Chapter Text
Captain Raymond Holt was worried about Jake Peralta. It was an unusual predicament, as he made sure to distance his personal feelings from work. But deep down - as little as he’d like to admit it - he cared deeply about each of his detectives. Whenever he caught his rational walls slipping, he reasoned with himself that it was perfectly natural to be solicitous towards those he was responsible for. He had a duty of care to his subordinates; a duty that concluded at the end of each shift.
It was 19:02 on a Thursday, and Raymond had just turned off his computer. Glad to be done with his daily reports, he hastily pulled on a straight black jacket that Kevin had bought him last winter, taking a moment to fasten all eight of the small gleaming brass buttons despite his rush, and locked up his office. He nodded curtly to detectives Diaz and Jeffords - both of whom had agreed to working today’s night shift to compensate for staff sickness - and made for the lift. The Captain was rather elated at the thought of returning home tonight. Kevin had promised to spend the night watching a stage recording of last month’s Leipzig Gewandhaus performance with him, despite himself preferring the more ‘melancholic’ orchestral sounds of the Vienna Philharmonic. He vehemently described the former as ‘wildly unimaginative’ whenever the subject was broached. Kevin was wrong of course, but his passion - however misplaced - was admirable. A barely perceptible smile graced Raymond’s lips. What a delightful evening it would be; perhaps he would even pick up a bottle of Port on his way home…
However, his smile quickly dropped as he noticed detective Peralta still at his desk. The detective was mindlessly scrolling an empty internet welcome page and randomly hitting keys, whilst apparently testing the stability of his chair as he rocked back and forth incessantly. He was not scheduled for the night shift, although he had pestered Raymond repeatedly for more overtime over the last week. Raymond had rejected his requests, quite reasonably so, he thought to himself; Peralta, who was easily distracted at the best of times, had been nothing short of a liability throughout this last week. His paperwork had been illegible - far worse than usual - and his inattentiveness would have destroyed Diaz’s most recent drug case if not for Sergeant Jeffords’ keen eye.
Despite Peralta’s usual inability to focus on administrative tasks, this last week had felt somehow different. The progressively darkening circles under the detective’s eyes had not escaped Raymond’s notice, nor his increasingly frequent bouts of absentmindedness, where he would stare at nothing for concerningly long periods of time. Disquieted, Raymond had called Peralta into his office the day before to enquire if anything was wrong. Peralta denied any difference in work ethic, enquired as to Cheddar’s ‘chunky-ness’ - Raymond had retorted that Cheddar was the perfect weight for his build - and said the word ‘skwort’ ?, accompanied by finger guns, before returning to his desk. Less than five minutes later - four minutes and thirty-two seconds to be exact - he was sitting on Gina’s desk debating the greatest Taylor Swift album.
‘Peralta.’ Jake flinched at the sound, obviously startled, but quickly regained his composure. He flashed Raymond a goofy grin. ‘Wassup Cap?”
“You are not scheduled for the night shift. Why are you still here?”
“Crime doesn’t stop, neither do I.” He spun around in his chair, clicking a pen in hand.
“Peralta.” Raymond said more sternly. He just wanted to go home and enjoy the rich symphonies of the German orchestra with his husband, a glass of aged port in hand; he didn’t want to deal with Peralta’s childish antics tonight. “You are not scheduled. Go home.”
Peralta’s smile faltered somewhat, and for a moment Holt thought he could see some sort of… anxiety? in his features. Before Holt could scrutinise this new expression however, Peralta’s grin came back wider than ever. “A good detective stops crime; a great detective fills out paperwork!” He motioned a wildly inaccurate salute at the Captain. Raymond was not amused. He felt a surge of annoyance rise up, which he tried to smother discretely before it could play out on his face.
“You have been filling out the same paperwork all week, yet each attempt has been increasingly illegible.” He looked down at the detective discerningly; something felt… off. Peralta was often inattentive and easily distracted, yes, but he was also a good detective and, as Holt had come to learn, a *very* good person. And he was always respectful - well, something approximate to respectful - towards Raymond, and his fellow detectives. His behaviour over the last week had been out-of-character, and Raymond intended to get to the bottom of it. But tonight, he reasoned with himself, nothing productive could be achieved. This was a conversation to be had in the daylight - in working hours. “Go home. We will discuss this tomorrow.”