Work Text:
Chris is prepared for the jokes.
The sideways looks from coworkers, people that she wasn’t friends with, but people she thought at least respected her.
Not for the first time, she feels the nagging feeling of doubt slip its way into her thoughts.
Chris walks with her head held high, even as her hands shake, until she pushes open the door to the locker room. Thankfully empty, she sinks down to the bench and places her head in her hands.
She was tough, there was no question of that, but she hates how a few looks could chip away at her defences so easily.
Steeling herself, Chris stands and pulls her locker door open with a little more force than is entirely necessary. It swings and hits the locker next to hers before bouncing back and hitting her across her knuckles.
She hisses out an exclamation of pain as red starts to bloom across her knuckles.
Chris is beginning to think that the universe is playing some cosmic joke on her.
Hoping to soothe the ache radiating through her hand, she crosses the room to the sinks, turning the tap as cold as it goes. The chill subdues the pain momentarily.
She looks at herself in the mirror, scrutinises every single aspect of her face. Vaguely she hears the door to the locker room open, but her position at the sinks doesn’t change.
“Hey,” she hears after a moment; a hand touched to the elbow of her injured hand.
She watches in the mirror as Street gently removes her hand from the cool water, wrapping it in an old shirt that he must have grabbed from his locker.
Or maybe hers? The lines between their wardrobes seemed more blurry by the day. The thought is enough to make her lips tilt upwards slightly.
He watches her face shift slightly, and a weight lifts off his soldiers. She isn’t mad at him.
He knows the sacrifice she’s making, how far she’s going to prove to him that he’s worth it.
Street’s heart contracts.
He removes the shirt from her now dry hand, placing featherlight kisses across the bruising knuckles. Her eyes close in relief.
She lets her forehead rest on his. Street knows Chris better then he knows himself, she’s always been his best friend, and he knows the level of trust she must have in him to initiate such an act of intimacy in a place where they could be walked in on at any moment.
He knows that she’d probably never kiss him within the S.W.A.T. building; knows that this is her silent way of communicating how much she loves him.
They both relish the moment, a second of closeness, their breaths mingling together.
She’s the first one to move, pulling away, but she glances back at him as she removes her shirt to get changed into her uniform.
Theres no privacy in S.W.A.T., so he resists the urge to press kisses to her shoulders and heads toward the door. He stops, hand on the door handle, when she turns to face him. Chris hesitates for a second.
“Thanks,” she whispers, and this time he smiles.
“Don’t mention it.”
“See you in the ring?”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Street opens the door and exits the locker room.
-
Tan and Luca are at opposite ends of the ring, daring each other to engage first. They’ve got a bit of an audience, and Street begins to shout barbs at them both, trying to bait them into a fight.
Tan throws the first punch and with a flurry of blows he’s on the floor, Luca emerging as victorious. Street climbs into the ring and lifts Luca’s arm in triumph. The crowd watching cheers.
He notices Chris at the back of the crowd cheering along, perhaps with a glint of something in her eye.
“Who’s next?” he asks the crowd.
Chris pushes through the crowd and hauls herself into the ring, like she has something prove.
In her mind, maybe she does have something to prove.
She straps on her gloves and raises her eyebrow until Luca and Tan clear out. The air in the crowd shifts slightly as they realise who’s in the ring.
Street grins. She’s gonna thrash him and he doesn’t even care.
“Don’t go easy on me Street.” She smirks as she widens her stance. Street straps on gloves of his own.
“Sure you don’t need me to Alonso?” The banter comes easily to them, and for a moment things feel like they could be the same as they once were.
Luca counts them in, and before he can decide to be offence or defence, he’s flat on his back, Chris looking down at him with a self satisfied smile.
The crowd laughs and cheers as she offers him a hand that she promptly lets go of so he falls back down to the floor.
He pushes up off the ground, plays to the crowd a little, before he readies his stance again.
Luca counts them in again, and this time he manages to get a few solid hits in before he feels a leg sweep his out from under him.
“That’s cheating!” She laughs at his reaction, sparkling eyes teasing him.
“Sounds like something a sore loser would stay.”
This time he doesn’t wait for an offered hand. He pulls himself up and holds up his gloves.
This time when Luca sets them off he’s ready.
It’s a tense few minutes as the crowd watches them trade hits and blocks. Finally, he’s got her pinned beneath him. He notices the way her lips pull up in a smirk, and with an almost imperceptible shake of the head she hooks a leg around him, effectively causing their roles to reverse.
The crowd jeers at Street as Chris wins for the third time in a row.
They both climb out the ring and head towards a bench where they can still see Deacon and Hondo have a few rounds of their own in the ring.
Chris and Street sit side by side, thighs just touching. She glances over at him and smiles.
“Disappointed I’m so much better than you?”
He smiles back at her and glances around to make sure that no one is playing attention too closely to them. They’re not; everyone is focused on the match between Deac and Hondo.
Street leans in, lips just barely coasting the shell of her ear.
“Actually it was kind of hot,” he confesses in a whisper to her.
He watches the red rise up her neck and up to her face. If it weren’t for the crowd just a few metres away he would have followed the flush up her neck with his lips. But they’re not alone, so he settles for taking one of her hands in his lap.
“Shut up!” She laughs and with her free hand punches his shoulder. He feigns hurt but she simply rolls her eyes at him.
“I think you need to kiss it better actually.”
“Is that so?” She’s looking at him with something sharp and dangerous in her eyes.
“Yeah Chris look at me, I’m practically dying.”
He’s content to just tease her, but he feels something tug low in his abdomen when she stands and beckons him to follow her. Chris could be walking through the gates of hell and he’d still follow her.
They end up half hidden behind a pillar. Street checks once more that they’re alone; Hondo’s just taken Deac to the floor and the crowds focus is entirely on them.
He feels Chris shove his back into the pillar. There’s so much adrenaline and need thrumming through his veins that it doesn’t even occur to him that this is probably a bad idea.
She’s staring up at him, pupils blown so wide that he can no longer see brown, and when their eyes connect she slowly lowers her lips to his shoulder. The kiss, despite the layers of clothing, sets his body on fire and for a fleeting moment he forgets that his coworkers are mere metres away.
Chris pulls away, a smirk on her lips, well aware of the effect she’s causing. She starts to go to walk away but quickly she’s pulled back in by the hips.
“You can’t just do things like that and walk away,” whispers Street into the air between them.
“What about things like this?” Chris grips his jaw and pulls his face down to hers, connecting their lips.
Street had been pretty sure that kissing at work was off limits to Chris but he certainly wasn’t complaining.
After a few seconds she pulls away and smiles when she sees how dazed Street looks.
“Maybe I’ll pin you down later, at home.”
She laughs at his response to that statement, and with a final kiss to his jaw she walks off, rejoining the crowd.
Street thinks Chris may be the death of him.
Chris thinks maybe she’ll be able to get through work just fine.
Her knuckles hurt, and she still notices glances, but she cannot bring herself to care, not when she has Street in her corner.
Metaphorically, and literally apparently; she can see him attempting to compose himself half-hidden by the pillar.