Work Text:
Jake always thought he would be a dog.
Not literally of course, but figuratively. But when it comes to daemons, figuratively was about as literal as it could get.
Jake’s daemon is called Achava, Archie to their friends. When they were young, he switched forms so fast Jake could barely keep up with him. But canines were always a favourite, awesome looking wolves and wild dogs, and a big golden retriever when he sat on his bed late at night, knees pulled to his chest listening to the muffled arguing downstairs.
He didn’t know what he’d do without Archie, how he’d manage the long days home alone or the nights when he felt so young and out of his depth. How terrible it must be, he thought, to be without a daemon. To be truly alone.
The golden retriever stuck, and Jake thought that was that, until the day he turned sixteen. When he woke up Archie was no longer a golden retriever, and never would be again.
It took them a bit of time to find out what he was now, as Archie himself had no idea, and Jake was sure neither of them had ever seen such a funny looking little bird with formal black and white feathers and a beak that colourful.
“Do you like it?” Archie asked nervously, fluttering his small stiff wings anxiously from the end of the bed. Jake, lying on his belly, looked up from the Atlantic puffin entry in the animal encyclopedia which is found in practically every home.
“Of course I do!”
“It’s not what we expected.”
“No, but I think it’s cool, look at all these cool facts in here.”
Archie waddles over and peers at the book upside down. He doesn’t seem to be reading, and Jake can feel his nervousness as he shifts his weight from one orange webbed foot to the other.
“What if they laugh at us in the Academy?”
Jake pushes the book aside and scoops his daemon up, holding him close and feeling his heartbeat through his feathers. It’s such a different form to what they were used to, but it feels right. Jake feels unexpectedly grown up, holding Archie like this, up until now giving comfort had been the other way around.
“If they do, then they’re dumb, because they won’t be able to see that you’re clearly better than they are.”
***
They do laugh. Some of them. Mainly the ones with the bigger, fiercer daemons, the German shepherds, and the wolfhounds and is that an actual polar bear?
Jake glares at them, and Archie clacks his beak angrily from under his arm. They know nothing. They don’t know how tough they are.
“Real mature,” snorts the scary-looking girl with a mane of black hair beside them, and Jake jumps. He hadn’t seen her arrive.
The guy with the wolfhound that practically reeks of a superiority complex laughs. “Look fellas! This is even better! What are you going to do, dance at criminals to scare them off?”
There’s a hiss, a clap of enormous white wings and a lightning-fast strike from a snake-like neck, and suddenly the wolfhound is whimpering and cowering, snooty airs gone, and soon Jake and the new girl are left alone.
Her mute swan folds his wings extremely smugly and she grins. “I’m Rosa, this is Nicholas. Who are you?”
“Jake, and this is Achava, or Archie.”
“Cool. We should stick together, we’re the best ones here anyway.”
And that is how Jake and Rosa Diaz become friends.
***
Charles has a rock pigeon with soft grey wings and shining patches of green and purple iridescence on her neck. Her name is Beatrice. She’s sweet and despite being slightly calmer than her human, which is a relief, she still fusses over him, and now Jake by extension.
Jake doesn’t think he’s ever seen a daemon more suited to New York, and she comes into her own in the field where she can take a look around and practically be invisible. Once she encourages Archie to join her, but he sticks out like a sore thumb, nor can he fly as well as she can in the city. They nearly lose their suspect as a result, so it doesn’t happen again.
But they preen each other and fuss over their humans together, so what does it matter if they’re built for different environments?
***
Gina’s Fernando looks like fire made flesh. An orange flame bowerbird, with feathers of bright yellow and red he always turns heads. When he had settled, not too long before him, Jake had been confused at first.
He was stunning, sure, but he had expected Gina’s daemon to be a little more flamboyant. Then he watched him and Gina dance together, and all his questions are answered.
(When Archie had settled, Fernando had invited Archie to dance with him, and Jake treasures the memory of the snappy bowerbird strutting his stuff next to the waddling puffin.)
***
Terry and his daemon Allaria are Stretched. It’s common enough among police officers with “awkward” daemons, not that you’d immediately think that on seeing Allaria. She’s a horse, a Cleveland Bay to be exact, solid and dependable but with the tendency to be as flighty as her human.
She also shared his ability to look very scary when she wanted to. Archie had found out the hard way that it was nigh on impossible to stand over stupid (read: great) decisions like indoor water balloon tournaments when the huge horse glaring down at you has a head bigger than your entire body and can look down on your human with disapproval only matched by Terry.
(Despite this, they still refer to her affectionately as Maximus when she’s not listening, like the horse in Tangled.)
Jake asks Terry what Stretching is like, one night in Shaw’s when everyone is a bit tipsy and Allaria’s ears and lower lip are drooping. She wakes up from her doze when he asks, as does Archie, and Terry reaches out to scratch her neck.
“It was hard,” he said, “the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but stairs and other buildings can be an issue for her, and it was needed for the job, so.” He shrugs and Allaria’s ears flick back and forth.
“Are you considering it? Archie isn’t exactly agile.”
Archie makes an indignant groan, which sounds like someone opening and closing a sticky door while being extremely pissed about it, and Jake shakes his head so rapidly his stomach starts to protest.
“I can fly fast!”
“Yeah!”
“If I get a running start and don’t have to do anything too complicated.”
“Yeah!” Jake winces at Terry’s expression. “Okay that can be an issue, but I carry him. It’s no big deal.”
“Fine, but it wouldn’t do you any harm to think about it,” Terry says before taking another sip of his drink.
Jake doesn’t say that he and Archie both know they won’t think about it if they can help it. He doesn’t say that the mere thought of it sends cold shivers down their spines, and Archie hopping from the table onto Jake’s lap. He and Archie are so close, he thinks as his hand finds Archie’s back and settles into the unconscious rhythm of stroking him. That’s not to say that Terry and Allaria aren’t close, but he can’t imagine being parted for a minute, let alone the entire Stretching process.
No matter how useful the benefits might be.
***
Their new captain’s daemon is beautiful. She’s a massive cat, a Maine coon, Jake thinks, with thick luxurious fur that looks like it would be amazing to touch if the taboo didn’t forbid it. Her fur is iron grey with stripes of black, white and tawny brown, colours that seem to ripple as she moves like dappled light on a forest floor.
Her golden eyes have the same intensity as Holt’s, and when her gaze lands on him for the first time Jake feels like she can see right through him. Archie returns her stare, but soon drops his head and tries to casually retreat behind Jake’s arm.
Her name is Thalia, and she demands a sort of quiet respect that not many daemons of her size do. Even Hitchcock’s koala and Scully’s basset hound snap to attention when she’s on patrol. Not that she doesn’t have a more playful side, Jake had once seen her push a mug Wuntch left off a desk while her back was turned, and she had stared at her the entire time as if daring her to turn and catch her in the act.
***
Right from the moment Amy had started working in the precinct, their daemons had been inseparable.
Archie had surprised Jake when he waddled over to Amy’s desk and plonked himself next to her surprised-looking cheetah, completely ignoring her growing blush and Jake’s jaw dropping to the floor.
“Daemons know!” Charles had sing-songed later and Beatrice had cooed in agreement, while Jake had buried his face in his arms, resolving to confront his wayward daemon later.
Said daemon had refused to say anything, other than “They’re new! I was being nice!” and then, in a surprising change of tone, “They were nervous, so I wanted to help.”
Mateo, Amy’s daemon, could get nervous and stressed like her, but he was also whip-smart, kind and efficient. He and Archie played along with their human’s rivalry, but it’s hard to deny it’s anything but playful when Mateo, lean muscle, needle-like teeth and sharp claws wrapped in a golden package that he is, is nothing but gentle with Archie. Tentative even, as if Archie is something that no harm can befall to.
Not that this stops him from racing ahead in the field, woman and cat tearing after a suspect in perfect sync, while Jake doubles back to scoop up Archie, who’s in danger of falling behind.
When they do catch up, Jake panting and Archie beating his wings so fast in excitement that they’re little more than black blurs, Amy and Mateo have already taken down their suspect. Mateo is prowling around them, spotted coat near glowing in the sunlight as he keeps a close eye on their suspect’s weasel daemon. Amy tosses her hair out of her face, and it catches the light in much the same way Mateo’s fur had, and Jake finds the exertion is not the only thing taking his breath away.
“We like them, don’t we?” Archie says from his spot on the kitchen table where Jake is eating pizza that night. “Like like them?”
“I think we might love them,” Jake says. There’s no point in being anything but honest with your daemon.
Archie puffs out his feathers and pecks at the pizza crust as they flat against his body again. “Will we do something about it?”
“I don’t know, maybe someday, hopefully.”
***
They do, eventually, and if anyone had looked over at their daemons while they kissed in that restaurant and in the park, they would have seen both of them give each other a knowing look.
When they pull away from each other in the evidence room, Mateo is the first to break the silence, his voice smooth and rumbling.
“It’s about time.”
Amy looks mortified, and Mateo rolls his shoulders in the feline equivalent of a shrug. “Well, it is. I don’t have to suffer through you pining at home anymore.”
“Mateo!” Amy swipes at him half-heartedly, Archie laughs like a broken squeaky toy, and Jake will tease her for months to come.
***
In another universe, Jake’s run-in with Figgis in Coral Palms goes down with him being taken in for the price of a gunshot wound. In that universe, his soul is not so small and vulnerable, and more importantly, not a physical being.
In this universe, Figgis is holding a gun to his head and Archie is furiously pecking at his ankles, his size not stopping him from trying to help his human, despite Jake’s silent pleas for him to stop.
The feeling of Figgis’ boot connecting with him and sending him spinning away is enough to make Jake double over as if he was the one kicked in the chest. Which in a way, he was.
If Jake could see Figgis’ smile he might have thrown up, because there was something terrible about it, something beyond terrible. Before Amy or Mateo can do anything about it, Figgis’ daemon, a mangy hyena, grabs Archie and brings him to her person.
Who takes him from her.
Jake doesn’t remember much of what happened next. He remembers going wild, kicking and screaming like a madman because this is one of the worst violations a human being could do to another human being, and his skin is crawling and his stomach is churning and it’s wrong wrong wrong.
Then he feels a grip like a vice on his leg, and again that pervasive sense of wrongness and the snap of bone between powerful jaws and he crumples, the pain in his leg drowned out by the pain of separation in his heart as Figgis runs, hyena loping behind him, and Archie is shrieking and calling for him and Jake is calling for him too, and Amy is yelling and the pain is building and building and his entire being feels like it’s been torn in two-
Jake passes out without realising it, because the next thing he’s aware of is waking up on a stretcher. His leg is throbbing, but that’s not the main problem because the pain in his chest if as if someone had ripped his beating heart out and his face is wet with tears, and he can’t hear or feel Archie and Amy isn’t here either and he’s about to scream again when a familiar voice says,
“Jacob.”
Holt has reached over from a stretcher of his own and is gripping his arm. Gina is standing at his side, face pale, Fernando trembling on her shoulder.
“What’s happening, where’s Figgis, where’s my daemon?”
If his voice cracks mid-shout no-one says anything.
“We hit the car he tried to escape in,” Holt says gently “but he ran. The others are looking for him as we speak. They will find him.”
Jake hides his face in his hands, tries to stop the tremors wracking his body. Unseen, the paramedic steps forward but is waved away by Holt and glared at by Gina.
“I can’t hear him,” Jake whispers, “I can’t feel him, it hurts so much.”
Holt says nothing, but inhales sharply when Thalia hops gracefully to Jake’s stretcher and pushes her way under his arm, resting her head under his chin.
It is nothing like Figgis, and Jake has never touched someone else’s daemon before, not even Amy’s, but Thalia feels warm and strong and present, and after a moment’s hesitation he brings his arms up to cradle her gently and buries his face in her fur. It really is as amazing in texture as he suspected it would be.
She is not his own, is no substitution for his own, but she is trying to make him feel better and it eases the ache in his chest for a little while.
(Later, Holt will ask her why, and she will stare at him imperiously as only a cat can.
“He is family, he was hurting, and I could make him feel better if only for a moment.”
Kevin will later say, leopard gecko on his shoulder smirking, that if he wanted Jake as a son adoption would be the more official route.)
It seems an age before the rest of the squad returns. Gina holds Jake’s hand and glares at any paramedics that even look like they want to move him elsewhere. Fernando flutters from Gina’s head to the end of the stretcher and as far away and high as he can, trying to be of use.
Jake, heart, soul and mind aching, will barely notice. He drifts in and out of lucidity, trying to hide deep inside himself, wondering if or when his mind will be lost too (is this Severing? He doesn’t know) when he hears Amy’s voice and feels a faint flutter in his chest. He feels safe and loved and then he realises why, because Amy is cradling Archie reverently in her arms.
He’s weak, but he calls feebly in welcome and Jake holds out his hands, tears rolling down his cheeks as Amy passes his soul to him. Everything fades out as their bond comes snapping back, like an elastic band stretched to its limit and now released. He feels reborn. This is all that matters.
Missed you, love you
Me too, so scared
I know, we’re together now
He is dimly aware of being moved into the waiting ambulance, of Amy’s hand replacing Gina’s, but all he can really focus on is his daemon, on the feel of Archie’s delicate yet strong body trembling in his arms, of the satin-soft feathers against his skin, and of the clownish beak gently nudging and nibbling at his face. Something so precious that was so nearly lost, that he was sure he’d never experience again.
This time, he sinks into unconsciousness without a fight, because they are together again and nothing will ever change that.
***
When Jake wakes up in a white hospital room, the first thing he sees is Archie peering down at him.
“Hey there,” he whispers, voice hoarse as he strokes Archie’s head, feels the weight of him sitting on his chest.
“Jake?”
He turns his head so he can see Amy, and as she kisses him he feels like the waterworks are going to start again. Mateo puts his front paws on the bed, and Archie hops off his chest to greet him, but stays where Jake can see him.
He’s okay. They will be okay.
Due to his leg, he has to stay in hospital for another few days, which sucks because Florida sucks, and also because he can feel the doctors and his friends watching him. He knows it’s out of kindness, he could have died or worse, but he can practically hear them thinking about the what if scenario of if he and Archie had been Severed, and it’s freaking him out. Beatrice preens Archie almost obsessively, when she and Charles visit, and while understandable it drives home what could have happened.
He’s worried for another reason too. Jake frets about how he and Holt will get on now. After all, they had been stuck together for six months, then he had kissed him and touched his daemon in the space of twenty-four hours. Surely things would be weird now, right?
But when Holt visits him, walking stiffly with his own injured leg, Archie flutters to the edge of the bed before Jake can say anything, nuzzles Holt’s hand and returns to Jake’s side, acting as if this was totally normal and ignoring his human’s embarrassingly loud gasp.
Holt pauses for a moment, and Jake is fearing all sorts of rebuke when he laughs, says, “I guess we’re even now Peralta,” and leaves it at that.
Thalia purrs and licks Archie’s head.
***
He and Amy don’t talk about her touching Archie until they get home. It’s the third day of being home, when Jake is no longer quite as overwhelmed but is still unable to fully believe that he’s back. That this is not a beautiful dream that he’s going to wake up from.
They’re lying in bed, and Jake is perfectly content to never leave this spot, to just lie and watch the last of the evening’s light make Amy’s face glow and listen to the muffled sound of Brooklyn traffic, when Amy asks the question.
“Was it strange, for me to hold Archie?” She rubs the duvet between her fingers as she asks.
“A bit, but also not really? I felt safe, and loved, like the love of my life was holding my literal soul in her hands.”
Amy huffs a laugh and Mateo licks Archie from their spot at the foot of their bed.
“Would you like to touch my soul?” She asks shyly, and Mateo pricks up his ears.
Jake responds by kissing her.
“I’d love to,” he says as he pulls back, and any nervousness he feels is eclipsed in the brightness of her smile.
Mateo pads towards them, before settling, sphinx-like, in the space between them. When Jake rests his shaking hand on his fur, he feels electrified. His heart swells with so much love he feels his chest will burst, and he knows without knowing how that he’s feeling what Amy feels for him.
He has never felt so humbled, and he sniffs as his eyes start to water. Mateo purrs and rubs his face against Jake’s chest before curling up next to him, and when he looks up in wonder at Amy she is beaming and wiping away her own tears. They start to laugh, and Archie honks in celebration while Mateo chirps like a bird, albeit a large, furry one.
When they sleep that night both their daemons are in the space between them, but with a difference. Archie is snuggled under Amy’s arm, while Mateo is stretched out against Jake’s stomach.
***
They are Stretched now, and Jake supposes it’s ironic.
But better Stretched than the alternative, the one he tries not to dwell on lest he sends himself into another bout of nightmares.
They haven’t tested the full limits of it yet, neither of them is too keen on leaving the other’s side, and Jake supposes that’s okay too.
Later, Jake will find out that Nicholas beat the living crap out of Figgis’ hyena, something he and Rosa are quietly smug about whenever it comes up, that Allaria had raced around to cut Figgis off, and that Mateo had bitten Figgis badly enough to make him drop Archie.
(“He tasted disgusting,” he said.)
He is reminded of when he had challenged his dad after the drug smuggling case, and his daemon, an Arctic skua, had been nothing but cold and dispassionate towards them, even going so far as to snap at Archie. Jake had never been so proud as when Archie had stood his ground, barely flinching as the powerful beak snapped shut inches from his face.
“Do you know what puffins symbolise, if you’re into that sort of thing?” Holt had said when they returned to the bar afterwards.
Jake had looked at him in surprise. “No, what?”
Holt took a sip of his drink. “Self-acceptance. Moving on, overcoming the past. I’m proud of you Peralta.”
Archie made a pleased crooning sound from his place under Jake’s arm.
Sometimes, Jake thinks with a grin, a family can be a puffin, pigeon, horse, koala, dog, swan, bowerbird, cat and cheetah.