Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jake opens the car door and sits himself in the passenger seat, he slams the door shut and waits for a moment before falling back into the already reclined seat. “I have had a shit show of a day, I really have.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes, first off i get to work only 10 minutes late and the captain yells at me, i thought we moved on from that point in our relationship, he's supposed to be cool with my little quirks. Like being late to work. It's what makes me, me! Like how Amy is always on time, I'm always late, it's who I am!”

“right”

“Then during lunch when I'm already tired from Charles spending twenty minutes trying to convince me to date Amy; Hitchcock and Scully ate my lunch! I was being smart this morning. I packed a lunch, but then of course the two pigs who I work with ate my lunch.”

“Pigs?”

“You know how pigs eat anything? Even human bones if you let them, I had a case about that a few years ago, real gross.”

“I bet.”

“And!- “

“Jake, shut up” the man sitting next to him passes the blunt over, the one which he had been rolling the entire time Jake was rambling. Jake holds it in his hands for a second before bringing it to his lips and slowly inhaling it.

He accidentally picked up the habit. He got the addiction gene from his father and after he tried it once there was no going back. Jake lets out a small cough before handing it back over to his friend.

“We should do this more often”

“I agree Peralta, i agree.”

“This is your fault, i didn't used to do this stuff, i mean sure i experimented in highschool but then i grew up, i became an adult, and my only vice was drinking but now here i am..depending on you.”

“Depending on me because I supply your weed or depending on me, because of me.” Jake just nodded, he nodded for both answers, he hoped that was clear, he needed the weed, and the company. He really had started to rely on the company, he can remember himself trudging through a long day of work and the only thing being on his mind was that just in a few more hours it'll be over and he will get to see his friend.

They started meeting up almost everyday, Jake would walk over to the gas station closest to the precinct, go behind it and get in his friend's car, it seems innocent enough right? Though the windows would get steamy but that's just from hotboxing the car, or jake yelling about something, but that was it, really. It's been their routine for a couple months now.

Jake got lost in his thoughts and was pulled out of them when he realized he was being handed the blunt again, he happily took it and looked out the window that was already starting to fog.

“Jake?”

“Yeah?’

“Take your shirt off”

—------------------------------------------

Jake rolled the window down, his hair damp and his breathing heavy, the car was hot, too hot, he felt like he couldn't breathe, he let his arms hang out the window enjoying the way the cool night air hit him. He stayed like that for maybe two minutes, his company rubbing his back before he moved back fully into the car.

“Where are my jeans at?”

“Behind your seat. are you ready to go home?”

“,,yeah”

The car was turned back on and that same feeling of dread hit his stomach, he's gonna have to go home and deal with the repercussions of his actions, something he's been doing too much of lately.

Maybe 10 minutes later the car pulled into Jake's driveway, he sighed, and grabbed his shirt off the bottom of the car floor. He turned and gave his friend a quick kiss before getting out of the car. He stood on the driveway and watched as the car drove away to the point he couldn't see it anymore.

He dug around the back pocket of his jeans until he felt the loose house key, unlocking his door and throwing his shirt on the couch before almost immediately heading to the shower to freshen up, he's got work tomorrow morning.

—------------------------------------------

Once he gets out of the shower he throws on an old pair of sweatpants, his favorite pair. He wipes the mirror down and looks at the faint red marks on his neck and hips, gross..but hot. Jake runs his pointer finger over the marks on his body, there was still a small bruise from a a couple weeks ago on his ribcage, fun night.

God what he was doing? He was having sex with a criminal. If he told himself this just last year ago he wouldn't have believed it, but he is. He really, really is. It's funny, how they met, Jake doesn't remember it.

But he's heard the story a few times, apparently he got drunk at Shaw's bar and basically just threw himself at this stranger he never met. But he did remember waking up in the stranger's bed, and he also remembered leaving his number on the stranger's bedside table.

And now here he is. Sometimes he can just feel himself become overwhelmed with disgust when he remembers what he's doing, but that's rare. Most of the time he just gets hot. It's kinda fun, sneaking out with a criminal, getting high, disregarding his morals. He tries not to think too hard about the last part though, it makes him spiral.

Jake moves away from the mirror, yawning while walking to his bedroom, he flips the switch to turn the fan on and just about hops into bed. He checks his phone before getting under the covers. He sees a text,

* “You left your tie in my car”

the text included a picture of both items neatly folded on what looked like a table.

“Well shit” he huffed before thinking how this means he’ll just have to go over to their apartment to get his stuff back, good ending after all. Jake sets his phone on the charger and settles into the mattress, absolutely wiped out. 

Chapter Text

Jake had fallen asleep rather quickly , but he found himself tossing and turning when the clock hit 4 am. His stomach hurt, not like he was sick but more of a guilt feeling, a knot. He didn't know why he woke up, it was most likely for no reason at all, but now he just can't fall back asleep, he can't stop thinking about him.

It was sweet at first, remembering the way he smells and what he feels like, but it turned sour when he remembered he had work in a few hours which led to thinking about captain holt, which in the end made him wonder what holt would think of the guy he's seeing. He'd be mad, disappointed, maybe even huffy.

But it's not like Holt would ever find out, so why does it even matter? It shouldn't matter. His stomach still hurts. He couldn't stop thinking about it, no matter how many times he told himself to stop, the amount of times he yelled at his brain to shut up and just go to bed, the thought remained. It was like a cycle, he had the thought, he freaked out, he calmed himself down, he would push the thought away,,! But it would just come back.

Jake pushed the covers off of himself and ruffled through his bedside table. The room was pitch black so he had to go off of feel, he made contact with the almost empty box of cigarettes, with the carton in his hand he turned on his lamp and started looking for the lighter that was left somewhere on his mattress for the day before. He found it underneath the pillow he wasn't using and sparked the last cigarette he had left, he'd have to buy more.

Once he was done he let the end of the cigarette drop into an old plastic water bottle with just a small amount of water left, the cigarette end hissed.  He stared at the wall for a moment before deciding it was useless to go back to sleep, or at the very most try to go back to sleep. He swung his legs off the side of his bed and trudged over to his closet. He grabbed a long sleeved green top, a square tie that was laying on the floor and a pair of black jeans. He stopped wearing  button ups because somehow the buttons kept getting ripped off,,,somehow.

Jake walked to the bathroom and flipped on the light, he had two dark circles under his eyes, hopefully they would go away by the time work came around. Once he completed all the boring activities of getting ready for work, it was still only 5:23. For the rest of the time he had till seven he sat on the couch watching movies.

—------------------------------------------

The elevator doors opened into the bullpen and he pulled the gate open, he started scanning the area, Amy was jamming buttons on the printer, Hitchcock and Scully were arguing about which restaurant in the area had the best appetizers, and Charles was calling someone.

Jake made his way to his desk and turned on his computer, he looked over the online file for b&e he and Charles were working on; that must have been what Charles was doing, the next step in the investigation was seeing if all their suspects' alibis had proof.

All he had to do now was wait for Charles to get off the phone, so he opened his phone and decided to finally text back.

* "It's okay, I don't like wearing a tie to work anyway.”

The response was almost immediate

* “Yeah it just gets in the way”

Jake smiled and was about to reply but was interrupted by a disappointed“jakey” from charles. “The first guy's alibi holds up, the restaurant had his reservation for that day on file and said that he came in” Jake set his phone down. “maybe he called for the reservation and just had a friend or someone come in for him, so he could go break into that woman's house,”

“Well i had the same thought so i asked them to send over security footage of the guy and it really was him”

“Ok well, we still have two other suspects. Have you looked into their alibis yet?”

“Nope, but I'm going to get real soon. You okay jake? you look tired” Gina, who was walking back from the break room overheard Boyle so she jumped in with a “yeah jake you really do. You know I think you would benefit from pilates, look Charles is agreeing. I teach a class for pilates beginners every sunday, you should join in." Gina's tone was relaxed, trying to show Jake the effects pilates had.

“I didn't know you knew how to teach pilates gina! can i come to a class”?

“Charles, charles, charles” she chuckled. “I was born with the ability to teach pilates, it was graced to me by mother earth, it's my duty to teach others” she threw her hair back “no you can't come.”

“Really inspiring Gina, but no thanks.” Jake piped up. “You're missing out, anyway captain holt wanted me in his office 13 minutes ago, bye” she drug out the bye as she walked away.

—------------------------------------------

Jake sat down with Charles for lunch, Terry was talking about a new yogurt he had never tried before and how the flavor was being “presumptuous” because that makes total sense. Jake just nodded every now and then hoping to give the illusion that he was paying attention, luckily charles was talking to terry for the both of them so it doesn't really matter. Eventually the lunch table fell quiet, Jake crinkled the empty chip bag from the vending machine into a ball and let it sit on the table. The trio sat in silence long enough for both Jake and Charles to be done eating and for Terry to start eating his actual lunch that wasn't just yogurt. Terry spoke up,

“You good jake? You look-”

“Tired? Yeah I didn't get a lot of sleep. Didn't get home till late and then woke up super early.”

“What made you come home late? We got off work at the same time, it was only nine.”

“,,just had to run some errands” terry nodded and went back to eating his food.

“At least it's friday” Jake said while getting up to throw his stuff in the trash. He made his way back to his shared desk with Amy who was busy sorting her binder tabs for the second time that week. He smiled at her, she's such a weirdo, he thought. In a perfect world he would be dating Amy, it's a match made in heaven, right? The fun cop and the serious cop, they would get married, have two kids, and be the picture perfect couple. But Jake didn't want kids, at all. And he wasn't actually into amy. So it was good that Charles was wrong about them. Though it would be smarter to be with Amy than to be doing what he was currently doing. 

Chapter Text

Really quick authors note!! Cops do in fact work on the weekends, I am choosing to ignore that fact, it’s my fic, I can do what I want! I also hate writing about working.

It was finally the weekend and jake was quite happy for it, he stood on the porch and knocked two times, being mindful to not cop knock, like hes used to doing. The door swings open a couple seconds later

“Jake”

“Smith”

The man who opened the door looked slightly disheveled. his dark hair a mess, a old tank top, and a pair of beaten up grey sweatpants. Jake sucked in a breath and took in the sight before him. Its not like he hasn't seen the very thing hes looking at right now multiple times before, because he very much has but it seems to get better ever time. Jake let his mind wander for a second, he thought about how through the grey sweatpants he could see the outline of,,

"what are you here for"? Jake was interpted mid horny thought which in all honesty seems like that is for the better.

"my tie"

"that it"? Jake nodded, they both knew he was lying. Jake let himself in, moving smith over to make it through the doorway. the house smelled good, it smelled like comfort, which was really just Jake's way to tell himself he liked the way smith smells without actually thinking it.

he walked into the kitchen and saw his tie on the counter, he grabbed it and moved to the living room. He sprawled himself out onto the couch happy to be there instead of work.

smith tried his best to seem annoyed with Peralta but he wasn't, he loved having him over. it became very frequent, Jake coming over on the weekends. it nice when you live alone for the rest of the time. smith slowly made his way over to the living room where he looked at the man taking up his entire couch, a very relaxed man at that.

jake laid there for a moment pretending not to notice he was being watched but eventually that got boring so he sat up a little and made room for smith, who took the message and sat down next to him. "how you doing peralta?"

"good"

"you lying?"

he didn't answer that one, instead just stared at the blank TV, smith got the message though and left it alone. he reached for the remote and opened netflx scrolling till he found something remotely interesting. Jake was still leaned against the arm rest on the couch and the other man was getting a little tired of waiting.

“Jake come here” and so Jake did, he pushed himself up and moved closer to smith until he was laying right into his side. Smith wrapped an arm around peralta and was content with staying like that for the rest of the day, peralta on the other hand wasn’t.

Jake moved his head up closer to smiths face, he leaned in and slowly started kissing at his neck and moving his hand down to the waistband of the other man’s pants

—————————————————————

Smith sat on the couch waiting for peralta to be done showering, he ran a hand through his soaking wet hair; as he had taken his shower first. He had a feeling that Jake was gonna stay the weekend, he usually does. He wasn’t gonna ask about it, he’ll just wait and see what happens.

Jake didn’t mind being alone, but he preferred company. Smith gathered that pretty quickly, sometimes if Jake was in a particularly pissy mood he would come over just to come over. He’d sit on the couch with his phone all day, or he’d just go take a nap in the bedroom.

But smith never asks him about it, he just stays out of Jake’s way when he’s in one of those moods. It’s was domestic, weirdly domestic. It made him smile to think about it. A drug dealer romanced a cop so hard that the cop would come over just to be around the drug dealer! That would be a good movie plot.

The sound of the shower cuts off and a few minutes later peralta walks out, all he’s wearing is a pair of joggers that he clearly grabbed from smiths bedroom as they were falling off his hips. Jake’s wet hair dripped onto his shoulders and chest, highlighting the hickeys there, and when he turns around to grab his phone from the bathroom, the water does the same for the scratch marks on his back.

Jake enters the room again and sits on the other end of the couch, throwing his feet into smiths lap.

“I’m cold”

“You’re not wearing a shirt”

“I couldn’t find one”

Smith knew Jake was lying, but still, he threw the feet out of his lap and walked to the bedroom to grab Jake a t-shirt and a hoodie, when he walked back to the living room Jake had a big smile plastered on his face. Smith threw the clothes at his face and Jake hurriedly put them on.

Jake couldn’t help but realize how domestic this all was, when he started to think about it that knot in his stomach came back. It’s not like they had a label or anything, and sure this means Jake isn’t fully straight but it’s not like he has a boyfriend or anything, right? They were just casual friends,,with some benefits. He needs to pull himself out of his thoughts.

“Can we watch diehard?”

“We watched that last weekend”

“So?”

“Yeah sure”

Smith grabbed the remote off the coffee table and handed it to Jake. While Jake searched for the movie he leaned back against the couch and yawned. There was no way he was gonna be able to stay awake for this entire movie, peralta tired him out. But even then he’s seen this movie to many times now that Jake’s been coming around so he would probably fall asleep from boredom anyway. He doesn’t know how Jake does it, re watch the same thing over and over again.

—————————————————————

The living room was dark, the only light in the room was coming from the tv. Jake looked over at smith who had been asleep for awhile now, he smiled and turned back to his movie. This was nice, really nice.

He got to watch his favorite movie with his favorite person,,was smith his favorite person? The thought rattled in his brain, that wouldn’t be a bad thing he supposed, but it would probably mean something and this is supposed to mean nothing, but a friend can be a favorite person as well, so it doesn’t have to mean anything.

Jake’s brain went quiet for a moment before deciding it was late, he shut off the tv, woke up smith, and pushed the very tired man to the bedroom; because there was no way in hell Jake was gonna sleep on that couch again, its way to uncomfortable for that.

Chapter Text

Jake sat his desk, trying to organize the pile of files that sat, but he found it would be easiest to just shove them in his desk. The bullpen was rather quiet today, he didn’t mind it though.

Sometimes the quiet stresses him out, forces him to really think. But today it felt oodly comforting, Rosa was busy, Gina was sitting in captin holts office, and Amy was in the meeting room to use the whiteboard, she needed space so she could plan for a conference she had coming up.

He had a nice weekend, he really missed it. Jake opened his phone and contemplated if he should give in and text smith or not and before he could make a decision Terry and Boyle burst through the elevator.

Charles very loudly, started talking about this goose chase they had to go through to arrest a guy, that guy was currently in cuffs, in the precinct, right in front of Jake, Smith.

Who immediately locked eyes with Jake, a smile upturning; he knew he would be fine. Jake felt his stomach drop when they locked eyes. His mind racing, trying to think of ways to calm down.

He reminded himself that nobody knew about them, nobody knew who this guy was, and nobody was gonna know, it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine. Terry handed the man in cuffs off to Charles who led him to the interrogation room, Terry then walked over to Jake.

“Me and Charles are pretty sure he’s a dealer, he doesn’t have anything on him at the moment, but we’re pretty sure it’s because he had just given it to someone. You should have been there man, he ran for so long.”

Jake would have rather die than be there.

“Can I question him?”

“What?”

“I’ve heard of him before, I have stuff i need to ask him”

“this isn’t your case”

Jake frowned. He hoped Terry would be more understanding. Jake sighed before letting out a word vomit of “please” , “please” , “pretty please” he tossed in a couple “you won’t regret it” to really sell it to Terry.

“Fine! Whatever.”

———————————————————

Jake walked into the interrogation room, staring at smith who was cuffed down to the table. Jake somehow, just barely convinced Terry and Charles to not watch them through the false window.

“So, what happened”

“I dunno what you’re talking about”

“Smith,,just tell me.”

“I was just talking to a friend on the street, and your cop friends came over and started questioning us because the guy I was talking to had been arrested for drug activity a couple times, and I guess I was suspicious looking enough for them to be worried. Scum.”

Jake ignored the insult towards his friends. “They said you ran, why did you run” smith paused. He let his head fall back before looking at Jake again.

“I was hooking him up with some stuff”

“Oh my god.”

Jake sighed, he wasn’t sure how else to respond. He knew that smith was a dealer and he didn’t particularly have the right to be pissed; especially because of his new found habits. But he was frustrated, frustrated that smith got caught.

He was also frustrated with himself, he knew he wasn’t gonna let smith get in trouble for this.

“So what’s gonna happen?”

“I’ll tell Terry to drop the whole deal and that you ran because you were scared of cops” smith rolled his eyes, heavily. Jake held back from saying anything about it. “You’ll be fine and can go home.”

“I could also just wait out in the lot for your shift to be over.”

Jake sucked his teeth, frustrated with the smirk plastered on the man in front of him.

“I’m gonna go talk to Terry.”
_____________________________________

Jake walked back into the room, he silently uncuffed smith.

“You’re free to go”

As smith stood up Jake walked behind him practically pushing the man out the door. As they walked through the hallway Jake grabbed smiths arm and pulled him into a supply closet, limited space, and no working camera.

Jake gave smith a quick kiss

“Don’t do stupid stuff. At least in broad daylight. Seriously what were you thinking?”

“I don’t know” smith responded half heartedly, busy trying to get Jake’s jacket off.

“I mean what if they had more evidence? What if there was nothing I could do?”

“You’d bail me out” the blonde responded, now unbuttoning Jake’s jeans, who was mentally cursing himself because he knew it was correct. He would bail smith out. Oh well.

Jake ran his hands softly through smiths hair before tightly gripping it and pulling him down for another kiss, this time much less sweet.

_____________________________________

Jake leaned against a shelf, painting, his hair slightly damp with sweat. He looked up,,

“Does your head hurt?”

“It would feel better if someone didn’t keep their hands in my hair and yank it the entire time.”

Jake scoffed, “I had to keep quiet! just be happy I didn’t pull it out.”

Smith grabbed his own sweatshirt on the floor, he was too hot now to put it back on and instead used the sleeve of it to dry Jake’s face and shoulders. He handed Jake his clothes and waited for him to be finished getting dressed.

“You look disheveled, it’s your hair.”

“Okay, then fix it”

smith raked his fingers through Jake’s hair, he wasn’t sure how Jake’s hair ended up almost as messy as his but it’s alright. He got his hair to sit nicer and smiled.

“That’s better. How are you gonna get me out of here?” Jake sighed and opened the door to the storage closet, he left the room and shut the door with smith still inside, nobody was in the hallway, plus Terry and Charles weren’t anywhere near.

He opened the door back up and pulled smith out, they walked together to the elevator and eventually smith walked out the doors of the precinct.

Jake walked back to the elevator and headed back to the bullpen. Once the elevator doors opened Rosa stood in front of Jake, her arms crossed, with an amused expression.

Chapter Text

Jake looked at rosa, he was confused and wanted to know why she looked so smug; it’s not like she knows about smith, right? That would be practically impossible. So he breaks the silence.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. Just standing here”

Jake gave her a weird look but decided maybe she was just fucking with him, right? Oh well. He walked past her and to his desk but she just followed behind.

Once Jake sat down she pipped up again

“What have you been up to?”

“Interrogated a guy earlier. He was innocent”

Rosa nods. She looks Jake up and down her eyes fixate on his neck for a second before she looks back at his eyes.

“You guys just talked?”

Jake’s stomach flipped, she knows.

“Yup.” Subconsciously Jake shifted his body in his chair and rubbed the side of his neck with his hand.

“Yeah and that’s why you’ve got a hickey right there? Right underneath your hand? That definitely wasn’t there this morning”

Shit. Jake felt himself freeze, he realized he just forgot to try and cover,, that up. He knew he was taking to long to respond and had to think fast.

“Uhm, no it was there this morning”

Real smooth. He was surprised that he was able to even spit that out.

“But I also saw you and Mr, ‘Not Guilty’ go into the storage closet. The one with the security camera that recently broke”

Shit, shit, shit. Jake’s eyes were wide and he couldn’t even form a proper rebuttal.

“Uh-“

“And then I saw you pull him out of the closet and walk him all the way out the precinct”

“Well-“

“Speaking of the fact that we’re a,,precinct” she paused before saying precinct, as if giving Jake a chance to respond.

“We can’t afford to not have security cameras, and Amy fixed it not that long ago”

Jake’s face quickly flushed, he felt hot. He goes to pop his knuckles, bad nerves habit.

“Jake, I don’t care.”

He paused, his whole body paused.

“You don’t?”

“No. Not particularly. little weird? Yeah. I mean I know you like guys. But I didn’t expect you to be the type to go get hammered in the supply closet”

Jake choked on his own spit. His face growing redder.

“No that’s,-I wasn’t getting uh-“

“Like you were doing the hammering” she laughed at him. Unbelievable. Jake didn’t have the capacity to fight this fight; especially because he’d lose.

“Ok but what did you mean, when you said you knew I liked” he stopped talking, he couldn’t say it out loud.

“Guys? Do you remember when I told you I didn’t know how to come out to my parents? So you came up with this whole monologues for me to say, and then you started crying in the middle of it?”

Oh. He did do that.

“And all your guy crushes on celebrities?”

He was very open about those.

“I could go on”

“Don’t.”

She nodded.

“So how’d it happen? How’d you meet him?”

Jake looked around the bullpen. He had just realized they were talking about all of this in basically the middle of the room! Luckily enough though there wasn’t enough going on and their voices were quite enough that nobody was listening.

“I met him at a bar,,he was smoking pot in the bathroom. And I was going to do something about that, obviously. But one thing just let to another and I ended up at his house”

“Did you just accidentally fall onto his dick? You went to arrest him and ended up having sex?”

“I was drunk!”

“Jake.” He waited for the backlash, he braced himself for it.

“That’s hilarious. You hooked up with a guy smoking in the bathroom and are now getting him out of legal trouble and having sex in a closet. A closet Jake.”

He sighed. That’s true.

“Wait why do you think I’m getting him out of stuff? I wouldn’t do that”

“It seems plausible”

Was he that easy to read? Do other people somehow now all of his secrets?

“Are you guys dating?”

“No, we just, hang out.”

“Do you want to date him?”

Did Jake want to date him? I mean maybe. But that would mean he was dating a guy, and yeah he knew he liked guys but that would really, really mean he liked guys.

But he did want to continue every morning in smiths arms, he wanted to continue every breakfast sitting next to him. He craved to continue their meetups.

Dating would just make everything so real. He’d have to what? Tell people, deal with the consequences of having a partner, having a boyfriend. What would his dad think? His mom?

“Jake?”

He clicked back to reality.

“I don’t know”

“I think you should”

Jake nodded, it would be nice, to be official, he’s just not sure if he can handle it.

“How often do you guys see each other?”

“Couple days a week. He picks me up from work a lot”

Rosa nods, and bites back a sly remark. Jake feels so relieved, he told someone and they didn’t care or judge him. Sure she didn’t know smith was a legitimate dealer, but that wouldn’t change anything so no point in telling her, right?

“Was he your first guy?”

“Does it matter?”

“Guess not”

Smith wasn’t his first guy, maybe he was the first guy he got attached to. But that’s it. Well, he was also the first guy that cared about him. But that was really it.

“So what do you guys do when he picks you up?”

Jake’s face goes red.

Her smile grows “Every time?” She snickers at him

“No- just stop”

“You just get in the car and take your pants off?”

“No!”

He says no loud enough for Amy to look
Up from her desk in confusion. He quickly tries to play it off by laughing, as if he was just telling a grand joke.

In a more hushed tone he says

“You’re the only one who knows”

“I figured.”