Chapter Text
“Hey, babe, I’m home!”
The door makes a distinctive clicking noise behind Jake as he locks it. It’s only one of the many sounds he’s getting used to; his new home is full of them, and they’ve become much more noticeable now that he’s here every day. He’s known his way around this apartment for a long time, but living there, permanently, is different. It’s a good kind of different, though.
“In here!” Amy shouts from her – from their – bedroom, and Jake hurries to hang up his jacket and bag before going to greet his girlfriend.
He’s coming home late tonight. A questioning at work dragged over after a surprise confession, and as exciting as those are, Jake’s bitter over missing dinner and Property Brothers with Amy. He half hadn't expected her to be awake still, but once he was finally free to text her that he was on his way home, she replied straight away to tell him she'd be waiting. Rosa had teased him about how wide he’d been smiling, but Jake hadn’t found it in him to care.
Amy’s laying on her stomach in bed with a thick book leaned against the pillow, resting her chin against one hand as she reads and holding up the cover with her other. Jake recognizes the book; it’s Prisoner of Azkaban, the third book in the Harry Potter series. He was reading it himself a few weeks ago.
“Ah, Harry Potter. Good choice.”
Amy closes the book against her index finger and looks up at him. “Yeah, you inspired me. How was work?”
“We got a confession,” he grins. “It was dope. Guy just started rambling, pretty much told us his whole life story for some reason, and now we have him. I even got to call the victim’s mom, tell her the news.”
“Sounds like a good day, then.”
“Yeah. Missed seeing you, though.”
“You see me all the time, babe. We live and work together.”
“I know, so it makes me feel even weirder when I don't!”
Amy laughs, letting out that adorable chortling sound he only ever hears when they're alone. Then she looks back to her book, scooching closer to her preferred side of the bed, and Jake takes that as an instruction to change into pajamas so he can join her.
Any regular night, he would probably have taken time to shower and brush his teeth first, but it's been a long day. He simply undresses instead, smirking as he notices Amy’s subtle side glance when he takes off his shirt. This, these small moments of appreciation between them, is yet another one of the parts he loves most about sharing a life with her – it’s nearly midnight, he’s exhausted and he remembers Amy mentioning starting her period, so sex is almost guaranteed to be off the table – but she still makes him feel attractive, makes him feel confident and wanted. He never realized how much that being an equal exchange meant to him before their relationship.
“So,” he asks her, “where are you up to in the book, then?”
“Almost finished the whole thing,” she says, looking very proud of herself. “I’m at the time-turner chapter. Harry thinks he saw his dad cast a patronus from the other side of the lake, but then he realizes just saw himself.”
“Man, that part was so sad.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah!” Jake huffs, crawling underneath the covers. “I just… felt for him, you know? He wishes he could meet his parents, just once, even if he knows it's impossible. He wants this family he never had.”
“It makes you realize how in the end, he's just a kid. A brave kid, but a kid.”
“A kid in desperate need of therapy.”
“Amen,” says Amy, flipping a page. “Hogwarts mental health services do seem to be severely lacking. Did you know the dementors were inspired by the author’s own experiences with depression, by the way?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Dark creatures with the power to bring out all the worst memories in your head, making you feel like you’ll never be happy again. Like you can’t even remember what it’s like. And the only way to defeat them is to hold onto the very happiest moments of your life and create a shield out of them.”
“Kind of deep for a kid's book,” Jake reflects, and Amy nods.
“Maybe. But it's not pushed on them, either. It's a way for them to understand, without knowing that they're understanding. I always loved that about the Harry Potter books,” she says, a sudden dreamy look in her eyes. “They're just… intelligent.”
Jake means to agree with her, but then his body remembers he's been at work for the entire day, and out comes an embarrassingly big yawn that makes Amy laugh.
“Long day? I can read to you if you want.”
“Dreamgirl,” he mumbles. Amy rolls her eyes, but then she reaches out to pull him closer, her left hand running through his hair as she holds the book with her right, and he can see her smiling.
Jake's not sure how long she's reading for. He loses track of time, but frankly, he doesn’t mind. Amy's reading voice is low, peaceful enough to relax him but varied enough to entice him at the same time. Her fingers keep brushing through his curls as she reads, tracing soft circles on his scalp. He listens to her read the part where Harry and Hermione fly on Buckbeak to rescue Sirius, and it doesn't matter that he read the book himself just a few weeks ago, because he could listen to her voice forever.
He gets to do that now, he realizes, because they live together now. It may only have been a week, and not completely without its challenges, but it already feels like one of the best decisions of his life. Even though they were spending almost every night together before as well, there’s something special about coming home and Amy already being there. Not because they’ve made specific plans for her to be, but because that’s the norm, because home is the same place for the two of them now. There’s something intimate about getting to share a routine with her, working out a system for who gets the bathroom when in the morning, adding stuff onto the same grocery list. Even seeing his t-shirts next to hers in the dresser puts a smile on his face in the morning. It feels grown-up, and it feels stable, and it feels right.
He wonders sometimes if he could have imagined this the night she knocked on his door to tell him screw light and breezy. Honestly, he probably could have, even if he was too proud to admit it to himself in the beginning. But after a year and a half of dating, of which six excruciating months were spent apart (and hopefully no more will ever be, he thinks), Jake couldn’t care less about pride. He loves Amy Santiago, and he wants to spend all the time he can with her, give her everything and share his life with her for as long as she’ll let him. That, if anything, makes him proud. In any case, it’s like he said that first night undercover as Johnny and Dora – there’s really no one else’s opinion he cares about more than hers.
Amy finishes the chapter, reaching for a bookmark before putting the book on her nightstand.
“There,” she laughs. “That’s your goodnight story.”
“Mm, one more chapter.”
“Mm, no. It’s late, babe.”
“I have a question,” he says then, knowing it’ll garner her attention and give him some more treasured quality time before they really have to go to sleep. Amy raises an eyebrow and shakes her head lovingly at him, but then she nods. “Harry’s patronus is a stag, right? Like his dad’s animagus form. And in the fifth book, Hermione has an otter, and Ron some kind of dog.”
“A Jack Russell terrier. Yeah, why?”
“How is your patronus determined? Like… how does it know?”
“It’s supposed to reflect your innermost personality,” she answers, not missing a beat. “It represents something about you that makes you who you are. Something that gives you strength, I would say. So for Harry, that would be the thought of his parents fighting for him.”
“I like that,” Jake says. “A lot of things in that universe are just grossly poetic though, aren't they?”
This makes Amy chuckle. “Very true.”
“What do you think yours would be?”
“Oh. Hmm.” She presses her lips together. “I don't know. What do you think?”
“We could find out,” He grins, reaching for his phone. “I’m sure there's a BuzzFeed quiz.”
He's right – and although Amy rolls her eyes at him at first, they end up having a laugh at the quiz, picking the options they think best suit the other one and shrugging when the results suggest Amy’s would be a horse, and Jake’s a stag.
“The descriptions are pretty accurate, though,” Amy says, reading from Jake’s phone. “Brave and fearless, and your greatest asset is your ability to love. Sometimes you get a bit hot-headed and impatient –” Jake fake-gasps. “– but your friends are your source of peace, getting you through the good and bad.”
“I still think it should be a ninja turtle,” he mutters. “But yours is true, too. Loyal, smart, underrated badass.”
“It just gave us the same patronuses as Harry and Ginny.” Amy smiles. “They do get together later, so I guess that works.”
“Spoilers! I haven’t gotten to that part yet!”
“Oh, come on, it’s really obvious.” She kisses the pouting grimace off of his face. “Different question. What memory would you use to cast your patronus?”
“I have thought about that,” he confesses, blushing. “It’s a three-way tie. The first time you told me you loved me. That evening when you stood outside my door and told me you wanted to be with me, for reals. Maybe even our first date, after the bet. All of those, together… I think they’d make a damn good patronus.”
“Wow.” Amy almost looks taken aback, like she wasn’t expecting that moment of sincerity. “I’m surprised you didn’t just say the first time we had sex or something.”
“Would you have wanted me to say that? Wait, is that yours? Santiago –”
“Oh my god, obviously not –”
“Obviously? Wow, hurtful, much –”
“Just let me finish!”
“Title of –”
“Stop!” Amy’s shaking with laughter, holding her hand on top of his mouth just for a second. “Stop, stop. What I meant to say was that it’s the same for me. That’s what I’d think of, too.”
“Even the bet? Even though you lost?”
“Yes, babe. Even though I lost.”
“So it wouldn’t be the first time we had sex, then.”
She smirks. “We’ve had better since.”
Then she leans over him, and her lips are on his, insistent but soft at once. His heartbeat’s speeding by the time she pulls away, and it satisfies him to see that her face is a little flushed, too.
“For the record,” Jake mumbles as she rests her head on his chest after, “this, right here – would also work for a damn good patronus.”
“Oh, yeah. No dementor would stand a chance.”
“Mm. You’re a nerd, but I love you.”
“I love you, too. Goodnight, babe.”
“Goodnight,” he whispers, wrapping his arms around her and allowing himself a brief moment to revel in the feeling that’s started growing in him recently.
Forever, this could be forever.