#i would like to thank freddie for creating him and cookies for getting me obsessed

[nutria--oscura]

Hermie does his make up. It's canon, trust me.

[ID: Drawing of Taylor Swift from the neck up. He has red braces, horns and orange/yellow fire at the tips of his hair. He has black winged eyeliner around his eye. There is also red eyeliner on the top of his eye and yellow eyeliner on the bottom of his eye; the red and yellow meet at the end of the wing as an orange/yellow flame. The headshot is surrounded by a white outline and everything is on top of a background of mixed red, orange and yellow. /end ID]

Is this a reference to when Willy beheaded Taylor? No.

Did I remember that Tay got beheaded the second I finished this? Yes.

[peraltasames]

christmas eve will find me where the love light gleams

Nochebuena, the night before Christmas, has always had a special place in Amy Santiago's heart.

read on ao3

1992

December 24th

Outside a big white house in a small suburban community in New Jersey, snow is falling peacefully on the ground and creating a scene that looks like something out of a painting. There are two sensible, fuel-efficient cars in the garage and one cheap pickup truck recently purchased by the eldest Santiago boy parked haphazardly in the driveway. At eight o’clock that evening, the front door was locked until the following morning when dozens of extended relatives will pile into the home, three generations of family members spending the better part of twenty-four hours together.

Inside, the scene is less calm - an eight year-old Amy Santiago is excitedly begging her father to tell her and her seven brothers another story, some of whom are arguably too old for story time but begrudgingly sitting around the fireplace with the rest of their family.

“It’s almost time for bed, mi amor,” Victor tells Amy firmly, yet with ever-present kindness in his eyes.

“Please, Dad. It’s nochebuena!” Amy pleads, her cozy plaid pajamas sliding against the hardwood floor as she shifts closer to her father on her knees, hands clasped together.

After a shared look with his wife, Victor sighs and admits defeat - he’s incredibly partial when it comes to the little girl before him, his one and only daughter.

“Oh my god, can I go call Jen now?” Nic exasperatedly asks his parents, throwing his head back in annoyance when Camila shakes her head. “Mom, I’m seventeen.”

“You have to wait until story time is over and we put cookies out for Santa, those are the rules,” Amy demands, crossing her arms and looking up at her older brother.

Nic opens his mouth to say something, but a pointed glare from Victor stops him before any sound can come out. Knowing the argument is already lost, he settles back into his chair with a small sigh.

With the satisfaction that she’s gotten her way, Amy curls up next to her mother and waits eagerly for her father to begin one of the many Cuban fables and fairytales that she loves so much. The one he tells tonight is new to her, a story about a beautiful girl and a handsome prince that ends, as many of the stories do, with happily ever after.

“Mama?” she mumbles sleepily as she’s being tucked into bed a few minutes later, eyes already closed. “Am I gonna find my prince one day?”

Camila smiles, her fingers combing through her daughter’s soft, dark curls.

“Of course, honey,” she promises, earning a content smile from Amy. “He just might not be exactly the type of prince you’re expecting. Your father certainly wasn’t royalty, but he’s always been my true love.”

“So I should marry a police officer like daddy?”

Camila laughs, shaking her head. “Not necessarily, my love. What’s important is that he treats you with respect and makes you happier than anything in the world.”

“Happier than cookies? And books?” Her mother nods. “Even happier than nochebuena?”

“Even happier than that.”

At eight years old, Amy can’t quite grasp the concept of true respect or someone being “the one”, but she promises herself that she’ll wait for a prince that makes her feel as full of joy and peace as she does while falling asleep in her cozy bed, dreaming of presents and sweets and happiness.

-

2014

December 24th

“You look like you could use a drink.”

Amy’s snapped out of her thoughts the moment her brother begins his sentence, looking up from her phone for the first time since she sat down on the couch opposite the tree a few minutes ago.

Her parents are in the kitchen preparing food for tomorrow’s celebrations, her brothers and their wives and children dispersed through every room of the house, occupying nearly all the space the six-bedroom home has to offer.

She reaches out to accept the large mug of Cuban hot chocolate. Her older brothers let her in on the magical secret ingredient - their father’s expensive, 100-proof rum - around her sixteenth Christmas Eve.

“Thanks, Alec,” she mumbles, taking a long, very much needed sip of the warm beverage in her hands.

Her brother plops down next to her, folding his arms behind his head. “Are you bummed about the breakup with Freddy?”

Amy narrows her eyes. “It’s Teddy, but...no.”

Frankly, she should probably have been a little upset about the end of an eight month relationship, but the absence of Teddy Wells in her life is far from the greatest worry whirling through her troubled mind.

“Then what’s got ya down, sis? You love nochebuena.”

She knows she hasn’t been herself tonight, and she saw the worry in her mother’s eyes when she didn’t want a second helping of pork and the exchanged glances between her brothers when the smiles while playing with her nieces and nephews didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“It’s, um...a different guy, actually.��

She realizes the moment she’s said it that she’s never actually talked to anyone about Jake before. She’s always been dating Teddy and too consumed by guilt to admit her feelings for another person. Even Jake (and Teddy and Sophia, unfortunately) currently believes her feelings for him to be a thing of the past, and is blissfully ignorant of the fact that said feelings are eating her alive at any given moment of every single day since he told her he liked her and left for a six-month undercover mission.

“Who is it?” Alec raises an eyebrow, looking at her intently.

She braces herself for the reaction as she says, quietly and a little embarrassed: “Jake Peralta.”

His mouth hangs open, eyes widening a little as he processes this revelation.

“Your coworker, Jake Peralta? Like, the one that eats candy for breakfast and has only read fifteen books in his entire life?”

Amy laughs humourlessly and takes another gulp of hot chocolate, the rum burning her throat. “That’s the one.”

She doesn’t know when the innocent crush on her partner spiralled into a full-blown obsession, prohibiting her from successfully dating anyone else, but she despises that he’s somehow able to ruin her night even when she’s in another state. Although, technically he didn’t ruin her night - she blames that on the unfairly adorable picture Sophia just posted of the two of them skating at Rockefeller Centre.

“So, what’s his deal, married or gay? Because there’s no way any sane man would pass up my little sister.”

“Neither,” Amy answers, fiddling with the hem of her sweater. “But he has a girlfriend. She’s beautiful and smart and…I missed my shot with him. It’s my fault.”

“That’s not necessarily true. Maybe they’ll break up.”

Amy doesn’t reply, staring down at her mug. She refuses to spend any more time praying that her friend’s happy relationship will come to an end just in case she’s maybe able to work up the courage to tell him how she feels.

Alec shifts a little closer to her and places his hand on her arm. His deep brown eyes - the same shade as hers - are wide with unexpected sincerity.

“Look, I don’t know much about this guy, but I know that you never pass up seconds of mom’s cooking. Like, not even when Ryan broke up with you. Not even when you lost the sixth grade spelling bee to Elizabeth Beeker.”

“Any idiot could’ve gotten prospicience, it’s hardly a winning word-“

“Ames, trying to make a point here,” Alec cuts off a ramble that likely would’ve lasted an hour - Elizabeth Beeker really was a bitch - and resumes his serious expression. “If you really like Jake, don’t miss your shot next time. If you get the chance, just tell him.”

The possibility of telling Jake, which could lead to the even more frightening possibility of dating Jake and falling in love with Jake, is just about the scariest thing she can imagine. In all her years of police work, all the boys she’s admitted her feelings for, all the chances she’s taken - this is by far the greatest risk (and, she supposes, the greatest potential reward).

Her phone buzzes with a text just before she can brush off the conversation to go attempt to help her mother in the kitchen and inevitably get turned away.

Jake Peralta

hey ames, happy notchabueno (def butchered that sry) hope ur having fun with the fam. see u back at work on monday :)

“Is that him?” Alec inquires, raising an eyebrow.

Amy nods sheepishly, her eyes lingering on the display picture he set of himself making a goofy face.

“I bet he doesn’t text all his coworkers on Christmas Eve.”

She doesn’t let herself dwell on her brother’s (probably true) statement, simply shutting her phone off for the remainder of the night and hoping to enjoy some time with her family and discuss a plethora of other topics not concerning her love life. In perfect timing, one of her nieces comes running in asking for Amy’s help braiding her hair.

As she obliges and gets to work on the curly dark hair of the young girl in her lap, she tries not to think about what next Christmas Eve could be like if she only had the courage to swallow her pride and take a leap.

2015

December 21st

The first few moments Amy’s awake, the only thing she’s able to register is how cold she is, how annoyed she is that it’s so cold, and the imminent importance of making herself less cold.

She seeks the nearest source of warmth, pulling the blankets further up her body (naked other than underwear and a loose t-shirt, not helping her temperature) and then moving on to the second source, the warm body only a few inches away from her. As always, he’s somehow abundant with warmth despite his bare chest being completely exposed to the chilly air of his apartment.

Her head nestles into his shoulder, her arm wraps around his waist, and it takes only a moment before his arms are subconsciously circling around her and pulling her into a tight embrace. She smiles contentedly, pressing a little kiss to his warm skin and falling into a state of complete relaxation, enjoying the few minutes until they have to get up for work-

-until her eyes land upon the window across the room.

“Jake!” she exclaims, slapping his chest probably a little too hard and sitting up abruptly, gracelessly jerking his arms away from their hold on her.

“Babe, what the hell-“ Jake grumbles, rubbing his eyes.

“It’s snowing!” Amy’s grin is wide as she walks over to the window and feasts her eyes on the beauty of the streets of New York covered in a sheet of white for the first time that winter.

“You grew up in Jersey! It snows every year!”

“Yeah, but it’s the first time this year!” She turns back towards him, still beaming with joy, and his initially irritated and confused expression melts in an instant. She’s aware of her effect on him at this point, but she still relishes in the look he gives her after she’s kissed him or laughed at one of his jokes or, in this case, woken him up fifteen minutes before his alarm because of snow.

The cold of being out of bed quickly catches up with her, and she crawls into his side of the bed and pulls the blanket back over both of them, draping herself over his chest. His hands rub up and down her goosebump-covered arms, transferring warmth to her.

“So, I never asked you, do you have any plans for Christmas?” She tilts her chin up to wait for his response.

“Probably the usual, Die Hard and takeout. Maybe I’ll go to the bar with Charles and Gina if they can escape Boyle family Christmas after dinner.”

It’s not that he seems upset by these extremely underwhelming plans, and she understand that the holidays have never been as significant a part of his life as they are hers, but there’s a part of her that despises the idea of Jake sitting at home alone on Christmas.

For a brief moment, she considers inviting him to her parents’ house, but she quickly reasons against the idea. He hasn’t met any of the Santiagos aside from Lucas, who showed up at her door unexpectedly while he was in the neighbourhood and she was in the shower, leaving Jake to talk to him for a solid fifteen minutes only a few months into their relationship. Luckily, they hit it off immediately and now text what she considers to be disturbingly frequently. A week into an ongoing text discussion about cool cop stories, Luke being the only other one of her siblings to follow in their father’s footsteps, Amy’s brother texted her something along the lines of mom told me you were dating another white dude but i didn’t know he was a COOL white dude this time! nicely done sis.

Regardless of his stamp of approval from one of her seven brothers and neither of her parents, though she thinks her mother is just happy she’s finally found a man she really, truly likes (loves, though the word has yet to be uttered aloud) she’s still skeptical of introducing him to her family at an event as crazy and hectic as Christmas. Ideally, Jake’s interpolation of the Santiago family will be gradual, painless and one family member at a time.

“What’s your mom up to?” Amy asks after a few seconds of quiet contemplation.

“I think she’s having dinner with some friends. I was there for Hanukkah last week, we haven’t really done anything for Christmas since my dad left.”

Again, there isn’t any real indication in his tone that he has a problem with his plan of watching Die Hard alone in his little apartment, by definition a perfect night for Jake Peralta. Her idea of the holidays, however, involves spending time with loved ones, and she’s come to realize recently that she loves Jake more than nearly anyone else in the world.

Her mother, to her surprise, is not upset in the slightest when Amy calls and says she’ll be coming on Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve this year.

“You’re not mad?” Amy says, voice low enough that Jake won’t hear her from the shower.

“Of course not, mi amor. I know how much you love nochebuena, I’m happy you’ve finally found someone you want to share it with.”

Three days later - December 24th

Jake’s fingers are tightly interlocked with hers the whole way home in the backseat of Captain Holt’s car. Since the unprecedented display of affection she initiated upon spotting him outside the store after an agonizing twenty minutes spent unsure of his safety, she’s been trying to reign it in a little, but maintaining some form of contact is vital for her breathing to remain steady.

He kisses her temple halfway between the crime scene and his apartment, burying his nose in her hair for a few moments before continuing the conversation between Rosa, himself and Charles while Amy and Holt remain mostly silent.

They eventually make it home and walk upstairs hand-in-hand, as they probably would have around this time even if he hadn’t been caught up in a hostage situation and nearly killed.

“Please tell me you’ll consider watching something other than Die Hard considering you just lived it,” Amy pleads as he lets her go to unlock the door.

He pauses to think. “Hmm, I could probably be talked into Die Hard 2.”

“Not really what I meant, but-“

He pushes the door open, revealing his apartment in a state in which she’s never seen it before - clean. There are a few other key changes, too, like the string lights hanging around the kitchen, the table already set for dinner with a bottle of Spanish wine in the center, and a crockpot she’s never seen him use on the kitchen counter.

“Oh, shit,” Jake blurts out before she can say something. “I completely forgot, between Charles’ gift and then the whole, ya know, situation…”

“What is all this, Jake?” Her eyes are glimmering with awe as she follows him into the kitchen.

He opens the lid of the crockpot, cursing as he realizes whatever he’s left in there is definitely burnt well beyond the point of being edible.

“Crap, I really wanted - I just, I felt bad that you were missing Christmas Eve with your family because I know it’s, like, your favourite holiday and it’s a big part of your childhood and your culture and everything. So I called Luke and asked what you guys would normally do at home so I could try to recreate it. I mean, it wasn’t gonna be perfect - does your mom really cook a whole pig?” Amy nods, still staring at him with complete reverence, leaning back against the counter across from him. “Well, anyways, the closest I could get was pulled pork. Which is totally ruined now.”

She closes the space between them and grabs his face, kissing him much more slowly than earlier that night. His hands, once again, come to rest on her waist over her NYPD windbreaker, pulling her up against him.

“Babe, that was…so sweet,” she murmurs, pecking his lips one more time. “You’re amazing.”

His smile, the adorable, relieved grin of which she’s the world’s biggest fan, compensates a million times over for the ruined dinner. Honestly, she isn’t even hungry. After the events of the last hour, she just wants to be close to him and relax. She’s even more grateful now that she’s not in New Jersey; the moment she received Jake’s texts that evening, getting to him as quickly as possible was a priority she was willing to brave freezing cold waters for. She’s not sure she could’ve handled a two-hour drive.

“Merry Christmas, Ames,” he whispers, forehead resting against hers.

“Merry Christmas, Jake.” She wraps her arms around his waist underneath his jacket and presses her cheek to his chest. “I really was worried about you tonight. If something happened to you...”

He tightens his grip on her, one hand leaving her back to stroke her hair. “It’s okay. I’m safe.”

She allows herself another minute to breathe him in and remind herself of the beating of his heart, just below the stretch of hoodie her ear is pressed up against.

“I know,” she finally says, pulling away to look at him with a bit more composure than before. “Thank god for Charles yippee-kayaking the crap out of those other buckets.”

Jake’s smile fades. “That is still not funny to joke about!”

She laughs, releasing him to grab an ice pack for his concussion and drag him to the couch so she can continue warming herself up under several blankets and with his arms wrapped around her.

-

2016

December 24th

They don’t make it through the entire Christmas carol before Jake, much less concerned with politeness than the Boyle family is, is begging them to spare their ears. Charles, in turn, invites them all inside for a drink to escape the subzero temperatures.

Somehow, the whole squad fits into the small living room, though Amy ends up sharing an armchair meant for one person with Jake to conserve space. She’s annoyed for a split second until he pulls her onto his lap rather than leaving her squished beside him and circles his arms around her.

They exchange stories of the night, leaving out some details for the benefit of Nikolaj (“the criminal could only sing when he had a lot of, um…hot chocolate”; “the guys that had the only Captain Latvia in the city also had a bunch of packages of…candy?”) and drink some weird wine Charles made at home that tastes surprisingly good and is dangerously strong.

“We should go home,” Jake mumbles against the back of Amy’s neck, sending a familiar shiver down her spine, after Genevieve has gone to put Nikolaj to bed, Scully and Hitchcock have departed for the diner around the corner, Terry and Holt have left to spend time with their families and only Rosa, Charles, Gina and themselves remain seated around the coffee table.

She agrees instantly, bidding their friends farewell as she finally gets to her feet and realizes she’s a little tipsy, relying on his hand on her back to keep her upright.

“Babe, it’s so much colder out here,” Amy groans as soon as they’re back out on the stoop.

The roads are now lit only by the street lights and the overarching glow of the skyline, the snow still falling on their shoulders as they begin the two-block trek to her apartment.

His hand tangles with hers and her other arm wraps around his, her cheek leaning against him while they walk at a pace a little slower than they normally would. They’re both enveloped by the postcard-like scene, she almost feels like she’s the protagonist of a horribly cheesy lifetime movie (it doesn’t matter to her that it’s cheesy, she refuses to apologize for being the happiest she’s ever been).

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” Amy asks, her voice a little muffled by his jacket. Although she’s more excited than anything else, a part of her is nervous for Jake’s Christmas at the Santiagos’ - mostly because she hopes it’s the first of many.

“So ready. All of your brothers and your mom love me.”

She brought him to a family dinner shortly after the Thanksgiving fiasco with her father, instructing him firmly to just be himself. To Jake’s surprise and her relief, that plan actually worked.

“My dad will come around too, he just hasn’t realized how amazing you are yet.”

Jake kisses her head, conveniently located on his upper arm, and she can feel his smile. “Babe, you’re sappy on Christmas.”

She kisses his cheek in return and resumes their walk at a slightly increased speed, the warmth of her apartment tantalizing her as the building comes into view.

When they’re curled up on the couch in pajamas ten minutes later, she braces herself for the horrified gasp when the Netflix title she selected begins to play on the screen of her television.

“Love Actually? Babe, it’s Christmas! What about Die Hard?”

She sighs in her spot next to him, lifting herself out of his arms.

“This is much more a Christmas movie than Die Hard is,” she argues. “Besides, we watched that last year. And, like, every other week since then.”

“But...it’s tradition.”

“I know, Jake, I just thought...we’re making new traditions, right? Together?”

He pauses, and her heart aches for a split second, but the warm smile that graces his face a moment later eases her worries.

“Yeah, okay,” he concedes, his tone softened. “Now get back over here.”

She settles back into him with one arm wrapped snugly around his torso and revels in being able to enjoy her favourite Christmas movie for a change, hoping it makes the cut to become an annual thing.

The look on Jake’s face when Hans Gruber shows up (and as a bad guy) makes her think she may just get her way.

-

2020

December 24th

Amy Santiago on maternity leave means a lot of things: their apartment is always immaculate, their laundry is always done, there’s always some food prepared in the fridge to varying degrees of edibleness. With no work and a newborn baby who is surprisingly easy to take care of at this stage of her life, she has way too much time on her hands, which also means their apartment is decorated to the nines for the holiday season.

There’s a huge Christmas tree that Jake and Charles struggled to carry up the narrow staircase, dozens of presents underneath from Amy’s many online shopping binges. Garlands and menorahs and wreaths and dreidels cover every inch of space available for decor. There’s a lingering smell of pine and peppermint in the air at all times, the faint sound of popular carols constantly playing from a speaker in the kitchen.

Jake doesn’t comment on the fact that coming home is the equivalent of going to the Macy’s at Herald Square during December, or that it’s all kind of pointless since they’re going to her parents’ for the entirety of the Christmas holidays as they have every year since their engagement (Amy’s aware of these things too, she’s just really bored).

It turns out her efforts aren’t completely futile, as Christmas Eve brings the worst snowstorm on the east coast in twenty years. Perhaps in previous years she would have risked the drive to visit her family, but neither she nor Jake are willing to take their baby girl out of the safety of their apartment as long as the storm persists.

“Okay, she’s asleep-“ Jake pauses halfway through the living room. He really thought he had seen the last of the insanity of Amy wrapping their daughter’s presents, yet the floor in front of the tree is once again littered with wrapping paper, tape and ribbons. “What’s going on in here?”

“Found one that I forgot about buried in our closet,” she mutters, busily wrapping the rectangular box. “Last one, I swear.”

Jake sits down on the floor next to her, his hand reaching for her back to rub small circles while she works. He’s been incredibly sympathetic while she’s on leave, understanding firsthand how difficult it is to be away from their job for that long. She’s an amazing mother, but that much time alone with an infant would take a toll on anyone.

“Babe, you know we’re the ones who will be opening these gifts right? And she won’t remember what they look like?”

Amy shoots him a brief glare before returning to the task. “I know, Jake. But Christmas was always perfect for me when I was growing up and I want Abby’s to be perfect too.”

“It will be.” He puts his finger down on the centre of the box so she can tie the ribbon, well-versed in assisting her after six years of Christmases.

Finally content, Amy places the gift under the tree with the rest of them and her shoulders drop with relaxation.

“There. Perfect.”

Jake takes her in, dark hair cascading in waves over a bright red sweater and face lit up by the coloured lights on the tree. She’s glowing with warmth and joy. He previously thought it to be impossible, but he thinks he loves her a little bit more now.

“You’re perfect,” he says with a smile, leaning in to kiss her forehead. When he pulls away, her eyes are wet with tears.

“Babe, you know I’m too hormonal for you to be that cute!” she exclaims, hastily wiping her cheeks.

Jake laughs, tugging her hand until she climbs into his lap, her back against his chest as they look up at the tree she spent eight hours flawlessly decorating.

“Merry Christmas, Ames.” He breathes the words into her hair, her hand covering his squeezing as he speaks.

“Merry Christmas, Jake.”

They’re interrupted by the sounds of their daughter’s cries - they’re both able to identify it as her hungry one, so Amy scurries off to get her. After a few minutes, Jake can faintly hear the sounds of Amy speaking in Spanish from the next room over. He understands very little of it, but he thinks it might be a bedtime story.

Later, when he asks his wife about it while they’re curled up in bed, she tells him it was her favourite fairytale growing up.

“What’s it about?” he asks, absentmindedly tracing her skin.

“A princess.”

“Let me guess, she lives happily ever after?”

Amy beams at him, kissing him softly on the mouth and shifting even further into his embrace.

“She does.”