#this is such a vivid emotion u can feel in your throat if you're just a tiny bit touched with artistic madness lok

[elsaclack]

10 and/or 11 for peraltiago please? if you're still taking prompts :O

henlo i AM still taking prompts!!! i’m just working through them much more slowly than originally anticipated lmao but thank u for checking!!!!

once again this is not my best but i’m proud of myself for making it through and also!!!! for not adding one single IOTA of angst to this yes i am capable of writing straight fluff i know it honestly was a shock to me too

10. “Stay?”

11. “Do you know how to knock?”

To say Jake is annoyed with Gina would be an understatement.

Granted, not a huge understatement, but certainly narrow in terms of the full scope of emotions he’s feeling.  Gina just has this way - this I’m right and you’re wrong and those are the facts kind of confidence that, while sometimes endearing, more often than not lands both her and the people around her in hot water.  Jake’s honestly lost count of all the times he’s swooped in and saved the day for her over the years, just to be thanked with a hair flip, a roll of her eyes, and an I had it handled, doof.

He’s working very hard not to swoop in and save the day right now - trying hard to focus on whatever stupid sports game Terry is half-watching in the living room and not on the ever-increasing volume of the girlish giggles coming from the kitchen behind them.  He’s angled in such a way that he can glance back if he needs to, but he’s regulating himself to one glance per five minutes; at this angle, he can mostly see Gina’s face, framed between the doorframe and Amy’s body.

Jake can acknowledge that ninety percent of his agitation stems from the fact that Amy’s in there with Gina.  It would be one thing if it was just Gina and Rosa drinking themselves silly in the kitchen - but Amy’s a lightweight, plain and simple, a fact that Gina knows well and regularly takes advantage of on the annual lake house weekend.  It would be another thing if this was yet another year of fruitless pining and yearning for him - if Amy was nothing more than a partner and a dreamy what-if.

As it is, he’s watching his girlfriend drink herself into a stupor at Gina’s goading, and while he’s fully aware of the fact that she’s a grown woman fully capable of making her own decisions, he remembers in vivid technicolor just how embarrassed she was after Overly Confident Amy nearly got herself demoted last year.

A particularly loud, lower-pitched screeching noise - followed by an even louder laugh - echoes out of the kitchen, and Jake’s on his feet before he’s even fully processed what he’s heard.  Terry’s looking around now, too, face contorted in an irritated scowl; briefly he meets Jake’s eyes, before pursing his lips and returning his gaze back to the television.  “Not today,” he says simply.  “Knicks are playing, so Terry is stayin’.”

Jake rolls his eyes as he shuffles out from behind the coffee table, resisting the urge to snark at his sergeant.  Despite his massive size and general laziness while lounging on the couches here, Jake learned the hard way Terry’s reflexes never go on vacation.

The low-pitched screeching noise, as it turns out, originated from the legs of Amy’s stool scraping across the tiled kitchen floor; she’s still doubled over in laughter about it, leaning most of her body weight against the kitchen counter.  Rosa’s smirking over the rim of a sloshing tequila shot and Gina’s muffling her laughter behind one hand, her phone clutched in her other, filming Amy.  Empty plastic cups litter the counter between them, several fallen to the floor; there are dented beer cans and half-empty bottles of liquor strewn between them, too, the entire place a portrait of drunken debauchery he would normally find hilarious.

He’d find it hilarious under any circumstance, really, except the one where their extremely straight-laced captain is sleeping directly over their antics.

“Hey,” he says softly as he edges toward Amy.  He frowns at Gina when she pans the phone up into his face, blocking the camera with one hand while gently running the other up Amy’s back.  “You okay?”

Amy nods, her cheek now flattened against the counter, still laughing too hard to verbally respond.  “She’s fine, protective Polly,” Gina drawls, words slurred just enough to give herself away.  Jake shoots her a scowl, still rubbing his palm up and down Amy’s back.  “Why don’t you take a shot or twelve and catch up with us.”

“You might wanna consider pacing yourselves -”

“Oh, my god, don’t be that guy, Peralta,” Rosa sneers before throwing her shot back.  “We’re grown-ass adults -”

“Never said you weren’t,” Jake interrupts, “I was talking more about the fact that it’s our first night here and you guys have already burned through half of our booze supply for the whole weekend.”

“We’re having fun,” Amy slurs, reaching with numb fingers to pull fallen hair out of her mouth.  “You should try it sometime.”

“Oh, I should try having fun?  You’re talking to the father of the Jimmy Jabs, here, girl!  The father and original champion of the Halloween Heist!  Fun runs through my veins.”

“And orange soda.”

The three women before him burst into laughter, Gina dropping the phone with a loud clatter, and Jake finds himself scowling at all three of them.  Amy makes a sound at the back of her throat when Jake pulls his hand away from her back; she reaches for him weakly as he steps back, side-stepping her fingers at his naval before grabbing and briefly squeezing her hand.  “I’m going to bed,” he tells them, pulling his hand from Amy’s.  “You guys should keep it down, though, you’re right under where Holt is sleeping. And you,” he waits until Gina is meeting his gaze, knowing his expression is comically distorted but also serious enough for her to grasp.  “Don’t kill her.”

He points to Amy, eyes never leaving Gina’s face; Gina glances at Amy before meeting his gaze again, a defiant gleam in her eyes.  Amy’s making a noise in the back of her throat - some weird, high-pitched sound not unlike a petulant whine - so Jake salutes her before backing out of the kitchen.

His phone begins buzzing as soon as he’s on the stairs, but he ignores it, knowing without looking that it’s Gina trying to antagonize him.  It buzzes as he closes his bedroom door, and again on the bedside table as he changes into his pajamas, and again as he quickly brushes his teeth in his adjoining bathroom.  4 missed calls from Gina Linetti rolls across his notifications page when he plugs his phone into the charger; one swipe later, and they’re gone, leaving his phone peacefully undisturbed.

He stares up at the ceiling as he lays in bed, listening to the muffled sounds of the others trudging up the stairs, Rosa bidding someone goodnight as the floorboards just outside of his door creak beneath her feet.  It seems the last stragglers are finally settling in for the night; one particularly loud thwack against his bedroom door confirms that Gina, at least, is retiring for the evening.

The door at the end of the hall squeaks shut, and the house is enveloped in silence.

Jake rolls to his side and punches his pillow into place, trying to ignore the empty feeling in his chest.  Rationally speaking, falling asleep without Amy’s warmth against his back shouldn’t be impossible.  He’s done it before, even since they started dating.  Rationally speaking, he’s fully capable of falling asleep without Amy.

That doesn’t stop his heart from leaping up into his throat when he hears clumsy hands rattling his doorknob.

The way she edges inside might be an attempt at being smooth, if not for the whispered laughter escaping the hand flattened over her mouth.  Jake props himself up on one elbow, watching through the near-darkness as she eases his door shut and briefly leans back against the wall to the left of the door.  “Do you know how to knock?” he whispers.

She jumps, hand falling from her mouth to flatten over her heart.  “You scared me!” she whisper-shouts.

“You broke into my room!” he whisper-shouts back.  She rolls her eyes as she toddles forward, briefly grabbing onto the footboard of his bed before edging around the right side.  He sits up as he watches her progress, snorting when she flattens both hands against the mattress and slides them toward him until her fingers are trapped beneath his butt.  “Warm enough for you?”

“Not yet,” she sighs, clambering up the bed ungracefully, momentarily gripping his thigh to anchor herself.  She flops down beside him unceremoniously, huffing out a breath that makes the hair fallen across her face flutter, before blinking up at him owlishly.  “Come down here.”

“You smell like a bar,” he says, not moving.

She quietly whines, pushing the hair away from her face.  “‘M too tired to wear clothes,” she mumbles, before her brow furrows.

“You mean you’re too tired to change?”

“Yeah.  That.”

“Well, you’re gonna hate sleeping in jeans,” he tells her.  She hums, eyes already closed, and for a moment he can barely take a breath around the endearing bubble of affection swelling in his chest.  “C’mon, Ames, you can’t sleep in these clothes.”

“Pajamas are too far away,” she mumbles, eyes still closed.  “Lemme sleep.”

“Not yet,” he says as he rolls out of bed.  She whines again, reaching blindly across the mattress for him, but just like in the kitchen he side-steps her searching fingers with ease.  “Where are your PJ’s?”

“My room.”

“Where in your room?”

“Not tellin’.”

“Your other option is to borrow clothes from me, and while you are more than welcome to do that, you should know that Gina will never let you live it down.”

“Gina can bite me.”

“Gina will bite you, I have scars to prove it.”

“Whatever,” she whines, brow furrowed.  “You’re my murmzeep, we can do whatever we want.”

He snorts, already moving around the foot of the bed to reach her.  “I am your murmzeep,” he says, scooping both of her hands up in his and gently pulling her into a sitting position at the edge of the bed.  “And you’re my jinglebin.  I’d love to let you borrow some clothes.”

She cracks one eye open, a sly smirk slowly spreading across her face.  “Oh, you’d love that?  How much?”

“Not enough to do that, you freak.”

Now both of her eyes are open, an undeniably hurt expression darkening her face.  “Hey -”

“Not because I don’t want to, but because literally all of our colleagues are in the same house and I’m pretty sure they’d hear something,” he quickly amends.

The hurt fades, replaced instead by disgruntlement.  “We should buy them earplugs tomorrow,” she mutters, lifting her arms so Jake can pull her sweater up over her head.  “Or - or tie a sock on the doorknob.”

He snorts as he tosses one of his extra shirts at her, and a wide grin splits across her face.  “I’m sure sober you will totally go for that idea,” he says, digging through his bag for the extra shorts he knows he packed.  “I’ll definitely bring it up over breakfast.”

“Yeah you will.”

She flings her bra across the room before tugging his shirt over her head, leaving her hair even more mussed than before.  Jake pulls her up to her feet as she runs her palms over her face, trying and failing to get her hair out of her eyes as he unbuttons her jeans and pushes them down over her hips.  It’s odd, the feeling overtaking him as he kneels down to work them over her feet; he’s done this more times than he can count already, but it’s never felt quite this...domestic before.

Amy, oblivious to the unidentifiable feelings welling up in Jake’s chest, steps out of her jeans and stumbles slightly, doubled over to find purchase on the mattress once more to keep from face-planting into the bedside table.  Jake quickly tosses her jeans in the same direction her bra went, gripping her hips until she stops swaying.  “Hold onto my shoulders, babe,” he instructs softly.

She grumbles something unintelligible but does as he says, shifting her weight forward until her body bows over where he’s still kneeling on the floor before her.  She makes quick work of stepping into his shorts, yawning loudly as he pulls them up her legs; she’s still yawning when he pushes her hips down, settling on the bed with a bounce.  Her eyes are closed again as she shifts around to stretch out across the mattress, a contented hum emanating from her throat when he pulls the quilt up over her body and lightly brushes his knuckles over her cheekbone.

Both of his knees crack when he stands, sending an uncomfortable pang through both legs, but after a momentary pause he’s quickly stealing around the end of the bed again, back toward his side.  Amy hums when he slides in beside her, already rolling to her side to face him, frigid fingers sliding around his torso.  “Roll over,” she mumbles, her breath a puff of spearmint and tequila stinging in his nose.  “I wanna - jet pack.”

“You sure you don’t wanna be little spoon tonight?” he asks softly, closing his hands over her forearm.  “You’re gonna be super hungover in the morning and I don’t mind -”

“Don’t care,” she interrupts, so with a smile and a shake of his head, he complies.  He can feel her shuffling closer, her grip around his torso tightening until her cheek makes contact with the space between his shoulder blades.  He feels her lungs expand and contract in time with her billowing sigh; with one last nestle of her head, she goes still against him.  “Stay?”

“You’re in my room -”

“Stay.”

“You got it, babe.” he murmurs, lifting her hand up to press a kiss against her knuckles before returning her arm back to his waist.  She nuzzles a little closer, fingers gripping hard into the excess material of his shirt, before releasing another smaller sigh.  “Ames?”

“Mm?”

“I’m glad you came in here.”

He feels the cheek against his back swell with her smile, and her grip on his shirt loosens.  “Me, too,” she murmurs.  “I’m - I like you.  So much.”

Affection bursts through his chest, momentarily overwhelming his senses.  He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from giggling - the giddiness in his chest makes him want to scream.  “I like you so much, too, Amy,” he finally manages to whisper.

Her response is a quiet, almost imperceptible snore that vibrates against his back, and it takes everything in him to keep from laughing so hard she wakes up again.