Title: Scenes
Author: ZombieJazz
Fandom: Chicago PD
Disclaimer: I don't own them. Chicago PD and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The character of Ethan has been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.
Summary: A collection of one-shots/scenes using the characters as represented in the AU established in Interesting Dynamics. The chapters currently represent scenes happening immediately after So This is Christmas. As I continue to update, they'll just provide one-shot snap shots into the characters' lives and likely some recasts of scenes from the show. This series focuses on Voight and his family, as well as Erin Lindsay's growing relationship with Jay Halstead. This is not a linear narrative with a beginning-middle-end. It's just scenes.
SPOILER ALERT: There are MAJOR spoilers in this collection from Interesting Dynamics and So This is Christmas.
THIS CHAPTER IS SET AFTER WHAT IS CURRENTLY CHAPTER 47 - COMPROMISING POSITIONS - in the story.
Erin sighed as Jay blocked the doorway to his apartment – beer in hand and staring at her blank faced and wordlessly.
"Can I come in?" she asked.
He just shrugged but stepped to the side – revealing that he wasn't alone in front of the hockey game on the television. Mouse was sitting on the couch with a beer too – gazing toward the doorway.
"Oh …" she started and stopped before she was more than two steps into the apartment.
Things were clearly in a worse spot than she'd thought if Mouse was there. As little as Jay told her about his and Mouse's history – their past, their backstory, their friendship, their time in Afghanistan – she knew enough to know he was his key confidant. Jay told Mouse things he didn't tell anyone else. Talked to him about things that he wouldn't anyone else. Her included. Mouse knew more about him than she did. Maybe he knew more about him than Jay would ever let her know.
"Ah …" Mouse stuttered and fumbled to get to his feet. "I should go."
Erin nodded. An acknowledgement. A thank you. But Jay spun and looked at his friend.
"You don't have to go," he stated firmly – and Mouse sputtered again. This time in place, as he tried to figure out if he should follow his own instincts or if he should listen to Jay. Some unstated bro code. He looked even more awkward and unsure than usual.
Erin crossed her arms a bit and glared at Jay – not Mouse. It wasn't his fault.
"Umm … yeah, he does, Jay," she put to him firmly.
He looked at her and shook his head. "No, he doesn't. We're watching the game."
"We need to talk," she stressed at him even more pointedly.
But Jay just shrugged and took a tug of his beer, eyeing her as he did. "Didn't want to talk the other night. Didn't want to talk today. And I don't think I'm ready to talk tonight either."
She just eyed him back and allowed her own little shrug as she shook her head ever so slightly. "Fine," she allowed. "I'll talk. You can just listen."
Jay kept staring at her. There was a harshness to it. But it was more of an emptiness. A coldness that had less to do with anger and something buried so much deeper than she didn't even know if she was ready to fully explore it yet. So maybe it was fine if he wasn't ready to talk yet. Let him listen. He was usually good at that. But when he was usually listening his eyes looked different than the ones he was giving her right then too.
"I'm gonna go," Mouse stumbled again and pressed by them in there stand-off. Jay didn't even acknowledgement the statement. Didn't move a muscle as Mouse retrieved his coat and awkwardly tried to pull on his boots and laces as quickly as possible – ultimately scooting out the door with them untied. He wasn't that brain damaged. He knew when to duck and run – quick.
"Can we sit down?" Erin put to him as the door pulled shut behind them. But Jay just shrugged. Still not moving. So she just pushed past him. "I'm about to tell you some things that I haven't every told anyone before – so maybe you can stop it with that look and show me the guy I agreed to marry," she muttered as she went.
She heard him sigh behind her as she got herself established on his couch. She hated his couch. It was too small for anything. And it was going to be too small for this too. She would've preferred to sit farther way from him than the few feet that existed when he finally did come over and sit on the opposite end, his arm resting over the back of it as he gazed at her. She was seeing more of Jay's eyes then – the ones she loved – then that glassy stare that had been glaring at her in the doorway.
"You want a drink?" he offered.
"Yes," she said but shook her head, reaching and running her hand through her hair – drawing it away from her face, though part of her just wanted to hide under it as much as possible. "But no," she said.
She didn't need liquid courage. She'd probably drank enough of it in the couple fingers of whiskey Hank had given her. She shouldn't have more. That'd just numb her. And as much as she wanted – liked to be – numb during this kind of talk. She knew she couldn't be. Shouldn't be. Not this time. Not with Jay.
She sighed and gazed at where her own fingers were playing against the smooth leather on the back cushion too.
"I just need you to let me talk for a bit. Right now - I don't want it to be a conversation or twenty questions. Just let me tell you. Get it out and then …" she shook her head and let out another sigh, "we'll see."
"OK …" Jay allowed carefully.
She kept flicking at the leather on the couch. Gazing at her fingers while they made the movement. Feeling his eyes resting on her.
"Look …," she finally managed. "I really don't know what you need to hear or want to hear because I think we both know exactly what happened and where my hang ups come from."
She sighed and forced herself to look at him. The intensity of his look had changed. She had his full attention. His focus. But the scrutiny of it still made her uncomfortable. It always did. As much as she knew Jay cared about her – loved her – he often made her feel like she was living under a microscope. And a big part of her really hated that.
"I don't think it's that unique of a story," she told him.
Because it wasn't. It was a sad reality for too many street kids. For girls. Growing up in broken homes and with junkie parents and strange men in and out of the house – who were just as out of their minds as the parents. Foster care and running from DCFS to avoid it – the system. Somehow staying in the fucked up mess – the septic rat hole that you'd come to think of as home … as normal – always seemed like a better option than ending up in the system. From being taken away from the people you knew as your parents and thought of as your family. Even if part of that little kid in you (that had never really gotten to truly be a little kid) knew that the situation you were living in was wrong. It still seemed safer and better than the unknown and all it held. All you heard about.
So you did what you had to survive. You lived in the 'normal' that had been established in your life. And that wasn't a unique story.
The things that made her story unique was the ending – or the middle or whatever this was.
It was unique in that she got out. She got a home and a family and a safe place.
She wasn't dead. She wasn't a junkie. She wasn't a prostitute. She didn't have a bunch of pale, gaunt, strung out kids of her own being put through the same sort of bullshit that she'd gone through. That endless cycle of neglect and abuse. Maltreatment.
Her escaping that. Being rescued from it. That was unique. A miracle in itself.
The beginning. That wasn't unique.
She had childhood friends with the same story. They encountered people living the alternate middle – or that same beginning – on at least a monthly basis with work. On patrol - it was more like daily.
It was just the way it was. There wasn't anything particularly special about it. And it wasn't a beginning that she thought she needed to fill a lot of blanks in.
Jay had grown up in the city too. He was a cop. He'd walked a beat. He'd seen it. He knew how it was. He didn't need to be told. But that's what he wanted. Apparently he needed her to say it. And as much as she hated that – she would. Because not saying it – now – seemed to carry other outcomes that she hated just as much (if not more) than continuing to put off this conversation.
"It started out as my spending time with a guy who was a bit older than me. I guess I was twelve. Abouts, maybe," she allowed. "Ethan's age."
And that scared her. Sometimes she found herself thinking about it all – again – now that there was a little boy in her life. Because he was that – a little boy. And that's all she'd been too. A little girl. A kid. But it'd never really felt like that at the time. She hadn't ever really been allowed to be that. And when she looked at Ethan and saw just how little he was. How innocent and naïve he still was despite things he'd been through and things he'd seen and experienced and had to do himself. And it made her sad for the little girl she was – but couldn't remember. And it made her worry about him. When he said things about "Netflix parties" and "Rainbow parties" and his little crushes and his definition and confusion around things like sex and blowjobs and relationships. Because she didn't want him to be confused or hurt. Or worse – to become one of those slightly older boys that were the gateway to her introduction to using her body and selling herself. And pieces of her soul and self-esteem and self-image along with it.
"He wasn't that much older," she clarified. "Grade Eight. Fourteen? But we'd hang out at his house. A group of us. The neighborhood middle school kids. His parents. They weren't much better than mine. They weren't there. And even if they were – they weren't. So we'd drink. We'd party. There'd be junk around. His parents were too out of it to know what we took. And they were going to smack him and his brothers around anyways whether it was one of them who took it or not.
"The guys. They figured out pretty quick that they could put clauses on what the girls would do to get access to what was in the house." She shrugged. "Making out. Hand jobs. It became oral sex. But it was 'just' oral sex. Everyone treated it like it wasn't a big deal. The thing was that since it wasn't a big deal – it wasn't a big deal if you were doing it for more than your boyfriend. Because it wasn't sex, right?"
She shook her head as she said it. She wished she could go back and talk to that little girl. To change that trajectory. To explain to her what was actually going on. How it'd really make her feel. What it'd mean for her perspective on herself and men and sex and relationships. But time travel wasn't reality and she tended to operate in the real world. As shitty as it was.
She sighed and looked away from Jay because she didn't want to see his face – his eyes – when she explained the evolution of middle schoolers doing shitty things – that they didn't even fully understand – to something much darker. Loss of innocence to real loss of innocence. First fucked up sexual experiences to something much more insidious.
"Doing it for friends. Other kids around my age. Turned into doing it for his brother. But they all seemed OK with it and his brother – he could get junk for my mom. And getting it for Bunny that way meant there was more money around for things like food, heat and hydro. And that didn't seem like a bad thing either." She looked up and shrugged at him – and those sad eyes that just seemed to seep a pity that she wasn't sure she could handle. "But then I figured out that it wasn't just drugs that doing it could get me. That it could get me money. And that seemed like a better thing to be bringing home than more dope for my mom."
She looked away from him again – gazing at the couch cushion between them – because she really couldn't handle looking at those eyes. She didn't like what she was seeing there. But then she felt his hand resting on top of hers over the back over the couch and she moved her eyes to stare at it. He wasn't holding it. It was just there. Draped over hers.
Erin let her eyes slowly shift to his again. Though, she knew hers were betraying some of her own sadness. Emotions and memories she didn't like dabbling in.
"I didn't like it, Jay," she put to him a little more shakily than she would've liked. "I never liked it. But my childhood was fucked up. And there's a lot of things that I did that I regret. Or I wish hadn't happened. But when you're a kid in a situation like that – it's about survival. And that's all it was about for me. And I was lucky in that … physically … I didn't ever get too hurt or pick up some STI. Taken advantage of – yes. But mostly unscathed – beyond being pretty embarrassed and rather ashamed about it. And, yea, it had … has … implications on the how I see myself. How I see relationships. How I've treated sex in the past. And, honestly, if you hadn't seen the solicitation charge in my file – it's not likely something I ever would've told you. At least not in this way. Because it's not really something I want you thinking about when you look at me or when I touch you or when you touch me. And it's not something I really want to be thinking about when I'm with you either. And when there's a dick in my face, Jay, it's something that I'm going to end up thinking about." She sighed and shook her head. "But if this is something that's that much of a hang-up for you – and our relationship or sex life or whatever – then I trust you-"
"Stop," Jay sighed and shook his own head, squeezing her hand tightly.
"I do," she pushed at him. "And if it's that important to you … or us … then I can figure out how to deal with going down on you. We'd need some ground rules," she said as he held her hand tighter. "I really wouldn't want you touching my head."
"Erin …" he sighed harder and gripped tighter at her hand – like he was trying to pull her closer to him but she didn't budge. So he scooted forward – closer to her, closing the gap and invading her limited space in a way she wasn't sure she wanted right then. "It was never about the blowjobs," he said firmly.
She shrugged, looking away – back at the even smaller space between them on the couch. "I know …" she allowed.
"You don't talk to me," he pressed.
But she shook her head and looked at him. "That's not true," she pressed at him, pulling her hand out of his and setting it over top instead. He gazed at her questioningly but she could see his eyes – his changed breathing pattern – already protesting her statement, her movement. "Jay, you are always putting me in positions to push me toward talking about myself. My past. To 'get in front of things'. You make me vulnerable and then you take advantage of that vulnerability."
"Erin—" he protested though somewhat weakly. She could hear the acknowledgement in his voice.
"It's true," she said. "It's not just this … fight. You've done it in other conversations. You do it in the bedroom."
He pulled his hand out from under hers at that and snaked it into his lap. He just looked at her. He didn't protest. There was just a sadness there. Now not so much directed at her – but his own unspoken sadness that he still wasn't going to talk to her about.
She sighed and gazed at her own legs for a moment. How they were tucked under her on the couch. She was planted in the spot – not positioned to bolt. Maybe that said something. She looked back at him.
"I didn't like at the start how you like all the eye contact when we're having sex, Jay," she put to him. "I really hated it. It was hard for me. Because it made it actually about us. You. Me. Not just the sex. And that's not how I treated sex before. But then I started to like it. Because being with you that way – actually seeing you and looking at you and being there in the moment with another person – made me feel really wanted and cared about. And that's not something sex had ever been for me either. So I do look at you now, Jay. But the longer I'm with you – the more I see of you. And I know the open eyes – the eye contact – it's not about me. I'm not sure it ever was—"
"Erin—"
But she shook her head again to try to stop him. "It's about you, Jay," she put at him. "And it's about control. And it's just another way of putting me in a vulnerable position."
"That's not what I'm trying to do," he pressed at her.
She shrugged. "But it's what you're doing. It's how you're making me feel. And, Jay, I get it. I like to be in control during sex too. I don't like always being the one on my back. Being dominated."
Jay made a sound and scrubbed at his face and glared at her. "I make love to you," he near hissed. "You're making it sound like I …" he shook his head with some disgust. "I don't even want to think about what you're saying. Because I'm not that guy. I'm not."
She nodded. "You aren't that guy," she agreed. "But I do look at you, Jay. I do see your face and your eyes. And it's not all about me. Or making love. Or being in the moment. And, Jay, I've been through enough and I think I'm an astute enough detective that I know what's really behind eyes like that. I can fill in my own blanks."
He shrugged at her. "Then I guess we don't need to talk about it."
She shrugged back at him. "I guess we could go that route. But that tells me a lot about you too, Jay. And it's another side I don't like to see. Because, in case you haven't noticed, I really like you. I love you. You treat me a way I like being treated. You give me my space and support me. And I feel safe with you. If I didn't – we wouldn't be talking about this. You're the longest I've been in a real relationship. You're probably the only real relationship I've ever had. You're definitely the most normal. But the longer I'm with you the more I feel like I don't know this man I'm supposed to be marrying. And it's even more frustrating when there's people around me – your brother, Mouse, even Hank … who know more about you than me. And you won't tell me anything. Even when I know your upset – when I try to support you, to be there for you like you are for me – you give me breadcrumbs, Jay. If even that."
"You know me better than Hank," he put flatly.
She let out a little noise and gave him a sad smile. "Maybe," she allowed. "But not because you've told me anything."
"There's nothing to know," he put to her.
She frowned and shook her head at him. "I do know you well enough to know I don't believe that."
"We aren't talking about this," he said firmly – pointing a finger at her to emphasize his point.
Erin nodded but reached and took the hand he'd moved away from her. "OK," she allowed. "But I just told you things that I haven't told anyone before. And I just expressed a willingness to work on things that will be really hard for me – because I trust you and I care about you. And I want to make you feel the way you make me feel. So I really need you to give me something right now, Jay."
He shrugged at her and tried to move his hand but she wouldn't let him – gripping on it tightly to the point she knew her fingers were pressing into his skin in a way that was going to leave white marks when she did let out.
"I don't know what you want me to say," he muttered, glaring down at their hands.
"Yeah, you do," she told him.
His eyes moved to drill into hers. "You want me to lie to you so you can feel better about what happened to you."
Erin shook her head. "I want you to talk to me – to tell me the truth – so you can feel better about what happened to you."
He yanked his hand away firmly at that – yanking her arm with it before he managed to slip out of her grip. "There's nothing to talk about – because nothing happened. I like missionary. I like blowjobs. I prefer to be with a woman who can actually look at me and not jam shut her eyes like she's just letting me use her as some sort of orifice and wants it over with as quickly as possible. And, I don't feel the need to fuck your brains out and be some sort of jackhammer. That's normal – not abnormal."
She let out a slow breath and looked down again. Their knees were touching. Barely. But funny that they were – because they felt so far apart.
"This normal is actually feeling pretty fucked up, Jay," she said under her breath.
"You feeling that way says more about you and your sexual history and preferences than mine," he provided flatly.
She looked up to catch his icy eyes again. But it wasn't just that blank look that he let set over himself. That deadness that she hated seeing flash in him. There was a teary emotion to it that she could see in his slight tremor he was trying desperately to hide. She put her hand on his knee. He didn't jerk away, though it felt like he thought about it for a moment. But the tension in his muscles was near humming under her fingers.
"Something you have said is that you're jealous of Hank—"
"I don't want to talk about Hank," he spat at her.
She just kept his eyes and ignored the interruption. "Of the family he made for himself. The kind of husband and father he was. Is. One of the things that got him those things was one rule, Jay. 'In our house, we trust each other.' So in my family – we told the truth. The good. Bad. Ugly. Illegal. But the truth. And it let us trust each other. To be a family. And – that's going to be what my household is going to look like, Jay. It's how I'm going to raise my kids. And it's what I'm going to expect – demand – of my husband. I'm not going to marry a man who doesn't trust me. Who doesn't tell me the truth. Who can't even talk to me."
"So you're breaking the engagement?" he put to her flatly – not even blinking when he said it.
So she shook her head and reached to unclip the necklace that was holding the ring around her neck – close to her heart but away from the real place it belonged. She gazed at the ring on the chain for a long moment before slipping it off and carefully placing it on her finger – a place it hadn't been since Christmas Day. She looked back to him to see him eyeing the gold and diamonds as well.
"I know you well enough to know you're better than that. That those things – that family – it's what you want too. So I'm going to give you some time to get in front of this," she said and watched his eyes. "And, if you can't, Jay. If you won't. It's you who's going to break this engagement – not me."
She could see the glassy emotion in his eyes – their rimming red – as he shook in his attempts to stay stony.
She gave him a thin smile and reached to squeeze his hand again, and then leaned forward to cup his cheek and place a small peek on his jaw line. She looked into his eyes as she inched away.
"I'd like to get the chance to be the one who makes love to you, babe," she told him gently.
His eyes flickered a little. The emotion even less hidden for that split second. So she stroked at his cheek with her thumb.
"Bet you wish you never brought up McDonald's fries," she offered in a quiet tease with a little smile.
He returned it – pulling ever so slightly at the corners of his mouth, just enough to turn his etched frown into thin-lined lips. "I didn't say that," he told her.
She gave him a bit firmer smile – however sad it might be – and sat back to look at him for a moment. To give him another second to decide if he was going to talk. But he wasn't. And Erin just nodded, pushing herself off the couch.
"We'll talk later …" she told him, giving him another small look.
"Yea …" he nodded.
She gave him a sad look. She'd wanted more. It hurt a bit. Maybe more than a bit. But less than before.
"Night …" she provided and headed for the door. Slowly pulling it open and shutting it behind her. She hoped it was only the door she was shutting.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Three chapters were added yesterday. They're still the three ahead of this one. They haven't yet been reordered. Please check them out. Reviews and feedback are always appreciated.
