Chapter Text
“Babe, there’s something lonesome about you, something so wholesome about you. Get closer to me.” — Hozier, From Eden.
Jay slipped his memo pad into the back pocket of his jeans and thanked the witness with a dip of his head. His mind whirled too quickly to focus on anything other than his partner, and he was sure the notes he’d just taken were complete gibberish.
Cops and crime scene techs milled around him, but as Jay stepped off the porch, he only had eyes for Hailey. She stood next to a prone woman on a stretcher, and her hand slipped from the victim’s grip when the paramedics loaded the gurney into the waiting ambulance.
Jay made a beeline for Hailey as soon as the ambulance doors slammed shut, dodging patrol cops and cutting across the downtrodden grass. Her shoulders sagged as she stumbled back a few paces, but it wasn’t until he was closer that he saw her furrowed brow. She closed her eyes and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand; she didn’t seem to notice the small smear of blood the gesture left behind, but Jay’s gut twisted painfully at the sight.
That twisting had been a horrible wrench twenty minutes ago when Hailey’s, “All clear!” hadn’t echoed his own.
They’d responded to a robbery call—they’d been chasing the same crew for two long weeks—and Jay had left Hailey on the first floor of the house while he cleared the second. She was more than capable of taking care of herself, but Jay had descended the stairs two at a time when he hadn’t heard Hailey’s voice, his heart in his throat.
Panic had flooded his veins, short-circuiting his hearing, when he’d found her knelt on the kitchen floor, shirt and hands bloody. But she’d been pressing a towel to a woman’s stomach and telling him to radio for an ambulance.
Unharmed. She’d been unharmed and breathing normally, even if her eyes had been surprised, her voice a little shaky.
He ran a hand through his short hair and had to remind himself, again, that she was fine when she turned and faced him fully. Blood suctioned her thin t-shirt to her stomach and coated her hands even as she scrubbed at her skin with a wet wipe the paramedics had given her.
Hailey stepped onto the sidewalk, eyes on her trembling hands, and Jay walked up to her. He reached out to touch her like his hand wasn’t even attached to his body, and he gripped her shoulder, needing to feel her solid and whole so his heart could calm down.
“You good?” he asked, voice pitched low in concern.
“Yeah, I—” Her voice cracked, and she coughed. Something swirled in her ocean-blue eyes when she looked up at him, but she averted her gaze too quickly for him to pin the emotion. “I’m not hurt.”
Jay nodded and looked her over, lingering on the downward turn of her lips. He hadn’t really been asking if she was injured, but the way she tilted her head made him think she knew that. She met his eyes again and nodded shallowly, just once, and seemed to say later, so he squeezed her shoulder and forced himself to drop his hand.
“Do you have a change of clothes in the truck?”
Hailey looked down at herself and balked a bit, her eyebrows shooting to her hairline and her eyes widening. She pulled her shirt away from her skin with a quiet squelch and grimaced.
“Shit, I didn’t even realize.”
Jay reached out for her again, unbidden, but he aborted the movement and played it off by scratching absently at his neck.
“And I just did laundry,” she continued lowly, still looking down at her shirt. “I forgot to grab my duffle when I left home this morning.”
“Of course it’s the day you actually need it,” Jay joked, trying to lighten the mood, lighten the shadows in her eyes. It worked, albeit only a little, but he’d take the small quirk of her lips over her frown any day.
His go-bag wasn’t in the truck either—it hadn’t been for a week, actually—but before he could try to offer up some kind of solution, Voight and the rest of the team exited the house and headed for them.
Things devolved into the logistics of the case, and Jay and Hailey spent the next few minutes relaying the details of this robbery and how it connected to their other crime scenes. Kevin popped in with a few anecdotes of his own, and Vanessa had a good theory, but Jay spent most of his energy watching Hailey fiddle with the hem of her bloody shirt.
Jay clenched his jaw when Voight began handing out assignments and bid Hailey and Jay stay at the crime scene to hand deliver important evidence to the lab. He saw Hailey’s annoyance at the order, too—saw her fist clench against her thigh and the tendon by her temple go taught—but he was pretty sure he was the only one who noticed.
Couldn’t Voight see she was covered in blood and in need of a shower?
But he kept his mouth shut because Hailey didn’t need him speaking for her—even when he really felt like he needed to, like he should. He watched the team disperse without saying a word, but he snagged Hailey’s arm before she could head back to the house. He jerked his head towards his truck parked across the street and she followed him immediately, no confusion or question in her eyes.
They crossed the street in step with one another and rounded the truck to the driver’s side, separating them from prying eyes and from the hubbub of the crime scene. He didn’t think about it too much as he unzipped his gray hoodie and yanked open the backseat door. He also didn’t think about it too much when he pulled his hoodie off, held it between his thighs, and shed his black v-neck in a few quick movements.
He did think entirely too much about Hailey’s sharp intake of breath, about the way she quietly cleared her throat.
He pulled his hoodie back on before the urge to look at her overwhelmed him, and he waited till he zipped it all the way up before turning and offering her his discarded shirt.
There was a subtle, pretty blush high on her cheeks, and her eyes were wide as she looked between his face and his outstretched hand.
“Jay…”
“You’re covered in blood, Hailey,” he reminded, his heart beating a bit too fast. “We’re gonna be at this crime scene for at least another hour; do you really wanna wear that the whole time?”
It was quiet as they stared at each other, the silence only broken by the indistinct bustle of the crime scene. But then she asked, “You sure?”
He grinned a little and cocked his eyebrow. “I already took it off, didn’t I?”
She grinned back, enough tilt to her lips for her dimple to pop, and puffed a breath of amused air through her nose. “Thanks,” she murmured as she took the t-shirt. He stepped aside and let her climb into the backseat.
It didn’t hit him until he shut the door behind her and leaned against the driver’s door. He’d only been thinking about keeping Hailey comfortable and offering up a solution, but as he crossed his arms and tapped an anxious, staccato rhythm against his bicep, his thoughts shifted.
She’d be wearing his shirt when she got out of the truck.
That sent his heart stampeding behind his rib cage. He tipped his head back against the window with a thunk , uncrossed his arms, and then crossed them the other way. He needed to pull himself together and focus.
But then she was climbing from the truck, tucking his shirt into her jeans, and running a red-tinged hand through her wavy blonde hair.
He was thinking about it even more now, and he was looking, too, as she leaned back into the vehicle and grabbed her bloody shirt. She scrubbed a bit more at her hands, and he ran his gaze down her body and just…kept looking. He couldn’t help it. She’d adjusted the fabric so it laid across her shoulders without appearing overly baggy, but he was keenly aware that it was his shirt.
“You—ah—all set?” He cleared his throat.
“Yeah.” She looked down at her hands and roughly wiped away a dried spot of blood near her wrist. “I still feel covered in it, though. I’ll probably have to take, like, three showers to feel…what?”
Realizing he’d been caught staring, he shook his head to clear the fog that had settled over his brain. He kept his own blush from his skin through sheer force of will, but red bloomed on Hailey’s neck. And he wondered, then, how far that blush extended, and he found he desperately needed to find out.
He ran a hand through his short hair after another aborted movement to touch her.
“Nothing,” he rasped. “You’ve just—ah—got some blood on your forehead.”
“Oh.” She jerked her wadded-up shirt to her forehead and wiped at it quickly. “Good?”
“Almost.” He stepped closer to her, gesturing to the shirt. “Can I?”
“Sure.”
He shook the shirt out and found a clean section to wipe away the small smear of blood she’d missed—wiped away the flecks he just now noticed on the curve of her neck.
“Better,” he said, his voice a little rougher than he wanted it to be. He was definitely blushing now, and he knew he needed to take a few steps away from her—go back to the crime scene and do his damn job—but he didn’t. He didn’t move at all, and neither did she.
He tried to read the emotions swirling in her eyes, but for once he was at a loss. He couldn’t even put a name to his own emotions. Or maybe he just didn’t want to. Maybe it was still too big of a thing to admit to, especially on a random sidewalk in May with a bloody shirt in his hands.
A siren whoop-whooped, and they both jolted. Hailey stepped back first, just a tiny half-step, but it was enough to fully pull him from his head. He tossed her ruined shirt in the back of the truck and shut the door before jerking a thumb over his shoulder.
“We should get back before the Techs take off with the evidence we’re supposed to be guarding.”
.:..:.
Hailey wore his shirt for the rest of the day.
Jay definitely wouldn’t trade this torture for zip-ties and cattle prods—once was enough, thanks—but this was a close second. It was a sweeter, stranger, more potent kind of torment to watch her in his clothes. To watch her and wallow. Yearn.
All she did was type on her computer, tape a photo to the whiteboard, sit cross-legged on her desk—things he’d watched her do literally everyday for three years.
Yet he was completely useless, and it was like he was sixteen again, and Ali Corson had just touched his arm for the first time in the biology lab. But worse, so much worse, because it was Hailey, and he was pretty sure she was the love of his fucking life.
And she was wearing his shirt.
He followed her out of the bullpen on autopilot when she grabbed a folder and her two-way, and he got into his truck when it became clear that was where they were headed. The engine rumbled to life, and it startled him even though he was the one who had turned the damn key.
Jesus, he needed to get ahold of himself.
But then she leaned over the center console to toss the folder on the backseat, and her shirt—his shirt—slid down her shoulder a little. Not much, the shirt wasn’t that big, but it was enough to make him swallow hard, enough to be considered just a little indecent. He forced himself to look away from her, from the tantalizing line of her collarbone.
It was too much. She was too much, and looking at her made him want too much.
He put the truck in drive.