-x-
"Hey! I said leave it!"
Street's harsh words reverberate in Chris's head where she sits on the locker room bench. Her heart is heavy in her chest, and every thought that passes is rife with as much confusion as anger at this happening again.
Her knuckles are white from how tight she's clenching her fist.
She should've followed him, then. Gotten in her truck and driven the half hour and forced him or Nate to tell her what's going on. Should've followed him before Hicks was yelling at her down the hallway that she couldn't go after him, that it was an order to leave it alone.
As if she couldn't feel her soul rip in two the second he was out of her sight line. As if Hicks didn't know how much she busted her own ass to help get Street back on the team. As if working out whatever the fuck Street and Nate got themselves into isn't worth it to make the world go back to how it was, how it should be.
Chris can't tell who she hates more: Hicks, Street, or herself.
Hicks for letting him quit, Street for messing up his entire life, and hers, again, or her, for letting him get so far under her skin that there's no possible way to get him out, no matter how many times he breaks her heart and leaves in the blink of an eye.
"You ready to go, Chris?" Tan asks, the locker room door swinging shut behind him.
Taking a deep breath, Chris nods and stands. She swings her backpack over her shoulders and watches Tan do the same, smiling at him despite herself as they walk to her truck.
"What? Something on my shirt?"
Chris chuckles and shakes her head.
"No. I just remembered your first day on SWAT. You hold your backpack the same way, just with one strap instead of two. It looks a lot cooler now."
Tan rolls his eyes at her, but the memory makes him smile, too.
"All it took was one neg from Luca to break that habit. Between you and him, I felt like I was being watched like a hawk."
"You were," she says with a laugh. "We needed to make sure you could keep up, we weren't losing any bets to 50-Squad over a new guy."
The second the words leave her mouth, realization settles on them both, and their energy falls flat. Getting into her truck, Tan waits for the engine to come to life before speaking again.
"Since Bonnie's on that work thing all night, you want to grab a beer after this? Hit up GuataMama's on the way back?"
Jaw tense, Chris nods. In her mind plays a carousel of memories from Street's first few weeks on the time. Mumford telling him to keep his head on a swivel, and trading numbers with a drug dealer's Midwestern girlfriends.
She isn't hungry.
"Sure."
The drive is shorter than she hoped, because every nerve ending of hers lights on fire as soon as they come to a stop outside a shabby house with his bike in the driveway. There's another car next to it, and light from the living room shines through the broken slats in the blinds onto the weeds and gravel. It crunches underneath their feet.
Keeping her breathing even, Chris is grateful that Tan came with her. She doesn't know if she would've actually worked up the courage to walk in if she was alone. Unlike Street, Tan's always been a mitigating presence for her, managing to help her sort through her problems with just a look and an eyebrow raise sometimes.
Chris hopes Tan can talk some sense into Street this time, because she's far past the point of trying to hear him out civilly.
The old wooden stairs creak under their weight, and the front door is off its hinges. It makes Chris want to roll her eyes but she can't stop the concern that pricks at the back of her neck.
Nothing good is coming out of whatever Street is in right now. That much, she's sure of.
Knocking twice, Chris taps her foot as she waits for someone to come answer the door. When it swings open, she's standing face-to-face with whom she assumes is Nate.
He's not as much of her problem as Street right now, though, so she gives him a curt nod and then slides past him to stalk towards the living room with Tan on her heels. She lets him do the talking, because if she starts, she'll yell.
"Street." Tan's voice glides over her ears, upset, but with some understanding left.
"Woah, what are you guys doing here?"
"Looking for you. Just trying to understand what's going on."
Before Street gets the chance to answer, Chris's instinct is making words come out of her mouth, biting like a dog let loose from a cage just like a few nights before.
"Is this Nate?"
Chris refuses to break eye contact with Street until her anger does turn to his foster brother.
"What've you gotten him messed up in, huh?"
"Chris, please, don't," Street tries to placate her.
His own heart is racing. He wishes he could pull her and Tan further into the house and tell them the truth about what's going on. Since he can't, he tries to keep his brain from imagining how much he's going to have to grovel to get back on their good sides after this, assuming he makes it out alive.
"He's my brother." Street finishes.
"Foster brother." She throws back, sharp as a knife.
Street throws a glance towards Nate, begging him to keep his mouth shut because Street couldn't explain the dynamic between Chris and him if he tried, and he knows that she's only as fired up and suspicious of Nate as she is out of concern.
Knows if he had 15 minutes to tell them the truth and introduce Tan and Chris to Nate, this would all be smoothed over so easily.
He clenches his fist by his side, angry at the entire world that this is how everything is playing out.
"That means he's family." Street pleads, hoping that her own family loyalty will make her understand that he doesn't have a choice in all this even if as far as her and Tan know, this is quitting SWAT without another word.
If her comment about Nate being his foster brother was a knife, what she says next is it twisting in his gut, tearing him up from the inside out until Street is sure he's going to bleed out onto this dusty floor.
"And we're not?"
It's out of her mouth and she doesn't regret it. Chris put her own career on the line for him more than once, put herself in precarious situations and invited him to her family's house and did everything in her power to make him a good family, a real one.
To see him standing in front of her acting like that means nothing makes her blood boil. If a bag were in front of her, her knuckles would be bloody.
Tan inhales sharply at Chris's words. He's always prescribed to SWAT as family as much as the next person, but he knows that nothing, nothing gets between Chris and her family. There's a reason she was the one who kept trying to get Street back on the team when the rest of them gave up.
Once you're in Chris's family, you're in. There's almost nothing she sees as irreparable, nothing she won't do to fight for the people she loves.
Tan wonders if Street realizes how lucky he is that Chris had his back when no one else did.
Street breaks eye contact, unable to look at Chris as the weight of her words come down on him like an avalanche.
When she keeps talking, Street knows the only option he has is to dig his heels in, because if he doesn't, he's breaking and telling them everything, only putting them in more danger. Each new thing she says, every word that's dripping with hurt as much as rage, rips away at him, little-by-little.
"You worked so hard to get back on SWAT the last time. We both did!"
Chris can't let this go. Won't let it go until he looks her in the eyes and tells her why he's dead set on taking every good thing and breaking it in half, sacrificing them both for no real end. Tan stands silently behind her and lets her say whatever she needs to, get it off her chest. He wants to hear Street's explanation of this as much as she needs to.
"I know!" Street says back. Maybe it's enough that she'll see it in his eyes that this is deeper than what she thinks and he can tell her, and she'll leave it be.
"Then why are you throwing it all away, again?" Chris demands.
Street thinks of Deacon and says a prayer that somewhere in there, once this is all said and done, she'll be able to forgive him.
"Look, what's done is done. I am out at SWAT. That's it."
"Hey, c'mon, man," Tan cuts in, now just as unwilling to leave without an answer to at least one of the questions that hangs in the air. They deserve that much.
"At least tell us what's going on. What kind of trouble are you in?"
"I'm not in any kind of trouble." He says, looking down for a distraction. He can tell as soon as his words are in the air that his response only added fuel to her fire.
"We're trying to help you." She fires, loud and clear, as if it's her diction that's the problem and not his lack of sense and being shifty that got them here.
She'd make up a new language if that would let her say whatever she needs to make him stop all this.
Street braces himself for the fallout.
"Why is so hard to understand?" He yells, voice booming. Looking between Tan and Chris, he wants to stop. His heart is in his stomach and his stomach is in his throat because he can see the knife that he's twisting in both of them now, Chris especially, and he hates himself for it.
"I don't want your help, okay? All I want is for you guys to go. Just leave."
Street throws his arm towards the door to drive his words home.
Tan is the first to react, taking what Street says as all the answer he needs. He sets his shoulders back and takes a final look at Street, content with it being the final look he'll ever have if Street wants to shove them away and ruin his own life.
"Let's go, Chris," Tan says, wanting to get out of Nate's house. He turns and takes a step, stopping when he doesn't hear or feel Chris behind him.
Chris can't move, frozen where she is, stuck in a convoluted mix of fury and disbelief and the worst pain she's ever felt. Her gaze scrutinizes him, refusing to blink first, despite the pressure in her eyes that tell her tears are imminent.
There's no way, after all she's done, all they've done, that he's just leaving her on her own like this, quitting SWAT and cutting her out of his life like nothing. He can't.
He is.
Fine.
Chris is done fighting. She's done feeling sorry for him and then making a fool of herself so he can keep making the same mistakes at everyone else's expense. Street's words aren't him pushing her away, she realizes, he's pushing her off the cliff.
So, fine, she'll let go of him, too, she thinks, and the agony that pounds where her heart's supposed to be as she turns away from him will have to dissipate sooner or later.
Tan's eyes catch hers in the glass of the front door and he sees the redness spreading across her face from a few feet in front of her. He shakes his head, sighing as he tries to piece together everything that's happened over the past few days, hands clenched into fists.
He has half a mind to turn around and kill Street himself before whatever Street is mixed up in does.
For being an idiot and treating all of them like shit.
For making Chris cry.
Tan's always known Chris can take care of herself and do all the ass kicking she needs to, but he can count on one hand the number of times he's seen her cry. But Street has always been her weak spot, since day one.
Tan's not about to let Chris go down because of him.
Like she read his mind, she shakes her head and mouths at him to just go. A rough hand comes up to swipe away the first tears that fall, refusing to let her body go until she's in her truck.
From his position, Street can just see his friends'—former friends, after all this? Teammates?—backs. He watches them go as his entire body starts to tingle from anxiety and exhaustion, wanting this to all be over already.
And then Chris wipes away a tear.
It's like the world freezes. Street can't process that he's the one who's at fault for that. It makes him feel foreign in his own body, disgust and disappointment rolling through him.
The door shuts, and Street can tell by the way Nate hangs his head that his brother doesn't know what to say.
Neither does he. Street fucking hates everything about this. There's nothing more to read into, it just fucking sucks, and he regrets more with every passing minute how badly he knows he just hurt Chris and Tan when it's all a lie.
"Leave it." Street says eventually, voice cutting through the tension in the air as he walks towards any room with a door to ride out the impending panic attack from what he just said and did, alone.
In her truck, Chris slams her hands against the dashboard twice, letting the stinging sensation overtake her, hoping the new source of pain makes her tears stop.
"I'm sorry, Chris," Tan says, looking over the console at her. He can only imagine how she's feeling.
"Don't be," she says with a scoff. "You didn't do anything. It's my own fucking fault."
"No it isn't," Tan replies quickly, looking at where her hand sits on the steering wheel, making no move to turn the engine over.
"Whatever Street has going on, whatever just happened in there, none of that is on you. He's chosen at every turn to take this family and throw them on the fire for his. I know it hurts, but it isn't your fault you can't save someone who refuses to be saved."
Chris undoes the cap on a half-empty water bottle sitting in her cupholder and gulps some of it down. It helps her clear her throat and her mind, and now that her tears have stopped, exhaustion starts to creep in.
"Yeah," she says, wiping away the rest of her tears with her sweatshirt sleeves. "I guess I just wish I knew why."
With that, she turns the key and pulls back onto the gravel road that takes them to the highway, back towards LA.
"You still want to grab that beer?" Tan asks, a lilt in his tone as he tries to salvage some aspect of this disaster, down to hang out like they used to.
"Yeah," Chris says, her voice breathy but his words breaking through the wall so she can feel some semblance of normalcy and joy again, if gilded. "I think the truck is still parked next to the bar with the pool tables, if you feel like getting your ass beat tonight."
Tan rolls his eyes, even though she's right. Every time they play pool, she sinks him for enough to pay rent for a month.
"Luca's actually been showing me some tricks. I think I might surprise you tonight."
Chris laughs, and it feels good in her soul. Standing in that living room, she didn't think she'd laugh again.
"You need more than tricks, you need to actually hit the ball into the pocket."
"Alright, well, we'll see," Tan says with a tone, glad that he was able to alleviate some of her night.
Chris drives in silence for another few miles, sighing when they pass the second-to-last exit before theirs.
"Thanks for coming with, Tan."
"Of course." He says, and then, "It'll work out. I don't know how, and I don't know when, but that's what my mom always tells me."
The mention of his mom makes Chris smile again, look over at Tan and remember a few years ago when they were younger, greener, and they spent a good chunk of time swapping family stories over extra training drills and having the other's back among older, less accepting officers who they had to prove themselves to.
"She's a smart woman. I see where you got it from." Chris compliments.
"I'm sorry we haven't hung out in a while, just the two of us. Between work and partners and all. You're someone I've never doubted has my six."
Tan gives her a smile, too, and turns the radio on low to fill the car with pop music as Chris flicks on her blinker to get in the exit lane.
"You, too, Chris. I think Bonnie's work has this thing at the same time every week for the rest of the quarter, if you want to make it a standing thing. I'll bet you by the end, I'll beat you in a game of pool."
"Oh, I'll shake on that. What are we betting for?" Chris asks, reaching her left hand across to shake Tan's.
"Loser does the other's armory duty for two months?"
"Make it three." Chris challenges, eyes lighting up. Tan considers her offer and then nods, knowing that declining would only give her more fuel.
"Sucker! Your funeral." Chris says, laughing when Tan looks at her in disbelief, and coming to a stop next to the food truck.
"C'mon, I'm buying tonight to cushion the blow."
"Just leave me be, Nate, I'm good." Street says once Chris and Tan are gone, and their actual food has arrived. It's all Street wants to sit on the dingy couch and forget about the implosion that just happened.
He finds himself typing out and deleting text after text in his notes app, scared to do it in their actual chain in case he accidentally hits send.
Street stews for a few more hours before he can justify going to bed, his mind reeling the entire time from Chris and Tan and the Nolan situation simmering on the back burner.
Lying in bed, hot with only the fan to move the stale air and no A/C, Street sighs. Grabbing his phone from the nightstand, he opens the app again and clicks out a text, determined to finish this opp so he can send it and make things right with all of them. Mostly with Chris.
I'm sorry.
-x-
Hello! Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed the angst! I got to 3x11 on my rewatch today, and this popped into my brain and wouldn't leave, so a few hours later, here she is. I know this work is generally Stris-centered, but I thought it falls close enough into the after-episode continuation, and explores Chris and Street's inner monologues about the other, to put here. Tan and Chris are such a great friendship we don't see a ton of all the time, so I also wanted to highlight that and give Tan some time to shine. Don't worry, there will most definitely be more works based off/around 3x10-3x12, because it's one of the most amazing, painful arcs on the show, especially for Chris and Street, so I'm sure it won't leave me be for a while. If there are any scenes or post-episode moments you want to see explored more deeply, let me know! As always, comments and kudos are so appreciated, and I absolutely love writing for this fandom 3. Stay liquid! xo A