Nostalgic For Disasters [Jake Peralta X Reader]

12

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"FUCK!"

It looked slow and painful, as if she felt every individual millimeter that the bullet ripped through. Getting shot in the stomach means either instant death, slow and painful death, or no death at all. As I looked at her, I couldn't tell which it was gonna be. I raised my gun and fired at the woman at the end of the hall rapidly, without hesitation. She went down quickly and easily. Time blurred as I called in on my radio that all perps were down, and the hostages were ready to be evacuated. Y/N was grabbing at my arm, reaching for stability. I dropped my gun and hoisted her to her feet. She pointed at the room across the hallway with the big windows that looked out to the city. Words didn't reach either of us at that moment. My ears felt blocked, my voice sounded muffled. I yelled at the hostages to evacuate and ignore the dead body in their way.

         I brought Y/N across the hall to the room with the big windows that showed the shimmering lights of New York at night. My hands grew clammy as I sat her up against the wall with a view. The bright lights shining off the roofs of cop cars and ambulances coming and going from the scene had Y/N enamored. She had always loved the lights and commotion of the city, as well as the vivacity of the streets. The palm of her left hand grew redder and redder with each second, her shirt and bulletproof vest didn't provide enough pressure or protection. Her breaths were deep and shallow, though the pain looked almost non-existent. I sat in front of her, taking her right hand in mine, it felt tensed, almost as hard as a rock. "Are you okay? You're handling this like a champ." I pointed out.

"Don't mistake composure for ease, also who are you, my dad? Don't call me champ in my dying hour, Jake." She criticized. "Sorry." I quickly responded. The blood continued to trickle out the wound before starting to trickle onto the top of her thy. anywhere between five and eight minutes before she bleeds out is average, we'll have to wait and see but forty-five seconds have already ticked past. Every single part of this mission felt so painstakingly slow, but now I can feel every single second slipping out of my hands. "Do you have things you need to say?" I asked as comfortingly as I could. She continued looking out the window, the pain beginning to show clearly. "Hmm... I had never really thought about it."

She gazed with a hazy look on her face, often punctuated by furrowed brows and tense frowns. Sirens wailed below us. She watched the headlights drive past us on the road below. A slight grin crept onto her face. Even in the face of death she smiled. The pain quickly whisked away the smile though, replacing it with a face twisted and distorted with pain. I took my hand out of her grasp and dug into the pockets of my pants. "Sour straws?" I asked, presenting her with my last meal that I always keep equipped. "I'm already feeling too bitter, thanks though." She breathed sharply. A minute and fifteen seconds have already passed. I searched her eyes for any emotion other than pain, but they were void of anything else.

"Jake?" Her lips curled into a frown, her eyebrows furrowed, her nose wrinkled and she began to cry. She wept, and started leaning forward before being reminded of her pain. She slouched against the wall, her face tilted up towards the ceiling. "I'm scared." She choked out a sob as I straddled her right leg on my knees to get closer to her. I wrapped my left arm around her for comfort and applied pressure on her wound with my right. "I know, Y/N, I know." She wrapped her right arm around my shoulder and cried into the crook of my neck. "I keep on thinking of hypotheticals instead of facing my real life." "Is it helping?" "A little."

"Okay," I started, "What are you thinking?" She looked me in the eyes for a second before sharing. "Who would I be if I hadn't gotten the chance to love you?" She looked at me with puppy-dog eyes. I smiled at her before answering her hypothetical, "You'd be a lot smarter." I chuckled. She began to laugh as well but the pain shot through her. Two minutes and thirty seconds. She used breathing patterns to cope, as if the injury was just contractions. "Maybe,, but I'd also would've lived a very boring life." I felt my face scrunch, "Boring? Y/N you're an NYPD cop, you were never destined to be boring." She looked at me wryly, "I've always been the background character, Jake, boring. Sure I've had my moments in the spotlight but it's you. It's always been about you."

            I felt my eyebrows raise as I felt a bit hurt. "What? What do you mean? What are you saying?" I began to question. "Everything is about you Jake. Our friend group in the academy was all about you and whatever you wanted to do." She tried to sit up more against the wall. "Our friendship was about you winning and being superior." "Oh yeah," I began to retort, "name one time I made our friendship about winning." She looked at me dead in the eyes, "Mario Kart." I rolled my eyes at her, "That is a LITERAL CHILDREN'S GAME! You can't pin that against me!" She began to raise her voice back at me, "All of the times we hung out, before we started dating, we'd watch Die Hard!" "Cause you said you wanted to watch them!" I defended. "I was clearly just flirting, and when it came to actually watching them I thought it'd be more like a 'Netflix & Chill' sorta thing!" I sat back, going from kneeling to actually siting, giving us more distance.

"Even when we were dating, when you made mistakes I was just expected to just forgive you because that's just how you are." She wiped a tear from her eyes, starting to sob from the overwhelming situation. "My God, you're such a cartoon character." She stated lightly, "You're perfect and whenever you make a mistake no one cares, it's fine." Y/N let her head slouch back against the wall. She let out a big sigh, and put her hands back over her wound.

We sat in silence for a minute, both of us looking out the window. The only sounds were our breathing. Four minutes and fifty-six seconds. She's gonna die soon. Within the next three minutes she'll be gone. At this point an ambulance full of EMTs probably couldn't fix her. Another ambulance pulled into the area where the hostages had been gathered. I sighed, "Hey, Y/N/N, I can see the ambulance." I looked over at her, noticing hundreds, possibly thousands, of small details. Her hands had curled, and her arms draped down. Her head rested against the wall, her eyes open but bleak. I sprung onto my knees, getting closer to her again.

"Y/N!"
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