This is my first B99 fic, hope you enjoy!
"I wasn't asleep!"
Amy Santiago had indeed fallen asleep on the job. She was on stakeout with her partner, Jake Peralta, and the last thing she needed was to give him more ammunition for his jokes. But she had barely slept the night before, thanks to her new neighbor's partying habits, and the car heater was on and she just closed her eyes for a minute to bask in the warmth. She was having this wonderful dream, not that she could remember the details, but there was this delicious, masculine smell, a mix of cologne and just MAN, but then she was suddenly jolted awake.
"No, you would never sleep during a stakeout, Santiago." Jake was turned away from her, peering out the window. "After all, you'd be leaving your partner at risk for attack by... The Taper!" He whipped around to reveal that his boredom and a roll of clear tape had been a bad combination, as he had wrapped it all around his face, pulling his nose up and eyes down.
"Am I still beautiful, Santiago? Who will love me now?"
Amy snorted and shook her head. Jake continued to pull faces and mock tear at his cheeks, so she helpfully reached over to yank off a bit.
"Ow! Jesus, Santiago, you're giving my face a Brazilian! I need my eyebrows for making inscrutable expressions when I'm grilling perps." He carefully peeled the remaining tape off and inspected it. "Hmmm, blackheads really do have black heads."
"Oh, gross, Peralta." Amy cringed and leaned away from Jake, which only encouraged him to wave the tape and its unpleasant contents in her face.
"Hey, the backup guys are here, we can take off. You obviously need your beauty sleep."
"Wow, thanks." Amy said, already sensitive about the dark circles under her eyes.
"Oh, hey, sorry, I... I just meant you're sleepy. Not that you're less beautiful. I mean, I'm not saying you're beautiful. You are, but... Hell." Jake awkwardly ran his hands through his hair. He usually let his big mouth get him into trouble one way or another.
Amy smirked. She wasn't sure his accidental compliment would soothe the accidental insult, but she had to admit she enjoyed when he would get tongue tied. It was usually something involving her and this odd dynamic that had been developing between them. Since he was generally very cocky and self confident, any time he let that facade slip he gave her a bit of insight into the real Jake Peralta.
When they pulled up in front of her apartment building, Amy could hear the loud music and hollering from the street.
"Oh no! Not again." She buried her face in her hands.
"Santiago, you're a cop. Just go flash your badge and make them knock it off! Hell, I'll go with you." Jake started to open his door, but Amy grabbed his arm.
"No, no, I don't want my neighbors to hate me! I've lived next to so many anti-cop people in the past, and it really makes things difficult. Do you know how hard it is to get drawings of bacon off a paint job? "
Jake frowned. "So they don't know you're a cop? I'll just go by myself."
"No, they do... And I'm sure they've seen you before."
"Wait, they know you're the popo and they still have these loud ass parties? That's ballsy."
"Well, they think I'm a traffic cop." Amy shrugged meekly.
"As in, stand and direct traffic?"
"As in, give parking tickets. They saw me in uniform, and it was the first thing I could think of... Stop laughing!" Amy pushed his arm in frustration.
"Oh lord, Santiago, I just have this image of you in a little meter maid costume, with that little hat..." He threw his head back and chuckled, then instantly was serious. "Okay, now it's actually kind of hot."
Amy reached to turn the heater down before she realized that Jake meant the meter maid costume. On her. Then she was really hot from the blush the flamed across her cheeks.
"Okay, look. We'll file an anonymous noise complaint and send out some officers, they won't know it's you. But you have to get some sleep, little chipmunk. Stay at my place, so you won't be home when the boys arrive and you'll be off the hook."
"Your place? Don't you mean Gina's place?"
Jake looked at Amy with mock indignation. "I'll have you know I have a three step plan for financial independence that will free me from Gina's slumlord shackles in no time! I haven't quite figured out step one and two, but step three involves me being a millionaire. Don't hate."
Amy rolled her eyes. She had no intention of staying at Jake's place, especially with this odd tension between them. "No, it's fine, I need to work on some paperwork anyway."
"Don't be ridiculous. You won't work on anything, you'll lie in bed and wonder why everyone else has a rockin' social life but you. Go grab a change of clothes and a toothbrush. I have a perfectly bedbug free pull out coach just waiting for your body."
"Oh, when you put it like that, what can I say but no." Amy opened the door just as a huge whoop from the crowd of partiers erupted, followed by what sounded like a vuvuzela. "Oh god, I can't believe your place is actually more appealing that this. Fine. I'll be right back."
While she packed an overnight bag, Jake called in a favor so that by the time they were back to his place, the party would be shut down. Sure, she could go home then, but he didn't plan to fill her in on that detail.
Amy was half asleep again by the time they arrived at Jake's apartment. She didn't even crack any jokes at his expense, so he knew she was exhausted.
"Go change into your flannel nightie and I'll get the bed ready"
"I just brought a change of clothes for work. I forgot about pajamas." Amy stared wide eyed at Jake.
"Hey, if you want to sleep the nude, far be it from me to complain. I might whimper. I will definitely have inappropriate thoughts." He gave her a side glance, wide smile on his face.
"You have those anyway." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Don't you have something I can use? I'm sure you have old shirts, because everything you wear is old."
"Fine! Let me see what I can do."
He headed to his bedroom and returned with a shirt and boxer shorts which he threw at Amy.
"The shorts are new. Grammy gave them to me but they were too small. Too SMALL, Santiago." Jake gestured to his general lower torso area, making wide circles in the air. "Because this needs a lot of room to breathe."
"Ugh, lovely imagery, Peralta. Now I'll never get to sleep." She stormed off to the bathroom to change, while Jake pulled the cushions off the couch to convert it. When she came out, she found Jake struggling with the pull out bed.
"We, uh, have a little issue with the bed part of the sofa bed." The bed had pulled out halfway, but the lower third refused to flatten out, instead pointing up at a nearly 90 degree angle. Jake was pulling and prodding it, but it appeared frozen.
"Seriously? Oh my god, I'm just going to get a cab home. I can't sleep on that!"
"No, nonono it's okay, you take my bed, I'll sleep here." Jake clambered onto the bent mattress and laid down with his legs in the air. "Perfectly comfortable!"
"You're an idiot, get up. Maybe I can lay across it the other way." She pulled Jake off the bed and took the sheets and blanket he had brought, laying them across the middle section of the mattress. "Okay, this should work, it's not great, but it should..." She was cut off mid sentence by the bed snapping shut on top of her.
"Mmmmppphhh! Jake! Help me!" She stuggled to push the collapsed bed off and finally Jake stopped laughing long enough to help her.
"You fucker! You did that on purpose!" She screamed, wrenching herself free of the trap.
"Oh my god, I wish I had! I would love to take credit, Santiago, but that was just pure, wonderful luck!" Jake was in tears laughing and finally Amy found herself laughing too. Jake wrapped his arms around her in a hug, still busting up.
"It's like you were the filling in a Santiago taco!"
"Okay, okay, enough." She pushed him off and looked at the wreckage of the bed. "Put this thing back in one piece and I'll just sleep on it as a couch."
Jake grimaced. "I do not recommend that you put your face on any of those cushions. Just trust me on that."
Amy wrinkled her nose. "I'm not even going to ask."
"Good. I'll take the couch, you can have my bed. It has fresh sheets and everything."
Amy was in no position to argue. She shuffled off to crawl into Jake's bed, ignoring the tight, funny little knot that formed in her midsection when she thought of the connotations. At least he was a room away...
She was having that dream again, or at least she thought she was. Light was beaming into the room, and as she slowly woke, she could smell that delicious, manly scent. She was disoriented, but she was in a soft, cozy bed, snuggled firmly against the firm, warm source of that smell.
Jake.
What the hell? She realized that some time in the night, she had been joined by the owner of the bed and he was breathing into her hair, one arm wrapped around her waist, his hand just under her shirt. She felt herself start to panic. Just then, Jake made a low pitched sound in his throat, almost like a purr, and nestled his face deeper against her neck while pulling her even tighter against him.
That better not be what I think it is poking my hip.
Oh god it is.
"Mmmmmmmm." Jake moaned again. Amy's heart was pounding. She knew he was asleep, but she was wide awake, and why wasn't she moving? "Mmmmmm... Amy..."
She moved her head just slightly towards the source of the sounds. Jake was blissfully asleep, and she had a fairly good idea of what he was dreaming about. She felt her lips start to twitch and tried to suppress the smile that threatened to break through, as she carefully disentangled herself from his grasp and got up. He looked so innocent when he slept, and she felt that knot in her stomach again.
Shake it off, Santiago.
She dressed and headed to work, leaving Jake to wake in his empty bed. He apologized later, saying that he had gotten up to use the bathroom and just "forgot" he had been sleeping on the couch. Amy didn't believe him for a minute. But she was very happy the next evening to arrive home to a quiet apartment, and her neighbors just smiled awkwardly at her when she passed them in the street a few days later. Great, she thought, they never knew it was her who reported them.
And she never knew it was Jake who paid them to have those loud parties.
What you don't know can't hurt you, right?