Cruel and Unusual Punishment, a chicago pd fanfic

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He's running in the fumes of gasoline as he give chase, but it can't be helped. They're wafting off the 18 year old kid running just ahead of him.

Anthony tips a metal shelving rack to the ground, and even though Jay knows he won't clear it, it's too wide, too bent too…he knows he won't clear it but he tries. He tries so hard. But it isn't enough. He lands two feet from the end and his foot goes through the wire backing. He can feel it scraping and cutting his leg. He falls to the side, hip, ribs and shoulder hit the shelving but he doesn't dwell on any pain, just untangles his leg, cutting more grooves through his jeans and into his calf, and runs after the kid.

A barely there limp has been added to his stride but he's fast, thank God he's fast. He ducks through the door the Anthony ran through, gun drawn but at his side and sees the kid has reached a dead end. There's a door in the far side of the room but it's padlocked.

"Stop Anthony just stop! Please! Come on. We can…"

"No!" and punctuates his denial with the flick of a lighter.

"NO! Anthony!"

A second later the kid is on fire.

Jay doesn't think, just rushes full speed and tackles him, trying to smother the flames with his body, rolling to put out the flames on Anthony's back.

A moment later he's flying backwards, feeling the heat of the flared inferno as he goes. He's thrown to the ground. Hands slapping all over his body.

Eventually the hands stop, and he's looking up into the faces of Hailey, Kevin and Adam.

They're yelling at him. He thinks they're asking, no maybe telling him he's all right, he's all right. No. He's not. He doesn't answer their question out loud. Asks one instead.

"Anthony?"

Hailey looks up, and a profound sadness overcomes her countenance.

"He's gone Jay."

He know's she's telling the truth…he can smell it, he can close his eyes and see Anthony engulfed in reignited flame, but he asked because he was desperate to be wrong.

"MmmmmmFUCK!"

He screams in anger and pounds his fists into the ground at his failure. The movement brings pain that takes his breath away and he gasps to reclaim it. He's never felt such pain, not even when their humvee hit the IED.

And now that he's moved, he can't stop, every jerk, every twitch, moves him into the pain instead of out of it, providing fuel for his nerve endings as they send lightning ricocheting through his body.

Above him he sees the worry on Kev's face. Begs him with his slurred 'please Kev' and his tear filled eyes to make it better or just kill him. It's too much, too much.

He gasps as his neck and shoulder, chest, abs, hip, his whole right side comes alive. Back and forth, back and forth. The pain bounces like a ball in a pinball machine. His arm, his hand. Pain pain pain. Sobbing and screaming, pierces his ears. It takes him a moment to realize he's hearing it outside, feeling it inside. He's screaming. He's sobbing. He's the one making all the noise.

Kevin must not have understood his thoughts. He's not making it better, he's not killing him, so he's left with the pain. Begging his brain to shut down, voicing his want, "please please please" to pass out, but it punishes him for his failure.

His mumbles desperately in the lulls of the screaming, of the sobbing. "Please God, please…please…"

The pinball pain game continues on for a few more minutes. He feels the wetness leaking from his eyes, continues to gasp for air until finally the game is over. His brain decides he's suffered enough and he sinks into oblivion praying, praying, praying he gets to stay there.

Kevin had come in the door and seen it. Saw Jay drop his gun and tackle the kid, trying to put out the fire before it became an inferno.

He knew in the back of his mind that Anthony would be gone. Was afraid Jay was going to go with him.

For his effort, Jay had succeeded in putting out some of the fire but when Kevin yanked Jay off Anthony, the little patches of flames still burning fed on the oxygen now available, and finding the dribbles of gasoline Anthony had dumped on himself, he burst into flames again.

Three saving graces in the whole nightmare. Jay's tackle knocked Anthony out. He would never feel the pain of his actions…but Jay would…and that was the second saving grace…Jay felt the pain of Anthony's actions, of his own actions and pain meant he was alive. The last grace…if Anthony had had more gasoline, was able to douse himself in it instead of sprinkle the minuscule remnants of an empty gas can, Jay would be gone too.

But Jay was here, he was gasping for breath fighting through the pain unsuccessfully, feeling the burns of his heroic act.

Crouched down or kneeling on the floor, they could all seen the burns where his shirt and jeans were missing. See the blisters already forming.

Hailey tried to calm him down. Put her hand to his cheek but her gentle touch was trumped by fire. Fire that continued to burn even with out the flame.

Kevin, Adam, Hailey, they all tried to tell Jay it would be okay. Help was coming, but that did no good either. All they could do was watch their friend writhe in pain because soft words and gentle touches did shit.

Kim was standing at the door waiting for the medics. Voight was screaming into his radio for a police escort, screaming for the medics, screaming at Jay's pain in doing so.

Voight looked at the smoldering body beyond Jay. If Anthony wasn't dead…he stopped the thought, his thought of retribution on someone already dead. He stopped the thought for Jay…Anthony shouldn't be dead…he was a screwed up kid beyond their help, any help.

And they all tried to help him, Jay more than anyone, but in the end Anthony's final fuck you, the punishment for his emotionally abusive parents, was to die a horrible death and they would have to live with it…live with the guilt.

Anthony was dead. He died one upping his cruel parents and he took that with him, that victory. He would never know if it actually caused his parents the pain he was shooting for, and that was good because the "devastation" they showed was a transparent act, at least to a highly trained unit like theirs. They could spot that shit a mile away.

The Coopers would get to live free because the kid they tormented for his very existence removed himself from their lives. They were evil fucking assholes and got away with psychologically torturing their kid with their behind closed doors brand of parenting.

But Voight would make them pay. It was what he did best. He wouldn't physically touch them. That was too easy. He would destroy them. Blow their cushy fucking lives out of the water and he wouldn't let up until they were pariahs.

Rumors could be a bitch. Most of the time they could be brushed under the rug and forgotten. Not this time. Their friends in the hoity toity circle that came with a successful company and old money would all know who Marcus and Veronica Cooper really were. Cruel, sadistic abusers. People would know they were ultimately responsible for their son's horrific death. They weren't going to get away with killing their kid and as a byproduct almost killing than man he saw as a son. Fuck them. He'd see them in hell then fuck them up again.

They all stood back as the medics went to work. When Voight barked at them to give an unconscious Jay something for the pain. To give him something to keep him under and followed it up with a desperate 'please' the medics assured him, them, that they'd already done it.

Jay's clothes were cut off immediately so they could treat him, giving them a better view of the splotches of red against his pale skin and the small black islands floating amongst the blisters.

They put a pressure bandage on the gouges in Jay's shin and covered the burns on the front of him, then rolled him and looked for more. His back was clear. He was rolled onto the backboard and loaded up and into the ambulance. That queued the lights and sirens of the army of police cruisers waiting and less than a minute later they were gone.

Hailey and Voight, hell all of them wanted to ride with Jay in the ambulance, but it was Kevin who won by default. He needed to get the burns on his arms and hands checked…the burns he got saving their resident hero from performing his final heroic act.

Will stood at the door waiting for the ambulance, knowing it was close, closer. They'd been able to hear the sirens for the last three minutes, it was an army of care and support approaching.

All semblance of the doctor in Will was gone. Only the scrubs embroidered with 'Dr. Will Halstead' remained to give anything away. Who stood at that door was an older brother with tear filled eyes.

His little brother was coming. Injured…Burned. The most painful of injuries. He didn't know how bad, Voight couldn't tell him, but he could hear the emotion in the sergeant's voice, so that left his imagination, his hope and his fear to run wild.

Then Hank told him what happened, starting with, 'your brother has a bigger heart than anyone I have ever met,' and then the rest… 'he was trying to save a screwed up kid's life,' followed by, 'the kid didn't make it.'

Voight then stated the obvious, 'that's gonna mess with him…'

Will was lost. Lost in Voight's words, 'your brother has a bigger heart than anyone I have ever met…' It was the truth and he was proud of his brother and who he was, but sometimes, like right now…he didn't want to be the older brother of a selfless hero, he wanted run of the mill.

He was unable to follow the doctoring Jay was receiving and instead could only scan his little brothers body, dwelling on one burn then moving on to the next.

Trapped in the world of Jay's burns, he'd missed April, or someone, switching out the leads to the heart monitor and attaching them to their own equipment, missed them taking his finger and attached the thing to it. He couldn't believe he forgot it was called a pulse oximeter. Didn't matter. The catheter was in and he had no concept of when it happened…his only thought was Jay would hate it and be begging for its removal when he woke up. When.

His brain finally reengaging, Will watched as Ethan, April and Paul, Dr. Paul Martin, who specialized in burn injuries, worked on Jay, gently stabilizing him before taking him to surgery to debride the burns.

In their examination of his brother's limp body they found a hairline fracture to his right ankle as well as three long gouges on his shin buried under a pressure bandage. The gouges would need to be stitched but were left for now, as was his ankle. His right hip, ribs and shoulder, all marked by deep bruising, showed no breaks when x-rayed and therefore wouldn't be an issue.

It was at that point his brain tried to disengage again, but failed. The doctor in him reminded the brother just how excruciating burns could be even with pain meds - any other injuries wouldn't be felt.

Will had found the whole of Intelligence, Platt, and a whole districts worth of cops in the waiting room and told them what he knew…as a brother because he just couldn't doctor right then: Jay was stable. In surgery to debride the burns. Blah blah blah. His ankle. The bruises. He laid it all out, what would happen going forward. Blah blah blah.

Not remembering half of what he told them, he left without further word, walked to the doctor's lounge and cried. Bawled. He sat in the room and bawled.

Hailey shared a look with the rest of the team after Will walked away. She'd give him time then check on him. They were all messed up from the events of the last hour. None of them had ever seen anything like this. Kevin, not far behind Jay in the chase, was the only one who saw the whole thing go down and had pulled Jay off of Anthony.

Kev had also been treated when they arrived. He had some burns on his hands and arms but only a couple had blisters. Burn cream and bandages and he was physically good to go.

She looked at the big guy and saw everything was catching up to him.

"Adam…" she tipped her head to Kevin and could tell he was seeing the same thing she was.

"Let's get some air man."

Kevin didn't saying anything, just walked next to Adam out the doors and into the ambulance bay.

The rest of them had only seen the direct aftermath. All of them frantically patting Jay and putting out the small fires that burned his clothes. Kevin saved Jay's life, but even though they tried, tried so hard, they weren't able to save Jay from the pain to come.

XXXXXXX

Jay was in the hospital almost a month.

Eight days after he was brought in, they pulled back on the sedation. He'd had three surgeries while he was out, the first to debride the wounds. The second three days later to place three skin grafts on the small patches of second and third degree burns on his shoulder, side and hip. The third surgery to replace the graft on his shoulder that didn't take.

Now the grafts were doing well, as were all of the other burns. Most of those burns were first and second degree and barring infection, they should heal with minimal scarring.

A week after his last surgery, Jay woke up for greater periods of time. Each time was brutal and would end with him receiving an interim dose of pain meds and light sedation.

One of two things would bring Jay back to them, back to consciousness, a nightmare or excruciating pain. Both so horrible in their own ways, it was hard to peg down the worse of the two.

Nightmares. There were two that frequently tortured Jay awake…and them to tears. The one where he screamed for Anthony when he wasn't able to save him and the quieter one when he died trying, when he burned to death with Anthony, when the agony of his death was muffled so they wouldn't hear his suffering when they were powerless to save him.

Jay would have those nightmares for the rest of his life. Maybe not every night, but they would never totally leave him.

Pain. The tears were their first indication, arriving just ahead of the alarms on the machines surrounding him. It played out much the same every time.

He's in pain, ungodly pain. He can feel the veil of drugs in his blurry thinking but they do nothing for the pain in his body.

A groan turned scream forces open his clamped lips, jerking his upper body at its release. He can feel the wetness on his face. There is so much it must be blood, but his fuzzy mind corrects the assumption to tears. Pain equals tears.

From there it's more sobs. The pain is overwhelming and nothing, no one, is taking it away. People, doctors, surround him, he can't get ahold of their words. He sees a mop of red hair in his periphery and turns to it, "Will…"

"Shh. I'm right here little brother, right here…"

"Please…" he whispers through the sobs, "Will please…"

"We're giving you some more medicine and you'll go back to sleep. I'll be here. I won't leave."

Will's voice breaks through the pain…he understands. Will would make it better…he always makes it better.

Jay feels his brother's hand in his, holds onto it like a lifeline until the other lifeline Will promised kicks in. Medication. The pain melts away and he slowly drifts into the oblivion he had before hoped to never come back from. Now he's

afraid he won't come back. A hand brushing through his hair and whisper in his ear gives him the courage to go where he'll be pain free.

"Go to sleep bud…it's okay…I'll be right here when you wake up."

So he trusts his brother and drifts away.

The last week of his stay, Jay was still miserable and itching to get home, but burns apparently were a different ballgame and it wasn't going to happen. Dr. Martin wouldn't cave like Will or even Ethan. The man was a stickler and in equal parts it pissed him off and impressed him.

Physical pain was tolerable with reduced pain meds by that point, but the weight of not being able to save Anthony, what Anthony had gone through in life, was settling in.

Kev had told him on one of the many visits, that Anthony was unconscious from the tackle, knocked out when his head hit the ground. Anthony wouldn't have felt anything…but still…it was a horrible way to die, topping off the horrible way he'd lived.

Voight provided some salve for the wound that was Anthony's death…and life. Jay had watched the news reports turn on a dime when it came to the death of Marcus and Veronica Cooper's only child.

All forms of mainstream media from across the country had shared the grieving parent's story, and a lot of money was made from it. What came next would double it.

Voight had walked in and turned on the TV. The news anchors, whose job it was to be compassionate but never judgmental, couldn't help the razor sharp judgment that had seeped into their tone while delivering the news.

The godawful truth was their lead story. To sum it up, the psychological torture Anthony had gone through every day of his short life and how it had led him to die a horrific death by self immolation was out in the open. The truth had started as a rumor but those close to the family, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed the rumors with their own suspicions.

Jay shared a look with Voight, then closed his eyes and released a breath. An agonizing breath he'd been holding since the day he met a screwed up kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time while waiting for his parents to go to sleep so he could go home.

"It's not your fault kid."

"I know. I know that, but…it just sucks…"

They sat there quietly for awhile. Both of them spinning in the stench of what happened, in the shit that went down in the world they lived and the innocent people who got caught up in it.

When Voight started speaking again, the topic surprised him.

"Don't know if I believe in heaven, maybe where Camille and Justin are concerned…I need them to be there, but that's as far as heaven goes for me.

"Hell on the other hand. That I can fully wrap my head around. I know quite a lot of people deserving to be there now or in the future…and I've been at this job long enough to know that sometimes hell's not a place you go after you die, but a place you've been living.

"Anthony's in a better place…with or without heaven, that kid pulled himself out of hell."

It was true. Anthony wasn't in hell anymore, but from the looks of it, his parents were going to be living their own version of hell on earth.

Jay was pretty sure he believed in hell-he wanted the evil he'd seen in his life to go somewhere when death wasn't punishment enough. He hoped the Coopers would eventually find themselves there, but not until karma had had a good run with them.

Like Voight, he only thought of heaven when thinking about his most painful losses. The ones still too hard to reconcile…his mom…the guys he served with who died while he lived…and now, a kid named Anthony, who was probably, at that very moment, being mothered by his mom. And maybe that hopeful thought would be enough to chase away the nightmares, at least for a little while.

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Thanks as always for any reviews, comments or Kudo's. They (along with peanut butter ice cream) fuel the muse - Barbara sends big squeezy virtual hugs!

Super duper big thank you to MrsReadalot! Your help, encouragement and hopping penguins means the world to me!

Stay safe peeps! Big smooch!

One more thing… I have a great new book to recommend! It's called Alaskan Heartbeat by Carolin Gall (FanFiction's awesome november_1) and it's available on Amazon and Kindle.

Okay, that said, lets talk.

First, since we are whumpers, it has a lot of angsty whump and some really yummy whumpy whump too.

Second, it's a great love story.

It's a rollercoaster ride of a journey for two great characters, Emma and Matt, navigating their feelings for each other while trying to overcome their own insecurities. There's lots of love, laughter and (don't forget the whump) tears.

It's a book that, when I finished it, I missed the characters, (Matt and Emma of course, but there's also a great supporting cast) so much, I am now reading it again.

So listen to your wacky Floopdeedoopdee (and Barbara-she was very inspired by the book) and check it out.

Okey dokey then peeps…another reminder to stay safe and another big honkin' smooch.