Work Text:
He’s at the front desk when the call comes in.
Officer down detail inbound. Bullet to the throat.
Here they go again.
He scrambles into a trauma smock, pulling gloves over his hands and gets ready for another storm.
If the way this day has gone so far is any indication, this will be another battle that they won’t win but that doesn’t mean that they’ll let it go without a fight.
Not with someone who’s as good as one of their own.
They rush into the ambulance bay as the patrol car pulls up, lights flashing and sirens blaring.
The back door flies open and Will surges forward, ready to help unload the injured officer.
And then freezes.
Because this isn’t just any member of the Chicago Police Department.
It’s Jay.
His little brother’s eyes are closed, his face unusually pale and blood is pouring freely through the fingers clamped tightly around his throat.
“Will!”
Erin’s desperate call spurs him into motion, hands on his brother’s shoulders as he helps slide him onto the gurney, racing him inside.
They cram into Baghdad, as many hands as they can get shoving into play to try to stem the bleeding and get Jay’s blood pressure back up.
All for nothing.
The sound of the alarm as his little brother codes just might be the loudest thing that he’s ever heard.
He starts CPR, focusing on something that he doesn’t have to think about and leaving Connor to handle the more complicated matter of managing the code.
Thirty minutes of compressions, multiple shocks, and several units of epi later Connor steps back, stripping off his gloves and shaking his head.
“1122.” he says, glancing up at the clock.
“No.” Will says, shaking his head and continuing compressions. “No, Connor please.”
“Will.” his friend says, hand falling on his shoulder.
He falls still, hands sliding down from his little brother’s chest to brace against the side of the gurney.
“I’ll give you a minute.” Connor says, turning off the monitors.
He closes his eyes, listening as the rest of the doctors and nurses filter out of the room, leaving him alone with his baby brother.
With his baby brother’s corpse.
He opens his eyes, jumping back when he sees Jay’s eyes open, staring back at him.
“Why didn’t you save us?”
“We tried.” he says, shaking his head. “Jay I… you gotta know that we did everything we could. That I fought with every resource available to me.”
“It wasn’t enough.”
He jolts upright, breathing hard and looking around the room.
He’s in his own bedroom, tangled in the sheets and drenched in sweat.
His little brother’s dead face burned on his retinas.
Bile rises in his throat and he scrambles out of bed, stumbling into the bathroom just in time to collapse to his knees in front of the toilet and toss his cookies.
Long after his stomach feels pretty damn empty the somersaulting finally stops and he slumps against the tub.
But it’s still spinning and the image just won’t go away.
He drags himself upright, staggering into his bedroom in search of his phone.
Jay answers on the second ring.
“‘lo?”
“Hey.” he says, fighting to keep the tremors out of his voice. “Did I wake you?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Jay says, already sounding more alert. “You okay?”
“Bad dream.” he admits. “Guess I… I just needed to hear your voice. You uh… you can go back to sleep now.”
“Will -”
He hangs up on his brother mid word.
Walks into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
He’s fine, doesn’t need his little brother worrying over him when he should be sleeping.
Doesn’t need Jay losing sleep and getting hurt on the job.
Doesn’t need his nightmare to become a reality.
Especially not because of him.
Apparently, he doesn’t get any say on it because twenty minutes later there’s someone knocking on his door.
He opens it slowly, seeing his brother standing in the hallway.
Jay’s no stranger to getting calls in the middle of the night. Had perfected the art of rolling out of bed and out the door in under two minutes without making it obvious years ago.
But Will can still see the exhaustion clinging to him.
It’s been a long, hard couple of days for everyone in the Chicago law enforcement community.
And anyone who cares about someone who’s part of that community.
“Jay.” he says. “I… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called.”
“Will.” his brother says. “Just don’t. Something’s up. Just talk to me.”
He sighs, waving his brother inside.
“I guess the last couple of days have gotten to me more than I thought.” he admits as they lean against the counter in his kitchen, a pair of beers in hand. “I had a dream, another cop shot. Only… this time it was you and we… there was nothing we could do.”
“I’m sorry.” Jay says. “I know this was hard on you. Treating those officers, knowing that I was out there on the street with everything that was going on.”
“I worry about you all the time.” Will admits, feeling that burn in his throat. “Some days its worse than others but so many times those doors open and I just… I feel my heart stop thinking that it might be you.”
“Will.”
“I know it’s your job, Jay.” Will says. “And I know that you are as careful as you can be. I’m not blaming you, not saying that you should be doing anything differently. Just… it scares the shit out of me sometimes, Jay. Scares me to think that you might roll in those doors one day. That there might not be anything that I can do. And I….”
He trails off, his throat tightening and cutting off any attempt to continue.
Jay steps forward, taking Will’s beer and setting both of them aside.
“I know.” he says, wrapping his arms around his brother and gently tugging him closer. “I wish I could take that fear away from you but I can’t. What I can do is tell you that I’m here. That it hasn’t happened yet, that whatever you saw tonight was just a dream. That I’m okay.”
Will buries his face in his brother’s shoulder, breathing in his scent, feeling his warmth. His living warmth.
Feeling the beat of his heart.
He snakes his arms around his brother, holding him close.
Jay’s right.
It doesn’t take the fear away, doesn’t change the fact that tomorrow at work he’ll still feel that skip of his heart every time the doors open.
But it does make him feel just a little bit better right here in this moment.
Because right now, his little brother is alive.
And right now, that’s all that matters.