Hi, so here is another story from me and again I am back to this wonderful fandom! I hope that you enjoy this story, I have it planned in two parts, this is part one which is Season 1 to Season 4 and then next part will be Season 5 to the first part of Season 9 both of it covers Jay and Hank and their relationship over time. Jay and Hank and their relationship is eternally fascinating to me especially as it does seem sometimes as if they are father in son so this little story was born.
In terms of the character of Antonio one of the things I always thought was odd was Erin's apathy when it came to Hank being in prison and Antonio's roll in it. Considering the relationship between Erin and Hank and the police's code of conduct that we saw with Kevin in Season 8 I did always wonder how Erin managed to work with Antonio after he helped bring Voight down. With Jay in the mix I hopefully begin to explore this.
I do have have another Chicago PD story that is to be published and continued alongside this one, by all means check that out.
Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine.
Also this chapter will not be cannon for dialogue or events, some episodes will be missed as time progresses and there will be some flashbacks to when Jay was a kid. I have tried to keep all dates as accurate as I can based on what Jay is approximately when Season 1 starts.
This story does deal with underage drinking, substance abuses, suicidal intentions, child neglect and abuse and other such triggers so please keep that in mind. There is going to be some underage sex and a fair bit of swearing as well.
Spelling and grammar are not my strongest point either. So any inaccuracies I do apologise for-again, something to keep in mind.
Please Read and Review and let me know what you think.
And on a side note, I like so many other Fanfiction Authors no longer receive notifications via email about reviews/PMs etc. So if you do send any it might be a while, if ever before I get back to you. Please keep that in mind for it is not intentional-If anyone has a fix please let me know.
And here you are. I hope you enjoy this chapter and the beginning of this story.
Born Under A Bad Sign.
'If Erin was born into bad news as she used to say, then Jay was born under a bad sign and before Hank Voight, they were both royally screwed'. An AU world in which alongside Erin, Jay too is taken in by Voight. Seasons 1-4.
Chapter 1-I Protest Against Any Absolute Conviction
At fifteen Jay Halstead's life is pretty grim, his Mom is dead, his Dad's an abusive drunk, his brother has escaped to New York and all he wants to do is drink this bottle of vodka and go off the bridge to the sweet oblivion of death—problem is some cop won't let him do that.
1st January 2000.
At fifteen Jay Halstead's life is pretty grim, his Mom is dead, his Dad's an abusive drunk, his brother has escaped to New York and all he wants to do is drink this bottle of vodka and go off the bridge to the sweet oblivion of death.
If Will was here now he would say that was overdramatic and he would also tell him that to drink this much vodka and be sitting on a bridge in downtown Chicago as the century turns is both stupid, dangerous and idiotic.
But Will is not here. Will has gone to New York on some fancy scholarship that got him out of the house as soon as he could. And the second that Will was gone shit hit the fan because whatever you think of Will (and Jay's thought a lot over the years) he was the one who kept the peace and the drink locked.
Will was three years older than him nearly four and when he got his scholarship he went, the option was open for Jay to go with him to New York over summer, Christmas etc but it didn't feel…like home. New York was loud, it was toxic and though Chicago was hardly the city of perpetual peace he'd been in New York three days too long to know that he was not going to be able to live there.
So he had come back, lied to Will—to be fair Will had lied to him—and then it was all over. The problem was Pat and he tended to kill each other when they were sober and then definitely when his father was drunk. The loss of his mother had not helped that deteriorating relationship one bit either. Now it was…well…Jay was sitting on a bridge wasn't he?
The drinking had started for both of them in earnest when he had turned fifteen. That had been when they had both given up any attempt to hide the fact that they were both drinking in the day to keep up with each other. Then the beatings had come. It wasn't entirely Jay's fault, getting booze even from Pat's friends in the block who would sell to him for sympathy was not easy even if he went for the vodka and Pat went for the whiskey.
It wasn't that Jay couldn't cope as much, with his father he tended to now just walk away but this time had been something different. He had known that his school was concerned. Jay was a smart pragmatist when he was both sober and when he was drunk and he knew well enough to know that when he was at school he was causing trouble. It was just…so easy to fight in that place. And then he would go home and clean up the bottles, make sure Pat hadn't choked on his own vomit and then he opened his own bottle of vodka and went to town. It wasn't a stupid assumption to know that come January he was going to have to face CPS and wellness checks and probes from every nosy bureaucrat the CPD had.
Fuck em.
And…Ben…carefully he didn't want to think about Ben. If he had been drinking before he had found that body of his girlfriend's little brother then he had hit the bottle massively since. Not that Pat had cared. Pat hadn't even known who Ben was. And when things had broken off between Jay and Ben's sister (understandable) then it was just easy to get drunk to keep the nightmares from totally destroying him. At least drunk he didn't have to see Ben's body burned behind his eyelids or see the smug smile of Lennie Rodiger as he was walked out of that courtroom by his disgusting father who made him want to give Pat a hug. The whole thing made him contemplate murder except…no vodka in jail.
And so now he was here. The first day of a new millennium, sat on a bridge and contemplating ending his own life. How very fucking poetic.
The funny thing was—he didn't even think Pat would notice he was gone. Pat didn't drink vodka so it wasn't even like he would miss the booze. It was on of the reasons why he had not left a note. After all why bother?
At least the vodka kept him warm. At least he could her in the distance normal people enjoying their normal life. The old and the new, the beginning and the end and everything in between.
Fuck he was really drunk if he was thinking like this.
But the truth was that Jay Halstead didn't want to keep doing this anymore. He was too tired and too drunk and it was almost too easy to slip and—
"Hey kid you alright?"
Such was the shock that it permeated the dull noise that he nearly did slip off the bridge. As it was he managed to catch himself, his cold fingers scrambling on the metal edge but the bottle of vodka that only did have a quarter left in it fell out of his fingers and fell into the darkness that was the Chicago river in January.
Jay watched it fall and heard the splash from a long way away and he thought it might have penetrated the dim vodka induced haze that had been his life for the past two years since his Mom had died. Suddenly things were coming back, like sound…and cold.
He shifted a little to see through the haze of booze that was making his stomach turn in ways that he knew from bitter, bitter experience was going to end in a deeply unpleasant way.
There was definitely a guy there. He hadn't imagined it.
That was the first thing that Jay noticed. The second thing was the sheer power that he seemed to have. There was nobody else around to see it but he seemed to radiate a power of control that Jay had never seen before. The third thing was that he was smiling and the smile was way to calm to be for anything good. Then again…Jay was the one sat on top of the bridge on New Year's Day so what did he know?
"Fine" he said thought it came out slurry.
Shit.
"Well you don't look fine kid. You look drunk"
"Way to state the fucking obvious" Jay muttered.
"Can I help you down?"
"No" he said shaking his head. "I don't want to come down. I had a plan for how tonight was gonna go man, you being here just ruins it"
"Aha. And what plan did you have tonight kid"
Jay didn't answer that. What was the point? He wasn't hiding anything was he?
"You wanna talk about it"
"About what? You wanna talk me down? There isn't anything you can talk me down from. My life…I can't…."
And suddenly he was talking though he didn't know if it was the booze, the reality of what he was doing or the strange magical power that this guy seemed to have that made Jay…Jay…the most cynical fifteen year old in the world (or certainly in the state of Chicago) began to talk.
"My mom is dead, my Dad's a drunk, my brother's gone and I am sat here and…and nobody cares. So…"
"I care"
Jay turned to look at him and this time he got a look at the badge on his hip.
Oh fucking fantastic. That was just all he needed.
A cop.
"You're a cop. Your paid to care"
The problem was with a cop here now there was a very good chance that he was not going to leave which meant all the care in the world that Jay had put into this plan (which was admittedly not much) had gone to shit.
"Well…look can I come and sit next to you, if your not coming down. Names Hank kid and I just wanna talk, you wanna jump you can jump but can we at least talk about it"
"You got a smoke with you?"
"No. Horrible habit"
"My brother's a med student I know about cancer. Ironically it was cervical that got my mother but…"
"I meant it's a bitch to get the smell out of the carpet. My wife can tell a mile off"
Jay huffed a laugh. He couldn't help himself.
"Alright" he said grudgingly. "Free country I suppose. But I ain't coming off this bridge"
Hank…if that was his real name…climbed onto the bridge next to him. He managed to sit in a way that Jay knew meant he was going to grab him If he jumped. Fucking fantastic.
"So, what's your name then kid?"
"Jay" Jay said finally.
"That your real name Jay?"
"Course it's my fucking real name, why wouldn't it be?"
Hank laughed. "You'd be amazed how many people I see on these bridges that don't give their full names"
"Huh"
"So…you get drunk often?"
"I'm only sober when I sleep, Dad too. It's just…since Mom it's…it's easier to deal with him drunk"
"Aha. That where you got the black eye from?"
Shit. Jay had forgotten about that one. That had been a few days ago and he knew it was healing over but was still glaringly obvious.
"Just didn't duck in time I guess" he said lamely. God he wanted a drink.
"That's rough"
Jay huffed he wanted to take his hand off the edge of the bridge and wipe his face but considering he was now feeling very, very drunk he thought that would be a very bad idea.
"Yeah well…life's supposed be rough."
"Not all the time, not like that. There is never an excuse for a parent to hit their child. My son drives me mad all the time and I wouldn't…hell I would rather cut my own arm off than hit him"
Jay didn't know what to make of that. He was pretty sure that there was no way in hell that his father would think that way of him. Or Will come to think of it.
"So that's why you're here?"
"I don't…I don't know what else to do" Jay said finally. "I thought about leaving but what would be the point. It's not like there's anywhere else to go or anywhere else but down for me. May as well go out on my own terms. Better than going home trust me"
"Seems like a waste of all your potential to me"
"What potential? Seriously Hank when you look at me what do you see? Trust me I was born under a bad sign and I will die under a bad sign."
That was Pat's favourite saying for him—when he was sober anyway when he was drunk he just preferred to call Jay an ungrateful bastard.
It was meant to be a rhetorical question. He had never expected Hank to answer.
"I see a person who shouldn't go to waste that's what."
Shit. He could feel tears coming now.
"Just go" he said utterly defeated. "Please just…just let me do this"
"No" Hank said just as softly. "I aint gonna leave you Jay."
It was that that tipped him over the edge but Hank kept talking as if he didn't see him crying and that was helpful if nothing else. At least it gave Jay time to try and take his hand off the bridge and wipe his face. It had been a long time since someone had said they were going to stay with him. That he was someone who was worth sticking with.
"Besides…" Hank said carrying on as if nothing had happened. "The fall aint gonna kill you"
"Sure It will"
"No it won't. First thing they teach you in the academy kid is that the fall more times out of not doesn't kill you. You'll hit that icy water like a tone of bricks, assuming you don't hit a patch of ice you'll break both your legs on impact and then you'll slowly drown. So if your looking for a nice clean death then it's not going to happen. You'll spend your last moments panicking and choking on cold water and considering the fact that you are so drunk it's a miracle you've not fallen off by accident I'm guessing you might vomit to. Not the nicest way to be remembered"
Jay stared at him through hazy and narrowed eyes. He was not entirely sure just how true it was, what Hank was saying. There was an element of he was a cop trying to get a kid off a bridge and yet there was an undercurrent of truth to it that made him want to listen. That was…odd…Jay had never considered that something or someone would come along and make him want to live.
"I don't want to go home" he said finally. "I can't go home. If I go home one of us is dead and I'm pretty sure it's me. And don't talk about foster homes or what not cause that ain't gonna work for me I don't—"
"You wanna come home with me?"
What the fuck?
Something like that must have shown on his face because Hank rolled his eyes.
"I already have a foster kid at home genius. And my son, and my wife, and this isn't going to be permendant, but I can offer you a bed for the night and coffee in the morning when your hangover takes you by storm, and the optimistic view that this will all be better in the morning but I can also promise you that I will never, ever hit you."
It wasn't perfect, Jay knew it wasn't perfect and he was streatwise enough to know that every instinct in his body should be screaming against this whatever this was but he couldn't. He was tired, he was drunk and he was desperate to get his head down and get some sleep. Maybe Hank was right and this would all be better in the morning.
Or maybe that was the dreams of a very drunk kid.
"I…I don't know…I don't know how to…"
He didn't know how to say it, how to stop doing what? Drinking? Screaming into his fists every night when he sees Ben's body? Hating his father, his brother and himself? What the hell can he stop?
But when Hank speaks his voice is oddly gentle and Jay thinks for the first time since he's met him he understands exactly what Jay is thinking and how screwed up his mind, his life and his body is.
"You just get off the bridge Jay. You get of the bridge and you let someone else worry about you for a change"
And though he doesn't know how on earth he actually does it, he gets of the bridge.
The problem is as soon as he does it he stumbles and promptly pukes.
And by pukes he means…pukes.
Hank gives a long sign but when he speaks he doesn't sound mad. Pat would put him back on the bridge and then just push him off—after kicking the shit out of him.
"You know I thought when I got my gold shield I wouldn't have to deal with any of this shit anymore."
"Sorry" Jay says weakly. "Born under a bad sign remember"
Hank just laughs.
"Nah kid, your not. Now you sure you got it all out?"
Jay nods. There is the sound of singing in the distance.
"Come on then" Hank says pushing him towards the car. "Let's grab some coffee—and you give me some warning if your gonna puke again, I got this car off a drug cartel hit and the last thing I want is the genuine leather upholstery ruined"
Jay said nothing. He just followed.
And the rest so they say, is history.
8th January 2014
Something was buzzing him near the small of his ribs and Jay Halstead opened his eyes wincing.
Not bad all things considering. He had gone out for a drink the night before with Erin and not gotten completely pissed out of his skull. With Erin who that the liver of Russian sailor that was saying something. Also Jay was still not entirely sure if he should be trusted with the booze. Over the years it had been a struggle to walk the fine line between completely pissed, sober and getting smashed on very special occasions.
This hangover was a coffee and a painkiller kind of manageable.
Good.
His phone was still buzzing. He found it winced at the amount of charge and put it to his ear.
"Halstead?"
"Correct me if I'm wrong Jay but weren't you supposed to be in half an hour ago?"
Shit. Jay hazarded a look at the clock and winced again.
"Sorry Hank"
"You know when I took both you and Erin in on this unit a lot of people thought it was favouritism"
"No they didn't, they thought it was favouritism when you brought Al in. When you brought that snake Dawson in they and everyone else thought it was insanity"
"Jay. I have told you once—"
"Hey don't blame it on me, blame it on Erin, girl's looking for an excuse to slash his tires"
"I'm amazed she didn't do it when I was inside."
Jay refrained his comments with intense concentration and routed around until he found his boxers. Truth was…well…the truth was better left unsaid in these instances, Erin tended to walk the line between career advancement and career suicide these days.
His foster father gave a long sign over the phone.
"You okay?"
That was Voight code for are you pissed. Jay knew the signals by now.
"Sober as a judge Hank"
Which was not entirely true but by the time that he got to the 21st he would be and that was the truth.
"Okay. Get your backside into work will you. This unit's still all over the show. Show of strength is what's needed"
"Yeah Hank, on my way."
"And It's—"
"Jesus I know it's Seargent when we work together okay?"
His foster father laughed shortly and then hung up the phone.
Jay let it drop to the bedcovers and ran a hand through his hair. As much as he wanted to sink down into the warmth of his bed and sleep for another week he knew he couldn't. He actually couldn't put it past Hank to show up to get him personally.
He hadn't meant to go out drinking last night but it was either that or stalk Lennie again and Erin knew it. Christmas and New Year were a bitch for Ben's mom and dad and to be honest…for him it was hardly a sparkling time. Fourteen years and seven days ago he had been on a bridge prepared to jump—he reckoned Hank knew that as well.
Jay sometimes didn't know weather to love him, learn from him or fear him.
Erin on the other hand had never had to question it.
He got dressed and dragged his ass to the district stopping on the way for a warm bear claw and coffee.
Erin fresh as a daisy eyed him from the desk.
"Mean" she said staring at him. "Where's mine"
Jay just licked his fingers in response. "Coffee, please"
There was the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs and the moment was over. They had a case to work, a job to do and though Jay didn't know it, like the night he had sat on that bridge and thought he was ready to end it, his life was once again going to get rocked and the Intelligence Unit was going to be forever changed, again.
And there you go, I hope you like it and I will do my best to bring you the next chapter sooner rather than later.
Next Chapter-In 2000, Jay wakes up to a new world, a new family and something that might be a new opportunity. Years later Intelligence finally comes together as a unit as they suffer a loss and try to rescue Antonio's son.