Work Text:
Moving is surprisingly fun, Jake thinks, cramming a fourth massage chair into Gina’s tiny studio. He puts his back into the next shove, trying to get the massage chair out of the kitchen, and a cracking noise echoes from the back of the living room.
“Remember that talk we had about downsizing, kiddo?” Gina asks, peering over his shoulder. “You can’t fit six massage chairs in a shoebox apartment.”
“The hell I can’t!” Jake declares. Challenge accepted, Linetti.
Later, having moved all the superfluous furniture into the hallway (anyone can sleep in a bed; cool people sleep in massage chairs), Jake surveys his new abode with pride. Squeezing between two chairs, he flips the power on both, preparing to bask in the sweet embrace of gentle rolling action and sixteen vibrating motors.
There’s a popping sound, and all the lights go out. Next door, someone pounds angrily on the wall. Apparently, Jake learns, that particular fuse powers the entire floor.
“You need to get rid of the massage chairs,” Gina says. She’s eating popcorn and sprawled on his bed, which is blocking the entire hallway and wedged against the door to the stairwell. It is definitely a fire hazard. Gina glances around, eyeballing the space taken up by the extraneous furniture. “You can keep one massage chair. Maybe two, if you ditch the turntables.”
“Okay, no, I am not getting rid of the turntables. How can I become the greatest DJ alive without any practice?” Jake pauses to consider, then continues, “On second thought, true art shouldn’t require that much rehearsing. The revelation of my spinning genius will come in its own time.”
“That’s right, champ,” Gina says, but it’s not as obviously condescending as kiddo, so Jake doesn’t call her on it. Instead, they lug the turntables down to the curb.
There’s a massage chair waiting with the other trash. It’s definitely one of Jake’s, but when he demands to know how Gina removed it without him noticing, she just looks shifty.
By the time Santiago shows up with Celebratory Housewarming Brownies (her words), they’ve managed to fit most of the hallway furniture back into the studio and Jake still has three of his massage chairs. Unfortunately, he can’t open the drawer with the birthday candles in order to make the brownies (from a box mix, and surprisingly edible) truly festive.
“It’s...nice!” Santiago says brightly, peering into the apartment from the hallway. It’s impossible to enter without stepping on, well, pretty much everything, but that’s the price you pay for living in a studio with three massage chairs.
“You’re lying, but thank you!” Jake says, hopping over a coffee table and climbing on top of a dresser so he can reach the door.
Gina, who’s been napping in a massage chair (having grudgingly admitted that they are both truly excellent and vital to his continued existence), calls out, “Toss me a brownie!”
The more official housewarming party happens a couple weeks later. By then, Jake is tragically and mysteriously down another massage chair (he’s blaming Gina; she’s been suspiciously relaxed at work since the chair disappeared), and a single person can actually walk through most of the space without stepping on anything.
Boyle spends the party perched on Jake’s kitchen counters, dicing the ingredients for fresh salsa and bemoaning the lack of homemade tortilla chips. Captain Holt nods in agreement, but that doesn’t stop him from eating half the chips, so that’s probably a success on the refreshments front.
“It’s not bad,” Diaz tells him. “All your weapons will be close at hand, and the clutter is actually an added defense against any intruders.”
“This massage chair is amazing,” Terry moans.
Gina, sitting in the other one, nods. “You should take it home with you,” she suggests.
What the hell, Jake thinks. Sarge probably needs it more than he does, anyway. The man is way too tense. “Go for it,” Jake says. Gina smiles approvingly, and looks, just for a moment, unnervingly like his Nana. Jake shrugs it off and goes for another beer.
