──────BROKEN DOWN AND HUNGRY FOR YOUR LOVE ───
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touchstarved ! rookie! reader x training officer! tim
summary: Tim had said ‘no more rookies’ after Lucy, but well. Things don’t always go according to plan. Just like you never thought you’d be staring at your training officer’s arms, wondering how they feel wrapped around you.
cw: daddy issues (seriously this is a tim x reader like. don’t we all have daddy issues) mild depression, descriptions of child death and abuse (it’s one scene and pretty easily skippable but yk police call stuff) tbh could be read as platonic this isn’t super romantic i just want tim to hold me i don’t care how he does it
a/n: in this universe chenford never happened even tho i ship it with every cell in my body. also im only like halfway through season two so take my depiction of characters and events with a grain of salt. buckle up this one’s LOOOOOONGGG
title taken from Lover You Should've Come Over by Jeff Buckley (jeff buckley i miss u)
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Tim Bradford has really nice hands.
This is, undoubtedly, not at all something you should be noticing about your training officer. Probably the most strict, unpredictable, unrelenting, high-key-wants-you-to-fail training officer in the LAPD.
And yet.
Here you are, noticing.
His arms are really nice too. The chords of muscle flex in a particular way while he drives. Especially when turning or when he’s conducting a car chase and his hands go white-knuckled on the steering wheel.
You think to yourself that his hands are probably warm. Tim seems like the kind of man to run hot.
Tim also makes sure that you understand how much he doesn’t like you.
You get it. Kind of. He’d been on his way to becoming a sergeant when it’d been decided that during the coarse of his career, not enough of his officers actually made it past being a rookie.
“One last go,” The captain had said on your first day, “Should be easy. This rookie’s the most self-sufficient thing since Officer West. If she doesn’t make the cut, I want to know why.”
So yeah. You’re pretty sure Tim tuned out the conversation after hearing ‘one last go’.
Additionally, you two have… clashing personalities. You’ve always prided yourself on being self-sufficient- on not needing anyone else. But Tim makes it his mission every single day to remind you of all the million different ways you need to rely on your partner and need them— need him.
It’s annoying on a good day and humbling on a bad one.
And then there’s the matter of Lucy Chen. One of the few rookies to survive the Tim Tests and actually make it past rookie, all the while gaining his respect and friendship.
You don’t even try to hope to reach what she accomplished. Lucy Chen is an inspiration, a pipe dream, and an unreachable standard wrapped up in blue. It’s clear that Tim is proud of the cop she’s become. Proud of his work.
You’re not sure he could ever be proud of you.
But you didn’t raise yourself to be a quitter. So you get up everyday and take the Tim Tests in stride. You work and learn and learn and work and pretend the lack of relationship or bond you have with your fellow rookies doesn’t bother you.
You pretend you don’t dream of being held by warm arms and wake up in the same position, alone and cold.
You pretend the heated blanket you bought during the Academy with your meager funds feels just like human warmth. You pretend it’s enough.
And you do what you always do: you manage.
—
Like with any job, there’s good days, and there’s bad days. You try not to dwell on the bad days, but you usually end up doing so anyways, usually in your silent, empty apartment as you try to fall asleep.
Your shift today is only half over, and you’ve already lost a suspect during a chase —Tim ended up catching her, and the look he shot you as he cuffed him was nothing short of fiery— you accidentally tampered with evidence —in your defense, you weren’t aware that piggy banks were used to move drugs, but accidentally dropping it made you want to crawl into a hole and die— and the cherry on top was the suspect you apprehended today, who, in her desperation to get away from you and jail, kicked you in the leg while she was on the ground. With her very long, and very skinny heel.
‘I got stabbed in the leg with a stripper’s heel’ isn’t a sentence you ever thought you’d say, but here you are. The wound isn’t that bad, thankfully. Just all the usual pain that comes from being stabbed with a fairly blunt object.
You sit in an uncomfortable hospital chair in the waiting room, elbow digging into the hard, wooden armrest and holding your head up by your forehead, while your other arm presses on the still sluggishly bleeding wound on your lower, mid thigh, leg stretched out in front of you.
You’re tired.
Recently, the bad days have outweighed the good ones. You knew this would be the case when you signed up to be a cop. You knew your apartment would feel empty and cold, but you thought that maybe, maybe, you’d make a few friends in your coworkers and it wouldn’t feel so unbearable.
But it turns out there isn’t enough time to make friends when you’re busy trying to get the highest scores in the Academy. And by the time you graduated, you’d been written off as a stuck-up teachers pet. Tolerated by the other rookies at best, occasionally sneered at and mocked at worst.
No fellow rookies, no friendly coworker, no nice neighbors in your apartment. Your training officer doesn’t like you, and the watch commander regularly enjoys singling you out for rookie-typical ridicule.
You’re tired.
The wound on your leg hurts like a bitch, already bruised to hell and back in that way that blunt force injuries usually do. Your pants are dark and sticky with blood, and the hand that’s applying pressure is uncomfortably tacky as you bleed, clot, and dry, over and over again.
It’s shitty. You feel shitty.
The fluorescent overhead lights are making your head pound and there’s so much noise in the waiting room, overlapping and, for lack of a better term, stabbing your eardrums in a pounding beat, and the pain is starting to make you a little nauseous, or maybe that’s the smell of anti-septic, and you fucked up so badly today, and oh god what if you get sepsis or a staff infection, that heel was so dirty, who knows where it’s been, and why won’t you just stop bleeding, and—
“Boot.”
—you haven’t called your mom in ages, she deserves better than that, and god your leg really hurts, and you don’t want to go home after this because—
“Rookie.”
—you’re most definitely being sent home, you got stabbed with a fucking heel for christ’s sake, and unlike after a normal shift you won’t have the exhaustion to just send you straight to bed, chores be damned, your apartment is so, so so quiet and you hate it—
“Hey!”
Snapping fingers in front of your face and Tim’s shout jolts you from your pain-slash-panic-induced spiral, and you reflexively clench your fists, then hiss in pain as your grip tightens over the wound.
He’s crouched in front of you, dark, steady eyes scrutinizing your face.
“Sorry,” you huff, face hot with embarrassment. “It’s, um, it’s loud in here.”
He just nods once, looking rather unimpressed. You resist the urge to fidget.
“You good to stay here while I go back out?”
The thought of waiting in the ER alone, and then more than likely catching an Uber to the station and then ignoring possible doctors orders to drive yourself home from there is… less than pleasant.
But if it has to be done, then it has to be done.
“Yeah,” You say easily, the lie slipping right off your tongue. “Yeah, yeah I’ll be good.”
Your injury had already been called in, so Grey wasn’t expecting you back at the station. Tim would go back on shift and you’d take care of yourself like you always do. You’ll be fine eventually. You always are.
You expect Tim to take the easy out. You’ve handed it to him on a silver platter. Express permission to not have to deal with you anymore today.
He sighs, unexpectedly, then stands, and you look down so you don’t have to watch him walk away, and wait to hear the sound of his retreating footsteps.
They don’t come.
The chair next to you creaks as someone sits down in it.
As Tim sits down in it.
You blink, looking up at him. “Officer Bradford?”
He’s crossed his arms across his chest, sparing you a small glance. “What?”
You look down at your lap. “Nothing.”
He doesn’t say anything, just pulls out his phone, clearly texting someone —probably Officer Lopez— and pretty much ignores you as you wait to be called back.
His presence is enough, though. It chases away some of that creeping panic and chill in your chest. You relax in increments. Your posture slouches, your hand unclenches, and you feel like you can take a breath without throwing up.
Eventually, your name gets called, and maybe you just look especially pathetic as your stiffly and shakily climb to your feet and begin ambling towards the indicated trauma room, but you hear another annoyed sigh, and then Tim’s mumbling “Here,” and then your arm is around his shoulders and his arm snakes behind your back and just above your waist.
And fuck.
If you thought that having him near you was something, having the arms of the man you’ve literally dreamt about doing nearly this exact same thing is… it’s a drug.
Your skin is on fire where’s he’s quite literally holding you together as you awkwardly shuffle across the waiting room. His hands are warm even through the under shirt and your uniform shirt. The rush of chemicals in your head is dizzying at the contact, your brain startlingly aware of each and every place the two of you are connected.
To him, it’s nothing. To you, it’s everything.
If this is what hard drugs feel like, you sympathize with the addicts. All it takes is his arm around you, safe and steadying, and you’re gone. Hooked.
You try your best to file the feeling away in your head, to commit it to memory, so later, when those bad days have their cold nights, you can take it out and remember it. Remember what felt like to be even half wrapped like this. Supported and steadied.
It’s an uncharacteristic show of care on Tim’s part. He’s not exactly a touchy-feely kind of guy. He’s more like the ‘deal with it or quit’ kind of guy.
But he’s helping you here, now. More than he knows.
You don’t comment on any of this, of course, because you don’t want to draw attention to how much you’re leaning into his touch.
You hope he writes it off as needing help walking.
—
The first night after the stabbing —Tim does not let you drive yourself home, though looks vaguely impressed that you were completely willing, and instead drops you off and has Officer Lopez drive your car back to your place— is great. You sleep clear through the night without waking up once. The memory of Tim holding you up, touching you, is fresh in your mind. Sleeping is easy. You arrive to work for once not faking your enthusiasm under layers of professionalism. You actually, genuinely feel okay.
As the weeks progress though, you start flagging.
By the time a month has gone by, you’re downright miserable. You didn’t realize just how empty your chest could feel after actually feeling how warm and full it could be.
This, of course, means doubling over on professionalism, because there’s absolutely no way that anyone can know how much you’re starting to fracture, bit by bit. You’re strong, put-together, and self-sufficient. You take Tim’s training in stride and you never complain. You don’t rise to the bait when you get singled out for hazing, and laugh when you become the subject of a rookie prank.
You do not stare at Tim’s arms or hands out of the corner of your eye when he’s not looking, you do not imagine the big pillow you hold at night is him, and most importantly you do not even entertain the fantasy in which Tim holds you, really holds you, and you don’t have to keep it all together anymore.
It’s not realistic. You’re always going to hold everything together. You always have and you always will.
But sometimes, every now and then, you get something well and truly right, and Tim says “Good job, boot.” And he means it. Gets that crinkle near his eyes and that twitch in his jaw when he’s trying not to look impressed or pleased. And it chases away the empty, just for a little bit. Makes how hard he pushes you just a little more worth it, each time.
It’s starting to get to you, though. Has been for awhile. Because it’s a bit pathetic, isn’t it, to think these things about your training officer? Someone who would never, ever do the things you want him to do? As trivial and stupid and childish as they are?
And look. You’re not stupid. You know exactly why you’ve fixated on Tim Bradford specifically. You’re well versed in the art of “intellectualizing your feelings so you don’t have to feel them” and your want of your training officer’s touch is no mystery. He checks all your boxes- Brooding, emotionally unavailable, harsh, attractive, and more importantly, in a position of power over you. So you get it. Daddy issues, your emotional needs not being met growing up, blah blah blah. It’s whatever.
What’s not whatever is your inability to stop obsessing over it. Him. You need to get a grip.
You want to become a detective. And, not to mention, you’ve worked incredibly hard to be a damn good cop.
But here you are, sitting in the shop with Tim, spacing out when you should be paying attention because you saw one of your old friends post the anniversary for her and her boyfriend last night and now you can’t stop thinking about how she probably look at every couple and wonder how it feels to have someone around, constantly, to soothe the near permanent ache in your chest and itch under your skin.
She probably doesn’t have the ache or itch at all.
“Boot!” Tim barks, voice sudden and loud. “Where are we?”
You jolt in place. “Uh—“
Tim slams on the brakes, your seatbelt snapping against your chest. “I’ve been shot. I’m dead. Where were you just now?”
You scramble for an answer. “I was—“
“Your head wasn’t here,” He jams a finger onto the center console. “And in this line of work, that means you’re dead. It means people die on your watch.”
He starts the car, and without the crackling of dispatch over the radio, it’s awhile before he speaks again.
“What’s wrong?”
The words sound so foreign coming from Officer Bradford that you pause.
“Is that a trick question? Is the answer…um… I should focus more…?”
“Well, yes, and no,” He responds, face set in a slight grimace, “Yes, you need to focus more, but no, that wasn’t a trick question.”
When you don’t immediately respond —what are you supposed to say to that?— he keeps going.
“You’re spacey. You don’t get spacey. But you’ve been all over the place lately, so something’s up.”
“Nothing’s—“
He levels you with a Look.
Now it’s your turn to sigh.
One of the main reasons you didn’t get along with other students at the Academy was your unwillingness to sacrifice your career for a social life. You didn’t tell anybody your sob story— didn’t need the pity, didn’t care what they thought.
And you don’t really want to tell Tim either, but for a different reason. An opposite one, really. You do care what he thinks. A lot. And you don’t want to sound whiny or sensitive or any less of a capable cop. You need to prove to him that you can do this.
But Tim also has the best bullshit sensor of anyone you know, and will immediately see through you if you try to lie.
“I moved to California right before I started at the Academy. I was focused and career driven. And I’ve never really been social. It just, uh, kind of hit me, I guess. That my family is a thousand miles away.”
“What, you don’t have any friends from the Academy?”
His confidence in your social skills is nice, if not very misguided.
You shrug. “I gave up everything to move here. I thought that if I went out to bars and parties, I’d lose focus and fail. I couldn’t, and still can’t afford to.”
Tim’s saved from responding by a call close to your location crackling out from dispatch. And thank god for that. You’re sure as hell not itching to restart the conversation, and besides. Tim wants you to get your head in the game, so you do. Complete and utter focus on the call.
It goes well. But Tim doesn’t say anything as you climb back in the shop, not even a not-displeased hum.
“That’s stupid, you know.”
You look up from where you were checking something in the system. “What?”
“This thing you’re doing. You’re not even living. You’re just going to work and then going home. Your performance is shitty because you feel shitty.”
You gape for a second before rushing to respond. “My performance isn’t—“
“Yeah, it is. Don’t argue me on this, boot. You’re drowning, is what you’re doing. You have no work life balance. You’re going to burn out, and then you wash out.”
He turns to you, eyes bright and jaw set. “And you better not wash out, because you’re my last rookie and I need you to win.”
Right. Yes. Of course. Tim needs you to win, so he needs you to get focused, and get real.
The smile you give him is perfectly practiced and hollow. You ignore the nausea churning in your chest.
“Don’t worry. I don’t do anything other than win.”
—
Even though it’s most definitely stupid and insane, you ignore Tim’s advice. Since when have you had the energy to do things outside of work but rot in bed? And besides. Going out would mean losing precious sleeping hours, which are already hard enough to come by as it is. You don’t need to make your energy levels any worse than they already are by adding going to bed late on top of incredibly fitful sleep.
So it’s fine. You’re handling it.
—
You’re not handling it.
You’re exhausted. All the time. The more tired you are, the more you have to work to make sure your performance at work isn’t suffering. Which makes you more tired.
And you just… can’t sleep. You toss and turn all night, wake up a million times, and usually end up reliving your worst cases with added bonuses, like Tim being injured, and then berating you for it, and then the watch commander calls you into his office and fires you.
And then there’s the guilt. The sickening, nauseating guilt that follows you day after day, choking and clogging your throat because you know you’re better than this. You’re better than this. But you’re not getting better.
You should’ve taken Tim’s advice, maybe. Should’ve heard it two, three, maybe four months ago and extended yourself to other people and tried going out, making a routine of trying new things other than sleeping, watching tv, or working, but it’s too late now and you’re just so fucking tired.
And alone.
Really, really, alone.
When you finally lose it, it’s because of a call. A bad one. A really bad one.
It’s a little girl. No older than nine or ten. Her mother had reported her missing when she’d come home from work and her daughter and her husband were missing. At first, the report hadn’t been taken seriously, but the mother begged and pleaded. It was Lucy who’d pulled up the woman’s husband and found several previous charges for domestic violence and abuse that dispatch had sent multiple units after the child.
Whom you found. Locked in a car.
You were the one to break the window. You were the one to get her out.
You were the one who had to call an RA unit for a nine year old girl, not conscious, not breathing.
Tim pulled you away from the scene. From her. Kept a hand on your shoulder and steered you towards the shop, and you were shaking. Are shaking. You’re in the shop. You can’t get your hands to stop shaking.
Tim is uncharacteristically silent. He doesn’t start the car. You can see him watching you out of the corner of your eye. You need to stop shaking. You need to get it together.
It’s just. That was you. Could’ve been you. Almost was you, once or twice.
You spent a lot of time in locked cars growing up.
“Boot,” Tim says softly, too softly, he’s babying you, “You need to take a minute.”
“No, no,” The first no is shaky and the second is no better but you need to be fine, “I’m fine, I’ll be fine. I need to adapt, need to get used to this kind of thing.”
He makes a noise of annoyance in the back of his throat. “No you don’t. Becoming desensitized to this kind of thing isn’t what you want to happen. Trust me.”
You breath is starting to hitch a little, and your eyes are beginning to burn. Why can’t you stop shaking? It happened so long ago.
“I’m fine. I’m— It’s okay. We should get back on the road.”
Your voice wobbles at the end. You clench your jaw, steel yourself against the onslaught of emotions and will yourself to just get a fucking grip.
“Hey,” Tim starts, voice that lower, gentle tone he sometimes uses on victims, and that’s messed up, because you’re not a victim, just dramatic, “It’s okay to not be okay after something like that.”
“I’m fine!” You snap, “I survived. She didn’t.”
Oh.
You feel the first few tears begin falling, and immediately scrub them off your face as fast and as hard as you can.
“I’m sorry,” You half-whisper, mortified at the action of crying and snapping at him. “I’m sorry, this is, this is really unprofessional—“
You hunch, pressing the heels of your hands so hard into your eyes starbursts of color are whirling behind them.
Tim doesn’t say anything, which only adds to your mounting anxiety, until you hear the semi-familar sound of him typing on his phone, and then a steady tik. Tik. Tik.
You look up, your eyes already puffy.
Tim sets his phone down on the console between the two of you.
“That timer is set for ten minutes. For ten minutes, you are not going to be fine. Ten minutes while we drive. Got that?”
You sniffle pathetically. “Ten minutes is a long time to put up with me crying.”
He shrugs. “If I give you your ten minutes, and you get this out, then you’ll be more focused on the job. Seems like a fair trade off to me.”
You’re not expecting the firm hand to land on your shoulder.
“This was your first d-o-a. Even the best cops are shaken after something like that. It changes you. That is not something be ashamed of.”
You let yourself lean into the touch, ever so slightly. The tears start falling easier after that, and, still not entirely comfortable with crying in front of your TO, you cover your face with your hands.
The crying bit is over in only a few minutes. The rest of the time on the timer is spent staring down at your lap and trying to calm yourself down, and when that doesn’t work, you pull out your phone and soothe yourself by organizing one of your Pinterest boards. Ah, the peace that comes from setting arbitrary rules that affect no one and organizing pictures based on these rules. Bliss.
Tim only removes his hand after you stop crying, which. You try your best to memorize the touch —no matter how mortifying the circumstances— and try your best not to think about how it almost seems like starting to catch onto the messier parts about yourself you’d like to keep hidden.
—
Sometimes it’s hard not to feel well and truly and completely alone.
You know you’re not. Not really. Not if you tried harder, extended yourself more. Made an effort to get out there. But you don’t have any energy for efforts. You don’t have anything left to give.
Tim’s touch and approval and just there-ness haunt you on your off days and are, if you’re being embarrassingly and horrifyingly honest, the only thing you really look forward to anymore.
You like your job. You do. But you’re tired. And how many times can you say that? Can you think that?
I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired.
Please, someone, put me down, let me go, give me a minute, I’m tired.
So it’s not really surprising when you get sick.
You’ve been running yourself absolutely ragged, day in and day out, and when you wake, feeling like death warmed over, you don’t even groan. It makes your throat hurt.
Your head pounds with pressure from your sinuses and your hands shake as you put on your uniform in the locker room. Your slow-and-unsteady gait gathers a few looks as you make your way into the, surprisingly empty, roll call room.
Is it really empty if one person is in it? Tim’s in it. He’s leaned up against the front desk, where you usually sit with the other rookies. Only time you’re really ever near them. He looks mad. Why’s he mad?
“Boot,” He starts, voice low, and that’s never a good sign, “Is there a reason you decided not to show up to roll call today?”
You blink, thoughts going about as fast as a fish in frozen water, “But it’s not time for roll call yet.”
It’s not. You woke up when your alarm went off, took cold medicine (probably more than you’re supposed to, and the wrong combination of them, but who cares) and drove to the precinct. Same as you always do. Minus the cold medicine.
Tim frowns. He’s always frowning. He frowns deeper. “You’re over an hour late.”
That…doesn’t make any sense. How’d you lose an hour of time? Did you fall asleep somewhere along the way? You don’t remember falling asleep. You’re not missing any memories, no blank spots, no black outs.
“Boot!” He barks, and you flinch and the noise, pressing a hand to your forehead as if that’ll help the sharp stab of pain in your head that accompanies his raised voice.
Tim is downright glaring at you now. “Are you hungover?”
“No!” You reply indignantly, then instantly regret it due to the burn you now feel in your throat, “I’m just like. Kind of sick.”
Did that come out convincing enough? You’re sure you can still work. You worked through every cold and flu and fever back at the Academy. You can totally do this, right?
Tim pushes off the table and stalks towards you. arms crossed. He uncrosses them as he gets closer and—
Oh. That’s nice. His hand’s cool.
Your eyes flutter shut, unbidden, as the cool skin of the back of his hand presses to your forehead. If your eyes were open, you’d be able to see that his frown has taken on a concerned brow furrow to accompany it, but you’re too busy enjoying the simple contact to notice. Or keep your eyes open.
He takes his hand away with a sigh, and you stumble forward a little.
“You feel like you’re on fire. Jesus- did you drive here?”
You nod, to avoid angering your throat, and end up angering your headache instead.
“Yeah, you’re going home.”
Panic stabs you in the chest.
“No!” You rasp, “I’m fine. I’m a rookie, it’s my job to keep working no matter what—“
“It’s also,” Tim interrupts, “Your job to take care of yourself, but you’re shit at that, which is why you’re sick in the first place. So I’m going to drive you home and make sure you’re not going to die by yourself while you’re sick.”
You shake your head. “I used to work through being sick all the time at the Academy, I can do it.”
“And you were stupid for doing that too. The key difference here is that you’re not responsible for peoples lives at the Academy. I’m not going to get shot today because you’re too hopped up on cold medicine to cover me.”
“But—“
“I’m sorry,” He growls, “Were you under the impression that you have any sort of say in this decision?”
You close your mouth.
“That’s what I thought. Go wait at my desk while I clear this with the watch commander.”
You trudge solemnly to his desk, head and vision swimming. Great. Now Tim’s upset at you and you feel awful. Why is everything so terrible?
You slump into the chair at his desk, dropping your head onto your arms and allowing your eyes to close. The walk from the briefing room to Tim’s desk exhausted you. And your uniform feels extra uncomfortable.
You just want to be at home, not sick, and maybe sleeping restfully for the first time since becoming a cop. Maybe you’re not cut out to be a cop. Maybe you should quit. Maybe—
Someone gently shakes your shoulder, and your straighten, blinking blearily.
“Come on, up we go.”
A strong arm hooks under yours and carefully hauls you up, and let out a small whine at the movement. Tim’s desk is comfortable. And smells vaguely like him.
“Don’t give me that. I’m taking you home. We need to go get your stuff from the locker room.”
You whine again, as if the noise will somehow convey everything you’re feeling at the moment.
I don’t want to leave the temporary and fake saftey of Tim’s desk. I don’t want to go home cause my home is empty and I’m sick. I’m extra miserable because I’m sick. My brain isn’t working and I don’t remember what locker I put my stuff in. I don’t even know if I brought my stuff. Is it somehow possible for my technical-boss to take me to his house instead and tuck me into his bed that smells like him and has him in it so I can sleep next to another human being and feel safe for even twenty minutes?
Of course, none of this is relayed to Tim, who’s currently half holding half dragging you over to the locker rooms, grip firm but not unkind.
After assuring you that no one else is even going to be in the locker room because you’re now over an hour into your shift, he goes with you and helps you find and take your stuff. In your sick daze, you did manage to bring your bag and water bottle, but neglected to put any water in your water bottle or put your wallet in your bag.
Tim just mutters an “Alright, come on,” once your stuff has been acquired, and escorts you out to the parking lot.
Two things occur to you.
One, Tim is no longer dressed in his uniform. Instead, he now sports jeans and a dark gray henley.
Two, you’re both headed towards the personal parking lot.
If Tim isn’t in work clothes anymore, and he’s taking you towards his car, that means he’s not just dropping you off at your house.
He is, presumably, going to look after you. Because you’re sick.
He ushers you into the passenger seat, going so far as to help you up and grab the seatbelt for you. He leans over you when he does it, and there’s a second where he’s pressed against you and it’s so nice and you kind of want to live in the moment forever but you can’t because you’re sick and he’s mad at you and he shouldn’t have to deal with this and you should’ve been better.
You sniffle just as he starts the car, momentarily thankful for the engine turning over hiding the sound, but unfortunately, the second the tears start, they don’t stop.
Tim notices immediately, because of course he does.
“What’s wrong?”
You hiccup a half-sob. “I’m sorry. I should’ve called out.”
“Yeah, you should have.”
You sniff again, harder, cause now your nose is running. “I thought I could do it. I thought I could handle it.”
He eases the car out of the parking space. “Having a brain-cooking fever isn’t really something you can just handle.”
He eyes the fat tears rolling down your cheeks and you see the muscles in his jaw work.
“Why didn’t just call out sick?”
“I don’t like calling out. I wanna be a model employee. Model officer. Wanna be reliable. I wanna be—“
You swallow, voice hoarse and wobbly. “I just wanna be good.”
The car is silent for awhile. A long while. Tim doesn’t respond, and with your nerves now thoroughly fried and your immune system making a minor attempt on your life, you’re pretty sure you fall asleep.
You wake to Tim shaking you, albeit gently, and helping you out of the car. He instructs you to leave your bag and to go inside and change.
He really doesn’t have to tell you twice. You feel awful. So bad. Terrible. Horrible.
Changing clothes only serves to exhaust you further, so you trudge out to the living room and collapse onto your couch, shivering. There’s a blanket only a few feet away, but it’s just so far.
You hear your front door open and the sound of heavy-footsteps, and then there’s the creak of your shitty fridge opening and a few mumbled curses.
You ignore the noises behind you and dedicate all of your energy to grabbing the remote off the coffee table and finding something you don’t have to think about watching. Maybe Criminal Minds. Or Bluey.
“I,” Tim starts, then annoyedly snatches the blanket off the end of the coach and drags it up over you, “Am going to the store, because your fridge looks like it hasn’t been used since the eighteen-hundreds. Don’t die while I’m gone.”
“Okay,” You say, but your voice is hoarse and muffled by the blanket so it comes out more like, “Mmomhay.”
You end up watching Jurassic Park, because nothing makes you feel better like dinosaurs and people getting eaten by them. Classic.
Tim does return at some point, right about when you’re thinking of just binge watching every single Jurassic Park/World movie, and starts making noise in your kitchen. Which you also ignore.
You’re doing a lot of ignoring today.
It’s easy though, is the thing. Tim is cooking something, if the sounds of grocery bags and pots and pans and chopping are anything to go off, and he’s handled you and his’s shifts, so there’s no work to worry about, and you’re really honestly too sick to think about any other things that need to be done.
Tim’s taking care of it. So you don’t have to worry, cause he’s cooking something, and people are getting eaten by dinosaurs on the tv in front of you, so maybe everything will be okay for the time being.
The okay feeling comes to a swift and brutal end when Tim comes around the edge of the couch and tells you to sit up.
“M’ comfy,” You mumble, indignant.
He rolls his eyes, ever exasperated. “You can’t eat soup while laying down.”
“Watch me.”
“No. Come on, sit up.”
You whine as he pulls you forward, stuffing pillows behind you so you don’t actually have to put effort in to staying upright. He then places a tray you didn’t know you owned (maybe he bought it?) on your lap and places a small bowl of soup and a sleeve of saltines.
Your eyes begin to burn with unshed tears again.
Tim groans. “It’s just soup, Boot.”
You sniff harshly. “No one’s made me soup before.”
He sigh’s long-sufferingly, but his vocal exasperation is undermined by the careful way he dabs at the tears on your cheeks.
“Thought you liked your mom.” Tim says, a question hidden in his voice.
“I do. But we were really poor, so she couldn’t really afford to take time off work because I was sick. And I got sick pretty often so,” You pick up your spoon with shaky fingers. “I got good at taking care of myself.”
“Yeah?” Tim says, opening the package of saltines for you, “Then where’d all that skill go?”
He clearly means it as a joke, but you still can’t help the small stab of guilt in your chest.
You set the spoon back down. “I’m just really tired.”
He doesn’t sigh again, but he does purse his lips in that way he does when he’s upset about something and can’t quite decide how to show it.
When he moves, it surprises you. He takes the soup off your lap, moves the tray to the little coffee table by your couch. Turns the TV volume up. Loud enough to hear the audible crunch of the Spinosaurus battling the T. Rex.
Then, he reaches forward and just. Reaches his arms around your waist and back and pulls you forward, then borderline man-handles you into a comfortable position with your legs now where your head used to be, and your had pillowed on his shoulder. He wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you just that much closer.
You couldn’t have stopped yourself from melting into the embrace even if you weren’t hopped up on cold medicine.
After a few minutes of mindlessly watching a Spinosaurus go on a rampage, he speaks again.
“You wanna know what I think?”
You nod into his arm, face smushed.
“I think you got really good at making people not worry about you. You probably had to.”
For a brief second, you think about hunger, and sickness, and locked cars.
“And I think that in my haste to get through this training period and make it to Sergeant, I didn’t bother looking deeper to find out if you were lying or not.”
You shift in place, now a little uncomfortable as the conversation has switched over to you. “It’s not really your responsibility.”
“It is,” Tim says easily, tone-matter-of-fact. “You’re my rookie. And it shouldn’t have taken me this long to learn what kind of training and support you needed.”
You sit up at his words. Which is a huge mistake, because then you get really dizzy and nauseous and there are weird stars dancing across your vision.
“You—“ You pause, taking a deep breath, “This is police work. I shouldn’t have to be coddled every step of the way.”
“Lay back down,” He tugs you down by your waist. “You aren’t coddled every step of the way. You’re a capable cop. You’re good at your job. I’m not holding your hand. I’m giving you what you need.”
You sink lower on the couch, trying to hide your face from this mortifying experience. Unfortunately the closest thing to hide your face in is Tim’s side.
Oh well. Beggars can’t be choosers.
He rubs your back consolingly. It only feels a little patronizing.
“But,” He continues, “I don’t know what you need if you don’t tell me.”
“I don’t want to bother you with that. You’re my T.O.”
“And you’re my rookie,” Tim continues smoothly, “I can’t send my rookie out on the streets if any criminal can get to her through a hug.”
“Hey,” You grumble, “That’s mean.”
“No it’s not.”
You pull your face away from his side and go back to facing the TV.
“But what if I need this a lot? What if my brain gets… screwy when I’m alone for awhile, and this is what fixes it?”
“Then I’d say it was a fairly normal reaction and need.” Tim shrugs.
You look up at him questioningly.
“Look. I didn’t have a great dad either. It’s not…” He trails off, jaw working. “Bad things happened to you. You dealt with them the only way you knew how. But now you need a little extra help. That’s all.”
“That sounds like something Lucy would say.”
Tim rolls his eyes. “How could you tell?”
The conversation lulls into a gentle silence. Tim continues trailing his hand up and down your side. Up and down, up and down, up and down. And occasionally pause to rub, knead, or scratch. All of which you lean into with equal amounts of shame and enjoyment.
“You’re like a cat,” He mumbles, eyes trained on the still rampaging Spinosaurus, “Can’t believe I didn’t make the connection before.”
You don’t have it in you to do anything more than make a non-committal hum.
A couple beats pass.
“Thank you.”
Tim’s hand trails a little higher on the next pass, his large palm curling up over your shoulder and to the back of your neck.
“For what?”
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