#idk what you both are but wishing you seasons greetings -- the card (affectionate)

[variousqueerthings]

I live with one of my best friends and to the even mildly discerning eye obviously do not look like heterosexuals, and it’s so very funny to experience different places in the small town we live in accommodate for the nice young lesbian couple/trying very hard not to galpal us while also not saying the “l” word out loud and ofc the funniest thing is

neither of us is a lesbian, nor are we women, nor are we in a romantic relationship

[meepmorpperaltiago]

The Christmas Party(s)

Heyyyy @b99peraltiago, I’m your secret santa! I hope you like this fic, some of the things I included that you mentioned were parallels, slow dances and the colour yellow :) Also idk where the timeline for the first part is and the title was grammatically impossible to figure out, but it does have baby Mac so...

The halls were decked, the trees were up and the 2015 99 Christmas party was in full swing.

Charles was handing out possibly hundreds of Christmas cards of him and Jason posing together, Terry and Rosa were rocking out while Gina was doing god knows what on the dancefloor, Hitchcock and Scully were being relatively not-gross, even Holt seemed to be relatively cheerful.

But one detective simply couldn’t get into the spirit of the season.

Whilst his colleagues danced wildly around him to the tune of the band, Jake unenthusiastically attempted to maintain a somewhat happy composure in spite of his misery in that moment.

All he could do was sit and watch as the woman he liked (maybe even loved), swayed in the arms of another man.

He didn’t want to sound whiny by saying it aloud, but it’d been so hard since he’d come back from being undercover to realise that Amy and Teddy were still together, especially as she’d essentially rejected his romantic-stylzes confession before he left. Really, the word “rejected” wasn’t fair – she’d been incredibly kind given the circumstances and honestly he just blamed himself for ruining the pretty decent frenemy-ship they’d had going.

 Although Rosa had comforted him earlier, being the friend who knew the most about his predicament (yeah he knew fancy words), even she had eventually gone off to have fun at his insistence.

Wild fantasies of abruptly shoving Teddy aside and taking Amy in his arms (and then saving the city while the rest of the 99/the entire population of New York cheered and played the Die Hard theme followed by What A Man and lit off Christmas/Hannukah fireworks in his honour) drifted through his mind. Ok, even if that was insane, could at least have gone up to her and asked for a platonic dance. But seeing her there, with him, so happy, he felt rooted to his chair. He couldn’t complicate things for her by doing that.

Instead, he sat tapped out a rhythm onto the cold, slightly sticky floor, desperate to do anything having been sat down for almost half an hour. All he could do was fidget, whilst he daydreamed about a time far in the future where he’d be there with her.

But at the same time that would mean her and Teddy breaking up and as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he liked her so much that he didn’t want her to go through the crappiness that was a break up.

But still, he couldn’t help but think…someday…

The moment Amy and Teddy came up to him arm in arm to wish him a merry Christmas together, like a real life freakin’ greeting card, his heart shattered.

After he said goodbye to them, he left early that night and drank far too much while trying to watch Die Hard to cheer himself up, in the vague hope that he might forget the whole horrible evening.

  Amy couldn’t help but watch as he left. She’d kept up a happy smile for Teddy’s sake, but she felt like she was going to lose it if she had to endure this party for much longer. It wasn’t just that she was so incredibly bored of hearing Teddy talk about the pilsners he was going to brew to bring to her parent’s house, or that she hated the song that the band were currently playing (Santa Baby – flirting with Santa? Really?). It was when she realised where Jake was that the evening really started to go downhill.

All night she’d tried to push down the ache she’d felt when she saw him sat all alone. But she knew that if she went over and comforted him, she wouldn’t want to leave his side. And how would that look to Teddy? Not that there was anything to hide from her boyfriend of course. Whatever she had felt for Jake in the past, she was definitely over it. But still… she couldn’t help but wonder…          

 5 years later

Much time had passed and a lot had changed but it was a similar scene: all across New York, Christmas lights were switching on, weary shoppers stood in long lines waiting to get to perfect gifts and the 99’s 2020 Christmas party was only half an hour away.

A slow Taylor Swift song drifted from the radio into every corner of Jake and Amy’s apartment, from the album Jake had made Amy listen to until 2am. Not that she really minded, the joy on his face at the new music from his favourite artist being her main motive to stay awake.  

 Now, stood near to their front door, her yellow dress seemed to shimmer even as she stood with her hands on her hips.

“Jake, he can’t come with us – your mom is already coming over and a fancy party isn’t a place for a baby.”

“But look how cute he is!”, Jake protested, holding up their son, dressed up in an admittedly adorable suit and tiny bow tie.

Just then, the song switches and an expression comes onto Jake’s face that Amy knows all too well.

“Come on Ames, I know you love this one.”

Without saying a word, she rolled her eyes affectionately before taking his hand and they began to twirl around the kitchen, with Mac watching on in as much amusement as a 6 month old could express.

They soon swept their son up into the dance too, twirling him around as a more upbeat song came on. Then Jake came up with an idea he was pretty proud of as they slowed down.

“How about we ditch the party and just watch some Christmas movies? It’s never too early to introduce Mac to some of the classics…”

“We’re not showing our baby Die Hard, Jake.” Amy had lost track of how many times she’d said this since before Mac was even born.

“He’s too young to even understand the violence, it’ll fly right over his head!”

 In the end, Jake won the party argument while Amy won the movie one. Instead of going out (and instead of traumatising their baby with Die Hard), they cosied up to watch Elf, whilst eating Christmas cookies that Karen brought the last time she came over and they both agreed it was better than any “dumb fancy Christmas party” (Jake’s words, not Amy’s).