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Chris doesn’t hate the night shift.
She’s certainly not one for early mornings, yet something about the still quiet of night is soothing in a way she never quite expects.
Still, she’d prefer to be in bed, but Hicks has to give 20-squad the night shift once in a while.
The team will pass the time with mindless games, a workout if energy is high, until the sun peeks over the horizon painting the sky shades of pink and orange.
Under the caress of a velvet blue sky is where Chris thinks the squad settles most easily into a family.
She finds that her guard slips slightly, the people she’s known for a decade seem to steal their way into her heart in a way that she doesn’t quite allow under the harsh glow of the day, no matter how much she wants to.
The team sits, sprawled, in any corner of HQ they can find. Their breaths smell like too much cheap coffee, and their limbs are loose.
If the situation calls for it, Chris knows the team will spring into action, but warrants aren’t served at night and she supposes criminals have to sleep too.
Still, they’re here as a precaution, so the team plies themselves with sugar and caffeine in hopes of staving off thoughts of soft pillows and warm beds that creep across their minds.
She’s careful not to sit too close to Street, just a shoulder pressed together when they lean against a wall, or an ankle hooked over his. It’s for her benefit, more than anyone else’s; she’s so used to sleeping surrounded by comforting tendrils of the smell of his detergent that she’s afraid that she might let her eyes fall shut.
Street may be her boyfriend but she’s pretty sure he wouldn’t stop the team from drawing with sharpie on her face.
Chris likes the games they play; sure, they’re a little juvenile, but they’re fun and Luca’s face when she wins at Monopoly again is priceless.
When the team finally realises that orange is the best set she’s screwed, but for now she remains close-lipped and lets the taste of success melt sweet on her tongue.
Sometimes the team opt for something different, and the games will become reminiscent of a high school party that she’d snuck out to at sixteen. They play truth or drink, alcohol substituted for shots of whatever awful concoction can be made with the fruit and vegetables in the fridge. It’s games like these where she learns just a little more about her teammates, their lives, their struggles, even their dreams. Occasionally she wonders if the team turns deep, buried, pain into a game for the same reason she keeps her heart behind solid stone walls. Walls that are gradually being deconstructed, brick by brick.
Hicks allows them a reprieve from training due to the late hour, but sometimes Hondo insists.
There’ll be groans, but ultimately the team will complete whatever workout is thrust upon them.
The sweat drips down her neck in a way that she doesn’t love, but she likes the playful grumbling throughout that Hondo pretends not to hear.
Chris also likes when they’re in the ring, likes the steady thump of gloves against pads. She likes challenging her teammates, likes the banter and heckling, likes the satisfaction of a win.
But what Chris especially likes is stolen moments with Street.
HQ is stripped down the bare minimum personal, and it’s easier to escape for a moment of privacy.
She’s adamant about not sitting too close to him but she tends to find kissing him by the sinks in the locker room does the opposite of making her sleepy.
She likes the way his hips will crowd hers and, while they’d never go too far in HQ, she likes the way her heart beats just a little faster at the implied meaning.
Chris would rather be in the comfort of her apartment with him, but she supposes the night shift isn’t so bad.
-
Street hates the night shift.
He hates the way the city is cast in shadows that hide secrets, hates the way he goes to sleep at a time he should be waking up.
More than anything he hates the way he can’t touch Chris.
Five years worth of sidelong glances, smiles held close to his chest when she succeeds, and Street thinks the trickle of resentment that runs through him when he hears the words ‘night shift’ is justified.
While the hum of longing thrums through his veins red-hot on any shift, there’s something about the night shift that heightens the feeling into something sharp.
He thinks maybe it’s because Chris lets her guard down, bares her heart to him and the team just a little more, but perhaps it’s the way she looks at the end of the shift. Eyes sleepy, but still breathtakingly beautiful in the warm orange hues of the rising sun.
If things had been different, circumstances changed, he would have pressed kisses to her lips in that light.
Then one day, everything hurtles into startling colour.
There’s nothing that prevents him from watching Chris for a little longer than a friend would, nothing that stops him from letting his shoulder rest against hers.
The team still play the same games, but this time Street gets to sit next to her and hold her hand in his under the table.
She lets him kiss her on stolen breaths in the locker room, lets him tell her he loves her between desperate, teasing, kisses.
Her eyes will turn towards his on instinct, and when their gaze catches she doesn’t look away, instead allows a smile to spread across her lips.
She fiddles with the bracelet on his wrist, fingertips lightly grazing his wrist, and he watches, desperately trying to calm his heart so she doesn’t feel the speed of his pulse.
The back and forth is different now, there’s no delicate line that has to be tread. He can stand inches away from her and instead of a pained look in her eyes as she moves away she steps closer.
But most importantly, he can kiss her after their shift, in the parking lot, pressed against her truck.
The rising sun paints fiery brushstrokes of tangerine and gold across her face and finally, Street can fulfil the need to press lips to hers in that light.
Street still doesn’t love the idea of the night shift, still prefers not falling into bed as the sun rises, but perhaps it’s a little better when Chris falls alongside him.