second in the original posting order of the cpd meta sets.

(credit to the creators of chicago p.d. where it is due.)

erin and jay both deciding to keep a respectable distance at work. everyone–everyone–has caught ruzek and burgess in the locker room at one point or another and they don't want to push their luck with hank.

erin mumbling about a haircut right when jay is in the middle of giving her a scalp massage. he is horrified but tries to play it cool.

erin and jay taking turns being the night owl and the morning bird. both going through phases of nightmares and sleepless nights where they find the other out on the couch and wear their weariness on their shoulders the next day.

erin getting a text as she and antonio leave a late night bust with vice–the makeup for her persona smears across the wipe in her hand–and feeling her stomach bottom out at alvin's succinct message. jay took buckshot to kevlar. at hospital with ruzek. antonio not blinking when she says they've gotta go to the hospital, right now. (pt 1)

ruzek coming to meet them when antonio stops the car out front, hands held out in a placating gesture that just makes erin want to hit him more. erin demanding a room number–answers will come later–and then storming away to find her partner. (the anger masks the fear.) erin being back in the car with voight, hearing that j.p. has taken jay. listening to alvin say that jay's been kidnapped. feeling like he's slipping through her fingers again. (pt 2)

erin using her badge without compunction to get past the hospital night shift, forcing herself to calm down before she eases the door open. jay being wide awake, flipping through the television, when she comes in. jay offering a crooked smile but there's pain in his eyes. erin offering a hoarse hey partner as relief floods her system. (pt 3)

jay moving over on the narrow hospital bed for her and erin spending the rest of the night with her forehead pressed to his shoulder, arm draped gingerly across his waist to avoid the worst of the bruising. (jay finally succumbing to sleep with erin by his side. erin waking up multiple times in the night to make sure he's still breathing.) (pt 4)

erin coming to take him home the next night, worn and drawn from work. bruised and pained jay struggling to keep both their spirits up. erin carefully parceling his pain pills from the bottle then following him to the bedroom, watching his brow crease as he fights to just sit down. the purpling marks show above the collar of his shirt. each one is a blow. erin waking up every time he so much as shifts all that week. (pt 5, fin.)

erin and jay will watch any movie with matt damon in it. any movie. at all. it's a competition to see who manages to see the martian first between cases and phone calls.

jay getting home to his place after guys' night out to find erin ensconced on his couch, half asleep. him laughing with a low comment that she didn't have to wait up for him as he goes to scoop her up and take her to bed with him. erin swatting at him but too tired to do much more. (she's asleep before he gets back from showering.)

jay getting trapped in a burning collapsing building with a runaway witness. erin spewing curses as she throws her shoulder into a door that won't give, calling for backup on her radio and ignoring the damage she inflicts on herself before she goes to find a crowbar. (the team shows up with cfd to get him out in time, but it's an awful reminder of their fragility.)

weekend trips to the cabin. talking about a future there anywhere together in hushed, tentative voices, during the midnight drive home, fingers entangled.

jay leaving for a week (with mouse, to washington d.c. and erin doesn't need to ask to know why they're going) and erin realizing how large a piece of her life he's become when every morning starts with a disoriented search for him at her side.

jay kissing her long and hard when he gets home late the last day. the hard, haunted look in his eyes taking much-needed sleep from him for weeks and erin learning to never shake him awake. (nothing scares her quite like jay not knowing who she is with his 9mm in hand.)

erin gravitating to jay at work after close calls and never realizing it until he pokes her in the side and asks, with the grin that she loves adores, ten feet too far away, partner?

erin just. sitting on jay. all the time. it started as a joke, just to get a rise out of him because he complains about losing feeling in his legs, and then later it happens because erin likes it. she likes sitting on jay's lap, leaning back into him, feeling his scruff against her cheek, his voice low in her ear. (she falls asleep a lot.)

erin starting to realize how important she is to jay when she limps into antonio's gym, crutches slowing her down but keeping her weight off the two bullet holes in her leg, and finds him with bruised knuckles and shaking limbs. he flinches at her touch. i want to go home, jay. come on.

okay but who's the one who has to be shot with a tranquilizer before they'll admit to being sick? between them, it's probably a tie.

but i can't get over jay and erin curled up in bed together, all day. romping through the sheets, talking, learning, dozing off and waking up together. just being.

followed by "erin & jay: walking a thin line" in the original posting order from tumblr.

thank you for perusing this scrawl! comments, critiques, and concerns are always welcome.