Lmao I had it done by the 17th but it looks like I forgot to post it here too at the time so… here it is now :')
"Seriously Peralta? Kiss Me I'm Irish? You're not even Irish!"
First thing Amy notices when she enters Shaw's bar that night, joining her friends and colleagues at their table for an evening of celebrating St. Patrick's Day together, is the green printed shirt her partner is wearing for the event.
"Maybe, but no-one else in this bar knows that," the concerned man answers with a wink, apparently rather proud of himself, just as he shifts a bit in his booth to leave her some space to sit next to him. "Plus it was the last decent St. Patrick's shirt they had left in my size anyway. Don't I look cute in it, though?" he grins at her.
"Super cute Jakey," Charles – who's wearing a similar green shirt, with only the inscription on it being different – immediately cuts into the conversation with a comment of his own, not leaving the woman the time to say anything. "Sure everyone will want to kiss you tonight. Wouldn't you, Amy?" he hints, but she simply winces in return.
"See? Told ya!" the male brunette brags before high-fiving his best friend, which makes her roll her eyes in exasperation.
She doesn't have time to argue more with them, though, because soon some stranger comes to their table to talk to Jake as she hails him. "I'm sorry to bother you guys, but I couldn't not see what's written on your shirt and… you're really from Ireland?!"
He offers his friend a victorious smirk before turning his attention back to the newcomer. "Of course! 100% true Irishman here – Leprechauns and whatnot," he lies.
"Grand!" she seems pleased by his statement. "I am too. Well, my grandparents are. From Galway, actually. What part of Ireland are you from?"
Taken off-guard by such a question he didn't see coming, the detective remains speechless at first.
"I– huh–…," he doesn't quite know what to say to keep his cover intact.
This time, it's Amy's turn to smile in amusement.
"You know what?" he quickly finds his voice again, though. "What about you go ahead and I meet you at the counter in 5 minutes so that we can talk about where we're from and why we love Ireland so much in front of a beer?"
"Sounds great," the woman nods with a grin, then leaves the group as fast as she appeared, going towards the bar to wait for him.
As soon as they're alone again, Amy can't help but mock her partner. "So, Peralta, where are you from and why do you love Ireland so much?!"
"Ha-ha, very funny," he fakes a laugh. "But seriously guys, where's a good place to live in Ireland? Wait, you know what, nevermind. I'll just check that on the Internet."
He suddenly falls silent, taking out his phone in search of some useful information he could quickly gather about the Emerald island.
"Or, y'know, you could simply tell her the truth. Girls like that generally," his friend intervenes once again, but Jake doesn't listen, too focused on what he's looking for – and that he eventually finds, letting out a cry of joy when he does so.
"Bingpot! Now, if you'll excuse me, someone's gotta be kissed tonight," he points to his chest when he stands up, now ready to join his newest encounter.
As she watches him leave, Amy can't help but roll her eyes at him.
"I'm as disappointed in him as you are," Charles suddenly gets closer to her, and she looks at him, confused. "I thought he bought the shirt for you after what happened the other day, not so that he could kiss some stranger at a bar," he sighs.
"I'm not disappointed in Jake. Jake can kiss whoever he wants, I don't care, Jake and I are only coworkers," she nervously exclaims back to his words, suddenly on the defensive. "We already told you it was just for work."
It being them making out – twice – in order not to blow up their cover as a newly-engaged couple during one of their missions. But was it really only for the sake of their job? She remembers perfectly how she felt, first time Jake's lips unexpectedly met with hers.
And it definitely wasn't the reaction a simple coworker would bring on you.
"Sure thing," the older man ironically answers, seeming to think the same thing as she is.
He leaves her alone then, and she puts her gaze back on the counter, where Jake and the stranger are chatting and apparently having fun together. Her chest hurts at the sight, but she can't blame her colleague for doing that – moving on.
Not when she's the one who pushed him away, telling him of her rule of not dating cops when he wanted to date her.
She can only blame herself for falling for him despite that and not doing anything about it when she had the chance…
"Look who's back! Where's your Irish friend? She got tired of all the amazing stories you had to tell her about Ireland already?"
Later in the evening, Jake is back at the table. Amy is the only one sitting there, with all the others having left to play a game of pool a few feet away.
"Nah, her girlfriend showed up and they went to a 'more Irish' pub to end the night there. They asked me if I wanted to join them, but, y'know… I told them I had to go back to you guys. Turns out she was just excited to be able to talk about her country with someone," he explains, taking back his sit next to her.
"Well, I'm sorry your shirt didn't have more effect on women than you wanted to," the female detective offers him an apologetic, though a bit teasing too, smile – she still finds it stupid, after all.
"That's okay," he shrugs. "Seems like you were right. Wanna drink something?" he offers, not wanting to linger more on that particular topic.
He wouldn't acknowledge that out loud, but there's only one woman he wishes his shirt would have an effect on and she'd kiss him anyway. Her.
But he knows that's never going to happen. That night they played-pretend was nothing but just a one-time thing. They cleared that already.
Amy happily agrees to his request, and they both head to the bar. "One Guinness, with blackcurrant, please," she orders once they're there.
The man next to her gasps. "What?!" he turns to her, mouth wide open in exaggerated shock. "You're hurting my Irish heart," he exclaims, putting a hand on it to back-up his words. "How can you do that to us Irish people? Add blackcurrant to your Guinness?!"
It makes her let out a chuckle, just as she rolls her eyes.
"One Guinness for me too," he tells the bartender. "Without blackcurrant, of course," he finds necessary to add.
After that, they remain silent for a short while, patiently waiting for their drinks to be served.
When they finally come, and they click their pints together, Jake cheers, "Slauncha!"
Amy frowns, confused. "What was that?"
"I don't know," Jake confesses with embarrassment. "That's what the Irish girl said when we clicked glasses together earlier, so…"
"Ooooh, 'sláinte' you mean?" the brunette suddenly seems to understand as she repeats the word – but her friend doesn't hear the difference between that and what he just said. "That's Irish for 'cheers', yeah," she explains.
He looks at her, surprised. "How do you know that?"
"Didn't I tell you? I'm part Irish," she mocks him, and it makes him laugh.
"So you're the one we should kiss for good luck tonight then?" Jake teases.
He expects a comeback to his comment, some 'you wish', or maybe even a hit in the side for being so bold as he's used to get, but what he gets instead is much more surprising.
She doesn't know if it's the alcohol coursing through her veins, or if she's just tired of pushing him away like she did for the past weeks and glad to see he's still an option despite all this, so indeed instead of answering with some banter of her own like she usually would in such a situation, she just puts her pint back down and closes the small remaining gap between them.
Grabs him by his stupid shirt that really suits him well, no matter what she told him earlier (green goes surprisingly well on the guy, she has to admit), and kisses him (even though he's not Irish – she couldn't care less about that right now.)
It takes a few seconds for Jake to understand what's going on, but when he eventually does, his only response is to kiss her back, letting his hands fall at her hip to keep her close.
"I knew that shirt would be a great purchase in the end," he can't help but brag when they eventually part, too puzzled by the fact that Amy Santiago kissed him for realz it really happened and we're not undercover this time to think about better things to say in such a moment.
"Shut up." She lets out a giggle while she shakes her head and gently hits him on the side before pulling him back to her in another kiss.