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“Hey everyone,” Jake says, all casual and drawing out the ‘hey’ as he rounds the final corner to his former desk, throwing a hold-all bag down on the floor from one hand while clutching a coffee in the other. It’s nice to feel the squeak of the linoleum beneath his shoes once more.
It’s like he never left. Excepting the obvious and slightly distressing lack of clutter and dirt covering his desk right now.
Jake stares around the room, delighting in everyone’s gaping expressions.
“Did you miss me?” he asks eventually, as the silence stretches on, before taking a swig of his coffee.
“I- Jake- you- you’re back?” stutters Amy as Boyle screams, “Jake,” really loudly, running in from the side in order to envelope him in a bear hug. Of course, Charles isn’t that big so more like a baby bear hug. A baby bear squeeze.
“I missed you too, buddy,” says Jake, patting him on the back with his free hand, leaning carefully to put down the coffee cup. Charles shares Jake’s grin but as soon as he pulls back from the hug the smile drops, replaced with concern. Jake feels his own falter in response.
“What happened?” Charles says, half-whispering, as if someone had died.
“Whuh?” replies Jake, moving his gaze to Rosa who’s standing at her desk, arms folded, with one of her grimmest expressions.
“What happened to you, Peralta? You look like a heroin addict’s abandoned cat.”
“Well this is nice,” says Jake, huffily, “shouldn’t you all be commenting on an amazing job done amazingly and not my appearance?”
There’s some more uncomfortable silence shared between the group as Gina winds her way over to him.
“Oh, sugarplum,” she says while rubbing one of Jake’s arms comfortingly, head tilting, “I’m sure you did super well or whatever on your secret mission I know absolutely nothing about, but check yourself, hmm? You look like death. You look worse than death. You look like-“
“Okay, thanks Gina. Thank you,” Jake cuts her off. He turns his gaze on Santiago who looks stricken. Jake’s chest constricts slightly so he grins more in order to shake off the 360 degree looks of concern.
“Are you missing a tooth?” squeaks Amy, staring up at him aghast from her desk.
“Oh… yeah, I am,” Jake admits, “I haven’t had time to go to the dentist? Also, I haven’t got a dentist. Does anyone have a recommendation for a dentist?”
“My brother-in-law should be happy to help you, Peralta,” says Holt, calm and level as ever. If Jake detects a tiny glimmer of worry in his eyes it has to be more due to the vibes of the room rather than Holt himself.
“Good god Peralta, what happened to you?” yelps Terry, choosing that moment to join them.
Jake hurriedly picks up some papers in order to slam them down in disgust. “Isn’t anybody going to congratulate me on bringing down a crime family single-handed?”
“Well, no,” mutters Amy, “since it was in no way single-handed.”
“Okay, fine, for my vital service then. Vital. They said it in the debrief.”
“Do you want me to get you some food, Jakey-Jake? I don’t mind. Or I can make you a sandwich?”
“I don’t want a sandwich, Boyle!”
“It’s just you’re looking so thin and-“
“All right fine! I may have lost some weight undercover-”
“You’re a stick,” says Gina at the same time Boyle asks, “Does this mean you want food?”
“No, Boyle! Shut up, Gina. And yes, I lost a tooth when a drug dealer punched me in the face, and yes I still have a black eye from when another drug dealer also punched me in the face, but I didn’t lose a tooth that time, so every cloud, eh?”
“That’s… that’s not what that phrase means,” Amy says, weakly.
“You guys could at least aim for excited-slash-happy to see me,” Jake says, and sits down in his chair, sulking.
“Look at it from our point of view, Jake,” says Amy, “you turn up, no warning, after six months, looking like… Steve Buscemi,” Jake starts spluttering but Amy carries on, “and you don’t expect us to be a little alarmed at, er… all this?” She waves a hand around in his general direction.
“I wanted to surprise you all,” says Jake, a little plaintive, before conceding, “but I guess I didn’t take into account… all this,” with a mimicking wave of his hand and a sigh.
“Oh Jake,” says Charles who leans down awkwardly to hug him in the chair.
“Ow, ow, okay buddy,” says Jake, “I also have some bruised ribs, stop leaning on me.” Charles jumps back and settles for looking happy from a safe distance.
“Okay, so who wants to see my bitching scar?”
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Later, at the ‘welcome back’ party in the bar, and after numerous rounds of drinks.
“Y’know, I kinda had a crush on Steve Buscemi…”
“Okay. Okay? That’s. Okay, I’m totally into this but, also, never admit that to anyone ever again.”