Can I send u a prompt? Jake and Amy, Jake braiding Amy's hair (either pre or post dating, u decide!! <3)
(i’ve been writing a lot of established peraltiago so i’ll do some pre-relationship stuff w a bonus at the bottom)
It’s one in the morning when she brings it up;
“I never learnt how to braid my hair,” She shrugs, munching leisurely on the corner of her wrap. In favor of electing to ignore that it’s green and looks like a strip of grass rolled over more vegetables, he turns his focus to her hair – Amy’s precise with everything she does. Her hair carries the natural shine that ad’s talk about, and he’s never seen it knotted when she can help it. She’s always got some, neat, pulled back hairdo that makes him wonder how she doesn’t have a receding hairline, and he can’t help but compare the silkiness of it to that of a mermaid.
“Wow,” He says, genuinely a little shocked as he looks away from his binoculars - not that there was anything for him to binocule anyway (that’s a word, right?) - and scrutinizes her hair as if somehow, it’s going to wind itself into a braid and he can call her bluff. “Really? You can make your hair disappear into your scalp neatly but you can’t braid your hair?”
She wriggles her nose a little, the way she does when he’s bested her at something and pulls her arms closer together, munching a little more fiercely on her food. She looks like a rabbit, he notices, and doesn’t spend too long on that thought because, it’s incredibly adorable and the last thing he needs is to think of Uptight Amy as even cute.
“Look I grew up in a house full of boys, braiding my hair was never a priority - and it still isn’t a priority, it’s not like it makes me any less valued as a woman just because I can’t, put my hair in a braid,” She’s shrugging her shoulders too much and trying too hard to look ‘cool’ about it that he knows it’s bothering her more than she’s letting on.
Also, he really wants an excuse to touch her hair.
“Here why don’t I,” He shuffles around in his seat, the binoculars moving to sit on the dashboard until he can unbuckle and turn towards her, motioning at her hair. “Like– you know, show you,”
His hand brushes against the back of her neck and she feels goosebumps rise along her forearms, until she realizes he’s reaching for the rest of her hair to pull it over to the shoulder favoring his side.
“I can’t believe I’m better than you at tying hair, can we get this on camera? I wanna be able to screen this at the precinct in demonstration of Ways Jake Peralta Is Super More Awesome Than Amy Santiago,” He declares gleefully, tilting her head so he can work a braid down the back of her scalp until he reaches the junction just below her ear.
She elbows him in his side and he howls in her ear and they both start laughing despite themselves until he captures her attention by turning her chin towards him - well, towards the partitioned hair, she realizes after staring at him with a startled expression until he flickers his gaze between her hair and her eyes.
“Okay, now that we’ve established that, it’s simple just- watch,” He folds the hair delicately together, bringing left over middle over right over middle until he reaches the bottom, and then wordlessly pulls her elastic off her wrist, securing it in place. It’s the goofy, warm smile he gives her like he just showed his mum the A* on his report card that makes her come to him a week later.
“Hey Jake?” She says, wheeling over to him. “Can you help me braid my hair?”
She ignores Gina’s wordless eyebrow raise and focuses on the way he quietly scoots closer to neatly part her hair for her.
(Three years later when she comes out of the shower after a long day at work and nestles her head against his lap, he quietly repeats the motion, drawing it out as much as he can until she falls asleep then and there.)
