Work Text:
Tim POV
Taste
Tim stands in the break room with two empty coffee cups on the counter in front of him as he watches the last few drops land in the pot. He takes the fresh pot and fills both cups; one all the way and the other with room to spare. If there’s one thing he knows about Lucy Chen it’s that she refuses to drink her coffee black. All the time he spent training her and bringing her to his favourite coffee truck, he never managed to turn her to the dark side.
So he walks over to the fridge and takes out the oat milk she stashes at the back, and pours enough in her cup so that it no longer resembles coffee. Then he takes out two sugar packets and dumps them in. He grabs a spoon, stirs, then takes a small sip to see if it’s sickly sweet enough and with a disgusted look on his face decides that will probably do the trick. He firmly places a lid on each cup and heads back out towards the bullpen.
Tim walks over to Lucy’s desk and gently places her cup on the corner and gives her a smile as he goes by. She reaches out and grabs his hand quickly and gives it a squeeze as a silent ‘thank you’.
When they finally make it to the end of the day Tim is surprised to find Lucy already waiting by his truck. He walks up to her with a smile on his face and before he has a chance to register what is happening she’s got her hands around his neck and is pulling him down for a pretty heated kiss.
“What was that for?” he asks when she finally releases him, “not that I’m complaining.”
“That was for bringing me a coffee this afternoon, it was exactly what I needed and you made it perfectly,” she says.
“Well, if that’s the thanks I get I’ll try to bring you coffees more often,” he smirks.
Touch
“Okay, can I have everyone’s attention?” Grey says from the front of the roll-call room, “The latest crime scene photos of the new disposal site have come in courtesy of our friends the Feds,” Grey tells the room as he points the remote at the TV and pre-loaded images pop-up.
They’ve spent the better part of a month on a joint task force chasing down a prolific serial killer who likes to leave their victims in public areas near trash bins, garbage bins or other places that are often considered ‘dirty’ or 'unclean'.
Tim and Lucy are sat next to each other in the second row from the front and carefully listen to the new information Grey is giving them while looking at the new photos.
Grey is about to move on to the next picture but hesitates for a moment. He looks around the room and his eyes land on Bradford and Chen. Seeing that they are sat next to each other he knows it is okay to continue. He gives Tim a quick look then keeps talking.
“The most recent victim was left in an opened oil drum near a homeless camp,” he says before switching to the photo.
Lucy sees the photo of some tents and makeshift shelters with a rusty old oil drum in the corner where it’s clear there is a person inside. Her breath catches but she doesn’t allow herself the luxury of looking away.
Tim’s hand instantly finds her thigh under the table and he gives it a gentle squeeze.
She manages to relax a little and focuses on the warmth from his hand and her breathing before looking back at Grey and continue to take in the information about the case.
Tim’s hand stays on her thigh for the remainder of the briefing not caring about anyone who might be able to see under the table. Most people in the room know about Lucy’s experience with Caleb and know they are in no place to judge.
After the update is over and everyone has their new assignments Tim and Lucy hang back together while the room empties out.
“You good?” he asks her once they are alone.
“I’m good,” she says.
Smell
Tim is at the grocery store buying specific ingredients for a dish he wants to make for Lucy along with a few other essentials when his phone rings. He brings his cart to a stop and pulls his phone from his pocket and sees Lucy’s name.
“What do you need?” he asks in a light teasing tone. He knows that she knows he’s out shopping so there’s obviously something she forgot to put on the list.
“What? How do you know I need something?” she asks.
“Because you know I’m at the store and you’re calling me,” he says.
“Okay fine, can you pick me up some body wash please?” she asks.
“Of course, what brand?” he asks because he doesn’t want to go and get the wrong one or a scent she won’t like.
“It doesn’t matter, just get whatever is on sale,” she tells him.
“Lucy…”
“What? It’s fine, seriously,” she insists.
“How about you text me a picture of the one you have now,” he suggests.
“Okay fine, I’ll text you,” she says giving up.
“Thank you. I’m almost done here so I should be back in 30,” he tells her.
“Okay, see you soon, bye.”
Tim takes his cart to the correct aisle and looks at all of the body wash options for one that looks familiar. He hears his phone go off again and sees the picture that Lucy has sent. Looking at the shelves he sees the right brand but not the right scent. He decides he doesn’t want to settle for something other than the lavender vanilla that he’s gotten accustomed to and figures he can stop by another store on his way home.
He ends up going to not one, not two, but three different stores before he finds the right one and it makes him late getting home.
He walks in the door and deposits the grocery bags on the counter.
“Finally,” Lucy says coming out of the bedroom, “I was starting to think you got lost,” she jokes.
“Not lost, just had to stop at a few more places than expected,” he tells her as he takes four bottles of her lavender vanilla body wash out of one of the bags.
“Tim! Please tell me you didn’t go all over town for this,” she says surprised by his clear dedication to her request for body wash.
“Not all over town, just around town,” he admits.
“I told you, you didn’t have to get the same one,” she reminds him.
“I know but I like this one, I’m used to it,” he tells her.
“You’re used to it?” she questions.
“It’s your scent,” he says, “You’ve been using a version of this pretty much since we met, or at least since we’ve been together. To be fair I probably wasn’t paying much attention to what you smelled like when you were my rookie,” he says.
“Tim Bradford, are you saying that you like the way I smell?” Lucy asks him as he walks over to him and wraps her arms around his body.
“Yes Lucy Chen, I happen to love the way you smell,” he says as he kisses the top of her head and holds her.
Sound
There are a lot of things Tim loves about Lucy, or has learned to love during the time that they’ve been together. He loves how she’s always introducing him to new food, that she has a collection of silk robes, way too many coffee cups; but what he really loves about her is her laugh.
He never paid it much attention before he began having feelings for her. He’d hear her laugh at something that Nolan would text her or some ClipTok that Tamara would send. Then he began to hear her laugh at him, which surprisingly didn’t bother him as much as he expected.
Now he hears her giggle at some dumb show she’s watching, something in a book, or something that Kojo does that she finds hilarious.
Tim realizes he’s able to pick her laugh out of a crowd now, it stands out to him in a way it never did before.
So now he finds himself in the Grey’s backyard at a BBQ scanning the crowd for her. He knows she’s around, they came together; he just doesn’t know where she’s wondered off too.
“Are you even listening to me?” an annoyed Angela asks.
“Yes, I can multi-task you know,” he says as he brings his focus back to his friend in front of him.
Angela just gives him a disapproving yet challenging look.
“You were talking about how you can’t believe how quickly your kids have grown and that you feel like time is moving so fast, that you’re thinking about going on your first proper family vacation and you’ve now asked me for at least the tenth time this month about me and Lucy starting a family,” he says.
“Wow, you really were listening Bradford, I’m impressed,” she tells him with a smirk.
Just then Tim hears it; he hears Lucy laugh across the lawn and turns his head to see her. At the same time Lucy looks away from Aaron who she’s talking to and makes eye contact with Tim and smiles.
He smiles back.
“You really got it bad don’t you,” Angela says after noticing the interaction.
“In the best way.”
Sight
Tim has gotten fairly good at reading Lucy. It started when she was still his rookie, he could always tell when she was upset about something. This skill of his has only improved exponentially since they’ve been together.
Something he didn’t expect to tell him so much about Lucy’s emotional state however is her hair. He’s learned that he can tell a lot about Lucy depending on what her hair looks like.
Normally her hair is down and wavy. He’s learned that sometimes she adds curls with a curling iron but otherwise wavy it its natural state.
When it’s straight that means she’s doing something related to undercover work. When they were in Vegas her hair was straight, when she and Isabel went under together she straightened it and when she was Jamie Hall it was straight.
He once told her he liked her hair like that but since then he’s retracted that statement; he much prefers it wavy.
Now that she’s detective she wears it down most days. However when she knows she’s going to be out of the station following up on leads or doing interviews she tries to keep it pulled back in some kind of braid just so she can keep it out of her face a little.
He’s also learned that if her hair ever looks messy or out of place in any way that something is wrong.
He saw this in a varieties of situations with her over the years weather it was after the shoot out on her first day back after Caleb, or when her and Nolan nearly got blown up, or after she fought off Kira’s boyfriend. If the Lucy Chen braid is not in mint condition something is up.
So when he sees her across the bullpen next to her desk talking to Harper and notices that her hair has fallen out of her braid he knows he needs to check in with her.
“Excuse me,” he says to the other Metro officer he’s in the middle of a conversation with. He strides over to where the two women are chatting and Harper politely excuses herself.
“Hey,” Lucy says when Tim comes up to her desk.
“Are you okay?” he asks immediately.
“Of course, why?” Lucy asks trying to figure how he could possibly know that she just got back from going toe-to-toe against a man that was the size of a linebacker. She’d gone to follow up on a lead about a new motorcycle gang in town that was apparently introducing a doctored version of ecstasy onto the streets.
“You’re not,” Tim insists, “your hair is out of place,”
“My what?” Lucy asks confused as her hand goes to the back of her head to feel how her French braid is holding up and realizes there are indeed some strands that have come loose. “Oh,” she says admitting defeat.
“Ya, ‘oh’, so what happened? Are you good?” he asks again.
“Yes, I’m good. But I did just fight off a guy like 4 times my size so I will be in desperate need of a bath later, and in order for me to feel any better at all,” she says laying it on thick, “I will need you to join me,” she tells him.
“Oh you will will you?” he asks with a smirk.
“Yup, your presence is mandatory, it’s the only way,” she insists smiling at him.
“Well, I guess I’ll just have to grin and bear it,” he jokes, “especially if it’s essential to your recovery.”
“You, Tim Bradford are essential to my everything.”