Pandora's Box Discovered

I

"Flynn Baker. Thirteen... Found him in the..."

His breath hitched, betraying him in his effort to deliver a matter-of-fact account of recent events, the first sign that he was barely holding it together. He needed to get a grip of himself now. But it was a small bump in the road, a miniscule hesitation that hopefully neither of the two seasoned cops in front of him noticed. He cleared his throat.

"Found him i-in the... the showers."

Now that stutter most certainly wasn't as inconspicuous. Maybe it was more than just a small bump after all. The unbidden images too vivid, too nauseating, hitting way too close to home. Shaking his head in a single jerky motion, he tried to get rid of them. It didn't work; the pictures continued to push themselves to the fore. He harrumphed.

"Unconscious but breathing," he continued, voice shaky and unsteady. And his lungs grasped the opportunity to remind him that he was required to do the same: breathe, keep breathing. Inhale, exhale. Simple as that. So, he sucked in much-needed air, chest rising as his starved respiratory tract inflated. Preparing to deliver the punch that he wasn't prepared for.

"Obvious signs of..."

This time it was more than just a hitch, more than just a bump. It was a full-on stop, a violent jolt that stole away the breath he had just taken. 'Not now. Please not now,' he silently prayed but to no avail. His voice cracked and faded into a high-pitched wheeze as he choked out the concluding words.

"...s-sexual a-abuse."

Unclenching his fist and lifting his hand, he wanted to run his fingers through his hair, over his face, down his chin, do something with it, anything really to hide his nerves. But upon realizing how much the limb was trembling, he hastily stuffed it and its left twin under his armpits, away from the observant eyes of both his sergeant and the senior detective standing right in front of him. He didn't want either of them to see how shaken he really was. He'd worked his ass off to earn at least a rudimentary level of approval from them, and he wanted, no needed to preserve that at all costs.

Then again, showing such obvious signs of his weakness, stuttering his way through staccatoed scraps of his report like a rookie who had just visited a crime scene for the very first time in his life might have sealed his fate and thereby stripped him of this tiny ounce of hard-won respect they had for him.

Who was he kidding anyway? They were investigators, damn good ones at that. The best of the best CPD had to offer. Even if they had missed the tremor running through his hands, at the very least they would have been aware of his ashen face, the haunted look in his eyes, and the goosebumps crawling up his pale freckled arms, the latter of which were especially conspicuous due to the flagrant absence of his lined black sweater and feathered-down jacket. He'd hardly shed either one even in the cozy warmth of the office lately because he constantly felt chilled to the bone. Yet here he was, clad only in a too thin navy-blue t-shirt which did nothing to protect him from Chicago's unforgiving crisp March air.

If he weren't already sick with a cold before, he would surely catch one now – not that he cared about the repercussions on his health. Preserving undeserving Flynn's dignity was worth every miserable sneeze, every irritating sniffle he might take away from this. If he were to find another kid in the same precarious situation as Flynn, he'd do it all over again in a heartbeat. Harsh reality was, the chances for that to happen stood grievously high with the way their current case was progressing, even higher thanks to his failure.

A strong breeze made him shiver and he hugged himself even tighter. Raising his shoulders to shield himself against the biting air, he ducked and turned his head just in time to stifle a chesty, hacking cough in the short sleeve of his tee. The meaningful sidelong glance Voight and Olinsky shared was lost on him as he tried to recompose and steel himself for the onslaught of questions, he was sure would come barreling any second now. Much to his surprise, instead of taking him to the cleaners, the sergeant asked just one.