"A Case With The Sniffles" - Brooklyn Nine Nine, Jake & Rosa, M&F, Colds

[SleepingPhlox]

I genuinely have no idea why it took me so long to start watching this show but I love it.  I love it so much.  I love the humour, I love the LGBT representation, I love the characters.  Especially Rosa and Jake.  So I have decided they should both be tormented with colds in a single fic.

A quick summary: What seems like a quick stake out mission quickly spirals out of control with increasingly ridiculous shenanigans ensuing.  Also, Jake has the worst cold of his life and is terrible at keeping his germs to himself.

Also everything I know about police work I learned from this show so it's probably not accurate at all but hey,  it's fanfiction of a sitcom!

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Part 1 - Flight Of The Steel Falcon

Sitting in the passenger seat of the parked car, Rosa Diaz scowled as Jake sat frozen, holding up a hand in her direction with one finger extended. She knew she would have to wait until he had reached the inevitable conclusion. He stared blankly ahead with his eyes squinted, never allowing his hand that was poised in the classic “wait a sec” pose to waver or drop...until his shoulders suddenly heaved and his head snapped back.

“hahhhhDTSHHHU!”

The late morning sun streaming in through the windshield illuminated and emphasized every gross droplet of the cloud that hung in the air because apparently even though he had plenty of time to prepare, covering his mouth did not occur to him as part of that preparation. But hey, why would that surprise her? He never did. Not once in all the time she'd known him, since they were back at the academy. She craned her neck to shove her face out the half open window, to gasp in as much fresh, germ-free air as possible.

Jake gave a sigh that managed to sound congested somehow, which made no sense since his nose played no part in it whatsoever. Or did it? Whatever, it didn't matter. He gave a little shake of his head, and sucked all the dribbling snot back into his nose instead of using a tissue – or fast food napkin, whatever, there were lots of those – despite the fact that Rosa had warned him not to do that several times so far today because it was disgusting and the sound made her want to punch him in the face.

“Adyway...” he breathed. “What were we talki'g about agaid?”

“Hmm, lets see...I was telling you that you should have stayed home today and this is stupid and you should let someone come and take over for you.”

“Do cad do, Rosa,” Jake said, pausing a moment to clear his throat. Not that it did much. His voice was hoarse and he couldn't do anything about it and he was so stuffed up and he couldn't do anything about it and honestly, there was a lot going on that he couldn't do anything about and quite frankly he did want to be at home in his bed watching trashy daytime TV and eating Popsicles. But Jake Peralta did not give up when the going got tough! Well, except for all those times when he did. But right now was not one of those times! He attempted to clear his nose with a thorough sniff, failed completely, and decided to keep talking regardless. “If anybody is going to bring in the Steel Falcon, it's going to be me.”

“Look, just let me call Charles, he can get here in-”

“No! Charles can't handle a criminal with such a cool name. The Steel Falcon, Rosa. The Steel Falcon!”

“Dude, nobody calls him that but you. Everybody else thinks it's stupid and makes no sense. What does any part of that name have to do with anything about this guy? You could just call him something lame like the Boring Goldfish and that would solve, like, 100 percent of our current problem. You could go home, I could stop listening to you sniffle every five seconds, everyone wins.”

“But I'd know, Rosa. I'd always know that he was the Steel Falcon in my heart...I...oh, not again...” And once again his attention tapered off, his expression went blank as the faraway look took over his eyes. His impressively red nose flared as his jaw went slack.

“Come on, man, at least cover your-”

“hehhhTCHHUUU!”

“Mouth.”

“HehhhGGHKTCHUU!”

And the hand came up again, index finger raised. Such a familiar gesture to anyone who had been around him when he had a cold or was hit by allergies. It meant he still had at least one more he needed to get out, and the tickle was taking up all his attention. It was even possible to tell when he was getting close, too. One noticeable breath just a little louder than usual, then a slightly bigger one, then an even bigger one and then...

“hahhhRRGHdtchuu!”

He sniffled, which was gross, and then rubbed his nose with the palm of his hand, making a squelching sound that was even grosser.

“Come on man, you're killing me here,” Rosa complained.

“I'm killing you? Excuse me, but which one of us has her window rolled down even though it's winter?”

“I have to. I need to air out the germs you keep spraying everywhere.”

“But I am so cold.  So cold you have no idea.  I haven't been able to stop shivering all morning.”

“Yes. That's because you're sick and you have a fever.  And you should be at home."

“Or maybe because it's the winter and we're sitting here with the window open.” Jake folded his arms and sank back into his seat to pout, but no sooner had he done that, that he sprang back up again, pointing accusingly toward the windshield. “Look!” he exclaimed.

“What?” Rosa said, sitting forward in her seat, every muscle and sinew in her body priming her for the thrill of the chase, even though the thrill of the chase would involve very little muscles and a lot of following a car at a safe and non-suspicious distance. “Do you see him? Do you see our guy?”

“Uh, no,” Jake retorted, as if he thought that was the dumbest guess in the world, because he did in fact think that. “I saw a snowflake. It's starting to snow. See? It's cold. Oh, there's another one.”

“You're a snowflake,” Rosa muttered, sitting back again. She turned her head to stare out the window, and also to breathe out of it. She sighed. She had been so desperate to not be stuck in the car with a sick Jake, that she had offered to call Charles. Charles. Listening to him talk about obscure Eastern European cheeses would actually be preferable to hearing Jake sneeze even one more time.  Listening to Charles extol the praises of the Cheese Of The Month Club and offer to enrol her in said club for the five millionth time would be preferable to hearing one more annoying sniffle.

And as if right on cue, Jake gasped.

But the expected explosion did not follow. Weird.  Rosa turned her head slightly to look at him.

“What's up? See another snowflake?”

“No, that's our guy. The Steel Falcon is on the move. I repeat, the Steel Falcon is on the move.”

Rosa perked up, peered out the window...and raised an eyebrow.

“That's our guy?” she said. He just looked like some regular middle aged guy, slightly balding, with glasses that went out of fashion a couple of decades ago, wearing jeans and a patterned sweater and from here what looked to be loafers.  Brown loafers. He carried a cardboard box to a sensible maroon minivan and then stopped to stretch with a hand on his lower back.

“That's him,” Jake said. “The St-...heeeehhhhlll...”

“Oh come on, no, please. Get a napk-”

“hehhhDTCHHuuuu!”

Jake paused, and then shrugged. “Huh, only one this time. Okay, Steel Falcon, show us where your nest is.”

He turned the key in the ignition and as soon as the car was running, turned the heater on to full blast. He was immediately rewarded by a blast of icy cold air right in the face, he'd forgotten the engine would need to warm up first. But he was going to leave it like that. Because it would heat up eventually and then it would get nice and super warm in there and then Rosa and her open window could suck it.

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To be continued...

[ID2006]

Loving this so far, although I'm a huge fan of blessings so hoping that gets included along the way. 

[Szalx]

Love this!! Can’t wait for the next part especially with more Rosa! 

[ThatSneezyGirl]

This is so cute!! Can’t wait for more 😍

[SneezeAbbie]

This has reminded me that I need to finish watching Brooklyn 99! Can’t wait for Rosa to get sick 

[RavenWatson]

🖤🖤🖤

[sneezingfun894]

Oh, this is good!!! Please continue ❤️

[SleepingPhlox]

Boy oh boy I started writing this almost a whole year ago, didn't I?  In my defense, last year was not exactly conducive to writing or trying to keep up with stuff. But I catapulted myself right back into watching this show and I remembered the plan I had for this fic and I had to come back to it.  I don't know if anyone who originally read it will still be interested but for you guys who did read it and left a comment, thank you so much, I appreciate you like you have no idea.

So yeah, nearly a year later, I'm actually going to finish this bad boy!

2. Just Two Buddies On A Road Trip Slash Bad Guy Tailing

“Oh, Steel Falcon, where is your nest? Why is it so far away?” Jake did his best to muse in the most dramatic and badass growl he could muster up, which just emphasized the phlegmy, congested hoarseness of his voice, which was pretty much the exact opposite of badass.

Rosa simply groaned in response. They had been driving for way too long, it was snowing way too much for her liking, and they had long since left the city and were now somewhere remote and upstate which meant nothing to look at out the window but road, grass and trees. And to add insult to injury, at any given moment Jake was either sneezing haphazardly into the open air, or repeating that stupid nickname, and she had not known the bliss of peace and quiet for some time.

“Dude, you can say Steel Falcon as many times as you want to, it doesn't make this any less of a stupid idea.”

“Thank you.”

“What?”

“You just said I can say Steel Falcon as many times as I want to. I have your permission now, so you can't complain any more. Boom. Steel Falcon, Steel Falcon, Steel Falcon. In your face!”

Rosa heaved yet another weary sigh. “How far upstate even are we? I gotta warn you, if he crosses the border, we're done. I am not currently welcome in Canada.”

“Ooh, why?”

“None of your business.”

“Oh, come on, tell me the story. It will help pass the ti-...the tihhhhhhh...hehhhTCHHUUU! HehhhGGHKTCHUU! Ooh, I saw stars a little bit there. Neat.” He blinked dramatically, and reached up to rub at his temple with one hand. “Actually not that neat. I'm having trouble focusing on the road. My head is killing me, man. It's throbbing. It's like there's a rave in there and I'm the grumpy old neighbour that keeps calling the cops on the noise.”

Rosa thought about pointing out that the snow was really, really getting heavy and turning back should be an option they at least considered, but she'd suggested that half a dozen times already, and each time he'd shot her down. She got the allure of finally tracking down an elusive perp, and she couldn't exactly begrudge him not wanting to give up, but man did she wish Charles was here sitting in this seat instead of her. He would probably know how to say things like “How are you holding up?” or “Bless you” or dumb crap like that, too. But unfortunately for both Jake and herself, Charles was not here, she was, and she tended to say things like:

“Jake, I swear to god if you don't cover your mouth next time, I'm going to punch you so hard you see stars for a week.”

“Excuse me,” Jake scoffed. “I am keeping both hands on the wheel like a responsible driver.”

“Since when are you a responsible anything?”

“Because, seriously, I cannot focus on the road, like at all. It's kinda freaking me out a little bit-” He interrupted himself with a sharp gasp. Rosa prepared to admonish him for unleashing yet another cloud of germs onto the steering wheel, but the gasp had not been a precursor to a sneeze. It had been a precursor to the exclamation: “Oh, he's pulling in. Finally. Thank god.”

Jake turned the wheel so sharply Rosa was jostled by the force of the turn. She did not share Jake's relief at stopping – it was just a gas station and convenience store, in the middle of nowhere. Signs did not point to this being the welcome end of the world's most boring tailing.

“He's buying gas,” Jake said, with far more seriousness than the situation called for. “So we need to do something that takes long enough for us to stay here long enough believably leave just after he does. But what can we do..?”

“Buy gas?” Rosa suggested, in an even more unimpressed monotone than her usual unimpressed monotone.

Jake snapped his fingers. “Rosa, you are a genius. I'm so glad I have you here to think of things like that. Okay, yeah, that tank is practically on empty. Good thing we stopped or we would have ended up stalled in the middle of nowhere. Do you wanna go in there and load up on some snacks, take a pee break, get me some coffee so I don't keel over and die?”

“Nope,” she said, sliding out of the car and giving a catlike full body stretch. “I'm pumping the gas, you are going in there and buying yourself as many boxes of Kleenex and bottles of cold medicine as you can carry. Oh, and get me some M&Ms. Plain ones. I want the biggest bag they have, don't try to go cheap on me.”

Jake thought to argue, not even for any particular reason, just for the sake of it – but then he realised that he could get himself some candy, too. And they probably had aspirin in there, which he needed an abundance of.

So, yes, he did buy some tissues, and some cold medicine, but the rest of his shopping was made up of pretzels and gummy worms and the bluest blue sodas he could find, an extravaganza of Doritos flavours...and, oh yes, Rosa's M&Ms. He actually nearly forgot those, and had to double back and get them, but what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. As far as she was concerned, he was just the most thoughtful road-trip-slash-bad-guy-tailing buddy ever.

And then he stepped outside and was assaulted by the sunlight, which was weird since it was that weird kind of grey overcast that only accompanied snow, and doubled back again to buy some really sweet looking five dollar sunglasses. By the time he made it back to the car, bounty in hand, Rosa was waiting for him impatiently.

“Dude, hurry up and get in the car,” she hissed. “He just put his seat belt on, we're going to lose him. If all of this was for nothing because you needed to get...do I see gummy worms in there?...I'm going to be so mad at you.”

“Yeah, here's the thing,” Jake drawled through gritted teeth with a hesitancy that signaled that he knew his request wasn't going to be well received. “I'm gonna need you to drive.”

Rosa's eyes widened as the memory of each germy, wet, uncovered sneeze that had been unleashed upon the steering wheel paraded through her mind in vivid detail. The thought of putting her hands anywhere near that steering wheel made her want to cringe so hard she collapsed out of existence.

“Dude, no...” she began, but Jake was already interrupting her, and already opening the passenger side door.

“I can't drive, my head is pounding and I'm dizzy as hell,” he said, already halfway into the seat. “And, consider this genius arguement, if I'm not driving I can cover my mouth when I sneeze with all these brand new tissues I just bo-...b-... hahhhhDTSHHHU!...ugh. That one didn't count because my hands were full, but I'll cover up all the future ones.”

Rosa's face twisted into an expression of reluctance, disgust, and a tiny hint of regret. That regret she was feeling was for ever joining the police force at all, because if she hadn't, she wouldn't be here right now. Maybe she should have become a chiropractor. The only thing she knew about them was that they “cracked spines” and she could crack spines in her sleep. She sucked her lips over her teeth and winced as she placed her previously germ-free palms onto the noticeably damp wheel. She could almost see all the germs jumping gleefully onto her skin – sickly yellow bouncing balls with grinning Jake faces. She shuddered again as she started the car and started moving off a careful distance behind their perp.

“You are going to owe me so hard,” she complained. “You know I hate driving in the snow.”

“Yes,” Jake replied, already smacking his lips over a green gummy worm. “But I bet you hate crashing because my eyes couldn't look at the road for more than five seconds even more.” He paused and got that telltale faraway look in his eyes that Rosa had learned to dread.

“Jake, no...”

“ hahhhhDTSHHHU!”

“You said you were going to start covering your mouth when you did that. Come on!”

“Yeah, but I forgot to open the tissues so I couldn't get one in time and-” He noticed Rosa's angry glare and thought better of continuing. “But you know what? I'm opening them right now. See? I'm even going to put one into my hand to have it ready when I... hehhhTCHHUUU!”

“Are you kidding me? You had the Kleenex right there in your hand and you still decided to crop dust the car with germs.”

“Yeah...I don't know why I'm so bad at this.”

Clearly it didn't bother him as much as it did her, because he just returned his attention to happily eating gummy worms and drinking his whatever the hell flavour “blue” was supposed to be soda.  Rosa drove on, pondering if she might just be able to start her career as a chiropractor by cracking his spine right in half.

To be continued (for reals this time)

[ID2006]

Love the continuation 

[SleepingPhlox]

On 1/31/2023 at 1:52 AM, ID2006 said:

Love the continuation 

Thank you so much, I'm grateful that you are reading!

Part 3 (See, I said I was going to continue it for reals this time!) It's Undercover Time, Baby!

As the drive dragged on, Rosa became more and more apprehensive about driving. The snow was really picking up, and not only was it hard to see the road through the massive flurries of snowflakes that obscured the view past a few feet, but it was piling up on the ground in record time.

She really regretted answering with a derisive “What do you think?” and walking away when Amy had asked everyone at the precinct if they wanted to hear some very exciting weather news. She didn't feel bad about possibly hurting Amy's feelings because first of all, feelings were dumb. And second of all, Charles had immediately leapt into action with an overenthusiastic “Oh boy, do I?” (overenthusiastic was Charles's lowest setting) thus saving absolutely everyone else from having to hear it. And she'd tuned the whole thing out from there.

“Did you know the weather was going to be like this?” she asked Jake, who was now slowly working on his second bag of gummy worms, while slouched in his seat and staring ahead with glassy eyes. He flashed her his best “don't be ridiculous” smile in return.

“Rosa. Checking the weather report is a little too close to responsibly planning ahead to be something I'd do. Come on. You know me better than that.”

“Well, I am this close to calling this off. As soon as I find a place to turn around, I'm going to-”

“No.”

“No? What do you mean, no? You can't even sit up in your seat, how the hell do you think you're going to stop me?”

“No, I mean, we won't have to. He's pulling in to that...” Jake squinted to try to make out the sign through the swirling snow. “Ooh, bed and breakfast. Great! We can grab some food after we cuff him!”

Rosa pondered her options. She just wanted to get back to the safety of the city, and the station, before this storm had a chance to get any worse. On the other hand, it would be foolish to call this whole thing off right on the verge of success.  And, if they stopped, she could call for backup and maybe get someone more confident driving in the snow to bring them back.  As much as she didn't want to keep driving forward, turning back and driving in this snowstorm all the way back to the station wasn't an any more appealing option.

Plus this place probably had coffee.

Right, that settled it. She pulled in to the parking lot of the bed and breakfast, which was unusually empty. There were only two other cars there, and one of them was the one they'd been following. She was so grateful to get a spot near the entrance that it didn't occur to her to think it was weird.

“Right,” she said, unbuckling her seatbelt. “We'll go in, get some lunch, call for backup and get a ride home with someone who's better at driving in snow. Because I'm not driving in that again, and I'm not letting you drive in your condition either.”

“That's fine with me,” Jake said, grimacing as he stretched while getting out of the car. “I don't know if I want any lunch, though. Those gummy worms might have been a bad idea.”

“Oh really?” Rosa retorted in a flat sarcastic monotone that made her usual flat sarcastic monotone sound perky and chipper. “And I thought gummy worms were known for their medicinal qualities.”

“Ha, ha,” Jake fired back, heading for the front door, with Rosa not too far behind. As he opened the door, he exploded with a resounding “hahhhhDTSHHHU!” followed by a bout of coughing, announcing his presence far better than ringing the little bell possibly could. Which was disappointing, because he liked ringing the bell. A small woman, who had to be somewhere in her 60s, came from a door behind the front desk, and approached the desk...then, after taking a good look at Jake's fever-flushed skin, dull eyes, bright red nose and glistening upper lip, thought better of getting too close, and took a few steps back.

Jake, never one to read the room, strode right up to the desk and gave the little bell a good smack, grinning with satisfaction at the ding. The small woman raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yeaaaah, I just like heari'g the 'di'g',” he said. “Adyway, my partder here and I are looki'g for-”

The door opened behind them, and in walked the Steel Falcon...and now, up close, he really did not look at all deserving of that name. Maybe he should have called him the Boring Goldfish after all. Anyway, he'd worry about that later. Right now, it was time to change tack and do his very favourite thing in the whole wide world...go undercover with a cool persona.

“Oh man,” he laughed. “Did I say 'partner'? I can't believe it. We've been married for two whole days and I keep forgetting I get to call this beautiful creature my wife now! Can you believe it? How did someone like me score someone like her, am I right? Anyway, we're supposed to be honeymooning at Niagara Falls – I know, trip of a lifetime, right? And I've never seen this much snow in my life, I just don't feel safe driving another foot in it. So we're looking for a place to crash for the night. Please tell me you have a free room and you can help a couple of newlyweds out. I don't mean help us out like give it to us for free, I got money."

As he rambled on, in the guise of a cheerful and slightly dopey tourist, he watched from the corner of his eye as his perp – he was no longer wasting a cool nickname like Steel Falcon on this dud – as he made his way into what appeared to be some sort of cozy dining area.  Ooh, it looked like there might be a fireplace lit in there, and the opportunity to be warm had never looked more inviting.

Rosa was just about to strangle him, but nobody would ever be able to tell from the outside. Instantly ready to play along, she beamed happily and bounced over to Jake, grabbing on to one of his arms.

“This place is so cute,” she gushed in that high pitched voice she brought out from time to time, that never failed to throw Jake. “I don't even care that its not on the itinerary, there is so much here that is so Instagrammable. Look at this little tree with the little lights!” She pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of it. “And look at the dining room over there. Aww, the little tablecloths and candleholders and everything! Oh, lets eat something, I'm starving. I've been on a diet for months to get into my wedding dress, it's time to finally live! Oh, I hope they have chocolate cake!"

Rosa tugged on Jakes arm, pulling him in the direction of the dining room, which was more of a dining nook, really. The small woman seemed relieved to have Jake's clearly contagious face just that little bit farther away from her.

“It's a lovely place to sit and relax,” she said. “There's such a nice view of the river. Personally I think it's just as nice in the winter as it is in the spring and summer. Why don't you two go take a seat and have a little look at the menus and see if there's something there you'd like.”

“Did you hear that, sweetie? A river!” Rosa squealed. “I am going to take so many pictures for my social media!” But as soon as the woman was out of earshot, Rosa leaned in close to Jakes ear and growled “I'm going to murder you in your sleep. It might not be today, or tomorrow, or this month.  You won't know when it's coming.  But I am going to end you.”

To be continued

 

[ID2006]

😆 This is hilarious and amazing. 

[HPG]

Please continue!

[SneezyBoi]

Will you continue? It’s okay if not but this was really good

[SleepingPhlox]

11 hours ago, SneezyBoi said:

Will you continue? It’s okay if not but this was really good

You know what's weird? Yesterday not long before you posted this, I had a moment of thinking "I should rewatch B99, that show is so good' followed by "Hey, wasn't I writing a fic for that? I should pick that back up. " 😁

So its not entirely unlikely you may see updates for this in the not so distant future!

 

Edited June 19 by SleepingPhlox
a letter

[Anonymouse]

👀 I haven’t read yet but I keep seeing this pop up and I’ve skimmed a bit… definitely need to sit down and give it a proper read.