Fic: Breaking The Silence (Previously 'A Deadly Silence')

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: Breaking The Silence
Chapters: 2/?
Author: csi_sanders1129
Genre: Drama. Casefile. Romance. Hurt/Comfort. Angst.
Ratings: T
Word Count: ~2,300
Pairings/Characters: Jason Morgan/Damian Spinelli.
Synopsis: In which Spinelli gets in over his head with a Jackal PI case, Jason has his hands full dealing with the fall-out, and a serial killer is on the loose.
Comments: I started this a while ago, but recently started working on it again, with major help from suerum, who is - for the record, awesome - it's not quite done yet, but it's getting there. Set a bit in the future (November 2010-ish) and assumes Maxie and Spinelli broke up and that Jason and Sam have also called it quits again. Mix between a casefile fic and a regular drama/hurt/comfort/romance kind of fic. Original characters aren't mine, even though I may not actually want them. Reviews are awesome, and enjoy! (Previously titles ‘A Deadly Silence’)

Chapter 1 |

"Spinelli," Robin implored of her uncooperative patient. "Spinelli, we need to get you checked out. Can you please let go of Jason so we can x-ray your foot and get you into some clean clothes?"

Jason shook his head, knowing her efforts wouldn't work. Spinelli had gone through the entire ambulance ride and through most of the triage process without relinquishing his grip on Jason's arm. He doubted asking nicely would prove effective.

And, as expected, Spinelli remained silent and still against his mentor's side.

"Jason, can't you talk him down?"

Jason shrugged. "Haven't been able to yet. But, give me a few minutes." The doctor nodded and stepped away, leaving Jason and Spinelli behind. Jason shifted until Spinelli had no choice but to look at him before he started speaking. "I need you to listen to me, alright? Whatever you saw, whatever happened in that house, I know it scared you and I know you don't want to talk about it right now – you don't have to. But, I need you to cooperate just for a little while. If not with the doctors, then at least with me, okay? Spinelli, can you do that?"

A long moment passed and Jason was beginning to fear that Spinelli had gone all but catatonic on him, but slowly, so slowly, Spinelli nodded and his hand loosened its immeasurably tight grip on Jason's arm to instead hold lightly onto the bloodied black t-shirt.

"Okay, good." Jason said, with a sigh of relief that he'd gotten through.

Robin returned a moment later with two sets of scrubs, some towels, and bags for their ruined clothes. "If you can get him to change, then we can take him to x-ray. You can stay with him through that, too, if he still won't let go."

Jason nodded and took the offered items. "Alright," he said, once again alone with Spinelli. "This'll be an interesting process... You have to let go of me for a few minutes. I'll be right here." He promised and Spinelli's hand reluctantly fell away from him. Slowly, he eased the jacket from Spinelli's shoulders and tossed it into one of the bags. "Lift your arms," Jason requested and Spinelli complied, raising his arms so that his similarly ruined t-shirt could join the jacket. He wiped away as much of the blood as he could, but between the limited abilities of the towel and the fact that some of the blood had started to dry, it wasn't proving to be terribly effective.

"Stand up for me, will you?" Jason prompted, once he'd done as much as he could. Slowly, Spinelli complied with his request, awkwardly balanced on his good foot. "I need to get your jeans off." It was more of a warning than anything else, and Jason set to work on this task with quick determination. He wanted this to be done as quickly as possible so that Spinelli could get the tests and treatments he needed so they could go home – maybe there he could try to get Spinelli back to normal. Jeans and boxers were tossed into one of the bags, along with ruined shoes and socks. Another run over with the towel accomplished about as much as it had before and within moments, Jason was carefully tugging the loose scrubs into place on his protégé's pliant form.

"Just one minute." Jason assured the shaking Spinelli, who was already trying to reach out for him again. "I just need to change."

He shrugged out of his own ruined jacket and shirt and used what was left of the totally useless towels to get the blood off of his hands and neck – it hadn't completely soaked through his clothes like it had on Spinelli – and soon his jeans and shoes joined the pile of would-be evidence. He'd barely just pulled on his own scrubs when Spinelli grabbed onto him again.

Seated side by side on the hospital bed in the triage room, they waited in silence.

Robin returned a few moments later, and was pleased to see that Jason had accomplished the task she had appointed him. It meant that Spinelli had complied with what he had asked. A good thing. "You ready for your x-ray?" She inquired toward Spinelli, distantly hoping for an answer.

Jason nudged Spinelli off of the bed again, this time into the wheelchair that Robin had brought in. "His wrists are pretty sliced up, too..." He told her, in case she hadn't caught it before – as the sleeves of Spinelli's jacket had pretty well hidden the wounds.

"We'll check them out as soon as this is done." She assured the clearly worried Jason, and nodded toward the hall.

Spinelli maintained a fierce grip on Jason's hand the entire time he was being rolled from the Emergency Room to Radiology. Jason accompanied him into the small imaging area and the hacker didn't fight him when he pried his grip from his wrist as they transferred him to the bed in the room. It appeared that having Jason in close proximity was enough to keep him compliant, but then when it was evident that his mentor was leaving along with the radiation technician, his placid, almost catatonic, demeanor rapidly and radically altered.

He still didn't speak, but he started making the most heartrending little mewling sounds that caused Jason's blood to run cold as he heard them. Before he could turn around and go back to Spinelli in order to help him, even if it meant he didn't get the damn x-ray, it was already too late. Spinelli had attempted to follow after him and, entirely oblivious to his injured foot and apparently not feeling any pain, he tried to walk or maybe even run toward Jason. The injured foot, however, proved incapable of supporting his weight and it gave way, and Spinelli crumpled to the floor before Jason could reach him.

Panicked himself now, he knelt down by the younger man, fearful of what he might have done to make his foot worse, but none of that mattered in the least when he got a look at his face. Spinelli's complexion, though usually pale, was now so white it was difficult to believe there was any blood under the skin. His green eyes were bloodshot and wide with terror at Jason's apparent abandonment and tears flowed unchecked down his face. Worst of all, though, was that he continued to make those high pitched cries of distress, his chest heaving as he fought to get in enough oxygen. He was perilously close to hyperventilating.

Jason didn't hesitate, without even thinking he scooped the boy up in his arms and carried him back toward the radiology bed. Spinelli's arms were wrapped around his neck in a death grip and Jason could feel his heart thudding like that of a panicked bird.

"Spinelli," his voice was low, gentle and patient with a tone he only ever used when speaking with children, "Spinelli, listen to me. I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. I promise. They'll have to do the x-ray with me in the room." He glared over Spinelli's head at the technician who flinched and swallowed nervously as he bobbed his head in frantic agreement with Jason's request. "So, see, everything's fine, but you're going to have to let go of my neck." He felt Spinelli's arms tighten convulsively around his neck at those foreboding words. "It's alright," he said soothingly, even though he felt as though he had an iron band constricting his neck, making it difficult to speak and even to breathe. "You can hold onto me - I'll be right here - but we need to get you arranged on the bed so they can x-ray your foot."

There was no change, not in the grip, not in Spinelli's position, not in anything except that those god awful kittenish sounds had stopped and silence once more reigned.

"As soon as they check your ankle and your wrists, we'll go home."

It seemed as though Jason had found the magic words because Spinelli turned his head up and scanned Jason's face intently as though testing the reliability of his claim. Whatever he saw reassured him, because he released his stranglehold on Jason's neck and fell back onto the bed, his eyes never leaving Jason's.

Jason bit his lip in consternation when he saw how the wounds in Spinelli's wrists were bleeding freely again due to pressure of holding onto him so tightly. But, he schooled his face back to calm neutrality so as not to upset Spinelli any further.

The technician came up behind him and with shaking hands slipped a lead lined apron onto Jason, and put the one that had fallen off of the decidedly distressed patient back into place. "The x-ray will be directional so there shouldn't really be any issue with you staying in here." He told Jason, who nodded abruptly, his entire focus was on Spinelli, who once more was gripping his hand with a heretofore unsuspected level of strength.

The x-ray technician quickly went about carefully and correctly positioning the ankle in question – now much more obviously injured and swollen than it had been previously – and rather hastily ducked back into the adjoining room so he could start the imager. "I just need you to hold still for a few seconds, alright?" He said, mostly on instinct because he doubted he'd actually get through to the boy with the busted up ankle. Within the promised few seconds the process was complete. "I need this angle and then you'll be done." The tech amended, quickly re-adjusting the ankle for another view. Again, the process went smoothly.

"That it?" Jason pressed, his hand still caught in Spinelli's vice-grip like hold.

"I'll have the results to Dr. Scorpio in just a few minutes." The tech said, already gathering up the printed images. "And you can go back to the ER, but I can tell you already that he's got at least one broken bone." The tech said, spotting the break had been painfully obvious.

Jason shut his eyes and sighed heavily, let the guilt hit him with full force. Either Spinelli had further aggravated an already broken leg or else he had possibly broken it just now, all because he'd made Spinelli panic. He definitely wasn't letting that happen again. "Alright." He said, once again forcing himself to act with the stone cold composition that Spinelli nicknamed him for. "We'll be back in triage."

Carefully, so as not to jostle or further injure Spinelli's broken leg, Jason maneuvered the hacker into his arms and then back into the wheelchair that they'd left parked outside of the imaging area. Spinelli still clung to his arm as he steered them toward the area and back into the triage curtain they'd been in before. Someone had, at least, removed the bags of bloody clothes.

"Almost finished." Jason promised, as he helped Spinelli out of the chair and back onto the bed. "Won't be much longer."

It was only moments later that Robin returned, folder of freshly printed images tucked under her arm. Her eyes, laced with concern, fell on Jason - obviously she'd heard of Spinelli's meltdown. "You guys okay?" She asked, taking note of the fresh blood and the bruise forming on one of Spinelli's forearms, presumably where he'd hit when he'd fallen.

When Spinelli offered no answer – as they'd come to expect – Jason sighed. "He's okay now. A little bruised up and it probably didn't help his leg much, but okay." Just as long as he didn't get too far away, anyway.

"Well, there's some relatively good news - the break was clean. We won't have to do anything but cast it. And we'll wrap up his wrists, too. Mac's here for your statements, but somehow I don't think Spinelli's quite up to that right now." Robin said, scribbling notes and orders on her patients chart. "I'll send someone in to do the cast."

"Alright. Can you, ugh, ask Mac to come in here? I'd go out there to talk to him, but I don't want…" He didn't have to say the rest. She got the message.

She nodded swiftly as she ducked back out of the curtained area. "I'll send him in."

Mac and the nurse who was sent to cast Spinelli's leg came in at the same time.

"He won't talk." Jason said, as he watched the woman work on Spinelli's leg. Luckily, the nurse cleaned up his residually bloodstained leg exponentially more effectively than Jason had before the actual casting process began. "When he does, I'll call you, but until then, I don't think he can help you."

Mac sighed, a disheartened sound that told Jason that they hadn't gotten many clues from the crime scene itself. But, he'd worry about that later.

"I'll give you my statement, if you want it, but I already told you everything I know."

The detective shrugged. "I'll get yours later. Once you've gotten Spinelli settled." With a curt nod, Mac excused himself, leaving them alone as the nurse wrapped Spinelli's leg in padding.

Spinelli's grip tightened immeasurably on his arm when the nurse pulled out the actual casting material. It was red. Jason caught on immediately – Spinelli had seen way too much red lately. "Wait, wait." He said. "Is… is there another color you can use?"

Digging through the supplies, she recovered a blinding shade of neon pink and a much more subdued sea-greenish color. Jason nodded to the latter of the two choices. He could see nothing wrong with green, and he could tell Spinelli agreed when the younger's grip loosened.

The rest of the process went easily enough. The nurse wrapped the fiberglass material around Spinelli's leg, shaped it accordingly and then declared him done. The clean up and bandage work on his arms took mere moments, and by then the cast had hardened and set properly.

"I'll just get a set of crutches and your discharge paperwork." The nurse said, smiling kindly as she left them alone.

Jason grabbed his cell phone from the pile of non-ruined, non-bloodstained, non-confiscated items. Somehow it had survived. "Max'll have to come get us. My car's not here." He said, as opposed to 'still where I found you'. "We'll be home in no time."