A/N - I am really bad at finishing long stories so here is a series of short stories that center around the Halstead brothers.

Ophidiophobia

Ruzek hid his grin as he watched Jay settle in for his day. Mouse had cornered him and asked him if he would ask Jay for his highlighters because he always kept them in his desk drawer. Mouse had apparently put some kind of birthday surprise in there for his best friend and Ruzek was happy to help celebrate. Jay was a good cop and good back up partner, even if he could be a little standoffish. He wasn't mean or rude or even belittling like Voight, he just wasn't super friendly or outgoing. He had thought it was just him but now he realized he was like that with everyone. Seriously, he hadn't even known he had a brother until Voight and Benson had tricked him into coming in. He tried not to take it personally, Jay was just one of those weirdly private people that didn't talk a lot about himself or his life outside of work. At least with anyone other than Mouse.

Mouse winked at him and he ushered Burgess to the side and asked for the highlighters. He had expected for Jay to flinch, or maybe start, he had not expected him to scream "fuck me" and jump about 9 feet away, nearly landing on Al. Then start laughing hysterically, blushing and saying, "son of a bitch." Mouse was matching his laugh. Ruzek now realized he probably should have asked what was in the drawer, when Hank showed up, hand on his gun.

"Happy birthday, man," Mouse said, standing up to give Jay a hug. And retrieve what turned out to be a pretty lifelike animatronic cobra, with a tiny birthday hat. Adam thought the hood was a little small and the fangs looked tiny but to be fair, he had never seen a real cobra up close and really only had movies to compare it to.

"You are an asshole," Jay said as he hugged him back. It was said with a smile and good humor, clearly, even though his voice was shaking.

"Just getting back at you for that pretty life like dead mouse you baked into my cake last year," the shorter man smiled and Jay chuckled.

"So you guys try to scare each other for your birthdays?" Attwater asked.

"Yeah, an old tradition," Jay explained before adding, "but don't any of you even think about trying it. I will break your face, if you do." Kevin held up his hands in a placating gesture. He and Burgess alone knew that Kevin was actually a little afraid of Halstead. Apparently his first day on the job there had been a hostage situation. Halsted had been the one to end it by blowing the guy's brains out.

Mouse tossed the snake to Jay, who caught it on instinct before flinching, dropping it, and then kicking it towards Mouse. Mouse picked it up and petted its head. "Don't be so mean to Hissy, I worked hard on her."

"If you are that bored, next time call me and I'll buy you a hooker," Jay groused, shoving his hands into his pockets to hide that they were shaking. Adam knew it was just the adrenaline rush but it was still weird to see from their perpetually chill teammate. This was the same dude that was tortured by Keyes and never changed his expression for god's sake.

"You are afraid of snakes, Detective Halstead?" Burgess beat him to the punch.

"Yes, I am scared of snakes," he answered as Al took the toy from Mouse, wiggling it around.

"You know, my nephew would love something like this," he said before adding. "And that level of fear is a weird reaction for a kid from Canaryville."

"You can have it," Mouse said to Al. "I don't need it anymore and he didn't develop his Ophidiophobia until we were 10 months into our first full tour."

"I am not phobic," Jay defended.

"You can't even look at it," Mouse pointed out.

"Beside the point, phobias are irrational. My fear is completely rational."

"If you say so," he said with a shrug.

"Not sure how rational it is to be afraid of getting bitten by a snake in the middle of downtown Chicago," Al added, making Mouse laugh again.

"You try waking up with a pissed off, hissing cobra 6 inches from your face, 30 klicks from your team and behind enemy lines," Jay offered and Al shrugged.

"Ok, now I have to know the rest of the story," Adam said and Jay rolled his eyes but sat back down, Mouse leaning on the corner of his desk. Even Hank stuck around to listen.

"So we were in the southern part of the valley, hunkered down in a rocky divot with nice tall grass, perfect cover," Jay started, when Adam interrupted him.

"What were you guys doing there?"

"Sorry, that is classified level Nacho," Mouse said and Al chuckled.

"What does that mean?"

Mouse looked at O with a grin as the man explained. "It means it is designated, not yo business." Adam smiled and rolled his eyes with the joke.

"Anyway, we were on a 72 hour reconnaissance run and it was my turn to sleep. It was July and pretty fucking hot so I had my kefiah tented up over my helmet and gun to keep the sun off my face. I was dead asleep and then woke half up because I felt something like rubbing and bumping against my face and something like flicking against my lip. So I do what any normal person would do, and twitch my face and try to move away from it. That was when I heard it hiss, which actually sounds more like huff, and felt it move.

"I opened my eyes and was face to face with a pissed off Caspian Cobra, which if you are keeping track, are the most venomous cobra in the world and the most venomous snake in Afghanistan. They have like 76% fatality rate without antivenom. Saw Scale Vipers are responsible for more bites to locals but they really weren't a danger to us because we all wore boots but Leventine vipers and the cobras they told you to avoid like the plague.

"Anyway, it was also at this point, I realized that the thing was coiled around my arm and pressed up between my arm and my body. And that the flicking I felt when I was half asleep was its tongue, trying to drink where I was drooling in my sleep.

"Holy shit, what did you do?"

"I didn't move a fucking muscle but tried to get Mouse's attention."

Adam looked at Mouse now who's eyes were sparkling with mirth. "I hear Jay huff and mumbling, which he does in his sleep every once in a while," Adam gave him a weird look wondering why he knew what Jay did while he was sleeping but he kept his mouth shut. He was pretty sure he was never going to fully understand the relationship between them. They were like polar opposites in so many things but so similar in others. It was just kind of weird.

"And I look over and just see his kefiah is lifted up like he is pushing it up with his fist. My first thought was that there was a spider or scorpion in there with him but then I realized he wasn't the one that huffed. I grabbed the edge and pulled it off of him and no shit that thing was for real not even 6 inches from his face, mouth open, and fucking pissed. So when I see this, I move the hell away as fast as I could." Mouse explained and Jay grinned at him.

"How did you get rid of it? Did you shoot it?" Antonio asked and Adam hadn't even realized he was paying attention.

"No, I couldn't move to get to a gun and the only clear shot Mouse had would have blown out my ear drum, plus we were like 12 miles behind enemy lines and were trying to keep a low profile. I tried to move really slow and get away but every time I even breathed too hard it would hood up or open its mouth."

"Yeah we only had so many choices." Mouse piped in. "Like Jay said, I could shoot it but then he would have lost his hearing in his left ear and we would give away our presence and position. Option two was he try to slowly move away, which wasn't working so well and probably would have resulted in a bite to the face which would have led us to either having to expose ourselves to get medical help or letting him die a painful, disfiguring death, which we couldn't do. I mean what would your mother have done if she couldn't see that shayne punim in a casket when she buried you?" Mouse smacked Jay's cheek. Adam always found it jarring, when Mouse spoke Yiddish because he didn't look like what he thought a Jewish person would look like. But maybe not as jarring as when Jay seemed to be able to understand parts of it.

"You're all heart. And you left out that if I died you would have had to hump back 30 k carrying 152 pounds of gear on your stubby, little legs." Mouse barked out a laugh.

"I can have two motives for an action. But to get back to the story. So I didn't want to permanently deafen him or let him die because reasons, so we went with option 3, which was to wait it out. As far as we could figure, it was there to use him for shade to keep cool during the hottest part of the day. So if we just waited, it would eventually wander off. So we waited."

"How long did it take?" Kim asked.

"It was close to 4 hours," Mouse answered.

"Yeah, it calmed down after a few minutes of me being still but it took about four to leave. And I can tell you that there is no greater test of self control than forcing yourself to sit perfectly still. The worst was that there was probably an hour where the stupid thing flopped across my face and every time I blinked it would feel my eye lashes move it would hood up, then lay back in the same fucking spot. Sitting that still is hard enough but forcing yourself not to blink is fucking torture and oddly almost impossible."

"So there you have it, the origin of Jay's dislike of snakes," Mouse said.

"I almost died," Jay followed up in a Ralph Wiggum voice.

"That is pretty messed up, man," Al added before turning back to his work to cue everyone else that story time was over.

The year after Mouse had left seemed like it would have been a lonely one for Jay, considering not a month earlier Erin had left as well. Adam felt like it was his responsibility to cheer him up. So he devised a plan with Kevin and Kim's help, even though Atwatter wasn't super on board with the idea. But Adam convinced him.

The plan was that today was Jay's birthday and they were going to jump scare him like Mouse did to show him that even though his girl and his bestie had left, didn't mean he didn't still have friends. He smiled as he put on the finishing touches, feeling super good about the outcome of this.

He had warned Voight and Al that they were going to surprise Halstead for his birthday and it would be loud but not that he was going to grab him and shove him into a dark room before turning on the lights and yelling surprise.

Of course it all went south when met with Halstead. Everyone from Intelligence, even Voight, was waiting where they were supposed to and it was Adam's job to pop out, startling him, so he could shove him into the room. Of course had he listened to Atwatter he would have realized the utter stupidity of doing that to highly trained Ranger with two plus tours under their belt. Especially one that had less than an hour ago gotten into a foot chase with two armed suspects that ended in a two on one octagon style fight.

It resulted, not in as Adam expected a surprised and happy Jay, but in Adam going from popping out to having his shoulder ripped out of the socket and his face slammed into the door frame hard enough that he heard something crack and now hurt so bad he felt like he was going to puke. In fact he was pretty sure he would, as he sank out of Halstead's grim and he was going to do it on his fellow cop's shoes.

"Oh shit, Adam, I'm sorry!" he said, sounding completely horrified. "Are you OK?"

"No, I'm not," he mumbled looking down at a truly impressive puddle of blood under his face. He felt rather than saw Kim move to put a dirty dish towel against his face.

"We need to get you to a hospital." Hailey said.

"Happy birthday, man," Al said, patting Jay on the back as he walked by with a slice of cake, completely unfazed by what had unfolded around him. One day, he hoped he could be that cool.

"I'll take him to Med," Jay offered as he and Atwatter hoisted him up and Kevin helped him get down the stairs.

"What happened to boy wonder?" Platt asked as he staggered by trying not to puke or pass out or start crying because he had never felt pain like this before.

"Long story, Sergeant," Atwater explained as he held Adam up for Jay to go get his car. He then made sure he was settled before offering to join them.

"No I got this, Kevin, it's fine," Jay smiled weakly.

Adam didn't say much of anything on the drive, one because his face hurt and two because Jay was talking to his brother on the phone. When they arrived, Will was there to meet them and gave a sympathetic look before whisking him away to one of the rooms.

Blessedly they gave him some painkillers, which allowed him to think more critically about the entire situation and his embarrassment. Even while Will was poking and prodding at him.

"Can you make a fist?" Will asked him and he tried to no avail. It was a weird feeling to not be able to do something he did every day without thinking. Will ignored his existential crisis and continued to examine him. "Well your shoulder is dislocated. We'll get an ortho down here to put it back in. We also need to get an x-ray of your nose and face to make sure nothing is broken. So how did this happen? Normally Jay is the one fighting with suspects." Adam was a little insulted that Will thought that he couldn't hold his own against a suspect like his brother could. Of course then he realized that he couldn't and that was why he was in this mess.

"Jay did it," Adam explained, unwilling to explain exactly why because he knew Will held grudges and the last thing he wanted was the gentle hands to not be gentle anymore. The good doctor didn't say anything though, just pushed him down till he was comfortably lying on his back, trying to relax. It wasn't hard because they had given him the good shit.

He might have dozed off, even with the ice pack on his face, or maybe time just didn't hold a lot of interest for him anymore but soon Will was there at his arm and telling him to count to five. At 3 there was a horrible, wet snap that caused pain that made it through the good shit and he yelped.

"Good job, man, all done.," Will said to him in a soothing voice and pressed another ice pack to his shoulder. "You need to wear this for at least a week, I would prefer two," he said.

"What about my face, how bad is it?" He had been avoiding asking for a mirror because he was afraid of what he would see.

"Don't worry, it isn't that bad," he smiled as he talked but Adam could now only see out of one eye. The other was swollen shut. He did see Jay standing by the door. "You do have a hairline fracture to your maxilla and your nasal bone." Will's grin widened at his confusion. "You have a broken nose and you have a tiny break in this bone, right under your eye," Will pointed under his tear duct. "None of them are bad enough to require surgery, just ice and rest. They will bruise spectacularly, because faces do that but nothing to worry about." Adam felt relieved at the news. "I do want you to follow up with an ortho in two weeks to see how your shoulder is doing, though it went back in cleanly, ok?" Adam nodded, regretting it as the room seemed to go into a tailspin.

"Alright then, I will get started on your discharge paperwork. We'll send you home with some antibiotics, and pain meds," he put his hand on Adam's good shoulder. "And consider yourself lucky, when he did it to me, he broke my nose so badly they had to put two plates in it to hold it together."

Adam watched him walk out and watched Jay drop his eyes as he went by. He would have thought that Will was kidding but Jay's reaction told him it had actually happened. The other cop bit his lip as he stood by the door. Adam didn't think he had ever seen the other man so cowed. It made him feel like shit. This was not what was supposed to happen.

"I am really sorry," he said and Adam wasn't sure how to take it. I mean, yeah he was pissed that he was in the hospital with broken bones, but he also kind of, at least now, realized the complete idiocy of sneaking up on Halstead like that. Because even though he seemed like a super calm guy, he also had a famously lethal hair trigger.

"It's ok, man, it was my fault. I should have remembered not to fuck with you."

"Why did you, I don't mean the surprise party but trying to scare me and shove me in a dark room?"

Adam sighed and sat up a little so he could see Jay better. "I just wanted to do something nice for you. I mean I know we aren't BFFs or anything but everyone can see how down you are because Mouse and Lindsey left. I was just trying to cheer you up and show you that you still had people that cared. And I remember how much it seemed to mean to you when Mouse scared you with that fake snake last year, so I thought," he trailed off.

"Oh, I see," he said as he shoved his hands in his pockets and stood in the door for a minute. He then walked in closer and sat down on the stool the doctors use. "I guess you saw Mouse and I do that to each other but we never told you why we did it?" Adam gave his head a brief shake but not enough to make the room spin again. "When you are over there, you, you start to get numb. Like you start to just not notice or care about things because everything is life or death. And if it isn't trying to kill you and you aren't trying to kill it, it all just sort of fades away. You know how you feel when we breach and you are super focused but at the same time anything that isn't threatening just gets disregarded?" Adam gave another him a quick nod. "It is like that but 24/7 for 16 months at a time. And you have to be so tough, every second, there isn't time to be anything but Ranger ready so you just, I don't know, a part of you that feels shit, that cares about anything but life or death, it just kind of disconnects.

"Then when you get back, sometimes it's hard to turn it back on. To start feeling again, it's harder than it sounds, because when you do feel things again most of it sucks so you revel in your numbness. And you spend so much time avoiding the bad shit that you forget about the good shit. And you start feeling like maybe you aren't really alive anymore, like your body is but you aren't or that you are dead and in purgatory, or you are in a dream and still over there bleeding to death, or something. I don't know, it's hard to explain and it makes me sound kind of crazy. But on thing you can feel is adrenaline, that startle, your heartbeat speeding up, and everything gets clear. That you can feel. It makes you feel real again, that was why Mouse and I used to scare each other, because it was the one thing we knew the other could feel, no matter what. It proved that we were still fucking here, that we had gotten out, that we were still fucking alive." Jay finished, looking down.

Adam wasn't sure what to say to that. Though he and Jay were not really that far apart in age, they were worlds apart in experiences. Adam had no clue what any of that felt like but he knew he needed to do something or say something to let Jay know that he appreciated his confidence, the trust. Because Jay didn't talk about things like this, not really not ever. Normally if you asked him about it, he snapped at you and he wanted to let him know that it was OK to talk to him about things like that, if he needed to. But Adam was also drugged and before he could settle on the perfect thing he said, "that's fucking depressing."

Jay snorted a laugh at him, one side of his face pulling back into a slight grin. "I suppose it is." He leaned back then said, "though to be fair, I did warn you not to try scaring me for my birthday. I am pretty sure I told you that if you tried I would break your face."

Adam barked out a laugh of his own, "that you did, those exact words too." Halstead stood as Will came in and Adam grabbed his forearm. "We cool, man?"

"Yes, we're cool."

Dr. Will Halstead sometimes felt like he was the walking embodiment of "cursed to live in interesting times." It was like anytime his life or even just his day calmed down, drama would show up and punch him the nads. Today was no different. The only glaring thing about today was that it was his baby brother's birthday. Which of course meant he had invited Jay out for drinks, dinner, paintball, a scavenger hunt at the zoo, underwater orca wrestling, it didn't actually matter because Jay was going to say no. His brother was in a bit of a hermit phase since Mouse and Lindsey had left so Will would be lucky if going over to his now shitty apartment for pizza and beer was the end result of his night.

But of course, Jay hadn't actually declined his offer because that wasn't Jay's style. He somehow psychically knew 10 minutes after you had written him off and made other plans so that when he finally said he would go, you had to cancel on him. It was genius because it always made you look like the asshole. Well today, he was not falling for it. Today he would either hang out with closetedly lonely brother or do nothing unless Nat said she wanted to do something then Nat would win. But she hadn't said anything yet.

That lack of commitment to other plans was the reason he was surprised to see his brother's name and the picture of the Fighting Irish Mascot splash across his phone at only 11:40 in the morning. He looked at it for a half a second without answering, just half a second because any time Jay called him in the middle of the day, it was never good news. Half the time it had been Erin using his phone to say he was injured. He felt his heart speed up as he answered.

"Jay, why are you calling me in the middle of the day?"

"Are you at work?" His brother asked tersely. Terse was fine, terse was normal. Terse meant he was still fucking breathing.

"Yes, why? What happened? Are you ok?"

"Yeah I'm fine. Adam is hurt, we are on our way over."

"Hurt how and how far out?"

"About 4 minutes and messed up shoulder, maybe a broken nose. Tough to say, his face is bleeding a lot."

"Is he conscious?"

"Yes, but he might be concussed, but I know that isn't common from get one from being hit in the face."

"It can happen, though, if you get hit hard enough," Will reminded him. It oddly had never happened to Jay, even with all the fights he had gotten in but it had happened to Will a few years back. Right after Jay had gotten back from overseas, he had been pissed at him because he wouldn't sit still, he just kept pacing, jittering, checking windows, doors, checking every room, over and over and over again for days. He had finally grabbed him, trying to get him to calm down. Jay hadn't reacted well to it and he had slammed Will's face into the corner of the refrigerator, shattering his nose and breaking the bone under his eye. Jay hadn't even realized he had done it until Will was on the ground screaming. Their father had been screaming too, telling Jay that if he didn't leave and get some help he wasn't welcome home again. That was the night Jay left and went to the cabin and the last time he ever saw his little brother cry. It might also be one of the last times he had set foot inside their parents' house, at least without Will there. He would stand on the porch, go on the roof, fix a window but not go inside.

"I'm about two minutes away," Jay said, sounding less tense and more resigned.

"I'll meet you out front," he hung up and went to the Nurse's desk. "Hey Maggie, Jay is bringing in Ruzek, apparently he got hurt. I'm going to meet them outside. Can you subtly give Jay a once over and make sure he is OK, too. Sometimes he can," Will started but she smiled at him.

"Of course Dr. Halstead. I'll personally check him out." He smiled at the woman that could alternately be the kindest, most caring person he knew and also be the sternest battle ax on the planet. But then again that described pretty much any good nurse.

True to his word, Jay's tires screeched to a halt right in front of him and Jay jumped out, opening his passenger door to help Adam out. He was relieved to see that Jay looked fine but did have blood on his hands, his pants, and what looked like a splatter on his face. Adam on the other hand was clutching a dish towel that was soaked through with it.

"Hey Ruzek, let's get you taken care of," he asked as he helped settle the man in the chair and rolled him towards an exam room. Jay watched them go before moving his car.

He lost track of his brother until he noticed that Maggie had brought him back and forced him into an exam room. He could see from the look on both of their faces that he was not thrilled about it. That was a match of stubborn he did not want to get in the middle of.

After he was done with Adam and fuming that ortho refused to send anyone down because "an ER doc should know how to pop a shoulder." he went to look for Jay.

"Maggie, where did Jay go?" He trusted Maggie he really did but he also kind of wanted to make sure he was OK himself and find out why the fuck he would have done that to his teammate. He knew Ruzek kind of drove Jay a little crazy sometimes but not break bones crazy.

"He went to the restroom to wash the blood off. I told him he could use one of the doctor's," she said absently as she typed away at something.

"Thanks," he dropped off his ipad and went to find his brother. He found him sitting on the floor in the men's room across from the sinks. "Hey, are you hurt?" He asked, wondering again if Jay was hiding some injury.

"No, I'm fine," he said, twisting a damp, paper towel in his hands. He didn't look up, just stared a straight ahead.

Will knew that look, as he sank down to sit beside him, slightly skeeved out by it but his brother needed him and he was rarely, if ever, actually there for him. They didn't have a very traditional big brother/little brother relationship. Most people thought Jay was older because he was the more forceful, type A, and frankly responsible one, while Will was more flakey, relaxed, and passive, at least compared to Jay. But he had never really felt the need to look out for or take care of Jay like a big brother. Jay was the better fighter and the tougher one, even as kids. But it basically meant that he was awkward and uncomfortable right now but he hoped Jay didn't realize it.

"Sitting on the floor of a public men's room is pretty much the antithesis of OK." He hoped for a laugh or even a snort, he got nothing but a tighter hold on the paper towel. This wasn't going to be as easy as he hoped. He took a deep breath and dived in, praying he wasn't going to fuck this up. It was so much easier when he could just call Mouse and have him deal with it. But Mouse was gone and so was Erin and Will was here, for once.

"Ruzek told me that you were the one that did that to him," Jay closed his eyes and Will knew the self flagellation had begun. "Why?"

"I didn't mean to. He thought, I don't know. Last year he saw Mouse put a fake snake in my drawer and scare me. We let slip that is was a silly tradition. I guess he thought since Mouse wasn't here that he could do it too. He popped out behind me and tried to push me into a dark room. I, I reacted on instinct and," he trailed off. Will could fill in the rest.

It was a sticky wicket because Adam should have known better than to sneak up on him like that. It was dumb and frankly kind of cruel given some of the shit Jay dealt with, from a mental health perspective. But that was also just making excuses for the fact that his brother refused to get help for those mental health issues and that the people around him were left to deal with the fallout. He was no stranger to it, Jay's hair trigger when he was stressed.

He pondered what to say. He wanted to be honest that yeah, it was his fucking fault because he wouldn't get help because he was alternately too macho and too afraid to let go of his guilt. Fucking Catholics, himself included because he felt guilty for even thinking that about his brother. And it made him want to say it wasn't his fault because Adam was an absolute moron for thinking that was a good idea or even a remotely safe idea. But on the flip side, normal people that take care of their mental health did not react with such extremes.

Jay saved him from it though. "How do I apologize for breaking his face because he startled me?"

"If it makes you feel any better it is only two, very small breaks," Will tried to joke.

"It doesn't."

"I know," Will bumped his shoulder into Jays. When they had been little, little kids, they used to play in the crawl space under the stairs during the winter. They pretended it was a secret fort or treasure cave. They used to sit side by side like this and split a pop tart and make up stories. They were always grand adventures where they were warriors that saved the princess or soldiers that stormed the beach. Only one of them had lived their childhood dreams and it had left him strong, stronger than anyone Will knew but also broken in ways Will could never understand. Only Mouse really understood.

"Look, just give him a sincere apology and maybe explain why you did it," Jay opened his mouth to disagree but Will wouldn't let him. "Seriously, let him in a little, open the door, just a sliver and I promise you that he will understand. Look I know it isn't in your nature to let people in but you are going to have to, if you want people to actually care about you."

Jay nodded and Will stood, checking the back of his coat in the mirror before pulling Jay up. "I'll get his discharge papers going while you two talk, OK?"

"Ok."

Will was above many, many things but one thing he was not above was eavesdropping on their conversation. As where apparently half the ER. It kind of bugged him. It was his brother, he had a modicum of a right, Dr. Rhodes, Dr. Charles, and Dr. Choi, not so much. Will shooed them away before either of the occupants noticed them and went in to give Adam his discharge stuff, assuming Jay would drive him home.

He spent the rest of the day waffling on if he was going to call his brother and check on him. He knew Jay absolutely fucking hated when he thought people were hovering and he wasn't sure he wanted to deal with the apocalyptic shit fit that would ensue if that was his perception. And yes, he realized the complete imbalance in their relationship that he was scared of making his brother mad. But on the other hand, Jay had been so sad lately without his two best friends around, Will wanted to cheer him up.

Will had always been the type of person that had a large circle of casual friends that he wasn't super close to, so the loss of any one of them rarely actually impacted him that much. Jay was the exact opposite. He tended to only have a very small circle that he was co-dependently close to. He was pretty sure he could count the number of really close friends Jay had had on one hand. First was Abby, who had been his best friend since 7th grade, when he had punched a bully that had called her fat. She was his bestie all through middle school and high school. He was pretty sure her and Jay had lost their virginity to each other but didn't have any proof. He knew that he tended to spend more time at her house with her family than he did with his own, during his last two years of highschool. He still went over and spent time with her parents. Then when she had gone to school in Arizona or New Mexico or something, Mouse had taken her place, not sexually, no matter how much they joked about it but as his person. That had lasted till a few months ago and Mouse had reupped. Third was Erin. It had taken time with her. She would get angry with his weird hot/cold approach avoidance thing that was his hallmark in interpersonal relationships. But she had managed to worm her way around his defenses and Jay had loved her and more importantly let her love him.

Jay's spirit animal had always been a cat, even if he loved dogs. His entire relationship dynamic could be summed up in, "pet me, pet me, pet me. DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME!" It was utterly exhausting and alienating and if he didn't love the asshole so much he would quit dealing with him a long time ago.

Past that, he knew that Jay and Kelly hung out together sometimes and did weird manly things like race motorcycles or lift weights. He wasn't sure. He had always found Severide to be kind of a douche. He also knew, more from Ethan than Jay, that he and Dr. Choi had an odd sort of friendship with each other that probably involved a lot of sitting quietly and looking serious. It kind of bugged the crap out of him that he usually requested Dr. Choi if he was in the ER instead of Will. He knew he wasn't supposed to be working on his own brother, but it still grated on his nerves that Jay always asked for Ethan, like he somehow trusted him more than his own big brother. And of course he was still super tight with Mouse's family. He still went over for Shabbat dinner at least once a month even though he wasn't fucking Jewish and he had skipped their Dad's retirement party so he could take Mouse's Nana to a doctor's appointment. All because everyone else's family was better than his own.

All that wasn't to say that Jay didn't care about people, because he did. He knew he cared about his unit and other random people like the pot lady he worked for and the dude that got shot. But the difference was that Jay didn't let them care about him. It was frustrating to Will, to watch his brother just move through life constantly rebuffing people's affection for him. A classic extrovert vs an introvert, he guessed. But while Will would miss a friend that moved away, it wasn't the same level of missing that Jay was experiencing with Mouse leaving. He was just glad that he didn't follow him. He suspected had Erin not been there, he might have.

But because now he basically had a close friend circle of zero, his brother had become a bit of a hermit. He hadn't seen him at, or heard that he had gone to Molly's in weeks. He had declined every social invite Will had sent him. He blew off his Dad's birthday, not that that was out of the ordinary. The only social event, and he used to the term loosely, he knew his brother had attended was a funeral of one of his old Ranger buddies that had blown his brains out, which wasn't exactly a healthy social event.

He wondered if he was going to stay with Adam tonight or if he felt too guilty and would run away. Either was possible with him, avoidance or self punishment. He needed a fucking psychiatrist but was he going to get one, of course not.

Will ground his teeth and picked up his phone for about the 19th time that afternoon.

"Oh just call him," Maggie said with an exasperated sigh. The opinion of a woman always in charge.

"I wouldn't," Dr. Rhodes said. "He probably wants to be alone. He will call you, if he wants to talk." The opinion of an entitled man who always got to choose his own lifestyle and destiny.

"You shouldn't leave him alone, isn't it his birthday?" April offered. The opinion of a woman that cared too much about everything.

"That doesn't matter, he should be taking care of Adam after hurting him like that," Nat said with a decided lack of sympathy that surprised him. The opinion of a woman who thought her morals should guide everyone.

He looked to Dr. Choi for his advice, since everyone else felt just dandy telling him what to do. The man just looked at him with those black eyes of his before finally giving in. "You should get some pizza and some beer and go over there and let him decompress." The opinion of the only person there that might actually understand what his brother was going through.

Will tapped his fingers and turned to clock out, not bothering to let them know what he planned to do. But of course, he followed Dr. Choi's counsel except he picked up pizza, beer, and cupcakes because it was his baby brother's birthday afterall. And headed over to Jay's new shithole apartment. His preening and seeking luxury for Erin aside, his brother gave zero shits about the comfort of where he lived.

Will turned off his car, looking up and noted that per usual Jay had black out curtains drawn so there was no way to tell who was home, and hoped it didn't get broken into. He knew Jay's rent was stupidly low because they had wanted a cop to move in and he made sure his car was always parked so you could see the sirens and police plates but that didn't mean Will's car would be safe. He scanned around, eyes settling on some sketchy looking teens across the street, making him hurry and grab his things and head in.

The interior of the building was slightly nicer as the owners were trying to gentrify the area but it was by no means nice. He had asked Jay if he wanted to move in with him. He had a second room, lived in a nice area, and would have loved to have help with rent but he also lived in a mostly Arabic enclave, across from a Mosque that played the call to prayer five times a day and the entire street smelled like delicious spices. He actually kind of liked it. He thought the Adhan was pretty sounding and all the "aunties" in the neighborhood offered him food and kindness for helping clean a skinned knee or make a house call. It reminded him of what their neighborhood had been like growing up, but instead of a bunch of Irish Catholics, it was a bunch of Middle Easterners.

Jay, on the other hand, hated it. He had spent only one night there, after Will had had dental surgery, and he had been as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. He started at nearly every sound and Will was pretty sure that he almost hit the room when his next door neighbor knocked on the door to offer him some soup she had made. He was pretty sure if Jay spent too much time there he was going to end up shooting up the place. Not that he thought his brother was a racist, because he didn't think he was, just triggers were a thing and while he didn't hate the people, being around their things made him think about things he didn't want to and that made him jumpy.

He had no qualms about helping the granny that lived next door with her widowed daughter and young son fix their railing when it broke, or helping someone else change a flat tire. He even showed his next door neighbor's 7 year old grandson some weird soccer move where you flip the ball behind your back and catch it on your heel. But the minute you made him sit still, he got antsy and nasty.

He had tried broaching the subject of Jay moving in with their dad to help him out. He wasn't in the best of health anymore and had a hard time taking care of the house. He and Jay, mostly Jay, would come help with things like fixing the roof or windows, mowing the lawn, or repainting the house when some neighborhood kids graffiti tagged it. Jay had tracked those poor kids like a fucking bloodhound and arrested their poor adolescent asses very publically, making their parent take time off work to go to the station, then get them through the system. He may not like their dad but he wasn't about to let anyone fuck with him. Sadly his answer about moving in with him had been, "he would rather be homeless."

Will reached Jay's door on the top of 8 floors with no fucking elevator he might and took a deep breath. He had a key but it would be useless if the deadbolt was on and besides, he wanted to give Jay the option of avoiding him if he really wanted to. Jay had always liked high places, even as a kid he liked to climb on the roof and watch the world from up there.

The break he had between his two tours, Will, Jay, Mouse, and the chick will was dating at the time went on a road trip to Colorado. Jay loved it, the mountains, the forests, the suicidially high peaks. And while Will was not afraid of heights, he lacked his brother's bizarre fondness for them. Though his strongest memories of that trip had been spending days feeling like he was going to faint, die, or throw up trying to keep up with two Army Rangers, hiking through mountains that were only half the elevation they were used to. Even with Mouse's short legs.

And just like then, he hated to admit he was panting when he reached his brother's door. He was sure Jay must know someone was there because the stairs squeaked and creaked like crazy. Just as he was about to knock on Jay's door, the door to the only other apartment on this floor opened a bit and he heard an old woman say, "quien es?"

It took his brain a minute to register what she said before he turned to her. "I'm Dr. Halstead. I'm Detective Halstead's brother," he explained to what turned out to be a really suspicious looking old lady holding a frying pan.

"Doctor, estoy doctor?" he nodded and she opened her door to pull up her sleeve and show her an ugly cut that was clearly infected. He put his food down on the top step, really hoping that cockroaches wouldn't get in it. And also wondering what it would be like to have a job where people didn't immediately show you the most disgusting parts of their body.

"By the way, how did you know I wasn't just Jay coming home?" he asked her, as he wrapped a clean bandage around her arm. He had already called in a prescription for her.

"He quiet. You loud." she explained as her eyes drifted to Jay, who was leaning in his doorway watching his brother with a smirk on his face and holding a glass of whiskey. "Did you eat? Should I fix you a plate?" She looked past him?

"No thank you, my brother brought dinner apparently. Goodnight, Senora Rodriguez," Jay said as Will shoved the beer into his hand, while he kept the food and pushed his way past.

"That your new girlfriend?" Will teased. Both him and Jay had that effect on older women that they wanted to feed them.

"I wish, she makes amazing flautas."

Jay was really quite good at hiding his mental state from outsiders but one tell that never changed was how he kept his area. The messier and more homey it looked, the happier and more relaxed he was. The cleaner and more prescised, the more he was struggling. Currently Jay's apartment was roughly as clean as an operating bay and he looked like he had taken a contractor's T to line his shoes up by the door. He was glad he had second guessed his original thought of bringing their dad along with him. He suspected his brother was not in the headspace to deal with him. For all that the man could be a crusty, old dick; he did love his sons and they loved him. The expression of it was just a lot more thickly veiled, when it came to him and Jay.

"Well, I didn't bring flautas, I brought pizza, and cupcakes, happy birthday."

"Thank you," he said, not sounding super enthusiastic to see him and now that Will looked at him plus the only slightly closed bottle of Wild Turkey on the lamp table, he suspected that Will was interrupting his plans of wallowing in his unhappiness. Well good.

"You're welcome," he said, not bothering with plates, and handed Jay a slice of pizza on a napkin, grabbing one for himself. He would have brought the whole box over except Jay had no coffee table, just a worn down ottoman. "What were you watching?"

"Not sure, I was drinking more than actually watching," Jay said, an uncommonly honest response. Will decided to grab the food and put it on the center cushion before stealing the remote. His brother followed him back to the couch. It was lumpy and probably second hand because Jay was a cheapskate and he didn't spend that much time sitting around watching TV.

Will flipped through the channels till he found All Dogs Go to Heaven. He grinned at his brother. Jay had been pretty emotionally scarred by that movie as a kid. They watched it when Jay was maybe five years old and it was about as good an idea as showing a kid that age Bambi.

"Do you want me to start crying?" Jay asked as he sat back down. He wasn't drunk yet, that was clear but he also wasn't completely sober.

"I guess not," Will conceded and continued to flip till he found American Dad. He was not above admitting he still enjoyed a good cartoon, especially one as funny as Stan Smith.

Will took Jay's lack of comment as tacit approval and left it there. They ate in silence for a bit. He was trying to follow Dr. Choi's advice and let his brother decompress but just sitting here saying nothing was annoying him. He grabbed a cupcake and bit into it.

"I thought you were giving up carbs," Jay asked without looking at him.

"I am but carbs are delicious and don't count on your baby brother's birthday," he defended. He fucking missed carbs. He also was generally annoyed by the fact that no matter how few carbs he ate, he could never have as low of a body fat percentage as his brother. But to be fair, his brother also burned off in the thousands of calories during workouts and just had the stupid genetics of always being skinny.

"No one really cares about birthdays at our age," he defended, going back to his Wild Turkey. He ignored the cupcakes. They were normal white birthday cakes with white icing and sprinkles, which was always Will and their Dad's favorite. Jay liked chocolate but this was all the store had.

"I care," he said trying not to sound too caring because they were still brother's afterall and being too touchy feely would make the other one uncomfortable and would lead to ridicule.

"Then you should have gone to Molly's to celebrate," Jay offered. For the first time, he noticed that Jay's knuckles were bruised, like he had been in a fight. They were new, not completely colored yet but clearly not from the last few hours. Last night or this morning then.

"Not much point of me going there if you are here." Jay grunted at him. Will was trying to gauge if Jay really wanted him to leave or if he was just all up in his feelings and shut down. It annoyed and worried him that he could tell the difference with Connor, Maggie, or Dr Choi but not his own, fucking brother.

They sat for another episode before Will's patience was frayed. The way you figured out if something hurt, was to poke at it, so he was just going to have to poke at him.

"I am surprised you aren't staying with Ruzek and saying Hail Mary's and spoon feeding jello or something." He watched his brother out of the corner of his eye, pretending to concentrate on the TV. Jay just took a drink.

"I'm an atheist and It's my birthday, I'm celebrating," he said. Will tried to hide his sour face. He would accept that Jay was a non practicing Catholic but he would not accept that he was truly an atheist. He just wouldn't. It would have broken their mother's heart.

"This is a pretty sad celebration, sitting mostly by yourself, watching cartoons, and getting drunk on cheap whiskey."

"Maybe it is what I wanted," he defended as he downed the rest of his glass and poured himself another. Will took the bottle and tipped some into his empty beer bottle. Beer wasn't going to be enough for this conversation. "Besides, Upton is staying with Ruzek. He has been chasing her around and now finally has an in."

"Upton, she is your new partner, right?"

"Yup."

"Do you like her?"

"She's alright. Nothing special but she is good police," he explained.

"Look, Jay," Will finally decided to quit beating around the bush.

"You should go," Jay cut him off.

"I wanted to," he started again.

"I'm not clinically depressed or suicidal or something if that is what you guys are all so fucking worried about," he explained, starting to look a little loose and glassy eyed.

"That is good to hear," Will tried to cover that he had actually been marginally worried about that. Jay had never been the type of person he was worried would blow his brains out. Far too many years of early conditioning against suicide but that didn't mean he wouldn't do it indirectly with stupid, risk taking behavior like being part of SWAT, breaching doors, riding motorcycles, fighting MMA people, ect. Or basically his brother's normal Wednesday.

"Everyone assumes I am like despondent because Mouse and Erin moved away. I'm sad, but I'll live. It isn't like they are my only friends in the world," he explained. That was exactly what Will had thought.

"I know but people are just trying to show you that they care and like it or not, you are going to have to let them, even if they bring the wrong cupcake flavor or do something stupid like try and bum-rush you into a dark room," he said as he set the empty pizza box on the floor. Jay immediately stretched his legs out so his feet were on Will's lap. The action pulled a smile across his face. They had sat like this so many times as kids.

"I know," Jay said, swirling his drink around.

"But I get it, you aren't in the mood right now and you deserve some space," he said, getting ready to leave.

"You can stay," Jay said, looking over before looking back at his drink. "Actually, please stay, maybe drinking alone is a little too pathetic, even for me." He admitted, keeping his eyes locked on his glass.

Will kicked his shoes off and stretched his legs in front of him and propped them on the ottoman. "OK." He waited a while before speaking again. "Like seriously, what was Adam thinking?"

"I know, right? It might not have been so bad, but we had just gotten back, like 20 minutes earlier from a raid and I was a little jacked up."

"Is that where the bruised knuckles came from?" Jay examined his hands and nodded.

"One of them ducked, and I hit a fence," he explained. One of them? There was more than one? Stupid, dangerous, risk taking behavior, thy name is Jay Halstead.

"Are you sure they aren't broken," Will couldn't help himself from asking. It was like a sickness with him, looking for sickness in other people. Plus physical ailments he could deal with, Jay would let him deal with.

"Yeah," Jay wiggled his fingers around, "it's fine, just some bruises, no big deal."

"Good, I would hate for you to have a cast for your present," Will explained with a smile on his face as he reached into his pocket and pulled out three White Sox tickets and held them up.

Jay's expression softened into a slight smile. It was the most emotion he had shown all night. It had been a tradition, with the Halstead men, at least the two born in the summer, to go to a White Sox game for their birthdays. Every year, their dad would take Jay and Will for Jay's birthday and it was some of the best memories he had with his father. There was never any yelling or anger, or anything, just fun. He knew that the tradition had ended after he had gone to school and left Jay at home with a sick mother and a pissed off father. He tried to recapture it once Jay was back from the Army. He had invited him to a Yankees game, right after he had gotten out of Walter Reed, but at the time his brother had been too twitchy to enjoy being out in an open air stadium. This would be the first year they would go.

"Is Dr. Manning coming with us?" Jay asked, as he seemed to notice the number.

Will finished plunging in, "No, Dad is," he held his hand up before Jay could explode at him. "Look, he was the one that suggested I get the tickets for us. He wants," was as far as he got.

"You think I give a flying fuck what he wants?"

"No, but you are still going to go with us, because I am asking you to," Will explained and Jay deflated slightly. He knew he had won, Jay would do it because his brother asked him to and while Will could completely bowl over Jay's feelings with little remorse, Jay couldn't do it to Will. "And because, whether you like it or not, we are your family and one day you might need us and we might need you," he explained. "And besides, you owe me, in the warm weather is the only time my nose doesn't ache," Will lightly pressed on the sides of his nose, where he used to have plates holding the bones together. "And my sense of smell," he started, eyes twinkling.

"Oh shut up, you malingerer." Jay lightly kicked him. "I'll go, but you are sitting between us." Will nodded, smiling at his brother.