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“Peralta.”
Jake flinched and looked up from his files, to see Rosa looming over him, wearing her usual flat expression.
“Wassup?” he said, leaning back in his chair.
“Can I have a word with you? In private?” Rosa asked, and then turned on her heel and strode off toward the briefing room.
“Sure Rosa, of course Rosa, I’d love to chat,” Jake muttered, heaving himself out of the chair and following her.
She was sitting on a desk when he let himself into the briefing room, the door swinging shut behind him. Her feet were on a chair, and she should have looked ridiculous but she looked cool as usual. He rolled his eyes, and sat down heavily on the chair in front of her.
“What’s up?” he asked, and she shifted, looking suddenly uncharacteristically slightly unsure.
“I wanted to talk to you about what you did for me,” she said.
“When I bought you that pizza?” Jake asked, lighting up at the thought, and Rosa rolled her eyes.
“No,” she said, sounding much more normal again. “I meant when you helped me with my parents and me coming out.”
“Of course,” Jake said, “anything for you.”
“It’s about when you said that you straight-splained coming out to me.”
“Oh yeah,” Jake said, making a face. “I’m sorry about that, I really just did go into the character-”
“No, it’s not that. Well, I guess it is.” Rosa looked unsure again, and that was very unsettling.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Jake asked, leaning forward and putting his hand on her knee.
“Don’t touch me,” Rosa said, glowering at him, looking normal again. Jake pulled his hand back quickly.
“Oops, sorry, forgot the Rosa rule.”
“It’s fine.” She took a deep breath. “Listen, Jake. When you did that speech about coming out to my parents… it seemed like it was really personal to you.”
Jake frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Jake, are you bi?” Rosa asked.
Jake blinked. “No? I’ve never even kissed a man.”
Rosa scoffed. “That doesn’t really mean anything, Jake, you could be bi but only ever been with women. And it wouldn’t affect anything obviously, but you helped me so much, I wanted to at least ask you.”
“Well, no, I don’t think so? I mean, sure, I sometimes think men are attractive, like John McClane in Die Hard and all the Marvel dudes, and Matt from college, and sometimes when I pass hot men in the street, I think about how soft their lips look, and oh my god? I am bi!”
He stared at Rosa, eyes wide. “How did you know?”
Rosa smirked. “Come on, I know everything.”
Jake nodded. “True that. I’m going to go tell Amy! I can’t believe I never knew this, everything makes so much more sense now! Thanks Rosa!” He jumped to his feet, and before Rosa could stop him, kissed her on the head and then ran out the room. Rosa smiled despite herself, and then her usual stoic demeanour returned as she got to her feet and left the briefing room.
***
The following day, Rosa was sitting at her desk doing paperwork when Jake ran into the bullpen, blowing an air-horn. Everyone leapt to their feet in shock, drawing their guns before seeing who it was, and Scully clutched at his heart, yelping.
“Hey everyone, I have an announcement!” Jake shouted, jumping up onto his seat, blowing the air-horn again for good measure.
“Yeah, dude, we hear you,” Rosa said, sliding her gun back into her holster and rolling her eyes.
“Yeah man, you gotta stop with the loud noises, one day Scully actually will have a real heart attack,” Terry said, gesturing over to where Scully was sitting, breathing hard.
“Mine are always real!” Scully protested. “I just have so many, my body’s used to them now.”
“That’s sad,” Jake said, “but enough of that! Back to my announcement.”
“Out with it, man!” Terry moaned, “Terry’s got work to do.”
“Well, you guys are really ruining my moment,” Jake complained, and then he brightened up. “But that doesn’t matter! I went through some really deep soul-searching in the last few days, Rosa helped me, we really got into it-”
“I do not believe you,” Gina interjected.
“Yeah, that’s fair enough,” Jake said, nodding, “but she did help me! And I’m not just copying Rosa, it’s just that her announcement sparked a revelation in my heart and in my soul, and-”
“Peralta.” Captain Holt had emerged from his office and was looking up at Jake with his classic straight face. “Please limit this announcement to a further one hundred and eighty seconds. You have already wasted more than enough time today.”
“One hundred and eighty seconds? Why so specific? What a weirdly random number.”
“That’s three minutes exactly,” Rosa said, and Jake blinked.
“Huh,” he said, “once again, thwarted by math.”
“ Maybe we should revisit our conversation vis-à-vis getting you a math tutor,” Captain Holt said thoughtfully.
“No, I don’t need to learn math, okay! I never use math in my daily life, I’m fine without math,” Jake protested.
“It’s one and a half minutes, now,” Captain Holt said, looking at his watch.
“Fine, okay, I’ll get to it, god,” Jake said hurriedly, and then took a deep, dramatic breath, turning back to the bullpen.
“So, as you all know, Rosa came out as bi a couple of weeks ago, and since then I’ve realised that I too am bi. I never realised before, but I’ve done some thinking and talked to some people and it turns out that not all straight guys have crushes on other guys, which came as a shock to me! Did everyone else know that?”
“Yes,” chorused everyone, and Jake shrugged.
“Fair enough,” he said, “but back to me! Rosa only gave you a minute for questions but I love telling people about myself, so hit me!”
“That’s your time up, Peralta,” said Holt, “stop distracting everyone and get back to work.” And with that, he turned on his heel and walked back into his office.
“Wait no, I want the attention!” Jake yelled, but everyone was already turning back to their work. “Noooooo!”