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A blessed silence had encased the precinct for the past hour and apart from the occasional sound of a pencil falling to the floor or beep of the microwave, Rosa had spent the morning in a pure bliss.
Not that she despised noise, but she loved the quiet. That productive quiet that makes you feel like a part of some bigger hivemind, where you’re contributing to a common project but aren’t expected to speak to your co-conspirators.
Her bliss couldn’t last forever of course, by virtue of the precinct also containing Jake. He had his legs up on his desk, twirling a pencil within his fingers like a fidget spinner. “Do I walk loudly?”
“What?” Rosa said.
Not grasping onto the snap in her voice, Jake continued unfazed. “Amy says I walk loudly, wake Mac up and stuff. I don’t though, right?”
“Ha,” Rosa snorted, figuring that she could forgo the niceties with Jake. “You walk like a startled elephant.”
“Not true!” Jake said, dropping his legs down from the table indignantly. His shoes made a loud squeaking noise as they collided with the floor, drawing in the attention of everyone else around them.
“Pretty sure you just proved Amy right,” Terry shrugged, barely looking up from his computer.
“Okay, okay, maybe I get a little excited sometimes but I walk like a sleuthy tortoise,” Jake responded.
“Oh please, you can’t even sneak past your own desk without making a noise,” Rosa said, raising an eyebrow at Jake. “I bet you couldn’t walk past any of us without being noticed.”
“Can to!”
“Cannot,” Rosa said, crossing her arms across her chest.
“Wanna bet?”
Rosa gave herself a couple of seconds before answering, for the dramatic effect. Naturally, she was going to say yes, but it never hurt to start torturing your opponent before they even knew they were in a competition. Allowing herself an air of intrigue, she leaned forward over her desk. “That depends on what.”
“Let’s find out,” Jake said, digging his hands into his pockets. Turning them inside out, he dumped the contents onto his desk and gaped at the options. “Alright, so. We’ve got a, uh, receipt, I think. From CVS. For diapers. Wow, I’m a dad. I can also offer this golden penny, or maybe that’s rust. A dollar that a proud American seems to have decorated with a Hitler mustache. And as a grand finale, a granola bar of unknown origins.”
“How about on a wine glass? A nice one,” Rosa offered. “Hitchcock broke mine and you brought him over so that one is on you. Might as well make up for it, since I’m gonna win this bet anyway.”
“You’re on,” Jake said, jumping up from his desk and walking over. “Shake on it?”
Shaking his hand, Rosa nodded. Quiet was nice but she could appreciate the adrenaline rush of a good bet. Breaking the handshake and following Jake to his desk, she asked, “What are we doing to prove it?”
“Try to get past Holt,” Terry said from his desk again, gaze still fixated on the same exact page of a report he’d been editing all morning.
“As I like to tell Mac, it’s not good to peep on other people’s conversations,” Jake said, making little tsk tsk sounds in Terry’s direction.
“Mac is 2 months old, Jake,” Terry responded, lowering his glasses to give Jake the gaze of a judging founding father.
Ignoring the banter, Rosa focused on the challenge. “What do you mean, ‘get past Holt?’”
“He’s been in his office all day, rearranging the bookshelf,” Terry said, nodding to the door to Captain Holt’s office which currently lay completely ajar. “Facing away from the doorway, unable to see who comes in or out.”
Opening his arms for a sense of suspense, Terry looked between his two tributes. “Now, just because he can’t see doesn’t mean he can’t hear. And the Captain’s hearing is immaculate. I say each of you tries to sneak in, deposit an object on his desk, and sneak back out, all without being noticed. Whoever succeeds, wins.”
“What if we both succeed?” Jake asked.
“I doubt it,” Terry said, crinkling his face.
“Hurtful,” Jake said, summoning a look of fake hurt that didn’t quite land very organically alongside the competitive grin forming across his face.
Shrugging, Terry returned his gaze to the monitor. “Prove me wrong.”
“You up for it?” Rosa said, punching his arm.
“Am I ever not?”
“Who’s going in first?”
“Ladies first,” Jake said, performing a little twirl and a bow for Rosa as if in some Tinkerbell reenactment.
Rosa audibly groaned but couldn’t deny the small—immeasurably, extremely, boundlessly infinitesimal—warmth of adoration for the ridiculousness of her friend rising to her cheeks.
Shifting her leather jacket on her shoulders in what she hoped was an intimidating motion, she slapped the desk with her palm. Stopping her hand a millisecond before it made contact with the wood she made sure to put it down as gently as possible, the whole movement not making as much as a fragment of a sound.
“You’re on,” she said, already turning away and on her way to scope out Captain Holt’s office, hoping that she was leaving Jake with that vaguely impressed vaguely horrified expression that he so often wore around her.
To her dismay, this task was probably not going to be as easy as she had let on in front of Jake and Terry. It was one thing to bluff, but now she needed to plan.
Terry hadn’t been kidding when he said that the Captain had incredible hearing, and looking at the proximity between the Captain and his desk Rosa could tell that getting in and out without him noticing—even if he had his back to her—would not be an easy undertaking.
She didn’t even care about the wine glass that much, frankly it had been really kind of Jake to bring everyone in the first place and the little pile of broken glass as collateral damage was hardly a bother. She’d put him through more than enough with her coming out and springing her parents on him at such a personal moment. The logical part of her knew he didn’t, but the paranoid part of Rosa feared that Jake might even resent her for putting him in that position.
His fear of displaying emotions—not that Rosa had any right to judge—made it impossible to tell if he held a grudge and Rosa did not have the conviction to return to the issue.
Pushing the spiraling thoughts out of her mind, Rosa forced herself to refocus. She might not care about the glass, but she did want to win. Rosa didn’t lose.
Taking off her shoes and laying them to the side with the sleuth of a crouching panther, she positioned herself with her back flat against the wall. On the other side of that wall, she could hear Captain Holt humming the tune to Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.
She patted her pocket just in case, making sure that Jake’s ID was still there. She’d swiped it from his desk when they were setting up the bet earlier, figuring that it might throw Jake off later when he was doing his own invasion of the Captain’s office to see his own face on his desk. Also, it would just be funny to see him explain to the Captain how that got there in the first place.
“Here goes nothing,” Rosa whispered under her breath, casting a glance to Jake’s empty desk before slipping into the intimidating expanse of the captain's office.
She’d planned this as well as she could in the time that she had, she was confident. Rosa had removed every piece of clothing that might make a sound, remaining in yoga pants, a fuschia sweater, and a pair of ankle socks. She had to admit that it made her look like a ballerina experiencing a midlife crisis, but everyone at the precinct was far too afraid of her to ever comment on it so she did as she pleased.
Keeping to the wall out of the Captain’s sight, Rosa moved forward with stealth enviable to even the most cunning predator. A predator, that’s what she was. A predator with a mission and goal, one she would complete no matter how heavy the pressure became.
Giving herself a mental slap for how immersed in a meaningless competition she was becoming, Rosa nearly hitched a breath as she saw the Captain move, bending down to grab one of the colorful binders that usually composed a rainbow. Holding it up to survey like a treasure worthy of the Silk Road, he hummed even louder and placed it back on the shelf.
Breathing out a huff of relief, Rosa dared to breach another couple of inches forward, just enough to reach the surface of the desk if she strained hard enough. She hoped Jake and Terry were watching, so they could appreciate her agility. Be intimidated by it, ideally.
Reaching for the table, her hand grazed one of the Captain’s beloved rulers, not a centimeter off from standard protocol. Letting a smirk run across her face as she deposited Jake’s ID beside it, Rosa saw something that made the blood within her veins turn into stone.
The captain had picked up another one of the colorful binders and was positioning it beside the other, setting them directly parallel. Rosa knew what would come next, and she didn’t have the time to do anything.
Next, the captain would reach for his favorite ruler to measure the distance between his favorite binders.
“Diaz, I did not hear your knocking.”
Realizing that she’d shut her eyes, Rosa opened them immediately, jumping up to a rigid upright position. “I apologize, I thought it would’ve been insulting to interrupt a rendition of Vivaldi.”
“That is certainly true, however next time please announce yourself,” Captain Holt said, reaching for the ruler. His eyes inevitably fell on Jake’s ID lying face up on the table, brows furrowing. “It appears that Peralta has forgotten his ID on my desk, in a room he has not been in all week.”
“Must’ve left it a while ago, you know how he is,” Rosa said weakly.
She had a feeling that the Captain knew that his detectives were playing games, but he did her the mercy of not commenting on it. “Certainly,” he said, wrapping the plastic card within his palm and walking toward the door.
As he neared the threshold, the Captain extended his arm in a clear gesture of “you first.” Doing her best not to audibly groan at her failure, Rosa walked out with all the confidence that she could muster.
Walking out behind her with confident strides, Captain Holt headed straight for Jake’s desk. “Peralta, it appears as though you have misplaced your identification documents so far that they made it all the way to my desk.”
Holt gave the statement a couple of seconds to land, sighing when no answer became apparent. Giving a questioning look to Terry only to be met with a fidgety shrug, the Captain said to no one in particular, “It appears as though Peralta has not only misplaced his identification, but himself as well.”
Before Rosa could agree, she heard a sudden shuffling behind her.
Breathless, Jake slipped up at her side, feigning a mischievous grin. “No need to issue an Amber Alert, Captain, for I have returned.”
“An amber alert is for children, Jacob. You are not a child.”
“Amy might like to disagree,” Jake chuckled. He extended his hand to retrieve his ID from Holt’s grasp, slipping it into the waistband of his pants where Rosa was sure they’d soon get lost anyway.
Holt simply nodded, turning around and heading back to his office. As soon as he was out of earshot, Jack snapped his fingers and did a 360° turn in his place. “Piece of cake.”
“Well, I did just get caught,” Rosa sighed, glaring at Jake for gloating before he’d even done his turn.
“I, however, did not,” Jake grinned. “Like a boss.”
“You haven’t even tried yet,” Rosa said incredulously.
“Well, then how do you explain the little thing I just left on Holt’s desk.”
“What?” Rosa said, practically jumping where she stood. “How?”
“Magic, the great art of fantastical sorcery.”
“You’re bluffing,” Rosa called him out, crossing her arms once again.
“Feel free to check,” Jake responded, descending onto his chair and lazily stretching out as if sunbathing at a resort. After finishing with a far too leisurely inhale, he beckoned to the window to Captain Holt’s office. “My brilliance knows no bounds.”
Rosa snorted, unsure if she should hold her ground or go check. As much as Jake liked to clown, she’d known him long enough to be aware that underestimating his skills was a mistake.
Sulking over to the window, she found an open inch between the blinds and peered through.
The Captain was humming to himself again, picking up the Vivaldi’s concerto right where he had left off. Placing the last binder in its rightful place he returned to his desk, likely looking for a pen to mark off the binder arrangement on his checklist. Instead, his gaze settled on something else.
A small bi flag, lying innocently on the desk. It looked like it came out of someone’s pocket and desperately needed ironing, but gleamed nicely in the bright lighting of the office.
Captain Holt surveyed the intruder, Rosa hitching a breath that he’d probably throw it into the trash with the rest of the crinkled papers that Gina chucked into it every morning. Instead, the Captain stopped his humming and picked it up.
Placing it right into the cup holding his rainbow pride flag, he gave it a little pat. “Right where you belong.”
Rosa stared at the scene just a little longer, frozen in a jumble of repressed emotions. Cursing herself for getting so vulnerable over something so small, Rosa turned back around just in time to catch Jake giving her a little wink.
Wrapping her coat as tight as it would go to escape the scathing cold of New York’s winter, Rosa rung the doorbell.
The door swung open within seconds, a sleepy Jake opening the door mid yawn. “You’re here early.”
“Dude, it’s noon,” Rosa said.
“Right,” Jake nodded, taking a swing out of the glass of water that he was holding, appearing to hold more ice than water. Catching sight of the snowflakes gathering in Rosa’s hair, he opened the door as far as it would go. “Come in, come in, my humble guest.”
Wiping off her boots, Rosa noted that she couldn’t hear anyone else. “Where’s Amy?”
“She took Mac to her mother’s, they’ve been really kind with helping us out with Mac,” Jake responded. “She wanted to catch you, but family duty calls.”
Taking off her coat, Rosa took out the poorly wrapped object that she’d been harboring underneath. Extending it to Jake, she said, “For you. I did lose the bet.”
“Aha!” Jake exclaimed, lifting the wine glass straight out of its wrapping and holding it up to the sunlight glistening through the windows. The glass was strained red at the bottom and sparkled beautifully against the light. “I can hold this, right? It’s not some expensive scary antique or something?”
“Don’t worry, it’s not,” Rosa grinned. “Now will you tell me how you did it?”
“‘Twas quite simple,” Jake grinned back, plopping onto the couch and rolling her a bottle of orange soda across the coffee table. She accepted it, taking a seat across from him.
“When you were changing out of your jacket and getting rid of whatever metal and weapons that you carry with you at all times, I simply just snuck into Captain Holt’s office same as you did,” Jake said, pouring some orange soda into the glass where his water used to be. “But unlike you, I didn’t try to put anything on his desk while he was there, I just hid under the desk.”
Realization dawning through her, Rosa squeezed her orange soda bottle as if it were a stress ball. “So you just sat there and waited for me to mess up, get caught by the captain, and put the flag there when he went outside to return your ID?”
“Precisely,” Jake said smugly, pulling his feet under himself on the couch and bouncing up and down on the cushion.
“Okay, but you couldn’t have known that I’d put your ID there, for all you knew it could’ve been anything else and he wouldn’t have left his office at all,” Rosa said, narrowing her eyes.
Looking a little guilty, Jake shook his head. “I saw you swipe it off my desk.”
“Oh come on,” Rosa groaned, pulling a hand down her face.
“I’m a cop, Rosa,” Jake laughed, spreading his hands. “I tend to notice pickpocketing.”
“Fair enough,” Rosa said, suddenly wishing that the soda had contained something a little stronger. “Thank you for the flag, by the way.”
Waving a hand, Jake huffed as if it were nothing. “I thought it’d be a good touch.”
“It was.”
“How are things, with uh, your parents?” Jake said, looking like he regretted asking the question the second that it left his mouth.
“They're fine, definitely much better about me being bi than what you had to witness,” Rosa said, sinking into the cushion. She thought that she could feel him sinking too.
“That’s good to hear.”
Watching Jake’s playful expression slip into slightly awkward discomfort, the words left her mouth before her brain could stop them. “You don’t resent me, do you?”
“What for?” Jake said, eyes widening.
“For springing my parents on you like that, pulling you into my hell of a coming out mess.”
Clearly taken aback, Jake narrowed his eyes. “Rosa, I don’t resent you at all. I’m kind of the CEO of getting into messy situations around here, you can’t really shock me in that department.”
Neither of them said anything after that, unsure if it was appropriate to be serious or humorous about the topic. Rosa swallowed, for the first time in a while she wasn’t enjoying the silence.
Just as she was about to give into the burning temptation to flee, Jake placed a careful hand on her shoulder. It permeated with warmth, and as he lifted his eyes to hers, Rosa saw that characteristic softness that he so rarely allowed himself to express. “I get it, Rosa,” he said, continuing to look into her eyes with that odd, perceptive understanding. “Being silent about who you are, it’s deafening.”
“You get it?”
Jake didn’t address her question, just letting loose a small smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “The more people that are able to live freely, the more free we all are. I don’t resent you, Rosa, I am proud of you.”
Rosa opened her mouth and promptly closed it, finding herself lost for a response in those rare moments where her friend exposed his introspective side. Jake was making himself vulnerable in front of her, and Rosa didn’t know how to express to him how much that mattered.
“Thank you,” she said, voice involuntarily dropping to a whisper. She hoped that Jake didn’t notice the layer of mist forming in her eyes, but simultaneously prayed that he did. She didn’t talk about it, but prayed that Jake understood how much it mattered to her that he did.