crosses her mind: Is this lust or love?
Because she does love him. Not in the cliché, 'kiss in a rainstorm' kind of love. The kind of love that means he's hers. That he is her person and she is his and there is nothing more to it. Because Jay Halstead has the power to send her into a crazy frenzy of anger and pain in one minute, and make her ache to taste him in the next. Because he's her partner, and her friend, and her alliance, and her strength. And she could wake up in the morning and regret anything and everything that could possibly happened between them, or she can savour that she ever got a chance at acting on her little sense of love. Even if it's just for one night.
Her thoughts distract her from observing his movements again, only to find seconds later that it's probably the closest they've ever been. Her lips part to tell him something. Anything. But she's left breathless at his proximity, and any coherent words escape her mind. She's left with nothing but the concept that words fail even the best of poets sometimes.
"I should probably go." His negative words contradict his optimistic tone, and she can sense him waiting for her to make her move. And when her steely gaze meets his, she feels the flames melt away the pesky, irrational insecurities that previously led her to push him aside. But even in that moment, they both realise the potential fatality of one movement between them.
"You should probably go." She feels him withdraw slightly, until she subconsciously captures the collar of his leather jacket with her hands. The smart thing to do in the situation would be to tell him 'you should probably go' without any amusement or hindrance in her voice, show him to the door, then retire to bed. But why she tries to rationalise why she can never find herself doing the smart thing, she begins pulling his jacket off his shoulders, then down his arms.
She's hit with the smell of his cologne as he removes his jacket and throws it on the side of the couch, a softness to his gaze. She wants to tell him that this isn't some pathetic attempt at filling a void inside of her. That she doesn't just consider him a warm body and a hot mouth. Something tells her that he already knows that, though.
"Nadia's gone." She wouldn't blame him if he couldn't remember who Nadia was; it had been a while since she'd mentioned the woman she attempted to rescue about the unit. But there's no confusion on his face, or pity or sadness. He's just listening. "She was so close to... Making it." Jay nods softly and Erin feels the pressure of his hand pressed lightly to her arm. It's comforting. "I don't know... I just, I thought I could... Save her." She shakes her head slightly as her gaze drops to he floor. In the silent darkness she can sense him tensing.
"I have a restraining order against a murderer." Her head raises with his words as her brow knits slowly. "I drive past his house every night after work. Jin texts me updates during the day. I know I've got eyes on me, and that I'm in dangerous territory right now, but..." He shrugs and he finally look as vulnerable as she does. "It just takes time, I guess. She'll come around. You just have to wait." Jay Halstead isn't exactly the deepest person Erin knows, yet his words make perfect sense.
"You didn't have to tell me that." Her eyes narrow in on his as she wonders why he would share something so personal. A smile tugs on the corners of her mouth and, to her surprise, Jay raises a hand across her left cheek and slowly thumbs the forming dimple.
"Neither did you." It makes perfect sense in that split second. She didn't have to tell him anything about Nadia, and normally, she wouldn't. She could've immediately given into her desires and pulled him close to taste the depths of their friendship, but instead she shares a part of herself. And he does the same. And they feel closer for it.
Ever so slightly, his fingers extend round the nape of her neck and his thumb traces the line of her jaw in a hypnotic sense. And so the tantalising teasing begins. "Platt was right, you know." His eyes hover on hers before dropping slightly, to the lower portion of her face. "About your eyes."
To anyone else, it wouldn't mean anything; a lazy compliment to fill the silence. But to Erin it means everything. "You're thinking about Platt right now?" It's part of their chemistry, their dynamic; the teasing. And it's what she craves. Like morning coffee or a shot of tequila after work, he's her drug.
He shakes his head slightly in response to her question, but she can tell he's only barely listening. "I've got someone else on my mind." Her eyes flutter at his words and try not to fall too hard into the cliché. But she seems to be tumbling, nonetheless.
They gulp in synchronisation, and she wonders whether he aches her touch as much as she does his. She doesn't have to wait long until her answer, however, because he finds her again. His lips find her lips, and both his hands find the nape of her neck and his thoughts find her restless mind. And she feels the sweet release of a thousand morning coffees and a thousand evening tequila shots.
Her arms uncross themselves to enable their bodies to wind closer, Erin feeling dizzy at the force in which he kisses her. Her palms rest flat against the hardness of his chest, before sliding her fingers slowly to his neck to feel his skin. She doesn't like relinquishing control, but Jay tilting her head to reach him so he can deepen the kiss is something she'd happily let him do daily. With his hands holding the back of her neck, and her hands gripping the front of his, they're a frenzy of skin and flesh, aching for any form of touch. They're falling in lust.
Her hands swoop to the hem of his shirt, fisting and pulling to get him as close as possible. Her lips tingle with wonder, questioning herself why she would resist something like this for so long, when all she wants now is to tangle her body in his for as long as possible. She feels a dull ache as Jay's pressure slows, but his hot lips linger for a second longer. Foreheads hovering and minds riddled with unspoken truths, they remain together, body to body, with the blind hope that they can somehow love themselves back to life.
While his fingers trail lines down her sides, taking comfort on the curves of her waist, Erin makes her hands useful and lets them slide to the nape of his neck, pulling him closer until their foreheads rest strongly against each other. Their breathing is thick and shallow, making the air hot and sticky between them. She can sense Jay's hesitation, his fear. She feels it too.
Her eyelids flicker, and he feels the sensation on his cheek, sparking something inside of him. She feels his arms cross around her back, curving her body into his, moulding them as one. She kisses him this time, slow and soft, a juxtaposition to their previous fiery moment. She draws out every movement, extended her arms to snake around his neck as she shuffles backwards, moving them both towards her room. With one hand gripping her body, Jay pushes the door with his free hand and kicks it behind them as they enter.
They tumble onto the bed as one; a combination of desperate limbs and fire-infused hearts. He breaks them apart, sucking the air between them as he searches her eyes.
"I should probably go." His words are repeated, but they feel fresh and new and from a whole different perspective.
"Stay." Erin tells her partner to stay, not because the idea of watching him leave is too much pain to add to the night, but because the silence scares her. She's breathless, his icy breathe settling in her burning lungs. So wordlessly, she crawls to the head of the bed and lies down, her heavy eyes still on his. "Stay."
His shadow follows hers, lying wordlessly opposite her. In one swift movement, she removes her phone from her back pocket and lies it in the space between them. He does the same. So while she awaits a call from Nadia, asking for help, Jay awaits a call from Jin, offering an update on Lonnie. They're still breathing each other in, and the world appears to be silent for that, because all Erin can hear is the gentle thudding of her heart attempting to find Jay's.
And she could be falling in love, falling in lust, or falling into oblivion. And she's fine with all of that.
Ugh, I'm not really that happy with this. I wrote this at like 2am last night, so it got kinda deep towards the end, haha. Tell me what you thought?