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Lucy awoke to her favourite view.
The golden sunlight streaming through the window, perfectly highlighting the edges of her very handsome boyfriend’s face. This was truly one of her favourite parts about living with him (aside from the fact that she could sleep more and do her makeup in the car). Waking up to just watch her favourite person relaxed and sleeping soundly next to her. Well, not for too much longer.
“mmh..”
His eyes fluttered open at the feel of her lips on his own.
“Hi, you.”
“Good morning.” And she leant down to press another slow kiss to his lips.
“Mm, it is a good morning.” He smirked and drew her closer, an arm pulling her to lie more on his chest. “You planning on waking up before me now, just to wake me up like this?”
“Yep. You complaining?”
“Never.”
A giggle escaped her and she let him take her in for another, both of them in their own little bubble. Nothing else mattered.
Her eyes briefly glanced across to his phone, turned on by some notification that popped up. And then she focused in on the four numbers at the top of the screen.
“TIM.”
—
Never had their bed been abandoned so quickly. Sheets tangled around their legs as they pushed away from each other and tried to get up without falling flat on their faces.
Roll call started in 50 minutes.
Which wouldn’t be a problem if her very handsome boyfriend didn’t buy the house she now lived in, 30 minutes away from the station.
“Can I-?“
“Go, go, I’ll get our stuff.” She pushed him towards the bathroom, dodging a now very confused half-awake dog who, like his mom, was now racing towards a massive pile of folded laundry. “Kojo, don’t you dare-“
Body blocking her baby, she scrambled through the pile to find the navy blue shirts and trousers they both loved to hate wearing. Those hours she spent the previous night meticulously ironing, all going to waste with the speed she shoved them into their work bags.
“Tim! Where’s your-? Never mind, I found it!”
“What?”
The shower turned off.
“I found it! Are you done in-“
“Yep!”
Skipping out on their usual kisses as they passed each other in the doorway, Lucy ran towards the bathroom mirror. Wincing at how mussed up her hair was, hair she did not have time to wash or blow out, she tied it up roughly with a scrunchie to keep it dry before hopping into the shower.
“How long have we got left?”
“Two minutes! Come on!”
“I’m coming-!”
“Did you not set your alarm?!”
She scoffed at his suddenly very accusatory tone. “Clearly not! You have a phone too, y’know. It’s not always my responsibility!”
“It absolutely is! We agreed you’d be the one to set it from now on!” That had happened after the first morning living together, when they nearly deafened themselves by two alarms simultaneously sounding off at full volume.
Lucy rolled her eyes and frowned. “Well maybe if someone wasn’t so desperate to have sex last night-“
“I didn’t exactly hear you complaining!”
“Wow. Okay. Don’t bother tonight then. I’m not in the mood.”
“Me neither!”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“Ugh, We don’t have time for this, hurry up!” He snapped back at her.
Now thoroughly frustrated at her totally not handsome anymore boyfriend, she threw her clothes on, grabbing her makeup bag from the counter as she ran out to the kitchen. They didn’t say a word to each other as he pushed her coffee flask into her hand.
—
The drive was silent. Both refusing to look at each other.
At least Tim had the excuse of keeping his eyes on the road, Lucy just felt like a petulant teenager, purposely glaring out of the passenger window. She had half a mind to pettily point out that he had just ran a stop sign, and as an officer of the law he was sworn to uphold-
“Can you stop?” A quick, irritated, side glance towards her.
“What now?” An equally irritated glance back to him.
“Doing that. With your foot.”
A habit Lucy had not fully kicked from childhood. Whenever she got distracted or nervous, she subconsciously bounced her foot up and down. And the current mood in the car was definitely putting her on edge enough to warrant it.
She forced herself to stop with a huff of annoyance.
“You know you left your towels all on the floor in the bathroom.” Another petty dig, but he’d started it now.
“You left your hair ties all over the counter.”
“I was in a rush!”
“So was I! And I asked if you could put away the dishes after I washed them last night, and they were still there this morning.”
“I was a bit busy ironing your uniform!”
“I ironed yours the night before!”
“Because it was your turn to! You know, if you don’t want me living with you anymore, I’ll happily leave.”
“What? Luce-“
“No, it’s fine. You make your mind up.”
And she was back to staring out of the window. Great. Now they’d spend all day pointedly avoiding each other. A problem when she was basically meant to be his deputy and aide.
—
Running into the locker room, Lucy realised another downside to being late. Her favourite two people to complain about Tim to, were already dressed and cleared out. Probably already waiting in roll call.
She quickly unzipped her bag, pulling out the now rumpled shirt and trousers. Another glance down at her watch hurried her along even more, and she didn’t pay much notice to the fact her shirt seemed a lot more comfortable than usual. It fit looser around her waist and it was a lot longer than-
The door opened a crack.
“Chen!”
Oh wonderful, now Lieutenant Grey had shown up.
“I’m coming! I’ll be one minute-“
“Where’s Bradford?”
“He should be there soon!”
—
Maybe the distraction of Lucy moving in had made him skip a few workouts- but surely not enough to make him need to get a bigger sized shirt.
Getting the buttons done up was hard enough, but it was also pinching his arms uncomfortably, and there wasn’t quite enough material to tuck in properly under his belt. Getting fat was one thing he had been warned came with age, but as far as he knew, you didn’t get a growth spurt at 40.
Time didn’t allow much more room for thought, and he was running back out the locker room while also trying to do up his duty belt.
—
And to both of their dismay, roll call was packed. Packed with almost thirty patrol officers, both wondering with slight concern about the whereabouts of their sergeants, and delighting in the fact that Sergeant Bradford was late.
“You first.”
“Excuse me? I’m not the watch commander.”
“I’m giving you the chance to not be the latest in.”
“No, you just want me to go in first so everyone can stare at me, and you can sneak in the front and keep the attention off of you.”
“The attention is already on me. I’ve never been late to roll call.”
“Ever?!”
“Ever. And now I suddenly start showing up late now you’ve moved in?”
“Well, I’m sorry to be such a burden. Fine. I’ll go first. You have a good shift.”
—
“Ooooh”
“You’re late, boot!’
“You both get distracted?”
“Late to bed last night?”
“Good morning. Sorry for keeping you all waiting.” And the signature Bradford glare managed to shut them all up pretty fast, and convey that he was absolutely not apologetic in the slightest.
Lucy, in fact, had gone in first. Through the back door. She clearly was making him pay for starting off their argument this morning.
Though her position at the back meant she could unashamedly stare at her boyfriend in the most unprofessional way possible. She may be mad at him, but that didn’t mean he stopped being easy on the eyes. Because staring at his face this morning would make her blood boil, she had no problem with setting her sights further down.
And his shirt was just clinging to him in a way that highlighted his abs and his biceps were so much more prominent than usual, not that she’d never noticed them in his uniform before but-
Wait. Oh God, please no-
“First thing first, The Captain has been concerned relating to the uptake in auto-theft in the recent months. So Smitty and Johnson, you’ll be covering South Park avenue and the surrounding area on plate patrol this morning.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Tim surely couldn’t be that tired. He blinked, and looked up from his papers. “Excuse me?”
“I mean, of course, Sergeant Chen. We’d be happy to.”
A round of sniggers and amused glances.
“Officer Smitty, I am not in the mood for whatever you clearly find amusing this morning. You have eyes and my name tag isn’t that hard to read-“
“No, it really isn’t.”
Tim froze. And looked down. To his girlfriend’s surname glaring up at him.
Oh, well, this was the end of both his dignity and career. However, the day he gave Smitty the satisfaction would be the day that his self respect crumbles. And today would not be that day.
“I am not in the mood for your antics. Need I remind you, and everyone in this room, about your recent-“
“No, ma’am.”
Oh for fucks sake. Keep going, Bradford. Don’t look him in the eyes.
The sniggering continued behind the desperate attempts to cover their faces with their hands. Tim and Lucy exchanged a mortified look.
He quickly shoved the remaining papers he was reading off of back into his folder, hurriedly closing it with a snap.
“All important memo’s have been forwarded to your inboxes. Please actually do your job and read them. Sergeant Chen, a word?”
—
“In here.”
The storage closet was never their best make out spot in the station, the amount of bruised elbows and shoulders could attest to that.
And it wasn’t the best either for when they both had a simmering irritation brewing between them, when their faces were less than half a metre apart.
In silence, the usual natural ritual of undressing each other was forcibly repressed as they both fiddled with the buttons of their own respective shirts.
“I’m sorry. I love you. Please don’t move out.”
Lucy’s fingers paused. And she tentatively looked up.
“But- if you really want to, you will tell me when, won’t you? Don’t just leave without-“
And Lucy wished she could permanently retract her previous comment from history. While it had been a good many years since his previous long term relationship, clearly some scars weren’t fading all that easily.
Isabel.
“Tim.”
“You promise me you’ll give me some notice, right?-“
“Honey.”
She finally got him to look back at her, and she smiled softly, most of the frustration and anger of that morning faded away.
She gently brushed a thumb over the small worried crease between his eyebrows.
“I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean what I said earlier. I- I would never just leave without telling you, you know that, right?”
“I, yes but-“ his words struggled to conform.
“Isabel promised the same thing, huh?”
Bam. Hit the nail on the head. She could read him like a book, and sometimes he was grateful for it. Saved him having to muddle his way through an explanation.
“…yeah. And then she just- I woke up and she wasn’t there-“
“You never, ever, have to worry about that happening again. Not with me. Do you hear me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. I know that happened and I shouldn’t have been so flippant at talking about leaving. I know it’s a sore spot.”
“You still want to live together, right?”
“Of course I do. I love you. I never want to live anywhere without you.”
And she dropped her forehead onto his chest and pulled him in, in turn feeling his arms gratefully wrap around her.
“I love you too. We’ll figure this out, the whole living together thing. Just might take some getting used to.”
“Yeah, we so got this. We’re gonna be the best at living together out of all of the couples we know.”
“Yeah we are.”
“Mhmm.”
And she broke away to smirk at him a little. “My shirt really suits you.”
“Good to know, you fancy helping me take it off?”
“Tim Bradford, when have I ever turned down an opportunity to take off your clothes?”
He laughed and pulled her face gently in for a kiss.
“C’mere.”
And she made him wait to unbutton hers until after she’d made quick work of his, gently pulling it off of his shoulders.
“I love you leaving your stuff everywhere. Just so you know. Reminds me I don’t live on my own anymore.”
And she softened even more. “And you’re never going to again. I’m never leaving. Ever. You’re stuck with me now.”
“Oh no. The horror.” He planted a small kiss to her hair as he started taking off his shirt from her very attractive chest-
“Mhm.”
“Mm.”
“Have to say, the shirt doesn’t sit right on you at all, but the name badge doesn’t look half bad.” He started on her buttons.
“Oh really? Well I think it’s up to you to make it a permanent addition to my uniform.”
“Well, Sergeant Almost-Bradford, you just have to wait and see. Don’t throw out the Chen one yet though, just in case.”
She lightly hit his chest, but used the opportunity to grab onto his white T-shirt, and pulled him closer for a kiss.
“What, you planning on using it? That’s very modern of you, Timothy.” He rolled his eyes, eager to get back to making out.
She was too. “I love you, Sergeant Almost-Chen.”