Chenford + “why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”
It takes a while for the adrenaline to simmer down enough for Lucy to take stock of their position.
They've just run full pelt for cover after being ambushed, and Lucy can still hear the gunshots ringing out, close to where they are but growing quieter by the second.
They've ended up huddled in some disused warehouse, hiding out in one of the upstairs storerooms until it's clear outside. She's pretty sure they've lost the armed gang members chasing them, but her hand doesn't let up its tight grip on her gun for a second.
She peers cautiously around the window ledge, and everything is deathly quiet in the parking lot below.
"I think they've moved on," she murmurs, finally turning back to Tim. Her stomach drops when she sees him.
"Tim, what-" she rushes to his side, because he's slumped against the wall grimacing, his face tinged with grey. His Glock is still fixed in place in his gun hand but his left is tightly pressed to his side.
"It's fine," Tim mutters, but she's already on her knees scrabbling with the fastenings on his uniform.
"What the hell, Tim? Why didn't you tell me you were hurt?"
"Bit busy dodging the other bullets."
He grunts in pain as Lucy reaches the lower buttons and tugs his uniform open enough to reach the hem of his white undershirt. Her heart is pounding in fear as she sees the amount of red.
"Okay, it's going to be okay," she says unsteadily. She applies as much pressure to the wound as she dares, trying to think clearly.
"I know it is. Stop panicking," he grates out, his half-lidded expression still managing to convey his disdain.
"Kinda hard when I've got you bleeding out in front of me," she replies, but she pulls herself together and presses one hand to his side while the other digs her radio out. "Control, I need an RA immediately to my location, we're upstairs in the warehouse. Adult male, gunshot wound to the right flank. Backup is already en route."
She turns back to Tim.
"Why do you always get shot?" she chastises, and he gives a very tiny snort.
"Why do you always get us shot at?" he retorts, and she knows instinctively that him giving her attitude is the only way he can think to reassure her. It works, a little, and she looks up and meets his eye.
It feels like everything they can't say right here, right now, passes between them in that one look.
And never mind what he might say about it later; she angles his body so he's leaning his weight into her, and she winds her free hand tightly in his while they wait.
She doesn't let go until the EMTs arrive to wheel him into the ambulance, and even then she climbs in and sits beside the gurney and clings onto his hand all the way in.
This story encapsulates everything good in life. to love and to be loved this deeply. faith and hope beyond our own lifetimes. Nothing but heart and soul. ❤️
Basically their partnership in a nutshell. Just when Lucy thinks they've made a progress, Tim decides to drive the car himself. Both metaphorically and literally. Because, you know, she is not his friend.
Anyway, fingers crossed we get something in the winter finale!
Lucy doubled over laughing, snapping some pics and trying to catch her breath. “No, not at all. What am I looking at right now? Who are you?”
Tim looked down at himself. “It was the jorts wasn’t it? or the yeezys? I heard they were ‘in’,” he said a bit defensively, a touch deflated.
“It was definitely the jorts, nothing to do with the leather vest.”
Tim looked at her with pained eyes, “I just wanted to... nevermind. I’ll go change”, turning to head back inside.
“Tim wait. You wanted to what? Tell me.”
He hesitated, looking at the ground next to her feet. “I didn’t want to be the old divorced guy in your eyes. You’re all youthful and hot and I’m... old dude who alternates gym clothes and work clothes”
Lucy quickly stepped into his space. “You...” She lifted his chin to meet his eyes. “hey, look at me...are not old. Plus, I like you in workout clothes.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist, giving his butt a quick pinch with a gleam in her eyes. “It’s hot. I like the hot older guy look you got going on. Totally works for me.”
Tim smiled that silly smile he shows only her. “Yea?”
“Yea. total DILF vibes. Zaddy. Ay Papi. all of that. it’s very in.”
“Oh I know ‘Zaddy’, Tamara explained that one to me”, Tim said proudly.
Lucy laughed, giving his cheek a quick kiss. “See? There you go, young at heart. Besides, I love you no matter what.”
“Does that mean you’re ok with us going on our date like this?”
“Oh God no. Please change.”
Tim snickered “I love you too” as he headed back inside.
love your work, my blog is just reblogs of your 5-line fics i want to keep forever heehee
chenford + “do you even need to ask?”
aww thank you so much! your comments always mean so much to me. hence, your wish is my command~
***
"We're going to Lopez's wedding."
He announces it like it's news, and Lucy wrinkles her nose at him as she buckles in and switches on the shop cam, their old routine falling back into place like clockwork.
"Uh, yeah, I know, Tim. It's been in the works for like, eight thousand years now."
"No, we are going to the wedding," he says, irritably, as he checks the mirrors and pulls expertly out of the station bay. He's bristly and tense, and she has no idea why, but then it is Tim. Weird moods come with the territory when she's riding with him.
"I know, Tim. What the hell was in your coffee today?"
Tim mutters something under his breath and his frown deepens.
"You and I. Are going to the wedding. Together," he finally says, with as much joy in his tone as if he's been made to say it on pain of death. Lucy lets out a laugh.
"We're what? Are you asking me to be your date?"
"No," Tim snaps. "I'm telling you that for the purposes of this never-ending wedding from hell that I have had to organise no less than three times, you are my date. Because if you aren't, I will be attending it with Wesley's mother's tennis partner's daughter Felicia."
Lucy laughs again, a lot. "Oh my God, you got Patriced. What if I already have a date?"
"Do you?"
"Not the point. Hey, Felicia might be hot-"
"Not the point. Are you in or not?"
Lucy looks over at him, the faint frown still working away at his brow and a distinctive tension visible in the hard lines of his shoulders.
She smiles to herself.
"Do you even need to ask?" she replies, and there's no question about it. His entire demeanour relaxes, and when he glances at her it's no longer with a frown.
"You're going to make me dance with you, aren't you?"
"At least seven or eight times, yeah."
"I can't wait."
And he might sound sarcastic as hell, but Lucy realises she's suddenly, definitely looking forward to the wedding rerun a whole lot more than she was when she woke up this morning.
And if the smile playing at his lips is anything to go by, maybe he wasn't being so sarcastic after all.
It becomes a running joke in the station, the moment they get engaged. He probably should have seen it coming.
Because Lucy's going to be his second wife, but he's only the first husband, and nobody's really sure whether that's supposed to mean it'll work out or not. There's no obvious precedent the same way there is for ordinary cop first marriages.
The station seems to be coming down hard on the assumption that Lucy will eventually do better than him, though, and it's getting pretty insufferable.
"Ha, I guess you're going to have to find a third wife too," Smitty guffaws, elbowing him in the ribs when he finds out they're engaged. Tim looks at him like he wishes he'd drop dead and stalks off without a word.
"Pretty big of you to get Chen's first marriage out of the way for her," Wrigley jokes in the break room, like he's expecting Tim to join in and say good one. He doesn't.
It's why when Lucy herself makes a similar comment that weekend on the way back from the grocery store, he's just about had enough.
"There will be no second marriage."
"Okay, whoa," Lucy says, raising her eyebrows. "I am clearly not serious. Firstly, planning this wedding is already becoming a nightmare from which I can't seem to wake. There won't be another one. Secondly, what the hell's got into you?"
"Sorry," he says evasively, hefting the brown bag he's carrying into the house. Lucy follows with a second, her brow knitted in concern as she looks at him expectantly. "Maybe people have been getting under my skin," he mutters, and Lucy makes a noise of disbelief.
"Oh my god, are you seriously buying into the 'cop first marriages never work' thing? Tim, look, I'm thirty-two, and you're God knows how old-" he shoots her a warning look. "-I'm just saying, we are not the average dewy-eyed couple. We're not walking into this blind. I already know you're going to be a giant pain in my ass, and you already know I'm going to drive you crazy for the rest of your life. That has to count for something."
"Ever think about going into motivational speaking, Chen?" he says acerbically, as Lucy starts packing away the tins of tomatoes and beans he hands her into the cupboard. She shrugs and straightens up.
"I'm an excellent shot," she says, a teasing glimmer in her eyes as she hooks her fingers into his belt loops. "One husband is all it takes. Okay?"
"Okay," he mutters, before he leans down to kiss her just a touch possessively. "Though my third wife could have been really hot-"
It earns him a fierce nip to his bottom lip, and he smiles at the way her arms tighten insistently around him, more than a touch possessively.
He's pretty sure that the old wisdom runs true for him; in marriage, second time's the charm. And he'll damn well spend forever making sure that the same can't be said for her.
loving your fic contribution! I always know when you update that it’s gonna be amazing to read 😀
Chenford prompt + “Well that’s never happened before’
Also - loved reading ‘Clean shot’ do you think you’ll pick it back up?
// Thank you so much for reading and sending me this ask! Prompt fill in full below the cut.
On Clean Shot - I've honestly just been a kid in a sweet shop with too many things to look at, so I haven't looked at it for a while admittedly. I do intend to circle back to it when I've got all my other itches out of my system! //
She must know what she's doing, and maybe that's the annoying part. There's no way she doesn't know.
Tim's stood in the parking garage eyeing Lucy with mingling aggravation and frustration and something else, something he really doesn't want to have to put a name to.
It's not a fair fight when she walks in looking like that.
"What?" she asks him, giving him an odd look when he's just stood there silently glowering at her. He's meant to be driving them to Wesley's birthday party, and he was waiting for her by his truck while she got changed in the station.
And then she walked in in high heeled boots, swinging her hips and looking like a million dollars. Way more than a million. Yeah, he's so screwed.
There's a split in her skirt all the way up to her thigh, and the cut of her silk shirt is just a little daring. If she lifts her arms there's a teasing gap between the bottom of it and the top of her skirt.
"I didn't say anything," he replies curtly, and then gets into the truck, leaving her to roll her eyes at his tetchy behaviour.
He drives her to Angela and Wesley's place in silence, and she doesn't attempt to break it for once. But when he pulls up and parks, he can't resist sneaking a look over at her, and she catches his eye in a way that really makes his expression tighten.
He climbs out without another word, and she walks around the truck to block his way, staring up at him exasperatedly.
"If I've done something to offend you, can you just spit it out?" she demands, hands on hips. He can see the flash of her bare skin again, tantalising, and his frown deepens.
"You haven't," he snaps, and she makes a hand gesture like well, what then? and he just can't stop staring at her lips, painted vibrant red and pouting just a little.
"Tim, I'm not going in there until you've got whatever it is off your chest, so-"
And he's not sure whether it's her defiant tone, or the wind catching the split in her skirt, or just the fact that he's been so completely desperate to do something about this for months, but it's suddenly all over for him.
In an abrupt moment of wildness he gives up on restraint and catches her by the waist, walking her back to the side of his truck so he can lower his head to hers and catch her lips in a fierce, unrestrained kiss, absorbing her startled exhale in the process.
It only takes her a moment to start responding to him, her lips parting to his, and the momentary terror Tim feels when his brain catches up to what he's done is quickly replaced by a vibrating, prowling triumph deep in his chest. She doesn't pull away.
When he finally draws back she's gripping his forearms tightly, her eyes wide.
"Well, that's never happened before," she says, unsteadily, and he shifts his weight restlessly.
"Nope," he replies, searching her face for any sign that this was a massive error of judgment on his part. "Doesn't have to again, either," he adds, trying not to seem like the rest of his life might just hinge on the answer she gives.
Her face clears into the most radiant smile, and he knows one way or the other he's never getting over Lucy Chen.
"Tim, there'd better be an again," she says, her hands finding their way to either side of his shirt collar. "I didn't wait this long for you to be a one hit wonder."
His eyebrows shoot up.
Without another word he pins her firmly against the side of the truck and kisses her soundly, until they're both so late for Wesley's party their phones ring and they jump apart like guilty teenagers.
They exchange a look that's loaded with humour and affection and lust and longing, and he can't speak for her but he spends the entirety of the party counting down the seconds until he finally gets to what comes after it.
Because that, that's when the rest of his life begins.
Lucy looks up, surprised, at those words she never expected to hear from him.
"I'm sorry, repeat that slowly?" she says, trying for something resembling humour. But his look back at her is bleak.
"I said, maybe you were right. I was too invested to make... good decisions. Should have handed it... to someone else."
He's looking ashen and exhausted, a faint sheen of sweat on his brow, and seeing him so weak completely takes away from the moment of him admitting that to her. It takes a lot for Tim to give ground, and it says more about where his head is at right now than anything else.
"Tim, don't do this. Just focus on getting better," she says, her voice low as she moves closer towards the head of his hospital bed to press the back of her hand to his forehead. He's warm, but not dangerously so.
"You told me not to go," he says, his voice like sandpaper, and she shakes her head. He shouldn't have gone, but nothing can change that now.
"And now you're paying for it," she says, picking up the damp cloth sitting on the bedside. She presses it over his furrowed brow and tries not to show how much she wants to climb in beside him, throw her arms around him and take away his pain.
He's her partner, not her boyfriend, and there are vows they have to keep.
"It's going to hurt like hell for the next few days and they can't give you any meds, so you just have to take it easy."
"Hm," he says, and his eyes flicker shut as she moves the cold cloth gently down to his neck and the exposed part of his bare chest.
"I'd be dead without you," he says, his eyes opening again, and it sends a chill down Lucy's spine because she knows it's true.
"So would I," she murmurs back. "Isn't that what partners are for?"
He smiles slightly, and she finds his hand somewhere down the bed amongst the starchy sheets.
"Stay?" he asks, and she squeezes his hand.
As if she would ever leave him.
// it's angst hours at last, there's been altogether too much fluff in my head //
okay honestly this scene was early days but probably one of the most heartfelt and chenfordy chenfordness we ever got. Lucy yelling and talking sense into him, Tim opening up, Lucy being a supportive cinammon roll.
He tracks her down after the cake is cut and a safely-married Angela's off slow dancing with Wesley somewhere, finally relieving him of duty.
It's not that he's saying being a Man of Honour for a wedding that had to be reorganised twice was the worst job he's ever had, but. It kind of was.
At least now he's free to do what he's been waiting for all night.
"Hey, Chen," he says, for the second time that night. He shuts the glass door behind him and steps out into the peaceful night air.
Lucy glances over at him, her hair catching on the breeze and suddenly she seems to be holding her breath.
"Hey. I was just- getting some air."
"You hiding from me?"
She sighs. "No," she says, then shrugs. "Maybe."
"Why?"
She looks at him, all big eyes and struggling to find the right words. "Because something almost happened," she says. Her voice is slightly high pitched. He on the other hand feels remarkably steady.
He steps in closer, resting his hand on the balcony rail she's leaning against.
"Would it be so bad if it did?" he asks, completely serious, and her eyes widen even further.
"I-" she says, and for once she seems to be completely lost for words. He smiles ironically, raising an eyebrow, and she lets out a shaky laugh.
"I thought I was imagining it," she admits. "All those times I thought I felt something, I told myself there was no way you would too."
"I did," he says shortly. "I do."
"That's Angela's line." It's a weak attempt at humour but it seems to give her enough breathing room to become cautiously brave, turning her body to face him. He just keeps watching, steadily, waiting for her next move.
"Can we do this?" she whispers, stepping in so close his hand automatically comes up to brush against her waist.
"Yeah," he says, quietly. "As long as you want to."
Her eyes stay fixed on his like that's what's giving her enough courage to put her hand on his shoulder and lean up as far as she can reach.
He covers the rest of the distance and meets her half-way.
When they draw apart he has both hands grazing her hipbones, and she's holding onto his lapel in a tight little fist.
"Okay. We should have done that sooner," she tells him, her voice and her sense of balance more than a little unsteady.
"We'll make up for it," he replies, and bends his head to catch her lips again, just because he can.
