Summer would have to be Erin's favourite season. The gentle breeze cooling down her super heated body, the fan directed at her damp face. It makes her face glow, just a little bit. The TV is on, merely for background noise as they both work on packing their bags. Getting leave from Voight is like getting ice from Satan, but somehow he's approved both of their requests for a week's leave. Jay said it was probably to test their replacements without making it awkward in the bullpen.
Erin told him not to be stupid; she, at least, was irreplaceable.
He'd agreed. Although Voight had signed off on them being together in his unit, that wouldn't fly with the commander much longer. Everyone at the precinct knew they were together, and they'd both overheard enough locker room talk gossip to know they were constantly going through the rumour mill. Neither of them cared too much about the gossip, but she knew a line would be drawn in the sand eventually, and one of them would have to transfer out of Intelligence.
They both knew that it would be easier for him to find a new home – she was widely known as Voight's girl, and Voight's shadow didn't seem to linger over Jay as much as it did Erin.
So she'd given in to his constant hinting, and agreed to a week's trip to the cabin, where she would watch him chop wood and fish and whatever the hell it was he did in Wisconsin. She was packing a pile of the bestsellers that she'd missed over the past year – all the books she'd picked up while they were out shopping and placed on their bookshelf, knowing they likely wouldn't be picked up again. But now she was looking at some reading time.
She'd been happy to see Jay drop a paperback into his own bag, taking that as a sign they would be reading while they were on their little getaway. So she'd packed four books of her own. Hopefully that would be enough to hold off boredom, but she was sure that they could find something to do if the ennui became overpowering.
But it was summer, her favourite season. There was only joy in catching some rays, and breathing in all that fresh air. She'd enjoy being in the big outdoors – being able to see the stars and hearing nature. It was important to do that before they were facing another Chicago winter, stealing the breath from their lungs and wrapping them in its' cold embrace.
They couldn't enjoy summer in the condo, not really. There was no natural breeze, just what the fans created. The cabin was a cheap option, which was good because they'd agreed to focus on paying off the condo. Lavish holidays were currently off the menu, even when the A/C in the condo only worked half the time.
Digging through her wardrobe, she finds a skirt – a cream and brown item that was a few seasons out of date – with its tags still attached. It was summer, and she wanted to feel light and free, and a skirt could help with that. Throwing it into the case, she adds in a couple of Jay's t-shirts to wear as nightwear, knowing that it drove him crazy. Both in the good and bad sense.
Zipping up her case, she carries it over to the door where Jay's holdall, which had taken the man less than ten minutes to pack, sat waiting impatiently.
Hearing the shower turn off, Erin heads back into the bedroom to find Jay emerge with a towel wrapped around his hips. One of the other perks she enjoyed about summer was that Jay didn't seem to have any problem wandering around their place in only a pair of shorts, or if he was being modest – his jeans. There was something to be said for that view. Although it often became a distraction, so it wasn't a great view for productivity.
She allows herself to drift off to the dream of the future she likes to build on, where she and Jay are stable and living in peace. Where their jobs aren't a constant source of drama, and they don't have to fight Voight or the system.
In her picture of the future, she imagines they have two young kids, a young boy with her brown hair, stubbornness and tenacity, a little man who doesn't like being told what to do, and does everything in his own time. Following him around, adoring her older brother is a little blonde girl, freckles all over her face. Patient and caring, she'd also have a backbone of steel. A little girl that would allow Erin to revisit her own childhood, and maybe manage to experience a bit of the girlhood that she was deprived of by Bunny.
They head down to the cabin as a family, the kids arguing and needing to go to the toilet every half an hour, much to Jay's annoyance. She'd teach them how to make pizzas and cookies from scratch, and they would watch her with love and affection, and follow her out on her daily walk. They beg her to read them a bedtime story before bed. She watches Jay take them both out to teach them how to fish, or survive in the wilderness, or whatever it is he likes to do at the cabin.
Her family would pile back inside, and sit around the kitchen table and start playing a very heated and competitive game of monopoly. And she or their son always win, if only because Jay and little girl Halstead both understand that not everyone can take defeat gracefully.
Pulling out her phone, she searches the internet for an easy pizza recipe. She has no idea how to make a pizza, but she was pretty sure Jay would be a willing taste-tester until their children come around. She couldn't wait to make pizza with them through future summers.
Yeah, summer was definitely her favourite season of the year.
Jay lifts up the edge of the blanket that he had tucked under his thigh, inviting Erin to get warm under the blanket with him. Some of the colder air of the apartment sneaks in with her and he feels goose bumps appear on his skin before Erin's body heat starts to warm him up.
He's two episodes into the first season of Orange is the New Black, after she'd spent the last week raving about how good the show was. She'd watched the first season while she'd been home sick, recovering from a flu that she'd tried to work through until it developed into pneumonia, and Dr. Manning had benched her with a phone call to Voight. The doctor was smart, she knew that Lindsay would play down how sick she was so she could return to work.
But she'd gone back, only to have Jay get sick two days after her return. He refused to call it man flu, which was what Erin had decided he had – after all she had worked through it. He liked to accuse her of giving it to him, but he thought it could have actually come from the dip he took in the river after a young suspect had jumped it, thinking that as he was the star of his school's swim team he could out pace any of the cops chasing him.
He'd been wrong, but now Jay was sick. He figured they were even.
She wraps one of her arms around his back as he pulls her closer to his side. "You better not get me sick."
"I wouldn't dare get you sick." He pokes her in the side. "I'm not as generous as you."
"Don't get too close to me then." He says but doesn't follow his suggestion, instead leaning back against Jay, stealing some of his body warmth and pulling her feet up onto the couch and under the cream blanket. "This is nice though. And makes me feel better."
Erin tilts her head back to look at her boyfriend, smiling as he leans down to give her a kiss laced with influenza.
'You're gross."
"And you're pretty." Jay tries on his sauciest smile and rubs his hand up and down her thigh a couple of times, just making sure she's aware that even though he is currently dying if she expresses any interest in a little action, he will turn Lazarus and come back from the dead, no problem.
"Not going to happen, buster." Erin laughs, stopping the hand rubbing at her thigh with her own, but pressing a kiss to Jay's shoulder to show that there were no hard feelings here.
Jay's sure winter is his favourite time of the year, it meant they could cuddle up on the couch and spend time together, close. For people who weren't very touchy feely it gave them an excuse to get closer.
Erin pauses the TV and turns around to lay her cheek on his chest. "You better get better soon. I'm going crazy at work."
"You miss me?" He asks with a cheeky grin.
"Of course. I'm having to listen to Atwater and Ruzek brag about all the perps they've been taking down because you're not there racing them to the arrest." She kisses his chest. "At least you don't brag."
Jay laughs, his laughter breaking down into a hacking cough. "I'll remember to slacken off the pace for the next couple of weeks, just so they can keep the limelight."
"Please don't. When it's you or Antonio, it's better. You guys don't brag. As much."
"That's 'cause we already know how awesome we are and don't need to prove it anymore."
She slaps his chest. "Hilarious. But in all seriousness, I need you back at work."
He smiles, words from her heart, hitting his own. Leaning down he gives her another kiss, this one on the back of the head. "Workin' on it, babe."
Pressing play on the TV remote, he falls back into the world of a women's prison, blocking out the snow falling outside and the frigid cold that would attack him if he was to go outside. He can't block out Erin's breathing, her body rising and falling slightly on his own, or the smell of her shampoo, or the way she's wearing one of his hoodies, again, like it's her own.
Winter is his favourite time of the year.
A/N: Welcome to my new multichapter that's not really a multichapter. I find myself writing a lot of short scenes and have decided to post them here in a collection, using various words as prompts. If you want a certain scenario or scene, feel free to throw prompts at me either in a PM or in a review, but I can't guarantee that I will write everything that is suggested.
I will be trying to keep this below the M rating, but it might (read: most likely) hit at least that at some stage. I will warn at the beginning of any scene of any rating changes or trigger warnings.