A/N: CW: Both Jay and Mouse are dealing with PTSD stemming from their time in the military in this fic. It includes prescription drug abuse, excessive drinking, flashbacks, eating disorders, mental health issues, and depression.

Mouse's phone ringing on his nightstand pulled him out of a dead sleep and scared the shit out of him. Rolling over and grabbing it off his nightstand, he squinted against the brightness of the screen and tried to focus his eyes well enough to read who it was. Finally, with one eye squeezed shut and the other eye barely open, he could tell it was a Chicago number.

"'Lo?" He answered, kicking off the sheets tangled around his legs. He caught sight of the clock and saw that it was nearly half past one in the morning. He could already guess what the call was going to be about.

"Uh, hey. Is this, uhm, Mouse?" The man on the other end of the line asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, that's me," he replied, hearing music and other people talking in the background. "You calling about Jay?"

"Uh, hold on. Hey, man, what was your name again?" The guy asked in a slightly muffled voice. Mouse heard Jay answer him and he rolled out of bed, searching for his pants. "Yeah, Jay Halstead. Look man, it's almost last call and your buddy needs to head home, but he can't tell me an address to send him in a taxi."

"I'll come get him. What's the address?" Mouse grabbed a pen and wrote the street address the man gave him down. "Yeah, I know the street. Give me ten minutes to get there."

The address for the bar was only a few blocks away, so Mouse grabbed his coat from the rack by the door, then headed out into the cold night.

This had become something of a routine over the last several months. Most nights he was not asleep yet when Jay called, given that most nights he did not sleep. Other nights, Mouse went looking for Jay at his usual haunts if he was not home by one o'clock or so, too antsy to stay in their apartment when sleep was clawing at him and he could feel nightmares looming and did not want to be alone. A rare few times, he went out with Jay and they both stumbled back home, wasted and laughing, arms slung around each other because they were both pretty good at propping each other up even when they were not in the best shape themselves.

With the collar of his coat pulled up high to block the wind, he trudged down the street with his hand shoved in his pockets. The bar, he realized once he got there, was a dive that he and Jay had been to a couple of times before and was not hard to find. Once inside, Jay was not hard to find either since the place was mostly empty and he was talking to the only bartender. He was a bit surprised by Jay's busted lip and black eye though. Usually, bartenders mentioned if he had been fighting.

"Mouse! That's him." Jay told the bartender with an easy grin as he sagged against the bar, voice slurring.

"He close out his tab already?" Mouse asked the bartender, gripping Jay's shoulder to hold him in place on the barstool.

"Yeah, I cut him off before I called you," the bartender told him. "He came in here with that busted lip and black eye. Not sure where he got it."

"Thanks." Mouse tipped him a twenty and steered Jay out of the bar. "Let's go, buddy."

"Where we goin'? Jay asked, sagging against him as they walked, struggling to remain upright.

"Home," Mouse reminded him, knowing he would probably ask again before they made it to their building.

He directed Jay along until he abruptly lurched toward the brick wall of a corner grocery and threw up all over it and his shoes. Hoping the building did not have cameras because he actually stopped by once or twice a week for a sandwich and chips on his way to work, Mouse hefted Jay back up and pulled his arm over his shoulder, doing more work than Jay as he propelled them both down the sidewalk while ignoring the spikes of pain shooting up and down his spine. They were only half a block away and he really hoped Jay did not make him fireman carry him up the stairs again because it killed his back, which really should not still be hurting after six months according to his doctor. He always wanted to ask the doctor if he had ever been blown-up before and, if so, was six months enough time for him to recover. Instead, he kept quiet and listened to the guy talk about residual effects of trauma and stress-management. Still got his prescription refilled though and that was all that mattered.

It took a lot longer than it should have for them to get to their building and up a single flight of stairs, but, eventually, Mouse got the door unlocked despite Jay's own fumbling attempt to use his keys and made Jay take his vomit-covered shoes off at the door. That would be a problem to clean up tomorrow.

"Alright, Halstead, let me see that ugly mug," he told him as Jay fell onto the couch. Jay flopped around until his face was turned toward him even if the rest of his body was still twisted the other way. Mouse grabbed him by the chin to steady his face before he could roll away. His lip had mostly stopped bleeding, but the black eye looked worse in the brighter light of the apartment. "How'd you get that?"

"Some asshole sucker punched me at th' first place I went," Jay mumbled. "He thought I was flirtin' with his girl."

Since they returned from their last deployment after receiving medical discharges about half a year ago, both had to figure out how to deal with the triggers and the nightmares. Jay spent most nights drinking, smoking, fighting, and trying to screw his way through Chicago. Mouse had his own ways to cope and he was not sure who was more self-destructive in the end.

"Were you?" Mouse asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Jay smirked. "Turn'd out he wasn't as dumb as he looked."

Mouse snorted and let Jay's face go with a pat his cheek. "Improved the view."

Jay swatted at him, still grinning. "Still better lookin' than you."

"Says you." Mouse tossed the throw blanket over Jay. "You got work tomorrow? Gimme your phone to set an alarm."

"Nuh. Day off." Jay burrowed face down into the couch, smearing blood across the cushion.

"Stop getting blood on the furniture, Halstead," Mouse told him as he walked into the kitchen area of their tiny apartment. He grabbed a glass from their kitchenette and filled it with water, then went to their shared bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet to look for pain relievers for the headache Jay was going to have in the morning. His eyes caught on the four orange bottles on the top shelf.

He and Jay had both been prescribed some heavy duty pain medicine for the multiple broken bones and injuries they had when they came back from Afghanistan and sleeping pills for the nightmares and insomnia that kept them both up more nights than either wanted to admit. While Mouse's bottles were nearing empty, Jay's were still mostly full. He knew Halstead did not like taking them because he preferred different methods of dealing with things, but Mouse was not sure what he was going to do when his prescription ran out. The doctor said he was not renewing it again. Jay had not even refilled his.

He was still contemplating the pill bottles when Jay whined at him from the couch.

"Mouse…Mouse," Jay slurred as he waved a hand in Mouse's direction over the back of the couch to get his attention. "Mouse."

"Yes?" Mouse finally said, taking the Tylenol, slamming the medicine cabinet closed, and going back into the living room.

Jay moaned pittifully in response and said, "You remember when I-when I ate that bad meat because we ran outta food because th' transports couldn't get through when we were outside the wire, then we had that-then we had that fire fight an' I had t' set up my rifle on th' roof of that, I think it was an abandoned house, who the fuck knows, but remember between ev- 'scuse me, between every shot, I was puking my guts out?"

"Yeah, you were so dehydrated by the next night that I thought you were going to die. You started hallucinating." Mouse shuddered at the memory. Jay had been really good at hiding how bad he felt until he had almost collapsed during a raid and finally admitted to Mouse that he was sick. Mouse had gone along with Jay's idea not to tell their medic because he had played it off as a minor stomach bug. When he started talking to his mom, who had died the summer before, Mouse had realized it was a lot more serious.

"Right. That is th' only time I've felt worse than I do right now." Jay poked the back of the couch with his finger for emphasis. Mouse would have believed him if he had not witnessed the result of a two day bender that left Jay unable to get out of bed for a few days the month before.

"A miracle considering how drunk you still are," Mouse told him, laughing even though he no longer saw humor in seeing his normally buttoned-up friend wasted. The first couple of times seeing Jay let loose had been amusing, but they were well past a couple of times now.

Jay laughed too and rolled over so that he was looking up at the ceiling fan. "It's all a damn miracle. You an' me. We're miracles."

Mouse agreed. Out of everyone they were with when the convoy they were in was attacked, he and Jay were probably the two to make it out most intact and that was an absolute miracle. That was not a conversation he wanted to have with drunk Jay though.

"You gonna puke again?" Mouse asked, kicking their trash can closer to the couch just in case.

"Nah, I'm good. I'm good," Jay reassured him, his eyes falling closed.

"All right. How about a glass of water then? Sit up," Mouse ordered, setting the glass of water and pill bottle on the coffee table so that he could catch Jay by the upper arm.

"Nuh-uh can't drink th' water." Jay shook his head and pushed away Mouse's arm as he tried to pull Jay up.

"Why not?" Mouse asked, still trying to haul Jay semi-upright and half managing it.

"It's tainted. They poisoned it, remember? Can't drink it," Jay told him, suddenly serious, clamping his hand around Mouse's wrist.

"We're in Chicago, Jay," Mouse reminded him gently, taking a sip of the water himself before holding it out to Jay. "The water is just fine."

Jay skeptically took the glass and sipped it, then screwed up his face and asked, "When th' hell'd we get t' Chicago?"

"Almost six months ago."

"Nah." Jay curled his lip at the revelation and sloshed half the water in the glass onto his shirt, the couch, and the floor.

"Yep. Got a nice cozy two bed/one bath for twice the price I would have paid in Cinci and everything." Mouse had balked at the price, but between the cyber gig he had now and Jay's security job, plus their pension checks from the Army, they could afford this place with plenty to spare. Better than living on his own back in Cincinatti.

"Said I'd never go back t' Chicago. My brother- You know Will? He left an' he went t'New York and then Africa. An' my mom's gone. Just my dad now an' he hates me. 'M not allowed t' go home cause we got inna fight at th' funeral. So I don't think we're in Chicago. We gotta be somewhere else," Jay mused with a hiccup. Slowly, he slid back down until he was on his side and with his head and neck pressed awkwardly against the armrest. Mouse took the half-full glass of water before Jay spilled more of it.

"You figure out where that is and I'm going back to bed," Mouse told him, stretching out his stiffening back. He made sure the bottle of pain relievers and glass of water were where Jay would see it on the coffee table when he woke up. "Holler if you need anything."

He went back to the bathroom to brush his teeth again because he felt gross trying to go to bed otherwise. Getting his toothbrush and toothpaste out of the medicine cabinet, he was again faced with the four prescription bottles. He could get through one night without them, surely. Replacing the toothpaste, he all but slammed the door shut and was confronted with his own reflection. He had not gotten around to getting a haircut in awhile because he did not see the point when all he really did was go to work and occasionally go out to a bar with Jay. His days of being a 'man about town' were far over. He did not have the energy or desire anymore to put in the effort it took to go out. It was not just his lank hair. His whole face had a more gaunt appearance and his cheekbones showed a little more than they used to. Despite all of Jay's attempts to get him to eat more, even going so far as to cook some of Mouse's favorite meals - which was most of the time a disaster because Jay did not know the first thing about cooking - food seemed unessential most days. Eating just ended up being something extra he had to do. And sleep-

Well, he could not remember the last time he got a full night's sleep. Neither of them probably could.

Spitting out the toothpaste foam and washing his mouth out, he put his toothbrush back in the cabinet and closed the door again before he was tempted to take the bottle off the shelf. He had already taken one earlier, he told himself, he should still be able to feel its effects with the dosage he was on. Determined not to give in, he walked out of the bathroom, leaving the light on in case Jay got up in the middle of the night.

"Mouse?" Jay called out, raising his head up to look at him.

"Yeah?" Mouse paused in the doorway to his room and looked back at Jay.

Jay frowned at him and he wondered if Jay was even coherent enough to see the signs of exhaustion that he saw when he looked in the mirror. "You're doin' alright, yeah?"

"I'm fine, Jay," Mouse lied, thinking there was no point in worrying him right now.

"Tha's good," Jay slurred, dropping his head back down and pressing his face into the cushion. "I'm fine, too."

"I can tell," Mouse snorted.

Jay laughed. "Love you, man."

"Love you too, brother," Mouse replied.

He went to his room, kicked off his jeans, and crawled into bed. After several attempts at finding a decent position to fall asleep that did not aggravate his back, he finally drifted off.

Two hours later he woke with a shout, sitting bolt upright and scanning around the room for the men from his nightmare while cool sweat made the sheet cling to his skin and his breath came in ragged gulps.

"I'm not there. I'm not there. Not there," he mumbled to himself, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, hoping to push the images from his nightmares right out of them. "They aren't here."

Still breathing harshly, he flipped back and kicked the sheets until they no longer clung to his legs and stared up at the ceiling fan. Even laying flat, pain radiated dully down his spine. He could see shadows moving out of the corner of his eyes, but he knew they were not real. It was the lack of sleep making him see things. He just needed to focus on fully waking up and they would go away.

There was just enough light coming through his open door to tell him the bathroom light was on, which meant Jay was still asleep. He should probably get up and check on him.

Heaving himself out of bed, he groaned when his feet hit the cold floor, but, at the same time, it was a welcome feeling. No cold wood floors in their encampments in Afghanistan.

Shuffling on sleep-heavy feet, he made his way to the living room and found Jay was still curled up on the couch. He stared at his friend for a long moment, waiting to see the blanket around his chest rise and fall.

For a few startling seconds, it did not.

His brain started supplying worst case scenarios. What if he had hit his head? Was that more blood on the pillow or the pattern? Was he too cold? Were his lips a little blue or was that the light?

His heart beat two pounding, aching thumps in his chest before Jay sucked in a breath and released it with a snore. Mouse sagged in relief and rubbed a hand over his face. Now that he was upright, it felt like nails were being driven into his lower back and spine. Exhaustion pulled at him. His head felt wooly and his eyes almost felt like they were vibrating in his skull every time he focused on something for more than a few seconds.

"I need sleep," he told himself. He knew the answer was right there in the bathroom medicine cabinet. It was just that he knew there was a point coming sooner rather than later that taking a few pills would not be an option. Popping pain pills could not be the only way he slept for more than two or three hours at a time. But he was so exhausted. And his back felt like it was one tight knot. "Screw it."

He stomped into the bathroom, yanked open the medicine cabinet, grabbed his pill bottles, then went back to his room.

It was late morning before Mouse roused himself out of bed. The smell of coffee brought him to their common room. Their apartment was so small that it was all one room, just the minimum necessities needed to make up a kitchenette off to one side and an open space between that area and the front door to form their living room.

Jay, black eye standing out on his pale, freckled face, sat in their one recliner watching the morning news. He grunted when he saw Mouse and tossed a thumb over his shoulder to a bag from the donut shop across the street sitting on the counter.

"You're a peach, Halstead." Mouse retrieved the bag and plopped down onto the couch. Removing the crumpled wax paper on top of the donuts, he found three of his favorite maple-glazed at the bottom. He shoved one into his mouth and chewed, laying his head back against the arm of the couch and idly listening to the weatherman talk about the cold front that would be coming through later in the week. Half a donut in, he realized he was not even hungry and dropped the rest back into the bag with the others. "How you feeling this morning?"

Jay snorted, then winced and screwed his eyes shut. "Like death."

Mouse smirked at him. "You look it."

Muting the TV, Jay swirled the coffee in his cup around, frowning down into it. Finally, he said, "Listen, man, next time, just leave my drunk ass there. Maybe I'll learn my lesson."

"I've drug you out of worse places than a bar." Mouse shrugged, leaning over and pawing at the corner of the remote sitting on their coffee table until he could grab it and turn the volume back up on the TV. He wished he had just left it off because they had moved on from the weather and were now covering the war. Both of them watched with sickened expressions as a journalist reported on a mass casualty incident from a suicide bomber that happened the day before near Kabul. Mouse knew Jay's head was in the same place his was. That kid couldn't have been more than six or seven. "You think we know anybody there?"

"Odds are, yeah," Jay said, voice tight. Abruptly, he stood, went over to their kitchen sink, and poured out his coffee. He loudly washed the mug, making enough noise to drown out whatever the reporter said next. "I'm going to go work this hangover off at the gym. Want to come?"

"Nah," Mouse shook his head. He could never figure out how Jay got the energy to go to the gym after being out all night and with a hangover from Hell. "I think I'm going back to bed."

Jay messed up Mouse's already untidy hair as he passed on his way out and picked up his gym bag and keys from the rack by the door.

"I'll bring back lunch," he said over his shoulder as he left.

"You don't have to do that!" Mouse called after him, knowing it was useless.

Three hours later, Jay returned and the door closing woke Mouse up. He was surprised to find himself still on the couch because he did not remember falling asleep in the first place. And was even more surprised that he woke up feeling half-way decent for once. The smell of burgers wafted through and a bag landed on his chest as Jay passed. It smelled good. A styrofoam cup was shoved into his face and he took that too, taking a sip and finding it was a chocolate shake.

Jay tossed another bag onto the coffee table beside the bag of donuts Mouse had left there that morning, saying, "I'm going to shower. You should eat yours while it's hot."

As much as Mouse did not want to be rude, his stomach was growling. He couldn't remember what he had eaten in the last day other than that half of a donut from earlier. Maybe lunch the day before. "You sure?"

"Definitely. Eat." Jay said as he disappeared into the bathroom.

The burger tasted like the best thing Mouse had eaten since the steak he had the minute they were back stateside. Even the fries were good.

Jay emerged from the bathroom dressed in clean clothes and running a towel over his hair just as Mouse finished inhaling the last of his fries. "Jeez, man, did you breathe?"

Mouse shrugged. "It was good."

Jay did not say anything, but looked pleased and fished his own burger out of the other bag just as his cell phone started to ring. Answering the call, he wedged the phone between his shoulder and his ear and snagged the edge of his bag, offering it to Mouse and mouthing Want my fries?

Mouse shook his head and took a gulp of his milkshake. Jay wandered toward their window as he talked to whoever was on the line and climbed out onto the fire escape.

When he did not come back after Mouse finished his milkshake, he went to see why. Neither of them got many phone calls. Mouse was not that close with his parents and Jay only talked to his brother every once in a while.

He was not prepared to find Jay sitting knees to elbows on the steps outside, cell phone clasped between his hands and pressed hard to his forehead.

All of the food Mouse had just eaten threatened to come back up.

"Who was it?" He asked.

Jay lowered his hands and Mouse could see the tears spilling out of his green eyes.

"Jay?" Mouse pushed, throat tightening. "Who was it?"

"High Roller," he choked out. "He was-...it-"

He pressed a hand to his mouth and looked away from Mouse shaking his head. Mouse stood frozen with his upper body sticking out the window, hands gripping the sill. As he watched Jay curl further in on himself, his other hand coming up to cover the back of his head like it was going to protect him, Mouse's brain started to supply image after image of what Roller's last moments probably looked like. The guy was probably making a bet on something because he always was and he was probably laughing too because he could find a passing cloud funny and then-

The funeral was held in Vegas two weeks later because that was where Henry "High Roller" Hall was from and that was how long it took to transport him back. Both of them were able to go and spend a few days there after because Jay's boss was the understanding type and gave him the time off and Mouse's was not and fired him the week before because he could not focus on anything.

The service was hard. Just putting on the uniform in his hotel room before they went to the church was hard.

After it was over, Dominguez convinced them to go out on the Strip with him, Lutz, and McSweeney.

"You know that's how High Roller would really want to be sent off," he told them. "We'll play a round of poker for him and then spend our winnings on that vodka he liked."

"I'm down," Jay said, then turned to him. "Mouse?"

"Yeah, let's do it," Mouse agreed.

The poker game went about as they expected it would. High Roller had always wiped the floor with everyone but Jay. He claimed it was because Jay was too cool-headed about everything and he could not get a read on him. Mouse thought it was just because Jay was better at spotting tells, even from someone who hid theirs as well as Roller did. Jay's towers of chips doubled while everyone else's shrank considerably before Lutz threw in the towel and suggested they end the game with at least one of them still up and head to the bar.

"What are you two doing now anyway?" Lutz asked, picking at the label on his beer.

"Jay's doing security and I'm between jobs," Mouse told him, pushing his own beer back. It tasted off. So had dinner, but he had eaten because Jay kept watching him with that worried look on his face.

"I feel you," Dominguez said. "Took me forever to find a job once we got back. Just nothing seemed to stick, you know? Anyway, I'm in construction now. It's not kicking in doors, but I guess it's alright."

"Lutz, you still with that girl? What was her name?" Jay asked from where he sat with his beer loosely held in one hand and his other arm draped across McSweeney's shoulders. Mouse shot him a grateful look, thankful for the change in subject. Jay winked at him and downed his beer. He knew it was a sore spot for Mouse. Three jobs in six months was a pretty shitty track record when Jay had been able to hold down his security job since he had been medically cleared to work five months ago.

Lutz's face broke out in a grin. "Lila. Yeah. She's pregnant. It's a boy. We're going to get married once he's here. She wants this big wedding, you know."

"Congrats, man. That's great," Mouse thumped him on the shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah, thanks." He grinned, but bowed his head and fell silent.

Jay exchanged a confused glance with Mouse, then nudged Lutz's arm and asked, "Hey, what's up?"

Lutz sniffed and rubbed the edge of the table where there was a chip in the wood. "Roller was going to be my best man. And the baby's godfather. I just told him about the kid when he got a call through last week and-"

Mouse bit his lip and swallowed the knot in his throat. Lutz and Hall had been as connected at the hip as he and Jay were. Lutz's commitment contract had been up a year before Hall's and Hall wanted to go on one last tour. It was the first time in four tours that one of them had gone without the other. Mouse knew if Jay had gone back and not made it home, he would be in a lot worse shape than Lutz was.

"I'm just really going to miss him, you know?" Lutz finished, his voice thick with emotion. "I should have been there."

Dominguez slung an arm over Lutz's shoulder and gripped him hard. "To Roller."

He raised his beer and they all followed, toasting their fallen friend.

"Hey, you remember that time he found that spider under his bunk?" McSweeney asked. "I was outside his tent and I hear this scream and out comes Hall-"

"Wearing nothing but his tighty-whities," Dominguez added with a laugh and jostling Lutz, who snorted.

McSweeney nodded. "Yep and ran right into Sergeant Michaels."

Lutz let out a watery chuckle. "He thought he was going to get court martialed. Sarge was cool about it though."

"Yeah, only 'cause McSweeney here went in the tent and came back out with the spider and it was the size of a dinner plate," Jay said, grinning at the woman beside him. She smiled back. "I thought he was going to scream and run too. Man was terrified of those things."

Once one story started, more kept coming and Mouse started to flag once midnight rolled around.

"Got to get back to your pumpkin, Cinderella?" Dominguez poked fun at him when he stood up and said he was going to head back to his hotel.

"I ain't as young as I used to be, man. I need my beauty sleep." Really it was just all getting to him. The lights. The ringing of the machines on the casino floor. The stories that played in repeat in his nightmares. He had stopped drinking a few hours ago hoping it would help, but the clarity sobriety brought only made the anxiety he was feeling worse. "You good to get back, Jay?"

"Yeah, I'm good," Jay told him, his cheeks flushed pink and his eyes shining. Mouse had seen Jay drunk a lot of different ways and he looked like he was in a happy phase, which usually kept him out of trouble. "You want me to come with you? I can call it at night."

"No, no. Stay." Mouse did not want anyone else's night to end just because he felt off. He said his goodbyes, assured Jay one more time that he was okay to get back to the hotel, and headed out to grab a taxi.

Once he was back in his hotel room, he showered and then fell into bed, too tired from the day to find the remote and turn on the TV or even get up to turn off the light. He fell asleep easily, but woke up only a few hours later tangled in his sheets. He extracted himself and pulled his bag up onto the bed from where it was sitting on the floor. Fishing around in the bottom of it, his hand found the round bottle he was looking for and uncapped it. Shaking a few pills out into his hand, he threw them back and dry swallowed them. He looked down at the bottle and felt a bit guilty as he caught sight of Halstead written just under his thumb.

Jay did not take them anyway, he reasoned with himself.

A/N: I would love to hear what you think! I have three more chapters planned (one written/two partiall written and outlined). The next one is from Jay's point of view.