Blood Brothers
A/N - This story does not paint a great picture of Will but next chapter will have his side of it.
summary - Jay gets hurt at work and Mouse makes sure he doesn't kill himself.
Antonio walked out into the hall and scrubbed his hands over his face. The fake tattoos on them, starting to crinkle and fade. He had almost died today. Not their normal, "the job can be dangerous," but straight up almost been gunned down by a maniac with a machine gun, dead. He took a deep breath to try and stop his hands from shaking. It wouldn't do for the anyone to see that. Jay was alive, he was awake, he was relatively fine, he was the reason Antonio was still breathing.
It had been a normal enough case. Go undercover, buy guns, arrest bad guy. But shit had gone bad and bullets started flying in the middle of a bar and Antonio had been under cover. He hadn't had his vest, neither had O, who had been his back up and was sitting at the bar. A civilian had been hit, he tried to pull her to safety behind a door but he was too slow. A guy with an automatic rifle came around the corner and started firing. He saw a black blur, Olinsky go flying behind a pool table, and heard the shots. He had expected to feel his flesh split open but he didn't. Instead, he heard Halstead's grunt as the bullets were caught by his vest and as he returned fire. He got the guy, two shots in the neck, dead before he hit the ground, but that was Jay's signature.
Just as the man hit the ground, Halstead ended up on all fours, wheezing for air but still trying to push himself up. Antiono had all but panicked, as he saw the man trying to catch his breath and unable too. The wounded chick was forgotten by both him and O as they tried to get Jay onto the ground on his back. He fought them, and instead pushed himself against the wall. Antonio looked for blood, was expecting to see it pooling under him, even as it would have been hidden by his dark clothes.
He heard Olinsky calling for a bus and saying there was an officer down. Jay looked at him, "were you hit?" he gasped, still trying to catch his breath.
"No, you idiot, you were," he pulled at the velcro of his mentee's vest and heard the man groan. He felt around there was no blood but at least 6 slugs. "Fuck, dude, luck of the Irish over here," he said without meaning to. He had been the lucky one, lucky that Halstead had been fast enough and dumb enough to try that.
"What makes you think I am Irish?" Jay just grinned at him, and pulled one of his knees up to rest his gun against and bowed his head.
Antonio couldn't help barking a laugh at that ludicrous question. "Whatever you soulless ginger," Antonio joked with him, trying to catch his own breath and calm down. It wasn't working too well. "Don't worry man, ambo will be here soon." He patted Jay's shoulder.
"I don't need an ambulance, I'm fine," he said, sounding anything but.
"Of course you are, Chuck Norris," Antonio nervously continued to joke with him. The bullets may not have gone through the vest but they could still break bone, bruise organs. What had this fucking kid been thinking? Had he even been thinking? Sometimes he couldn't tell with Halstead. He was reckless and impulsive but most of the time it worked out and he saved lives. But he could never quite tell if Jay did things without thinking or if he thought about them and disregarded the risks.
"She's the one that needs paramedics, I just got the wind knocked out of me," he said, sounding stronger but white as a sheet. He tried to use the wall and his bent leg to push himself up into a standing position but once he was up, he wobbled sideways. Antonio caught him and sat him back down, trying to convince him to lie down. He wouldn't though. Fucking stubborn douchebag!
"Stay down, soldier, that's an order," Olinsky said in a very atypical tone of voice. Jay oddly complied and Antonio took it as a win. Jay always weirdly responded better to direct orders than requests. He didn't know if it was an Army thing or a way he was raised thing. Jay didn't talk about shit like that. Antonio stayed kneeling beside him as Hank came skidding in. The man looked wild but he didn't blame him. The only cops on the scene during the gunfight were Intelligence so an officer down meant one of his men.
"What happened?" he barked and Antonio stood up making sure to glare Halstead into staying down.
Antonio gave a brief description of the events ending in, "and Halstead got shot."
'In the vest," Jay clarified. His voice sounding pretty much back to normal. He wondered when the adrenaline would wear off or if Jay really was that fucking tough.
"Six times," Antonio pointed out.
"In the vest," Jay pointed out again as the paramedics arrived. Jay shooed them away when they tried to treat him before the poor lady that was bleeding by Olinsky.
"There is a pile up on the freeway, so next ambo won't be here for at least 15 minutes because he isn't critical," he explained and Jay smirked slightly. "But he needs a hospital. You should have someone drive him to one."
"I don't," Jay started to protest but Antonio didn't even let him get past the two words.
"I'll drive him," he said.
"I'm fine," he tried again and Hank cut him off this time.
"Go to the hospital and take the rest of the day off. If I see you at the District before Monday, at the earliest, I will kick your ass." Hank gruffed. He knew it was just Hank's way of hiding his worry but it was kind of funny. There wasn't a cop at the District that could whip Halstead's ass, including himself, at least if it was a true street fight, and most definitely not Hank.
"Fine," he levered himself up, blanching to a pale grey and nearly falling. The only thing that stopped him was his hand on the wall. Olinski was beside him to help him in a heartbeat. "Get off me, man," he snapped as he shook out O's grip. Luckily Al didn't take it personally. They were all just starting to learn each other as a team and had only seen glimpses of Jay's horrible fucking temper. Luckily it only seemed to come out when he was hurting, thank god!
He seemed to shake himself off and walk towards the door. If you didn't know how he normally moved, you might not think anything was wrong but Antonio knew him and could easily tell he was stiff and in pain.
The cars were all the way on the other side of the parking lot so he hailed a uni and told them to bring it over. Halstead looked gripey about it but because Antonio stood there too, he allowed it. When the car got there, he sank into it, no longer completely able to hide how much pain he was in. Antonio thought about turning on the lights to get through traffic quicker.
As they pulled out onto the street, Jay said, "stop, pull over," Antonio did as told, just as the junior detective leaned out and vomited. He turned on the hazards to tell people to go around and wondered if they should have waited for an ambulance.
It didn't take long for him to stop. He closed the door and leaned back, head tilted backwards and eyes closed, the seat inclined as far as it would go, which wasn't actually that far in a police cruiser. "Adrenaline wearing off, I see?" Dawson asked, trying to gauge how bad it was.
"Shut and drive," Jay grumbled. Antonio again did as he was told.
When he got to the highway he sat at the light. "The paramedics said there was a bad accident so Med and County are probably zoos. Do you have a hospital preference? I can take you to the VA if that makes you more comfortable."
"I didn't pack a lunch so no VA," he snarked. He had heard Jay go on more than one tirade about how long it took to get even a flu shot at the VA hospital.
"Strob then?"
"Whatever." Halstead's hand had snaked around to cradle his ribs. Antonio gave in and turned on the lights.
When they arrived, he made a bit of a scene to get them back into an exam room as quickly as possible. It was obvious that Jay could barely stand and was only able to do so by willpower and leaning against something. He was also white as a sheet, even for him and that was saying a lot because there were white people and then there were WHITE people and Jay was straight up a WHITE person. He was so pallid his freckles stood out like polka dots on his face. All in all, he looked like he was about to faint.
They were finally settled in an exam bay with vitals checked and blood drawn for testing to prove he wasn't on drugs when he had killed the guy. Jay was actually laid back on the table, his feet flat on it and knees bent, with one arm over his eyes. Later, once he knew Halstead better, he would realize what a show of discomfort his pose was but right now he was just glad that the man didn't fight him on being here. He did recognize the repetitive foot tapping though, because that was a pretty universal sign of anxiety.
"Don't like hospitals?" Antonio asked, just to make conversation. It was really more for him than Jay. Jay wasn't the type of person that needed to fill silence with talk but he had almost died and maybe he wasn't ready to sit quietly with that yet.
"Nobody likes hospitals," he mumbled.
"They aren't so bad," he said, wondering if he should put his hand on the younger man. Maybe physical contact might get him to relax a little but he thought better of it. Jay may look young, other than his eyes, in fact he actually looked younger than Ruzek, who was nearly four years his junior. But he wasn't actually a kid and he had seen way more shit than Antonio could dream of.
"That just tells me you have never had to spend an extended amount of time in one," he answered. But before they could continue their conversation, a tall, Lurch looking doctor walked in to do the exam and Antonio stepped out to give them some privacy.
He went to the hall and called Laura. She could tell immediately something was wrong with him, but he left it after a rough day after he assured her that he was fine. He would tell her, when he got home, what had happened. Then he would hold her as tight as she would let him for as long as she would let him and do the same to his kids.
He returned to find Jay painfully trying to struggle back into his shirt and arguing with the Lurch looking dude, who was named Dr. Franken of all things. His chest was already a lumpy mass of discolored skin. He winced just looking at it. "I really think you should reconsider. I would feel much more comfortable if you stayed at least tonight."
"I'm not staying," Jay sounded kind of like a petulant kid, or maybe he just seemed it because the doctor was 6'5" easy and Jay had a baby face.
"I can't sign off on you leaving."
"Then I will sign out, what is called, ROR or whatever," Jay said, finally getting his shirt back down.
"I don't think you understand the severity of this," the doctor tried and Antonio felt worry creep up. Jay looked OK, actually he looked annoyed but mostly OK.
"I understand, you said the breaks weren't displacements and the bruising wasn't a tear so I just need ice and rest."
"And monitoring, if you spleen ruptures, you could bleed out," Jay narrowed his eyes at the man and Dawson knew that particular look well. All this arguing was making Jay dig his heels in even deeper and he wasn't going to budge.
"What if someone stayed with him? To keep an eye on him," Antonio tried.
"You live alone?" The doctor asked and Jay nodded. "Of course you have to have someone stay with you. You aren't going to be able to take care of yourself for at least a week, probably two."
"I'll be fine, just get the paperwork, Doc, and stop worrying, I promise I won't sue." Jay said trying to sound charming, but the crabby look in his eyes kind of ruined it. The man walked out, clearly defeated by the Stubborn Wall of Halstead..
"I agree with him, you can't stay alone. Come stay with me. Laura would love to have you,"
"I highly doubt that," he said, staring after the doctor.
"Seriously man, after what you did, stay with me." He didn't know how to say what he wanted to. To thank him for saving his life. To shake him for risking his. To fucking hug him for giving him and O another day on this planet, with their families.
"It's fine, I don't need," he said again, scrubbing his hand across his face.
Antonio cut him off. "Jay, I am not going to let you walk out of here and stay alone. It's just not happening. If you won't stay with me, let me call Erin and ask her or call your father." The suggestion of Erin elicited an annoyed narrowing of his eyes but the mention of his father looked vaguely murderous.
"Please just back off," he said.
Dawson fished out Jay's phone from his pocket. He had been holding it for him while he was x-rayed and ultra-sounded.
"Call someone or you are not walking out of here," he said, using his best dad voice.
"Fine!"
Mouse was leaning back in his chair and bouncing his ball off the wall pondering his next move, when his phone rang. He grabbed it on the second ring when he saw the caller ID said, Ginger Dumbass. "Howdy, sweet cheeks, what's shaking?"
"Hey man," he answered and three things became apparent to Mouse. First was that he was on speaker phone. Second was that Jay sounded like he was in an airport or hospital, and third was that his buddy sounded strained, like something was wrong. "What are you doing tonight?" He asked.
"Not much, dinner then some work or games, haven't decided yet, why?"
"Was wondering if you could come over and spend the night?" He could hear the annoyance in his friend's voice along with a call in the background for a doctor. He was clearly at a hospital.
"Sure, but why?"
"I got shot," he blurted out.
"You got shot, shit, are you OK?" Mouse sat up straight from his slouch immediately.
"Calm down, it's not that bad. It hit the vest but everyone is making a big deal about it and don't want me to stay alone."
"How bad is it, for real?" Jay sighed. He might downplay it to other people but Mouse was pretty sure Jay wouldn't lie to him.
"Broken sternum, a couple of broken ribs, a bruised liver, and a bruised spleen," he admitted. Shit!
"You're lucky I love you, brother, because Nana made Yapchik for Shabbat tonight."
"You can come over after dinner," Jay started.
"I'm kidding, Blue Jay, I'm kidding. You need me to pick you up?" He asked, throwing things into a duffle. It wasn't hard because he didn't really put anything away.
"No, I'll drive him home," Antonio cut in before Jay could answer, not trusting the man to turn around and call the whole thing off as soon as he turned his back.
"Cool beans, how long till you are home? I can be there in twenty."
"They are getting the discharge papers now, so an hour."
"Didn't go to the VA, huh? Using that fancy city insurance unlike the rest of us schmucks." Mouse joked.
"Something like that. The doctor is back with the paperwork, I have to go, I'll see you later." The line went dead.
Mouse managed to putter around for all of another 7 minutes before he decided to say fuck it and head to Jay's place and wait for him. He had a key and now he felt too anxious and jittery to sit still. When he got there, the place was predictably spotless. Jay was kind of a neat freak. He even made his fucking bed for godsakes, like what adult not in military actually did that? He knew it was actually a little bit of OCD in Jay but he let it slide. Compared to him, Halstead was a bastion of mental health and if his biggest tell was that his apartment looked like a model home, that really wasn't so bad.
He settled down to wait and called his grandmother. "Hey, Nana, how are you?"
"Oh you know," she said, he could hear her smile. Dr. Rivka Gerwitz was one of the scariest people on the planet. She had survived the ghettos and the camps as a child, bartered her way out of Communist Russia as a 19 year old, raised a daughter as a single woman in a country she barely spoke the language of at 20, earned a masters ethics at 27, a phd at 31, taught till she was 76, and made the best brisket and kugel in the world. She never married and never regretted it. She also had one of the biggest hearts and he hoped he didn't stress it too much.
"Look, I'm going to have to miss Shabbat tonight, something came up," he tried not to get too specific. She loved Jay like a second grandson and hearing that he had been injured would upset her.
"You can't, Rebecca was going to light the candle and say the Mitzvah for the first time." Shit, Mouse forgot about that. While his family wasn't particularly observant, they were still culture Jews and his little sister had been waiting to be old enough to do it. She had had her 10th birthday on Monday and this would be her first.
"I know, but," he decided there was no way out of it without coming clean, unless he said he was in prison but then she might storm the prison and bust him out. "Jay got hurt at work today and he asked if I could come stay with him till he felt better."
"What happened to him?" Again with the trying to figure out how much to tell her. He sighed and told her everything he knew. She would get it out of him eventually. One did not say no to Dr. Rivka Gerwitz for long.
"He got shot, but it hit his vest. He has some busted ribs and stuff. He'll be fine, they discharged him and he is on his way home, but he'll be laid up for a while and I kind of owe some nurse duties," he explained. It was an understatement. When they had gotten back to Chicago, after their second tour, Mouse had had to have no less than 7 surgeries on his legs and months upon months of physical therapy. Jay was there for almost all of it, staying with him in the hospital, cheering him on at physio, letting Mouse vent to him. And that was just the help for physical injuries. The other things, the help Jay had been for him with those injuries had been even more precious.
"Oy gevalt! Of course you stay with him," she said and Mouse felt himself relax from his tension at fear of her lecturing him. He often joked that if the Army had sent his grandmother and her disapproving finger against Al Qaeda the war would have been over in 30 minutes or less.
"I will. Tell mom and Beca I'm sorry, would you."
"Of course dear, and give Jay my love."
"Will do, love ya," he hung up and hoped he hadn't just lied to her and it wasn't actually a lot worse than Jay was letting on. Luckily for him, he didn't have to wait much longer before he heard the key jingling in the door. He beat Jay to the punch and opened it, coming face to face with a deathly pale best friend and a dude that looked like a Mexican gang banger, holding a white pharmacy bag.
He was about to question the situation when he noticed Halstead push away from the door to take a step but have to lean heavily against the table by the door to stay upright. He immediately reached out for him and helped him shuffle to partially sit on the back of his couch.
"See, Antonio, I am home, there is someone here, and I have meds, you can leave now. I'm good."
The man, who must have been Antonio though he seemed more like his name should be something like el shanksalot, gave him a look up and down and something made him feel like he didn't pass the test. But he shoved the bag and some folded papers at him. "Here are his discharge papers, he needs to stay fairly still, apply ice, take his meds, and make sure to take 5 deep breaths an hour." Mouse scanned the instructions and there was way more to it than that. He was supposed to look for signs of shock, signs of hypovolemia, breathing difficulties, collapsed lungs. Fuck, maybe he should have stayed in the hospital.
"OK, sir," he said because he wasn't sure how else to address the rather terrifying man. His super dark eyes tennis matched between him and Jay before he turned to leave.
"You," he pointed at Mouse, "call if he needs anything and don't let him snow you, he is hurt worse than he is letting on." Jay snorted from his hunched position leaning against the couch. How exactly was he supposed to call him if he didn't know who he was or his number and wouldn't and an ambulance be a better choice?
"Trust me, Dawson, he is the one person I couldn't fool, even if I wanted to, now go and let me lie down in peace," Jay said with a bit more humor. The answer seemed to satisfy el Shanksalot because he closed the door behind him. Mouse locked it out of habit.
As soon as it closed, Jay sagged even more, holding onto his side. Mouse put his pill bottles and papers down. He would read them thoroughly after he had Jay settled in. "Bed?" he asked.
"Bathroom, I need to piss like a racehorse," he explained as Mouse helped him up. It really didn't seem super odd to him to help hold his buddy up while he peed or help him change into baggy pajamas. They had been spotter and gunner for years. They had slept beside, eaten beside, shit beside each other more than anyone else in their lives. They intimately knew every aspect of every disgusting bodily function of the other so this was nothing.
"Bed now?" Mouse asked, once Jay was changed.
"Couch, I should probably eat something. I threw up my breakfast." Mouse helped him shuffle to the couch and slowly lower himself down. He was sweating and sallow looking by the time he was settled. Mouse mentally ran through the symptoms of shock. He met many of them, rapid and shallow breathing, cold clammy skin but he would give him a few minutes to relax before panicking.
"Got it, food, pills, sleep," he said as he handed his friend a bottle of Powerade before rummaging around for some food. There wasn't much, as usual. There were pickles though because other people had normal comfort foods like chocolate cake, matzah ball soup, macaroni and cheese, or mashed potatoes but Jay's comfort food was pickles. And smoked trout, which was equally as fucking weird. The first time Mouse introduced him to lox, he thought he was going to climb on the table and start double fisting them, Homer Simpson style. Because he was pretty sure his buddy was a cat in his last life. But Halstead liked things that were super sour and salty better than sweet. He was the only person he knew that voluntarily ate salt and vinegar potato chips. In fact the only sweets he would usually eat were Sour Patch Kids, which kind of grossed him out. He also liked cinnamon gum, which just kind of bordered on Communism.
There wasn't much else, which wasn't surprising. Jay was one of those freaks that usually stopped at the market every day and cooked, ate then repeat the next day. But he did have bread and peanut butter, which would work. Of course as he went to put it in the toaster he remembered that Jay didn't have one. As if there weren't enough clues that Jay was single and had no mother, the fact he didn't own a toaster might be the most glaring.
He gave up and just put some peanut butter on the bread and handed it to him. He then rooted around the bag from the pharmacy. "Let's see, Celecoxib, 200 ml." He set it aside. "Oooh, and Percocet, they gave you the good stuff." He took the bottles over to Jay, who ignored them. Mouse rolled his eyes, knowing his buddy was going to fight him on taking anything other than advil. Jay was always a little weird about stuff like that. He knew the way the doctors at Walter Reed treated him when he got back had been a big part of it. I
Mouse didn't often like to dwell on the rather dark and depressing stage of their lives, even if it liked to dwell on him, but sometimes you couldn't avoid it. The reasons why they were there and what they were supposed to be doing were no longer important, but the humvee they had been riding in had run over an IED. He and Jay had been the only survivors. Their sergeant had survived the initial explosion, but a sniper had taken him out a few hours later. Mouse's legs had been crushed and trapped by the twisted metal under the dashboard. Jay had been riddled with shrapnel and ended up with over 60 pieces of it in his left arm, shoulder, left side of his back, neck, and stomach. Surprisingly, Jay had been much better off than Mouse at the time. He was in pain, but he was still mostly functional, unlike Mouse who was trapped in a humvee with a broken pelvis, femur, and basically everything south of his knees shattered. Jay may have actually been ok, if they hadn't gotten stranded out there for 7 days and 6 nights. A week of being trapped and helpless for him, and a week of the weight of everything resting on Jay while his wounds got infected, especially the gut wound because they do that, and getting compartment syndrome in his arm and chest. They wouldn't have made it, if they hadn't been together, if it had been anyone else.
Mouse didn't remember being rescued, he just remembered waking up on a transport flight to the states with his buddy beside him, covered in ice with multiple IVs trying to keep his fever from peritonitis, pneumonia, and sepsis under control. He watched them slit Jay's swollen arm from his armpit to elbow and then from his elbow to the point of his wrist. He had called Jay's name and he hadn't answered. He didn't think he had ever been more terrified.
When they had gotten stateside, they had ended up at Walter Reed. The staff had taken pity on them, after Jay had, in a fevered frenzy, torn out his IVs twice to get to Mouse, allowed them to stay in the same room. Again it was the only way they made it through, having the other one right there. And yes he realized how weirdly co dependant that sounded but at the same time he gave zero fucks. He was not too proud to say he loved Jay.
Mouse had spent most of his time there hooked up to a morphine pump, thank god, but they had chosen to go lighter on Jay because his organs were already struggling from his infections. At first, he had been pretty out of it, in and out from fever and other things, but once his fever broke, it was obvious his buddy was in pain, a lot of it but he didn't say much. Mouse convinced him to mention it and the doctors told him not to worry about it, he was fine. But he wasn't. He couldn't move his arm without wincing and gasping because the huge slice they put in it was still open. The only time it got better was when they gave him morphine, which the doctors kept saying he shouldn't have needed, even after they removed 27 pieces of the humvee from his arm and chest.
They kept telling him he didn't hurt as much as he thought he did and were convinced he was a drug addict because only opioid narcotics seemed to work. Their suspicions had been further confirmed about it when Jay had woken up halfway through a surgery to get rid of infected tissue in his gut from his. They had said only someone with a ridiculous tolerance, like an addict, would be that hard to put under and keep under and because of that he was to get no narcotics for pain, only "reasonable" doses of lighter drugs.
The entire thing had been FUBAR. First off, the idea of waking up while someone was digging around in your gut but not being able to move or talk is kind of the stuff of nightmares and explained why Jay could be super twitchy about a lot of medical procedures. And second, the doctors thinking that tylenol was going to work after they had put a 5 inch slice into someone's stomach and in the process of doing so, had dislodged a piece of shrapnel that slowly migrated around his innards. But worst of all had been being trapped in traction, 6 feet away from his brother and hearing him literally spend the night crying in pain and not be able to do a damn thing about it except call the nurse when the pain had gotten so bad that Jay had vomited all over himself.
Nothing either of them did or said made a difference. The doctors just wouldn't believe them and Jay hadn't had any family there, anyone to advocate for him or even anyone to hold a basin for him at 3 in the morning when the pain was so bad it made him hurled. Mouse remembered that night, Jay had called Will, he had literally begged his brother to come see him, come help him, come make the doctors understand that something was wrong. Will didn't answer. After Mouse's prodding, Jay called him again at 3 am and he said he would come after some rest. At 10am, when he wasn't there and Jay had passed out, Mouse had called him and read him the riot act. Will hung up on him. Something in Jay broke then, finding out for real that his family didn't have his back. Something that, to this day, hadn't been fixed and may never be.
But at the time, he had thanked God, the Gerwitz women had figured out what was happening and had gone full on Jewish mother on those asshats and it had gotten mostly sorted. It pissed him off to this day though, that the doctors could have been so dismissive to Jay's pain, like it was normal to just walk off having 27 pieces of shrapnel dug out of you. He also hated that the entire thing had made Jay second guess injuries and suffer when he didn't need to because he didn't know if he was just being a whiner or not. But most of all, it made him angry that none of Jay's family had come the entire time they were there. He understood his parents couldn't afford to and that his mother had cancer and his father was working. But he would never understand Will not coming. He maybe still hated Will a little because of that, because you never forget the sound of your best fucking friend pleading through tears for his big brother to come save him from the doctors, the pain, and the horror of what they had gone through. And every time Will had just flaked on him and never shown up. Jay always thought Mouse tended to stay away during Will's infrequent visits because he wanted to give them time alone. He never realized he did it because he really wanted to punch Will in the fucking face.
About a year ago, he had been sitting at the VA and had read an article about a certain gene mutation that caused redhair. It also caused red freckles. Mouse had continued to read it, hoping to find something silly to embarrass his friend with. There wasn't anything silly but there was a bevy of research stating that people with this mutation had a tendency to have higher pain thresholds for things like cuts, bruises and burns but they also needed nearly 20-25% more anesthesia to put them under and needed sometimes twice as much for painkillers, except for opioid narcotics. It pretty much perfectly described what his ginger brother had dealt with. Just to be a douche, he had made a copy and sent it to the doctors that had treated Jay at Walter Reed. But the one thing it did, was give a pretty good explanation as to why Jay had spent most of his life being gaslit into thinking that something didn't actually hurt when it did and why he was pretty much shit at determining if he was badly injured.
But none of this was going to solve Jay's stubborn streak. "Your Herculian pain tolerance aside, you actually need to take these because they will help with swelling and keeping the muscles relaxed."
"Ice will help with swelling," he corrected clearly trying to get comfortable and failing miserably. Most of the time, when Jay was like this, you had to just let him figure it out for himself, so Mouse just shrugged.
"Do you at least have ice packs?"
"Freezer," he supplied and Mouse found several sizes already chilled and neatly stacked. Somehow it did not surprise him. He grabbed the largest and a precisely folded dish towel and handed it to Jay, who pressed it against his aching torso.
Mouse settled himself down with his laptop and turned the TV onto something mindless, hoping Jay would fall asleep. He typed away for a while, with about a quarter of his attention focused on Jay. Things went fine for about 10 minutes, until the cold from the ice pack clearly started to get to him and make him shiver. He went to grab the blanket off the back of the couch, forgetting that rotating and extending his arm was a no go. He cursed loudly when he was reminded. But the thin blanket wasn't going to be enough to stop the shivering as the ice actually cooled his core temperature. Shivering can be controlled, at least for a while, with willpower, when you are in top form and can stay relaxed. Not so much when you are tense from pain.
"God damnit!" Jay said at the 18 minute mark of keeping the ice pack on him. "I'll take the ones for swelling at least." he relented and Mouse took the ice pack back to the freezer and spilled out two pills, handing them to Jay.
"You should take the percocet too," he half heartedly tried. He knew Jay wouldn't. Too convinced it was a sign of weakness and too conditioned to just "nut up" and take it. Not for the first time in his life, Mouse thanked his lucky stars that he was raised by a bevy of women that didn't believe in raising him to be a toxically masculine tough guy and showed him that there was strength in vulnerability. Not like his poor friend who was raised by an at best slightly negligent mother and an at least mentally abusive father. He let it drop, for now.
Mouse would have liked to say that the pills helped but from the look of Jay, they barely took the edge off. He was about to say something else, when Jay's phone rang, a common enough occurrence but the phone was on his coffee table and Jay would have had to sit up and reach to get it. He let it go to voicemail.
The problem was not three minutes later it rang again. Then 2 minutes after that, then 3 three minutes. Mouse was about to tear his hair out. "I don't suppose you would hand that to me?"
"I don't suppose you would take the prescription pain reliever that the doctor prescribed to you so you can reach it yourself?" Jay ground his teeth and the phone rang again.
"This Lindsey person is pretty insistent to get a hold of you? Do you owe them money?"
"It's my partner," Jay said, trying to sit up without actually moving any of his core muscles. It rang again.
"This one is from Voight," he read the caller ID.
"Oh will you just hand me the fucking phone?" Jay snapped.
"Will you just take the damn pills?"
"Yes," he said and Mouse smiled, handing him his phone, but only after he swallowed two Percocet.
It rang again as he was opening it up to dial. "Hey, yes, I'm fine. I was just dozing. I told you I am fine. No you don't need to come over. Yes. Of course. OK. Goodbye." Mouse could only hear Jay's side of the conversation.
"Which partner was that?" Mouse asked. Jay had like forty-two partners it seemed.
"The hot one," he offered as he slowly pulled his knees up and put his arm across his eyes.
"You slept with her yet?"
"No, she is my partner, not just some random woman."
"Can I sleep with her?" Mouse asked, not even remotely serious. He knew Jay had feelings for her, even if he wouldn't admit it. He talked about her constantly.
"You can try," he said and Mouse chuckled.
They stayed like that for another 45 minutes or so. Mouse could see the drugs were starting to work by the fact he couldn't hear Jay grinding his teeth anymore. He hoped he would fall asleep because sleep was the best thing for injuries like that and he knew it from personal experience.
He was shaken out of his maudlin musings by Jay giggling at something on TV, even though he wasn't actually watching it. Jay didn't giggle. Another sign the meds were working.
"Feeling better, man?" He asked.
"I feel floaty," he answered and Mouse couldn't hide his smile.
"You're high," he said. He had gotten drunk, stoned, done coke, and other various things enough with Halstead to know when he was flying and he clearly was.
"I am super high right now," he concurred and Mouse snorted at him. But before he could do more there was a knock at the door. He looked at Jay, questioning who it was. His friend just gave him a, "fuck if I," face. Mouse opened the door and was met with el Shanksalot minus his tattoos, bandana, and other varied and assorted gang paraphernalia. He looked much more normal. He had a pleasant looking but skinny woman with him.
"Hello, we just wanted to drop these off for Jay," the woman said, holding out an expertly wrapped basket of beautiful and delicious looking confections. There were cookies, muffins, bagels, tarts, breads, the whole kit and kaboodle.
"Ah ok," he said, accepting the gift, not sure what to do with it.
"Is he doing ok?" el Shanksalot asked.
"I'm fine, Antonio," Jay said from the couch, where he was slowly inchworming himself into a seated position. Mouse could tell the meds were working by the fact he could actually do that and that his eyes looked glazed and unfocused. Jay's eyes were never unfocused.
"You should be in bed," el Shanksalot said, pushing past him. The woman following him in.
"Sure come on in," Mouse said sarcastically as he pushed the door closed with his foot while balancing the giant carb basket.
"I'm lying on the couch," Jay defended.
"The couch isn't a bed. You need to go to bed,"
"Bed is boring," Jay slurred slightly.
"I can see if that Lindsey person that called 27 times can come and keep you company in bed," Mouse said with a straight face.
"You can't, she's my partner." Jay told him.
"Your hot partner," Mouse reminded him.
"My very hot partner," he said before slamming his hand over his mouth and looking mortified he had said that outloud. El Shanksalot laughed at him. "Don't tell her I said that," Jay begged.
"I am pretty sure she knows she's attractive, but I won't say anything, I promise."
"I wanted to thank you, Jay, for what you did," the woman said, sounding teary eyed. What the fuck had he done? He hadn't bothered to ask him how he had been shot because it frankly didn't matter that much.
"It was nothing," Jay said, clearly having a hard time following the conversation. For all that non narcotic pain killers didn't work that well for Jay, narcotics knocked him on his ass. Before Mouse could question, there was another knock at the door and he was met with the same confusion from Jay.
He opened it up and saw an average looking man wearing a beanie, with a long mustache, a woman with really thick hair, and a teenage girl. He had never seen any of them before in his life. Before he could ask why they were there, the mustached man waved to el Shanksalot and walked past him. The woman making a beeline for the kitchen to put down a tupperware container of something. Who the fuck were these people and why were they here.
"Hey Halstead, how are you doing?" the mustache man asked, as the women began chatting.
"I'm good," he said looking around at all the people in his apartment.
"That's good, Meredith made you some lasagne," Mustache said. He wished he knew names but no one had bothered to introduce themselves to him.
"Yes, Jay, would you like me to heat some up for you?" Thick hair woman said.
"I brought chocolate chip cookies too, if you would rather have those. Toni said they were your favorite." Pleasant woman said.
Jay looked a little overwhelmed by the choices. "Um, maybe later I'm not hungry, and I don't know who half of you are," he explained and Mustache chuckled.
"Sorry, man, this is my wife, Meredith," he put his hand on the thick hair lady and my daughter, Lexi." Jay smiled at them.
"And you remember my wife, Laura," el Shanksalot introduced the pleasant woman.
"No, not really," Jay said and she smiled at him. He felt kind of bad that Jay was so out of it in front of people he worked with.
"I don't think we have met," Meredith said, reaching for his hand. He took it, kind of surprised anyone bothered to talk to him.
"I'm Greg but everyone just calls me Mouse," he said in his normal rapid fire speech pattern.
"Mouse is my brother," Jay said with a dopey smile on his face.
"Oh you're a doctor, right?" Antonio asked.
"No, that's Will, my brother brother, Mouse is my other brother," he explained, causing more confusion.
Mouse was about to clarify when there was another knock on the door. He went to answer it, wondering if the whole district was going to show up in Jay's tiny apartment or which one of the two women were going to win the Halstead is going to eat my food game.
He opened the door but instead of seeing another cop, he saw his grandmother standing there with an entire shopping bag full of tupperware containers. He looked around for his mother but didn't see her.
"Nana, what are you doing here?" he asked as he let her in and took the back from her.
"Checking on mein andere enkel," she offered, removing her bright coat and handing it to Mouse. He hadn't bothered to take anyone else's because he hadn't known why they were there or how long they were staying.
"Where is Mom?"
"She is at home with your sister."
"Then how did you get here?"
"I took the train," she said matter of factly. He felt his eyes go wide. It had to be over an hour from where she lived to Jay's apartment on the train and at least a 15 minute walk, at night, in a shitty part of Chicago.
"Nana, are you crazy?"
"I survived the Warsaw Ghetto, I can survive the L train," she said walking past him and over to Jay. He watched the people part like the Red Sea before Moses as she walked over and stood behind him.
"You didn't need to come," he said, trying to sit up straighter but clearly causing himself pain.
"Stay, stay," she waved at him as she bent down and kissed his hairline. She had done that to Jay more than once when they had been in the hospital. He always seemed to love it. "Now, have you eaten?"
"I'm not really hungry," he said, giving the same answer he had given to everyone else.
"Nonsense, you are too skinny, I'll fix you a plate," she went to the kitchen, calling the other women behind her. Soon they appeared with probably every dish Halstead had heaped with food for the guests and a bowl full of matzah soup for Jay.
He tried to protest again but she shoved it at him leaving him no choice but to take it. "Eat, no arguments," she said matter of factly, wagging her boney finger at him.
"Yes ma'am," he agreed, meekly eating the soup. Mouse would have laughed if he hadn't been on the receiving end of that look and that finger wag so many times in his life. .
After they had gotten out of Walter Reed, and come back to Chicago, Jay's mom was really sick. She had stage 4 cancer and Jay wasn't even close to 100%. He had stayed with them for a few weeks, until his mother's doctor deemed it safe enough for Jay to be around her without risking infection. She had gone with him and kept him company after his final surgery to close up the wound from the fasciotomy from the compartment syndrome because his own mother was too ill. She had also taken care of him at her wake, when his father was a drunken mess, his brother was nowhere to be found, and half the neighborhood was singing off key and shooting whiskey. She had simply sat beside him and explained the concept of sitting shiva, and let him feel the loss in a safe way. She had prayed for him, when he had disappeared into the woods in Wisconsin for months, trying to run away and hide from the horrors in his own head. She had also gone to his graduation from the Police Academy and even gone to his black belt ceremony at the Krav Maga dojo. She was more family to him than anyone with the name Halstead.
As they ate, most more enthusiastically than Jay because few things robbed your appetite more than the combination of pain and painkillers, Nana grilled Mustache, who was apparently named Olinsky, about his knowledge of Poland and Polish. His grandmother had rather a keen dislike of Poland and Soviet Russia. When they finished, she ushered the women back into the kitchen to clean up, even over Jay's objection. Mouse at least managed to get her to sit while he helped. Because really, just because he was a guy didn't mean he didn't know how to cook or do dishes, his mother and grandmother taught him that shit young.
When they were done, Nana stood and declared it was time to leave Jay to rest. No one argued with her. He wondered if Jay would be ok long enough for him to take her home. "Blue Jay, will you be cool for an hour while I take Nana home?"
"Sure, as long as my head doesn't float away," he said before scrunching his brow up and saying, "fuck, I didn't mean to say that." He had been doing that all evening, blurting out weird things he normally would never say out loud. Jay high was a window in the incredibly amusing and snarky individual he was but was too reserved to show. It would actually be pretty fucking funny if he didn't know how embarassed Jay was by it.
"No, no, I can take the train home, stay here," she told him, patting his hand.
"You are not walking through this neighborhood at this time of night or riding the L train home," he insisted.
"You walk through this neighborhood at night," she challenged him.
"I was a Ranger and did two tours in Afghanistan. You are 5 feet tall and pushing 80, he responded feeling very uncomfortable having this conversation in front of basically strangers. He could hear Jay giggling watching it and he shot him a sour look.
"Where are you going?" Antonio asked.
"North Loop, West Ridge," Mouse explained.
"If it ok, with you, ma'am, we can take you home. We are heading that way," he offered and Mouse could have kissed him.
"That would be lovely, young man," she said, putting on her coat and giving Jay a kiss goodbye. Mouse flopped onto the couch, exhausted and he hadn't even been the one that had gotten shot.
"You good?" he asked Jay, watching him sink back down into a mostly reclined position.
"Yeah, just a little, I don't know peopled out. I don't think I have ever had that many people in my apartment before." Mouse understood. For all that he was a talkative, ok maybe blabbermouth, extrovert, his BFF was a classic introvert and being around a lot of people always tended to wear him down.
"You want me to help you get to bed so you can have some privacy?" Mouse asked, not at all insulted or hurt that Jay may want alone time. His buddy answered by stretching his legs out into Mouse's lap so he couldn't get up. He grabbed the remote, flipping through the guide. "What do you want to watch Outbreak or Lethal Weapon 2, both solid Rene Russo movies?"
"You and your obsession with Rene Russo, she is old enough to be your mother, in fact she is older than your mother." That was true Mouse's mother had had him at the ripe old age of 25 after she graduated from nursing school. She had never told him who his father was and by the time he was 20 and had joined the army, he had quit asking. But knowing her MO, it was probably a married doctor.
"She is a handsome woman no matter her age," he defended and tossed in, "And it is no more weird than your Milla Jovovich thing," he teased. He and Jay actually had pretty drastically different taste in women. Jay was all about the eyes. He fell for women with gorgeous eyes. Mouse liked Amazonian women that looked like they could whip his ass and he was not going to delve into the psychological reasons he found domineering women attractive.
"At least she is slightly more age appropriate but Lethal Weapon. The Outbreak monkeys freak me out. It's their weird little fingers." Mouse turned it to Lethal Weapon and got up to get an ice pack for his friend before he could refuse.
Twenty minutes later, Mouse took the ice packs and put them back in the freezer and turned off the lights, hoping Jay would fall asleep. When he got back, Jay had tucked his blanket all the way up to his chin. He wasn't surprised. He could also see him trying his damnest not to shiver.
"This sucks," he sank down a little further so he was lying mostly flat. The drugs were obviously still working because he still seemed slightly unfocused and not in as much pain as he should be. He was also admitting he was uncomfortable, which was a dead give away he wasn't in his normal frame of mind.
"Yeah, well, you know it is going to be 10 times worse if it gets too swollen and next time you get shot at, fucking duck," Mouse said.
"If I did, Tonio would be dead," he retorted. But a few minutes later followed it with, "I couldn't do it. I couldn't let him die because I don't know how many more dead I can carry," he said, staring fixedly at the TV.
"I get it, man, it's heavy, that weight." Mouse did get it. He got it better than almost anyone because he had been with Jay in Afghanistan, since Basic, through all the training , and two and some change tours, and the friends Jay had lost had been his friends too. He understood why Jay had done what he had done. It was part training and part instinct and part Jay thinking other people's lives were more important than his own. But he needed to see what his death would do to other people. What it would do to the people that cared about him. It was his one blind spot, how many people loved him.
"But you also don't want to make them carry your weight," he added. "That shit isn't fair."
"It's never fair," Jay retorted and he couldn't argue that fact. Life and death were not fair. But it would drive you crazy, wondering why he and Jay were sitting here having this conversation while other men, family men, educated men, better men were cold in the ground. "And I'm light as a feather compared to Dawson and Olinsky. I don't have a wife, kids, or really a family. Sometimes I wonder if I even really weigh anything."
Mouse kind of wanted to strangle him but also saw his point. Single men were the most expendable in any operation. It was just how it was. And Jay was still single and his father had another son and Jay wasn't really close to either his father or his brother. So yeah, from that perspective Jay had been right. But Mouse felt fucking sick thinking about burrying his friend, his fucking brother in everything but genetics, not after they had fought so hard to survive over there. And not after they had both worked so hard to claw their way back to some sense of normalcy, some sense of a life.
And he even got Jay's statement about wondering if he weighed anything. Mouse had always struggled with anxiety, panic attacks, and flashbacks. But Jay, Jay's biggest thing was derealization. He knew his buddy still struggled with recognizing that he was in fact alive, in Chicago, and this wasn't some dream he was going to wake up from and be back crouched against an overturned Humvee trying to keep himself and Mouse alive while artillery rained around them and snipers shot at them.
"Not all family is blood, man, you know that," he explained. His mother, his grandmother, his sister, they all saw Jay as mispoche, family. They had taken care of him, when they had gotten back. When his brother was an hour away and too busy in med school and too selfish to be distracted. It had been the Gerwitz ladies that had been there, keeping their spirits up, reading to them as they healed, at least physically, and sitting there as Jay was plagued by nightmares waking up from surgery two and three. That was the entire freaking reason his Nana had ridden the L train and walked to Jay's apartment to bring him soup. But he didn't see it. He wouldn't see it. It scared him too much, having too many attachments, too many people counting on him. Too many people he could let down. Too many people, whose loss would gut him.
"Those guys, they brought their wives, their kids, they see you as family, maybe not like we are with each other, but they could be, if you let them," Mouse explained and he saw Jay bite his lip. It was a nervous habit. He only did it when he was really uncomfortable or feeling very vulnerable.
Mouse knew it wasn't fair to throw this shit at him right now. Not after he had almost died, was in pain, and was now high as a fucking kite. But this was also the only time he could have it, the only time Jay would let him and not throw walls of snark or bile at him to get him to stop. Just because they were best friends didn't save him from Jay's defense temper. No one was safe from that.
But Most people got it so wrong, it wasn't that his buddy didn't want to get close to people, he was just utterly petrified of doing it. And while he was brave enough to serve as a Ranger and be a cop and throw himself between his unarmored partner and an assault rifle, he wasn't brave enough to let people care about him. Not after all the friends they had lost, losing his mother, and the dickbag way his brother had treated him. No one was that brave.
Jay didn't answer him, he didn't expect him to. He looked over and realized his friend's eyes were closed and he was dozing. Mouse let him. Sleep was what he probably needed more than his nagging. He hooked the edge of the coffee table closer so he could prop his feet up. Jay always kept it too far away because, even though he was only technically 2.5 inches taller, he was built like a Chris Claremont character with stilt legs and he had 4 inches of inseam on Mouse.
He sipped his beer, wondering if he should call Will or Pat and let them know what happened. Part of him thought he should, they should know, they were his family, his real family, even if they were usually kind of useless. But then again, he also realized the logic of not bothering them with the details since Jay was going to be fine. Why worry them? He mulled it over while he waited for his buddy to fall deeper asleep so he could get up and put away the copious amounts of food people had brought. It wasn't hard to find space for it because the only food Jay tended to keep around was bread, eggs, coffee, and pickles.
After he sat back down a car outside backfired. He felt his heart race at the sound as he jumped. He also saw Jay start awake, then groan, curling in on himself. Perocet was awesome but broken bones and bruised internal shit still was not awesome and startling out of deep sleep like that into a sitting position had to be hella painful.
"Hey man," Mouse steadied him. "It's all good, you OK?" he said as he helped him lean back again, but not lie completely down, and grey as a corpse.
"Fuck, this shit hurts," he ground out, his teeth clenched so hard Mouse could hear them grinding. He was holding his breath.
"Just breathe man," he parrotted the phrase Jay had said to him about a million times. Jay finally took a gasping breath. "Does this shit hurt like you just shouldn't have moved and need a minute or this shit hurts like your liver exploded and I need to take you to hospital?" Mouse was trying to judge. They had been taught to triage their own injuries, to be self reliant, to always be ready and Jay was more self reliant than most.
"No hospital, more like I just moved too fast and it hurts so bad I want to puke," he swallowed and clarified through gritted teeth. He was still tense as a board but was at least shallowly breathing. But that he could deal with.
"Well, let me know if you are going to puke so I can move slightly out of range," he joked, trying to sus out if he was just nauseated from pain or was actually about to hurl.
Jay snorted quietly at him, finally opening his eyes, the glassiness was wearing off but they were cloudy with pain. Mouse hated seeing it. "You're all heart, buddy," he retorted, slowly lying back down.
"You want me to help you get to bed?" He asked. He was sure Jay would be more comfortable stretched out in a bed.
He shook his head as he sank back down. "I am not fucking moving again till spring. I'll sleep here," he said panting slightly in a very specific way people did when they had broken ribs where they are trying to breathe without moving. "I feel completely fucked horrible," he admitted.
"Gotcha,," Mouse said, secretly happy he got the bed, though he would probably stay out here with Jay just to be safe.
"You'll stay, right? At least," Jay started and Mouse knew that his friend didn't have a real until. Because until he fell asleep, he might still wake up with the feeling of gunfire pummeling his chest. Until tomorrow, he might still be in so much pain or so drugged up to fight that pain that he would have a hard time doing simple tasks like pissing or getting a drink. Until he felt better, might make sense but what was better? No he knew Jay was asking him to stay until his head and his body were right enough to push it all back down and he would, he always would.
"Sure, man, I'll stay as long as you'll have me," he said, settling back down at the end of the couch and letting Jay stretch his stupid spider legs onto his lap. He then droned on about the hustle he had gotten testing vulnerabilities for an Apple app, till he heard Jay's breathing even out. He would let him sleep for an hour or two, then wake him up to take more meds or he would be in agony in the morning.
Who was he kidding, he would sleep here tonight and watch his shooter's back, just like he had done countless times over there. And, regardless of Will's perception, for once he would be the strong one. He would be the grounding one. He would be the one that picked up the pieces instead of the other way around. And he would do it everyday and twice on Sundays for Jay because Jay did it for him almost every day.
Antonio walked in Saturday morning, to finish up some paperwork and then take his kids to their grandparents for some spoiling. He wasn't surprised to see Hank there or O. He also was unsurprised to see that none of the younger crowd was there. He worked through a solid half hour before Voight came out, hands in pockets rocking slightly on his feet. It was such a classic pose of "I want to know something but don't want to actually ask."
He let the man swing in the wind for a few before taking pity on him. "Jay got home and was doing really well. Laura made him some cookies and muffins and we dropped them off last night."
"Meredith and I stopped by too," O volunteered. Hank raised his eyebrow to that. "She wanted to take over some food to him," he explained. "Yeah, some other really old lady came too and brought him matzah soup and perogi. She also grilled me in Polish, taught Meredith how to make something called Kugel, and cowed Jay worse than anything I have ever seen."
Antonio laughed at the description of Dr Gerwitz. She was a formidable woman for being so tiny.
"So he is set on food, who is staying with him?
"Some guy that may or may not be his brother. The conversation got a little confusing." Antonio said with a smile.
"How is that a confusing topic?"
"The doctors gave him a bunch of drugs and he was kind of out of it."
Hank nodded but Al continued. "High Halstead was kind of funny."
"Interesting because he normally has about as much of a personality as a clean but slightly damp paper towel." Antonio snorted and Olinsky outright laughed at the sarge's description. Of the younger officers, Jay definitely had the most introverted with the flattest personality. He didn't really joke with you or until he got to know you.
"Dull personality or not, he did save both of us," Antonio started amused but ended somber. "Both Al and I would be dead without him."
"Yeah, yeah we would," O added and they both went about the rest of their day.