jim street oneshots

stay [ ❦ ]

Loud as the ER's waiting room is this late into the evening, the furore only barely reaches your ears above the blood still rushing through your head. It's an all-consuming, dementing noise that no amount of deep breaths or kneading at your aching temples to do away with - and your only reprieve from it is the series of three, succinct shots that your mind has been playing on loop for the last hour.

After the first, your hand is flying to your duty belt and wrenching your sidearm loose as you bolt backwards from the passenger door of the car and find cover at the rear of your adjacent squad car. The second, and despite your shouts at him Eric is dropping from sight on the driver's side as the engine revs back to life.

The third and the car is tearing off down the empty street, kicking up gravel in its wake as you roar the plate number into your radio before your voice dies in your throat at the sight of Eric strewn back against the pavement. The burst of darkness spreads alarmingly fast across his side, visible even under the flickering streetlamps, blood pooling on the ground and soaking into the knees of your pants by the time you lurch over to him and drop to his side.

The accursed sequence replays once, twice, ten times over as you haunt the hospital halls in wait of news. People come and go - a sweet nurse, tending to the scratches on your palms and uttering assurances that fall on unhearing ears, your watch commander who offers only a tight squeeze of your shoulder before heading away to begin the hunt for the assailant. What's immovable is, for all your half-hysterical scrubbing, the dried, rust-coloured stains sunken into the beds of your nails and the grooves of your palms - and the persistent churning of your stomach as more and more time passes with no news.

The thought of Eric beyond those sterile double doors only sickens you further, and you hang your head in your hands as guilt floods you anew. The only partner you've known since you made it out of the TO programme, the man who took you on as a pseudo-little sibling after about a fortnight of knowing you. Eric, whose most deceptive action in all the time you've known him has probably been sending off your application for SWAT behind your back after months of indecision and self-doubt. Eric, who had you had to beg to give in and stop the Sedan with license plates that didn't match the tags just to give one of your last shifts together some excitement.

And what if that's what led you here? If your self-obsessed overthinking your performances in CQB drills and a certain set of dimples, and a stupid want to bid your patrol days goodbye with a bang had distracted you from what was really important? Distracted you from piquing the desperation behind the man's eyes, the disjointed way he spat oddly pre-prepared answers back to Eric's routine questions, the glint of the pistol barrel under the indifferent streetlights above-

A set of heavy boot treads coming in your direction disrupts your agonising. You fear it's someone from your station coming to commiserate or lay blame, neither of which you're ready to contend with - until a hand wearing a familiar watch comes patiently into view, pushing a warm paper cup of coffee into your hesitant grasp in lieu of a greeting.

Steam ebbs up through the plastic lid and brings with it the fragrant scent of fresh, sweet coffee as Street takes a seat beside you. The warm press of his thigh against yours is more grounding than you'd like to admit, but you don't have to - he doesn't press you for so much as an acknowledgement of his presence, and instead just sits quietly alongside you for you're not quite sure how long. When the silence is finally broken, it's unexpectedly by you - which takes both you and Street by surprise.

"Azzura's." Your voice is ragged from having not spoken in so long, but seeing the name of your favourite coffee shop emblazoned across the side of the cup's green sleeve has you speaking before you realise it.

"I do listen to your nonsense, sometimes." That smug waver to his voice that you've grown so fond of is still present, if subdued somewhat for the circumstances. He bumps his shoulder softly with yours, and takes a sip from his own cup before rolling it idly between his hands. "M'still hoping that one day you'll return the favour, but I'm not holding my breath."

At the sound of your quiet chuckle, he looks over at you and cracks a smile of his own. "Yeah, I wouldn't."

Your voice cracks on the last word, and you hastily look away. It's probably a good thing, because the earnest sympathy behind Street's eyes would probably be your last straw.

"He'll be okay." Street knows how hollow it sounds, but it's all he can think to say because he truly believes it. Leaning down, he places his cup on the floor at your feet and folds his hands together as more staff bustle past you. "From everything you've told me about him, I can tell he's not the kind of guy who'll go down easy."

"A center-mass shot and another to the vest might have something to say about that." It spits out meaner than you intend, but the venom isn't meant for Street and he understands that. Coffee splashes inside the cup as your hand trembles, and he quietly takes it from you to join his before reaching to the side of his chair.

"I grabbed your go-bag from your locker." He sets your backpack down at your feet, and you realise you'd not given a thought to your soiled uniform all evening. You murmur your thanks but before you can speak any more, a stretcher surrounded by staff swings a corner beside you and Street lugs another bag out of their way, spiking your anxiety markedly.

"Did you clean out my whole damn locker while you were at it?" Though you laugh as you say it, nervousness is written all over your face and voice. Christ, have you been kicked out of the Academy like that? And like this, no less-

"You wish. Luca's not gonna let you go anywhere until he gets a rematch to prove his arm-wrestling skills aren't so easily shown up by a rook." Street waves off your thinly-veiled concerns, mercifully with only a small grin, before turning the bag around to show his name printed in thick letters across the front. "That one's mine."

Confusion pulls at your features, and you soothe a still-shaking hand over your face.

"Eric's a damn fine cop, but you don't know him." You tell Street, propping your elbow on your thigh as you look over to him with your head rested in your hand. You're looking for an ulterior motive, a betrayal of his eyes or twitch of his lips to tell you what the endgame is here, but when you don't find it you press on with a shrug. "Why would you post up here in the middle of the night to wait on him?"

"You're right, I don't." He nods in agreement, but meets your eyes and you find that there isn't a scrap of insincerity to be found. "But I know you, and I know how important he is to you."

Something between a laugh and a noise of surprise breaks from your lips, but there's no malice behind it. You turn your smile to the floor and wring your hands into your lap, but knock your knee against his as you speak. "When you said we could spend time together outside of HQ, I had kind of envisioned it being under better circumstances."

"That mean you want me to leave?" He asks, moving in closer but lowering his timbre to convey a level of seriousness you find disjointed with who you so far know him to be.

"Not even remotely." You tell him, and you mean it so truthfully it almost hurts - and his hand is already enveloping yours by the time the double doors at the end of the hall open, and a grave-faced surgeon emerges calling your name.