Requested: Aesthetic: Jay Halstead takes pictures. Lots of pictures.
Sorry if this seems to OC, its been sitting on my computer for a while, just waiting around. Can be read as companion piece to The Desk, but also can be read alone.
-"I've been looking so long at these pictures of you, that I almost believe that they're real."- The Cure
...
Jay Halstead takes pictures. A lot of pictures.
Almost four years with the unit, with mostly the same people, and it took an attempted kidnapping, an attempt on most of the teams lives, and an attack on the precinct for the team to find out. Jay was on the run, and Intelligence had to pull out all the stops if they were going to find him alive.
That meant going to his apartment and ripping it apart for anything - for something - that could help them find their injured teammate.
Antonio found the camera first. Al recognized the thing from the Rodiger case, when he saw it sitting on the glass coffee table while they shared a drink. Neither thought much of it, nor did they think of the black footlocker in the back of his closet and it wasn't until they got back to the precinct and were hitting rock bottom that Ruzek decided to go through it.
Alvin turned around the ask him a question two hours later, and if the look on his partners face didn't make him stop short, than the sheer number of stills spread out on the desk did.
"Oh." Was all he could think to say and Ruzek, with a pale face, glassy eyes and a gloved hand pressed to his mouth, just nodded. Dawson noticed and stood, wandering over with curiosity that attracted the rest of the team.
It was skill. In every single shot, in every glossy eight and a half by eleven shot, there was talent that, to them, couldn't have come from Jay. It wasn't possible. These pictures were amazing - lighting, focus, details - it all fit together to create shots that shouldn't have been stunning, but were.
It shouldn't have been Jay, but it was. Not just because these things were found in his apartment, but because of who and what were in the pictures, because how they were taken. There was eye for photography, yes, but there was personality in each shot that defined it.
The pictures (and there were hundreds) were of them. Of the team. Of Erin with her hair up and a look of exasperation while looking at paperwork, face backlit by soft lamp light. Antonio smiling while pointing accusingly at a laughing Adam. Alvin and Voight leaning against a cop car, both with genuine amusement on their faces. A side shot of the three older detectives, suiting up with calm faces and tired eyes. Erin shooting. Atwater and Burgess in uniform, walking side by side. Alvin smiling. Dawson and Gabby. Nadia with her hair down, savagely smashing a cupcake into Erin's face. Voight. Dawson. Platt. Al. Atwater. Erin. Ruzek. Erin. Nadia, Mouse, Dawson, Burgess, Roman even Julie Tay, and all again and again and again, different angles different places different angles. Picture after picture of the rarest moments, of Dawson and Voight sharing a hug, of Erin grinning at Kevin while punching his shoulder, of Alvin standing protective in front of Adam and Nadia, and Platt standing, glaring disapprovingly at a particular officer who wronged them someway. Things the team knows happen, things the team cherish and wish could happen more often, but things the team knows are special because they don't happen so often.
Some of these, they remember. Some of them they don't. Most of them jerk something deep, and others sooth long standing aches. It's like a selective invasion of privacy - both of there's and of Jays, because there's something so distinctly him in these photos it's nauseatingly emotional.
Antonio finds the one with Will. Alvin finds the one with Severide and Casey. Voight finds the one with Jay's mother.
"Wow." Is all he says, so quiets it's almost a whisper. He hands it to Alvin who lets Dawson lean over and look. Shining brown hair that lands cascades curls down past her shoulders, dark blue eyes sparkling as she smiles (that damn Halstead smile) at Will who's laughing over something in his hands. It's a perfect shot, just like rest of them, and it shows everything their mom was. They can see Jay through her, in the hair, in eyes, in the smile and in the strong set of her shoulders that says she carries the weight of the world but does so valiantly.
It hurts.
They go through all of them. Together and in complete silence, looking for more than clues, but looking for themselves too. Seeing them through Jays eye. Through a camera lense.
"Fuckin hell." Whispers Adam, who finished his pile and had reached into the foot looker for the few black leather bound books. As he flips through the abnormally thick paper, it's like a repeated punch to the guy. Because it's not just digital, is charcoal drawings, and colored pencils and tiny sketches on napkins taped down and covered in tight plastic to keep from smudging. Hand drawn faces of the team that he couldn't get a camera on, things pulled from memory and created out of boredom. There even a few water colors at the end, a couple of stunning sunsets, a memorial, an entire page filled with different shapes and lines that's like massive optical illusion if an optical illusion could be made by doodles.
There's three other notebooks. Only one is blank, none of the rough pages marked in anyway. There a small, regular sized photo tucked into front, and for one stupid second Adam doesn't recognize the man standing in combat fatigues, holding the camo painted rifle against his chest with one hand while sunglasses and a dark beard obscure his face under the beige camouflage helmet. It's taken from the side, his face turned slightly towards the camera.
Adam gives it to Al in some vain hope that it's important, that it might be someone they could contact to help find Jay. Alvin just stares at the picture for a minute, before handing it back to Adam and telling him to put it back where he found it.
Four hundred and twenty seven printed stills. Another two hundred hand drawn. Seventy four photos lie in wait on his camera and it takes them three hours to go through the six SIM cards he has stored in a small case. Over a thousand frames total is reviewed.
That was the only picture they find of him.
...
Its only on some whim of information from Erin that they find him.
"A cabin." She said when she finally picked up the phone. "He said that he had a cabin up in Wisconsin. That's the only place outside of Chicago he ever mentioned."
She hung up the phone without another word. When Hank talked to Will about it, the doctor (besides being pissed at himself for not thinking about it early) instantly knew what she was talking about.
"Used to go there as kids. It's a five minute drive from a fairly normal town, but it's also sort of in the middle of nowhere. Plenty of places to run if someone came looking, so yeah he probably did head for it. But - I mean you- you said he was injured, there's no way he would have made it there if he-"
"Will. Just give me the address."
"Yeah. Yeah okay. Just - Sargent? Bring him home. Please."
They do.
Exhausted to all hell and bleeding but they do. He made it to the cabin (place is actually really nice) to find him passed out on the floor in a pool of blood, but he had managed to stitch up the gunshot wound before he passed out, so at the very least, the team gets the assurance that if they hadn't found him, he still would've lived.
He even manages to convince his team of mother hens to drive him home, not put him on an ambulance. After being chased across state borders alone and fighting for his life, there wasn't much the team could say back when his only request was to see his brother.
"I just want to go home and see Will okay? I'll even stay at Med. No complaining."
What were they supposed to say to that?
...
Jays team is weird.
Not in their normal sense of weirdness that happens for a week or so whenever someone gets hurt, which is what Jay thought at first. Usually whenever the injured person comes back the guys are caught between being really glad they're okay and making sure they are not overbearing while making sure he stays that way. Plus, there's the waring guilt complexes that happens, but for some reason whenever it's him that's hurt, Halstead ends up doing more reassuring that he's fine and no it wasn't their fault than he does actually getting asked if he's okay.
Course when Jay gets hurt, it's never in some little stupid way like getting bruised or spraining a wrist. No it's always so fucking dramatic. Why can't, just one time, he get medical leave and be able to enjoy it? Even after Keys, getting up to get a class of water had him winded by the time he stood up from the couch. Not fair.
But this...this was extra weird with a side of mild insanity served cold. He came back for his mandatory two days of desk duty before going back to full, and for the last week, everyone's been walking on eggshells. Actually not even walking. They might as well have been tiptoeing with socked feet for how hard they've been avoiding talking about what happened. Halstead doesn't mind what happened and the Feds caught the guy trying to kill him (again) and the bounty on his head is gone (again). He can get off the couch without needing Will to pull him up (which if fucking great because the first time he tried to get up from said very squishy couch Will ended up crying he was laughing so hard, and every time after that he'd dissolve into a fit of laughter remembering it). He's been cleared for active duty.
And yet...no ones talked to Jay for more than two sentences, and when they do it's about a case.
"I don't get it." He tells his brother as he spoons lo mein into a bowl while the Hawks game plays in the background. His brother is uncharacteristically hesitant to answer, and the silence doesn't go unnoticed.
"I mean..." Will occupies himself with munching on an egg roll to try to cover the hole in the conversation. When that doesn't work he attempts to hide from Jays suspicious squint by rummaging the fridge. "I'm sure they were just worried."
"Intelligence doesn't get worried. And even if they did, they sure as fuck wouldn't show it. Not now when I'm fine."
"Are you?"
Jay glares as he shoves the container of white rice at his brother and walks towards the TV with the rest of the food.
"We've been over this. You watched Rhodes like a hawk the whole time - something neither of us appreciated by the way - and you've checked the incision yourself, it-"
"I'm not talking about that and you know it."
Jay glances at the his annoying red headed roommate.
"I'm fine." And he was. But that didn't help him figure out what Intelligence was all wrapped up about.
...
Two weeks and the team had finally started to relax. Jay was sitting at his desk, tired and ready to go home. Unfortunately Will didn't get off for another two hours, and there really was no point in going home just to go back out and get him.
He let out a sigh, slumping down in his chair to rest his head on his desk, arm serving as a pillow. The pad of paper was under his right hand and he let his eyelids fall to almost closed and he idly watched his hand doodle as it pleased.
It wasn't until his desk had filled with little sheets of random things - the house they were at today, Upton's hand on a coffee cup, Ruzek and Atwater in the locker room - did Jay realize the bullpen was dead quiet. Mind you, it's not that there's always a running conversation, but there's papers turning, keys being hit, small conversations as questions are asked and answered.
And there's none of that.
For a second he thinks he actually fell asleep at one point and everyone left - which might be true because a quick glance at the clock says he's late to get Will and he sure as hell hasn't been drawing for that long.
When he picks his head up however, Halstead is surprised to see everyone's still at their respective desks, only they look like they're trying to make it look like they've been working, and aren't going back to work.
They were watching him? Why, would they feel the need to watch him doodle like the activity was something-
Oh. Oh no.
"Remind me again why I have to get all my stuff out of evidence?"
"Because we may or may not have ransacked your apartment in hopes of finding something that would help us find you. And before you freak out, it wouldn't have been necessary had you told us of your super secret ninja contingency plan."
"That kinda defeats the point of it being secret now doesn't it."
When Dawson told him they went through his stuff he didn't think much of it. He didn't think of what that meant. it's intelligence and one of their own was threatened they would have torn open the walls if they thought it would help of course they found them they-
Jesus they didn't go through all of them did they?!
Some degree of panic must show on his face because Al calls his name as he snags his coat and phone and runs and doesn't think about what he left on his desk for everyone to see.
...
"You're late?" The statement, however accusatory it would have been, it's turned to a question at the anger Will sees on Jays face.
"You knew!" He snarls, making Maggie, who was talking to Will from the opposite side of the counter he's leaning on, raise her eyebrows and walk away. "You knew and you let me walk about like a fucking idiot-"
"Jay!" Will whisper yells, then grabs a handful of his brothers jacket and drags him out of the ED.
"Do you have any idea what-"
"They mean to you?! Yeah I do! But I didn't have a say in it and if it helped find you I would've said yes anyway."
"Are you serious?!" Will flinches as his brothers harsh yell, glancing around the parking garage nervously. "Why didn't you tell me?! That's - they're all - it's -" personal. Jay wants to finish, but the word seems too touchy-feely, too not him. His camera, his pictures are a bit deeper than personal. They're...him.
Drawing wasn't something he could do openly as a kid. If his dad saw artistic talent in the doodles on his notebook, he'd get a nice lecture on what it mean to be a real man and why boys can't do that. But he couldn't stop. He'd steal paper from the school printer just to have something to draw on, and then he'd hide them under his mattress and kept them in his locker to save them from the destruction that would occur if anyone found them.
Serving with a group of guys who easily became friends, it was near impossible to keep the secret. When Jay was bored he drew and he drew whatever he remembered in detail. So when Hollingsworth found his face drawn out on a napkin in "really weirdly good detail", the whole platoon knew in a matter of days. Their badass Lieutenant could draw better than all of them combined.
The camera came in a black case, wrapped in brown paper and tied in string, and easily cost over a thousand dollars. There was no return address. Jays still suspicious of Mouse honestly, but partially because he doesn't want to think about how he would feel if his mother scraped together the money to send it to him. There were a few other suspects, because Jays team was smart. Smart enough that whoever sent it knew he'd use the brown paper to draw on, and knew the string would be easily used in the field.
The camera was incredible. He took picture after picture, desert, plants, animals, wrecked towns and building, old rusted humvees that were left to rest after they ran over IEDs. It was incredible.
The last picture taken on that very first SIM card wasn't taken by him. Sticks had stolen his camera right before they left, and shot him in his full combat gear, with the dim light of predawn to illuminate his face.
Jay didn't touch that the camera for almost a year after that. And when he finally did, it was the start of his recovery.
Somebody, somewhere, in his drunken haze that followed his honorable discharge found his camera (it might have been Abby, who knows, Jay sure as hell doesn't remember) and recommended he take more pictures of people.
He remembers asking being angry. Being so, so angry, because that camera reminded him of everything he lost, and that person wanted him to pick it up again?! Fuck no.
He asked Why anyway. Why take pictures of people who would leave him alone, who would betray him, who he would just end up mourning. Why get close enough to care.
"Because." They had answered. "It'll help remind you that good times exist. And it'll teach you to look for them."
Halstead had taken the high road and drowned himself in whiskey for the next week. Mouse picked him up from the hospital when he had alcohol poisoning, and Jay packed up his shit and got on a plane back to Chicago with him.
When he was unpacking in their dingy apartment, he sat on the floor and looked through the pictures while sobbing his eyes out. For the first time, he looked at his pictures like they were someone else's, and only then did he understand the weird care his team had expressed for his hobby. They were a group of literal frat boys, bachelors, a group of friends that did stupid shit when no one was looking and even stupider shit when someone was. But when it came to his pictures, whenever he'd voice some tiny concern, something about maybe I really shouldn't be doing this you know it's not right for a soldier to take fucking pictures his team would be on him. Tell him that's bullshit, tell him just because his dad can't accept his son has talent doesn't mean that talent is void and if it helps you, who cares what you do besides they're fucking amazing anyway.
But they always did it in some wary tone, and whenever they heard him say that they looked pained, like it physically hurt them to here him bash his work.
He asked Mouse about it once. He said it was because they saw how bad of an influence his dad had been on him, and how much they wished they could have helped Jay change. He didn't understand it at the time. All he knew was that these pictures were taken when they were alive. And now he was looking at them, and they were dead, and all he wished was that the pictures weren't of the desert, but of his brothers.
When he joined Intelligence, there was still a very untrusting, paranoid part of his head that told him they would leave him too. Maybe quicker than the others.
So his camera made a reappearance. A lot. He bought a new SIM card, and filed it slowly - a snap shot here, a sneaked picture there. It took him over a year with intelligence.
Then Jin was killed. And Jay went haywire. His camera went everywhere - he sneaked it into his backpack, he'd put it in the nondescript black box that looked like a gun case and shove it in the back of the Escalade if they were going somewhere. He stopped waiting for opportunities to catch his team, and started searching for them, actively looking for and planning out when he could try to take shots.
It wasn't enough. He could feel his panic creeping back into his life, that voice in his head that whispered how they were going to die became louder, and his anxiety started crawling back, first taking his sleep, then moving to the day, even when he was with them. He had an anxiety attack in bathroom of Chicago Med one day after Ruzeks undercover op went bad fast. He was fine. Jay was not.
It was, rather ironically, Doctor Choi who walked in to him curled a ball underneath the sink. He didn't say much at first, just locked the door, dropped to his knees and slowly pulled the trembling Detective out from his little hidey hole. He coached him out of the attack, his breathing slowing as he let Jay slump against him.
And then he talked. Told him about the kid he couldn't save, about his best friend who was shot in front of him, of the nightmares, the impulsiveness, of the struggle to remember how he was supposed to act when he wasn't in the military.
Jay told him about the pictures. How they hurt so bad, but they helped so much, but weren't enough. He talked about the images he couldn't get, the memories he didn't want to forget but would, the ones he couldn't capture. Choi asked if he could draw.
Two weeks later, a heavy box arrived at his apartment door. Two notebooks, leather covered and bound, thick, jagged cut edges of yellowish paper. A hundred pages each. A small set of charcoal pencils came with it, along with a note that detailed the type of notebook, barcode number, and manufacturer, in case he wanted to buy more.
He didn't sleep that night. He spent eight hours pouring his heart into those pages, googling ways to cover his creations so they wouldn't smudge, sharpening the pencils and flipping pages. He drew faces, he drew scenes, he drew the empty eyes of Victims with his team standing around them. He scratched until the sun peeked through his windows and then he went to work looking like raccoon but feeling better than he had in a while (of course the team did that not so subtle worry thing when he stumbled up the steps looking like death but it made him feel better so who cares).
He ordered more books and more pencils and more SIM cards and then he dug out a space in his old military foot locker in the back of his closet and he put the empty ones below the full ones, the stubs of pencils in a black cloth, empty and full memory cards were stuck in a small case. When he was bored or angry or tired or scared or agitated to the point of a minor panic attack, he'd draw or he's doodle or he'd go for a run and then take pictures of the sunrise. He got better.
Will found his camera. He caught Jay trying to discreetly clean it behind his back while he was watching tv, and when Jay left it to go take a shower, he went through it.
Two week later Jay had to sign a delivery slip for a slew of several heavy envelopes. The next time he saw his brother he threw a right hook so hard it almost knocked Will unconscious, and then gave him the biggest hug he could manage.
Then he left, leaving the elder Halstead more confused than had ever been in his life.
The stills were amazing. So much better than looking at them on the tiny camera view screen. They were glossy and surrounded by white, and a few Jay even considered framing. He never did, but he gave one to Will as a present. Erin never knew about it, and he didn't even try to tell her. Yes he took pictures of her. No, he didn't feel comfortable enough to tell her why.
He supposed he should have taken that as a sign. He loved her, but wasn't comfortable telling her about his family, about the thing that helped him deal with PTSD, about what happened overseas. He didn't want her to judge him, to look at him different, to treat him different, and he knew she would.
He didn't trust her with it. And that wasn't entirely his fault. It wasn't hers either. But Jay needed someone who would look at him when he said he shot a kid and be proud of the man standing in front of them. He needed someone who would look him in the eye without an ounce of pity, and tell him to regret nothing.
Erin needed someone to save.
They didn't coincide, so much as being in the right place at the right time. It's why they didn't work. They only fit when they weren't thinking about it, and that's not how love works.
It's not how Jay works, anyway.
He's inherently private. He's learned that being open only gets you hurt, and when it came to his like for drawing, the only people who'd ever accepted it are dead or back in the war zone. Or his brother.
He knows Will understands what it means to him. It's why he's so angry.
"Jay, they aren't going to look at you differently-"
"They already do!" He snarls, fists clenching in a panicked urge to lash out. "They look at me like I'm some sort of freak-"
"Are you serious?!" Will yells, voice rough with anger. "They don't think that, you fucking idiot and if you stopped looking for the reaction dad used to promise you, you might notice they're scared of you!"
"You- what?!" Jay sputters, completely derailed by his brothers words. Intelligence doesn't get scared unless someone's dying, and they've only ever been scared of Voight, and Jays always tried so hard to be there for people so-
"Just listen to me okay? Stop your overthinking for two seconds, Your giving me a headache."
"I-"
"Jay." His brother sighs, gesturing to the car. "Please."
The former Ranger nods and hands over the keys.
...
"They don't hate you, they aren't mad at you, and they don't think you're a freak or that there's something wrong with you." Will says without preamble, the second the waiter leaves with their order. The older brother knows his sibling more than you'd think, and the busy restaurant with low lighting and plenty of high booths was rather perfect for keeping Jay comfortable enough to talk. Silence always makes Jays anxiety rise faster than anything else, and knowing his brother, Jay probably hasn't eaten since breakfast (he's that person that stresses so much about work that he forgets).
Jay just blinks down at his napkin, suddenly exhausted. "Then why be so - so different around me? They told me they looked through my stuff."
"Right. But they knew - well they didn't know really, but they guessed well enough that you didn't put two and two together. It isn't hard to figure out how important those pictures are to you Jay, it really isn't. They're afraid that you'll do something...bad I guess. Not like dramatically bad, nobody expects you to try and throw yourself off a roof, but they don't want you to transfer or quit or something because they saw them."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Oh."
"...yeah."
"Fuck."
"Correct." Will mutters, a small smile in his lips. "There's a reason your team has been blowing up my phone since you left."
"Literally two people on my team have your number."
"Yeah and I got a call from Al while you were in the bathroom that was way more panicked than he'll ever admit, which was followed by a few texts from your Sargent. Please never do this again by the way, Voight is terrifying."
"Wasn't on purpose." Jay mumbles sheepishly, swirling his straw around his drink. "Why'd he call you instead of me?"
Will looks at him, expression serious as he stares concerned at his brother.
"He wanted to know if you were safe. He assumed you would pick up the phone."
"He was right." Jay mutters, eyebrows lifting with happiness as they're food arrives.
"Uh huh. Eat."
"Yes mom."
"He hates me."
"He doesn't hate you."
"Yeah okay but like here's the thing - he does."
"He definitely doesn't hate you. Just stop acting weird around him."
"How would you know?!" Ruzek exclaims, mouth full of bagel as he stares at Will and Alvin incredulously. Jay walks around the corner of the bullpen, walking past Ruzek to toss his keys to Will.
"Maybe because he's my brother?" He asks, seamlessly stepping into and then out of the conversation as he walks into Voights office.
"Hey."
The Sargent picks his head up from the case file he was engrossed in. Surprise flits across his face followed by a little moment of concern.
"You're still here? I thought you left when I told you too." The words are scolding, but there's warmth behind them. Jay smiles sheepishly, eyes tired and shoulders slumped.
Not even five hours after Jay's revelation (realization? Panicking over nothing? Whatever you call it, it resulted in a panicked run from the bullpen that was noticed by everyone and made the next morning ten times more awkward) and the team had a high profile case dropped in their laps that's ended with two people dead and a killer in the wind. They would have had him - or Jay would have, if he hadn't gotten thrown into a two inch thick table and hit his head on the corner.
Yeah, that got Voights heart pumping, rounding the corner of a room to find his detective unconscious in a heap. He'd kept his voice soft to wake him up, and then proceeded to yell at him for taking on a murdering psychopath by himself.
It'd been a rough day.
"I- well you said go home and lay down and I thought you'd shoot me if I drove myself home, so I made Will take the train and I passed out on the couch for the last hour or so."
Hank nods his head with a smirk, slightly satisfied that the kid was learning at least a few self preservation skills. And that he attempted to listen to him.
First time for everything.
"Anyway, I'm assuming that-"
"You come in tomorrow and I'll handcuff you to a desk and call an ambulance to have you admitted to the hospital? Yes. Someone other than Will is going to clear you before you walk back in here."
"I can do desk duty!" Hank raises an eyebrow.
"When have you ever been able to stay at your desk during restricted duty. Name one time."
Jay blinks and glances away, offering a small smile in return.
"Touché." He mutters, and turns to leave.
"Hey kid." The younger man stops and turn around again, blinking in confusion. The Sargent isn't looking to see it though, and is instead rifling through one of his desk drawers. He pulls out something that makes Jays hands go numb.
Luckily, Voight seems to feel just as awkward about it as Halstead. He puts the still on his desk, sliding it forward a little so Jay can see it. He doesn't need to. He already knew which one it was, because he spent two hours flipping through every picture he had printed out.
Only five were missing.
One of the team standing in their raid gear, laughing. One of Ruzek and Atwater. One of Gabby and Antonio, and one of Erin.
And the one of him. The singular four by six of Jay in Afghanistan was gone. That, more than anything else, stung.
"I, uh." Voight rubs at his chin in a distinctly nervous gesture. "I know I didn't ask when I grabbed it, but I'm asking now. And I understand if-"
"Keep it." Halstead voice comes out stronger than he thought it would, considering how shaky he feels. "She's not mine anymore. Don't think she ever was." Voight makes a noncommittal hum, then slides the picture back into his desk.
"If it makes you feel any better, you weren't the first. She's...she doesn't quite understand it. That whole love thing. That's what Camille told me after her first breakup when she was in my house."
It doesn't make Jay feel better. But he can't say that, can't think of what he could say, or what he should say, so he just nods and eyes the floor wondering how the Sergeant who was ready to through him out of the unit is now trying to help him grieve the loss of love.
Eventually he raises his head, rapidly blinking as he struggles to control the bowling ball situated on his neck.
"Who has it." Is what he says, and if he wasn't concussion and exhausted, then it probably never would have been asked. As it was, it wasn't a conscious decision to let the words slip through his uncooperative lips.
Luckily, Voight seems to know exactly what he's talking about.
"Alvin."
Jay nods and the knot of anger in his chest loosens. Of all the people on his team, he thinks maybe Olinski is the only one with a right to hold that picture.
"Go home kid." Hanks says, gentle in a way that is almost an oxymoron for the man.
Halstead nods once more, and leaves.
...
Things gradually get less awkward. In the weeks that follow Jay stops being as secretive when he doodles, and the team stops being as obvious about watching him. They go back to joking with each other and the random pauses in conversation dissipate. They move on or get used to it or both, and Jay assumes it's over and he can get back to his life. Nobody ever asks him to draw something for them, no one asks if he can shoot at an event, and Halstead is forever grateful, because it saves him from having to say no. He can almost pretend it didn't happen, that they never found out.
Almost.
Sometimes he'll catch them watching, a glance out of the corner of their eye, a not so subtle gaze leveled in him as he draws. Mostly it's when he's tired and he's stressed, and his mind slips just enough to stop caring that he's in the bullpen and to start sketching with one of his shitty ballpoint pens. But he'll look realize what he's doing and look up, or he'll glance around for a second and see people turning their heads away, see amusement or affection cross their faces as they do. Or at least, as close to affection as intelligence can get.
Still. Jay can pretend it everything's fine.
Until-
Until December rolls around. And he's really not paying attention to the holidays except to find the best White Elephant gift since he already got Alvin a damn fine bottle of scotch (he got him for his secret santa and ha was that the easiest gift he's ever bought), and to squeeze some idea of a gift out of Will, who's still arguing with him to see their dad (fuck that, Jay wants to enjoy his Christmas thank you very much).
Which means he's not paying attention to the whispers in the bullpen, and he doesn't notice that everyone's talking, but they aren't talking to him.
Well they are, but mostly because they want him to make his "Christmas crack" again, which he agrees to after some light bribery and then spends an entire Saturday in the kitchen making his homemade peppermint bark, which gets literally fought over by everyone he knows (and he means that literally too, because the dessert goes to the people at Med and Firehouse Fifty One and there's a large tin that sits in the break room of the district and requires refilling multiple times).
Nevertheless, one of Chicago's finest detectives manages to be completely oblivious to what his team is planning even as they do so right under his nose. So it's with genuine surprise that after all the gifts are swapped and exchanged and fought for (Alvin didn't even finish opening his before grinning like he rarely does and giving Jay a hug, because he knew damn well Halstead is the only person who knows what hundred dollar bottle of alcohol is his favorite) that he finds the black box on his desk. There's no bow or ribbon or card or anything on the outside that might clue him in, but considering the lack of wrapping paper he can safety assume is from someone on the team. Or maybe from the whole team, if the way they all mysteriously disappeared the second he saw it is any clue.
He hesitates to open it. Instinct tells him whatever is inside is important and serious and personal and that doesn't belong in the bullpen. So he slips the box into his old black backpack he got from the army when he enlisted and packs the rest of his things like nothing happened.
He knows he's in trouble when the team reverts back to barely concealed nervousness the second he does. It makes the car ride home a tense drive with what feels like a stampede of elephants in his stomach. In a way he wants to slap himself, it's just a present, no big deal no need to be this worked up- this excited.
He takes his time coming into the house. Unpacks his stuff, leaves the box on the coffee table while he does a load of laundry and takes a shower. Maybe a half hour later he manages to steel himself, and pads back into the living room in flannel pjs and his favorite sweatshirt, plugging in the lights on the christmas tree before planting himself on the carpet and pulling the box into his lap.
'Really' he thinks. 'I've had guns to my head, been blown up, and almost fallen to my death. Opening a fucking present shouldn't be this hard.'
He refuses to acknowledge his rise in heart rate, and instead ops for just ripping the top off the box.
He relaxes once he sees a white envelope over black tissue paper. Feeling like an idiot he pops open the envelope, assuming it's only an article of clothing in the box.
"Hey man, we're sorry about the way things went down with your pictures and stuff. None of us wanted to pry, and we certainly didn't want to make you feel like it was wrong or anything, to do that.
What we aren't sorry about, it that we found out."
Jays heart climbs back up into his throat as he reads Adams slanted scrawl.
"Your pictures are incredible - and that came straight from Voight, so you know it's truth. I know we didn't ask to take some of them, and you totally have a right to be mad about that. It was an intrusion, and it was wrong, but in all honesty, I don't think you'll get them back.
None of us have told anyone - and we won't. If someone asks who took the pictures, we'll make something up, don't you worry. We aren't the best police unit in Chicago for nothing."
A small burst of near hysterical laughter falls past Jays lips, and only then does he realize there's tears going down his face.
He doesn't know why. Really he doesn't. He doesn't until he reads the last sentence of the letter, until his eyes skim over all the signatures on the plain white card stock.
"All that said, we found your collection to be...pretty sparse of a certain aspect of our team, and that was just unexceptable, so we thought we might help you liven it up a bit."
And that was it. Some of the signatures had little notes, one definitely from Adam reads please don't hate me, another says merry Christmas which is definitely from Upton bc she's the only person who has managed to discover his love for the holiday.
He unfolds the tissue paper with shaking hands. Slowly, gently, like they were made of glass, he lifts the stack of full glosses, and sets then on the table. The box is sent flying across the room when he hits it off the table and with the calmest breathing pattern he can manage, he slowly looks at each one.
They are not of the team. Well they are, but they aren't. Every photo that his fingers touch, every full size, shiny, good quality photo paper printed still, is of him.
In the bullpen, smirking over a cup of coffee. Laughing with Adam. Looking badass in his tac gear, copying the bored posture of Hayley just to annoy her. Him a lump of black clothes on the couch from that time he was sick as dog but couldn't go home because of a hit that was out on Intelligence. Atwater in the middle of protesting Jay while he rags on him, a shot of him and Alvin heads bent together to go over a new breach pattern. Him in perfect form outside a doorway, ready to breach. Him and Hank, him and Antonio and Upton, all of it Jay, Jay, Jay.
Honestly he couldn't stop crying if he tried.
It's exactly how Will finds him, when he walks in two hours later, pizza in hand and a chipper mood for once.
"Hey Jay do you wanna watch-" His voice fades away as he takes in his brothers still form, pictures scattered over the table and floor.
A set of keys clatters loudly to the floor, having missed the small table by merely an inch.
"Look." Jay chokes out, oblivious to Wills stricken face. "Look what-" He hiccups, too tired to care about the tear tracks on his face, too tired to see that will is silently freaking out behind him. "Look what they did for me." He breathes, carefully shifting a few pictures with the tips of his fingers.
"Well damn." Will says weakly. "Guess I'll have to get you something different for Christmas."
Jay sputters out a laugh, and Will sinks to the floor next to his brother.
"Is this okay?" He asks, hesitant even as Jay nods. This has never been an area Will excelled in, if anything he's fallen short to many times when it came to being there for his brother. He pauses.
"Are you okay?"
Jay, who has a hand pressed to his mouth as he stares at the many pictures still on the table, slowly shakes his head.
"No." He chokes. "No but-" he stops to take a breath and pick up the only photo that isn't the normal size for a still, the only one that's not in a white border.
"-but this definitely helps." He whispers, staring at the picture older than the rest, the one taken over ten years ago in a desert during the calm before the storm.
Will wraps an arm around his little brothers shoulders, and Jay lets him. He stays there, whispering small reassurances as Jay sobs into his shoulder, finally feeling all the pain and all the grief that he's been pushing down for months. He lets him, because he knows it needs to happen for Jay to move on, and now, maybe with this, intelligence will be able to help him.
"You're going to be okay." Will murmurs into his brothers hair, later when Jay is nearly asleep, half curled into his brothers side. "I'm going to make sure of it."
Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed. Unfortunately it seems I've sort of lost my motivation to write for CPD, even though I still sort of watch the show. I do have a lot of unfinished fics, and if I decide I'm done with the fandom then I will post them up for adoption.
Thanks so much for reading!
~blue