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There's this scene that plays out in Jake's head every time he imagines going undercover with Holt, and even though the (undervalued, underestimated and frequently overlooked) rational part of his mind knows it's nonsense, it's still there.
A room, dark. Bad guys, bad. Holt, walking into the room like he's Captain Raymond Holt, which of course he is.
It's a good scene - some tension, lots of things that are understood without the need for a voice-over, but then of course the dialog happens, and it goes something like this.
"Good evening. My name is John MacLean and I love to do crime." (A gesture from Holt, and Jake will walk up to stand by his side in what could be a totally cool and badass moment.) "This is my son Luke MacLean. He also love to do crimes."
Someone will ask why they're here, because there's always someone who asks those sorts of questions, and Holt will say something like,
"We heard words on the street that you, too, love to do crimes, and so we have come to see if you would like to do crimes together."
(Sometimes, Holt waggles his eyebrows here. Sometimes he does not. Jake cannot decide which option would be more horrible.)
In reality, of course, it never happens like this, because Holt is a good policeman and Jake is a great detective and together, they can move mountains, so long as those mountains aren't made of paperwork that requires filling in and filing.
(Well. Holt might be able to, but Jake wouldn't want to put him through that: he has standards, okay, and basic human decency, and paperwork is just boring, detectives should never have to do paperwork, especially on the weekend or during weekdays or on afternoons or mornings or evenings.)
Holt dresses up like he's Holt, but cooler and more dangerous and less Holt, but also more Holt. Undercover Holt is like a caged animal, except full of hidden depths instead of rage and violence, and the cage is so imaginary that it might as well not exist.
Undercover Jake is his son.
"Adopted?" someone asks immediately, like this is the first thing anyone would ask. (This, Jake thinks, is what is wrong with the world.)
Holt says, "Yes, of course," at the same time Jake scoffs and says, "What? No. Of course not. Why would you ask that, that's, like, super offensive."
The thing is: Jake wants it. Too much, he thinks. He wants to live in Holt's home and sleep in a bedroom where, if he has a bad dream, he can wake up knowing Holt is right there (except not, because Jake is an adult, and he doesn't need Holt to come and comfort him and bring him hot chocolate or warm milk with a little honey or something in the middle of the night because he can't sleep and is it okay if he leaves the light on for a bit, please?)
He wants Holt to tell him he's done good, and sometimes that he's done bad, so he can do better next time. (But, like, objectively better, after he's done objectively bad, because Holt's got weird ideas about right and wrong sometimes.) He wants to be told to eat his vegetables, or at least the last slice of pizza. (Tomatoes are vegetables, right? Boyle has Opinions on this, but Jake doesn't care about opinions; he's a detective and Truth is his guiding light through the darkness of dinner.)
He wants Kevin to come home and tell him, 'welcome home' and get nodded at, a bit absently, like Kevin's figured out this is where Jake belongs years and years ago, and there's no need to make a fuss about it now, because Kevin hates fuss and Holt hates fuss and Jake thinks he could get to hate it, too, just a little bit, for their sake.
They make it work, more or less. The fake them. Jake feels that if he thinks about that too much, he'll have feelings about that, so he doesn't, and everything is all right.
Holt is considered 'a cool customer'.
"Like a cucumber," Jake says.
"Like ice," Holt says, with an air of correction. "Cucumbers are cool only when kept in the fridge."
Jake doesn't think he's ever had a cucumber in his fridge, or anywhere else in his apartment. "If you say so, Dad."
Holt's face does that thing it does when Holt isn't smiling, which is almost always. "I said it before, and if you want me to, I will say it again. Son."
(It feels a bit awkward, to be honest; like they're two guys pretending to be two guys pretending to be father and son, instead of just two guys pretending to be father and son. But. It's still good, in a sort of bad kind of way, or at least it's as good as Jake rationally knows it's going to get, so.)
Jake gets picked to be the look-out for some job. It's a lot like being on a stake-out, except with less junk food lying around the car, which isn't his. (Jake tries very hard not to wonder if the stains on the backseat are tomato juice. They probably are.)
Holt slips inside after about ten minutes, saying, "I come bearing vegetable snacks," and Jake can tell that this is supposed to be a joke.
(He almost gets it, too. As it is, he accepts a celery stick and makes it last the rest of the evening, alternating between wanting Holt to tell him to finish it already, and wanting to find a way to erase all celery everywhere from existence ever, because seriously, who likes celery?)
(Well. Holt, presumably, which means Kevin, probably, which means Jake would be a terrible person if he were to actually win the war on celery. But, like, Jake's pretty sure that's not going to happen, so it's all good, and he can maybe make it up to them by dropping by for dinner sometime and being extra careful not to slurp the soup or something.)
It all ends in tears, of course - or rather: it starts with a suspicious look from Leon, who turns out to have a cousin who has a friend in Reno who has a friend in Ontario who knows a guy who thinks Jake looks like a rat.
"That's super offensive, either to me or to rats," Jake says, because Luke McLean loves all animals.
Leon doesn't look like he's buying it, or even like he's aware Jake is selling.
"The friend of your friend is your enemy?" Jake tries next, because he can see where this is going.
(It ends in a hospital.)
(Well, not end ends, of course, because that would be super-dark and grim and stuff, and Jake's built his life to be better than that. So.)
Kevin sits slumped in a chair next to Jake's bed, and Jake's first thought is half disappointment because it's not Holt and half worry because it's not Holt. He feels very disworried? Worrappointed? Boyle would know the word, he thinks, but it would be a weird, foreign word that somehow also involves food. Kevin might know the word, too, being super smart, but Jake doesn't want to hurt his feelings by asking, and anyway, Kevin's almost as good as Holt. Like, every kid's got a favorite parent, but every kid's also got two parents, or sometimes one, or three, or a village, or whatever, the point is: Kevin's good. Kevin's not going be Jake's undercover dad, but that's okay, because Kevin doesn't work for the police.
Jake supposes he could go undercover as a professor or something, to investigate ancient academic mysteries and save the world, but it's not like he actually expects that to happen, because he's pretty sure Shakespeare didn't write plays with (according to Kevin) a whole bunch of hilariously dirty jokes only by way of saying, 'hey guys, world's ending three days from when you read this - better go and find my supersecret manuscript that I've hidden away somewhere'. (Like, Jake may not know a lot about Literature, but he knows people and listening to Kevin, Shakespeare was sort of an okay dude, and nothing at all like Da Vinci.)
"Ah. You're awake," Kevin says. "Good. I don't think I've ever seen Raymond quite so worried."
Jake tries to imagine it, but the closest he gets is a warm feeling in his chest while picturing Holt's not-smiling face.
Kevin clears his throat, looking slightly awkward. "Of course, I was deeply concerned as well."
There are flowers. They smell nice. "Thanks, Kevin," Jake says.
Kevin nods. "How do you feel?"
Like I want someone to come and bring me chicken soup and watch my favorite TV show with me and fluff my pillow about six hundred times, Jake thinks. "All right," is what he says, of course.
Kevin clears his throat again. "Raymond suggested you might need some looking after the next few weeks."
Jake waits. Good things, supposedly, come to boys who wait, and Jake's never quite outgrown the 'hopeful' stage of his life.
"If you want to - we have a guestroom in our house. You would be very welcome," Kevin says. "Raymond's idea," he adds, as if he feels embarrassed by the thought that Jake might think it's his. "But I agreed, of course."
"Sounds pretty sweet," Jake says.
Kevin smiles.
It's not all fun and games and chicken soup.
There are, in fact, vegetables as well.
"If I finish my vegetables, can I skip doing my paperwork this weekend?"
Kevin looks amused. Kevin's kind of the cool dad, but mostly the fun dad.
"How about if you don't finish your vegetables, I'll give you extra?" Holt says, and all right, Holt's the cool dad, too.
"Extra vegetables? That seems a bit messed up. Besides, I know Kevin really wants them."
"He's right, you know," Kevin says, and for one moment, it's them against Holt, and it feels so wrong and hurts so good, or maybe the other way around, but then Kevin sighs and says, "But yes, do eat your vegetables, Peralta," and just like that, it's two against one, and Jake's not made of the stern stuff they built Holt from.
(Also, he might, just maybe, be starting to sort of like them.)