In the morning, he poured himself a bowl of Cap'n Crunch with a side of emotional turmoil. He couldn't stop worrying about The Date. He couldn't help worrying that he would screw this up and lose Charles as his best friend. Jake had never had a successful long-term relationship before. He couldn't help but worry he would lose Charles completely if—when—things turned out badly. He needed someone to talk to, but Charles had always been the one he called when he needed advice or a pep talk.

Jake stared at his phone, thinking of who he could possibly talk to about his dating crisis. Landing on the obvious person he needed, he scrolled through his contacts and dialed. The phone rang.

"Yes," Gina answered after several rings. "How can I improve your existence today, Jake?"

"I need some advice. Should you date a friend? What if it doesn't workout and you're not friends anymore? What if you screw everything up? Should you even try?" he asked in a rush.

"Let me tell you a story, my young grasshopper," Gina began. "There was this hunk of a man who was my Chinese delivery man. While we dated, I got free Chinese and very good sex. It was so good, but Gina was too much for this one man to handle. My beautiful self could not be contained to one mere mortal. There was also a dashing pizza delivery man. For a short time, I was living the life, Jake. I had free pizza, free Chinese and hot, sensual sex with two hot men. There was one magical night where I had both men at once. It was everything I had hoped it would be. Then they got too clingy and wanted all of us to be in a relationship so I dumped them both. This Beyoncé isn't ready to be tied down, unless it's in the bedroom and I'm doing the tying," she mused aloud.

"Sooo…" Jake paused trying to translate Gina speech. "So you're saying I should go for it because it could end up being everything I ever wanted, even if there's a chance it won't work out?"

"I was asking if you knew any good Chinese and pizza delivery places, but sure that works, too. Go get 'em, tiger."

"Thanks, Gina!" Jake hung up feeling calmer about his upcoming date. If there was a chance they could make each other happy then he owed it to himself and Charles to take that chance. It was terrifying, but worth it.

‹ ›

Rest, a hot shower, and an afternoon nap had helped Jake feel better than he had in days. He had even managed to raise his arms high enough to dry his own hair and bend down to put on his socks and shoes without feeling like he was being stabbed with a dull fork. He had a moment of indecisiveness about what to wear on his date before he saw that Charles had texted him while he had been in the shower.

Text from Charles sent at 7:42 PM:

Wear comfy pants & your fav. t-shirt

See you at 8:00 :)

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
3 3 3 3 3 3 3

Following Charles's directions, he had dressed in his favorite jeans (the dark washed ones that he knew he looked good in) and his Die Hard t-shirt with the quote "Welcome to the party, pal" on it that Charles had given him as a birthday gift years ago. The multiple emojis were concerning, though. Hopefully, Charles wasn't planning a Full Boyle tonight. He loved his buddy, more so than he had ever realized, but he did have a tendency to go overboard too soon, too fast.

The 15 heart emojis and odd clothing request made Jake more nervous than he already had been. He hoped Charles wasn't planning to take him to one of his weird food restaurants. Charles had been putting such an effort into making the perfect food for Jake that he would gladly go to any of his more interesting restaurant picks, but he feared he would hurt his date's feelings if he saw through his poker face. Some food choices were far too outside his comfort zone and impossible to pretend to enjoy. He was really more of a chicken nuggets, kid menu type of person.

Knock. Knock.

Two quick knocks rapped against his door at exactly 8:00 PM. With slight butterflies in his stomach, Jake opened his apartment door to see Charles standing before him holding two pizza boxes with a case of beer precariously wedged in the nook of his arm.

"Hey, Jake," Charles greeted with a huge smile.

"Hey," he echoed the greeting. "Let me—" he darted forward to grab the 6-pack that started to slip and got a whiff of the delicious smelling pizza "—I thought we were going out?"

A flash of concern darted across his face. "I thought a perfect date would be eating Sal's, drinking beer, and watching Die Hard." Charles fidgeted and tilted his head towards the apartment. "May I?"

"Right," he berated himself for his poor manners. "Of course come in." He moved out of the doorway allowing Charles to enter and closed the door behind him.

Charles placed the pizzas down on the coffee table in front of the TV like he had done dozens of times before when he had come over to watch Nets games together. Jake trailed behind him and placed the 6-pack beside the pizza. Settling into familiar roles, he searched through his unorganized pile of DVDs sprawled on the floor by the TV while Charles went in search of paper plates and napkins.

This wasn't how he had pictured a Boyle date going; it felt natural, like two best friends hanging out. He couldn't help but ask, "Are you sure you wouldn't rather go out to one of your fancy restaurants?"

"I wanted our first date to be perfect for both of us," he explained while taking two paper plates off the tower of paper plates in the corner of the kitchen counter. "I know your perfect night is staying in and vegging out on the couch and—" he waited for Jake to lookup from his DVD search, "—my perfect night is hanging out with you."

Ducking his head to avoid eye contact, Jake was saved from saying something embarrassingly sappy back when he spied Die Hard hiding beneath a Gilmore Girls boxset. "Hah!" he exclaimed, holding up the DVD case in triumph. "Found it."

They settled on the couch beside each other eating pizza, drinking beer, and watching Die Hard. Charles gradually inched closer to him until he was warmly pressed against his side. Even in the darkened room, it was not subtle. After three aborted moves to wrap his arm around Jake with one fake yawn and two stretches, he picked up Charles's arm and placed it around his shoulder himself. Then Jake scooted down and leaned against Charles's chest to achieve the perfect cuddling position.

Cuddling with Charles felt like a natural progression, like something they could have been doing ages ago. Jake watched John McClane be a total badass on TV, wrapped in the arms of his best friend, and it felt right. He wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world. He was right where he belonged and with whom he belonged with—Charles. Jake felt bad for assuming he would go Full Boyle when their date had been perfect so far.

In no time at all, Hans Gruber was dead and the end credits were rolling.

"Die Hard 2?" Charles asked.

"You know it."

Charles carefully scooted out from behind Jake and off the couch. He turned on the lamp by the couch then kneeled down on one knee in front of Jake.

Uh-oh. "Buddy?" he questioned, extremely worried at the sudden turn of events.

"I love you," Charles stated. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small, velvet black box. "Why wait to spend the rest of our lives together when we could start our life together now?" He opened the black box to reveal a polished, silver wedding band. "Jake Peralta, will you marry me?"

And there's the Full Boyle. "Ummm…" Jake paused. This was not a position he ever thought he would be in. "Buddy…" he trailed off again. He wasn't sure how to turn Charles down without hurting him. Being proposed to on the first date was a first for him and he struggled on how to respond.

Charles blinked and took in the situation. He winced. "Did I just Full Boyle this?"

"Lil' bit," Jake confirmed with his voice reaching a near squeak high pitch volume.

"Oh."

Charles looked crestfallen and Jake couldn't stand that. He slide off the couch and kneeled on the ground beside him.

"I love you, too," Jake said with no hesitance. He had loved Charles in a platonic manner for years and he could see himself falling in love with him romantically, but marriage wasn't something he was ready to consider. "It's only our first date, buddy, an amazing first date, but still the first date. How about we table the marriage stuff for at least a year?" he suggested.

A blinding smile instantly wiped away any remaining sorrow. "You think this date is amazing?" His eyes lit up. "You think we'll be dating a year from now?"

"Yeah, this is the best date I've ever been on and," he shrugged, "I dunno." Self conscious, he continued his honesty, "I always pictured you in my life as my best friend for…well forever. Now…" He paused. "Now, I can picture you in my life as my maybe-more-than-my-best-friend forever."

"Jakey…" Charles reached out and gently cupped his cheek. "I'd be honored to be your maybe-more-than-best-friend forever." He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss against his lips. "Sorry for the Full Boyle," he apologized.

"It's fine, Charles." He admitted, "It was kinda sweet in an over the top kind of way."

"I'm not going to scare you off?" he worried. "I'll probably go Full Boyle a few more times."

"I already know everything about you and you haven't scared me off yet."

‹ ›

Charles nudged Jake awake. "I should get going," he said reluctantly.

The darkened room was only illuminated by the DVD logo bouncing around the black TV screen. It was late, the DVD display read 3:45 AM. Watching three Die Hard movies in a row may have been pushing his luck. He almost felt like himself prior to his Series of Unfortunate Accidents, but he still tired easily.

Jake was leaning heavily against Charles, warm and content. "Stay," he urged his date. "It's late, stay the night."

Their first date ended with Jake falling asleep wrapped in Charles's arms.

‹ ›

Their relationship shift from best friends to boyfriends hardly changed their dynamic. There were no pet names in public and no PDA. Jake would have preferred zero pet names, but compromised and allowed Charles to use pet names in private if Jake was allowed to veto the more sickeningly sweet ones. They both agreed to keep their working relationship the same and as professional as it had always been. Their Epic-Bro-Time-Charles-and-Jake-Hang-Time (a phrase coined by Charles) became Epic-Boyfriend-Hang-Time (another phrase coined by Charles) or as Jake preferred to call them—dates.

Charles had exposed Jake to countless food establishments in the city that ranged from overly classy to someone's basement. Food was important to Charles so Jake tried to keep an open mind for his boyfriend. Eventually they established a system where Jake could use two vetoes a month to veto any restaurant without question. Jake had tried countless new foods and usually enjoyed the new experience as long as Charles refrained from going into graphic detail about what exactly he was eating.

They had never intended to keep their relationship a secret, but it had been new and they wanted to keep it just between them for a little while so they hadn't told anyone. Then it became an unspoken challenge to see who in the precinct could figure out they were dating first. Jake thought Gina would be the first to figure it out since she loved gossip and they had had their brief dating a friend talk. Charles thought Terry would be the one to figure it out since he knew everything that went on in the squad. They were both wrong.

‹ ›

Captain Holt and Kevin were hosting a dinner party that the whole squad was invited to. Jake had managed to corner Kevin alone and continued his mission to win him over and get him to call him by his first name. Jake had watched a penguin documentary the previous night in preparation.

"Did you know that the gentoo penguin can swim up to 22 mph?" Jake asked, trying to wow Kevin with penguin facts because everyone liked penguins.

"Yes."

He tried again. "Did you know that penguins eat stones and those stones are called gastrolicks?"

"Gastroliths," Kevin corrected. "And yes, I was aware of that fact."

Not to be deterred, Jake was ready with another penguin fact. "Did you know—"

"If this is another penguin fact, please refrain from speaking it. I do not care for flightless birds."

"Um-kay…" Jake was at a loss. He had only prepared penguin related conversation.

Kevin took pity on him and tried to continue their conversation, sans any birds. "How long have you and Mr. Boyle been together?" he asked, unaware he had startled Jake with his observation. "Raymond neglected to tell me you two were dating."

Jake frantically looked around the room, but none of the squad was nearby to overhear. "Um, about 3 months," he admitted.

"My apologies, I did not consider it would be a secret. I would not have brought it up if I had thought your relationship was not disclosed." Kevin looked at Jake as if he had failed as a cop and finally succumbed to the distasteful, racist, and homophobic image he had of cops.

"No, no, no." Jake was horrified at what Kevin was implying. "No, it's not like that. It's not a secret. Well—yes, it is—but not like that!" He hurried to explain, "We have this bet to see who in the Nine-Nine will figure it out first. After no one figured it out in the first month—and really we're surrounded by detectives and no one figured it out?—we divided everyone into teams to increase our chances at winning. I have Captain Holt on my team so if you could maybe nudge him in the direction of figuring it out then that would be really super."

"I will not be doing that, Peralta, but congratulations on your relationship."

"Thanks." One thing still bothered him, though. "How did you figure it out?"

"It was evident in the way he looked at you and you him. Words are hardly ever needed to convey one's affection," Kevin explained.

Charles and Jakes had agreed that since Kevin wasn't a member of the Brooklyn Police Department then it didn't count and the bet was still on.

‹ ›

They both lost the bet. Deputy Chief Wuntch somehow learned Jake and Charles were dating first and used the knowledge to her advantage to chastise the Captain for not having two of his officers fill out the proper paperwork with HR. Oops. The gobsmacked look on everyone's faces was completely worth the Captain's ire caused by Wuntch's visit.

‹ ›

They moved in together shortly before their one year anniversary. Jake was happy. He was in a healthy long-term relationship with someone he loved and trusted to have his back. Charles had even helped him consolidate his crushing debt into one ultimate crushing debt with reasonable payments he could pay off before he retired. It would take years, but not a lifetime to finally be out of debt.

Charles was good for him. Jake found himself buying less simply because he was happier and he made an effect to cutback on buying anything too expensive and frivolous. He was trying to build a life with Charles, which was terrifying, but well worth it. In support, Charles cutback on buying expensive food and unnecessary kitchen equipment. They were both saving for their future.

On their two year anniversary, Charles recreated their first date—Sal's pizza, beer, a Die Hard movie marathon, and a marriage proposal. Jake had never felt so loved or happy before. It was easy to say yes when Charles got down on one knee and asked him to spend their lives together. He had known Charles for years and wanted him in his life for many more years to come. Jake looked forward to calling Charles his husband.

He wondered if he could convince Charles to have a Die Hard wedding theme.

‹ ›

fin.


Your partner should be your best friend. Jake and Charles love each other as friends, but under the right circumstances they could become more. They have a great bromance that could become a romance if they were both so inclined.

This was written for Fandom Trumps Hate 2017 over on tumblr for the prompt Jake/Charles. Being cooped up turns into falling in love/realizing they have feelings for each other.