Chapter Text
An hour later, the paperwork was all filed and the two men were both stretched out in their chairs at the detective’s desk in the mostly-empty precinct. “Man, your dad sounds like a total dick. Yeah, Holt can be a total robot sometimes, but he’s still a great captain. I practically slammed into him in the elevator that time I did the FBP and he wasn’t even mad at me.”
“Who or what is an FBP?”
“Oh, dude, the Full Bullpen is when you slide in your socks, and a riot helmet because safety first, all the way from the Captain’s office across to the elevator. They’d just waxed the floors and we’d all been on night shift for weeks so we were all going a little crazy,so I made it allll the way in, but the elevator opened and I totally couldn’t stop. Thought I’d be fired and out on the curb selling my body for gas money and. . . ohhhhhh, yeah, one of the charges you were picked up on was solicitation, so I prooobably shouldn’t say that. . .” he trailed off with a grimace.
Klaus leaned back in the chair, grinning crookedly at him and lacing his fingers behind his head. “S’ok, happens to the best of us, and I’d have made sure you were ok out there in the cold cold world. Anyway, cool story, but I can definitely top that.”
“Bro I love you, but you’ve never once topped in your life.”
The reactions to a man suddenly showing up, dressed all in black and wearing a strange leather harness full of knives were simultaneous.
“WOAHHH, WHO’S THAT??”
“DIEGO!!!”
“Hey, Klaus, Patch told me you got picked up again. Detective Eudora Patch, uptown,” he explained to Jake as he extricated himself from where he’d managed to tip his desk chair over in surprise. “She’s a . . . friend of mine, and she’s got Klaus’s file flagged to ping her if he gets picked up, as a favor”
“Patch, yeah, I think I’ve heard of her, she’s at the-”
“Yeah”
“Anyway, we, um. . . “
“They were totally a thing way back when,” provided Klaus, helpfully.
“Uh, yeah. Anyway, thanks for keeping an eye on him, I know my brother, so I hope he wasn’t too much trouble for you.”
“Ha, you should have seen him this morn-”
“No, your brother was no problem at all, sir,” jumped in Amy. “He was a huge help in a current investigation, and another one he wasn’t even a part of, and we’re not even charging him for destruction of property for the pair of handcuffs he managed to break, he was so helpful.”
“Hey, Amy, what’re you doing?” he leaned across their desks to stage whisper.
“He’s already helped us with the biggest break in the drug ring we’ve had so far, plus we finally have a breakthrough in the homicide case that we wouldn’t have without him,” she shot back. “I know it’s totally not by the book, but he could be a huge help to the department if we kept him around . . . unofficially officially. I looked up his family, Jake, and. . .” she slid a printout across to him, side-eying their guests by the desks.
Jake looked at the sheet of paper she’d handed him, then up to the two men.
Back down at the paper.
Back to the two figures.
“Oh. My. GooodddDDDDD! Your name, the tattoo, you’re-”
“Yep,” Diego responded with a grimace, speaking for both of them since his brother had slid down in the chair while leaning back over the low backrest dramatically, both hands covering his face. “That’s us. So you can understand why we-”
“Oh absolutely, there’ll be no press on this at all.”
“And we might have other cases where his. . .unique skills would be of great help, provided our Captain ok’s it.”
“Wait, you mean,” Diego broke off, laughing skeptically, pointing to the seated Klaus.
“It’s not something normal-”
“What’s going on over here?” Rosa had appeared behind Diego, and was eyeing over his vigilante gear curiously. “You got a permit for all those?”
“Yes, I do in fact and it’s more than just a sheet of paper saying ‘I do what I want,’ now that- WOAH!”
Seemingly out of nowhere, she’d pulled out her massive saw-backed dagger, brandishing it casually. “‘Cause I like knives, too.”
“Heyyyyy, Rosa,” Jake jumped in, “meet Diego, Klaus’s brother. Why don’t you get his number in case, you know, anyone here wants to get a hold of him later. For totally official purposes.”
Not breaking eye contact from where the two were squared up, the dark-haired detective nodded in agreement “yeah, sure. Official purposes.”
For a moment, there was a tense silence over the small group, before Amy broke it, slamming shut the binder in front of her. “Well, that’s that done for the day. Jake, why don’t you get our guest here signed out so we can all go home?”
“Oh, yeah. Here you go Mr., um, Diego,” he slid an open file and a pen across the desk, where the other man , finally breaking the stare down with Rosa, leaned around his brother to scribble a messy signature. “Yeah, there, and there and there.” Once he was done, the detective plucked the file up, flipping it shut and tossing it into a pile on his desk, no looking where it landed. “And now he’s all yours to go, bro.”
“Uh, actually,” Klaus shot a skinny arm up, cutting him off as he unfolded himself from the chair, “if I’m reading this right, my brother is gonna be pretty ‘busy’ this evening, so don’t mind if I just mosey off and make myself scarce for now. Gotta get on with my busy schedule of finding whose bed I’m staying in tonight,” and Klaus, straightening his coat collar, turned to leave.
Before he could take more than a couple steps past the desks, though, Jake had jumped up, blocking him from leaving. “Wait! Wait, wait, wait, dude, if you don’t have a place to crash for the night, why don’t you stay on our sofa for now? I’m sure Amy won’t mind, do you, Amy?”
“Jake, I-”
“Aww, c’mon, it’ll be fun! And this way we can keep track of him until we get things worked out with the captain for him to be an actual consultant here.”
“Hey, is this consultant gig paid? Like, an actual job paid?” Klaus had that sideways grin back, and had grabbed handfulls of Jake’s jacket shoulders.
“Hell yeah, man! I mean, once Captain Holt says it’s ok, but I’m sure he will.”
“You mean you’d let my brother do actual police work?”
“Well, civilian consultant work, but he’d get to do cool stuff like help us solve murders and hang out with everyone here, and we’re super cool.”
“It’d be an occasional thing, but yes, we do hire on special consultants for cases,” Rosa added.
“Then yes, yes I will work for you, Detective Peralta.” His eyes perhaps a little shinier than before, Klaus pulled a flailing Jake into yet another awkward hug, but this time he didn’t try to push the taller man away as soon, stiffly hugging him back.
Breaking the silence that followed, Diego turned to Rosa, who’d put away the massive knife by then, with a smirk, “so. . . wanna go grab a drink?”
“Sure, I guess,” she shrugged. “Can you ride on the back of a bike?”
He gestured for her to lead the way out, “let’s go find out.”
“See ya, Jake, Amy,” and the two were gone.
Extricating himself from the hug, Jake turned to scoop up his stuff from the desk before joining an already-packed Amy and the skinny, still-grinning man. “Ok, sleepover time, this is gonna be TOIT.”
Suddenly, he froze.
“Jake, what is-”
“Ames, we have a genuine ghost hunting team now-”
“-actually I’m more of a ouija board, ‘cause you know, the tats-”
“We’re the 99th precinct, paranormal division!”