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Jake Peralta was never a stoner. Well, Jake Peralta was never cool enough to be a stoner. Gina Linetti, however, was plenty cool. It was high school, they were friends. He never actually purchased weed, always the persistent moocher. The little money he had went to other, more important things, like a limited edition Nakatomi t-shirt and buying sour candy in bulk. Gina never minded sharing, as long as the sharing went more 60-40 than 50-50. Jake didn’t mind because once Gina got high enough she didn’t argue when Jake asked to watch Die Hard again. They smoked a few times a week— maybe, sometimes, just a bit more. His mom was always at work, but he doubts she would have been upset. On weekends, Gina got him into the cool parties and his comedic timing kept him there. No one minded Peralta mooching if he was around to keep everyone laughing. He wasn’t cool, but he wasn’t uncool and that was enough to keep his casual habit casual.
The day he passed his entrance exam for the academy, he kissed his cannabis days goodbye and never cared much about turning back.
--
Jake certainly doesn’t go to Florida with the intention of revisiting his decade-old weed habit. Jake goes to Florida with the intention of ignoring the marshal, finding Figgis, and getting the hell home. The problem is Florida is terrible— but terrible doesn’t really cut it. He tries to think of words better than “terrible” to describe the aching, gnawing fury inside him, the way the empty rooms in the huge house suffocate him, how the morning humidity tastes like exhaust fumes on his tongue. All he's come up with is really shitty and fucking miserable but still those lack the appropriate depth. Amy would know the perfect word.
Jake has started to tally the number of times each day he thinks of Amy, like if he can keep track then the shame of the total at the end of the day will shock his brain into thinking of anything, anything else. It hasn’t worked so far.
Each piece of intel on Figgis he’s able to scrounge together feels like a win, until he realizes they’ve been in terrible, really shitty, fucking miserable Florida for two months and everything he has hardly makes up a real case. He really cannot cope with the defeat this realization brings, so he heads to the Fun Zone to bother Holt on his lunch break.
Their conversation goes roughly how all of their conversations go lately:
I miss Amy, don’t you miss Kevin?— Enough Larry, you need to get a job— YOU need to get a job— I already have a job, Larry— Yeah, well YOUR FACE HAS A JOB!
Jake makes a point of stomping out, but drops his bravado as soon as he’s out of Holt’s sight. He wanders because he doesn’t have anywhere to be, and makes his way around the building, eventually rounding the corner to the alley behind the Fun Zone. There’s a delivery truck parked near the backdoor and two men (white, early twenties, 5’7, 180lbs and white, late twenties, 5’9, 200lbs) leaning against the wall. The older guy turns away from him, and Jake sees the faintest trace of smoke waft upwards, dissolving into the sunlight. He knows it’s not cigarette smoke, it looks thicker and he's too familiar with scent of tobacco. Amy—four.
Jake sees the younger guy catch sight of him then say something. God, he is terrible at reading lips. Dammit. Amy—five. The older guy turns around and calls out to Jake, “Hey, you're Greg’s friend, right?”
Jake walks closer, “Yep, that's right, Greg’s friend. I am Larry.”
“Right. Larry.” Older guy says, dragging out the name with a smirk and Jake worries he knows just how full of shit he is. He twiddles, what Jake can now see, a blunt between his fingers, takes a healthy hit, exhales, and says, “So you and Greg, you two fucking or what?”
The younger guy hits the other in the chest with the back of his hand and the older responds with an eye roll.
Jake laughs for the first time in—god, too long. “No! No no, Greg is very, very heterosexual. Super hetero.”
“...But you aren’t?” older guy says.
“What? No, yes, I mean, yes." Jake says firmly. "I am heterosexual, just like my friend Greg. Just two heterosexual dudes. Neighbors. ”
Older guy is barely attempting to hide his doubt but eventually shrugs then winks, "Shame." He laughs lightly before moving on, "Well, Greg’s a good guy. He’s baked literally all the time but gets shit done, you know?” he says, “I’m Derek.”
“Nick,” says younger guy with a nod. Jake's brain is still trying to process being hit on when Nick holds the blunt out to him with raised eyebrows. He freezes instantly.
Jake Peralta is a great detective. Under the careful mentorship of Captain Holt, Jake Peralta is now the kind of person, the kind of cop, who does the right thing, even when that isn’t an enjoyable or rewarding experience. Jake Peralta loves his job. He loves the people who have made him better. Fuck. Amy—six.
Jake Peralta can’t go home. He is not allowed to work the only case that matters right now and he can’t speak to the woman he loves. Dammit to all hell. Amy—seven.
On the other hand, Larry is a depressed, suburban white dude with frosted tips, sweating to death in terrible, really shitty, fucking miserable Florida, and Larry is officially out of fucks.
So it's Larry that takes the blunt from Nick’s fingers and gives it a nice, long pull. He takes two more before he decides to cool it because a voice in his head (that sounds suspiciously like Gina’s) reminds him about tolerance levels. They finish the blunt, and Larry laughs for the second, then third time that day. When Nick and Derek turn to leave Larry stops them. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, caught between not having the words and genuinely hoping they won’t come out. “Look, my uh...supply is running low, and my dealer" Larry forces the word to form on his tongue, Jake wants to put a fork through his own trachea, and Larry tells him to fuck off, "he got attacked by an alligator. A big one, you know how that goes.” Larry waves his hands in a helpless shrug.
Derek laughs and says, “Well sure, I can hook you up man, but you’ll have to wait til my shift’s over. Meet back here at like 7:00, okay?”
An hour and a half later, after walking home stoned off his ass and spending thirty minutes laughing at how fucking absurd palm trees look before returning to the alley behind the fun zone, Derek sells Larry an eighth of weed for $50. “Normally I charge $60 for this but you’re a good guy. Let Greg know I’ll hook him up too.” Larry has no parameters to decide if this is a good price for an eighth, having never purchased weed, nor any way of knowing if he's getting ripped off on quality alone, but depressed, suburban white dudes in Florida really cannot be choosers. He thanks Derek and tells him he'll let Greg know.
His high from earlier hasn’t completely worn off yet, and he gets halfway home before he realizes he doesn’t actually have a way to ingest the drugs he just bought, so he detours to the gas station for rolling papers and crosses his fingers. Gina used an apple once.
It takes him six tries to roll a joint that is technically smokeable. He gets unreasonably stoned, forgets he isn’t in Brooklyn, and orders a pizza. As it turns out, marijuana is the only thing in the world that can make the worst pizza known to man palatable. It's not until he falls face first into his undoubtedly expensive, stupidly comfortable mattress that he realizes how long it's been— hours, whole hours— since he's tallied Amy in his head. He thinks about orangina and the dumpster mattress and sacrifice and Larry reaches frantically for what's left of the joint. When his mind goes quiet again it's a soft, distant part of Jake that calls out the tally for the day.
Every morning he opens the paper on the porch, hunts for the crossword puzzle, and rips the entire page to shreds. He goes to the park sometimes. One day, there are three little boys playing cops and robbers. He never goes back. One night TNT is playing Die Hard and Die Hard 2, he won’t, won’t, will not watch them. He turns off the TV and wonders if Amy will. Amy— eleven. The towels always feel wrong after he showers. He buys frozen pierogies and powdered hot chocolate from the grocery store, tallies six in his head as he checks out. A week later, he throws them both in the trash, unopened.
In the evenings, he rolls a joint, goes to the bathroom, turns the shower on as hot as it will go, and watches the smoke dissipate through the vents with the steam. In the mornings, his guilt tastes worse than the cotton mouth, and he tries not to imagine what the squad would say.
If the Captain ever notices anything, he doesn’t say so.
He buys weed from Derek four more times. Amy shoots him in the leg to save him from Figgis, and in his nightstand at the empty, suffocating house is a dime bag with just enough left for one joint. He’ll throw it out. He will.
When they get back to Brooklyn, he sleeps for thirteen and a half hours. When he wakes up, there’s a pizza sitting in the space next to him— where Amy should be— and for a split second he thinks about Florida and the choking emptiness of that house and torn up crossword puzzles and the worst pizza known to mankind and he tallies Amy in his head. But the DVD menu for Die Hard is looping on the tv and the bathroom door opens and she comes to him with furrowed brows and a soft smile. He buries his face into her stomach and cries. She cradles his head and lets him.
--
He gets called for his drug test exactly three weeks after being cleared for duty. Standard procedure. He has had more than enough time to clear the substance from his system and passes with no issues. He has not, however, been able to make himself throw the rest of the weed out. He figures, erring on the cautious side, that he’s got a two month window to deal with it. Supposedly tests are random, but they tend run about every four to five months. A loud and angry part of him wants to smoke it, the other part of him thinks he must be suffering from some self-destructionist post traumatic stress shit.
His duffel from Florida sits packed and untouched in front of the closet. He's considered a ceremonial bonfire, chucking it off the Brooklyn ferry, and just tossing the whole thing down the trash chute. The weed lives in a tiny inside pocket, wrapped in a pair of dirty socks. Jake still hasn't told Amy, and she's only pressed him about what happened in Florida twice. Jake froze both times, turning quiet and into himself, and Amy had shaken her head softly and said, "Nevermind. I'm sorry."
A month after his drug test, they come home after a particularly rough night shift and Amy doesn't want to cuddle or watch a movie and have sex or even sleep, she wants to clean.
"It's a mess in here constantly, I can't live like this anymore!"
Jake is no less irritable than Amy and already stripped down to his boxers to go to sleep. "Ames you're just tired. If you just get some sleep this won't be a big deal later, and we can deal with it then."
"We say that every day Jake and every day we wake up exhausted, and we don't do anything before work. Look at this place!" She gestures angrily to the admittedly chaotic bedroom, at strewn piles of dirty clothes, towels, cups, takeout boxes. Amy sighs, "Jake, please just help me pick up a bit and then we can go to bed. I can't sleep in here like this anymore."
Jake groans but he loves her, god he loves her so much so, "Fine." He says and smiles just a bit before going to get a trash bag.
We he returns Amy has already piled most of the dirty clothes into one corner. She's kneeling in front of the closet removing items from Jake's Florida duffel that's been enshrined for nearly two months. And Jake swears, he swears it all happens in slow motion. He hears a small zipper and her hands appear with a wad of dirty socks. Amy's making a lightly disgusted face, and Jake lunges, “Wait!" and she tosses it to the clothing pile where it lands with a thud that only Jake hears and unrolls. Amy’s head ticks to the side and her eyebrows crinkle. She moves on her knees, reaching for the small, faintly green item that has appeared. She grabs it and drops it nearly as quickly, with a tiny shriek.
“Amy, I—”
Amy's head rounds on him, “What the hell?!”
“I..." Jake thinks he should probably have prepared for something like this, should have at least tried to script out a conversation where he explained this to her but he's never been good at preparing.
She stands to look at him and picks up the dime bag again. “What the hell?!”
“I—”
“Jake!”
Finally, he grimaces, “This isn’t what it looks like?”
“What this looks like," and she lobs the dime bag across to him carefully but not without anger, "is a bag of marijuana!”
“Right," Jake almost laughs, "Yep okay, I walked right into that one.”
Amy is near shaking with anger. “Jake Peralta, I swear to god you better have a good reason for this-”
“Okay, Ames, I can explain.”
She crosses her arms. “So explain. Quickly.”
“Okay,” he takes a deep breath because this is the conversation he cannot have. This is the conversation he has tried to prepare for and the words are just not there. He takes a deep breath and what comes out is, “Florida was really, really shitty.”
“Oh you have got to be kidding me!” and Jake almost can't blame her because yeah, he sounds like an ass.
“Ames, I’m sorry. Look—" he sighs and pulls at his hair with both hands, trying to organize his thoughts, "Okay. Look, when I say it was shitty I mean I was...so depressed. All I could think about the entire time was how much I missed you, I missed our life, and how I had no idea if I was ever going to see you again.”
“Yeah, I was in the same boat Jake, but I didn’t resort to drug use!” she says, whispering the last part as if Captain Holt were just a room over.
There's a hot anger that ignites in him at that because he needs her to understand now. “You had work! And you had Kylie, and the squad, and your family!”
Her eyebrows unfurrow by a millimeter.
He sighs. “Babe, I know you don’t think weed is that big a deal.”
Amy huffs. “Just because I think it should be decriminalized doesn’t mean I think it's okay for us to smoke it. It’s still against the law. We’re still cops, Jake.”
“Yeah, well I wasn’t!”
There go the eyebrows.
Jake covers his face and lets out a low growl, trying to quell the frustration, the anger and resentment that's twisted and curdled in him for months now. He turns away from Amy. “For six months I didn’t get to be a cop! I didn’t get to do the one thing I’m really fucking great at. I didn’t get to love the person I love most in the world," He laughs and it's so hollow and cold, Amy reaches for him but he just continues, "For god sake, Die Hard wasn't even allowed to be my favorite movie! Every second was miserable. Was unbearable.” There are tears in Amy’s eyes. “All the best parts of my life got ripped out from under me, and I...I did stupid shit to pass the time. To try and pass the time. Sometimes it still feels like years, when I think about it, it feels like I was there, away from you, in that fucking house for years.”
Amy takes his shoulder and steers him to the end of the bed. Jake can see the anger has drained from her but he still tries to shrug her off, curling into himself again. She swallows a lump in her neck and strokes his cheek with her thumb, "Hey." And she looks him straight in the eye, open and honest and a little devastated, "Jake, I'm so sorry." He doesn't respond, can't, just nods and presses his face to her neck. He grips at her back slightly too tight for comfort but she lets him, soft chants of "Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, baby." He's not sure how long they stay like that. Time hasn't exact been he's strong suit lately.
Eventually, Amy pulls back and asks, curiously but without frustration, “Why did you keep it? You could have thrown it out as soon as you got back, before we left Florida even.”
Jake sighs and smiles softly, “Costs money, Ames….” and she smiles too and rolls her eyes, “Also, I think," he pauses, considering, "I think I sort of wanted a last hurrah? Like my life became this weird, sad, unrecognizable thing and I guess I want to say goodbye to it.”
Amy is quiet for a long time before she says. “They did your drug test last month." Jake gives her a funny look. “If you’re going to finish it, it should probably be soon.”
He nods, aware of what she's just given him and not wanting to push it but, “Yours was last month too, you know.”
Her eyes explode, “Jake! I couldn’t!”
Jake puts his hands up, backing down immediately, “Of course, Ames, i'm sorry. Just wanted to offer." He smiles.
--
Later, following a legendary round of make-up sex, Jake, face pressed to her stomach, asks, “Did you ever try it?”
Amy is running her hands through his curls absently, gaze on the ceiling. “What?”
“Weed.”
She looks down at him and shakes her head. “I got a contact high at camp one summer, but even if I had asked, I don’t think anyone would have shared with me. They were probably all afraid I'd snitch on them."
“Would you have?”
“Maybe?” She laughs.
“It is kind of a shame, you know. It’s pretty nice actually. Just every once and awhile.”
“Cops.” She teases with exasperation.
“Yeah, yeah.” Jake rolls his eyes, and kisses her shoulder, “I love you.”
“Love you too. Get some sleep.” she says. He rolls over and Amy goes back to the ceiling.
--
Four days later, Amy is stirring honey into her chamomile tea after another infuriating night shift and Jake is flipping through channels with no real intention of settling on one. She’s pent up and frustrated and she misses Captain Holt, misses life before Florida.
She puts her spoon down resolutely and looks at Jake. “So, hypothetically, if I were say yes, what would that mean?”
Jake pops his head up from the couch and just blinks at her.
“You know,” she bobs her head and lowers her voice, and “the weed,” she says pointedly.
“Oh!” Jake is caught up but completely shocked. Cool, he has to play this cool. “Well, I mean, we would just...smoke it.”
She narrows her eyes, “Thank you, Jake.”
“Okay, sorry," he grins, "But, really— just me and you. I’ll roll up the rest and we'll light up and that will be it. Last hurrah."
She shifts uncomfortably, disliking the display of her obvious inexperience. “You’d have to show me how. I’ve never done it.”
“Wait, are you seriously considering smoking marijuana with me?”
Amy scrunches her face. “Please do not announce it to the world.”
He has to be sure, though. “Really Ames, are you sure you want to do this?”
She sighs. “I mean, you have it. You need to get rid of it. And I may as well try it once— for real— right?”
So Jake muddles his way to his sock drawer where he'd stashed it, still reeling, full of anticipation and confusion and maybe just a touch of arrogance.
Four straight months of smoking and Jake mostly has the hang of rolling. Though this time, he feels a bit like he’s back in sophomore chemistry class with Mrs. Edwards hovering over him and a bunsen burner, waiting for disaster. Amy wouldn’t know the difference between a joint Snoop Dogg had rolled and the first one he rolled back in Florida, but he still wants to impress her. He asks her if she’s sure four more times before asking her to get the lighter he knows is in her purse.
“Okay?”
“Yes, Jake.” She sounds exasperated, but Jake hears the twinge of anxiety at the back of her throat.
“Okay, it’s just like a cigarette, but hold the smoke in, don’t exhale right away. And go slow.”
Amy nods and for a second, it doesn’t seem any different than the sporadic times he’s seen her with a cigarette in her mouth— except Jake is lighting it for her and what they are doing is technically illegal. Her eyebrows are scrunched just a little, that face she makes when she’s concerned about doing something right.
He watches her chest expand, and “Ah, ah, not too much!” He takes the joint from her and chuckles a bit, “careful.”
She manages to hold the smoke in for about 15 seconds before she bursts, and coughs it all out while Jake is taking a nice, slow drag. He can’t help but smile just a little, but he puts his hand on her back, “You good?” he says, strained around the smoke in his lungs.
She nods, waving the smoke away, still coughing, “Wow.”
Jake exhales and laughs, “You want another, or do you want to take a minute?”
“No, I can do it again.”
“Ames, it’s not a competition. There is such a thing as getting too high,” Jake knows because multiple times in Florida he said fuck it and got so baked he freaked out.
“No really, I’m good,” she says, and plucks the joint from his fingers with unexpected confidence.
Ten minutes later Jake decides they are sufficiently stoned for now and can finish what’s left of the joint later. He goes to get water and when he comes back Amy is swaying her shoulders and dragging her head left and right, dancing to a slow beat that isn’t playing. He chuckles.
“How’s it going, babe?”
“I can’t feel my neck,” she says. Her eyes are closed and she has a wispy smile on her face.
“Okay, okay, hold on,” he stops her head with his hands on her cheeks. Her eyes flutter open and she smiles. Her hair is so soft. “You okay?”
“Mhm.” She squints at him, “Your eyes are so red."
He laughs again, “Yeah, they do that.”
Amy puts on a serious face— tries to— and says, “Hmm, I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
Jake just smiles at her, “Don’t worry about it,” he says. Then, soft and silly, “I love you so much.”
“I love you so much,” she responds, but says it like an echo, the room is too quiet and she feels her words bounce off the walls.
Jake feels dumb and giddy and childish. Amy feels light and happy and a little bit vulnerable, she feels like her heart is laid out on her chest, bum bum, bum bum, like Jake’s hand is wrapped around it, gentle and warm and here.
She wraps her arm around his neck and he pulls her in. She is soft and and warm against him. She moves her leg to straddle his lap, and when she kisses him he feels time, his whole body, his breath turn to molasses. Amy runs her hands down his neck and across his torso. Her eyes are closed and Jake feels so overwhelmed and so content.
He pauses, “Ames, you’re sure this is okay?”
Her eyes open, finally, and she takes his face in her hands. “Yes, just kiss me, come on.”
He does. He kisses her, soft, sweet, and then a little bit harder. His fingers tangle in her hair, and he moves his lips to her neck, nipping lightly at her fragile skin, feeding on the sound of her small gasps. She grabs his hair and pulls his mouth back to hers, groaning as his tongue slips back into her mouth. The warmth that usually only pools in her belly is radiating, limbs shaking with want and need and now.
“Amy,” Jake whispers, “fuck.” His hips jolt up to meet her, quick and uncontrolled, like he can’t help it. And he can’t. “You’re so— fuck— everything, you’re everything.”
Amy wants to respond, wants him to know that yes, he’s everything too, everything, but her lips are sloppy and lax, and she can’t get the words out. Jake’s pulling her tank top over her head, and he buries his face in her breasts, kisses them softly as he reaches for the clasp on her back. She reaches between them, slips under the waistband of his boxers, and her fingers ghost the length of his cock.
Jake gasps, and lets out a rough breath, “Fuck.”
She curls her fingers at the base and jerks lightly, feels him hardening. Amy closes her eyes, pressing their foreheads together, and strokes him slowly. Her mouth is sticky and dry. There’s a buzzing in her hands, in his skin, in her head. Jake's cock is thick and warm in her hand and she thinks maybe she doesn't spend enough time just touching him, memorizing the veins and bumps and the way he twitches when she runs over his slit “Amy….” Jakes says, strained and choked.
“Want you,” she says, feeling lightheaded. She takes a deep breath through her nose and touches his cheek again. He pulls her body to his, kissing her hard and desperate, and quickly turns them so she's on her back. He shoves her panties down and moves his fingers to her lips but she stops him, “Just want you, now. Please. Please.”
When Jake pushes into her, she holds her breath, and doesn’t exhale until he pulls out and thrusts back in. She feels him everywhere, wants him everywhere. It’s so much quieter than they usually are in bed. Jake has always been a talker. Amy encourages him. But even when Jake’s thrusts start to feel more frantic, the words just aren't there. Her gasps are muted and soft within her, she feels them stuck in her ribcage. Amy's eyes keep slipping closed but each time she opens them Jake is looking down at her, the golden brown of his eyes giving way almost totally to black pupils. His mouth slightly agape and Amy knows, she knows, finds the part of her brain responsible for words and manages, "Here. I'm here."
Jake kisses her with a gasp and starts pounding into her in earnest, short, deep grunts at the end of each hard movement and a small whisper of “fuck” breaking from his lips every few seconds. The apartment is sweltering and Jake feels sweat roll down his neck. Amy tosses her head back into the cushion of the couch, her mouth in a silent, reverent moan and Jake reaches for her hand, takes two of her fingers into his mouth, sucking, then places them on her clit. She rubs herself in time with his thrusts, and whimpers as her toes, legs, thighs, everything starts to tingle. “Jake,” she gasps, eyes squeezed shut and legs trembling. “Amy, i’m gonna, I—” she feels him pulse into her and shudders, arches up to him as a wild moan erupts from her. Jake covers her mouth with his, pumping the last of his energy into her cunt as she rides it out, legs twitching through the finish.
They’re quiet for a long time. Jake pulls out of her and starts to move away, peel apart their sweat sticky chests, but Amy just pulls them back together and closes her eyes. She relents, finally, when Jake complains about dehydration, and Amy gives a big belly laugh as he grabs the carton of orange juice from the fridge.
PBS is playing a rerun of Dogs With Jobs and they pass the carton back and forth until it's gone. They order pizza, smoking the rest of the joint before it arrives, and Amy is three slices in when she says, “It’s a shame, really.”
“What is?”
“We could have saved that for your birthday.”
Jake laughs, “Amy, I'll be here with you on my birthday. That’s really all I care about.”
Amy nods and starts working on her crust, “Well maybe by then the Captain will be back and he’ll give us a few days off. We could go to California.”
Jake raises a confused eyebrow to emphasize his sideways glance.
There’s a wicked glow in Amy’s eyes, “I heard Gina say the dispensaries are crazy cheap ever since they legalized.”