Hello :)
I know, I know, it's been months and months and months since I've posted anything. Again. Excuse me while I do my walk of shame XD Thank you for not giving up on me and my horrible uploading schedule that is everything but a schedule.
I'm not even gonna get into it, but let's just say I hatenot having enough time to write. I mean, who the heck invented college?! Or stupid assignments for that matter. On a more positive note my cats and I finally got my Batchelor's degree – a special thank you goes to my cats, who deserve at least 90% of the credit for continuing to be the best study buddies and free therapists throughout the whole process. I now officially have two more years to go in order to get my Master's degree and then I can finally say goodbye to that lovely building that has brought nothing but stress and anxiety into my life XD
On another positive note, your prayers must've worked, because my cousin (who got hit by a car almost exactly a year ago) is slowly getting better. We were finally able to meet up in person a few times, which has helped everyone so much. It was recently his mom's birthday, and he was able to walk up the stairs to their apartment for the first time, which is a huge milestone. He still has a long road ahead of him and even then he might never be able to live on his own, but we're taking it one step at a time. Thank you for all of your encouraging words and positive thoughts. It means the world. You seriously have to be some of the kindest people I've ever 'met'. If any of you are ever in need of a prayer, please let me know, so I can return the favour.
Enough about me XD How are all of you doing? I hope you're well, healthy and safe. With everything that's been going on in the world these past few years, I'm really starting to wonder where we're headed…
As always, you've left me the sweetest reviews, so here are the personal responses you should've received months ago.
floopdeedoopdee: Your reviews always crack me up! They're quite flawless, not gonna lie. I love how you pointed out your favourite 'LoL lines' XD I may have gone a little crazy in the last chapter with the sarcastic/sassy moments. I have no clue what was going on with my brain that day to be honest, but I'm glad it worked out XD Thank you so much for the good wishes about my cousin and I'm sorry to hear about your dad. Thank you for the idea about using FaceTime. We were only able to do it once, because the hospital staff was understandably always neck deep in work, but those few minutes made such a difference! I wish they allowed us to volunteer to go help patients FaceTime their families, especially now that visitors aren't allowed. Oh, and I totally agree with you about the scope thing. (I mean, the least they could do is let you look at the scope XD I was so excited to see the pictures afterwards hahah. Is that weird?) As much as I appreciate the numbing spray, it's so weird. Definitely one of the weirdest things I've ever felt. Except the spray they used thankfully only lasted about 5 minutes, so the whole thing was over pretty quickly. Small mercies. Anyway, thank you for leaving me such a kind review. It always makes my heart do leaps whenever I see one of the usernames of my favourite writers among the reviews. You have to be one of my favourite writers on here, because your stories are always so perfectly whumpalicious with a nice touch of angst! Thank you again, and I hope I have some more 'tasty whump sandwiches of whump with extra cheese' coming your way XD (That has to be the best thing anyone's ever said to me XD)
RileyHalstead: Thank you for your prayers! And thank you for the compliment. Not gonna lie, I'm a little nervous to turn the tables and make Will the injured one, but I hope I can come up with something decent XD
Megth: Thank you so much for the virtual hug. I'm sending one back your way. And thank you for the compliments. I love that you found the last chapter so hilarious XD I'm a sucker for the brotherly moments (and I wish we could see more of them on the show, but I guess we can't have everything), so I'm really glad to hear that you enjoy reading my take on their bromance XD
VictoriaAnnxx: (I apologize for the missing dot in your username, but FanFiction keeps deleting it for some reason.) Honestly, rants are the best XD I hate it when some of my favourite characters leave or get killed off a show, so in my FanFiction world nobody ever (permanently) dies or leaves. Life's cruel enough as it is, no need to bring all of that into fiction XD (And as horrible as it sounds, I totally understand wanting a character to get hit by a bus XD And I can't stand cheating either. I really wish people didn't do that…) Thank you so much for your prayers! It means the world to me. I'm happy to hear you and your family are doing well (I sincerely hope that's still the case), and I'm sorry that you've had to deal with anxiety too. I hope you're doing okay in that aspect too, because I know these past two years have been even harder on a lot of people… I wish I could say my anxiety's less of a problem, but it really isn't. It keeps going on and off constantly, and I hate that I'm letting it turn me into an impatient, cranky and annoyed person. Oh well, I guess we all have our battles. Like they say - we were given this life, because we're strong enough to live it. Thank you for always leaving me such kind reviews! (PS: I honestly don't know how I pass my exams either XD)
Gabriela Amato: Oh my, that's a lot of things to have to deal with in a week O_o I really hope your school isn't that intense all of the time, because that many exams in a week is just crazy. I'm glad to hear reading my story made it at least a tiny bit better. And I know this is way too late, but congratulations on your little sister. Thank you for all your good wishes! I'm so sorry to hear about your grandfather. I'm really lucky no one in my family other than one of my grandmas got infected (knock on wood). Hearing what people have to go through… it breaks my heart. On a more positive note, thank you for the compliment. I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed the little moment between Jay and Ethan and Jay's throwing marathon XD I love a nice touch of sarcasm too, so whenever my midnight brain has one of its sarcastic moments and supplies me with something that sounds funny to me, I listen XD
Ghostwriter: Thank you so much! I'm really glad to hear it.
Extraordinarygirl116: Aww, thank you so much! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the little comedy show at the end XD I wish we got more 'life with the Halstead brothers' scenes on the show too, but like you said – thank goodness we have FanFiction to make all our hopes and dreams come true XD And I'm glad you're excited about the 'Will story'. There really isn't that many on here, which might be the reason I'm quite terrified to write one. I'm so used to torturing Jay, I'm honestly not sure I know how to switch things up. Wow, that sounds so wrong taken out of context XD Thank you for your good wishes about my cousin and I'm sorry to hear you had a hard time in school too. It's probably not much of a consolation, but it does make me feel other people's experiences. All of my classmates are literal Einsteins who seem to have their life put together all of the time, so I feel like the biggest idiot sometimes. Similar to you and your brother, I always put way too much effort into things compared to other people and end up feeling like I'm stupid, because everything takes me so much longer than it does to other people. The part that sucks the most is feeling like school has taken over my entire life and it's still never enough. I'm glad to hear you feel like it was all worth it in the end! I hope I'll feel like that someday too. My mom always tells me that those who finish school aren't the smartest, but the people who refuse to give up. I guess it's kinda true… Anyhow, I'm glad to hear you and your family are doing well (I hope that's still the case). Everything you said about COVID is exactly the same as it was in my country. And now here we are, almost an entire year later and nothing's changed. I can't believe how little faith people have in science. I've already lost so many friends because we don't necessarily agree on certain things, such as vaccines. It's so stupid. I wish certain people had a little more compassion and empathy in them… I hope things get better before we destroy everything. All of our schools stayed closed most of the year too, including special ed schools, which was really hard for some of the kids (and their families). Thank goodness for people like you who try their best to make things at least a little bit easier! I had the opportunity to teach online school once a week for a semester. I was working individually with 4 kids with special needs and some things were definitely a lot harder than they would've been in person, but if it means keeping people safe, it's all worth it. I hope you can go back to teaching in person this year if it's safe enough.
P.S. Aww, you're too kind. I can't explain how much it means to me. Really. The least I can do is take the time to respond to your reviews. (I still wish there was an option to respond to reviews directly, because then you wouldn't have to wait for months to receive a thank you.) I really appreciate everyone who takes the time to leave me a review. (I'm ashamed to say this, but I'm still not great at leaving reviews. I should honestly kick myself in the butt and start reviewing more often.) And I love getting to interact with all of you at least a little bit, so really, I should be the one thanking you. But I really appreciate you pointing out that you enjoy reading these personal responses.
P.S.S. I hope you ended up getting a cat! If you did, please give it a nice cuddle in my name. (My cat would like to thank you for the hugs you sent.)
cheetahreader1213: Thank you so much! I'm sorry it took so long for me to finish that story, but don't worry, even though I take forever to upload, I'm not planning on abandoning this story anytime soon.
YuukiAsuna41: I'm glad to hear that XD I may have gone a little crazy with that last bit and tried to turn it into a comedy show.
larutanrepus89: Thank you! I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed reading the previous story.
aussiec: Oh my, I can totally see that happening now that you've said it! Thank you for the idea, I would love to dive into writing something like that. I'm definitely putting in on the list for future stories. And thank you so much for the compliment. It means the world.
Kaylerrae: Aww, I really appreciate that. It's so incredible to hear that you took the time to read all of the chapters again, and I'm really sorry I kept you waiting for a new chapter for so long.
Guest: I'm sorry this is so long overdue, but the day has finally come :)
Guest: I'm so sorry I kept you waiting for so long.
Me and my impossibly long author's notes XD Shall we finally begin?
This chapter's a bit different, because I accidentally took a new approach to writing it. I normally prefer writing in the first person, because it makes it easier to put all of the emotions and thoughts into the story (plus it comes more naturally to me), however I accidentally started writing this in the third person, so I decided to go with it. Turns out I don't actually hate it XD
You've been asking for an injured Will, so... here is my attempt at making Will Halstead the patient and Jay Halstead the worried mental wreck of a brother.
*Sips tea, cracks knuckles, pets cat.* I hope you like it :)
Everything Is Not What It Seems
Part 1
To Jay everything feels like it's trying to break through a layer of fog so thick that one wouldn't even be able to see the end of his own nose if he tried.
"Jay?"
Or maybe it's more as if he'd been underwater for a while and the water had already entered his ears, flooded his entire brain, and successfully drowned out all of the noises of the outside world.
"Jay, are you okay?"
Well, almost all the noises. Either way, the rest of the outside world seems to have lost the key to get to Jay. The only thing that has the ability to crawl through the tiny little creek underneath the door is the pale, motionless body, currently lying in a puddle of its own blood.
You're gonna be okay, everything's gonna be okay. I'm gonna fix this. I promise.
"How's he doing?" Another voice - a female one. Still not the one he's dying to hear right now though.
"I don't know, he's still not responding to me" the first voice – also female – responds again, slowly breaking through the fog in Jay's mind.
Gabby. The first voice is Gabby.
"Damn it. He might be in shock. Does he look hurt to you?"
"I- can't tell. He keeps whispering something, but… Jay, can you hear me?"
The second Gabby's hand touches Jay's shoulder everything shifts. His head snaps towards her, his frantic eyes creating a dead lock with her concerned ones.
"Help him, Gabby. You have to help him" he gasps out, grabbing a hold of her jacket sleeve with one of his bloody hands and holding on for dear life.
"I know, Jay, I know. Sylvie's taking care of him, okay? Can I please take a look at you and make sure you're okay?" she pleads, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, trying to guide him to sit down against the brick wall instead of kneeling in the bloody puddle.
"He's hurt, Gabby. Will- You have to help him. He's- he's dying."
"It's okay, Jay" Gabby whispers, her own heart breaking at the sight of her clearly distressed friends. One in a fair bit more of grave danger than the other at the moment, although that might only be the case thanks to a serious case of adrenaline rush that the currently better-looking Halstead brother seems to be experiencing.
"He's hurt. They- I couldn't-" Jay keeps mumbling, his eyes still locked on his brother's lax face. His whole body is trembling as if he were close to freezing even though it's not nearly that cold.
"Jay, listen to me, we need to get Will to a hospital, okay?" Gabby says gently while glancing over her shoulder to check on Will. Sylvie's bandaged up the wound on his torso and got an IV going, which means he's nearly ready to be transported. She either needs to get Jay to snap out of whatever trans he seems to be stuck in or she needs to call for a different ambulance for him, although she can't imagine the second option going well. "Jay, can you tell me if anything hurts?" she asks again while wrapping her fingers around one of his wrists as gently as she can.
Jay keeps mumbling something halfway incoherent while she quietly updates Sylvie on her observations. "His pulse is through the roof, but I'm guessing that might have something to do with fear rather than anything else. At least I hope so. I still can't tell if he's hurt too or not. His clothes are soaked with blood."
"Okay" Sylvie responds, shooting Jay a concerned glance. "Are you gonna call for another ambo?"
"I'm not sure it's the best idea to separate them... Will needs a hospital as soon as possible and I doubt we're gonna be able to keep Jay away from him." Sylvie nods in agreement, sticking leads to Will's chest in order to monitor his heartbeat. "Might be for the best... Maybe we can keep things from escalating."
"Alright" Sylvie agrees. "Help me get him on the stretcher and let's get out of here."
Gabby gives Jay another onceover before diverting her attention back to Will. As soon as they get him on the stretcher and start moving towards the back of the ambulance, Jay's up on his feet, scrambling behind them in order to stay as close to Will as possible.
"I've got them" Gabby announces once both of the brothers are inside. "You drive."
Sylvie nods, slamming the ambulance door shut while simultaneously reporting Will's condition and their expected time of arrival to dispatch.
Meanwhile, Jay has taken a hold of one of Will's hands and is busy mumbling comforting words to him, even though he himself looks like he could use some reassurance right now. Gabby has done everything she can for Will at the moment, so she decides to try her best to figure out what's going on with Jay before they reach the hospital.
"Jay?" she asks gently, hoping to get his attention without having to touch him. "How are you doing?" She gives him a minute before trying again. "Jay, can you hear me? Can we talk for a sec? Will's okay for right now. I promise."
She's not particularly close with either one of them, but her heart is literally breaking at the thought of what Jay must be going through right now.
"I know this is scarry, Jay, but I really need you to talk to me. Are you hurt?"
Once again, she gets nothing, although Jay does stop mumbling and settles into silence.
"Jay, come on-" Gabby encourages, worried that the silence might be worse than mumbling, because it could mean that Jay is on the highway to becoming unresponsive altogether.
"Voight" he blurts out slightly out of breath after a while, his eyes never leaving his brother's face.
"You want me to call Voight?" Gabby exhales relieved she was finally able to get him to respond, even if he still hasn't answered any of her questions.
One very shaky nod later, Gabby is scrambling for her phone, speed dialling the first number in her contact list.
"Hey Gabby, what's up?"
"Antonio, put Voight on the phone" she all but yells at her brother, eager to grant Jay's wish as soon as possible and hopefully bribe him into letting her help him afterwards.
"What's wrong?" a gruff voice asks seconds later.
She briefly wonders whether she should just pass the phone to Jay and let him explain everything, but seeing that the only thing he's able to focus on so far is Will, she decides against it.
"It's Will. I'm not sure what happened, but we're on our way to Med right now. Jay's with us."
Gabby's explanation is vague, but she's trying to get her point across as quickly as she can, so she can give the phone to Jay, who's gone back to mumbling some sort of a pep talk to his unconscious brother.
Voight stays silent for a few seconds, his heart clenching as he tries to take everything in, before he asks quietly: "Bad?" He's not entirely sure why he even asked that, because Jay not being the one calling him should've been the first sign that things were dire.
"Will's pretty bad off" Gabby says, confirming Voight's fear.
"And Jay?" Voight asks, concern for the closest thing he has to a son more than evident in his voice.
Before Gabby gets a chance to respond, the heart monitor starts wailing, notifying everyone that Will has taken a turn for the worse.
Jay immediately tenses, no longer anywhere near using his inside voice. "Will?! What's happening? What's wrong with him?! You can't do this to me, Will. Please!"
A single glance at the monitor tells Gabby that there sadly isn't much she can do to help Will other than try to get as much fluid into him as she can and pray they get to the hospital fast enough.
"Um... he's handling it..." she responds, grabbing the IV bag with her free hand and squeezing it. The rising melody of her response does nothing to reassure Voight.
"Put him on the phone" he orders, certain that Jay is doing anything but handling it well based on the sound of his panicked yelling coming from the back. The wailing sound is joined by some shuffling and whispering, before a raspy, out of breath wheeze is heard. "Kid?"
"Sarge?" Jay asks seemingly totally confused why his boss in on the other side of the phone, even though he was the one to request to talk to him in the first place.
"Jay..." Voight releases a breath he didn't know he was holding, relieved to hear the detective's voice, even if it sounds nothing like the Jay he's used to. "You okay, kid?"
"Voight, he's- Will. He's hurt."
Jay's voice is clearly breaking, dragging Voight's heart into the land of heartache with it.
"I know, kid, I know" Voight says, silently cursing anything and everything that feels appropriate at the moment. "What about you, are you hurt?"
"There's so much blood, Voight. It won't stop."
Voight can feel his heart clenching, not knowing whether any of the blood belongs to Jay or not. 'Trust me, kid, you don't want it to stop' he thinks, glad that there's still enough blood in Will's body to keep bleeding. He never would've thought he'd consider excessive bleeding to be a good thing. Just thinking it sounds so wrong.
Voight gives up on trying to get any sort of useful information out of Jay and settles on trying to calm him down, while simultaneously trying to get in the car to reach him as fast as humanly possible.
"It's okay, kid. Everything's going to be okay. I'm on my way, alright?" Once Jay doesn't respond anything, too busy mumbling something incoherent, he decides to repeat himself. "You're on your way to Med, right Jay? Go wait in the waiting room. I'll meet you there, okay? You hear me, Jay?"
He knows fully well that Jay's more than likely going to be anywhere but the waiting room once he reaches the hospital, but hey, it's worth a shot.
Voight can hear Gabriella asking someone for the ETA and announcing she's 'pushing meds'. Whatever's happening in that ambulance also makes Jay go dead silent, which Voight thinks can't be a good sign.
"Jay" he tries again, worried that things are going go downhill really quickly. Actually, never mind, scratch that. He has a really bad feeling that things are going to continue going downhill. "I'm on my way, Jay. I'm 10 minutes out, okay? I'll meet you there. Don't do anything stupid."
"Yeah" is the only response he gets.
Voight guesses the ambulance must've stopped, because his ear is suddenly overflooding with a bunch of new voices, shouting over each other. There's a loud knock, which he's guessing might be the sound of Jay dropping the phone as he rushes behind the crowd of doctors, trying to save his brother's life. He can hear someone yell Jay's name, but the voices are already too far for him to be able to make out the words they're saying.
And then everything goes silent, and the only thing Voight can hear is the sound of an empty blood-covered ambulance.
~ CPD ~
"What the hell happened?!" Rhodes asks the second his eyes land on his colleague.
"No idea" Gabby responds, pushing the stretcher through the ER door as fast as her legs can carry her.
"Well, who called it in?"
"Apparently Jay did" she says, glancing towards Jay, who seems even further away from being able to talk, than he was two minutes ago.
"Right" Rhodes nods in understanding, giving Jay a onceover. "Is any of that blood his?"
"Not sure, he wouldn't let me take a look at him. He's been like this since we got there" she adds as an afterthought, trying to point out Jay's 'out of it' state without having to say it out loud. "Voight's on his way."
"Good" Rhodes responds, relieved someone Jay considers to be his family is coming to the rescue, because he quite frankly doesn't know how to deal with an 'I probably need help, but I'm also a former soldier, who's very close to losing his mind at the moment, so who knows what I might do' Jay. Plus, he has Will to worry about.
"Okay, transfer on my count. One, two, three" he says as soon as they reach Baghdad. April immediately starts connecting Will to the hospital monitors, listing off vitals as she goes.
"Let's get another IV going and hook him up to a transfusion!" Rhodes orders. "Maggie, can you please page Choi to check him out?" he asks, motioning towards the other (clearly shaken up) Halstead, who's still standing next to the gurney, gripping Will's hand with no intention of ever letting go, even though he looks just about ready to drop.
"Of course" Maggie responds, her helping hands hovering just above Jay's shoulders, gently guiding him away from the gurney. "Come on, buddy, let's give them space to work."
"No!" he yells as soon as his hands are pulled away from the cold limp hand. "Let me go! I have to stay! He needs me!"
He tries his best to wiggle away from anyone who dares to touch him, looking even more distressed than he did before (if that's even possible at this point).
Rhodes decides to give up for the time being, so he can focus his attention entirely on Will, who has gained a few more tubes and wires in the meantime. "Okay, let's just… let him be until Choi gets here."
Maggie and the other nurses lift their hands up in defeat, so Jay immediately latches back onto Will's hand as if it were his lifeline while Rhodes continues his evaluation as if he weren't there.
"There's free fluid in the abdomen" he announces, gently moving the ultrasound probe across Will's stomach. "The knife must've nicked his kidney. Call OR, let them know we're on our wa-"
He never gets to finish that sentence, before he's interrupted by an angry wail.
"Damn it, Will. Asystole! Start CPR" he yells, ordering rounds of epi to be administered. "Get out, Jay!" When Jay doesn't move, he goes to plan C (plan B was praying either Choi or Voight conveniently get there and deal with Jay), which is getting someone else to manhandle Jay out of the room. Preferably without getting a black eye or a broken bone in the process. "Somebody get him out of here! Now! He doesn't need to see this!"
As soon as a shockable rhythm is announced, he forgets all about Jay, grabs for the defibrillator paddles, and if he weren't too busy trying to shock Will's heart into beating again, he might've gotten first row seats to the 'touch me and you're dead' show that Jay has decided put on in the meantime.
His fingers are barely peeled off of Will's hand and arm, before the limp body is shocked, which seems to send Jay's brain into a world of frenzy. He can feel a bunch of strong, rough, not gentle hands grabbing different parts of his body, dragging him out of the room. He keeps kicking and screaming and actually manages to get one of his arms free just in time to grab the side of the doorway, successfully stalling his unglamorous exit.
Maggie, who's been watching the whole wrestling ordeal from a 'safe distance' just outside of Jay's reach, grabs a dose of injectable sedative from one of the drawers, hoping to not have to use it, but scared that Jay might injure himself or someone else, if they can't get him to calm down.
Rhodes shocks Will's heart again, just as she decides to go into battle and enters the danger zone.
The security guards have Jay pretty much pinned among them (apart from his arm, which keeps hanging on to the glass wall for dear life), while Jay keeps screaming bloody murder. Maggie carefully approaches him and steps almost directly in his line of sight. Almost, because she knows she has to let him keep looking at Will if she wants to achieve anything.
"Jay? Calm down, Jay" she says gently. "Do you see Connor? He's helping Will, okay?"
Jay's glassy, bloodshot eyes keep staring at Will as he keeps screaming. "Let me go! You have to let me go! He's gonna die! I have to help!"
Maggie decides to take another step and slowly places her gentle hands on either side of Jay's face. "You are helping, Jay. You called for help, and you got him here, okay? You got him help. Now let Connor do his part."
He slowly blinks, his eyes briefly connecting with hers, before going right back to staring at his brother, whose heart still doesn't seem to be working right. Maggie keeps talking and rubbing his shoulders with her soft hands, letting Jay watch the horror show going down right in front of him.
Once he stops kicking and his body stills, the security guards loosen their tight hold and he just sags down to his knees in the middle of the doorway, tears streaming down his face.
Before long, multiple new voices are ushering him to stand up, before Maggie's soft hands are exchanged for a set of strong, kind of rough hands that all but drag him the rest of the way out, once again kicking and screaming like a five-year-old.
"Stop it, Jay" a gruff voice suddenly pierces through Jay's haze, alerting him of the face that belongs to the not-so-gentle set of hands.
"No, he's- He's dying! His heart-"
"Jay" Voight interrupts the gasping whisper coming from Jay. "Jay. Shut up and listen. Hear that? His heart's working fine now. Alright? His heart's beating. He's alive. Calm down."
Jay's body stops jerking as much once he finally hears the way too fast beeping of the heart monitor. Not ideal, but alive.
"But his heart-" he whispers again, eyes locked on the heart monitor above Will's bed.
"Is working again" Voight finishes his sentence. "Okay? It stopped for a moment, but it's working again. Now take a deep brea-"
"But sarge-"
"Take a deep breath" Voight says calmly, pausing until Jay complies "and tell me what happened".
He tries to get Jay to look at him, but ends up almost making himself sick by looking down at the blood, covering his whole body.
"We were… We went… And they came, and- It shouldn't have been him. They should've- I couldn't-"
"Who came, Jay?" Voight asks, trying to steer Jay into forming an actual sentence. Once it doesn't achieve anything, he tries to include Will into the picture, hoping that's gonna get his attention for at least five seconds. "Jay, I need you to talk to me. Who hurt Will?"
"The guys. They came out of nowhere- They wanted- But I didn't have anything."
"You got jumped?" Voight concludes, hoping that's what Jay was trying (and failing) to tell him. He nods, so Voight can finally move on to the next question, glad this probably wasn't an intentional attack on either Will or Jay. "Okay, where were you?"
Noises coming from Will's room interrupt Jay's focus again, so Voight has to ask the question two more times, before he gets a confused 'huh' and a brief 'Damen Silos' in response.
Upon hearing the shaky, confused and barely coherent response, Voight shares a concerned look with Al (who Jay didn't even realise was there until this point).
Shock.
They decide that the kid has had enough interrogation for right now, and besides, there are much more pressing matters they need to focus on.
"Okay, you did good, kid" Voight says, patting Jay's shoulder, while allowing himself a brief glance through the glass.
Not a pretty sight whatsoever.
Al produces a bottle of water from who knows where and unscrews the cap, before he passes the bottle into one of Jay's shaking hands. He wraps his own fingers around the bottle on top of Jay's in case he accidentally drops it, shocked at exactly how much his whole body is trembling.
"Come on, kid, take a sip" he encourages, gently assisting Jay to bring the bottle up to his lips. "There you go, small sips."
They let him keep staring at whatever Rhodes is doing, because it's seemingly soothing him and helping him stay grounded. Voight's sure today's events are going to give Jay PTSD nightmares for years to come, but he can't bring himself to take the only thing he's using as a lifesaver away from him right now. Even if it means watching medical procedures he really shouldn't be through a glass wall.
Choi joins the stakeout party after a couple more minutes, immediately on board with Voight's unspoken plan to just let Jay be for as long as he can.
Jay barely lets himself blink, until everyone on the other side of the glass suddenly starts moving towards the door. Then he's on his feet again, grabbing onto the bed railing, convinced he's coming with his brother wherever he's going.
"Move, Jay" Rhodes says, not bothering with trying to be gentle anymore, so April jumps in to save the day.
"We're taking him up to surgery, Jay. The knife hit his kidney, so we need to stop the internal bleeding. Do you understand?" Once Jay nods, she gently peels his hand away from the bed for the third time today, handing him off to Voight as Will's army rushes off towards the elevator.
As soon as the elevator door closes, Jay's body turns to jello and he slides down to the floor, sobbing.
The other three men immediately crouch down around him, wanting to help, but still not entirely sure, which wounds are screaming for help louder – the physical ones or the emotional ones.
They come to a mutual agreement to let him lead the way, so they all stay silent until the tears run out for the first time.
"You okay?" Al asks, once the small sniffs are the only thing coming from the messy pile of muscles, clothes and blood.
The pile doesn't respond, so Al decides to take the lead, puts his hands under Jay's shoulders and drags him to his feet. "Alright, come on. We're getting you checked out".
"Wait" Jay whispers, blinking a little more violently than he should be as the world spins around him. "What are you doing?"
"I'm helping you walk over to that bed, so you can get checked out" Al says, giving Jay a gentle push in she right direction, hoping he follows suit.
"I don't need to get checked out" he deadpans, staring back in the direction of the elevator, as if Will could magically reappear.
"Sure you don't" Al sighs, still horrified by the amount of blood on Jay's clothes, refusing to believe all of it came from Will, but also not wanting a single drop of it to be Jay's. "Do me a favour and humour me, alright?"
Jay keeps standing still, so Al nudges him again, startling him out of his trance.
"What?"
"Come on, let's walk over there slowly-"
"I can walk by myself" Jay shoots back, pulling himself out of Al's embrace. Of course he can. Why would anybody ever think differently.
He awkwardly strides past all three men, leaving the two annoyed and one amused face behind him, before nearly crashing into the edge of the door headfirst. That's Voight's cue to roll his eyes and give up on trying to let (or more like halfway force) Jay make the responsible decision to get checked out, so he walks over to him and drags Jay the rest of the way towards the bed.
They barely make it to the edge, before Jay yanks his arm out of Voight's hold, accidentally throwing himself off balance and landing on the bed unceremoneously, pretending it was all planned.
Voight's giving him a death glare, which Jay is successfully avoiding by looking at his hands, which are still covered in dried up blood. Choi decides to stop Jay's misery and saves him by shooing both detectives out of the room to give Jay some privacy (and hopefully get him to be a little more honest about how he's feeling). Naturally, they both refuse at first, but eventually Choi wins them over and makes them go wait in the waiting room with a promise to call them right back in here if anything happens.
As soon as the door is closed and the curtains are drawn, Jay visibly deflates. Choi silently gets Jay's file ready, letting Jay have a moment to collect himself before the torture begins.
Once he's wasted as much time possible, he goes to put on some gloves. The snaping sound of rubber immediately jolts Jay out of his daydreaming, almost making him topple off the bed.
"You're jumpy" Choi observes, looking at him sideways while putting the other glove on.
"What?" Jay asks in confusion, clearly out of breath. His voice already sounds hoarse from all the screaming he did before, making Choi wince internally.
"I said you're jumpy" Ethan repeats, hoping to get Jay to open up even though he knows it's a very very long longshot.
"I'm fine" Jay responds while carefully inspecting his feet dangling from the gurney.
"Right. So are you gonna make this easier for both of us and tell me the truth or are we gonna do this the hard way?"
Jay stays silent.
"Alright, interrogation it is" Choi announces. "I saw you swaying on the way here and you nearly decided to make a nice mural of your face on the wall, so I can check off light-headedness." That earns him a glare from his patient. Can't say it wasn't expected, but hey, at least he's communicating. "How bad's the headache?"
Shrug. Not an answer any other person would give, but alright.
"Okay… Are you feeling nauseous at all?"
Jay shakes his head, giving him the negative response. Probably another lie.
"Any shortness of breath?"
No.
"Chest pain?"
Still no.
"Anything else I should know?"
Come on. Take a wild guess. No.
"Alright" Choi sighs, knowing he's gonna have to rely on imaging instead of Jay's useless feedback, which is only gonna make Jay more annoyed. Sometimes he wonders whether Jay's ever gonna realise being honest about your symptoms actually makes everything a lot easier. "Since I can clearly see a bruise on your knuckles, let's take some X-rays of that hand and your chest, make sure nothing's broken. And I'm gonna order a CT scan of that stubborn head of yours, to make sure there's no bleeding." Choi sticks his head out the door and motions for Maggie to start setting things up.
"Overkill" Jay whispers as silently as humanly possible.
"What?" Choi asks gently, completely clueless about what the whispered word might've been. "Buddy, you're gonna have to talk a little louder than that if you want anyone other than dogs to hear you."
"I said that's a bit overkill" he says clearly annoyed, but at least a little louder this time. "I just wanna see Will" he whispers after a brief pause.
"Listen to me" Choi exhales, putting the tablet down and taking a seat in front of Jay. "I know you wanna see Will, but I also know you're hurting. Will's in surgery, and he's gonna stay there for at least two more hours, which is plenty of time to get some pictures taken and get you back to the waiting room in time for the update." Since Jay still doesn't seem convinced, he continues "If the scans come back clear, you'll be free to go and spend the rest of eternity with your brother. I'll even make sure they let you stay by his side outside visiting hours. Deal?"
Jay finally looks up from his feet, giving Choi a look that either says 'there isn't a single cell in my body that fully believes you right now' or 'I'm trying my best to trust you, but I'm also trying to deal with way to many triggers to be able to do it at the moment'.
"Fine, but I'm not putting the gown on" Jay responds, fidgeting with the fabric of his pants, which is still drenched in his brother's blood. "And no IVs" he adds as an afterthought. Of course. If Jay's expert IV giver a.k.a. Will isn't available, there shall not be any IVs.
Choi shoots him an annoyed look, but goes with it nevertheless. "Fine. Now lay back for a second while you wait."
Jay obviously doesn't, but hey, at least he tried.
By the time the poking and prodding is over, Jay's a furious, impatient, annoyed mess, unable to contain his emotions anymore. He's literally ripped a hole into his pants, because he keeps picking at the same spot over and over again.
Choi nearly had to blackmail him into staying on the bed by threatening to lock him into one of the supply closets if he saw him stand up before his results were back. The thing that worked in the end was the 'your whole team is in the waiting room, so if you decide to get up and go there, you're more than likely going to get mobbed with attention, so you might wanna stay here and enjoy the peace and quiet while you can' warning. That may have been a low blow, but at least it worked.
An hour later, Choi is doing a double take as he looks over Jay's results. How is he still standing? He still can't believe exactly how good Jay is at hiding his own injuries.
Trying to come up with a game plan on how to get Jay into a hospital bed voluntarily while he's conscious, he comes to the conclusion that he has nothing, so he decides to just go in and try his luck.
As soon as he walks into the dark room, Jay startles, jumping to his feet ready to go.
"Will?" he asks hopefully, expecting to get un update while simultaneously trying to wiggle his way out of this conversation.
"Still in surgery. Sit down, Jay" Choi says, gently pushing him back on the edge of the bed. He looks him straight in the eyes and refuses to look away, trying to get across just how serious this is, although he's still not entirely sure if Jay's still running on adrenaline and is actually unaware of his body screaming or if he's just being Jay and refusing treatment when he knows he needs it.
"Spit it out, Choi" Jay snaps after a while, clearly over trying to be 'a good patient'.
"Your head CT actually showed quite a bit of swelling, Jay… So you can stop with the act. I know you feel like shit."
There's an impossibly long awkward pause, as Jay just keeps staring at the door, not saying anything.
"You also have three cracked ribs and your hand's broken."
Choi stays quiet after that, letting everything sink in, while Jay just continues to look out the door, seemingly emotionless. The only thing he cares about right now is Will.
"K" Jay responds after a while. "Can I go now?"
Seriously? Does this guy ever listen and stop to take care of his own wellbeing?
"Jay, I really think you should-"
"No" Jay interrupts his thought, knowing where he's going with this conversation. It involves a hospital bed, gown and IV and Jay's not planning on coming face to face with either one of those things today.
"Well, you're gonna have to at least get a cast for that break-"
"You promised, Choi" Jay whispers, feeling betrayed, and with that Choi knows he's lost the battle.
"Fine" he gives up with a dramatic sigh. "Go."
Jay's out the door before Ethan hoi can announce he's going to come snatch him later to get the cast on his broken hand. He rolls his eyes and smirks, shaking his head in disbelief as he closes Jay's file and puts the tablet away.
Jay, on the other hand, heads straight for the waiting room, a single task on his 'to-do list' for the day: get an update on Will.
He sees Rhodes, still wearing OR scrubs, talking to his team, more than likely updating them on whether Will's alive or not. Damn it, he missed it.
The ER is far too noisy for him to be able to actually hear what he's saying from this far away, but lucky for him, he's somewhat able to read lips. Unfortunately for him, Rhodes keeps turning his head from one team member to another, probably trying to address everyone instead of laying everything on a single person, which makes trying to read lips much more difficult. You know, in addition to Jay's brain being a scrambled, swollen and way beyond freaked out mess as it is.
If he could just stop moving for a second...
As if he could read his mind, Rhodes stills and transfers his attention to the floor somewhere in front of him. And because the universe has a funny way of playing things out, Jay's just barely able to make out two unmistakable words coming from his mouth.
I'm sorry.
And then he feels the floor drop from underneath his feet.
To be continued…
Oops, I did it again. *giggles with an innocent face just as devil horns appear* I'm so sorry. I just can't help myself, can I? Another cliff-hanger! Are we even surprised at this point? Probably not.
Apparently, I also couldn't write a story without hurting Jay a little bit, so there's that. I hope you don't mind, since this collection of stories was intended to mainly focus on Jay anyway... I'm not entirely sure what you had in mind when you said you wanted a Will story, but as you can see, my attempt at writing it has turned into a dark version of Jay's mental breakdown. Oops. My bad. If you'd really like me to write a story focusing on Will, let me know and I'll do my best to make it happen.
I'm not entirely sure I like this story. I mean I don't think it's awful, but I'm not crazy proud either. I feel like my brain has forgotten how to write XD Or maybe it's because I'm so used to writing in first person that everything else feels weird and wrong and catastrophic. Well, I really hope at least some of you enjoyed reading it anyway. As always, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback :)
On a totally different note, I have gained a new obsession XD This honestly shouldn't come as a surprise, but I'm a little bit of a fan of pretty much any type of a "first responder" show. Seriously, you name it, I've probably had an obsession with it at some point in my life. And if not, I'm sure I will in the future XD Anyway, I may or may not be a tiiiiiiiny bit addicted to Station 19 at the moment, so I've been thinking about starting a story collection similar to this one, except it would obviously take place in the Station 19 world. (This does not mean I'm planning on ditching this story anytime soon, because let's face it Jay is and always will be my first FanFiction husband XD I'd probably try to alternate between both stories or just write whichever one my soul feels like writing that day.) My point is, I would love to hear your thoughts on this idea in case any of you share my obsession too.
Thank you for your endless support, thank you for listening to my impossibly long rants, and thank you for reading and not giving up on this story XD I wish you all the best. Until next time (preferably in this century).
Love, N