They were just hanging out after work. Laughing and having a good time together, and Amy was reminded just how much fun she always had with her partner. Reminded of just how much she liked him too, in the romantic sense. It was always there, in the back of her mind, her feelings for him every time they were together.

She tried to push them away while they were both otherwise entangled, but that just relegated them to the back of her mind. They never actually went away.

Tonight they were at the full front of her mind.

There wasn't anything special about tonight. They were just hanging out and unwinding after the rest of the gang had gone home from the restaurant. Nothing unusual about that. This was normal. It was regular, and she was happy.

She was always happy on nights like these with him.

There wasn't any tension under their smiles tonight, just happiness.

They'd both been single for more than a couple months now.

Despite their current unattached statuses, nothing had happened yet that even hinted that he still wanted a romantic relationship with her. Even though she still very much wanted that with him.

That night they were laughing around the tiny table they had moved to after the rest of the nine nine had vacated, sitting across from each other and working on their second round of rootbeer floats of the night.

Jake smiled soft and sweet at something she just said, and at that smile Amy leaned over the tiny table and kissed him. There wasn't any romantic or sexual tension preceding it. There wasn't any big moment or thought process in her head before she did so. There wasn't an overwhelming urge that took her over, no big bam moment like in the movies where they soulfully stared into each other's eyes before the dam breaks and they attack each other.

Nothing so dramatic.

It was simple, really. A soft and simple kiss from across the table, not too quick but not too short. Not dramatic and earth shattering, not something that you could feel in your bones would change something forever.

It was a kiss.

Though it wasn't nothing. It was soft and light feelings, mixed with meaning and a slight shyness. Not the end of the world, not too much, not too little, not too hard, just perfect to convey in it all the emotions she had and how light he made her feel when he smiled at her.

When Amy pulled back, his face didn't give her a clue how he felt about what just happened other than surprise.

And she was okay with that. Didn't feel the crushing worry she normally would have felt after doing a gesture like that and not getting a clear response from the recipient. She couldn't tell what he was feeling, and she was surprisingly okay with that.

"Um-" Jake started with wide eyes, and Amy chuckled. Not nervously, mind you, just chuckled because she felt like laughing. Felt happy.

"Yeah," she nodded, tucking the hair behind her ears. She let her hair down (figuratively and literally) when they got to the restaurant, but leaning over to kiss Jake paired with the pull of gravity didn't do much for keeping the hair out of her face.

"I'm not sure if you still have any romantic-stylez feelings for me, but I thought I'd let you know right now that I still do. For you. I still want that with you," Amy couldn't stop the small and silly smile from spreading across her face as she looked down at the table between them. "Obviously it's okay if you don't anymore, cause feelings change over time and it doesn't have to be a big thing if you don't wish something happened romantic-stylez with me anymore. But I thought I'd let you know in case yours haven't changed, mine haven't either."

She looked up and met his eyes then with a hesitant but happy smile, still waiting (hoping) for a smile to break from his lips.

He had a soft look on his face as he took her in, her words and their meaning, but as the silence dragged on from him, she couldn't help but comb through the hair that had fallen over her shoulder nervously as she waited for a response. She only managed to be patient for three or four seconds of silence before her usual level of nerves took over.

"Cool, cool, cool, cool," she started saying over and over, nodding her head like a perfect idiot. Well, this certainly wasn't how she would've wanted this to go. That's what she gets for not planning in advance, huh?

She only managed to stop nodding to herself and mumbling under her breath when Jake reached a hand across the table and brushed her hair behind her ears that had managed to get wild and out of place again in her frantic nodding (there was a reason she always wore it up, cause if she gave it free reign her hair went wherever it wanted to regardless of how many times she moved it back over her shoulders throughout the day).

And she stilled at his touch that didn't leave her.

When he moved the wild strands out of her eyes, his hand gravitated towards her cheek, stroking little circles with his thumb that made her lose her breath.

When Jake leaned in to kiss her, there was a tension.

There was the uncertainty she was feeling from the seconds up to it, but he kissed her decidedly.

No uncertainty from his side of things.

And okay, maybe she got a bit wrapped up in it. Wrapped up in him. Like when she pulled him closer by the collar of his shirt because she forgot there was an (admittedly quite small) table between them, and she almost knocked one of their glasses off the table that she barely stopped from falling to the floor. Instead of catching it, she more of hit it back onto the table, which while didn't break the glass (what would have happened if it fell to the floor) it ended up spilling all over the table. They broke apart during the commotion, and stared at each other for a solid moment before they both cracked up.

"What the hell was that?" Jake laughed through his whole question, and she could barely manage a response through the peals of her own laughter.

"I don't know. I think my elbow- maybe? I tried to stop it from falling off, but it looks more like I just slapped it in the opposite direction. But at least I stopped it from breaking! I at least get points for that, right? Liquid is easier to clean up than glass," she pointed out through her endless chuckles.

"I don't think you get points for spilling a root beer float instead of letting it fall when your weird elbows were the ones who pushed it off the table in the first place."

"You're just jealous of my cat like reflexes," Amy joked and set up the now empty glass, and laid out napkins she had the foresight to grab before all this to soak up the soda ice cream slurry. Jake rolled his eyes.

"Puh-lease. You have the reflexes of a 19 year old arthritic hairless cat in the dead of winter. I am so not jealous of that. I, meanwhile, am a white tiger, the last of my endangered species who takes down poachers left and right with a single swipe of my paw. I am majestic. You should be jealous of my reflexes," he insisted, miming out his assertion of taking out poachers and making her worry that he might knock his own glass over. "I would have caught that cup in a jiffy if I had even known you knocked it over before you slapped it all over the place. If there was a way for our reflexes to fight each other in a competition, I'd have you on your knees and begging in no time," Jake taunted, raising her eyebrows at her, plain out challenging her for a sassy comeback, really.

"Title of you sex tape," Amy shot back immediately with a smirk, and Jake coughed on absolutely nothing but air. It took Amy a moment to process what she just said, but her face colored when she realized exactly what came out of her mouth. On your knees and begging in no time: title of Jake Peralta's sex tape.

She got why he almost choked in surprise at that innuendo. That wasn't how those jokes worked. They were supposed to be insults. Not about sexual prowess. Though technically with the phrasing of the ill conceived joke, she didn't specify if he was the one being begged or if he was the one doing the begging, so she thought maybe if she specified which she meant that would clear everything up and it would be a joke again instead of about anyone's sexual prowess, but she should've known to stop digging herself deeper before she even tried to fix it. But she did the stupid thing.

"Just to be clear: you're the one on your knees in that scenario. In the joke. It wasn't a compliment. Jake Peralta's sex tape: on your knees and begging in no time. You're the one doing the begging, and that's why it's an insult, and that's why it's funny. I'm not the one begging in your sex tape. Just to be clear," Amy coughed, clearing her throat, even though she just made it a million times worse, and her face was still burning as she held her hand to her forehead in an attempt to hide as much of her embarrassment as she could.

"Just to be clear, you're still in it though, right?" Jake asked with the seriousness behind the question that just masked the clever sentiment.

Amy laughed at the utter ridiculousness of him and how much she loved his ridiculousness and maybe even loved him (though she still couldn't even admit that much to herself, much less him. Yet).

"Is that seriously how you're gonna ask me? After I give that serious gut wrenching speech about feelings you're gonna go with asking if I'm gonna be in your sextape? Seriously?" Amy shook her head and smiled at him from behind her palm and the silly goofy grin he had at the sight of hers.

"Do you want me to beg?" Jake smirked.

"Actually yes, I would," Amy said, fully expecting some cocky joke back about the innuendo.

They had been partners for so long. She didn't need him to say anything soul bearing tonight, cause he already let her know exactly how he felt.

Not just the kisses, but the hand on her cheek, and the seriousness while he was silent for probably the first time in his life. The gentle hand stroking her cheek was impossible to misinterpret, but the silence was a whole nother level of emotional seriousness. Letting it stay and settle.

Jake never shut up, and he always interrupted people. He got uncomfortable if a room was quiet for more than ten seconds, and started making as much noise as he could cause quiet made him nervous and jumpy.

So when he was completely silent and stroking her cheek with the soul searching, earnest eyes, she had all she needed from him that night. He could say sweet stuff tomorrow, or the day after that, or the day after that. She didn't need a big speech from him.

She just wanted him. Him, his touch, his gentle looks, his soft gaze. That was all she wanted from him tonight.

"Please," Jake said, pulling his eyebrows together and pouting with his best puppy face. "Please do feelings relationship stuff with me. Romantic-stylez. Cause that still hasn't changed. It never changed..." he sat up straighter as his words got a little more serious, his expression falling into something she didn't quite have a word for. "And by now I'm pretty sure it never will even if you decide you actually don't want that with me tonight and take back everything you said in two seconds. Cause feelings and all that junk I have about you never stopped. Never stopped... wanting you." Jake nervously licked his lips. "So, yeah... I really want to do that stuff with you. Dating stuff. And emotions, and mushy feelings. Serious stuff. Real stuff. So please."

Jake laid his hand over hers on the table, tracing the back of her hand with his fingers, and she got a horde of butterflies flapping in her chest at the move.

Amy smiled. "Yeah, I think I can handle that."