By the end of the op, Amy was ready to go home and tear off all of her disguise. It wasn't much of a disguise, some more revealing clothes and over the top makeup, but it was so unlike her. Just a low dipped black dress that was several inches shorter than she would ever choose for herself and shimmering shades of green eye shadow paired with red lipstick that Gina had helped her with. It wasn't that she looked bad- Gina was actually good at the whole girly-girl sexual look and Amy actually didn't look half bad. It was just when she looked in the mirror she didn't recognize herself. Her reflection was more like a well dressed stranger than Amy Santiago. There were still bits of herself lying under it- behind the too big eyes accentuated with liner and the fake sultry smile she put on for the sting.

So by the end of the night, she was ready to go back to her boring old self and sleep for a very long time. Usually she would have gone back to the precinct and filled out the proper reports, but the captain took one look at her and told her to go home. Normally she would have refused, but something about that night drained her so she actually agreed to take his advice and just do the paperwork tomorrow. Since she hadn't planned heading home straight afterward she didn't even have her own transportation, but she knew someone who did. Someone she always wanted to see after a bad night, because he could always make her smile.

"How do I look?" She asked him tongue in cheek with a fake little half swirl. Sometimes they acted a little flirty with each other, but they both just chalked it up as part of their banter. The teasing was just how they were with each other, nothing more (if someone were to ask).

"Smokin'... but not really like you," Jake said sounding serious for once. He was leaned up against his car and looked the same as always- which she was always grateful for. All casual and cool like he couldn't have a care in the world that night. He lost a lot of his impishness during stings because he knew that he needed to be serious in case something went wrong, so he was actually the most sincere she had ever seen him wrapping up an op. But he always had that little light smile on his face reserved especially for her.

To most people that would have sounded like an insult, but she knew him too well. Even when he was being sincere he wasn't the best with phrasing. But he got her too. That she liked being herself more than whatever character she was that night.

Before she had any hope of reacting he reached a hand up to her face and her eyes closed automatically. One of his fingers brushed across her eyelid a couple of times and left almost as soon as it appeared.

"Sorry. That was supposed to be a nice gesture, but all I did was mess up your make up."

When she opened up her eyes there was a peculiar look on his face that she had no hope of deciphering.

"You want a ride, don't you? Taking advantage of my sweet wheels?" He asked with a smirk, all the strangeness replaced with their lighthearted teasing that they always fell back on if things got a little too serious.

"You know me so well."

"Not to say you don't always look good- cause you do. It's just... regular Amy is the face I like," Jake said a few minutes into the ride. The neon signs and street lamps provided an always changing light on his face, one that shifted with every second as they drove farther and farther. But it was always Jake, whether illuminated by blue or yellow light, and the shadows that drifted back and forth, by and past. Always Jake. He didn't need to tell her because she knew what he meant, and his gesture actually was sweet earlier, but she didn't say anything of the sort.

"You like my face?" Amy asked with a hint of teasing in her voice.

"Course I do. It's the best one around."

"Really? The best?" She asked with the same tone. She was certain that this was going to end the same way anything romantic ended with Jake- him backing out with a joke. And she understood that, so she provided an out for him. She knew he felt something for her, but she never wanted to back him into a corner where he said something he didn't mean or committed to something he wasn't ready for. Of course she liked him, and wanted for something to happen between them, but she had faith that it would at the right moment. She just wasn't sure it was the right moment in the car.

That was what they'd come to. And Amy understood that, so she provided an out for him. They'd do the same dance every once in a while, getting so close but never close enough. She didn't want to force it, even though she liked him and he liked her. It always came down to this little dance, and until Jake decided to take the next step she had decided to wait. They would go through the pattern every time, back forward side side, but then he would falter and leave, and Amy was left standing there in a pretty dress with no partner to dance with. Until he would come back and try again, but it always ended the same way, with him leaving. And her waiting. Always waiting. So she would be standing there all done up swaying side to side until he would come back. The first few times she wasn't sure he would come back, so she would find another partner. None of them were as good of dancers, even though they did lead her through all of the steps. But then she figured out that Jake would always come back. So she would wait. Amy thought about taking lead all of the time, just holding tight to him so he couldn't bail whenever he made a mistake or forgot the pattern, but she had seen other girls with him do that and it never worked out right. She hoped that they were going to have a moment soon. Like Jake would make it one step further, and she could show him the rest of the moves, finish the pattern, or even let him stand on her toes. So she was waiting for that moment. Until then, she was always going to provide and out for him, because she was always waiting. She would wait for him.

"Yes," Jake said, and she waited for a joke that never came. After a few moments of silence with her staring at him, he began again. "You were expecting to hear a mirror joke, weren't you?"

She nodded, not sure if he could even tell or not with peripheral vision.

"I thought about putting one in, but I decided this was too important. Your face is literally the best thing I see all day, every day. You're always at least 75% of why I get up every morning. So I can go to work and see you. You and your face. Even without your face, just you. Like if you had a different face, I wouldn't care. And even just talking to you on the phone or something, it doesn't make a difference cause I know it's you and you're amazing, so it's great waking up to have some form of you. Even if it's a text message. Which is officially my least favorite way of communicating with you, cause you have an amazing voice. And an amazing face, as I've already mentioned. And I'm sounding like an idiot so I'm gonna shut up now," he finished with a weak chuckle that was more like huffs of breath. It was like one of his typical rambles but not quite. Usually when he got into nervous talking territory, he sped through it like his life depended on it, completely unplanned and unsure when to stop. What he just said was still clearly unplanned, but he was almost talking slow, taking his time as he strayed around his thoughts and words. He still didn't know when to stop, but more like a directionless drifting than a race to a finish line. Unlike his high pitched voice he used when he was beyond uncomfortable, it was soft and fluid, a dulcet tone that reverberated off of him. Until he caught himself at the end and tried to brush it all off, that is.

"Don't. Keep going," Amy whispered, and hardly even at that. She was staring at her hands, watching the lights and shadows pass by on her lap instead of his face. The only way she knew that Jake heard her was the careful stare he sent her way, but she didn't dare meet his eyes.

"I like your smile," he said suddenly. "It's a really good one. And I always want to do whatever I can to make you happy so I can see it. I know I do stupid stuff most of the time, but it doesn't even matter to me, cause it's all worth it if I make you smile. And I don't know when it happened. When it all changed. You've always had a pretty face, and that's all it was at first. But then it went from pretty face to Amy's face, and I thought that was it. But then all the other pretty faces went to not-Amy's-face. And I don't even remember when everything shifted. I have to remind myself to make eye contact with other people now because it doesn't even seem worth it if they're not yours. And I'm not even good with words, but it's worse because they're aren't a lot of things for brown. Like someone with blue eyes people say the sky or the ocean and green eyes they say emeralds, but there's nothing for brown. Nothing that does it justice, anyways. And I wish I could describe it to you because somehow you don't see yourself right, like how you really are, but I can never think of anything. I don't think there is anything- for the color of your eyes. There's nothing in existence that even comes close." Jake sighed a deep shuddering breath that made her look up for the first time since he started speaking. His eyes were fixed straight ahead at the road, but from the intensity in them she was sure driving was the last thing on his mind. The words that came next seemed to be crafted from careful deliberation "But it's not what you look like. I don't even care about that. It's because you're you. When I see you-"

It wasn't until he motioned with his hand out the window after a lengthy pause that Amy even realized they weren't moving. And then she realized that they were actually parked right outside her apartment building. "Looks like this is your stop."

"Walk me up?"

Jake had no clue what that invitation meant.

He knew what he wanted it to mean. That what he said meant something to her. That he meant something to her. He wanted her to say he wasn't alone in the can-barely-breathe-around-your-partner club. He wanted her to say it wasn't stupid how absolutely crazy he was about her.

Knowing Amy, it was much more like her to invite him in for coffee and thank him awkwardly for the compliments then try to return them halfheartedly than it was for something to actually happen between them. He hoped that she saw the subtexts in his comments, and maybe even felt the same way, but he wasn't counting on it. He knew it was wishful thinking. Still, he didn't refuse her request. He could never refuse her.

Jake didn't know what had come over him during that drive. Usually he was pretty good at reigning himself in. Sometimes this would happen. He would get blinded by her. By how amazing she was, and how much he wanted her, and he deluded himself into thinking that they could actually be a thing. But he always came to his senses before he ruined everything that they were. Because they were good together, how they were: partners and friends. It was stupid that he just wasn't satisfied with that. It was stupid that he wanted more. Of course Jake didn't stand a chance with her. He was a mess of a man, immature and emotionally stunted. And Santiago was perfect, or as close to it as any one person could be. She was careful and orderly while he was the very definition of chaos. Jake saw the kind of guys that she went home with- neat, proper, and consistent. The kind of guys who were never late and could at least tell her how much she meant to them.

The kinds of guys she invited into her life were nothing like him. The people she always gave the space he so desperately wanted to fill.

He wanted to hate them and insult them and call them boring, but they all had something he didn't have. Amy.

But Jake was afraid he went too far this time. It wasn't like he was exactly subtle with his stupid compliments of her stupid face that he loved. A part of him felt like running at that point. Most of him felt like running at that point. But he wanted to be able to face her tomorrow, so he walked her to her door.

The whole trip was made in silence, and he was regretting the sequence of events more and more with each and every step. When they reached her apartment he didn't know what to say. He didn't know if there was anything to say. And Amy didn't have any words for him either. When she twisted her keys into the lock he turned on his feet to make the long lonely journey back to his car.

Or at least he would have if he wasn't yanked into the dark of her apartment by the back of his shirt collar. It took him a moment to realize that he had, in fact, not suddenly gone blind. It took him longer to register that Amy was kissing him. Amy was kissing him. Truthfully it all probably happened in less than 2 seconds, but they were the longest 2 seconds of his life.

Her hands were all over him and moving so fast that he wasn't sure if he was feeling where they were or where they were going to be. He could feel her everywhere. Her lips were insistent in their attempt to earn his reciprocation. What choice did he have but to give in?

He didn't even have to think about pulling her closer, just did it instinctively. It wasn't like he had any other option than trying to feel as much of her as possible. There was nothing else he could do other than kiss her back. Nothing he could do other than sigh when she scratched her nails down his scalp, and definitely nothing he could do other than welcome her when she took it as an opportunity to slip her tongue in with his.

"Your face is great too. Fuck, I love your face," Amy confided in between kisses, and sometimes in the middle of ones. Her voice was low and sultry, and oddly laced with affection that he was all too pleased to hear. "And I wanna see it everyday, and I wanna see all the looks I never get to see on it. Like how you look when I suck you off, or when you're pounding into me. I want to see those faces. All the time."

He was pinned against her door and the handle was digging into his back, but that was the least of his concerns. Amy grinded her hips into his erection as she kissed her way down his neck, and if he thought it was hard to breathe around her before, he was practically suffocating in that moment.

"Are you messing with me?" Jake choked out, and fuck, he did not expect to sound that hoarse. It wasn't like Santiago to go this far with a joke, even if it was to get back at him. And he didn't remember doing anything particularly revenge worthy as of late. Definitely nothing worthy of this type of revenge. But he didn't know what else it could be.

"Of course not. I've been waiting so long for us to get here. So long for you to be ready for this. For us."

He was still having trouble believing what was actually happening, but her saying that she wanted him- for awhile at that- and that she was holding back the whole time was just absurd. But it wasn't any use to pretend that this wasn't happening, so Jake just decided to roll with it- he chose to believe she was telling the truth.

"What are you talking about? I've always been ready for this," Jake said in what was clearly an attempt at a steady voice, but it was harder than he thought it would be with her lips still on him.

"Any time we get close to this you get scared and run off."

"Because I didn't know! How was I supposed to guess something as impossible as you liking me?!"

Jake could barely see her, but he knew she was staring at him from the awful absence of her touch.

"Why is that so impossible?" Amy asked. Even though she was shrouded in shadows, he knew exactly what she looked like from her tone alone. Brows furrowed in confusion, lips slightly parted- lips that he so wanted to feel.

"Amy, you don't like guys like me," he explained, pushing past the weirdness of him having to explain her own taste in men to her. "You've never liked guys like me."

"Of course I don't like guys like you. I like you."

She lifted her hand to his cheek and gave him the chastest kiss of his life. While their previous kisses were thrilling and electrifying, this one actually made him... happy.

When they reached her door, Amy had the thought that this could be their moment. She wasn't sure if it was, but she realized she might never be sure. They might never get another moment like this. And even if it wasn't the perfect moment, and a better one would come along, she was so tired of waiting. So she pulled him inside to dance.

AN: While this fic is mature, the extremely explicit smutty version is on AO3. Like so needlessly explicit and kinky I would get banned from this site for sure.
This version is basically the main story, and the explicit version is the main story plus epilogue.
This version is exactly the same as the AO3 version up to a certain point, before cutting off. So I'd say this is a satisfying for and M rated one shot, but it's not the true ending. So if you get to the end of this one and decide you do want to read the super smutty version it will be the exact same from the first word of this version and the last, plus about 6,000 words added to the end of sexy sexy sex.

Since ff doesn't let me post a link if you google 'sharkinterviewee ao3' my page will be the first one to pop up (where you can access my other explicit fics). Or you could just google 'i didnt know i was lonely til i saw your face sharkinterviewee ao3' and the first result will be the actual page of the fic, so whichever you find easier.

But if you just make it to the end here and stay let me know what you thought. And if you do go over to AO3 and wanna let me know your thoughts you can tell me here or there.

The title is a lovely line from I Wanna Get Better by Bleachers.

Thanks for reading!