Title: The Trouble With Partners
Author: Misty Flores
Email: mistiec_flores@yahoo.com
Teaser: It's a little hard to have a relationship when the other person doesn't know it exists.
Rating: PG-13 for now,
Pairing: Chis Sanchez/Jim Street
Disclaimer: SWAT belongs to Sony Pictures, I'm just borrowing characters while my own hibernate.
Notes: Done mostly because I'm bored to tears at work and since I can't really work on my screenplays, 'ceptin at lunch, because I can't load Final Draft software, and while I can afford to be mediocre in fan fiction - I'd rather have my full focus on my professional work.
As it is- as soon as my friends find out about this - they'll kill me. I justify it only by saying: You probably will never find out. Haha!
More than likely will have four parts - but no guarantees on when the parts will actually be out, because I'm going to only be doing this at work. So maybe be done in two days or two weeks. :-)
--
Part I - In Which Jim Explains
Okay, this is not totally my fault. I mean, at first glance, it might appear that this was all completely my fault, but really, it's not. It's Chris' fault.
This whole mess of a situation is Chris' fault because Chris isn't a girl. Sanchez really is, inherently, a guy.
Now, I'm not gonna be one of those guys that says that women are all the same, and need to be weepy and feminine just to be considered sexy, because to be honest - weepy feminine women tend to bore the hell out of me.
I like my women with a little fire, that hint of spark in their eyes that tells me there's some danger lurking underneath - something that'll make my blood boil and then travel just a little bit down south.
I am a SWAT cop, and if you're a SWAT cop and you're built and not bad to look at, you're going to get laid. It's just the way it is, like God-given privilege, a reward for risking your ass day in and day out.
And I'm a guy's guy. I can't help it. I grew up with brothers, and my mother was amazing, but it was clear my Dad ruled the house, and when I graduated I went into the Navy, then into the Seals, then into SWAT. With exception to the occasional butch girl and the army wife, my only real interaction with other women was at bars, at parties, and my team's families.
But I'm a nice guy. I can say that - because I've been told this time and time again by chicks and dicks alike. Jim Street - your average nice guy. Sure, he's killed a couple people and sure he can beat your ass down, but he'll only do it when he has to because, unless he's pissed off or got a few beers in him, Jim Street is a nice guy.
Makes me easy to pick on, but I don't really give a shit. I just beat guy's asses down and shove and grunt and do my typical manly type of shit and I'm cool.
And while I do like my women with some sass and spark - it always tended to die down because, if you're a cop who runs around getting into gun fights and shooting people, they start thinking maybe you're just a little too dangerous to really commit to. The next thing you know, your little spitfire is packing and trying to leave you without even having the decency to tell you about it until you walk in the door.
I never really cared much before. I'm not really into commitment - my life is SWAT, and SWAT guys understand that your only focus is SWAT. Have you ever really talked to a happily married SWAT guy? By default, Lara should have known what she was getting herself into.
Then again, Lara is a girl. And eventually they all wanna settle down and have kids, and change the guy they end up with, even though it was the OTHER guy that made them fall for them in the first place.
And it may seem that I'm rambling here, but I'm just trying to get you to understand that this? Wasn't all my fault. I mean you may THINK it was, but it really wasn't, because if you understand where I'm coming from, you can understand that Chris had as much to do with it as I did.
I was perfectly happy in my stag lifestyle, because, that whole shit with Gamble, and then getting kicked out of SWAT, then getting back IN to Swat and then dealing with Gamble again, kinda threw any thoughts of women or commitment, or anything else out of my head.
And it's the fact that Chris is a guy that got me all screwed up in the first place.
See, in SWAT - you gotta depend on your partner. That's how it works, and me and Gamble - we had each others backs for five years before it all went to hell.
And come to think of it, Hondo was at fault here too, because it was him that decided that me and Chris were gonna pair up. Why?
"Sanchez doesn't know about your past, Street," he snapped with a crisp 'don't fuck with me' attitude, "And Deke's too big, TJ's too chauvinistic, and Boxer would rather work with anyone but you."
So there it was, I had a new partner, and it was Chris Sanchez, the history making first women to be on the elite LAPD SWAT team.
Not that I bitched much, after the falling out with Gamble, it was a relief to find out that Sanchez and I worked pretty damned well together. Training and working with someone that much, you start to get to know 'em, how they work, and in those first few weeks, I figured I had Chris pretty much figured out.
First rule: You never act like she's a girl when she's in the uniform. You just don't. You treat her like one of the guys, without any extra favors or pushes, or she'll give you hell and one of those scowls that comes from years of dealing with macho assholes.
Which of course, makes her even more macho than Deke.
And that was easy enough for me. I mean, yeah, she was still a girl - she was pretty easy on the eyes when she wasn't scowling, and my first image of her was in nothing but a bra, and that was pretty much burned into my memory, but it was pretty easy to start thinkin' that Sanchez was a guy. Or at least to pretend to think that Sanchez was a guy.
And on your team, you guys treat each other like brothers, you know? And you hang out with your buddies and especially your partner, because you gotta know them like the back of your hand, know what they think and how they work, because a split second decision they make can be the difference between a bullet in the wall or in your chest.
I was cool - even though that damned instinct inside of me still made me pull her aside, ask her if she was okay, make sure that TJ or Boxer weren't being more than the usual assholes, even got to use the fact that she was girl to our advantage when we ran our training final.
I was secure in my little 'Chris is a guy' world, until it all got blown to hell that night because she asked me if I knew how hard it was to get a baby-sitter. She smiled at me, with a raspy sexy as hell voice and a twinkle in her eye, and before I knew it, I was smiling back and Chris suddenly wasn't a guy anymore.
And when a guy is thinking with his dick, all that bullshit about partners could go to hell. That night I took her to a bar, felt slightly guilty as one of the girls I ... knew... felt almost a little too familiar, and after Chris was amused about the whole thing, ran smack into Gamble.
Still, Chris was a stand-up guy. Didn't take shit from Gamble, kept the insults coming as fast as I did and even was prepared to take down Gamble's dick of a friend.
Despite the whole shit with Brian, it was actually kinda fun.
It may have been a mistake to push at the limits a little, but I had Brian in my head, I was a little bitter about the whole partners thing, and forgetting everything else by taking Sanchez home and burying myself into her tight little body seemed like a good idea at the time.
So maybe she was a little used to her partners hitting on her, because she got this look on her face, like she had heard this before, and with an amused grin answered, "Don't think just because I bought you a drink that you're gonna get laid tonight."
And it was out there - in the open. The fact that I thought she was hot and a girl and the fact that, even though she was going to put up a fight, she knew it and maybe I had a chance.
Flirting was fun.
"So what does two drinks get me?"
Again that laugh, amused and not at all offended, like she was playing a game and was cool with it.
It was a game I was prepared to play, because even though I may have not gotten completely laid - there was still a chance for some one-on-one. Yeah, I know - stupid for partners to do, but hey - I was mellow from the beers, Chris was hot and available, and it was already clear - we had fun.
"You want to come to my house?"
Immediately - I had a flash in my brain of a bed and a naked SWAT girl with me plastered to her breasts and I stumbled. I had expected to work at this - just a little.
Maybe she really WAS a guy when it came this stuff.
"That was easy."
Obviously she wasn't on the same wavelength, or maybe she didn't have as much to drink as I did, because she came out with, "It's my kid's birthday party tomorrow."
So, obviously Chris wasn't a guy. Because a normal person wouldn't try to drag someone into bed by mentioning kids, birthdays or anything that resembled commitment.
Naturally, I freaked. Naturally, she expected me to freak.
I don't think she really expected me to show up, and to be honest, neither did I.
But after I got over the initial shock, I have to admit, sitting at home, thinking about Chris and um... taking care of the sexual tension on my own - I had to admit, it was smart of her.
She was my partner, and fucking like bunnies, as pleasurable as that might have been for one night, wasn't the most constructive thing to do.
No - she was SWAT, we were buddies, and that was that. And that kid, who had only been a blip on my radar before, now was full on in my view, and I had to think about the kid, and how old she was, and how young Sanchez must have been when she had her, and it did it's damage.
Sanchez was not destined to be a fuck buddy, and therefore, it was time to go back to my whole 'Chris is a guy' thing.
So I showed up the next day, with books, and she looked surprised for about a second before I was pulled inside. An hour later I was doused with water, playing SWAT KIDS with a bunch of eight year olds.
I had fun, I'll admit it.
But SWAT is SWAT and we were called away. Hondo gave this quirky 'What the hell is THIS?' look when we showed up in the same car, but there was really nothing to tell, and after we got down to business, he forgot about it as fast as I did.
Work is work, and when the shit hits the fan, it hits the fan.
If figures that just as I get comfortable again, wearing the uniform, feeling like I don't have to prove shit, not to my partner, not to my team - an international terrorist and two greedy guys who used to be friends blow it all to hell - and shoot up Sanchez while they're at it.
It shook her. I could see that.
But my murder of Gamble stuck in my head, infested with images and engrossed with hearing the squelch that took his head off his body. Filtered in were thousands of moments that Gamble and I had, five long years where the guy was closer than a brother - six months for me to see what an asshole he really was.
I shoulda talked to her- focused on her and her realization that this job could take her from her kid, but I couldn't do it. Not when Gamble's blood was on my hands, his hatred burning in my chest.
"You look like shit."
Her words were flat - with no preamble. Settling next to me so heavily she shook the bench, Chris grimaced a little, shifting her bandaged arm and blowing out a heavy breath.
"Yeah," I responded, slightly annoyed to be pulled from my self-pity. "You, too."
"Thanks." The car was silent, because what can you really talk about when TJ's dead and Brian's dead, and already they're sending you somewhere else.
"Your kid's gonna be okay?"
"Yeah," she answered after a minute. "Talked to her on the cell-phone a few minutes after we got the call. She's with my mom. It's cool."
Her shoulder was warm against mine, and even though the last thing I wanted to do was talk, I knew what Chris was doing, liked her more for it. She was being a partner. A good one. Standing by your guy and making sure that his shit got worked through.
I shoulda been doing the same for her.
I didn't know what to say, though. It's part of the job - the almost dying. She knew that before she took it.
"Look," she said finally, swallowing up the silence as Deke and Hondo both quietly listened to the radio up front. "I'm not gonna ask you what's wrong, or if you're okay, cause it's obvious that it's not gonna be okay and you and Brian - you were partners. That's some heavy shit."
My laughter was harsh, coarse. "Yeah, well we're not partners anymore."
She didn't smile. Her eyes were dark and her face was passive, she wasn't gonna be a guy for once. "Look, Street. I know I barely know you, all right? And it's not gonna do much good to tell you that it wasn't your fault, because deep down you know it - but you're the type of guy that's gonna blame yourself anyway."
"I am."
"Typical Drama Queen."
"A Queen."
"Yeah. I hate guys like you. Wallowers."
And that got a smile, a small one, that made her smile back, and after a minute I nudged her, trying to be offended and failing miserably because we were both there smiling at each other like idiots.
A moment of silence, a glance at her, and suddenly the blood on my hands didn't matter that much anymore.
"He's not my partner anymore," I said finally. "That's you."
"Yeah... fat lot of good I'm gonna be with this hole in my shoulder," she muttered, shrugging with a grimace.
"You're gonna be okay, though," I said softly.
"Yeah. So're you."
Another glance, another smile, and it was over. She squeezed my thigh and smoothed a hand over my cheek, unexpectedly gentle.
"We did good today, didn't we?"
A sincere grin pulled at my lips. "Yeah, we did."
And that was it.
Chris was Chris, my partner, part of the team, one of the guys.
With a smile, a touch and a glance, she also inadvertently became the recipient of a genuine crush.
Innocent, bashful, never intended to be acted on.
And also the reason that everything went to hell.
End Part I
Coming soon: Part II - In which Jim Gets Scared
Author: Misty Flores
Email: mistiec_flores@yahoo.com
Teaser: It's a little hard to have a relationship when the other person doesn't know it exists.
Rating: PG-13 for now,
Pairing: Chis Sanchez/Jim Street
Disclaimer: SWAT belongs to Sony Pictures, I'm just borrowing characters while my own hibernate.
Notes: Done mostly because I'm bored to tears at work and since I can't really work on my screenplays, 'ceptin at lunch, because I can't load Final Draft software, and while I can afford to be mediocre in fan fiction - I'd rather have my full focus on my professional work.
As it is- as soon as my friends find out about this - they'll kill me. I justify it only by saying: You probably will never find out. Haha!
More than likely will have four parts - but no guarantees on when the parts will actually be out, because I'm going to only be doing this at work. So maybe be done in two days or two weeks. :-)
--
Part I - In Which Jim Explains
Okay, this is not totally my fault. I mean, at first glance, it might appear that this was all completely my fault, but really, it's not. It's Chris' fault.
This whole mess of a situation is Chris' fault because Chris isn't a girl. Sanchez really is, inherently, a guy.
Now, I'm not gonna be one of those guys that says that women are all the same, and need to be weepy and feminine just to be considered sexy, because to be honest - weepy feminine women tend to bore the hell out of me.
I like my women with a little fire, that hint of spark in their eyes that tells me there's some danger lurking underneath - something that'll make my blood boil and then travel just a little bit down south.
I am a SWAT cop, and if you're a SWAT cop and you're built and not bad to look at, you're going to get laid. It's just the way it is, like God-given privilege, a reward for risking your ass day in and day out.
And I'm a guy's guy. I can't help it. I grew up with brothers, and my mother was amazing, but it was clear my Dad ruled the house, and when I graduated I went into the Navy, then into the Seals, then into SWAT. With exception to the occasional butch girl and the army wife, my only real interaction with other women was at bars, at parties, and my team's families.
But I'm a nice guy. I can say that - because I've been told this time and time again by chicks and dicks alike. Jim Street - your average nice guy. Sure, he's killed a couple people and sure he can beat your ass down, but he'll only do it when he has to because, unless he's pissed off or got a few beers in him, Jim Street is a nice guy.
Makes me easy to pick on, but I don't really give a shit. I just beat guy's asses down and shove and grunt and do my typical manly type of shit and I'm cool.
And while I do like my women with some sass and spark - it always tended to die down because, if you're a cop who runs around getting into gun fights and shooting people, they start thinking maybe you're just a little too dangerous to really commit to. The next thing you know, your little spitfire is packing and trying to leave you without even having the decency to tell you about it until you walk in the door.
I never really cared much before. I'm not really into commitment - my life is SWAT, and SWAT guys understand that your only focus is SWAT. Have you ever really talked to a happily married SWAT guy? By default, Lara should have known what she was getting herself into.
Then again, Lara is a girl. And eventually they all wanna settle down and have kids, and change the guy they end up with, even though it was the OTHER guy that made them fall for them in the first place.
And it may seem that I'm rambling here, but I'm just trying to get you to understand that this? Wasn't all my fault. I mean you may THINK it was, but it really wasn't, because if you understand where I'm coming from, you can understand that Chris had as much to do with it as I did.
I was perfectly happy in my stag lifestyle, because, that whole shit with Gamble, and then getting kicked out of SWAT, then getting back IN to Swat and then dealing with Gamble again, kinda threw any thoughts of women or commitment, or anything else out of my head.
And it's the fact that Chris is a guy that got me all screwed up in the first place.
See, in SWAT - you gotta depend on your partner. That's how it works, and me and Gamble - we had each others backs for five years before it all went to hell.
And come to think of it, Hondo was at fault here too, because it was him that decided that me and Chris were gonna pair up. Why?
"Sanchez doesn't know about your past, Street," he snapped with a crisp 'don't fuck with me' attitude, "And Deke's too big, TJ's too chauvinistic, and Boxer would rather work with anyone but you."
So there it was, I had a new partner, and it was Chris Sanchez, the history making first women to be on the elite LAPD SWAT team.
Not that I bitched much, after the falling out with Gamble, it was a relief to find out that Sanchez and I worked pretty damned well together. Training and working with someone that much, you start to get to know 'em, how they work, and in those first few weeks, I figured I had Chris pretty much figured out.
First rule: You never act like she's a girl when she's in the uniform. You just don't. You treat her like one of the guys, without any extra favors or pushes, or she'll give you hell and one of those scowls that comes from years of dealing with macho assholes.
Which of course, makes her even more macho than Deke.
And that was easy enough for me. I mean, yeah, she was still a girl - she was pretty easy on the eyes when she wasn't scowling, and my first image of her was in nothing but a bra, and that was pretty much burned into my memory, but it was pretty easy to start thinkin' that Sanchez was a guy. Or at least to pretend to think that Sanchez was a guy.
And on your team, you guys treat each other like brothers, you know? And you hang out with your buddies and especially your partner, because you gotta know them like the back of your hand, know what they think and how they work, because a split second decision they make can be the difference between a bullet in the wall or in your chest.
I was cool - even though that damned instinct inside of me still made me pull her aside, ask her if she was okay, make sure that TJ or Boxer weren't being more than the usual assholes, even got to use the fact that she was girl to our advantage when we ran our training final.
I was secure in my little 'Chris is a guy' world, until it all got blown to hell that night because she asked me if I knew how hard it was to get a baby-sitter. She smiled at me, with a raspy sexy as hell voice and a twinkle in her eye, and before I knew it, I was smiling back and Chris suddenly wasn't a guy anymore.
And when a guy is thinking with his dick, all that bullshit about partners could go to hell. That night I took her to a bar, felt slightly guilty as one of the girls I ... knew... felt almost a little too familiar, and after Chris was amused about the whole thing, ran smack into Gamble.
Still, Chris was a stand-up guy. Didn't take shit from Gamble, kept the insults coming as fast as I did and even was prepared to take down Gamble's dick of a friend.
Despite the whole shit with Brian, it was actually kinda fun.
It may have been a mistake to push at the limits a little, but I had Brian in my head, I was a little bitter about the whole partners thing, and forgetting everything else by taking Sanchez home and burying myself into her tight little body seemed like a good idea at the time.
So maybe she was a little used to her partners hitting on her, because she got this look on her face, like she had heard this before, and with an amused grin answered, "Don't think just because I bought you a drink that you're gonna get laid tonight."
And it was out there - in the open. The fact that I thought she was hot and a girl and the fact that, even though she was going to put up a fight, she knew it and maybe I had a chance.
Flirting was fun.
"So what does two drinks get me?"
Again that laugh, amused and not at all offended, like she was playing a game and was cool with it.
It was a game I was prepared to play, because even though I may have not gotten completely laid - there was still a chance for some one-on-one. Yeah, I know - stupid for partners to do, but hey - I was mellow from the beers, Chris was hot and available, and it was already clear - we had fun.
"You want to come to my house?"
Immediately - I had a flash in my brain of a bed and a naked SWAT girl with me plastered to her breasts and I stumbled. I had expected to work at this - just a little.
Maybe she really WAS a guy when it came this stuff.
"That was easy."
Obviously she wasn't on the same wavelength, or maybe she didn't have as much to drink as I did, because she came out with, "It's my kid's birthday party tomorrow."
So, obviously Chris wasn't a guy. Because a normal person wouldn't try to drag someone into bed by mentioning kids, birthdays or anything that resembled commitment.
Naturally, I freaked. Naturally, she expected me to freak.
I don't think she really expected me to show up, and to be honest, neither did I.
But after I got over the initial shock, I have to admit, sitting at home, thinking about Chris and um... taking care of the sexual tension on my own - I had to admit, it was smart of her.
She was my partner, and fucking like bunnies, as pleasurable as that might have been for one night, wasn't the most constructive thing to do.
No - she was SWAT, we were buddies, and that was that. And that kid, who had only been a blip on my radar before, now was full on in my view, and I had to think about the kid, and how old she was, and how young Sanchez must have been when she had her, and it did it's damage.
Sanchez was not destined to be a fuck buddy, and therefore, it was time to go back to my whole 'Chris is a guy' thing.
So I showed up the next day, with books, and she looked surprised for about a second before I was pulled inside. An hour later I was doused with water, playing SWAT KIDS with a bunch of eight year olds.
I had fun, I'll admit it.
But SWAT is SWAT and we were called away. Hondo gave this quirky 'What the hell is THIS?' look when we showed up in the same car, but there was really nothing to tell, and after we got down to business, he forgot about it as fast as I did.
Work is work, and when the shit hits the fan, it hits the fan.
If figures that just as I get comfortable again, wearing the uniform, feeling like I don't have to prove shit, not to my partner, not to my team - an international terrorist and two greedy guys who used to be friends blow it all to hell - and shoot up Sanchez while they're at it.
It shook her. I could see that.
But my murder of Gamble stuck in my head, infested with images and engrossed with hearing the squelch that took his head off his body. Filtered in were thousands of moments that Gamble and I had, five long years where the guy was closer than a brother - six months for me to see what an asshole he really was.
I shoulda talked to her- focused on her and her realization that this job could take her from her kid, but I couldn't do it. Not when Gamble's blood was on my hands, his hatred burning in my chest.
"You look like shit."
Her words were flat - with no preamble. Settling next to me so heavily she shook the bench, Chris grimaced a little, shifting her bandaged arm and blowing out a heavy breath.
"Yeah," I responded, slightly annoyed to be pulled from my self-pity. "You, too."
"Thanks." The car was silent, because what can you really talk about when TJ's dead and Brian's dead, and already they're sending you somewhere else.
"Your kid's gonna be okay?"
"Yeah," she answered after a minute. "Talked to her on the cell-phone a few minutes after we got the call. She's with my mom. It's cool."
Her shoulder was warm against mine, and even though the last thing I wanted to do was talk, I knew what Chris was doing, liked her more for it. She was being a partner. A good one. Standing by your guy and making sure that his shit got worked through.
I shoulda been doing the same for her.
I didn't know what to say, though. It's part of the job - the almost dying. She knew that before she took it.
"Look," she said finally, swallowing up the silence as Deke and Hondo both quietly listened to the radio up front. "I'm not gonna ask you what's wrong, or if you're okay, cause it's obvious that it's not gonna be okay and you and Brian - you were partners. That's some heavy shit."
My laughter was harsh, coarse. "Yeah, well we're not partners anymore."
She didn't smile. Her eyes were dark and her face was passive, she wasn't gonna be a guy for once. "Look, Street. I know I barely know you, all right? And it's not gonna do much good to tell you that it wasn't your fault, because deep down you know it - but you're the type of guy that's gonna blame yourself anyway."
"I am."
"Typical Drama Queen."
"A Queen."
"Yeah. I hate guys like you. Wallowers."
And that got a smile, a small one, that made her smile back, and after a minute I nudged her, trying to be offended and failing miserably because we were both there smiling at each other like idiots.
A moment of silence, a glance at her, and suddenly the blood on my hands didn't matter that much anymore.
"He's not my partner anymore," I said finally. "That's you."
"Yeah... fat lot of good I'm gonna be with this hole in my shoulder," she muttered, shrugging with a grimace.
"You're gonna be okay, though," I said softly.
"Yeah. So're you."
Another glance, another smile, and it was over. She squeezed my thigh and smoothed a hand over my cheek, unexpectedly gentle.
"We did good today, didn't we?"
A sincere grin pulled at my lips. "Yeah, we did."
And that was it.
Chris was Chris, my partner, part of the team, one of the guys.
With a smile, a touch and a glance, she also inadvertently became the recipient of a genuine crush.
Innocent, bashful, never intended to be acted on.
And also the reason that everything went to hell.
End Part I
Coming soon: Part II - In which Jim Gets Scared