#its almost 3am so this is probably ~jake peralta voice~ riddled with spelling errors

[peraltasames]

until the night turns into morning

Amy has a bad day and realizes even the worst days aren't quite as bad with Jake Peralta.

Notes: canon divergent, set post-2x21 (det dave majors) but before johnny and dora. jake supports amy so much and i have a lot of feelings about it. based on the song new york by ed sheeran

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Usually, after a particularly bad day, Amy will go home immediately after work, run herself a hot bath and read one of her favourite books. The familiarity of the words and the effortlessness of comprehending them soothe her brain until she begins to forget about her troubles.

Tonight, though, she only makes it a couple blocks from the precinct before she’s parking her car again, almost in a trance as she walks across the street and into Shaw’s.

She doesn’t want to read. She wants to drink.

“Heisler, please,” she says in a gravelly voice, muttering a quick “thank you” to the bartender and heading off to the darkest, quietest corner of the bar.

Unfortunately, the corner booth, her envisioned destination for at least two or three more drinks, is occupied (even more unfortunately, by her coworkers).

“Amy, hey!”

She knows the moment she hears Boyle’s voice that it’s too late to down her drink and head elsewhere. Her colleagues, her friends, would never allow her to drink alone on a Friday night.

“Hey, guys.” She plasters on a fake smile, begrudgingly sitting next to Gina, across from Rosa and Charles.

“You seem a little down in the dumps, did the stationery store close?”

She doesn’t have the energy to reply to Gina’s snark (the last thing she needs is to think about losing Quills and Things), taking another long sip of her drink.

“Don’t wanna talk about it,” she mumbles, setting the already half-empty drink down in front of her. “Actually, guys, I should probably just go home.”

“Whatever’s wrong, it might help to be with people who care about you,” Charles suggests with an encouraging grin, raising his beer.

As much as she appreciates the support, she really doesn’t feel like seeing any more looks of sympathy like the one Holt gave her half an hour ago after getting off the phone with the chief.

“Thanks, Charles, but I should really-“

“Hey, Santiago!” The unmistakeable voice from over her shoulder makes her freeze in place. Of course, it was foolish to think that he wouldn’t be here on a Friday with all of their other coworkers, but given her disaster of a day, she thought maybe the universe would cut her some slack. No such luck. “Did Holt find out if you got the task force?”

She stares down at her lap to avoid the looks of comprehension from her friends as they piece the situation together, to avoid Jake’s faded smile as he meets Charles’ gaze and everyone is now acutely aware of her failure.

“They decided to give it to Kyle Gregory.”

Jake is speechless for a second (a rare occurrence) and she hopes and prays that maybe he’ll just drop it and start talking about one of his cases or his ranking of the Die Hard saga. Of course, he won’t do those things, because completely notwithstanding her own will, he is probably her best friend. He cares about her and supports her - it’s the very reason that when she proposed her task force idea to the chief with Holt’s support and he said he would strongly consider her to take the lead on it, her first instinct was to call Jake and enthusiastically ramble to him in the hallway outside the chief’s office for twenty minutes.

“You are way more qualified than him.” Rosa breaks the silence, looking slightly more pissed than normal.

“Yeah, and the chief’s a sexist jerk,” Gina pipes in, “he calls me sweetheart when he calls for Holt. I usually transfer his call to Hitchcock instead.”

Amy cracks a small smile at her friends’ benevolent remarks, but it’s nothing she didn’t already know, nothing that really eases the dull ache in her heart. She knows all about the bigotry that runs deep in the NYPD, but it doesn’t make it any easier when things like this continue to happen.

Jake slides into the spot next to her, the booth now crowded enough that his thigh is touching hers, even when she shifts closer to Gina to make room for him. She doesn’t know if it’s the physical contact or the soft smile or him sliding his own beer that he just bought over to her and drinking from the one that was probably meant for Charles instead, but she feels a little bit warmer inside.

The warm feeling grows ever so slightly as she sits back silently and listens to Rosa and Gina rant about the patriarchy while Charles and Jake nod and mutter agreements, occasionally getting up to get another round of drinks.

She isn’t sure how many hours pass, but eventually she has enough to drink that she can feel herself getting caught up in her own irrational thoughts of not being good enough and never reaching her goals. It must show in her face, because Gina pauses during a story about herself to ask if Amy’s okay in a rare, genuine tone and Jake’s hand inconspicuously grabs hers where it rests on her lap.

“It’s just not fair,” Amy mumbles in response to Gina’s question.

“It’s not fair,” Jake agrees, squeezing her hand (god, she hopes the blush creeping on her face can be blamed on the six beers she just had). “You’ll show ‘em when you’re the youngest captain in the history of the NYPD though, right Ames?”

Amy’s brain shifts its focus from disappointment and anger to replaying Jake’s sentence on an incessant loop, breaking it down into facts: he listens to her goals, he believes in her, he called her “Ames” again…

She really doesn’t know if it’s just the alcohol or a result of every emotion of the past year since he told her he wanted something to happen between them and promptly disappeared for six months, but being with Jake - just Jake, despite how grateful she is for the support of her friends - is now her number one priority.

“Can we go somewhere?” Her lips are close to his ear as she whispers the question, trying to avoid being overheard.

Something flashes in his eyes and she’s worried for a moment that he’s misinterpreted what she wants - she doesn’t even know what she wants -but he just nods wordlessly and smiles.

“Wait here, I’ll go pay the tab.”

They make their exit as discreetly as possible, Jake muttering some halfhearted excuse about them splitting a cab even though everyone in their group knows they live in opposite directions from the bar.

The warm breeze of the mid-summer night embraces her as she steps out of the doors, Jake’s hand firmly placed on her upper back keeping her steady.

“Do you want me to take you home?” he offers, attempting to hail a cab as they approach the street. “Or we can get something to eat, are you hungry? You haven’t eaten since lunch, right?”

It’s true, and she tries not to overanalyze how closely he pays attention to her. He’s a detective, it’s in his nature…right?

“Not hungry,” she murmurs, following his lead as he opens the back door of the first taxi that pulls over, sliding in next to her.

“Where to?”

Jake looks blankly at her while the driver taps his fingers impatiently against the wheel.

“Can we just…” She thinks for a moment. She doesn’t want to go home yet - home means being alone and letting her thoughts consume her. At two o’clock in the morning, though, she isn’t really sure where else to go.

“Just drive around for a bit, please,” Jake tells the driver.

She looks over Jake, but unlike her typical stolen glances and quiet longing, she lets her eyes linger on him: brown hair, a little messy, not much more so than normal; a dark grey t-shirt, navy blue hoodie, black jeans, white sneakers; the lights of the city reflected in deep brown eyes, still looking at her; lips slightly parted, lips that she’s been dying to feel on her own for months, years probably-

“What are you thinking about?”

She gulps, diverting her gaze elsewhere. “I…I love this song.”

It’s not a complete lie. The Cyndi Lauper song playing in poor quality through the cab’s radio brings back fond memories of her mother cooking dinner with the sound of her record player flowing softly from the next room. It brings her a feeling of security and warmth that only grows when Jake begins to sing along dramatically, completely off-key, basking in the eighties cheesiness.

“If you’re lost you can look and you will find me…time after time!”

“Jake, you’re ridiculous,” she says, a grin spreading across her face of its own accord.

“C’mon, Santiago, don’t leave me hanging…” he says as the song builds to the final chorus, his hand falling against her leg. “If you fall, I will catch you, I’ll be waiting…”

“Time after time,” she joins in, harmonizing terribly with him and creating a sound that makes the cab driver wince a little, a genuine laugh rising in her chest for the first time all day.

Both of them laughing out loud, she clumsily drops her head to his shoulder and lets it stay there. After a few moments of comfortable silence, she feels his arm wrap around her shoulders and tug her entire body closer, her right leg crossing over her left one and resting on his.

The fact that this is the most intimate they’ve ever been is not lost on her, the weight of his arm around her pulling her down to earth and sobering her up more than the glass of water he made her drink before they left (he’s always taking care of her in some small way, it seems).

Nobody else in the world could find her when she’s broken and make her feel more whole than she has in her entire life. Nobody else in the world is like him.

“Hey, Jake?”

“Yeah?” His breath, smelling of beer and mints, is hot against her cheek as he speaks.

“Today sucked. But…you made it a lot better, so, thank you” she murmurs. “You’re the best.” She doesn’t add partner or friend or colleague, they’re past the point of pretending that’s all he is to her.

She smiles as she says it, waiting to see the astounded look on his face before burying her face in his shoulder again. He grips her even tighter, and her heart nearly jumps out of her chest when he kisses the top of her head. This is uncharted territory.

A few more old, familiar songs play as they drive through the streets of Brooklyn, which are gradually emptying as most people find their way home. When she starts to think about how high of a cost they’re racking up on the meter, she casually gives the driver her address, remaining placid in Jake’s arms until they park.

He pays the driver despite her protests - New York cab fares are a nightmare and he already spent enough on drinks - and slips his hand into hers as soon as he closes the car door behind him.

“I’m just gonna walk to Charles’ and crash there,” he says, gesturing in the general direction of their friend’s apartment, only a few blocks east. “But, um, call me if you need anything, okay? Like, if you want to talk or go see a movie or egg the chief’s house or-“

He staggers backwards a little bit as she grabs his face and presses her lips firmly against his, which quickly part and kiss her back with equal fervor. His hands slide around her back and pull her into him as she runs hers through his hair like she’s wanted to for longer than she cares to admit.

They separate much more slowly than they came together, his eyes still closed when hers open, their arms still wrapped around each other.

“Don’t go to Boyle’s,” she breathes, hands resting lightly on his chest.

He nods slowly, a million emotions passing over his face as he holds her gaze with the same intensity.

“Okay.”

They walk up the steps to her apartment with joined hands. It’s not his first time here, but it’s certainly his first time here at three in the morning after she’s kissed him passionately and officially abandoned any attempt to conceal her feelings for him.

She pours them each a glass of water and passes one to him, taking hers into the bedroom so she can change out of the pantsuit she’s been in for way too many hours and try to wrap her head around the events of the last few minutes. She pulls on tiny silk pajama shorts and a black tank top, only slightly sexier than what she may normally sleep in, because freaking Jake is in her kitchen at three in the morning. She would be flat-out lying if she said this exact scenario hadn’t occurred in her dreams, paralyzing her with guilt while she was still dating Teddy and making her terribly uncomfortable a few different mornings at work. She even dreamt about him last week after coming home from a date with one of the most attractive, charismatic men in the NYPD. Dave Majors was charming and intelligent, but unfortunately had the same critical flaw as every other man she’s dated recently - he isn’t Jake Peralta.

“Amy.” His voice is a little steadier than before as he walks over to meet her when she re-enters the kitchen and gently grabs her waist. Some combination of him being much taller than her now that her heels are off and his loving stare makes her melt against him. “I know you’ve had a really tough day, and you’ve had a few drinks, so if all of this is just, you know-“

“Jake,” she cuts him off, surprising even herself with her certainty. “I like you. I’ve liked you for…a long time. This is real.”

He exhales and flashes her a relieved smile, his eyes shining even in the dim light of her kitchen.

“Is this okay?” he asks, bowing his head down so their noses are almost touching. His thumbs brush the small strip of skin exposed between her top and shorts.

She kisses him instead of wasting their time with words, her lips a little softer and less urgent this time as they move against his. This kiss doesn’t just appease her burning desire for him, it sets an entirely new fire in her soul that she hopes never goes out. It electrifies every inch of her body.

She kisses him until she loses all concept of time, only aware of the fact that she is kissing him, and until her body can no longer keep up with her desire to continue kissing him for the rest of her life. She lets out a small yawn as they separate.

“Am I boring you already, Santiago?” The teasing is very typical, the awestruck grin and lips a little red from kissing her so much are not.

“I’ve been up for twenty-four hours.”

“You wanna go to bed, then?” he suggests casually, like them going to bed together is an everyday occurrence.

She smiles again - she never imagined today would end with so much smiling - and pecks his lips one more time before dragging him to her bedroom. It feels even more natural than she expected when she climbs into bed with him next to her and he flings an arm around her waist. They fit together so perfectly that part of her thinks this whole thing is bigger than the two of them, that this was bound to happen eventually.

Very soon, the sun will creep through her curtains and shine on her sleeping figure, still tightly wrapped around his. She will be dreaming of him, not of her fears of failure or lack of approval. When she wakes several hours later, she will talk to him about those things and he will listen and stroke her back, and then he will kiss her because they finally, finally get to do that. Tomorrow, the world will be brighter.

#otp: you're not allowed to fall in love with me #b99 fic #peraltiago #its almost 3am so this is probably ~jake peralta voice~ riddled with spelling errors #will i ever stop writing amy obsessing over jake? no #myfics