A/N- My new favourite TV show… A little one-shot set just before the season 2 final, which by the way was amazing right? Huge Peraltiago shipper right here so I was pretty stoked.
Also I have to say loving all the other stories up here at the moment, some damn fine writers abound.
My usual type disclaimer, I own no part of Brooklyn 99. I love it but I don't own it, which sounds kind of creepy when you put it like that..
Anyways story time.
-Grey.
It was movie night at Amy Santiago's 'nana house', as Jake referred to it and the night was beginning to wind down. A 99 tradition, once a month one of the staff hosted a movie night at their place. The host sprung for snacks and everyone else bought the drinks.
The movie itself was now decided by a lengthy voting elimination process over the preceding month, this was ever since Charles had cruelly subjected the group to a terrible art house film on a depressed quiche maker. The insufferably boring film had been in Dutch with poorly translated English subtitles and was also the cause for the second rule, banning all participants from bringing their sidearm with them. Terry had swiftly intervened to spare Boyle's TV a round from Rosa's Sig Sauer.
It was a typical 99 event, steeped in the same traditions and shenanigans one would expect from an activity masterminded by Jake Peralta. Anyone who fell asleep during the movie ended up with rude pictures drawn on them and international drinking rules applied. Scully and Hitchcock were carefully made aware of how unwelcome they were at these events.
Terry had been the first to bail at the end of the movie; an exhausted parent, who having supervised his work kids all day and most of the night, went home to kiss his actual kids goodnight.
Gina took this as her cue to leave also, she turned her nose up once more at the horrible healthy snacks Santiago had prepared and ordered Charles to drive her home. The perpetual patsy of the group, Boyle was once more stuck as the sober driver for the evening and on Gina's rude command he proceeded to jut his jaw out defiantly, then did exactly as she asked.
Same old Charles, Jake Peralta thought to himself, shaking his head in amusement.
That left only Rosa lounging in an armchair, Amy and Peralta were squashed onto Santiago's old fashioned ugly vomit coloured couch. They sat in the dark lounge illuminated only faintly by the rolling credits.
One of the sacred rules of movie night, was that all the beer had be drunk before the host could go to bed. As usual Jake and Rosa stuck around to valiantly help out with that task.
In truth, Jake was somewhat glad for the buffer Diaz provided. If it had just been him and Santiago one of them was bound to say something silly that maybe couldn't be passed off as drunken rambling.
"Nother beer?" He gentlemanly offered the ladies, reaching over to the mostly empty chilly bin beside him.
Diaz grunted in the affirmative and slouched further in her chair, Rosa Diaz did not share seats well with others.
Casually, Jake tossed her a beer, which she coolly opened with her teeth, making Amy cringe in horror every time she did it. Which was the exact reason Rosa opened her bottles like that in the first place. She completed the effect by spitting her bottle cap across the room and into the empty chiller.
"Ames?" Jake was unaffected, he used a 5.56 rifle cartridge on his keys instead to pry the top off of his own. A trophy he had brazenly flogged from their last day on the shooting range.
"Sure, crack me one." She replied, hoping she sounded as chilled out as her two best friends always seemed to manage. It was nice to drink regular beer again and not some godawful pilsner, Amy sighed in relief.
Nonconformist as usual, Jake levered the top off another beer and placed it down on the table in front of Amy, right beside the hand knitted coaster that it was meant for. He met Amy's eyes over the top of the bottle with a look of cheeky anticipation.
Amy wearily smirked at the little game he always played with her and did her part as the neat freak. Carefully she lifted the bottle to take a deep swig (approaching six drink Amy) and placed the drink back on its intended coaster, causing Jake to grin triumphantly. He delighted in messing things up in her apartment and watching her fix it. She did the same at his flat by straightening up objects or sorting the DVDs on his shelf. Understandably, he was less concerned at having somehow tricked her into tidying up after him. It was another one of their little games they played that no one else was welcome to.
Rosa rolled her eyes, she hated watching their shameless flirting and the reciprocal avoidance of acknowledging that was what they were doing.
"That movie was terrible, I can't believe it lost to Guardians of The Galaxy in the office ballot." Jake lamented, shaking his head at the credits still rolling and the sappy music that accompanied it.
Lately there had been an overwhelming number of romantic movies finding their way into the movie nights and some of them struck painfully close blows for him. Jake needed to have another stern conversation with Boyle about where his votes fell.
Tonight was no different; another movie based off a Nicholas Spark's novel and forcibly endured by boyfriends and husbands worldwide.
"It was a sweet movie. I liked it." Amy softly defended the film and placing the cushion down that she had been clutching to her chest emotionally. She had to believe that spooning for the movie would have been much more enjoyable.
"I could tell from the way you strangled that poor defenceless pillow." Jake wisecracked, taking another swig from his drink.
"It had sad parts. I needed something to hug.." Amy pouted, before realising how lonely that made her sound.
Damn you six drink Amy! She cursed internally.
"Well Rosa and I thought it was stupid." Jake finally declared after a short awkward pause.
"I liked it. It made me feel stuff." Rosa surprisingly disagreed in her usual flat tone from her casual seat.
"Uggh when did you grow ovaries Diaz?" Jake wondered in exasperation, Rosa flicked a bottle cap at him in response
"Ha!" Amy crowed triumphantly
In response Jake simply threw a carrot stick at Amy, unsurprisingly the tray of carrot sticks and celery had remained untouched by everyone but Terry. He had eaten one of each before fuming in hungry rage "How do you mess up cut vegetables, Santiago?!"
Dodging a snack barrage, Amy jumped off the couch and turned the lights back on.
Jake and Rosa took one look at her standing by the door before they both cracked up laughing.
In the better lighting, Amy's smeared and heavily tracked mascara was suddenly apparent.
"Hey Santiago, what is it like being the lead singer from My Chemical Romance?" Jake got in first with an emo band zinger and Rosa was close behind him. He had thought he was hearing things earlier, when he detected a faint, cute sniffle from the couch beside him during the movie.
"China Zoo called earlier looking for you, Amy-Chan." Rosa teased her.
Running with the panda joke, Peralta lifted the plate of celery and offered it to Santiago before pulling it away.
"Oh sorry, it's not bamboo, you wouldn't want any." He explained with an idiot grin and a chuckle.
Amy-Chan gave them a look of confusion before finally catching sight of herself in the mirror on the far wall.
"Dammit, I look like a dumped sixteen year old." She exclaimed in embarrassment.
"It's kinda cute in a desperate sort of way." Jake drunkenly granted her, he liked his Santiago more when she was a flustered mess.
Amy flushed even further if Rosa's usually astute assessment was correct.
"I need to get cleaned up." Santiago uttered hastily making for her bedroom.
She stopped at the door, remembering her duties as host.
"Put on some music through my laptop if you want," Amy quickly suggested, motioning towards her small computer that sat up by the TV. They had played the movie on it, because as Gina pointed out, "Who uses a DVD player anymore? Archaeologists?"
Grinning in joint amusement at their awkward friend, Rosa and Jake drunkenly lurched over to the laptop to find some tunes.
"Uggh Fallout Boy, Santiago? I wasn't far off the mark with my emo joke." Peralta noted in disgust.
He spotted plenty of his favourite Taylor Swift songs, but the mood didn't seem right.
"Amy's music sucks, where is all the Slipknot and System of a Down?" Diaz complained scrolling through her long bizarre list of music.
Frustrated she clicked out of the media player, to try for youtube and both of their eyes caught on a single file sitting on her desktop. It was simply titled:
Teddy or Jake
The two detectives turned to face each other and Diaz cocked an eyebrow.
"What do you think that is?" Jake said what they were both thinking.
"Dunno." Rosa replied noncommittally.
"Open it and see." She advised, also obviously curious of the contents.
"That would be a total breach of Amy's privacy and we are totally doing that!" Jake quickly decided.
Hey it's got my name on it right? He justified internally.
Double clicking on the word file, Jake unconsciously held his breath.
The file opened and in true Santiago style the whole thing was double spaced. Two columns divided the page, Jake's name was at the top of one and Teddy's was on the other side. In neat bullet points, arguments were presented appropriately on each side.
"It's one of Santiago's old stupid lists." Rosa hissed, "Comparing you and Teddy."
And it was, under each heading were a number of positive points for each.
"Low maintenance." Jake read off the first point under Teddy's name.
"She sounds like she is describing a car." Rosa snorted and he half-heartedly joined her
Jake took a turn and a gambit and read the first point under his name.
"Makes me laugh. Ha! I knew it!" Peralta smiled his goofy smile to hear her opinion of him. He had something running rapid in his chest as his calculating mind was already putting together the significance of her list.
"Mature." Rosa countered with from the other aisle. Jake poked his tongue out at her like a child, which only served to prove her point.
"Fun to be around." Jake riposted with, quietly stoked that she thought so. It was a thin line he walked between being fun and annoying. Very thin sometimes.
"Stable. Only Santiago would see that as a good thing." Diaz commented on the next Teddy trait and Jake felt a little comforted for her comment.
"I guess I can be a little all over the place sometimes." He conceded the point, uncharacteristically grim. While there were no specific negative points listed for either person, he could read between the lines and see the traits that sat in Teddy's column, but not his.
The two detectives had to double take at the next quality on Jake's list.
"Nice ass! Alright and I found my smile again." Jake bounced back with enthusiasm at his next point.
"Ughh I can't unread that." Rosa groaned.
"You've got a boyfriend now Diaz, so you can admit it too." Peralta cockily replied, edging his hips out to one side to show off 'the goods'.
Diaz just grinned back at him and playfully, drunkenly slapped his rear, it was true that he was very good at getting a smile from his friends.
They turned back to the list.
"Apparently, Teddy is rich. Didn't pick Santiago as the gold digging type." Rosa learnt from the computer.
"Uggh but his full first name is also Tedward." She continued in disgust. Jake snorted on the beer he was finishing up and a good deal ended up on Amy's carpet.
"Seriously? That should be dump-able criteria by itself right?" Jake replied and Diaz nodded vigorously.
A door slammed somewhere back in the house and the two detectives suddenly remembered where they were.
"Genuine." Peralta happily read one last point out before shutting the document, he was only halfway down the page. In panic the pair quickly moved to close the file and open some music.
Just in time too, Amy walked in wearing old varsity tracksuit pants and a blue singlet, her hair was tousled and still wet.
She gave the pair at the computer a curious look.
"Where's the music?" Amy wanted to know.
"Coming right up, took a long time to choose this." Jake hastily replied, choosing the first song he could find on the long playlist. He didn't have time to read what it was.
The speakers either side of his head suddenly came to life and a high pitched voice warbled out.
Barbie Girl, by Aqua poured out of the stereo system like a foul treacle and Jake hung his head in shame, Amy raised an eyebrow quizzically.
"That's the song you took all that time carefully choosing?" Santiago sceptically questioned the pair.
"Hey don't blame me, it was on YOUR playlist." Jake deflected the blame skilfully.
"That's my cue to leave." Diaz decided quite suddenly and largely because of the music selection.
Before either of them could object, Rosa had clutched up her good leather jacket (the one without blood on it) and a spare beer for the walk home.
"Later dummies." She called back over her shoulder to the pair and slammed the front door.
Jake turned back round to find Santiago mouthing along to the words of the shameful song.
She stopped when she realised she was busted.
"Aha, secret shame song!" He crowed victoriously.
"Jake!" Amy complained and moved to turn down the music.
"Come on ass, we still have like half a dozen beers to get through." Santiago grumbled, checking the chilly bin full of mainly water by now.
At the mention of the word ass, Jake smirked deeply. It was a smug wide-mouthed grin that Amy had come to insist that she despised, it usually heralded a significant amount of teasing from him. Playful as it was, she hated never having a decent comeback since nothing seemed to insult him.
Perhaps that was because he is so childish Santiago considered.
In a rare show of maturity though, Peralta held his tongue. Although he did slowly place a lot more emphasis on his movements as he bend over to retrieve a beer. Amy didn't notice, she totally wasn't looking..
"Ugh warm beer what are we British?" Jake made a face, pulling up a beer from the bin in obvious disappointment at its temperature.
"Let's just try and finish this." Amy said passing a second bottle for him to open.
"Let's just try and finish this: Name of your sex tape!" Jake whipped in as quick as a flash, earning him a firm slap on the arm.
"You're gross." She poked her tongue out at him in mock disgust.
"All of me except for my ass right, Amy?" Peralta replied with waggling eyebrows and what he probably thought was a cool voice. His eyes widened suddenly as he realised what he had just blurted out.
The next slap on the arm he received made his teeth rattle.
"You were snooping around on my computer!" Amy haughtily accused him in realisation, her face reddening with a combination of anger and embarrassment.
"It was Rosa's idea!" Jake hastily yelled, deferring the blame and dashing for the door to avoid further assault.