Chapter Text
The first time Amy Santiago sees Jake Peralta in a new light, he’s kneeling over a table in art class, holding a paintbrush so loosely it might as well fall out of his hands. It’s five o’clock in the afternoon, when people somehow find it in themselves to share words that’ve fallen dormant. She’s trying her luck at watercolors at the next desk, to no avail. The occasional car passes by, headlights casting shadows past the blinds.
There’s a sea-green creation on Jake’s page, trails of color blending into each other, and Amy knows she’s been bested.
He is fifteen years old and undeniably good at drawing mermaids. They are twisted and sunken and hollow-looking, smirking and open-eyed as if alive on the page. Amy frowns down at her own paper, a coarse, red lily wilting as its paint dries and darkens. Smears of the runaway hue run down the page; unbeknownst to her, there’s a pink line along her temple, left over from the moment she brushed her hair back into a bun.
Amy thinks back to elementary school, five years old as Mrs. Peralta teaches students how to draw a perfect circle. Good for him. Good for his masterpiece.
She takes a deep breath, swirls her brush in a cup of murky water, and looks around the art room for shades of green. She takes ten surveys of the room before awkwardly, furtively tapping the Peralta boy on his shoulder. It’s obvious he cares, the way his eyes have glossed over as he adds strokes of detail to the picture. He just doesn’t care about her. Jake doesn’t even register Amy’s presence until the brush is down and he’s mercilessly signed his name.
“Sorry.” His voice jars the quiet as he sets his work aside to pass her the paints. “I tend to zone out in places like these. My mistake.”
“It’s no issue.” She smiles back. “No issue at all.”
“You’re Amy, right? We have history class together?”
“Yeah. And you’re Jake?”
“That I am. My mom’s the first-grade art teacher.”
“I remember,” she replies, smiling softly. “You were the one who wasted a bottle of glue so you could peel it off of your hands.”
“And you got into a fight with Jenny Gildenhorn over the history of the pyramids, didn’t you?”
A grin pulls at Amy’s lips. “I don’t take art history lightly.”
“And I don’t take forensics lightly,” Jake says, his ears turning slightly red as he smiles. “I was five. It was for fingerprinting.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so,” Jake responds, washing out his brushes before walking out of the art room. Amy meekly takes a picture of his painting before slipping away as well. She misses the trail of pink on her face as she walks out. It’s barely noticeable, anyway, what with the blush on her cheeks.
They really, truly meet a few months later, seated across the room from each other in what can only be an abandoned classroom. Amy sends a glare Jake’s way (what? he never raises his hand in class) and he mouths a quick explanation. When the ‘Mission Impossible’ music plays overhead, speakers malfunctioning and the presenter uncomfortably trying to sing along, Amy bites the inside of her cheek trying not to burst into laughter. Jake inches closer and doodles little images of the detective on the NYPD pamphlet. Soon, Detective Christiansen is wearing a pair of spy sunglasses and the thickest, most unnecessary eye black he can think of.
“Never knew you could draw caricatures,” she scrawls onto a piece of paper, folding it. Santiagos aren’t normally scrawlers 一 there’s a reason they all have favorite fonts 一 but Jake Peralta’s worth making an exception.
“Never knew you had a sense of humor,” he writes back, erasing the edge of the detective’s face and sharpening his cheekbones. It’s an uncanny impression of someone he hasn’t known for five minutes.
Christiansen leaves, holding two ‘Junior Police Recruitment’ signups with pride, neither belonging to Jake nor Amy. Realistically, she should text her mom for a ride, but Jake says he’s walking home and she, all of a sudden, decides a few extra minutes can’t hurt.
“Before you go, show me how to draw?” Amy asks, pulling a sketchbook open from her book bag. She takes a graphite (yes, graphite, it’s one of her pet peeves) pencil from behind her ear and hands it to Jake.
“Ames, Ames, Ames,” he coaxes, silently realizing they barely know each other and he (definitely) doesn’t have the liberty to nickname her. “You think we can go over that before we go? This is art. Humans have waged wars over art, have fallen in love with paint and clay.”
“Calm down, Michaelangelo. You’re just a freshman. Show me, please?”
“Okay, but you have to admit I’d be a different ninja turtle than Mikey.” Jake grins, taking the pencil Amy hands him. “Art’s all about practice. Just get started and keep going.”
Amy rolls her eyes, but an odd peace settles over her heart as Jake draws a circle, then an oval and a jaw, then waxing moons for eyes. Before she knows it, Gina Linetti is smiling up at her from the page. “That’s … really good. You did that in, like, two minutes?”
“Well, you don’t have to sound so surprised about it,” Jake scoffs. “I’ve been friends with Gina for, like, years. Ages. A decade. Of course I know how to draw her.”
“What kind of advice is that? I think, if you’re a good artist, you just know how to draw people. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known them.”
“Fine, I’ll prove it.”
Jake scrunches up his face in some distorted scowl, somehow squinting and winking all at once. His knuckles are quickly turning white, the pencil threatening to snap under his grip, as Amy slowly, poorly appears on the page. Her eyes are too far apart, the edges of her face improperly aligned as they grow smudged under the weight of Jake’s hand. He lets out an exhausted breath, letting the pencil drop and dapple Amy’s face one last time.
“You didn’t even try, you drama queen.” Amy crosses her arms. “Your eyes were closed!”
“Were not,” he mumbles.
“I look like a Picasso painting. My eyes aren’t even level. One of my ears is between my mouth and my chin.”
“Well, if you’re going to have such high standards, you should seriously consider commissioning an artist...”
“Please draw me, Jake Peralta.” Amy chuckles. “Please show me. I can’t offer much in return, but I’d really, really like it.”
“When you say it like that,” Jake says, shutting one eye as he smiles and framing his friend’s face with his thumb and pointer finger L-shapes in the air, “how can I say no? Just hold still for me.”
Amy gulps quietly, craning her neck in the slightest way possible to see her face appear out of nowhere. She bites her tongue, seeing herself come into view with every scratch of pencil on paper. Peering at the final work, a casual reflection glances back, soft-eyed and rosy.
“That’s, um, really nice,” she admits, incomprehensibly able to resist the urge to say she told him so. Amy pulls at the hair ties around her wrist, speechless at Jake’s efforts. “Thank you. Really, I wish I could return the favor.”
“What, you can’t draw?” He frowns a little before laughing, a ridiculously good combination. “Everyone’s worth something. Even me.”
“Don’t say that,” Amy admonishes, something invisible tugging at her heartstrings. “Here, I’ll draw, I’m just … not the best at it. I’m more into art history.” Biting the inside of her cheek and twirling the end of the pencil around her fingers, she tries to keep from fidgeting.
“Okay, what would you say about this?” Jake points finger guns at his drawing of Amy, eliciting a laugh. “As an art historian, you know. In your professional opinion.”
“Alright, I’d say you have composition down. Nice lines, nice anatomy. Your shading takes advantage of that negative space. Definitely a good handle on realism.” She pauses, smiling. “I’d know better than anyone else, right?”
“Right.” Jake looks up, alight with Amy’s compliment, glancing lovingly at the graceful streak of paint along her temple. “Do you want to keep it?”
“That’d - that’d be great.” She spins the pencil between her fingers yet again, shy to know him so well after a mere hour. “Um, you want to go now?”
Amy pulls her messy bun out of its tangle on her way out, tucking hair behind both ears as she and Jake walk out of the school. The motion leaves a smear of graphite along her neck. He compliments her sneakers as they walk to her house (“it’s closer! I don’t mind going out of my way to drop you off, Ames”) and they linger at the front door once they arrive. By now, the sun has halfway set, giving the cars along Amy’s street a dim silver lining.
“You’re a dim silver lining,” Jake retorts, upon Amy’s mention. “Well, I mean, you - you’re not dim at all. You do calculus practice problems during passing period, don’t you? And you made that art piece last year with blackout poetry from classic literature. So, I guess, you’re, um, my silver lining?”
“Smooth,” she giggles.
“Shouldn’t we go in?” he asks, avidly hoping to change the topic.
“I have seven older brothers. The minute anyone sees you, there’ll be about a million questions. My brothers will call you ‘bro’ and my parents will arrange a marriage with your parents or … something like that.” Amy’s voice stutters off into the distance near the second half of her sentence. “I’m just preparing to you face them, okay?”
From the window facing the door, the blinds are pulled up and Amy’s mother peers through. “Hi!” she shouts, breaking the barrier between her, her daughter, and a few inches of glass and metal. “Would you like to come in?”
“Mom, just open the door,” Amy answers, reaching into her backpack for her key.
“What’s your name? I’m Camila Santiago!”
Frustratedly, Amy unlocks the front door and beckons Jake in. “You know you can get the door open from the inside, right?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Her brother Luis mutters off to the side, only halting at the staircase when he catches a glimpse of the Santiagos’ guest. “Wait. Jake Peralta? From the park?”
“Um...”
Amy’s mother snaps her fingers. “That’s how I know you! You’re that kid Luis and Vic always play hacky sack with! What’re you doing here?”
“He walked home with me,” Amy responds. “We go to school together.”
“How sweet,” Camila says. “Would you like to stay for dinner, Jake?”
“Would you like to stay forever?” Luis chimes in, smugly grinning and making a heart in his hands.
“Uh, dinner sounds great. I’ll just text my mom and tell her,” Jake replies. “You’ll have to wait and see about that second option, though.”
“Why are you so sad? It’s your birthday,” Amy frowns, folding her arms across her chest with cold as she sits on the park bench near the precinct. “You’re twenty-five! Live a little!”
“Hypocrite. Your birthday’s tomorrow, and you don’t seem excited, either. You’re twenty-four! Live a little!” Jake mocks, raising the pitch of his voice.
“Very funny,” Amy retorts, rubbing her eyes as the lights of the city flicker, carried out by passing cars. “Come on, Jake, quit lingering and sit down next to me. We have the rest of the night off! We could stay up late talking, if you want.”
“Like we used to, right?”
“We still do it,” Amy scoffs, “just, you know, less.”
“Title of your sex tape,” Jake blurts, familiarly smirking. His face is still visible amidst the haze of the darkness. “You walked right into that one.”
“Fine,” Amy concedes, hiding a smile from her friend. “But don’t tell me you didn’t need this. You’ve been kind of out of it today, haven’t you?”
A stagnant pause sits in the air, wind blowing past their backs, before Jake sighs. “My dad got remarried today. He sent me an invite on Facebook. Surprise, I didn’t RVSP.”
Amy doesn’t dare correct him. Shivering slightly and pulling her cardigan tighter around her waist, she waits for Jake to resume. She knows him well enough to expect a few follow-up insults after a statement like ‘my dad’s getting married today’ (it’s Roger’s fourth wedding, as if she can be surprised after years of hearing about his antics.)
“He got together with a passenger. I bet she flirted her way into first class or joined the mile-high club with him or something,” Jake says under his breath, a hint of caustic exhaustion hiding behind every word. “You should’ve seen their invitation. They looked so happy, pretending to walk down the aisle. It just made me wonder, you know, how he’d be so lucky as to get four women to marry him. I wonder if I’ll even get married. Just once.”
“You’re only twenty-five. You have plenty of time.”
“Yeah, and I’m wasting it all in overtime. Name the last time I even went on a date.”
Amy bites her lip. “You’re not wasting it, you’re catching perps and making Brooklyn safer. And, besides, your last date was four months and two days ago. It’s not the end of the world.”
“You’re unbelievable.” Jake grins. “How d’you even remember that?”
“Well, to be truthful, I was kind of … jealous the last time you got a date. I haven’t gone out with someone in, like, seven months,” Amy says, staring at the ground between her feet. The dirt’s cracking with age, the August heat affecting even New York. “Try watching all seven of your brothers become fiancés, then husbands, then fathers. Try going to family reunions alone.”
“If you want, we could … sort of insure ourselves, I guess, against dying alone.”
“Yeah, like that’s a thing,” Amy grumbles.
“I mean, we could … marry each other.”
A single car coasts by, silver by nature and grey with dust, casting light around the curbside. Amy’s throat feels dry, her heart somehow sunken in her chest. Their conversation seems stuck in time as Jake removes his arm from around her neck; she silently curses at the loss of his warmth, unwilling to ask him to return.
“Of course, Ames, not now-”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“Like, in ten years. Far, far off in the distance. What do you say?”
“It sounds like a good idea,” Amy concedes, tucking a flyaway strand of hair back behind her ear. “We both want the same things, right? Kids? A house? Good careers?”
“Right,” Jake replies, draping his jacket over Amy’s shoulders. She laughs a little, burying her hands in his pockets and finding gum wrappers (“you never know when you might need gum!” “one day, you’re going to wash your jacket and get gum stuck to the inside” “joke’s on you, I never wash my jacket”) and a red velvet box.
“Did you plan this?” she asks, wide-eyed.
“Maybe.” He clicks the box open, taking a tarnished ring and slipping it onto Amy’s finger. “Amy Santiago, will you marry me when we’re thirty-five, given that we’re just as lonely as we are today?”
“That’s a pretty poor proposal,” she says, looking at the aged gem in the glow of the streetlight. “I’m saying yes anyway."