It had been a long day. A long day that was turning into an even longer night. Jay had always hated working late nights at the district. They had never been his favourite. Sure, there were only a few aspects of his job that he disliked but those seemed to rank highly on the short list. The only thing that could ever make it bearable for him was the fact that Erin sat directly across from him at her own desk. If luck was on his side then he would be suffering with her.

The mountain of paperwork that was sitting in front of him, waiting to be filled in and filed away by him, was the main culprit. It held his freedom hostage. He could think of a million other things that he would rather be doing on a Friday night and none of them involved paperwork taking up his precious time. It was barely past nine o'clock and Jay already could feel himself losing the will to live.

He wasn't making it any easier for himself. He had near enough exhausted all of his means of procrastination. There was only so much staring at walls and playing with the apps on his phone that he could do. He had rearranged the contents of his desk drawers twice and stole many, many glances at the woman that was a few feet away from him. If Erin had anything to do with matters then it was far easier to avoid doing work, though tonight she wasn't giving him any attention. Instead her head was buried deep in her own stack of folders.

She looked as though she could have slept for days. Fun and games aside, it was clear that they didn't share the same work ethic. Jay had discovered that quickly while they were both cooped up at the district. He chose not to mention that dark circles that were looming underneath her eyes. It wasn't as though they made much difference to him - with or without them his eyes tended to stay glued to her.

They hadn't spoken in almost twenty minutes. Even at that it was only the exchange of a few words. Usually they could sit in each others company for hours in silence, comfortable just being together, but Jay was like an impatient child craving attention.

"Why don't we pack some of this stuff up and take it home with us? We could always grab something to eat on the way back?" Jay said suddenly, deciding finally that he was fed up with the lack of noise. For a second he thought that she was ignoring him completely, watching as her eyes moved slightly from side to side as she read the words in front of her. She shook her head slightly in response, barely glancing at him from the computer screen. Jay sighed. He couldn't decide whether or not it was a good idea to push the matter any further. If past experience was anything to go by then he was fighting a losing battle. Admitting defeat had never been one of her strong suits. "You look just about as bad as I feel, Lindsay."

Erin looked up from her desk at the mention of her surname. She raised an eyebrow before replying to him sarcastically. "Wow, you sure do know how to make a girl feel special Halstead." They usually reserved calling each other their last names for out in the field. She couldn't help but smirk slightly.

"You know what I mean, Er." He shook his head slightly as he spoke and Erin let out a long breath. She attempted to reassure him with a softer smile but it was a feeble attempt that only made her look all the more tired and made Jay all the more frustrated with her.

"I'm fine. Honestly," she said. "Besides, someone has to get all of this done and I don't want the earache from Voight if it's still here tomorrow. Not everyone feels inclined to slack off when the first bit of boring work is thrown their way."

Jay feigned offence. "Me? Slacking off?" She chuckled a little before he opened his mouth to speak again. "Me and you both know that this can be done after a solid 8 hours of sleep. It's stressing you out."

"If you need a nap I won't judge."

He ignored her words. "You're stressing me out," he muttered, slouching forward and placing his cell phone onto his desk. He lazily reached over for a file and opened it, grimacing slightly at the sheer volume of text that was on the page.

Jay didn't realise that he had heard him speak. "When does this job not stress us out?" Erin scoffed. The brunette brought a hand up towards her face, rubbing her eyes and brushing a loose strand away from them and back behind her ear. She tried to concentrate again but she could feel Jay's eyes burning a hole into the crown of her head. Erin looked up again, realising that his eyes were in fact still firmly fixed on her. She smirked again as their eyes met. He was definitely stubborn. Not quite as stubborn as she could be though. They both knew that much. "Keep your eyes on your own paper, Detective."

Jay raised both hands in surrender. He couldn't help but be worried about her. It didn't matter whether they were in the field, at the district or even just at home. It was like it had been programmed into his brain the moment that they had met. He also couldn't help but think about the possibility of her being wrapped in his arms, in the comfort of their own bed, instead of neck deep in paperwork. It had been too long since he had seen her relax. If she relaxed then he could too. "Okay."

A few moments passed, silence filling the space between them again just as it had before. Jay had finally managed to concentrate on something productive, even writing a few coherent sentences. On the other hand, his interruption had caused Erin to lose her own focus. She pushed her chair back, stretching her legs as she stood up and walked towards Jay's desk. "Refill?"

Jay noticed her outstretched hand before he heard her voice. Dark circles were beginning to form underneath his own eyes. They were the only reply that Erin needed but still she waited for a response from him. "More coffee?" Jay teased. He mimicked her expression from moments before, raising an eyebrow questioningly at her. Almost instantly it relaxed into a lazy grin as she laughed slightly at him, and he passed his empty mug across to her. "Always. This? This is why you are the best partner in the whole world."

"To be fair, I can think of many, many other things that make me the best partner in the whole world Jay, but they aren't exactly appropriate for the workplace," Erin replied, tilting her head slightly and leaning against his desk. Her voice lowered to barely more than a whisper and Jay unconsciously moved closer to her. "I mean, they are pretty exclusive to our apartments but you never know."

"You know you're killing me right?" he replied breathily as he watched the brunette turn on her heels, walking away from him and into the small kitchen. He could have sworn that she was swinging her hips that little bit more because she knew that he was looking - emphasizing the movement because she knew that it would get to him. Jay groaned quietly and leaned back into his chair again. "A slow and very painful death."

"Die quietly," Erin called back from the other room. Jay could practically hear the smile that was on her lips. He could imagine her dimples popping out and a smug look resting on her face. It was better than the zombie like state she had been in before.

"If we're stuck here then I might as well order some food. Do you want something? I'm thinking Thai?" Silence. He tilted his body forwards, attempting to peer into the kitchen to see what she was doing but he couldn't see much other than her back. "Babe?"

When she didn't reply again Jay immediately rose to his feet. Even though he knew nothing could have possibly gone terribly wrong, his mind still jumped to conclusions. She could be wrapped from head to toe in bubblewrap but silence like that would always make his heart drop. He heard a quiet curse from Erin's direction and he began to move, walking the same path as she had only moments previously. His thoughts raced in the few seconds between his desk and the kitchen. It didn't help that the first sight that met his eyes was one of red blood covering her face. It was everywhere. It was on her face. It was on her hands. It was on her shirt. It made him want to be sick.

"Shit Erin," Jay whispered. He could handle blood. In this line of work there was blood around every corner. He had seen more blood than anyone should. He just couldn't handle the sight of his girlfriend's blood. It was unsettling. It made his stomach turn. "I let you out of my sight for a minute."

The brunette was leaning stiffly against the counter. One hand firmly pinched her nose while the other was tugging almost desperately at the box of tissues that lay on the worktop beside her. Jay moved quickly next to her, ready to help in any way that he could. He put his steady hand over her own shaking fingers and gently tipped her head back with his other. Erin frowned slightly as the movement, the sensation of the blood in her throat uncomfortable. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and whispered a muffled thanks. He smiled softly. The technique had stuck with Jay ever since he was a little kid, it was always what he had been taught to do. Besides, it meant that she could look at the ceiling rather than the sight of her own blood that was covering her.

It didn't take long for Erin to try and joke. Her vulnerability only showed in short bursts. "Y'know, I'm not really that hungry all of a sudden. She gulped loudly, wincing at the taste in her mouth. There was a growing clump of red on the counter next to her where she had begun to discard the dark red tissues that she had used. Erin couldn't help but laugh at herself ever so slightly, she wasn't sure what else she was supposed to do at a moment like this.

"Are you okay?" Jay said, ignoring what she had said completely. The look of worry that he had adopted seemed permanently etched into his face, a stern expression replacing his usually more relaxed face. It wasn't often that Erin seen him like this. Sure, she had seen his anxiety whenever the had a close call on a case but this genuine and almost intense concern was rare. His frown faltered for a second, realising what a stupid question he had asked her. "I mean...I know that you're okay even though you're, like, not really okay, but...?"

"It's only a little nosebleed," Erin sighed, attempting to give him another reassuring smile like the one she had offered him earlier but it was equally as useless. She grabbed another tissue before correcting herself. "It's a shitty nosebleed. I'll survive Jay."

Jay started to relax slightly, leaning back against the counter just as she was. He snuck a hand behind her back and started to trace comforting circles on her spine. It distracted her from the discomfort that she was feeling in her head and for that minute or so, Erin had never been more grateful that she had him by her side. She let her body rest lightly against his, hesitating slightly as she realised that she might be getting blood on his clean shirt but he pulled her closer to him without a second thought. Jay didn't care about stains. He didn't care about getting his hands messy. He would do anything if it meant making her feel better. Erin brought her head down onto his shoulder and sighed.

Jay placed a light kiss on top of her head before nudging her slightly. She looked up and their eyes met. "You should probably sit down for a little while. You're losing a good bit of blood there." He spoke quietly, almost as though he was afraid of startling her.

"It's okay. I'm okay," Erin replied in a whisper. Her voice was shaky but he could tell that she was trying not to let it show. Jay had a talent for seeing right through the hardass bravado that she tried to put forward. It was a skill that he had acquired over time and it was no easy feat.

Even Erin couldn't deny that it was a shitty one. Shitty didn't even cover it. Her nose was streaming and it didn't seem as though it wanted to stop any time soon. She reached back again for another handful of tissues, abandoning the now soaking red clump that she had been holding close to her face. The box was empty. Not what she wanted to see. "Crap." Jay was silent. It wasn't like him to shut up in moments like this. Erin didn't like it at all. She wanted him to ramble on and on and mumble and panic because it meant that she didn't have to, and it made her feel better.

It was as if he had read her mind. If she hadn't had been so preoccupied then she would have commented on the spookiness of the situation but Jay started to speak. "Y'know when I was a kid I used to have a lot of nosebleeds. It sucked. It was funny though, I remember that my parents always thought that I was getting in fights. They always went off on one when I came home with a stained t-shirt, saying that I was a bad influence on Will because he shouldn't see his older brother misbehaving so much in school. I only fought when someone was picking on him. And I always won. I remember in the 5th grade we had a new teacher. It was right at the start of the year and she was just qualified so she had no idea what she was doing with a class full of ten year olds. I felt bad for her. I felt even worse when she had to deal with Niagara falls streaming out of my nostrils on her first day."

Erin snorted when he finished. Jay took a deep breath, realising just how much he had been speaking. She started to speak without thinking. "I only ever had a few. They were never as bad as this though."

Jay opened his mouth to reply but something caught his attention. "I think that it's finally stopped." Erin moved her hand away from her nose, gazing down at it to search for any sign of fresh blood but there was nothing to be seen other than her stained red flesh. Jay brushed his thumb against her cheek, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. "Looks like you're all good. You should take it easy though."

The brunette sighed loudly in relief. "Thank God." They both moved over to the sink and Jay turned the faucet on, his hands being the cleanest. Erin cupped her hands, bringing a small pool of water to her face and attempting to wipe away some of the dried blood that was still around her nose. As she brought her hands away from her face she snuck a glance at Jay, realising that he wasn't paying attention to her, and flicked the remaining water towards him with a small laugh.

Jay nudged her shoulder lightly, spraying some back with his fingers before squirting some more soap into his palm. "I can definitely see you being the fighting type."

"Yeah?" Erin laughed before admitting offhandedly. "Honestly, it was a lot more getting hit than actual fighting."

Jay paused. He was always wary whenever Erin mentioned something like this. Glimpses into her past were few and far between and he was never sure how he was supposed to little comments like this. She seemed unfazed by her admission. "Oh?" He wished he could have thought of something better to say than just that.

She realised her mistake quickly. When she noticed the look on his face, she attempted to brush it off as nothing at all. "It's not a big deal. Before he went to prison my dad lived with us for a little while. He had a short temper, I took the brunt of it. Then before Teddy's dad left he was with us too. He didn't like me much. He didn't even like Teddy much. I just wasn't his kid, y'know? So he didn't care. I was just a brat who got in the way."

"I'm sorry," he replied. She shrugged. "It is a big deal. Not that it happened. I mean it is, but not exactly. I just appreciate that you feel comfortable enough with me to tell me these little things."

Erin smiled slightly. "Thanks for being there to listen."

"Any time." Jay lifted a hand to her face, wiping off a flake of red. He looked at her for a moment, glancing down at her torso and chuckling slightly. "We should probably get you a new shirt."

So I'm going to start a series of one-shots. They're all going to be about (mostly) Erin getting hurt and Jay comforting but there will be a few Jay moments thrown in there. Thanks to the reviewer that gave me the idea for this. In Shoot Me the hospital scenes had sort of run their course but I do still want to write some hospitally moments - so here we are. Enjoy!

This was definitely a light one to get started. There are gonna be a lot more dramatic one-shots. Tell me if there's anything you want to see.