Work Text:
He’s not going to cry.
He’s not going to cry.
He’s not.
His breath caught in his throat when he saw her for the first time. He wasn’t sure what it would be like, wasn’t sure what anything meant, wasn’t sure about her or the memories that he’d held so close for the past six months, or the way being apart for so long would affect their friendship. He wasn’t sure if she was still with Teddy. He wasn’t sure when she would want to see him, or even if she did want to see him, and even if, he wasn’t sure in what capacity she’d want to see him.
She’s what got him through the past six months.
But his breath hitched when he saw her, and he didn’t know what to say. He still wasn’t sure about anything, but as soon as her eyes widened with recognition when he caught her eye, he felt at home. As soon as he saw her, hope flooded his heart, and fear evacuated his mind, and every strawberry scented moment that left him short of breath in the worst way was suddenly nothing but a distant memory.
Her lips parted, and she stared at him for just a second longer before she shook her head, clearing it of whatever had stopped her in the first place. She looked away without a word, but she glanced back at him once on her way to take her perp to the holding cell.
His heart sank into his stomach immediately.
He said a quick goodbye to Boyle, thanked Holt for his assistance with the operation, and made a break for it before she made it back to the bullpen. He could handle this. It was fine. If she didn’t want to be with him, if that night was just a one time thing for her, that was perfectly fine. He could accept that, and he could talk to her about it like an adult, and everything would be fine.
It just wouldn’t be fine tonight, and he couldn’t do all that tonight.
Tonight, he’d already had so much happen. Tonight he just needed to head home. He was home, and he was happy to be home, and he wasn’t ready to put himself in a position where he had to miss his time with strawberry scented sheets because he knew nothing better had been awaiting him like he’d hoped for. He would dream of vanilla and mint for one more day, and he’d face reality tomorrow. Tomorrow he could do this.
So he stumbles through his door feeling oddly numb, almost complacent with his ability to detach from the emotions he’d been holding so tightly to for months. It creeps on in until the numbness is all he can feel, all he can taste, all he can think and breathe and see. He collapses on his bed for a moment, allowing the comfort of familiarity to seep into his bones. He buries his face in his pillow, and just like that, his entire facade crumbles.
His pillow still smells like her.
She was the last one in his bed.
He swallows. He’s not going to cry. He inhales deeply, then releases a shaky breath. He has to get up, because he still smells like shitty cologne and hair gel, and he has to shower the cloud of otherness away so that he can fall asleep smelling like Jake Peralta, detective who may or may not be hopelessly in love with his partner, not Jake Peralta, mafia member. So that he can fall asleep with the faint scent of vanilla and mint relaxing him, not the now-familiar, still-choking scent of the Ianuccis. So that maybe when he wakes up in the morning, his bed will still smell like hope, and safety, and promise, not the emptiness, fear, and discomfort he’d grown so used to.
So he drags himself out of bed and trudges to the bathroom. He peels his clothes off slowly, avoiding looking in the mirror at a man that he no longer really knows. He turns on the water, barely refraining from looking at the reflection that’s practically calling his name—but he knows that the only thing that will make him feel worse right now is facing himself—so he resists.
He stays in the shower until the hot water runs out. It burns his skin, but he doesn’t dare turn the temperature down. He wants to scald every memory out of his skin, every experience and everything he saw and every weak moment that he spent wishing—for home, for comfort, for her. He washes his hair four times, because he just can’t stand the thought of the feeling of gel still stained into a single curl on his head. It’s hard to breathe, and he can’t tell if it’s the heat or his heart that’s making the air around him so thick.
He wraps a towel around his waist when he’s done. He looks at the mirror, at the fogged up glass facing him. He swallows, nodding at nothing in particular, and makes his way to it. He reaches up and wipes his hand across the glass. He clears the section of the mirror that allows him to see his eyes. A set of hollow eyes stare back at him. He doesn’t recognize them. He hates them.
But he and those hollow eyes looking back at him—they’re not going to cry.
He turns away from the mirror. Numb; he wants the numbness back. It’s just mindless motion as he traipses back into his bedroom, the towel discarded on the floor and the top drawer of his dresser tugged open. He pulls on a pair of boxers he hasn’t worn in six months, and the sensation of the fabric on his hips, of the distant memory of what this place was like when it really felt like home, makes his skin crawl.
He hates this Jake Peralta. This new Jake Peralta, the one who destroyed everything that old Jake Peralta had. So he pulls on a t-shirt, and he hates the way that feels, too. Then, for good measure, he pulls a hoodie on over that. He finds his old favorite pair of pajama pants, and nothing feels right and he doesn’t feel right, like he’s somehow two different sides of a coin that just don’t match up. He’s not sure how to feel right again, but he craves it, and he finds himself hoping again. He wants normalcy. Old normalcy, not the normal he’s grown accustomed to over the past six months.
He should just go to bed.
He should leave his pillows and blankets where they are. He should wait until his hair dries, and he should curl into bed and stay there for two days. Maybe two days of nothing will give him back the man that he once was.
Instead, he pulls his comforter from where it was flat against his bed—his bed that Amy made when they got up that day, his mind supplies—and shoves his pillow under his arm. He makes his way back to the living room, where he deposits his bedding onto the cushions. He paces across the room, bumping his shin into the corner of his coffee table. The terrain is unfamiliar, a place he hasn’t been in so long and can no longer anticipate. He curses under his breath, managing to swallow the breakdown he’s on the verge of as he finally locates the remote.
If anything can cure this, it’s Die Hard.
So he wraps himself in his comforter, trying to shove away the thought that it’s only comforting because it smells like her, he buries his face in his pillow, and he listens to Die Hard. He could imagine the entire movie in his mind front to back, but for some reason, the only thing he can see when he closes his eyes is the way that Amy looked at him back at the precinct. Another wave of emotion crashes over him—but he won’t cry.
He barely hears the knock at his door.
The movie’s almost over, and he hasn’t looked up from his pillow once. He can feel hope rising within him, acidic and insistent, as he pauses the movie. His heart beats erratically, and no matter how many times he silently assures himself that it’s probably not her (it’s probably not her—it’s probably not her), the hope swells inside him. He practically tiptoes over to the door, as if walking too loudly might scare the person on the other side of the door away.
He opens the door.
Amy stares back at him with wide, dark eyes that hold everything he’s ever wanted.
He’s not going to cry.
He’s not going to cry.
He’s not.
But god, she smells exactly the same. Vanilla and mint immediately weave their way through his mind until it’s all he can breathe, all he can taste, and he’s clutching her closer with the hands at the small of her back, burying his face in the crook of her neck and hiding in the soft waves he finds there. One of her hands finds its way under his hoodie, grips at his shirt in an attempt to get closer. Her fingers are tugging through his hair and it’s real, he’s here, he’s home, and Amy’s in his arms, and no matter how many times he had imagined what coming home would be like, it never lived up to the moment he’s living in now.
But all good things must come to an end, so he inhales one last deep breath as she pulls out of his arms. Before he can even think to say anything, her hand is on his jaw and she’s kissing him—she’s kissing him—and it’s everything he wanted, everything he’d been missing, everything he’d needed and craved and hoped for.
Her lips are soft and warm and shy on his. His apartment is unfamiliar, but Amy is not. He kisses her back, and his hands are in her hair, and he’s holding her like she’s made of glass, like just the slightest wrong move might send them crashing, and he doesn’t know how he ever did anything to deserve a moment like this with a person like her.
She pulls back, and her eyes are soft and warm as she stares into his eyes. He laughs breathlessly and leans his forehead against hers. She’s smiling, and she’s running her fingers through the hair behind his ear, and he’s not going to cry.
He’s not going to cry.
Fuck, he’s gonna cry.
“I missed you so much,” he whispers. Her other hand is on his face, and her thumb is rubbing gentle circles along his jaw, and she’s nodding, but then she’s hiding her face in his chest and pulling him closer and holding him. He wonders if he has a distinct scent that she’s been missing all this time, if she’s breathing him in with relief the way he’s basking in vanilla and mint.
“I miss you,” she whispers back. Present tense, like she is currently still missing him.
“Hey.” He tips her face toward his, and even though his vision is the slightest bit blurry at the edges, he can tell that her eyes are shining with unshed tears when they meet his. “I’m here.”
She holds his gaze for a moment, seeds of words that won’t be spoken for months just beginning to sprout in their exchange. Her lips part again, just like earlier, and then her lips are on his.
This wasn’t his plan.
Sex with Amy was fantastic, but it was not on the list of things he wanted to do with her when he finally got to see her again. Okay, it was on the list, but it wasn’t first on the list. If the list went:
1. hug her
2. kiss her
3. stumble tearfully through the living room in the dark, bump into the coffee table again, laugh about it with her, and have what could only be described as really emotional (and really incredible) sex with her on the couch while Die Hard is paused behind them
If that was his list, then he’d be doing great. He’d actually really planned on talking to her about everything before they ever slept together again (if they ever slept together again), but then she’s kissing him, and his hoodie is falling to the floor and he’s climbing on top of her on the couch and she’s tugging at the waistband of his pajama pants and god, he’d forgotten how good his name sounds in her mouth.
Neither of them dare to pull away from one another when it’s over. Amy lies against his chest, her fingers tracing gently against his jaw. His hands trail up and down her back, his lips pressing gently to her forehead every now and then as they quietly absorb each other’s presence.
“What was it like?” Her shaky voice finally breaks the silence.
He was quiet for a long moment while he thought. “I was scared.”
She snuggles her face in closer to his chest. He can’t tell if she’s comforting him or herself. He hopes both. “Yeah. It must have been really scary. I know things got pretty dangerous there for a minute.”
“No,” he corrects her softly. “I mean, yeah. Sometimes it was a little scary. But I was, uhm…” He trails off, his fingers tracing between her shoulder blades. “I was scared that this was just a one time thing.” He swallows, his eyes glued to the ceiling even when he feels her shift to look at him. “I didn’t know what it would be like when I came back. I mean, I hoped… But I was afraid you’d regret it, or that, I don’t know, it didn’t change anything, or…”
“Jake.” Her voice is soft. He clenches his jaw, emotion welling up in him that he doesn’t want to face head on, but everything is still so fresh, and he just can’t shove it back down. Her fingers tip underneath his jaw, directing his face to hers. “It changed everything.”
“I missed you so much,” he whispers, trying to hide the shakiness in his voice.
She nods, her thumb sweeping across his cheekbone. “I missed you, too, Jake.”
They fall asleep together, curled up in his comforter on the couch. Jake wakes up in the middle of the night, his breath in his throat, but he breathes a sigh of relief as his nightmare fades out of his awareness and Amy’s presence slowly consumes his sleepy mind.
His fingers lace into her hair and he presses his lips to her forehead. She murmurs sleepily, her fingers grasping at his shoulder as she snuggles closer.
Everything is not okay. He knows it will take time.
But he feels right. With her, he feels right.
He adjusts the comforter around them and stands up with Amy in his arms. Her head rests on his shoulder. She looks so peaceful, and he thinks for the thousandth time about how much he’s missed her.
He carries her to bed. He doesn’t bump into the coffee table.