Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

mary oliver

day 1.

It’s a hundred degrees in Texas.

The heat hits him like a fist to the chest the moment he steps out of his car, knocking the air out of his lungs for a second. It’s the kind of heat he can taste right at the back of his throat – earthy but sharp, like a mouthful of sand sprinkled with whisky. He feels it running down his airways and into his lungs, settling hot and heavy, his movements instantly sluggish, slowed down.

Pushing his sunglasses back up the damp bridge of his nose, he can’t but stop short just off the curb, gravel crunching beneath his sneakers, and have a curious look around. It isn’t like he had anything specific in mind, but he can freely admit to himself that he’d expected it to be in the ballpark of white picket fence and manicured lawn, well-trimmed roses. Not quite Stepford Wives but – well.

Not this.

Bradley winces as he thinks it. Fuck, he sounds like an ass. There’s nothing wrong with the house he just pulled up to, nor with the neighborhood it’s in. It’s a well-kept, small one story unit. Not neglected, but it’s probably been a decade or two since its last paint job, the paneled front a pale, flaky yellow with crooked shutters and a few empty flower pots dangling from the slatted roof. No picket fence, but while more brown than green, the lawn is mowed and free of weeds.

The other houses along the winding street are similar. Modest but loved, maintained as well as people are probably able to. Not a very far cry from how he grew up, but he figures the California coastline always adds a bit of shine to even the bleakest of façades.

With sweat already beading at his hairline and his clothes sticking to his skin in the most unpleasant places, Bradley walks the dozen or so steps past the old Cherokee in the driveway to the front door. His head had been pleasantly empty on the entire drive over (don’t think, just do), relishing the long stretches of empty road, stopping just once at a roadside motel just outside Las Cruces and he’s yet to feel the exhaustion in his bones. On the downside, a more tired body would probably stop the cogs in his head from slowly starting to move again.

His eyes land on the nameplate below the rusty doorbell, the capital S and c of Seresin/Garcia almost entirely faded and – fuck. What is he actually doing here?

Couple weeks of shore leave, so he’d thrown the dates into their highly irregular group chat (it’s either dormant for weeks, or he wakes up to five hundred missed messages) to see if anyone else was stateside. Coyote had volunteered the fact that Hangman was en route to visit family in Texas. The surprisingly few steps it had taken from that bit of information to Hangman uncharacteristically casually offering Bradley to crash with him for a while if he didn’t mind sleeping on a pull-out at his sister’s are still a bit blurry in his head.

Bradley is pretty sure that Hangman just didn’t want to seem like the biggest douche on the planet once Coyote had shared his leave plans. He is, in all fairness, still kind of a douche sometimes, but it no longer rubs Bradley (or any of them, for that matter) the wrong way. They’re not exactly friends, but – well, work friends is probably closer to it, even though it sounds real fucking weird. And he’s got to admit, Hangman – while still an ass – has at least been trying to not actively be an ass all the time.

He is still rooted to the spot, caught up in an internal monologue only mildly tinged with anxiety, when the front door bangs open. Bradley flinches, expecting it to crash into the wall, but Hangman catches it, then folds his arms and leans his side against the frame.

“Trying to lay an egg out here, Bradshaw?” It’s a strange relief to see that smirk is still in place, even if its edges have softened a little. “Biology not your strong suit?”

The urge to tell him to fuck off is as big as the sudden burst of joy that shoots through Bradley upon seeing him.

“It’s good to see you, Bagman,” he just says. Means it, too.

The corner of Hangman’s mouth pulls up, dimple carving into his right cheek.

“Wasn’t expecting you to get here before dark,” he says and turns on his heel with a nod of his head, indicating for Bradley to follow him inside.

He’ll go grab his duffle later, moves through the open door and catches the knob to pull it shut behind him. It’s not much cooler inside than it is outside, no air-conditioning unit buzzing, the inside of the house warm, dark and quiet.

Bradley takes off his sunglasses, hooks them into the collar of his shirt. After the brightness of the afternoon sun, his eyes need a second to get used to it. He rubs his thumb and forefinger across them.

“Couldn’t sleep. So I thought I might as well start driving.”

“Jesus fuck, Bradshaw, didn’t realize you were that desperate to get out of California.”

He hadn’t been. At least not at first. But he’s been feeling untethered. Restless. Right leg bouncing whenever he tries to sit still for a moment. He’d called Mav and they’re fine these days, they’re good, not quite all the way there yet but good. But Mav is also a lot and he’s Bradley’s dad and mom, and the Navy and jet fuel, suicide missions and basically all of his trauma wrapped in denim and leather jackets. And right now, he just needs something else.

Not that he’s got any clue what that something else is.

“Watch the Legos,” Hangman calls over his shoulder and Bradley has a second to wonder ‘watch the what now?’ before he steps on something small, hard and pointy.

“Motherf –!”

Pain shoots from his heel all the way up his back and to the tips of his ears. His teeth clamp down on his bottom lip as he makes a valiant effort to stop both the scream and the swearing from coming out of his mouth. Hangman has the audacity to snort from what Bradley assumes to be the kitchen.

“Fuck,” he mutters, willing the tears to remain in the corners of his eyes as he kicks the offending piece of plastic to the side and hobbles after Hangman.

The other doorway in the living room leads to a short and even darker hallway, its L-shape on one side straight ahead ending in what looks to be a patio door. When Bradley turns his head to the right, he counts three doors. Two steps to the left and he’s in the kitchen that is a lot brighter than the rest of the house, no curtains or shutters drawn, warm afternoon sun flooding into the small but well-used space where Hangman is busying himself with a coffee machine, two mugs already sitting on the counter.

It's a family kitchen, undoubtedly. Crayon drawings stuck to the faded wallpaper and framed photographs of chubby-cheeked girls with dark button eyes; an elaborate crucifix, rosary dangling from one arm next to a colorful picture of the Virgin Mary.

There’s a rickety table with mismatched chairs in the corner, a large bowl holding about a dozen lemons in its center. The fridge in the corner opposite to it is covered with magnets and postcards and with a sudden twinge in his chest, Bradley realizes that most of them were probably sent by Hangman from his various deployments.

He didn’t peg him as the type to do that, which makes him sound like an ass all over again. But it’s almost jarring to see Hangman standing in such a space, moving around with ease and familiarity, clad in a pair of gym shorts and a sleeveless shirt that shows his tanned shoulders, his dangling tags. His feet are bare.

“Milk?”

Bradley blinks. “What?”

“Milk,” Hangman repeats, “for your coffee.” Says it slowly, like he’s talking to an idiot.

“Oh. Right.” Coffee actually sounds fucking fantastic right now. “Nah, just like – loads of sugar.”

Hangman puts two steaming cups on the kitchen table, turns to him with a raised brow.

“How much is loads?”

“Like, a disgusting amount, frankly,” Bradley tells him. He could take his coffee without any, has taken it too, but it’s a weird habit he picked up from his mom that he doesn’t really want to shake. Has this image of her in his head, gentle morning sun in her blonde hair, wrapped in a robe, clanking of the metal spoon against porcelain again and again as she’d heap brown sugar into her cup each morning. There is a smell to the far too sweet concoction that always takes him right back to that image, that feeling – that sense of home.

But Hangman doesn’t need to hear that story.

He shrugs, rummages through one of the overhead cupboards to find a small container that he places on the table next to one of the mugs.

Says, “knock yourself out,” before he sits down in one of the chairs, its legs creaking under the weight, reaching for his own coffee. Black, no milk, no sugar. Of course. That one isn’t a surprise.

Bradley almost feels relieved.

He can feel Hangman’s eyes on him as he scoops sugar into his coffee, judging him for every additional granule and that, also, feels more familiar, so he finds himself relaxing a bit more, even though the entire situation is still somewhat strange. It also takes Bradley until this exact moment to realize that he and Hangman have never spend any time together without anyone else present.

“Is everyone else out?” Bradley eventually asks after a few quiet sips of coffee. It’s a dumb question, because obviously, the house being empty and quiet and all, but he’s got to fill the silence somehow, Hangman apparently content to sit there quietly, eyes focused on a nondescript point on the wallpaper.

“Kerri’s got a late shift,” is the prompt reply. “Just left an hour ago, so she won’t be back until morning. Gabe’s at work, girls are still at school.”

He doesn’t offer up more. Kerri has got to be his sister, and Gabe her husband or partner. Judging by the pictures on the walls, there are two daughters. Bradley guesses that makes sense. It’s only just past four o’clock. He’d left the motel at the crack of dawn, only stopping once for gas, doing the entire second leg of what he’d intended to be a three-leg trip in under ten hours.

“How old are they?” Bradley asks with a nod towards one of the pictures.

In all the time he’s known Hangman, he’s never once talked about his family. Doesn’t look like he’s so eager to talk about them now.

“Lula is eight, Ines is eleven.”

Bradley tries to do the math in his head, but he’s pretty groggy and the caffeine hasn’t hit his system yet. Kerri is most likely an older sister, though how much older is anyone’s guess.

“Do you see them a lot?”

Hangman puts his coffee on the table. His brows pull together and he looks at Bradley with an expression that leads Bradley to believe Hangman is questioning his intelligence. It’s one he’s seen on his face before.

“No, genius, how often do you get shore leave?”

He shrugs, feeling like a bit of an idiot for asking, but at least he’s making an effort. “I don’t know man, I’m just trying to make conversation.”

“Right,” Hangman trails off.

It’s dead silent for a few beats. From somewhere in the house, Bradley can hear the steady tick-tick-tick of a clock. Then, from one moment to the next, Hangman visibly deflates with a long sigh, the previously quite tense line of his shoulders relaxing in his chair, like he’s just dropped a heavy bag onto the floor.

“I usually crash with Javy when I’m on leave.” Hangman clears his throat, eyes flickering to the side. “They got a lot on their plates. Don’t want to disrupt the routine.”

Every other wandering thought in Bradley’s head comes to a sudden halt. Jesus, he thinks, that’s something to unpack right there. If he asks a follow-up question, Hangman may very well bite his head off, judging by the way he won’t meet Bradley’s gaze, and isn’t that a fucking first.

What, he repeats to himself in his head, this time with more urgency, the fuck are you doing here?

“I hope I’m not imposing or –” Bradley starts, but Hangman cuts him off with a flick of his wrist.

“You’re fine, Bradshaw,” he says, downs his coffee and gets up. He walks to the sink and deposits the mug in it, turns around, hands clasped around the edge of the counter, leaning back. “Wouldn’t have invited you otherwise.”

Says it nonchalantly, casual and easy, but Bradley knows Hangman long and well enough to be able to tell that he still isn’t fully relaxed; hasn’t ever seen him fully relaxed, in fact. There is always a tension to his body. A level of control that is never entirely relinquished. And this is Hangman trying to appear casual, as if he doesn’t find it just as weird as Bradley that they’re in his sister’s kitchen drinking coffee.

“They’re heading to Gabe’s parents’ place near Beaumont tomorrow afternoon. Couple hours east, near the coast. For ten days.” He shrugs. “So I’m technically housesitting.”

Bradley snorts. “Can’t imagine you watering plants.”

He half expects Hangman to snark back at him, but he just rolls his eyes and pushes off the counter.

“Come on, Bradshaw. I’ll give you the grand tour.”

There isn’t much more to the house than what Bradley was able to see at first glance. A small bathroom with a tub, the girls’ shared bedroom and that of his sister and her partner. Bradley is eyeing the small, banged up couch in the living room with concern, but Hangman laughs at him, tells him to grab his bag from his car, then leads him down the hallway and out onto the patio.

Some lawn furniture, a swing set, one of those circular inflatable pools that looks a bit worse for wear but is filled almost to the brim with water. A few dozen leaves float on the surface.

At the other end of the small plot is a garden shack. A tiny pool house without a pool.

“My grandmother stayed here until she passed,” Hangman explains, pushing the door open. “Made sense, Kerri being a nurse and all. They’ve not done anything with it since, but it works for a few weeks.”

All curtains have been drawn to keep out the heat, to no avail, but Bradley is relieved when he spots a fan right by the door. The inside of the shack isn’t spacious, but incredibly tidy and organized, which Bradley credits Jake with. Some boxes are stacked neatly in the far corner, books on a lopsided shelf organized by color and a few pairs of shoes lined up neatly by the door to the right.

A queen bed, sheets made with military-precise edges. A two-seater couch, an old television on a cabinet in the corner.

“The couch pulls out. Might be a tight fit but –”

“It’s fine,” Bradley cuts him off. Because it is. More than fine. He’s a bit worried Hangman might have a seizure if he needs to continue to be accommodating. “Really. Thanks for letting me crash.”

For a beat, Hangman looks like he wants to say something. He lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug, shirt sliding with the movement, flashing a nipple.

Bradley’s throat suddenly goes dry.

“Yeah, so – um…,” His eyes water a little, trying to suppress a cough, the inside of his mouth parched from one moment to the next.

“I’m sure you’re beat,” Hangman offers him an unintentional out. “I gotta go pick up the girls soon, then I’m taking them to the store. If you want to get some shuteye, dinner won’t be for another few hours.”

He shifts from one foot to the other, and this – this is something Bradley recognizes. Fight or flight mode. In the next couple of seconds, Hangman is either going to clock him, or get out of here.

“Sheets and stuff are in the cupboard.” A muscle twitches in his jaw. Flight it is. “So – yeah. Make yourself at home.”

He doesn’t bolt, because Hangman is too controlled for that. But it is a quick exit, and Bradley finds himself alone. He walks over to the couch, plush carpet muffling his steps, and drops his duffel to the ground. Now that he has a moment to gather himself, breathe and slip back fully into his body, he finally feels the exhaustion that the coffee managed to subdue for only a couple of minutes. Coming off deployment, driving over a thousand miles in too few days – he really is beat.

While he is tempted to snoop around, the edges of his vision are starting to blur enough for him to make a beeline to the cupboard where he finds the sheets Hangman mentioned. Bradley puts them to his face, breathes in. They smell clean, a hint of lavender, and warm, like they were dried by the sun.

The pull-out is set up quickly, and years of military routine means his bed for the next two weeks is made in under a minute, far too neatly to be messed up again right away. He is still sweaty as hell, could probably do with a shower, but he’s overcome with a tiredness that doesn’t allow him to ignore it anymore. So he just pulls his shirt over his head, wipes his face and neck with it, slips out of his shorts and shoes and collapses onto the mattress.

On top of the sheets, pillows forgotten, and his feet dangling off the end, he is asleep in seconds.

Bradley wakes up disoriented. He’s got a real bad case of cotton mouth. With a groan, he rolls over onto his back, the last days slowly trickling back into his consciousness like a drop of black ink spreading on a white cloth. Long stretches of empty road, Texas, Hangman smirking at him through the haze.

He throws his arm across his face and groans internally, feeling the urge to give Tash a call even though she’s on duty to just – Bradley doesn’t even know what he’d say. It feels strange to be invited into what isn’t exactly Hangman’s home, but probably the thing closest to it after being at each other’s throats for almost the entire time they’ve known each other. It is a weird level of trust Hangman is putting into him.

Bradley guesses saving someone’s life can change shit like that. Skip a couple of steps in the normal progression of a relationship. Thinks it, and feels it settle in his stomach like a winding snake, making his insides queasy.

He pushes himself into a sitting position, lower back twinging, vision fuzzy around the edges. It’s still light out, that much he can tell, but he has no idea how long he’s slept. It feels like it’s simultaneously been ten minutes and ten hours. With a groan, Bradley swings his legs off the mattress. His toes dig into the beige carpet and he flexes them, moves his head from side to side for a moment until the bones in his neck pop. God, his back is as stiff as an ironing board. He really hopes the pull-out is not going to make it worse.

Fishing a clean pair of shorts and tank out of his duffel, Bradley gets dressed, rubs a hand across his head, mussing up the strands of hair that are matted to his scalp. Lingers. Glances around the room, waiting for it to scream Hangman when it makes no sense for it to do so. It’s a generic room with generic furniture. Unlike the main house, it has no personality. No pictures or weird knick-knacks. No framed photographs of baby-Hangman.

God, Bradley snorts, imagining it. He’s still not sure Hangman wasn’t created in a lab, walked out fully formed, all sharp lines, perfect and golden.

Next to the bed is an upturned cardboard box as a makeshift nightstand. His feet carry him over to it before he can think better of it. It’s holding a small lamp, a box of over-the-counter painkillers, a watch, three paperbacks. The top one is by Stephen Hawking, to his surprise. The Dreams That Stuff Is Made of, he reads, tilting his head to the side. Huh. George Orwell. James Baldwin. Bradley isn’t much of a reader. He didn’t peg Hangman to be one either. And while the Hawking book looks fairly new, the other two seem well-used, spines faded and corners softened.

His arm is already halfway stretched out to reach for them, itching to see where the pages are marked, where Hangman decided to linger. But he thinks better of it. Doesn’t want to betray the trust Hangman’s put into him by inviting him into his quasi-home. The peace between them, without the others to keep them in check, feels fragile enough as it is.

It's not much cooler outside than it was a few hours ago, even though the sun has started to set. There is a very soft, barely-there breeze brushing his bare arms as Bradley crosses the small garden towards the patio door. Nerves start to pool in his stomach when he enters the house and he hears voices from one side of the hallway and the sound of the radio from the other.

Bradley ducks into the kitchen. A man stands at the counter Hangman had been lounging against this afternoon. He is roughly half a head shorter than him, black hair buzzed down to maybe an inch, but when he turns to look over his shoulder, having heard Bradley approach, he can see that the lower half of his face is covered in a thick salt and pepper beard.

“Hey,” he greets Bradley and wipes his hands on a dishtowel before holding one of them out. “You must be Bradley.”

For a moment, he is a bit thrown by not being called Rooster or Bradshaw in the Seresin household. But he figures it would have been weird for Hangman to not announce Bradley to his family using his first name.

“Um – yeah. Bradley Bradshaw. Thanks for, um… letting me stay,” he replies, just managing to swallow the Sir back down.

“I’m Gabriel,” Jake’s brother-in-law, for the lack of a better word, tells him. “And it’s no trouble. We’re driving out to stay with my family for a while, and between us,” he leans in, lowering his voice by a fraction, “I think Kerri is relieved Jake will have company. He’s been a bit quiet.”

Pensive, Bradley inadvertently swaps it out in his head, because Hangman isn’t quiet. But the last time he’d seen him before today, before they’d all shipped out again, he’d no longer been strutting around the pool table with a smirk, running his smart mouth around a toothpick. He’d been still. Subdued.

“Still, I… really appreciate it.”

Gabriel smiles, nods his head towards the hallway. “Well, dinner will only be another five minutes. They’re all in the girls’ room, if you want to let them know.”

A quick glance to the right shows him that the table is already set. “Sure,” he says, turns on his heels and makes his way down the hallway towards the one door that’s slightly ajar. Inside is a bunkbed, a frankly overwhelming amount of colorful stickers on  the walls, and Hangman, sitting on the floor with one his nieces perched in his lap, the other on her belly next to him on the carpet, workbook open in front of her.

The greeting he has on his tongue makes a U-turn and rolls back down his throat. What comes out instead is a quiet croak, which has three pairs of eyes on him, identical eyebrows rising in frightening synchronization.

“Y’alright there, Bradshaw?”

Bradley finds himself flush, clears his throat. “Yeah, um – dinner’s almost ready.”

He lingers in the doorway, watching on as Hangman whispers something into the younger girl’s ear. Lula, Bradley recalls. She scrambles off his lap and darts past Bradley and out of the room with impressive speed. The other one, Ines, is still looking at him. Apart from the critical line of her brows and the disconcertingly sharp gaze, there isn’t much of a family resemblance.

She’s got her father’s dark hair and eyes, face soft and round instead of Hangman’s sharp, angular features. Bradley knows he takes after his father. Makes him wonder if Hangman takes after his.

“C’mon, Ines,” Hangman’s voice cuts through the quiet. “We can finish up later. Go wash your hands.”

“Fine.”

She gets up and wipes both hands on a NASA shirt that is massive on her, almost brushing her bare knees, leaves the room, but not without sending Bradley another inquisitive glance.

Hangman stretches. Bradley can hear his spine crack from where he is standing. Then he pushes to his feet as well.

“Sleep well?”

“Yeah,” Bradley breathes, feeling slow because his head is busy trying to marry the image of Hangman the navy pilot with Hangman the uncle who whispers to his nieces and helps them with their homework. “Yeah, out like a light.”

He’s been feeling untethered and for some reason he genuinely thought that getting away from everything would get both his feet back on solid ground. But Bradley should have known that it was not just an improbability but a downright impossibility for him to do that with Hangman around. Being around him is like flying with him, flying after him, always trying to keep up.

Standing in Hangman’s nieces’ bedroom feels exactly like being in the air with him. It makes sense, Bradley figures. Hangman has always been unpredictable.

Dinner is a rowdy affair. Both girls talk loudly and at the same time, recalling their day to their father and uncle and Bradley has no idea how either of them can follow what’s being said. Practice, he guesses, and he hasn’t really been around children since – ever. Bradley lets their voices wash over him and concentrates on his rice and chicken, which tastes incredible after two days of gas station snacks and Red Bull.

After a while, Bradley can feel eyes on him and he glances up to find Ines’ dark gaze on him again. He returns it with raised brows, and once Lula pauses long enough to take a breath, she pounces.

“Are you a pilot, too?”

He makes sure to take a moment to swallow.

“I am.”

He glances at Hangman, who just shrugs and pierces a piece of chicken with his fork.

Ines seems to deliberate something in her head for a handful of seconds.

Then she asks, “Did you always want to be a pilot?”

He finds it an odd question for a child to ask, had figured they’d be more interested in other aspects of the job.

“Yeah,” he replies honestly. “I did.”

“Why?” comes the immediate follow-up.

And that – that is a more difficult question to answer. There is, of course, the short answer. The one that’ll do the job and not prompt any more prodding. There is also the longer, more honest version that Bradley isn’t exactly ready to roll out at someone else’s dinner table.

“My dad was a pilot,” he settles on, deciding that explaining the role of an RIO and other intricacies of naval aviation to an eleven-year-old is also not exactly appropriate dinner conversation. “So I always wanted to be one.”

Ines hums, apparently satisfied with the answer. Bradley doesn’t find out whether she has another question for him, because her younger sister uses the break in conversation to pipe up.

“My dad’s a social worker,” Lula says. “Does that mean I have to become a social worker, too?”

Gabriel laughs and runs a gentle hand through her curls. “No, amor, you can be whatever you want to be. But maybe,” he adds with a wry smile, “not a Navy pilot.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s dangerous,” her sister tells her with a tone that very much implies a duh. “Right, Uncle Jake?”

Bradley catches Hangman’s weighty gaze across the table. Something unlocks in his chest a second later, opening up to a barrage of images and senses. Jet fuel, fallen snow. Burning smoke, making it hard to breathe. Adrenaline thrumming through his body, aching from head to toe, and that swooping feeling in his belly when he’d caught sight of Hangman on the carrier, understanding the full weight of what he, what they, had done.

“Very dangerous,” Hangman says, still looking at Bradley. “Better keep both your feet on the ground.”

Bradley’s breath catches in his throat.

“I want to be an aerospace engineer,” Ines declares, cutting through whatever tension had been holding their eyes tethered. The NASA shirt makes more sense now, Bradley guesses.

“That’s exciting,” he comments, because it is. It’s a hell of a goal to have.

It makes Ines launch into a whole slew of did-you-know’s about space and space travel that continues until it’s time for bed. Bradley gets roped into the night-time routine, the girls dragging him onto the couch in the living room for their bedtime story while Jake and Gabriel tidy up in the kitchen. He is a bit surprised when they hand him a Stephen Hawking book, but now the one on Hangman’s bedside table makes a lot more sense.

The thought of Hangman reading up on things that his nieces are interested in clogs his throat so much he has to audibly clear it before he can start reading.  

Later, much later, after tidying up, after Gabriel wrangles the girls into bed while Hangman and Bradley take turns in the bathroom, they are both lying on top of the sheets in the little shack, ventilator blowing warm air from one side of the room to the other as cicadas buzz outside the windows.

“The girls are pretty awesome,” Bradley feels the need to acknowledge.

“They’re the best,” comes the quiet response, laden with so many things Hangman leaves unsaid.

It’s so dark that he can’t make out anything but the faint outline of the bed. The sheets are tangled around his legs. Bradley turns over onto his belly. Listens to Hangman’s breathing, and falls into a dreamless sleep.

day 2.

Bradley wakes at six o’clock on the dot. He breathes in and out, rolls his shoulders, flexes his toes. Feels more rested than he has in a while. When he turns his head to the right, he sees that Hangman’s bed is unmade but empty. He knows a few guys who can shake off the routine and sleep in like their life depends on it when on leave, but Bradley isn’t one of them. Seems like Hangman isn’t either.

His soul is yearning for coffee, and if Hangman is already up, maybe he’s in the kitchen, or maybe he’s with his nieces. Bradley guesses kids probably still get up early when they’re that age. He fishes a shirt out of his duffel, foregoes the buttons, and decides the shorts from the day before are still clean enough to wear. He only had them on for a few hours anyway.

The house is silent and dark when he enters through the backdoor. Some dim light is shining from the kitchen into the hallway. However, when he enters it, he doesn’t find Hangman sitting at the table, but a woman who cannot be anyone but his sister. There’s that family resemblance he can’t really see in the girls. The same sharp green eyes, straight nose, strong jaw. Her hair is a bit darker, twisted into a messy knot on top of her head. She looks tall even from where she’s hunched over in her kitchen, but where Hangman’s broad shoulders are filled out, body broad and built, hers are bony and prominent beneath the mint green scrubs.

She’s clinging to a steaming cup of coffee like it’s the only thing stopping her from crumbling onto the floor.

“Mornin’,” Bradley says, mindful to keep his voice down since he assumes Gabriel and the girls are still asleep. “You must be Kerri.”

“And you must be Bradley.”

Her voice has more of a drawl than Hangman’s and she sounds as tired as she looks, but somehow her bloodshot eyes are still piercing. Older sister, Rooster deducts, definitely.

“I gotta say,” she continues, tracing the brim of her cup with a long finger, “when Jake mentioned a Navy pal of his coming, I would’ve bet on it being Javy.”

Bradley isn’t sure what to say to that. Laying out his more than contentious history with her brother in her kitchen at the crack of dawn is not something he is keen on, but Kerri seems unperturbed, not really expecting an answer.

“Don’t think he’s ever mentioned you before.”

It’s quite something, Bradley thinks distractedly, to have that sharp Seresin scrutiny directed at you. He figures honesty is his best bet.

“We’ve not really been friends that long.”

If they are even friends now, but Bradley guesses that’s what they’ll be figuring out over the course of the next two weeks.

“Were you at the Academy with him and Javy?”

She sips at her coffee. The slight shift of her head makes light break over the bridge of her nose, deepening the lines on her face and the shadows beneath her eyes. Even though Bradley doesn’t really know her, he’s glad she is apparently getting some time off, because she looks the kind of tired that a few hours of shuteye wouldn’t fix. It’s not surprising. Long hours, draining work, two kids at home.

Realizing he’s still lingering in the doorway, Bradley crosses the room, Kerri’s eyes following him until he drops down in a chair opposite her. Briefly, a barely noticeable flicker, her gaze drops to the center of his chest where his dog tags kiss his sternum. Wonders what goes through her mind seeing them.

“We flew a mission together, couple of months ago.”

Her brows twitch almost imperceptibly. “The one he ain’t talking about?”

Bradley clears his throat. “More like – can’t.”

Kerri’s eyes harden. It makes him think about what it might be like, having family in the military. He’d already lost his dad by the time he was old enough to grapple with it. And Mav – well.

“Don’t worry,” she tells him with a bitter smile. “I don’t want to know.”

“I mean, we – got to know each other better, I guess,” which is probably not the right way of putting it, but he lacks the words for a more accurate description of what the hell happened to their previous dynamic. “But we first met at Top Gun. Can’t say we liked each other much back then.”

Kerri snorts into her coffee. “How surprising,” she drawls, rolling her eyes, probably very intimately familiar with her brother’s social skills. Then she looks at him again, quizzically, and Bradley can pinpoint the exact moment that something apparently dawns on her, her eyes widening minimally.

“You’re Rooster.” Glee blooms on her face, starting with the twitching of her nose and spreading along the corners of her mouth, pulling it wide to carve the same dimples into her cheeks that Bradley has also seen on her brother’s face.

“Oh,” she breathes, gently shaking her head as she folds her arms in front of her chest. “Oh, that explains so much.”

Bradley is taken aback, about to ask what she means by that, when they are interrupted by the front door opening and closing, followed by muffled steps on the living room carpet. They both turn their gazes towards the doorway where Hangman appears just seconds later.

He’s evidently just come back from a run (the crazy bastard), his shirt off and tucked into the waistband of his gym shorts, chest damp with sweat. He’s holding a drinks tray with four cardboard cups in it in one hand, wiping across his face with the other. For the shred of a second he appears frozen, eyes flickering between Bradley and his sister.

“Giving my neighbors an eyeful?” Kerri skillfully cuts through the silence and whatever made Hangman pause, he shrugs it off with ease and a smirk.

“Thought I’d gift them with a view they don’t get so often around here.” He gestures down his chest, then makes his way over to them, sets the tray on the table and presses a kiss to his sister’s cheek.

“Triple shot?” she asks.

“Obviously,” Hangman replies and points her towards one of the cups as he pulls his shirt out of his waistband, using it to wipe his face and chest. Bradley finds his eyes drawn to the movement, but almost immediately pulled back when Kerri lets out a long groan.

“Ugh, I love you, never leave again,” she says before half her face disappears into her paper cup.

“Pick you poison, Bradshaw.”

There’s a faint buzzing in Bradley’s ears. “Um, what?”

Hangman nods at the tray. “One Cold Brew, and two Vanilla Bean. Pick one.”

“Oh, thanks man.” He grabs one that, judging by the scribble on the side of the cup, is one of the Vanilla Beans.

“Right,” Hangman says. “I’m going to jump in the shower. You need any help with the girls today?” he asks his sister.

Kerri surfaces from her coffee long enough to tell him, “just distract them for a few hours so Gabe and I can pack.”

Bradley does not watch Hangman leave the kitchen. Instead, he dedicates his full attention to his own beverage. It’s disgustingly sweet. Perfect.

They take the girls out for breakfast once everyone is up just past eight. How Kerri remains on her feet, Bradley doesn’t know. Special mom powers, probably. But her relief is tangible once her daughters are sufficiently dressed for the outside world and the front door shuts behind them.

Bradley is happy to just follow along, lean back and let Hangman’s nieces chatter in the backseat of the truck serve as the soundtrack as their uncle navigates it through the suburbs. It takes about ten minutes to get to the closest strip mall. There’s a small selection of cars parked in the lot that spans a handful of shops, including a small local diner Ines and Lula immediately make a beeline for. 

The inside is clean, but the décor has seen better days. The red leather upholstery on the chairs that are grouped in fours around round metal tables is torn in places, and Bradley doesn’t quite trust the legs to hold his weight. The Seresins are clearly regulars here, given that neither the girls nor Hangman take a look at the menu. However, given the way their eyes light up when Hangman tells them to order whatever they want, it’s probably a rare indulgence.

Everything is bigger in Texas, he thinks when their food arrives, the portions absurdly huge and Bradley can tell Hangman is uncharacteristically biting back a comment when he stares down at his plate in mild horror.

The girls do not stop talking throughout the meal, mouths full and gesturing with eggy forks, but being the uncle who only gets to visit occasionally, Hangman evidently spoils them rotten rather than make any attempt to discipline them. Bradley can’t blame him. He’d probably take the easy way out as well. And especially now, he can’t help but be a bit grateful to Ines and Lula for not allowing any silences to creep up that Bradley wouldn’t know how to fill at the moment.

It's nice, and it’s easy, and maybe Bradley isn’t sure how to wrap his head around how easy and decidedly not awkward it is to be sitting here.

Once they have completed their most valiant efforts to finish their meal, Bradley gets up to go to the bathroom, partially because he really needs a piss, but also because he wants to pay for breakfast before Hangman can. Given the way Hangman’s eyes narrow as he walks back to the table, still fumbling to get his wallet back into the pocket of his shorts, he wasn’t as sneaky as he’d hoped to be.

They have a brief staring contest that neither of them wins as they wait for their leftovers to be doggy-bagged. Bradley can tell Hangman is annoyed, even more so because he clearly doesn’t want to say anything in front of the girls. Instead, he kicks Bradley’s shin underneath the table like the fucking child he is. Bradley misses when he tries to get him back.

The inside of the old Cherokee is boiling when they climb back onto the seats. Bradley can feel sweat form at his hairline, the back of his neck, trickling down between his shoulder blades and the small of his back. Probably already over ninety, maybe ninety-five. The truck’s air-conditioning is weak, and it takes ages for it to make any sort of difference. Bradley is surprised neither Ines nor Lula complain about it, but perhaps they’re used to it.

“You guys got your lists?” Hangman calls over his shoulder as they roll out of the parking lot, steering the truck in the opposite direction from which they came.

“Yup,” they chorus back, each procuring a folded piece of paper from God-knows-where.

“You know the deal, right?” he goes on, looking at them through the rearview mirror. “We’ll keep everything in the truck for now, not a word to your mom.”

The girls mime zipping their lips, and Lula adds a sign of the cross, reciting gravelly, “cross my heart and hope to die,” which makes her sister roll her eyes.

Then Hangman turns to him with a grin that Bradley can only describe as diabolical.

“Ready to go to Target, Rooster?”

Uh oh.

“Is it a weekday?” he asks, mildly hopeful. He kind of lost track of time after a lot of connecting flights and the thousand mile drive.

Hangman reaches for a pair of sunglasses that’s been sitting on the dashboard, puts them on, teeth glinting like a shark’s.

“It’s Saturday, dude. Buckle up.”

Bradley sends a silent prayer to the heavens. Makes a sign of the cross as well. For good measure.

The air-conditioning is such a relief that Bradley forgets for a solid five minutes that he actually hates Target. But it’s bearable, at least for now. Ines and Lula get a cart, unfold their lists and dart off, he and Hangman trailing them close enough to keep an eye on them but not close enough that they’d feel watched. Some awful pop song is blaring from the speakers as they slalom around parents with toddlers and teenaged girls.

Bradley has a lot of questions, but he doesn’t know whether their relationship is close enough for him to ask them. He can draw his own conclusions, obviously, but that also feels inappropriate, especially since he’d evidently drawn very wrong conclusions about Hangman after meeting him, pegging him for a trust fund baby, or maybe hailing from a long line of Seresins that had proudly served their country. Hangman hasn’t mentioned his parents, or any other family member but Kerri, so part of that could still be true.

But thinking that Hangman had grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth now seems a bit short-sighted and makes Bradley feel like a shallow ass.

“Okay, just say it.”

Bradley blinks. “What?”

Hangman is still looking ahead to where his nieces are standing in front of a display with colored markers, looking at the different sets like they are making a life or death decision.

“Whatever you’ve been chewing on for the past ten minutes. I can hear you think even over this Godawful music.”

“Not a fan of –” Bradley listens a bit closer, but he has no idea what the song is, or even who’s singing it, so he wings it. “Taylor Swift?”

Hangman snorts. “Close enough.”

The girls have chosen some markers and are pushing the cart into the next aisle, so they follow. Bradley companionably knocks his elbow against Hangman’s.

“Just wondering why this mission is classified,” he eventually says. “With the girls not telling their mom and all.”

Hangman looks uncomfortable for the fraction of a second, nothing longer than a flicker, but it’s still strange to see, given that he’s usually very sure of himself. Perhaps that’s the effect Texas has on him. This Hangman… he seems to have retreated a bit into himself.

“Sorry if I’m overstepping,” Bradley feels the need to add. It’s none of his business, really. He shouldn’t pry.

“It’s fine,” Hangman waves him off. “Not like the state of the economy is some sort of state secret.”

He pulls his bottom lip into his mouth, bites it, and Bradley finds his eyes drawn to it; to the way the skin around where the teeth dig in pales for a moment and then, when Hangman releases it, how the blood rushes back in, making it pinker than before. Bradley breathes in harshly through his nose.

“They work a lot,” Hangman eventually goes on. “But there’s not much money to be made in nursing or social services. And my pay is just collecting dust, because –”

He shrugs, shoves his hands into his shorts. “Well. Not really got anything to spend it on. And Kerri wouldn’t ever ask, so I always tell the girls to make a list of shit they need for school and stuff, and when I visit I take them out to get it.”

“And your sister hasn’t noticed?” Bradley finds that hard to believe.

“Of course she’s noticed,” Hangman confirms. “But the girls have been really sensible. They could probably abuse it a bit more, to be honest. ‘s become a bit of a game now, planning the trips, sneaking it into the house.”

Despite the air-conditioning at full blast, Bradley suddenly feels a bit warm.

“Careful, they’ll be asking for callsigns soon.”

That gets an honest to God smile out of Hangman. It’s a soft and small thing,. Bradley feels absurdly pleased about it. It’s one thing to make people laugh. It’s a whole other beast to make them smile.

“They’ve been coming up with callsigns ever since they heard me call Javy ‘Coyote’.”

“Oh yeah? What’re the latest ones?”

“I have no idea,” Hangman replies. “But from ‘Sprinkles’ to ‘Supernova’, I’m sure they’ve covered a lot.”

“Maybe they can come up with a new one for you.”

It slips out before he can stop himself. Hangman stops so abruptly Bradley is almost shocked his shoes don’t screech on the linoleum floor. He tries to sidestep him as to not run into him, but it puts him in the path of a middle-aged lady’s cart. To avoid that thing from running over his flip-flopped feet, Bradley moves back, manoeuvring himself right into Hangman, nearly sending them both into the display of markers the girls had been staring at for a solid three minutes.

“Oh, shit, sorry,” he curses, as they somehow manage to right themselves clasping each other’s biceps.

When Bradley has regained his balance, feels steady enough on his feet to move out of Hangman’s space again, he lets go of his arms, looks up into his face. Any trace of that smile is gone. Hangman doesn’t look angry. Just – unsurprised.

“Don’t worry,” he tells Bradley, “I already had to explain to them why everyone thinks their uncle is an asshole when they asked about my callsign.”

God, Bradley wants to dig a hole and crawl into it.

“That’s not what I mean,” he tries. “You’re not an asshole.”

Hangman raises his brows.

“Okay, well,” Bradley acquiesces, “maybe you’re an asshole. But you don’t leave people hanging. At least… not when it counts.”

He can see Hangman’s jaw working, probably chewing on whatever words he’s trying not to let out.

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

Hangman is attempting to make light of the situation, but it’s a point Bradley should probably try to get across to him, because maybe they’ve all done a bit of a piss poor job of doing that since the mission. Hangman hasn’t done a complete one-eighty, would be weird if he had, but as much as he can be an ass – he isn’t mean. isn’t a bully. Just –

Well. Bradley can’t quite find the right words for what Hangman is. Not yet, at least.

“You’re not a bad person. I hope you don’t think that I believe that. That any of us really believe that.”

“Sure, whatever –”

Bradley impulsively reaches out, fingers coming to circle around Hangman’s wrist. He feels his pulse twitch, jump, stutter away. Realizes that this is the first time they’ve touched since landing on the carrier.

“I mean it.”

Something flutters across Hangman’s face, but it’s too quick for Bradley to grasp. Then he schools his features back into the sharp expression Bradley is so familiar with.

“Fine. I get it. But let’s not have a heart to heart in fucking Target of all places, Bradshaw.”

He pulls away, and Bradley’s arm falls back to his side. Then he turns and walks over to where the girls are looking at pencil cases.

Hangman’s family leaves in the afternoon. Bradley’s head is still buzzing from their visit to Target, but he feels strange about the sudden quietness of the house, having very quickly grown accustomed to the constant noise – and frankly distraction – generated by two children in a rather small space. Ines and Lula had been a great buffer in the last twenty-four hours.

Now it’s just him, Hangman, and their convoluted relationship.

Well. At least it won’t be boring.

The inside of the house is quiet, dark, and almost unbearably hot. Bradley’s shirt is uncomfortably sticking to his shoulders and back and he kind of yearns for a cold shower. But given how hot it still is and will most likely remain until sundown, it would combat the sweat for a minute, tops, after stepping out of the cold spray. Waste of water, really. Waste of time.

Hangman sinks into the couch, stretches his arms out over his head. His shirt rides up. The shorts he’s wearing are low on his hips, so Bradley gets a glimpse of his sharp V-line, the trail of hair that leads from below his navel to –

“How good are you with your hands?”

Bradley doesn’t exactly trip over his own feet, but he does stumble, nearly smacking into the coffee table with his shin.

“What?”

“Jesus, Rooster,” Hangman says, still sprawled out. “I don’t mean like that.”

But the grin on his face tells Bradley that the double meaning was very much intended. Asshole.

“How are your DIY skills?”

Bradley sidesteps the coffee table and consciously chooses to sit at the opposite end of the couch. To be fair, it’s not a very large couch, and the cushions are old and worn, making him slide half across the seat, so in the end, there isn’t much space between Hangman and him at all. He can feel the heat radiating off of him, making him feel even warmer than a second ago.

“Are we talking IKEA shelves or like – retiling the roof?” he asks in return, doesn’t think there’s anything in the question to roll eyes at, but Hangman does it anyway.

“I want to get a new air-conditioning unit and install it while they’re away,” Hangman explains. “Theirs broke ages ago and a decent one is a couple hundred dollars. I offered Kerri the money, and of course she refused, so I thought I buy it while she’s not here to stop me, make sure it works, and once she’s back and realizes the inside of her house is no longer as hot as Satan’s ass crack, she won’t bite my head off.”

Any grumblings Bradley just had about Hangman’s eyeroll or need to make Bradley trip up at every chance goes directly out the windows, past the shutters and evaporates in the blazing afternoon sun.

If Hangman keeps this up, he’s going to give Bradley whiplash.

“Sure,” Bradley says. “I mean, I replaced the one in my mom’s house a couple of years back. I’m sure we’ll manage.”

Hangman catches his gaze, holds it for a moment before turning his head again, looking at the black screen of the tv.

“Thanks, man. ‘preciate it.”

It’s quiet for a few beats. Somewhere in the house, that damn clock keeps ticking. Bradley leans his head back against the couch, sighs. Lets out a hearty groan.

“What?”

Bradley angles his head to look at Hangman. “Stop being so sweet, dude, you’re going to force me to re-evaluate everything I’ve ever thought about you.”

Says it jokingly, but is mostly serious. Doesn’t miss the look that flickers in Hangman’s eyes and is gone in a heartbeat.

“I contain fucking multitudes, Bradshaw,” Hangman drawls, body curling into another stretch, his toes digging into the carpet. His left arm stretches out, blindly searching for the remote. “Now be a dear and fetch us a beer.”

And just like that, the pendulum swings back. Bradley feels a little dizzy from it, snorts with a shake of his head, but gets up anyway, because Hangman invited him into his home, and he can put his ego aside for long enough to get his ass off the couch and grab both of them a beer he didn’t pay for.

“Fine,” he says, gets up, “but don’t be surprised if I pretend to have a headache later,” and slaps a palm to Hangman’s naked thigh, enjoying the way the other man flinches and splutters.

“We’ll see about that,” he calls after Bradley, who chuckles to himself .

He fishes two bottles out of the fridge and uncaps them, walks back into the living room with one bottle in his hand and the other pressed to the side of his face, to find Hangman flicking through the channels. Bradley hands him the beer, decidedly does not watch how Hangman’s throat moves after he’s put the bottle to his lips.

Hangman settles on a Survivor rerun, which is fine, it’s whatever. Bradley doesn’t really have a strong opinion either way.

“We could head into Austin tomorrow,” Hangman eventually pipes up again after they’ve spent a couple of minutes watching overly tan and scantily clad people discuss strategies by tiki torch fire. “Can’t promise I’ll be a good tour guide though. I grew up closer to San Antonio.”

Bradley turns to look at him, but Hangman still has his eyes set onto the tv. A sign of discomfort, maybe, as he has started to gleam in the last twenty-four hours. Or perhaps insecurity, rather than discomfort, Hangman being unsure of himself, or Bradley, or the shape their relationship has taken on, still oscillating uneasily between bitter rivals and blood brothers.

“Um – sure, man. I’m down for whatever. Don’t change your plans on my behalf.”

Hangman shrugs. “Don’t really have any plans besides the air-con. Haven’t been to Austin in years. Might be nice.”

Once again, there’s a lot that’s left for Bradley to figure out. Hangman’s not mentioned his parents once, but given that he’s technically an orphan, he knows what a field full of landmines that subject can be. Isn’t that eager to step on one quite so early.

“No football team waiting to play a round of pool?” He still prods a little bit.

Hangman has another sip of his beer. Continues to stoically look ahead and not at Bradley.

“I didn’t play football in High School.”

Bradley’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really? Would’ve guessed you’d been Quarterback.”

This is what finally gets Hangman to look at him. There’s a strange note to his expression. Not perplexed but slightly mystified, as if he’s forgotten that Bradley hadn’t known him as a teenager. The cocky Hangman who’d first strolled into the classroom at Top Gun had certainly had football star slash prom king swagger.

“I was a hundred pounds soaking wet until sixteen,” Hangman says. “Late growth spurt.”

“Right,” is all Bradley finds himself replying to that.

He mentally adds it to the list of things he’s gotten wrong about Hangman. About Jake. Fuck. He really needs to stop thinking of him only as his callsign. Especially now.

“Pretty sure I caught up with Mav when I was thirteen,” Bradley volunteers and as he’d hoped, Hangman’s lips twitch when he hears it.

“Not exactly a big feat, Rooster.”

Bradley snorts into his beer. “I’m telling him you said that,” nudges Hangman’s ankle with his left foot. Doesn’t exactly know why he keeps going. “I played baseball in High School. My mom was already pretty sick, Mav was deployed for most of these years. Bosnia. Iraq. Felt good to – whack shit. Not really stayed in touch with any of the guys from the team.”

Which isn’t surprising, looking back. He can tell Hangman gets it, even if he doesn’t respond.

Silent commiseration. Knowing what it’s like to leave a life behind.

day 3.

“I can’t believe I’m being seen out in public with you.”

“What?” Bradley adjusts the hat on his head, grinning wider at the sour look on Hangman’s face. “You don’t think this is a winning look?”

Hangman just lifts his phone, wordlessly snaps a picture. If Bradley were the type of guy to get embarrassed about shit like this, he’d guess it was for future blackmail. As it is, his money is on entertainment for their group chat. He’s happy to be of service.

“It’s a bit much.”

Pocketing his phone, Hangman turns his attention away from the stand of cowboy hats that grabbed Bradley’s attention the second he laid eyes on them. They’re downtown, streets bustling in spite of temperatures pushing a hundred degrees, zigzagging their way through the crowds without any real plan.

Considering how structured and down-to-the-last-second organized their life is when they’re on duty, Bradley actually finds this aimless wandering deeply relaxing, but he can tell that Hangman isn’t quite as zen, fiddling with his phone, shoulders a little tense. Surrounded by this many people, Bradley can trail him and observe him a bit closer without Hangman turning the same scrutiny back on him.

It's been a strange experience, getting to see Hangman out of uniform, away from the rigid routine inherent in every corner of the Navy. He’d been razor sharp at Top Gun, so intensely focused and ruthless that it had, at times, felt like all oxygen was being sucked out of every room he’d entered. And considering Bradley had essentially been a lit fuse, trying to grapple with the ghosts of his dad and Mav and Ice haunting the damn place, there’d been explosions big and small whenever they’d been thrown together.

Bradley had hated his guts. This arrogant asshole who had strutted around like he’d had a birth right to top spot; who’d flown like he had nothing to lose, and nothing and nobody mattered. In hindsight, Bradley does see that the animosity hadn’t really been his or Hangman’s fault. Just a terrible case of wrong place, wrong time. Bradley hadn’t been ready to share with anyone that there was always something to lose, and that people mattered, and what could so easily happen if any of them forgot about that.

Years on, they are both evidently two big bundles of trauma dressed in meat suits. But they’ve also done some growing up. And Bradley is grown up enough to admit that he’d been a bit of an asshole, too.

(Or more than a bit.)

He sidles up next to Hangman, bumps their elbows together.

“’s different from what I imagined,” he says.

“What, more redneck-y?”

Bradley grins. “Hey, you said it, not me.”

He sidesteps a small group of college-aged girls in… really short Daisy Duke’s, hears them giggle as they unabashedly stare at the two of them, sends them a smile and a wink in return before returning his attention to Hangman, who either does not care at all for the attention he’s getting, even in a ratty Eagles t-shirt and shorts, or simply does not notice.

His money, considering how laser-sharp Hangman tends to be, is on the former, and it makes his mind take yet another little detour; has him wonder if Hangman usually uses the small amount of downtime they have to get his dick wet and whether Bradley is a wrench that has been thrown into this plan.

He’s met Tasha’s girlfriend who’s studying to be a human rights lawyer and who’d been so thoroughly unimpressed by him that he’d spend an additional week feeling wholly inadequate in every way. Knows that Payback is engaged, and that Halo has been with her husband since High School, but aside from that, isn’t really aware of everyone’s relationship status. Is perfectly aware that people like them aren’t easy to be with.

“Hey, you hungry?” Hangman’s voice suddenly pulls him out of his thoughts.

It’s been a few hours since breakfast.

“Sure,” he replies, “I could eat.”

They find a table in the shade in front of one of the repurposed warehouses downtown. Chalkboard menus, exposed brick walls, artisan coffee machines. Their waitress doesn’t look to be a day older than sixteen but has a rather impressive and colorful neck tattoo, so maybe Bradley is a bit off when it comes to estimating her age.

It’s barely noon, but he’s off duty and also pretty sure that Hangman would strangle him before he’d let Bradley drive his truck, so he orders a beer with his sandwich and fries. He takes off his sunglasses and hooks them into the collar of his shirt, squeezes the bridge of his nose. Opens his eyes to find Hangman looking at him from across the table with his brows pulled together.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Hangman responds, but then presses his lips together, seems to think better of it and eventually, after a moment’s deliberation, asks, “everything alright with Maverick?”

It’s not exactly a question he was expecting.

“Oh. Yeah, man. ‘s all good.”

Hangman raises his brows, unconvinced.

“Seriously,” Bradley says.

“You sure? Not some big argument or falling out that has you running away to Texas of all places?”

“I’m not running away,” he immediately disagrees, because he’s not. Not really. Not from Mav. “And Mav and I didn’t get into a fight. It’s actually been – nice. Good.”

Bradley pauses. Figures that since Hangman has essentially given him shelter, it might be fair to open up to him in return.

“I just – needed a break,” he ends up saying, doesn’t really know how to explain that suffocating feeling that’s made a home in his chest the past couple of months and that hadn’t really subsided when he’d thought about spending his entire break with his godfather. “Nothing to do with Mav, really. Just me and… my issues,” he settles on. Can barely articulate it in his head, even less so out loud.

“I get it,” Hangman says once their waitress has set down their drinks and has disappeared back inside.

“You do?”

He lifts his right shoulder in an awkward half-shrug. “You get used to it, right?”

It stumps Bradley. “Used to what?”

“Solitude,” Hangman says and the word slams into Bradley like a jet hitting eight G.

For a moment, he can’t breathe, grateful that Hangman doesn’t seem to notice because his eyes are glued to the table.

“Sticks to your bones too, until the body doesn’t remember what it feels like to be surrounded by people. When I first got to the Academy, I felt like I was suffocating, being around this many people all the time after – well.”

It’s a lot more than Bradley would have expected to hear him say, even if he does break off before he delves too deeply into what is slowly being revealed to be some unexplained childhood trauma.

Hangman clears his throat. “And yet here you are,” he says, trademark smirk back in place and any trace of vulnerability lost again.

“You don’t count,” Bradley responds before he can stop himself.

“Sheesh, Bradshaw, I will try and take that as a compliment.”

“It is,” he tells him, and their eyes lock. “You… you don’t really expect me to be anything I’m not. I can be an asshole and you won’t take it personally.”

Because they both know Bradley can be an asshole too. Hangman wasn’t fooled by the easy-going, piano-playing nice guy act he puts on when he doesn’t want people to ask how he’s really doing. And he is slowly starting to understand why. Birds of a feather and all that.

“One of my many qualities,” Hangman grins, taking the heaviness out of their conversation, tapping into some areas neither of them are that comfortable treading.

And Bradley agrees. Heart-to-hearts in Target aren’t great, but they’re not much better over what is supposed to be a casual lunch. He figures they both need a few fingers of whisky before they approach those topics again.

“So, how long since you last been here?” he tries to find a lighter conversation route for them to take.

“Years,” Hangman replies, crunching the ice in his soda with a paper straw that is slowly but steadily disintegrating. “The last time was with Javy for Pride.”

The hand that is just lifting the beer bottle to his lips freezes, and so does every cohesive thought in Bradley’s head. Nothing is rendered silent, but the words just turn into salad and he’s pretty sure his mouthing at Hangman like a goldfish. Javy. Years. Pride. He thinks Hangman is still talking, but Bradley is just trying to connect the dots in his head.

Apparently he takes too long and probably does so with the dumbest expression on his face, because Hangman tilts his head to one side and, sounding honestly concerned, asks, “you okay there, Rooster?”

He’s fine. He’s okay. He just can’t manage to tie the words Pride and ‘with Javy’ together in a way that makes sense. Hangman, bless him, seemingly figures out much quicker what Bradley’s problem is.

“Bradshaw,” he starts slowly, careful steps on a thin layer of ice, “you do know I’m gay, right?”

And there is that connection Bradley’s brain couldn’t make for the life of him. Why it couldn’t is another thing. As of now, he should probably say something so that he doesn’t look like a fucking homophobe.

“Ah, no,” he replies, sounding like an absolute moron. He sets his beer bottle down, because he fears he could drop it any second. “I didn’t.”

It genuinely surprises Hangman, judging by his baffled expression.

“I thought Phoenix would’ve told you. ‘s probably the only reason she doesn’t completely hate my guts.”

That does make sense, Bradley guesses. Tasha had known Hangman before they’d all been at Top Gun together, and despite her claims that he was a douche, she always seemed to have a soft spot for him regardless, never as mean to him as Bradley had seen her be to other people she thought were dicks. Queer solidarity, he realizes. Well, what do you know.

“I don’t think Phoenix is in the business of outing people. Even, like, to her friends.”

Hangman worries his lip and Bradley is trying not to be weird about it, because it isn’t weird, not at all, he just feels caught on the wrong foot and has yet to regain his balance. Totally gets that his strange reaction could give Hangman the wrong idea.

“Is this going to be a problem?”

“No, Jesus,” Bradley is quick to assure him, “it’s not. I’m just surprised, I didn’t – are you –”

Hangman, true to form, rolls his eyes. “Relax, man. Just because I don’t advertise it doesn’t mean I’m repressed or still in the fucking closet.”

Bradley wants to say something else; make sure Hangman isn’t worried he inadvertently came out to a piece of shit or anything, but their waitress chooses that moment to arrive with their food, setting the plates down in front of them with a smile and a cheerful “Enjoy!”. Hangman sends her a quick smile in return. Before she turns to walk away, Bradley spies the small rainbow pin on her uniform. Realizes now, glancing around the neighborhood, clearly gentrified beyond belief and reimagined and repurposed, that there are quite a few pride flags in windows or strung up above shop entrances.

Maybe the clues have been there. Nobody has ever accused him of being quick on the uptake.

day 4.

One thing Bradley is very quickly realizing is that Hangman is an absolutely off-his-rockers motherfucker who gets up to run at least seven miles at the crack of dawn every morning, even when it’s so hot outside that Bradley wakes up sweaty with his sheets plastered to his naked back. Bradley already counts himself as an early bird – honoring his callsign – but at the moment, it is simply too hot to move, let alone run.

Eventually, he manages to peel himself out of his sheets to have a cold shower, pulling on shorts but foregoing a shirt, because he’d sweat just right through it. He fights with the old coffee machine in the kitchen, gets it to work after fiddling with it for a couple of minutes and leans back against the counter while the pot starts filling up drip by drip.

His mind drifts back to the previous day. After lunch, they’d done a bit of aimless sightseeing, talking about people in their respective squadrons, what everyone had been up to since the mission. Meanwhile Bradley had tried his damned hardest not to make it weird by mentally going back through the entire catalogue of his interactions with Hangman.

It’s just come as a surprise. Not that Hangman has to tick any particular set of boxes to be gay. Bradley isn’t so short-sighted to believe in anything that stupid. He had a boyfriend in college; or rather, he’d dated a guy a couple of months while in college, never really thinking too hard about how to label himself. So he would have expected himself to be able to pick up on less obvious clues.

Though Tasha has teased him for being oblivious on more than one occasion, so perhaps he should not be surprised at all that Hangman’s sexuality went completely over his head.

It doesn’t stop him from thinking about their time at Top Gun, and all the times they’d run into one another after that. He is still trying to pick apart late nights at bars that Hangman, as it dawns on Bradley now, had spent playing pool with Coyote, never once leaving with any one of the many girls who’d thrown themselves at him, when – speak of the devil – Hangman returns from his run.

Apparently he made the same decision as Bradley with regards to a shirt, bare chest heaving as he stalks into the kitchen in a pair of shorts that – well, could be longer, entire body shining with sweat. He is sporting an impressive full body flush, and Bradley feels the sudden urge to ask if he remembered putting on sunblock. Jesus. Not like he’s his fucking mother.

“Ugh, do I smell coffee?” Hangman asks, his voice sandpaper-rough. “Fucking dying for a cup.”

“Give it another minute,” Bradley replies around a yawn. “You could just sleep in, you know? Or do you have an invisible friend who’s a drill sergeant?”

“You’re not funny, Bradshaw.” He yawns as well, scratches at his chest absentmindedly. “You alright with heading to Walmart after breakfast? Won’t be busy, and I would prefer to look at air-conditioning units without having to dodge overtaxed mothers wrestling with their demon spawn.”

“You’re a real sweetheart,” Bradley snorts. “But sure. Why not?”

“Cool,” Hangman nods. “Shower, coffee, breakfast, Walmart,” he says, going over the checklist in his head. Then he turns on his heels to head to the bathroom.

Bradley does not look at his ass as he leaves.

Walmart early Monday morning is, unsurprisingly, a lot more bearable than Target on a Saturday afternoon, especially when you don’t have to keep an eye on two children who are surprisingly fast and agile with a shopping cart.

“Is five hundred dollars too much for an air conditioner?” Hangman pipes up after they’ve been standing, in silence, in front of a row of window air conditioners for at least fifteen minutes.

Bradley can’t say he’s an expert on the subject.

“No idea. I can’t really remember what I paid a few years ago, but I guess it’s reasonable.”

He glances at the various price tags, starting from one hundred and fifty for some contraptions that don’t look like they’re going to last longer than a few months, going up to one that’s over eight hundred dollars and looks a little bit like a fridge. Seems like overkill.

“I guess five hundred is a decent middle ground?” he suggests with a shrug and steps closer to inspect the hangtag dangling off the display unit’s side. “Says here it’s energy efficient. And you can control it through Wi-Fi.”

“Hm,” Hangman hums, staring at this particular air conditioner like he’s interrogating a prisoner for classified information.

“You can sign up for a three-year plan for fifty bucks, too,” Bradley continues. They’ve not been here for that long, but given how monosyllabic Hangman has been up until this point, he is starting to get worried that they could be stuck here for hours as Hangman overthinks every potential option. “Extra customer service, repairs, all that stuff.”

Hangman just hums again, but other than that does not move a single muscle, nor gives Bradley any other indication that he’s even listening. Bradley has a quick scan of the surrounding aisles, wonders if it may be a good idea to try and find some sales person who could actually give them some concrete information. Thinks about it for one second, and decides against it. Knowing Hangman, he’d just ignore that poor sucker too.

At least it’s cold inside the store. If Hangman was taking this long standing outside in the heat, Bradley would probably bludgeon him to death with his bare hands.

After what feels like the longest ten minutes of Bradley’s life, Hangman finally gives a sign of life.

“They’re all just… real fucking ugly.”

For a moment, Bradley can only stare at his profile, disgruntled expression betraying that Hangman seems genuinely upset about this.

“I mean,” he starts, “it doesn’t have to look good, does it? Just needs to do the job.”

Hangman smirks. “Is that what you tell yourself every morning when you look in the mirror?”

In all fairness, it was too good a setup for Hangman not to shamelessly use it.

“Ouch, dude,” Bradley retorts, clutching at his chest, “you wound me. You know I’m sensitive about that.”

“As you should be,” Hangman shoots back instantly. “The eighties called. They want their facial hair back.”

Something glints dangerously in Hangman’s eyes and Bradley – God, he can’t help but grin at him. They’ve said all the mean shit about each other that really stings. Everything that’s left is all in good fun.

“That’s a cheap shot, man. One you’ve used before, too. Bit lazy.”

Hangman turns his body towards him, steps into Bradley’s space. A clear challenge, corners of his mouth twitching upwards. From up close, Bradley can see some speckles of grey in his green eyes.

“Maybe you’re just not worth the effort, Rooster.”

Bradley can smell his shower gel, his deodorant. Something expensive, he thinks, rich and spicy and… fuck, actually quite heady.

“Like you don’t know that I could make it worth your while.”

He only realizes what he’s said after he’s said it, seeing how Hangman’s eyes have gone slightly wide, jaw suddenly clenched shut.

Where the hell did that come from?

Hangman doesn’t recoil, per se, but he takes a very pronounced step back, the sudden silence hanging over them so awkward that the back of Bradley’s neck feels uncomfortably warm.

He feels like he’s been walking down an even road and suddenly tripped. And he is not in free fall, but he’s slipped down into a ditch, stepped into something, and it makes him feel dizzy. Should he… fuck, should he apologize?

Hangman takes that decision out of his hand. With some generic country music blaring from the speakers, he turns back to the air conditioners, steadfastly avoiding Bradley’s eyes with his own. Clears his throat.

“I guess this one will do. Let’s just… take this one and get the hell out of here. The music is giving me a fucking headache.”

The ride back to the house is quiet, awkwardness sticking to them like the damn sheets had stuck to Bradley’s skin just hours ago. He feels a bit helpless as to how to revert back to the easy back-and-forth they had going before he decided to put his foot in his mouth, clearly making Hangman uncomfortable.

A petulant little voice in his head keeps saying that technically, Hangman started it, but the more rational part of Bradley replies that Hangman always starts shit. The difference is that Bradley has just never finished it. And at this point, he can’t quite decipher why he did this time.

They unload the massive box holding the new air conditioner and deposit it in the living room, but Hangman does not seem eager to install it today, instead making a beeline for the kitchen, still not looking at Bradley even though Bradley suddenly can’t seem to look away from him.

Hangman grabs two beers from the fridge, and Bradley reads it as a small peace offering, follows him out into the backyard and to a set of rusty garden furniture where Hangman puts the bottles down onto the small, round table before striding to the side of the house. Bradley continues to watch him, feeling a bit lost, suspended in air, like he’s watching a car crash in slow motion and does not know how to stop it.

Maybe he is also being a bit dramatic and just needs to give Hangman space and a while to cool off. But, a treacherous part of his brain whispers to him, what then? Is Hangman really the one who needs to cool off here? Or is this Hangman actually giving him space?

A net nearly smacks him in the face while his thoughts are running circles in his head and Bradley fumbles to catch it. Wordlessly, Hangman walks over to the inflatable pool, holding another net in his left hand, and starts dipping it into the not very clean-looking water to fish out dirt and leaves that have collected on and below the surface.

Okay, Bradley thinks, I guess this is what we’re doing.

Joins Hangman in his silent task, but there is a thought that is settling in his chest, slowly but steadily unfolding as he works away. It’s almost hypnotic, the movement of the net through the water, slowly from left to right, left to right, sun reflecting off the surface and mercilessly beating down on them, making Bradley’s shoulders burn.

He never knew why Hangman decided to pick him out of everyone to needle and prod away at from the moment they’d met. Always explained it away, believed it was simply down to Bradley’s style of flying, his personality in the air and on the ground, that had just not meshed with Hangman’s at all.

He'd drawn Hangman’s attention without trying, without actually doing anything, and that just festers in his brain until he can’t stop replaying those first moments in front of his inner eye. The two of them; younger, sharper, unpolished edges and bruised egos  and –

Bradley can admit that he’d probably initially found Hangman attractive, but that attraction had been curdled with irritation the moment Hangman had opened his mouth and insulted Bradley’s flying. What if the same thing in reverse was also true?

He straightens with a groan and wipes the sweat off his brow with his free hand. Can tell that Hangman finally – finally – glances his way and Bradley – well.

He thinks he is far too sober for all of this.

The beer is probably not as cold as it was a few minutes ago, but it feels really good running down his throat. Pressing the cold bottle to one cheek and then the other, he hears soft steps in the grass beside him, figures it’s Hangman also stepping up to the table to have a drink. They really should not be working out in the sun. They should be inside, setting up that damn air conditioner so that they can finally catch a fucking break and not keep sweating like a whore in church.

“Just spit it out.”

Bradley moves his head to the side so quickly his neck smarts. Wincing, he puts his beer down and presses a palm into the angry muscle.

“What?”

Hangman sighs, bites his lower lip once, then turns to him, eyes finally catching.

“Just spit out whatever is keeping that wheel in your head spinning, Bradshaw. ‘s gonna be real uncomfortable if this keeps going for the next two weeks.”

He’s probably right about that, but Bradley wouldn’t put money on him voicing his thoughts actually improving the situation. Well, if it becomes completely unbearable, he can always drive back to California or hide in Mav’s hangar until he has to ship out again.

Leaning a hip against the table, he tries to appear as casual as possible, does not want to trigger Hangman’s fight or flight mode, really keen on ending the day without one of them getting punched.

“When we first met, did you – I mean were you –”

He cuts off, not exactly sure how to phrase it without sounding like a conceited asshole who is really full of himself. But he can’t come up with a way of saying it that doesn’t sound douche-y, so in the end, Bradley just decides to bite the bullet.

“Did you – like me?”

God, is there any way he can sound more like a first grader? Should’ve just given Hangman a piece of paper as well with the options yes, no, and maybe.

Hangman just stares at him, brows raised.

“Oh, you know what I mean,” Bradley mumbles, has another sip of beer.

Can’t tell if Hangman is blushing when he sighs and momentarily looks to the sky because they’re both flush from the unbearable heat.

“Fucking hell, Rooster,” Hangman eventually says, sighs a second time for good measure. “Fine. When we first met, I thought you were hot. Despite the unfortunate…”, and he trails off, waves his hand in Bradley’s general direction, maybe referring to his Hawaiian shirts, or his moustache, or both.

“Right.” That’s all Bradley can say in response. Now that Hangman has admitted to it, has actually said it out loud, Bradley has no idea what to do with that piece of information. “Oh. Sorry?”

“Why are you apologizing?”

He doesn’t know why he is apologizing. Hangman, as always, is a bit quicker than him.

“Jesus wept,” Hangman says quietly, but it has bite to it. “Don’t fucking apologize. I wanted to fuck you, not fall in love with you. I wasn’t… I didn’t spend the last couple of years pining after you like some Jane Austen heroine. So untwist your panties.”

Bradley is still reeling a little, buzzing noise echoing between his ears that sounds vaguely like I wanted to fuck you, but his first instinct is not to double down on it, but to maybe diffuse the tension, because Hangman won’t meet his eyes again, is avoiding them like the plague, like he can’t quite bring himself –

“Oh thank God,” he breathes. “For a second I thought all of your bullshitting about me flying like a grandma was you trying to flirt.”

It works, Bradley thinks, because some of the tension in Hangman’s shoulders drains away and his stoic expression makes way for something a bit more… him. Cocky, coupled with something sharp. For a second time that day, Bradley realizes too late that he handed Hangman a perfect setup.

“Trust me, Rooster,” Hangman drawls and steps closer, slinks into Bradley’s space, cocks his jaw. “You’ll know when I’m flirting with you.”

Taps Bradley’s chest once, twice, before walking back towards the pool. But then swings around on his heels, comes to a halt with a designedly curios expression on his face.

“Come to think of it… weren’t you the one who told me I looked good? Don’t tell me that was you coming on to me.”

“No,” Bradley replies immediately, his face hot not just from the hundred degree heat they’ve been marinating in for too long already. “No, it wasn’t.”

But suddenly thinks, shit, what if it was? 

Hangman, thankfully, doesn’t notice the panic that has to be evident in his face at the realisation, already turned back around to continue cleaning the pool.

Later, at night, Bradley finds himself staring at the ceiling, listening to Hangman shifting around in the dark, neither one of them asleep and probably not anywhere close to it either. A lot of things are nagging at Bradley. One thing in particular.

It’s a stupid thing to bring up now. Unnecessary. Him being reckless in a way that is usually reserved for Hangman. But, well. The mission changed them both.

“I had a boyfriend in college,” he says into the dark.

Can tell by the way Hangman is suddenly very still that he’s heard him. Is listening.

“His name was Sam. We dated for a couple of months. Probably the longest relationship I ever had. Since then, I… well, guess I slept around a bit. A few guys. Usually women, but – yeah. Just… thought I’d mention it.”

He doesn’t know what he expects Hangman to say to that. Tells himself he doesn’t know why he said it in the first place, but that is a lie so blatant Bradley cannot bring himself to believe it for even the fraction of a second.

But he expects Hangman to say something. When he doesn’t, Bradley grows uneasy, listens to Hangman’s breathing, absolutely sure that he isn’t asleep, isn’t trying to pretend to be asleep. Maybe has no idea what to say to that. Bradley can’t exactly fault him for that. He didn’t know what to say when Hangman kind of came out to him either.

Eventually, Hangman just quietly says, “Goodnight, Rooster.”

And that’s that.

It takes Bradley a long time to fall asleep.

day 5.

Whatever balance they had before, whatever ease had settled between them since the mission, has been blown to fucking pieces the next day. Hangman is already gone when Bradley wakes, out running even though it’s probably already around ninety degrees when the clock strikes six. Bradley showers the sheen of sweat off his skin, pulls on a clean pair of shorts and shirt, starts the coffee machine, and then makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to do a grocery run.

He nearly burns his hands on the steering wheel, thankfully finds an old gym towel to drape over it and uses Google Maps to find the nearest store. There are only a few people in the aisles, and Bradley relishes the calm and quiet, allows the generic music to permeate his head and push out any lingering thoughts that kept him up half the night. Instead, he focuses on making sure that he fills the cart with fresh produce, healthy food, because they’re both too old to be eating like fucking frat boys. And if the last few days have revealed anything aside from years of repressed sexual attraction, it’s probably that Hangman has the eating habits of a damn toddler. But if he adds two sixpacks right at the end before he gets to the register – well.

Bradley has the feeling that he won’t be able to get through the day sober.

Hangman is sitting at the kitchen table, staring into a steaming cup of coffee, when Bradley gets back with a few shopping bags. His eyes flicker down to the bags, then up to Bradley’s face.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says disgruntledly.

“I wanted to.”

They move around the kitchen together, putting stuff in the fridge and various cupboards, never quite bumping into each other, careful to avoid any eye contact. Whenever Hangman moves into his field of vision, Bradley’s sneaks a glance, cataloguing the angles of his profile, the curved line of his back, muscled shoulder blades shifting beneath tanned skin. A drop of sweat pearls off his hairline and slowly travels down his spine, vertebra by vertebra, and Bradley follows it with his eyes until it shatters against the waistband of Hangman’s shorts.

The rest of the day is wasted with Office reruns and frozen pizza. The leather of the old couch sticks to their sweaty skin, making an absolutely disgusting noise whenever one of them moves, while the still not unpacked brand spanking new air conditioner is sitting in the corner waiting to be installed. But they both seem too tired and sluggish to set up the one thing that could release them from this misery.

Fuck, Bradley feels like he’s a moment away from actually melting into the furniture.

Instead, they engage in the kind of day-drinking Bradley hasn’t done since he was in his early twenties and could shrug off a hangover like it was nothing. But the constant buzz makes him feel loose and they both probably drift off for ten, twenty minutes at a time as weather warnings buzz on their phones and the heat becomes practically unbearable.

Bradley feels sweat collect at the back of his fucking knees, tickling as it runs down the back of his calves. He’s given up wiping it off. Embraces his new damp and tacky self, goes to take a swig of his beer only to find it empty. With a groan, he peels himself off the couch with a slurp and slugs into the kitchen, stays in front of the open fridge for an extra ten seconds before grabbing two more beers for himself and Hangman.

Looks like they’re almost out, but maybe that’s a good thing.

Dragging himself back into the living room, he stops in the doorway, eyes falling onto Hangman as they tend to do these days. Or even before, if he’s honest with himself. He’s still in his running shorts from this morning, legs having ridden up his thighs from shifting around on the couch for hours, baring the strong, corded muscles. His right hand is resting on his belly, absentmindedly scratching at a patch of skin just to the right of his navel and Bradley tries to drag his eyes up to Hangman’s face, but they catch on a small droplet that is slowly running from the dip between his collarbones across his right pec.

It hits the small, rosy nipple and something sharp and hot zings down Bradley’s spine to the very tip of his toes, making his body shiver with… with lust, his mind finally dares to put a name to it. It’s been simmering for a while, this sizzling undercurrent thrumming through his body, which he has been unable to pin down and dissect.

Fuck.

Bradley wonders if he can blame it on the heat. His brain certainly feels like it’s seconds away from melting out of his ears. Not surprising he feels more than a little bit insane. God, his throat feels dry.

“Fucking global warming,” he gripes, flops back down onto the couch and gaze firmly fixed on the tv again.

“Better not be blaming me for that,” Hangman retorts, taking the offered beer and pressing it to his face.

“This is like, the reddest state,” he says, only realizing a second later that it doesn’t really make any sense. Hangman still seems to get it.

“I voted for Obama,” he replies. “Twice.”

“Good for you.”

Can’t recall if there even was a point to this conversation.

He stays on the couch for another moment. Then he pushes off of it again.

“I’m gonna go drown myself in the shower.”

day 6.

It doesn’t cool down once the sun sets. Or at least it doesn’t feel like it. Bradley supposes it was a stupid idea to drink beer most of the day rather than properly hydrate and while he’s not drunk or buzzed anymore, feels a little bit rough around the edges. Even the three cold showers taken over the course of the day haven’t helped.

Hangman does not seem to be faring any better. Bradley can hear him toss and turn over the steady hum of the fan that’s really just blowing hot air in his face at this point. He sighs for the umpteenth time, rolls over onto his back. The sheets get twisted around the lower half of his body, so he kicks them off and to the end of the bed with a huff. Even the pair of boxer shorts is too much clothes to wear but Christ, he can’t exactly just take them off.

After another couple of minutes tick by, Bradley reaches out with his left hand and blindly searches for his phone that he tossed somewhere next to his pillow when they went to bed around eleven. He presses the home button. It’s just past two in the morning, he’s been staring up at the ceiling for more than three hours, and it’s still ninety seven degrees. If Hangman continues in the same pattern as the past few days, he's probably getting up in three hours to go for his run. If he does it today, after c’early not sleeping, Bradley should probably think about an intervention.

“Ugh, fucking hell, Rooster,” Hangman suddenly calls from his bed, startling him so much that he almost drops his phone onto his face, “put your damn phone away!”

“Sorry. Can’t sleep.”

Hangman groans. “No shit.”

“It’s too hot to sleep,” Bradley states the obvious.

“No shit,” Hangman repeats, sighs, then audibly turns again. Onto his front or his back, Bradley can’t tell.

“Should’ve installed that air conditioner the minute we got it through the door.”

“I swear to God, Bradshaw,” Hangman practically growls, “I will smother you with my pillow.”

Bradley doesn’t know why it makes him laugh. “You say the sweetest things.”

“All part of the charm,” is the tired response, followed by another sigh, another turn and, finally, by the creaking of the bed and the rustling of sheets. “Okay, you know what? Put on some pants. We’re going for a drive.”

Bradley shoots up. “A drive to where?”

Hangman flicks on the light and Bradley has to blink against the sudden glare.

“To find some air-con.”

The third neon tube down the aisle is broken. It keeps springing to life for the tenth of a second before going out again in an uneven pattern, merrily whizzing away, giving a very peculiar mood lighting to a shelf of overpriced condiments. The smell of mustard and cheap detergent hangs in the air. In the background, Shania Twain is crooning that being Brad Pitt doesn’t impress her much.

In this transient state between sleep and the waking hours, Hangman looks unbearably soft, bundled into a hoodie, both hands shoved into the belly pouch, face open and unguarded in a way he never allows it to be once the sun has peaked over the horizon. He’s shuffling his feet as he makes his way along the sprawling aisles, Converse untied, laces dragging on the linoleum floor and goosebumps on his bare legs from the drop in temperature. It’s still around ninety-five degrees outside. In here, it’s probably closer to seventy.

Bradley follows him as he walks through the store, aisle by aisle, carrying the basket that Hangman will without comment drop random items into that catch his fancy. So far he’s collected two bars of lavender soap, washing up liquid, a tub of Greek yoghurt, string cheese and a box of cherry tomatoes. There doesn’t seem to be any specific list that he’s crossing things off of.

Regardless, Bradley is happy to trail him, half-awake, half-asleep, mind pleasantly fuzzy like it’s been wrapped in cotton wool. He should probably feel like shit; sleep-deprived, first too hot and now actually a little too cold, the relationship with Hangman teetering on something that… could really bite him in the ass. But Bradley just feels calm, and comfortable, and for the first time in quite a long time, like he is exactly where he’s supposed to be, doing exactly what he’s supposed to be doing.

They round the corner past mayonnaise and ranch dressing and into the next aisle. Hangman comes to a halt and angles his body towards the shelf, giving Bradley the opportunity to look at him, ingenuous and without worrying that Hangman will snap at him for it. His hair is a bit longer than it’d been at North Island, soft and golden, even in the sterile glow of the lamps overhead. Still within military guidelines, but there’s a slightly longer strand curling behind Hangman’s ear, tickling the skin there, and suddenly, Bradley feels like he’s just finished a climb pushing eight Gs and is now inverting over a mountain range, world turning upside down.

Barely notices Hangman dropping three packets of mini pretzels into the basket.

Now that he’s standing this much closer, Bradley can smell him, like – truly smell him. Not his shower gel or aftershave or deodorant, but the scent that constantly lingers underneath, that’s not Hangman or Seresin, but Jake, unfiltered. And Bradley, he just… he needs to breathe him in, feel his body against his own, warm and solid. Is still tilted on his head, belly swooping and blood rushing in his ears.

Jesus Christ. In a Walmart at three am, between beef jerky and tortilla chips, with the lights flickering above them like it’s the fucking twilight zone, Bradley wants him more than he’s ever wanted anyone.

Wants to press his face to that spot behind his ear where his hair curls and where the skin looks a little paler and so unimaginably soft. Later, he’ll blame the lack of inhibition on his lack of sleep, but suddenly, Bradley can’t find a reason not to do exactly that. He just needs to take half a step, tilt his head slightly forward for his forehead to touch Hangman’s temple, heat instantly spreading quickly from their point of contact to the rest of Bradley’s body.

His lips brush the shell of Jake’s ear.

Feels more than hears the sharp inhale, a tremble that goes through him, like Jake’s wound up so tight and this close to finally uncurling under Bradley’s touch and fucking hell, if that doesn’t go right to his head, forcing him to take one, two, three deep, grounding breaths and then –

Then he moves his head just so. Lips pressed together but also pressed to that spot on Jake’s neck that Bradley has been hypnotized by and his throat burns with how much he wants to not just smell, but also taste him. Jake shifts, his shoulder brushing across Bradley’s chest until they’re almost face to face, the movement dragging Bradley’s lips to a point so close to Jake’s that Bradley can feel Jake’s hot breath against his jaw.

There’s not much of a height difference between them, but with a swooping sensation Bradley realizes that he still has to tilt his head down slightly, angle his head just so, the tips of their noses touching, Bradley’s lips parting to –

Jake steps back abruptly. The cold air of the air-conditioning hits Bradley’s face like an open palm. He blinks, and the world rights itself again, blood flowing back into all parts of his body so quickly that he feels a bit nauseous for a moment. Jake is staring at him like a deer in the headlights.

Probably fair, Bradley thinks slightly hysterically. He did kind of come right at him. Kind of wants to step closer again, maybe frame Jake’s face and feel the first hint of stubble beneath his fingers; breathe with him, get that spooked look out of his eyes, because –

Because this is nothing to get spooked by. It makes too much sense. This is where they’ve been heading and maybe Bradley should be equally apprehensive, but he guesses the inevitability of it all has allowed him to understand the emotional chaos of the last days, fuck, years, rendering him utterly calm in the face of something that should scare the living shit out of him.

He gets the feeling that Jake does not feel calm at all. It’s morbidly fascinating to watch, actually, how he goes from soft and cozy to razor-sharp incrementally, one little step after the other, retreating back behind his immaculate poker face. His own personal safety blanket. Clenching his jaw once, twice, like he’s tightening the straps on a piece of armor that is shielding him from the world.

How long they remain in this position, just looking at each other, is anyone’s guess. All Bradley is sure about is that it’s no longer Shania Twain singing.

Fight or flight, Jake? He asks in his head, waiting.

Then Jakes grabs for the basket, takes it out of his hand and puts more distance between them, wordlessly telling Bradley that they aren’t doing this. Not here. Not now. And it’s okay. It’s fine. They don’t need to do this his way.

Bradley knows what rejection tastes like. This isn’t it.

When they get back to the house it’s just around four in the morning and Bradley feels like he’s fraying at the seams. It’s still hot as hell, but at this point he is so tired he thinks he might pass out regardless as soon as his body hits the mattress. He lingers in the doorway of the kitchen and watches as Jake puts his spoils away, his entire body curled tight again, thrumming with tension and unable to be still.

Bradley just wants to take his hand, take him to bed, get him to exhale and be still. Doubts Jake would let him. At least not yet.

They slog back through the backyard, Bradley sending a longing glance towards the inflatable pool, wondering whether he can just sleep in there. Once back inside the little outhouse, he pulls his shirt over his head, kicks his shorts off, sits down on the edge of the pull-out. Looks at Jake who is lingering in the middle of the small room, tugging at the hem of the hoodie he is inexplicably still wearing, probably boiling in at this point.

Maybe part of his armor now.

“You think we’ll manage to get some sleep before we’ll get boiled alive in here?”

Jake doesn’t reply to his question, but it prompts him to finally pull that hoodie over his head, his shirt sliding up along with the thicker fabric, baring his torso. Bradley is too tired to get fully turned on, even if it is a sight to behold, but the fabric gets tangled up, Jake huffing in annoyance, so Bradley gets up. Walks over to where Jake’s impatience is making things worse, highly suspicious of the warmth blooming in his chest that cannot have anything to do with the weather, and pulls the shirt back down.

“There you go, babe.”

It slips out. Bradley blames the fact that he’s been awake for about twenty-two hours. Thinks that Jake doesn’t notice or react to the accidental pet name because he’s been up for roughly twenty-three. The hoodie falls to the floor next to them. Jake kicks off the Converse he never tied in the first place. Bradley thinks this is where they both attempt to get some shuteye, but Jake seems to have another idea.

He walks over to where his shoes are neatly lined up by the door and grabs his running shoes under Bradley’s incredulous gaze.

“Dude, are you serious?”

“What?”

His movements are mechanical, putting one shoe on and then the other, tying the laces firmly.

“You should probably get some sleep before you go out and pound the pavement again,” Bradley tells him. “I don’t fancy scraping you off the street if you pass out and get run over.”

“I’m fine,” is the curt response. Jake gets up, shoes tied, and fiddles with the waistband of his shorts, pulling on the cords, adjusting them for his impending run. “Not gonna be able to sleep anyway.”

He walks back out and Bradley follows him like he’s been following him around for days.

“At least knock a mile or two off –”

“Bradshaw!” Jake whirls around. “Fucking knock it off.”

Bradley holds up both hands in a placating gesture. “Fine, man, I’m just –”

Worried, probably, which is a strange feeling to get with regards to Jake. This doesn’t seem like a healthy coping mechanism for whatever inner turmoil he’s working through. Gets it, because he’s not exactly better when it comes to coping with things. But it’s easy to justify when it’s just you going through stuff and doing dumb shit. It’s something else entirely when it’s someone you – well.

Jake’s eyes are hard. “Go to bed, Bradshaw.”

The sun is rising, just a hint of rich orange, glowing on the horizon, and Hangman snaps back into place.

Bradley doesn’t go to bed once Hangman has left for his run. Doesn’t think he’s going to be able to sleep now either. Instead, he sinks into one of the deck chairs, still only clad in his underwear but whatever, not like anyone is awake to bear witness to it. He stretches his legs out and watches the sky slowly turn from an inky blue into yellows, pinks and purples, imagines Hangman shimmering like a golden statue in the changing light as his stubborn maniacal ass runs however many miles he needs to run to get over the fact that Bradley tried to kiss him at a twenty-four seven Walmart.

He snaps a picture of the sunrise and sends it to their group chat, doesn’t expect an answer right away, so he is surprised when it’s barely five minutes before his phone pings with a notification.

Nice! How’s Texas?

Fanboy. He, Payback and Omaha are at Sigonella. Bradley tries to add up the time difference in his head. Italy is six or seven hours ahead, he thinks, so it’s got to be around late morning over there. Distractedly, he wonders whether it’s as hot there as it is here. Maybe. Probably.

Hot, he replies.

Doesn’t know what else to add. He definitely isn’t ready to mention that he went from not knowing whether he and Hangman even liked each other enough to spend some time together to wanting to kiss him, can only imagine Tasha’s face if he were to tell her even half of what he’s thought of doing to him.

Hangman treating you right? His phone chimes with another message from Mickey.

And that is a whole other thing that he can’t really unpack via text. Isn’t sure he even wants to, not at this point, not when this thing between him and Hangman – if it can be even classified as a thing – is so precariously suspended between a cautious friendship and something else entirely.

Four out of five starts, he writes back. Losing one star for lack of air-con. Out running because he’s a madman.

Haha that tracks. Gotta go breaks over, ttyl brother!

 With that, his phone quiets down again and Bradley feels a pang in his chest. They hadn’t spent that much time together, but he is pretty sure they all trauma-bonded and he misses them something fierce. Misses sharing space with people who get it, who’ve been through what he’s been through, at least in part; allows himself to, for just a moment, listen to that treacherous voice in his head telling him that that’s probably why he's latched onto Hangman of all people.

But deep down, he knows that’s crap. The mission probably expedited the trajectory of their relationship, but Bradley figures they would have matured past the fighting and bickering eventually; hopes they would have at some point just sat down for a drink and buried the hatchet. Cannot deny that he feels a shiver of anxiety run through his body when he thinks about an alternative universe where their paths never cross.

Soaking in these thoughts and others, Bradley must drift off at some point, because when he blinks his eyes open again, the sky is a soft baby blue and Hangman is casting a shadow over his body.

“Christ,” Bradley curses, jumping in the chair.

Hangman furrows his brows. “Did you sleep out here?”

Bradley gives him a flat stare. “Evidently. Must’ve nodded off. Hadn’t planned on it.” He rubs a hand over his face, eyes smarting when he presses his knuckles to his lids. “Glad you’re still alive.”

“Told you I was fine,” Hangman shrugs. “I brought coffee. Told the Barista to go heavy on the sweetener.”

He holds a paper cup out for him. Bradley can smell the roasted beans, the over-the-top sweetness, feels his throat clog up a little, because it takes him right back, time and time again; can even hear the floorboards creak beneath his bare feet and see the light blue curtains shuffling in the soft morning breeze. Clears his throat.

“Is this a peace offering?” he asks, gets an eyeroll in return.

“Just take the damn coffee, Rooster.”

Bradley sits up. Realizes too late that it brings him on eye-level with Hangman’s crotch. It’s probably not a good idea to voice out loud that he figures he wants to suck his dick more than he wants this coffee.

“Thanks,” he croaks out quickly, takes the offered cup and pushes to his feet, slightly swaying into Hangman who is too slow stepping back. Their chests brush; their bare bellies and hips too and Bradley is suddenly hit with a wave of desire so strong his knees almost buckle. He swallows thickly, the hand not holding the coffee finding Hangman’s hip, damp with sweat.

“Rooster,” Hangman’s voice reaches him through his haze, “what are you doing?”

“I thought that was fairly obvious,” he says, and sure, it’s not the best line, nor the smoothest approach, but then again, he does think it is fairly obvious. If Hangman wants him to fuck off, Bradley will gladly do it, but he hasn’t said so, and Bradley is pretty sure that he’d be pretty fucking direct about it too.

Hangman clears his throat and takes a step back. Bradley sees his Adam’s apple bob up and down; kind of wants to latch onto it with his teeth.

“Sure, man, just –” Hangman seemingly chews on the words before he releases them. “A week ago you barely tolerated me. And now you suddenly want to – what exactly?”

Bradley is slightly embarrassed about how many things he wants to do to him. And how much he wants to do them. Perhaps it is a good idea to have some coffee before he voices any of them, though, because he thinks he is still not quite of sound mind. Napped for, what? An hour tops. It’s no surprise he feels a little unhinged still.

“I mean,” he starts, gestures between them, hears the coffee sloshing about in its cup, “this isn’t that new. Like you said… I already told you I thought you looked good. And now I know I’m not the queer guy creeping on his straight friend, so…”

He trails off. It’s close enough to the truth. There is no need to disclose the full extent of his attraction to Hangman just yet. Bradley has always been less of a talker, more or a doer. He’s happy to just show Hangman.

“Right,” Hangman just says, and then again, “right.”

His eyes flicker to the side and then land back on Bradley again and he figures he has gotten good enough at reading him that he can tell that Hangman is feeling a bit wrongfooted here. Maybe Bradley’s answer itself surprised him, or the plain honesty of it. Tries to put himself into Hangman’s shoes to understand why it stumps him so much that Bradley might be into him.

Bradley brings the coffee to his lips, holding Hangman’s gaze. The barista really did go heavy on the sweetener. The sugar combined with the caffeine does land a solid kick to his still sluggish system.

“Right,” Hangman tones for a third time, like he is resetting the system, and maybe that is exactly what he is doing.

Then he walks back to the house. Bradley, a little dumbfounded, takes a few seconds to spring into action and follow after him. Hangman is in the kitchen when he catches up to him, his own coffee on the counter, pulling things out of the fridge, getting pans out of drawers, his bare back turned to Bradley.

“Scrambled or fried?”

Bradley comes to a halt in the doorway, leaning against the frame. “Sorry, what?”

“Eggs are about to go off,” Hangman elaborates. “You want them scrambled or fried?”

“I didn’t realize you could cook.”

He doesn’t see Hangman roll his eyes, but Bradley can very clearly hear it when he says, “I can manage to fry some eggs, asshole.”

Bradley smiles into his next sip of coffee. Hangman is so fucking prickly, and instead of it rubbing him in all the wrong ways like it used to, he just wants to walk up behind him and plaster himself to his back, listen to him bitch about eggs. Has it really just been a couple of days?

And yes, it’s been a couple of days, but it’s also been months and years and right at the very start… it had really only been seconds, hadn’t it? If they hadn’t met at Top Gun, but a nondescript bar, not in uniform, but in civvies instead, would Hangman have hit on him? Would he have hit on him?

“If we met at the Hard Deck,” Bradley simply has to voice his thoughts, consequences be damned, “no Top Gun, no uniforms –” He pauses, figures it might once again be best to just blurt it out, be blunt, leave no room for interpretation. “Would you’ve come home with me?”

Hangman’s movements slow down until he is entirely still. He turns around slowly, hands coming up to grab onto the counter on either side of his hips, leaning back, position reminiscent of Bradley’s first day in Texas, which feels lightyears away. In the morning sun streaming through the windows, his eyes are unimaginably green and clear.

“I don’t fuck people I work with.”

Ask a blunt question, Bradley guesses, and you get a blunt response. But he also doesn’t want to give Hangman such an easy out.

“What if we didn’t? Work together.”

Hangman sighs. “But we do. Not much sense in dealing in hypotheticals.”

That’s fair, Bradley thinks, but it still leaves a couple of questions unanswered. “Is that why you didn’t come onto me at Top Gun?”

“No,” Hangman tells him curtly. Takes a couple of beats before he continues. “I didn’t hit on you because I didn’t like you.”

Bradley blinks. It’s probably arrogant to assume to be universally liked, but Bradley has generally not met that many people who didn’t like him. Sure, he has a fucking temper and he can be a real pain in the ass, but those are personality traits he usually manages to keep firmly under wraps. Unless, of course, someone keeps prodding at them the way Hangman had.

The way this sounds, though, is like Hangman had disliked him even before he decided to shittalk Bradley’s flying. Maybe that’s the reason why he started doing that in the first place.

“Oh,” is all he manages to breathe out as a reply.

Hangman seems unhappy to have fessed up to that, pursing his lips like he knows he just admitted to something that will need some more explanation. At least Bradley would appreciate it. Undisclosed childhood trauma aside, he has always considered himself to be a pretty low-maintenance guy; adaptable, easy-going and downright charming if he wants to be.

Opposite him, Hangman runs a hand through his still sweaty hair, distractedly scratching at his scalp.

“It’s just,” he starts, voice ringing loudly in the absolute silence of the house, “it all looked so easy for you. You walked into that classroom, onto the deck, with such ease, and everybody just fell in love with you.”

Bradley wants to protest, because this is not at all like he remembers, but he also gets the feeling that Hangman isn’t finished. And he also needs to remind himself that impressions can differ, experiences can diverge quite drastically depending on where you’re standing.  

“Sometimes it seemed like you weren’t even trying. Giving fifty percent, tank half full, but still vying for first place. And I know – I know – that’s just what it looked like to me, and I know that’s not how it was, I know that now, but I didn’t then.”

He pauses again, reaches for his cup to wet his throat. “It drove me up the fucking wall, it made me so mad, that everything just fell into place for you and I had to claw my way there and fight for it and –”

“Hangman…” Bradley tries to cut him off, but gets ignored.

“– I tried to ignore it, ignore you, just focus on myself, be the lone damn wolf everyone thought I was anyway, but –”

“Jake!”  

Perhaps for the first time since they’ve known each other, Bradley manages to successfully shut Hangman up. His mouth snaps shut, muscles in his jaw jumping as he seems to be grinding his teeth together, but he stops talking, and he’s looking at Bradley, actually waiting for him to say or do something and that is definitely a first. Bradley needs to make sure this kind of power doesn’t go to his head.

They’re going to waste years yet again if they keep going around in circles over first impressions and evident misconceptions and petty grudges. Bradley doesn’t think it needs to be this complicated. It isn’t that complicated. Even when they thought they hated each other, they couldn’t stay away. Now that that’s out of the way, overblown rivalry done and dusted and buried along with any pretense that they aren’t ridiculously into each other –

What else is there left to do?

They lock eyes. Bradley crosses the kitchen with three long steps, puts his coffee next to where Jake is white-knuckling the counter. He swings close, their bare feet nudging together, placing his hands on Jake’s, feeling the tension in every fiber of him beneath his fingertips. He touches his forehead to Jake’s and they breathe together, in and out, in and out, and slowly, Bradley slides his hands up Jake’s arms. His skin is unbearably soft, still a bit tacky from his run, the muscles solid and pronounced.

It's been a while since Bradley’s been with a man. A handful of years even. But this part he’s always relished; the strength in their arms and shoulders, the thrill that comes with going to bed with someone who is his physical equal. And just like he loves to trail his fingers down between a woman’s legs to feel how wet she’s getting, he finds it almost more intoxicating to feel a hard dick twitch against his and by God –

They’ve not even kissed yet.

His hands frame Jake’s face, cradle his jaw, and he can feel his racing pulse against his fingers, the way he’s already half hard against Bradley’s hip and as much as Bradley wants to press his mouth to Jake’s as fervently as can, he just – doesn’t. There can’t be much blood left in his brain as it’s all shot down to his lap within the last few seconds, but it seems enough for him to actually put some thought into this, even if he does want to just do, not think.

But this – Bradley wants to remember this. So he brushes his thumbs across Jake’s cheekbones, and tilts his head down to press a closed-mouth kiss to the dip right below his bottom lip. Jake exhales harshly against the bridge of Bradley’s nose. Like he has all the time in the world, like he doesn’t feel like he is burning from the inside out, Bradley drags his lips upwards, right over Jake’s slightly parted mouth. He opens his own, throat burning. Then he sucks Jake’s top lip into his mouth.

Two seconds pass, maybe three, then Bradley feels Jake’s mouth close around his bottom lip, then release it again, just brushing together, again and again. Until the hot tip of Jake’s tongue touches his skin and the last shred of composure Bradley has been holding onto until this moment evaporates like a drop of water on the hot tarmac.

His hands tighten around Jake’s face and he tilts his head back, presses so close that there is not an ounce of air between their bodies. Jake’s lips part with a gasp and Bradley practically dives in and what was just until a second ago sweet and slow like hot molasses tilts off-balance into something frantic and burning. Their teeth clash together, Jake refusing to move his head just so, refusing to let Bradley direct the kiss until Bradley bites at the corner of his mouth and he goes pliant, almost boneless.

The noises they make are obscene in the quiet of the kitchen; open-mouthed wet slides of lips and tongues, harsh and hot exhales. Bradley only realizes that Jake has finally let go of the kitchen counter when his fingers first dig into his hips, then slide back and lower to grab his ass and –

“Fuck –”

His mouth slips from Jake’s with a wet smack. He relinquishes the grip he has on Jake’s head and lets his arms fall to the sides, hands taking the place of Jake’s on the counter between eggs and butter. Bradley breathes in harshly through his nose and doesn’t think at all about what he’s doing, what they’re doing, when he buries his face in Jake’s neck and just… takes a moment. Wills his hips to stop rutting forward because he is not about to come in his underwear like a fucking teenager.

For a minute or two, the only noise in the entire house if their heavy breathing, entirely in sync and Bradley needs this time to kind of come back into himself, not feel as feverish anymore. Awareness slowly creeps back into his body; how hot Jake’s skin is against his forehead, how their bare chests are stuck together by sweat, how they’re both still so fucking hard.

How Jake’s hands are still firmly keeping a hold of Bradley’s ass.

“So,” Bradley’s throat feels dry and parched, like he’s just run a marathon. “Eggs?”

He hears Jake snort, feels it against his shoulder, just like he feels the vibrations of his silent chuckles against his chest. It’s almost as heady as the kiss, he thinks, having made him laugh, and mourns the loss of Jake’s hands on his ass when they move up to his waist, grip loosening until his fingers are barely a whisper on Bradley’s heated skin.

“You never answered my question,” Jake says against his temple. “Scrambled or fried?”

It’s strange how easy it is to slowly wind down again. Bradley no longer thinks his legs are going to give out even if his toes are still tingling, but he feels pleasantly warm and content, all that tension that’s been building up between them dissipated into a fine mist that surrounds their bodies like a cloud. Unfortunately, he can’t quite suppress the sliver of panic that curls up in his chest when he thinks, Shit, I could start every day like this. 

He takes a small step back, Jake still caged between Bradley’s arms. He’s always been an image of perfection, but Bradley seriously doubts he’s ever looked as good as in this moment. Not even aboard an F-18 after just having saved his and Mav’s asses.

Bradley clears his throat. “I could make French Toast?”

Jake’s eyebrows shoot up. There is something playful tugging on his features as he keeps his gaze locked with Bradley’s and his fingers toying with the waistband of his boxers.

“Wouldn’t have guessed you know your way around the kitchen, Bradshaw.”

He knows how to make more than just French Toast. Had to learn fast to feed himself once his mom got too sick to really do much of anything if he didn’t want to live off of boxed mac and cheese. Saying that would really kill the mood though, so Bradley just shrugs.

“I also contain multitudes,” he says with a wink. There. Charming as hell. Leaves it at that.

“Okay,” Jake says. “French Toast it is.”

After breakfast, after separate showers, after watching the thermometer climb to almost a hundred degrees before it’s eight o’clock, Hangman suggests driving out to the beach in Lakeway City Park. As someone who was born and raised in California, Bradley can’t but roll his eyes at the idea of beaches being on the shores of the Colorado River, but he’s hot enough to be happy near any larger body of water that can cool him down. He also refrains from suggesting to Hangman that they could just finally set up the air-conditioning unit he bought, which would at least make one room in the house more bearable.

It's a forty mile drive to the little parking spot by the park. They take Hangman’s truck, windows rolled down, generic country music playing quietly from the radio as they are content to sit in silence and float around in their own thoughts for a while. Bradley’s eyes keep drifting to Hangman’s profile, to his right hand on the gear stick, finds that his left hand twitches in response to it, itching to reach but –

Is this even what they’re doing? Are they… holding hands? On the same page about what this is, or what it might turn into? Not that Bradley has fully figured it out for himself. He just knows he feels drawn to Hangman like he’s never felt drawn to anyone before.

Once Hangman has put the truck into park, they grab towels and a little cooler from the backseat. They only packed soda, having greatly diminished their stock of beer the previous day. It takes about five minutes to walk to a small strip of sand by the shore and Bradley can’t but wrinkle his nose at both the so-called beach as well as the river he’s supposed to swim in.

“Are you sure it’s safe to swim in this?”

Hangman folds out his towel, pulls off his shirt, and unceremoniously flops down on his belly with a book in his hand, apparently eager to keep working on his already impressive tan.

“There’s more shit in the ocean than this fucking river, Bradshaw,” he drawls, “get over yourself.”

Bradley is already hot and thinks it would be nice to cool down in the water, but he remains sceptical, so he copies Hangman. He had an hour of sleep tops, so a nap might also be nice, so he puts his sunglasses on, lies down on his back and folds his arms behind his head, letting the surrounding noises wash over him.

It’s midweek and early enough, meaning aside from an elderly lady and two teenagers a bit farther down on this slab of sand, it’s calm and quiet. Regardless, Bradley finds himself unable to relax, mind wandering back to the kiss, and what it means; what it could mean.

He’s never really wanted to be with anyone for more than a few nights at most. Never really wanted more, or felt like he needed more. And sure, Bradley is self-aware enough to understand that it’s due to a lot of unprocessed trauma that he, with very few exceptions, tends to engage in shallow relationships that never really go deeper below the surface. But he’s never had trouble making friends. Never had to try hard to fit in or to be liked. He’s a low maintenance kind of guy. On the surface. As long as nobody asks him to hold his breath and get his face wet.

With a sudden and startling clarity, Bradley realizes that this is the exact reason why Hangman had instantly rubbed him the wrong way. Why he’d bristled every time Hangman had taken another dig at his flying. It hadn’t been the cockiness. Hell, they’d been at Top Gun, there’d been egos aplenty. And at least Hangman’s ego was backed up by his skills.

No. Hangman had gotten under his skin like nobody else ever had before him because with every bit of snark, every taunt thrown Bradley’s way, he’d hit so close to the mark. Scratching away at the trauma Bradley had not been ready to confront. Prod, prod, prod; not just asking Bradley to finally get his face wet, but take a breath and go under.

Christ.

Hangman – Jake –

With every dig at Bradley he’d been trying to do just that. Dig for clues.

He’d just been asking –

What are you so scared of?

How come you can’t push that little bit farther?  

Why are you not flying like I know you can?

That’s why it is so easy now. Why all that tension, all that animosity, all that bad blood between them had simply ceased to exist. Jake has his answers. And in a way, Bradley has gotten his face wet, has taken a deep breath and dove below the surface for the first time in his adult life.

Maybe now it’s time to break for air.

Bradley must have drifted off or zoned out for quite a while, because when he turns to look at Jake, he’s changed position, no longer lying on his belly but on his back, holding the book up in the air above his head and apparently a lot further along in the text. He has a concentrated look on his face, utterly focused as he reads. It’s a new thing for Bradley; being content just watching someone. But he thinks he could look at Jake for hours and not get bored, catalogue every micro-expression on his face and do something as nauseating as count his eyelashes.

You are so fucking whipped, he practically hears Tasha’s voice in his head, feels a hot flush of embarrassment for a second before he responds to his imaginary friend.

So what if he is?

Their towels are already pretty close together, but Bradley scoots closer. Jake turns his head towards him.

“Hey,” Bradley tells him.

Jake raises one quizzical brow.

They could still turn back, pretend that this morning was a fluke and that their mutual attraction is something that should be left aside until it fizzles out again. Get through the next two weeks, drifting in the water, holding their breath. But Bradley doesn’t want to. He rolls onto his side, pushes up onto his elbow and reaches over to pluck the book out of Jake’s hands. Drops it onto the towel. Touches his hand to the side of Jake’s neck.

God, Bradley really does not want to.

He feels Jake’s pulse jump when he kisses him, keeps it soft and unhurried, because as much as Bradley wants to just roll on top of him and go to town, he also does not want to be arrested for public indecency. And while he wants more, feels a current of electricity underneath his skin, Bradley has forgotten how nice it is to just kiss someone without the kiss being a precursor to anything else. With random and noncommittal hook-ups and flings during the limited time he’s been on dry land in recent years, it had been a very quick getting-down-to-business; which is fine, nice, orgasms are awesome and he’d take a few every day if it were an option.

But Jesus, the heat of Jake’s mouth is so good he doesn’t mind not getting his rocks off. Almost has to pinch himself that Jake is letting him to this without mouthing off at him about it first. The position puts a real strain on his neck though, so even if he doesn’t want to, after a few more languid slides of their lips, after he’s manages to slip him some tongue, Bradley reluctantly pulls back, eyes immediately hypnotized by the thin line of spit that keeps them connected.

Jake’s exhale severs it and Bradley’s eyes wander upwards to find his. They’re green and clear like a cold pond somewhere deep in the woods, the complete opposite to the smothering heat he’s been surrounded by for days. Bradley feels suspended in time, afraid to move, to break this peaceful bubble, and in some ways he thinks the ball is in Jake’s court now. He’s taken a leap not once, but twice, and maybe he needs something in return. And maybe Jake gets it, Bradley wonders, as Jake briefly closes his eyes and opens them again, glinting in the light.

“Not how I thought this would go,” he mutters quietly, unusually thoughtful.

Bradley feels his mouth quirk. “You thought about this?”

The look in Jake’s eyes goes flat, then he shoves Bradley’s chest. Bradley tries keeping his balance, but he loses it and falls back onto his back. Cackles at the sour expression taking over Jake’s face.

“I will drown you, Bradshaw.”

“Aw, come on, man,” Bradley drawls, “how did you think this would go?”

Jake utters something under his breath Bradley doesn’t catch, probably isn’t meant to, but he is pretty sure Jake is calling him a jackass or some variation thereof. He gets so prickly and Bradley shouldn’t find it endearing but he does, wants to reach out again and pull Jake close, feel that heady transition from tightly wrung to reluctantly pliant as he melts against Bradley. Wants to feel, again and again, that this is the effect he has on Jake.

True to form, Jake isn’t that cooperative, and sits up before Bradley can shuffle close again. Sits up and twists around, searches for where Bradley dropped his book just a minute earlier. For a moment, Bradley is frozen looking at the muscles shift beneath tanned and smooth skin, senses his blood moving south, distractedly thinks, public indecency, and makes the rash decision that perhaps now is the perfect time to cool off. In more ways than one.

He uses the fact that Jake is distracted, has his back to him, to get to his feet and swoop in. In Bradley’s head, it seemed easier than it actually is to heft a first surprised and then thoroughly averse Hangman over his shoulder.

“What the fuck, Rooster, are you – let me –”

He’s cut off by Bradley’s left leg practically giving out under their combined weight. They don’t go down, Bradley just managing to lean the other way and regain his balance despite Jake’s knee trying to do some serious damage to his kidney and one of his elbows digging painfully in between Bradley’s ribs.

“Are you out of your goddamn mind –”

Oh, Bradley definitely is. He guesses he has completely lost his mind, because he somehow truly believes for a second that he is going to be able to throw Jake into the river like a fucking football. Now, Bradley is objectively bigger than him. For all of Hangman’s posturing and big ego, there are some inches separating them and most definitely also a couple of pounds. But the difference isn’t significant. At least not enough for Bradley to go tossing him around.

So in the end, rather than a dignified throw that lands Jake in the water and leaves Bradley standing in the river barely up to his ankles, Bradley stumbles about knee-deep into the river before he slips. They land in the water in a heap, both fully submerged, but while Bradley manages to hold his breath in time before they go under, he guesses Jake doesn’t, because he comes up coughing and spluttering. It makes Bradley feel bad for a second before he fully takes Jake in, for once not composed and in control and every-hair-in-its-place.

His haIr is unattractively stuck to his forehead as he wipes river water out of his eyes, face red, coughing up a lung. Bradley thinks he’s beautiful, breathless for a whole other reason.

“You fucking asshole,” Jake curses at him, standing hip deep just a foot away, angrily blinking through the remaining water still clinging to his lashes, “I think I just swallowed a gallon of dirty river water.

“Oh,” Bradley replies mock-surprised, “so you admit it’s dirty.”

Can tell Jake is seething, nostrils flaring and jaw working.

“Suck eggs in hell,” he bites out.

“Real mature, man,” Bradley teases him and then it takes another one, two beats before he realizes that maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to do as determination manifests in Jake’s expression, his brows dropping dangerously low. Bradley has half a mind to bolt back to shore, but there are predators out there you shouldn’t turn your back on and Bradley has no clue if it’s safer to freeze or run away. He’s heard that you can outrun a crocodile if you do so in a zig-zag pattern.

Turns out it doesn’t matter either way, because with a lowly growled, “I’ll show you mature”, Jake has leapt forward, tackling him like he very much did play football in high school.

They half-wrestle, half-tussle in the water for what simultaneously feels like ten minutes and ten hours. At least, once they finally stop (or rather, once Bradley gives up, even though he will never admit to it), Bradley’s body smarts like it’s the latter for sure. He’d momentarily forgotten that Hangman is a younger brother, meaning he does not play fair and is scrappy as fuck, aiming for Bradley’s nuts no less than three times, which – really? Bradley thought Jake would by now agree that that might be a bit counterproductive.

Bradley tries to float on his back, but is too out of breath to keep himself fully afloat like that, lack of salt in the water making it more difficult anyway. So he ends up more bobbing about than floating, but it’s nice regardless, the water refreshing and the view of Jake doing a much better job with the whole floating thing not one he will complain about. He feels frighteningly content out here in the water, Jake only an arm’s length away, physically exhausted but calmer than he’s managed to be since – he doesn’t even know.

It's late afternoon when they return to the house. Bradley is pretty sure he burnt his shoulders, hopes Jake has some Aloe lying around that he can lather himself up with so that he doesn’t need to shed his skin like a snake. What he needs first though, he thinks as he steps through the front door and into the dark, quiet and too-hot living room, is a shower. Because as much as Jake was right about being able to swim in the river, he now very much smells like pond.

He looks at Jake who is unloading his bag and the small cooler by the front door, afternoon sun creating a golden halo around him. Unfairly, he hasn’t burnt anything, tan only getting deeper and hair turning more golden, soft without product, falling into his forehead. Bradley wants to touch it, run his fingers through it and figure out if it’s as soft as it looks. Is so caught up in that thought that he almost flinches when Jake shuts the door with a kick.

Bradley clears his throat, feels a heat in his body all of a sudden that he can only partially blame on the still disgustingly high temperature inside the living room. All that close physical proximity probably did a number on him, his body now wondering when the fuck it’s going to find some release. So yeah, he needs a shower, and it’s either going to be him and his hand –

Or he could try and convince Jake to join him.

He takes a few steps towards the bathroom, pauses in the door to the hallway long enough for Jake to look at him with a question in his eyes.

“I think I’m gonna jump in the shower.”

Jake’s brows pull together. “Okay? Knock yourself out.”

Bradley folds his arms, leans his shoulder against the frame, knowing exactly what it does for his arms and his chest, visible underneath his open shirt.

“I mean,” he drawls, figures this is also the moment Jake catches  on, “you could join me.”

He doesn’t know what he expects Jake to answer. Maybe a flat Oh, I could, could I? Another voice in his head tells him that Jake might just plainly tell him no, walk past him and ignore him for the rest of day. Thinks that’s what it’s going to be when Jake walks towards him. So when instead, Jake comes to a halt right in front of him, agonizingly close, so close that Bradley can see that there’s still a speck of sand in the hollow of his throat…

“This a ploy to get me to suck your dick, Bradshaw?”

Jake places a warm hand on his hip. His fingers start toying with the waistband of Bradley’s shorts. Desire hits Bradley like a punch to his chest, knocking the air out of him. His throat begins to burn, as if a small, golf ball-sized chunk of molten lava is stuck at the back of it

“I was actually hoping I could suck yours.”

Jake seems taken aback by that. Actually not that surprising. He probably thought the extent of Bradley’s sexual history with other men only included him getting his dick wet and Bradley is sure there are plenty of assholes like that out there. And sure, he can’t honestly say that giving a blowjob is his favorite part of having sex.

But he really wants to suck Jake’s dick.

It’s Jake who surges forward to kiss him and Bradley has half a second to be surprised by that before he has to concentrate on not falling over his own feet while they stumble their way into the bathroom, hands gripping each other’s shirts. It’s frantic and filled with an urgency that hadn’t seeped into their previous kisses on – shit, Bradley realizes, this day.

Jake pushes him against the sink, bathmat slipping beneath their feet. Bradley notices that he’s still wearing his flip flops, so he flicks them off. They thwack against the opposite wall, the sound almost entirely drowned up by their panting, only heightened in the tiled room. With two hard yanks, Jake has pulled Bradley’s shirt off of his shoulders. It falls onto the ground, and Bradley kicks it to the side, wants to return the favor, pulling at the offending garment, but Jake isn’t wearing a button-up, so it’s not that easy. He makes a note to bring this up the next time Jake insults his shirts.

Chest heaving and flushed, damp with sweat, Jake takes a step back, then another one, eyes never leaving Bradley’s as his hands go to the hem of his shirt he proceeds to pull off over his head. It lands somewhere near Bradley’s, but he isn’t looking. Can’t tear his eyes away from Jake who has hooked his thumbs into the elastic of his trunks. He wants to get closer again, be the one to undress Hangman, peel away the last layer so that he is just Jake, with absolutely nothing between them. But before he has taken even half a step, Jake shakes his head.

The fabric slides agonizingly slowly down over his hips. Bradley is starting to become a bit lightheaded watching the way Jake drags the shorts down inch by fucking inch, blood making its way through his body and down towards his groin where his own trunks are starting to feel a bit tight.

Eventually, fucking finally, after what feels like the longest few seconds of Bradley’s life, Jake’s shorts have nowhere else to go but down. Jake bends over to push them fully down his legs, straightens again and squares his jaw and –

Christ, of course every single part of him is mouthwateringly perfect.

They’ve been in locker rooms together, have technically seen each other naked before, but it’s bad etiquette to stare at another man’s junk. And despite many beliefs to the contrary, locker rooms and communal showers, Bradley thinks, are perhaps among the least arousing places imaginable. This bathroom should probably be added to that too, but the energy in it is almost electric. So much so that Bradley’s skin tingles from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.

Bradley has been ridiculously turned on before. But he’s never been so turned on he believed he was going insane from it. Because he is pretty sure that if he doesn’t get to touch Jake in the next couple of seconds, he might bite through his tongue.  

He’s so hard he has to grind his teeth when he pulls his own shorts down, his dick already standing almost at full attention, sees Jake’s eyes pointedly drop to where Bradley is thankfully no longer constrained by his shorts, one eyebrow raised when he lifts his gaze again.

“That how you earned your callsign?”

Bradley snorts. “You know it’s not.”

Then he pulls Jake close.

They eventually manage to climb into the tub without getting tangled in or tearing down the shower curtain, even if Bradley nearly slips and brains himself on the tiles, unable to keep their hands to themselves for even a second. The fingers of Bradley’s left hand are digging into Jake’s frankly glorious ass while the right are touching the side of his neck. Walking Jake back against the far wall, he needs to remove his left hand long enough to fiddle with the faucet until he manages to make lukewarm water run over the both of them.

It has them part with a gasp. Bradley takes in the sight in front of him, can’t but run both hands over Jake’s skull, stroking his wet hair back, touching his damp cheeks, thumbs teasing at the corner of his mouth that parts easily. His right hand goes back to Jake’s neck, thumb pressing against his Adam’s apple, feeling it move when Jake swallows thickly.

Bradley keeps his fingers there, effectively pinning Jake to the wall with no force, just suggestion, as his other hand drops down between their legs where their dicks bump together, sending jolts down Bradley’s spine again and again. He is tempted to take them both into his hand, jerk them off together because it is so fucking heady to feel the hard line of someone else’s erection slide against his. But they’ll have time for that later, he hopes. Right now, he’s dying to get his mouth on Jake.

Unceremoniously, Bradley drops down to his knees, water dripping onto his shoulders but thankfully not waterboarding him. He hears the sharp intake of air above him even through the steady sputtering of the shower, looks up, catches Jake’s gaze and retains eye contact as he lifts his right hand and circles Jake’s dick. Moving the loose circle of his fist up and down a few times, he relishes in the softness of the skin covering the hot hardness. Thinks for a second about how he’s going to go about this, pokes his tongue out and licks the tip, just once, just the whisper of touch, but Jake’s hips still twitch in response, a breathy curse tumbling out of his mouth.

“Easy, tiger,” Bradley says, lifts his free hand to grip Jake’s hip, digs his fingers in before pushing it back until he’s sure his ass touches the wall.

Then Bradley closes his mouth around him.

His technique was never the best, Bradley can admit that to himself, and he is more than a little rusty, but this dizzying heat that is still glued to the back of his throat drives him forward and once he has Jake in his mouth, there is only the weight of him on Bradley’s tongue and the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears. Overeager, not overconfident but just… starving for it, he goes too deep too soon, feels his throat constrict and has to quickly pull off before he starts coughing.

“Fucking hell, Rooster,” he hears Jake curse above him.

Looks up to see the long, strong line of his throat, head tipped back against the tiles.

“I’ve had your dick in my mouth,” he says, throat not shot yet but damn, it’s going to be. “Think we’re past callsigns.”

Jake tilts his head back down, drops his gaze. His pupils are blown, lips oh-so-red where he’s presumably bitten down on them to stop making any unintended noises; seems like the kind of thing he also wants to be in control of. He doesn’t say anything in response, just keeps breathing in and out, in and out, chest moving with it.

“It’s Bradley.”

He goes back in, tries to be less… less mindless about it all, but once he closes his lips around Jake’s dick again, tastes him on his tongue and feels the way his whole body tremors with the effort to stay still, all bets are fucking off. Bradley is starving for it in a way he is wholly and completely unprepared for. Never really, truly understood some people who insisted how much they got off on giving head. Not minding doing it, sure, but actually getting turned on by it?  But he thinks he gets it now.

His own dick is a hard, heavy, throbbing weight between his legs as he thinks, deliriously, I could come from this. It doesn’t even occur to him to touch himself, take the edge off, because he is too focused on Jake, too consumed by him and on building up a rhythm to draw out these sounds Jake is fighting tooth and nail to keep inside of him. Every grunt Bradley registers zings down his spine like an electric shock, every mumbled curse spurs him on. He finds Jake’s balls, drawn up and tight and –

“Oh, fuck, fuck –”

He presses deeper, reminds himself to breathe through his nose, but he just needs to gets a little closer, needs – just needs more, even though he doesn’t know what. His hand drifts farther back, finding Jake’s right ass cheek, firm and round and he gives it a squeeze, then another. Finally finds some direction in this fucking fever dream of his when he moves his fingers to the crack and then –

“Shit, just –”

A hand in his hair, so uncharacteristically careful it makes him dizzy.

“Bradley!”

If someone were to ask him right now if he could tell them which way was up and which way was down, he wouldn’t be able to answer. With the pad of his middle finger pressed up firmly against Jake’s hole, Bradley speeds up, finally drops his other hand to start fisting his own dick. Fucking hell, he thinks, this isn’t going to take very long at all.

“Jesus, Bradley, I’m – I,” and then Jake’s breath hitches, the hand in Bradley’s hair tightens in warning, but Bradley is not going to back down now, doesn’t even consider it a possibility to pull off and let Jake shoot off down the drain. Maybe it’s messed up, but Bradley has earned this, and he wants it, and he is going to fucking swallow even if he chokes on it.

It's exhilarating when it happens; feeling Jake’s dick twitch on his tongue and tasting his come. Normally, he might’ve gagged, but now, Bradley just swallows mindlessly and perhaps he kids himself into feeling like this is finally relieving that burning ache at the base of his throat. Jake is still shaking through the aftershocks when Bradley’s own orgasm hits him like a sledgehammer.

He lets Jake’s softening dick slip out of his mouth, breathes through his own coming down and then just – tips forward, forehead to Jake’s belly trying to regain control of his racing pulse as the bathroom spins around him.

“You need a hand?”

It takes a moment for Jake’s words to register with him. Another one for Bradley to collect himself enough to utter a reply.

“All done,” he says, voice like sandpaper.

Concentrates on the feeling of Jake’s skin against his, and the careful fingers drawing patterns onto his scalp.

day 7.

Bradley wakes up on the pull-out almost two hours later than usual, his body automatically trying to catch up on sleep lost the previous night. His hair is damp with sweat. Yawning and wiggling his toes, he reaches for his phone, skims through the messages that came in while he was asleep. There’s an argument between Fritz and Harvard in the chat, but Bradley can’t be asked to scroll up to the beginning since it looks like it went on all night and ended on a random array of emojis that make zero sense without context. Some generic marketing emails he can’t remember signing up for. After he hits unsubscribe five times, he stretches, feels a few bones in his back pop.

Really needs to take a leak.

Jake isn’t in his bed, which does not surprise him at all. When they’d gone to bed the night before, Bradley had been a little disappointed, if he is being completely honest, that Jake hadn’t made a move to pull Bradley down onto the bed with him. But he guesses it would have been quite out of character. Never mind the fact that it is too damn warm to share body heat.

He'll probably find him somewhere in the house, but first he puts on shorts and makes his way to the bathroom to piss and brush his teeth; blushes when his eyes fall onto the shower and he remembers what they did in there. Wouldn’t mind a repeat performance.

There is a sliver of trepidation that clings to Bradley when he steps into the kitchen, because even if he feels like the previous day has moved their relationship into new territory, it does not mean Jake agrees with him. Jake may very well decide that yesterday was a one off and revert back to the careful distance he’d maintained before Bradley decided to throw caution into the wind. But even if they are on the same page with not wanting to take one step forward and then ten steps back, Bradley has no idea where they’re heading, or where he wants them to head.

Where they even can head, all things considered.

All these thoughts and nerves disappear into thin air when his eyes fall onto Jake at the table, a bowl of cereal in front of him, spoon lazily dragging through the brown mush that remains at the bottom. Jake looks up. His face is open, clear like the morning sky and he seems calm, so different from the tension-laden person who always seems close to vibrating out of his skin.

The sun is up, and Jake is sitting in the kitchen in front of him, and Hangman is nowhere to be seen.

“Morning,” Bradley tells him, lets out a breath he wasn’t aware of holding. And yeah, he definitely sounds like he had a dick in his throat recently.

“Sleep well?” Jake asks, genuinely.

Bradley drags his feet as he walks up to the table, sinking heavily onto the chair closest to Jake, just resisting to stretch out his feet and hook them around Jake’s ankles. He figures it’s best to wait for Jake to send him some signal that this is okay. Something tells him that it’s probably a safer bet to take a cautious approach to the whole… closeness thing. Bradley is a touchy guy, casually throwing arms around shoulders, but the only two people Bradley has even seen Jake hug are Javy, and Natasha, just the once. And thinking about it, Javy seems to be the only person Jake allows into his personal space.

“Like a rock,” he replies after a beat.

Jake holds his gaze for a moment before returning his attention to the soggy contents of his bowl. “You snore, dude.”

Bradley splutters. “Do not.”

“Like a fucking chainsaw,” Jake insists, spoons what Bradley now sees are nearly entirely disintegrated Coco Pops into his mouth. Continues, with a mouth full of cereal, “should have been your callsign.”

“Well,” Bradley starts, struggles finding a good comeback and eventually has to settle on, “you eat like a toddler.”

It’s weak as fuck, and clearly bounces off of Jake’s shoulders with less than minimal impact.

“Bite me,” Jake says in response. Strangely enough without any bite to it.

“You don’t have to ask me twice.” Bradley adds a wink to it, which earns him a snort before Jake pushes back and takes his empty bowl to the sink. His running shorts are riding low on his hips and sure, it’s early, he’s just gotten up, but Bradley can already feel his dick twitch at the sight of the flimsy material clinging to Jake’s ass.

He tries taking a shallow breath through his nose to will his body into submission. Yeah, Jake is hot as hell, and Bradley would absolutely not mind getting on his knees for him again right this second. But he really should be a bit more restrained before he starts accidentally developing a goddamn Pavlovian response to the other pilot.

“Stop staring.”

“’m not staring,” Bradley lies.

Jake sighs. “Yes, you fucking are.”

He turns around. Bradley doesn’t try to hide the fact that he has to drag his eyes up Jake’s chest to meet his gaze. But Jake doesn’t seem annoyed or pissed off. Flattered, maybe, perhaps preening a little bit under the attention, his lips twitching in an attempt to hide how fucking pleased he is that he basically got Bradley eating out of the palm of his hand. If he were to drop his shorts right here and now, Bradley is pretty sure Jake could ask him to walk over burning coals if he knew the reward was getting another taste of him.

“So what if I am?”

His knees are smarting when he gets up and walks over to Jake, the air in the room growing heavier and heavier with every inch Bradley closes in on him. Bradley crowds Jake against the counter without physically touching him just yet, tilts his head and raises his eyebrows in a clear challenge. Yeah, he thinks, I am staring at you, you beautiful fucking bastard. What are you going to do about it?

That’s exactly what Jake seems to contemplating. Bradley can’t tell what is going through his head at this moment, but the way Jake is just minimally narrowing his eyes as he looks at Bradley makes him feel like he is being evaluated. He’d make a good Top Gun instructor, Bradley thinks distractedly, could probably teach the little assholes a couple of lessons, same way Mav had shown them all up. Cocky little shits.

“Brush your teeth?”

The question is a bit of a curveball, but Bradley catches it anyway. In lieu of answering, he blows some hopefully minty air in Jake’s face, whose nose scrunches up for a second.

“Good,” he says then.

Bradley braces himself when Jake moves, kind of expects him to perhaps twist his nipple for coming to close, or staring too long. He expects Jake to do something that will move the needle back to Hangman, that will cover him in armor once again; would bet quite a bit of money on Jake putting some distance between them. Instead, Jake lifts his arms, brings them around Bradley’s neck without any fanfare or fuss, and licks into his mouth, ensuring that there will not be a coherent thought formed in Bradley’s head for the foreseeable future.

Jake kisses like he does everything else, and Bradley has to take a nosedive right along with him if he doesn’t want to be left in the dust. He tastes like mocha; chocolate and coffee mixed together, tongue still cold from the refrigerated milk he had with his cereal. Bradley’s left hand falls down to his waist, squeezing once, while his right palm presses to the hard pane that is Jake’s outrageously shredded belly and he moves his hand up, up, up, pushing, wanting to bend Jake back over the kitchen counter and gain the upper hand. But Bradley should have seen it coming that this time around, Jake would not be quite so agreeable; not quite so keen on making life easy for Bradley.

He pushes back against Bradley, moving away from the counter. What ensues isn’t exactly a scuffle, not with the way they can’t stop sucking on each other’s tongues, Jake’s hold still vice-like around Bradley’s neck. Being the one of them wearing shoes (at least, that is what Bradley chalks it up to) and having a bit more purchase on the floor than Bradley with his bare feet, Jake gains the upper hand and presses him back against the fridge, making the magnets rattle. One falls down, postcard along with it. Japan, Bradley notices, before his full attention is being pulled back to Jake who is using his bodyweight to pin Bradley as his hands drop from his shoulders to the waistband of his shorts.

“Oh, fuck,” Bradley curses when he realizes where this is going, head thunking back against the fridge. “Jake, are you –”

Jake winks at him, a flicker of Hangman gleaming behind his eyes. Then he falls to his knees, and pulls Bradley’s shorts and underwear down with him.

Bradley is not prepared for the sight of Jake kneeling in front of him, mouth just a breath away from Bradley’s dick. Nor is he prepared for what that sight does to that treacherous clump of feelings rolling around behind his ribs. He figures he should get points for his dick getting mostly hard in just a few seconds in spite of the grumbling undercurrent of Bradley’s heart trying to make itself known. Not the time, Bradley thinks desperately. Really not the time.

Jake’s eyes are a demonic green, devilish like his sharp smile before he very deliberately pokes his tongue out. Bradley’s seen what Hangman can do with his tongue and a toothpick. His knees do threaten to give out when he imagines what his tongue can do with a dick. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to imagine it for long, because Jake licks around the tip of his dick once, takes a moment to let some spit collect on his tongue before he drags it to the base on one side and then back to the tip on the other, making the glide hot and wet.

Bradley is vibrating with the effort not to move, already bright red and almost painfully hard, a deep, guttural grunt punched out of his chest when Jake takes him into his hand and gives him a few, experimental jerks.

“Say please.”

His brain stutters to a halt. “What?”

While his right hand is languidly pumping Bradley’s hard dick, Jake sends Bradley a smile so sweet it is actually teetering on the edge towards diabolical.

“Say please,” he repeats.

“Oh, you’ve got to be –” Bradley starts, closes his eyes, bites down on his tongue and takes one, two, three calming breaths, before he can look at Jake again. He wants to strangle him, but even more than that, he wants Jake’s mouth on him. Bradley wills himself to swallow his fucking pride. “Jake. Please suck my dick.”

The grin is all Hangman when he taps Bradley’s hip, says, “good boy”, and then goes to fucking town. Jake opens his mouth, and swallows Bradley down to the root. It feels like his entire body has to twitch in response, shoulders and head slamming back into the fridge and making the entire fucking thing shake with the force of it.

“Shit, Jake –”

Of course he can fucking deepthroat like a champ. Hangman would treat a blowjob like a competition, trying to one up him. Well, Bradley thinks, he does not fucking mind at all in this case. Jake can win this round and any other following that, if it means Bradley will keep receiving head of this goddamn quality. Shouldn’t be surprising that Jake applies himself with that much fervor, nose pressed into Bradley’s pubes, harsh breaths hot against his skin. His hands twitch at his sides, but he genuinely doesn’t know where to put them; does not want to disturb Jake even the slightest.

Jake swallows around him once, twice, tongue doing something wicked when he pulls back. He dips it into the slit to gather up some pre-come before sliding back down the length of Bradley’s dick like a man on a mission.

“Fuck, baby –”

A shudder goes through Jake. Bradley can feel the ensuing moan reverberating on his dick. And yeah… yeah, he can totally do this.

“Fuck, do you have any idea,” he pants, already out of breath, “how fucking perfect you look on your knees.”

Jake does, Bradley thinks. Best thing he’s ever seen. Should have put a framed picture of it onto a stick, dangled it in front of Bradley’s windshield to make him fly faster. He probably would have gone faster than the speed of light. It turns Jake on to hear it, Bradley can tell, when he pushes the heel of his hand to his dick, not pulling it out or jerking himself off, but clearly trying to stave off an impending orgasm.

“Gets you all hot, doesn’t it?” Bradley goes on, letting his mouth run with it even though his throat feels dry, his tongue heavy. “Being on your knees. Being down there for me.”

Takes a metaphorical leap and finally dares to touch a careful hand to Jake’s face. Looks at him; eyes red, mouth full of dick.

“Should have done this at Top Gun. That would have definitely shut you up.”

Jake’s response to it sends Bradley’s mind flying. While he can’t hear his whine, he can feel it. Jake squeezes his eyes shut and his forehead touches Bradley’s lower belly, as close as he can get and how he can still fucking breathe is anyone’s guess. Shit, what if they had done this at Top Gun? Locker rooms are unsexy as hell, Bradley has always felt more turned off by them than on, but now he can’t stop thinking about Hangman post-hop, flight suit peeled down around his hips, the two of them high on adrenaline and the competition. Bradley telling him to shut the fuck up and Hangman, jaw squared, cocky as always, telling Bradley to make him.

And Bradley doing exactly that.

“That what you wanted?” Jake refuses to look up again, which is answer enough. “Yeah, you didn’t like me, you didn’t come onto me, but you sure as hell wanted me.”

He groans, turning himself on even more even though he only started this whole schtick to get back at Jake. Fuck, someone really opened the floodgates here. Bradley kind of hopes he and Jake do not have to share a locker room in the near future. At least not until Bradley has gotten his libido under control.

His brain is so fuzzy, his eyes so focused on Jake’s face, on his lips stretched wide, that he almost flinches when Jake grabs his wrist and pulls Bradley’s hand that is resting on his face away from his cheek. Doesn’t let go, but moves it back. Presses it to the back of his head and presses firmly, signaling to Bradley that he wants him to – to hold Jake there, hold him still while he has Bradley’s dick down his throat, make him –

God, make him take it.

“Fuck, Jake,” Bradley’s hands tremble as he also brings the left one to rest on Jake’s head, hesitantly weaving his fingers through the soft strands of his hair. “You sure?”

He can feel Jake’s harsh in- and exhales through his nose against the sensitive skin of his abdomen, shudders when he also feels his jaw go slack, alleviating the pressure he had on Bradley’s dick just seconds before. After a solid minute of having trained his eyes on Bradley’s lower belly, Jake finally looks up again. There are tears collecting in the corners of his eyes, but the challenge in them is evident.

Take the shot, Rooster.

 Bradley starts moving his hips. He bites down on his bottom lip, hard, forcing himself to go slow, and careful, and not fuck Jake’s mouth like he’s dying to. It’s so hot and wet and the pressure Jake manages to exert on the underside of Bradley’s dick by pushing his tongue up against it is making his head spin. The sound that reverberates through the kitchen every time he pumps his erect penis into Jake’s throat is obscene and Bradley is so turned on, knees turned into jelly, his whole lower body tingly, that he is glad that he is leaning back against the fridge. Wouldn’t be able to stay upright otherwise.

“Oh God,” he chokes out when he can feel the pressure building in his gut, his balls tightening and seemingly every last drop of blood still anywhere else in his body quickly being pulled to where Jake has his lips clamped around his dick. “Fuck, Jake – baby, I’m – fuck, I’m gonna come.”

He tries to do the gentlemanly thing and pull out, but Jake’s hands shoot up, clamping down on Bradley’s thighs, fingers digging into muscle painfully and then it’s game over. Bradley comes so hard he thinks he blacks out for a second, no idea what nonsense tumbles out of his mouth as he does so and there are still black spots dancing in front of his eyes when looks down.

Jake still has his softening dick in his mouth, some come dribbling out of his mouth and running down his chin, right hand stuffed down his shorts.

“Come on, baby,” Bradley blabbers on, growing sensitive from the way Jake is still running his tongue around the head, but finding the sight too fucking hot to stuff his dick back into his own shorts. “Fuck, that’s hot.”

It’s even hotter when Jake comes into his own fist, moan tickling Bradley’s dick before it finally slips out of Jake’s mouth, the air hitting it like a shock to his system. They are both breathing heavily, trying to get their respective pulse to slow down again, but Bradley isn’t sure how he’s supposed to manage that while Jake is still on his knees in front of him.

Bradley feels lightheaded as hell and he sways a little as he reaches for the roll of kitchen towels he spies on the counter. He rips off a piece to wipe himself off before tucking himself back in, offers some to Jake, but he shakes his head.

Jake struggles getting back to his feet and Bradley hovers, ready to steady him if need be, but Jake, being the stubborn bastard that he is, eventually manages to get up on his own. He waves away the offered kitchen towel, refuses to meet Bradley’s questioning gaze, then turns on his heels to walk out of the kitchen.

A moment later, Bradley hears the faucet go on in the bathroom. He feels a bit more at ease now, but still follows Jake, comes to stand on the threshold just as Jake spits into the sink. Their eyes meet in the mirror

“It would have been a disaster.”

Christ, his voice. Bradley is momentarily distracted by the breathless rasp before he catches on to what Jake just said. “What?”

“We would have been a fucking disaster at Top Gun,” Jake elaborates and a beat later Bradley figures out that he’s referring to the fantasy Bradley had conjured up while Jake had his dick in his mouth, and that he only voiced parts of.

“You think so?” he asks, genuinely interested to find out what Jake thinks. Bradley guesses he’s right. The idea of hate sex is more fun than the reality.

“Would have been carnage,” Jake says, turns around and leans the side of his hip against the sink. “It would have blown up, not just in your face, or mine, but everyone’s.”

Bradley snorts. “Phoenix would’ve had your balls.”

“Please,” Jake scoffs, “as if she doesn’t have all of our balls anyway.”

It’s true, and Bradley smiles at him helplessly. Jake is right, of course. If they’d fessed up to their mutual attraction and fallen into bed together, they would have blown up and Bradley cannot honestly say that there would have anything been left in their wake – nothing left to salvage.

“It would have been a disaster,” Bradley agrees with Jake. “That’s why it didn’t happen then.”

He looks at him. “You think it’s really that simple?”

Bradley thinks it is. They got all the bullshit out of the way, weathered the various storms and now the sky is clear, and it’s smooth sailing. But this isn’t about him.

“Why do you think it isn’t?”

Jake doesn’t reply. Either doesn’t want to say anything or doesn’t know what to say. A storm of competing emotions collides on his face and it is fascinating to witness, because Bradley figures that this usually only takes place behind the Hangman poker face, carefully hidden from view; doesn’t quite know why Jake is letting him see this. If he is even aware that he’s dropped his mask.

He suspects Jake won’t be so open for much longer. The orgasms have probably softened him up a little. Bradley should keep that in mind. The whole Top Gun scenario though… maybe that is something they can shelve now. There is still another fantasy they could indulge in. The Hard Deck, no Top Gun, no suicide mission, no contentious past; just the two of them in civvies.

He thinks of low lights and raunchy music, of Hangman putting on a show and Bradley allowing himself to be into it, to be turned on by him strutting around like a goddamn peacock and coming up with ways to get Hangman to come home with him. Grab these obscene shoulders tight with tension and knead them until they’re soft, until Hangman melts away, leaving Jake, loose and pliant beneath the tips of Bradley’s fingers.

Bradley’s dick twitches, his throat suddenly dry. Fuck, he should probably have some coffee first.

“What do you say we go out tonight?” he asks when Jake makes no effort to move or say anything else for a couple of moments.

Jake raises a skeptical brow. “What’s your understanding of going out?”

Bradley guesses that’s a fair question. Options range from a quiet dinner and having Jake home by ten to pounding techno and strobe lights until seven in the morning (a memorable night out with Phoenix a few years back. Bradley still has trouble recalling about seventy percent of it). His own preference lies somewhere in the middle; figures Jake’s does too.

“I don’t know, a dive bar? Couple of drinks, some pool, maybe.”

“You miss the Hard Deck that much?”

Bradley rolls his eyes. “Shut up, man, like you’re not dying to beat my ass at pool.”

“Good to know you’re not in denial about that,” Jake tells him with a smirk. “But like I said, I’m not here much. Not sure what place might fight that very specific criteria of yours.”

“There’s always Google,” Bradley replies with a shrug. “And I’m not that picky. Hey, I’ll even be the designated driver.”

The other brow rises up on Jake’s forehead. “That keen, huh?”

He shrugs again. “They might have air-con.”

Jake pauses for a moment, then he pushes off the sink and stretches, torso muscles moving in a way that doesn’t do much to deter Bradley’s dick’s renewed interest.

“You drive a hard bargain, Bradshaw. But fine, if you insist,” he says magnanimously, like he is doing Bradley a favor, even though he can’t quite hide the small smile that replaces the sharp smirk as he leaves the bathroom, purposefully brushing their arms together.

Bradley takes a deep breath. It’s going to be a long day.

In the end, Bradley ends up in charge of finding a place since he is also, according to Jake, the one driving them there. He feels a bit strange typing queer-friendly into the search bar, because there’s assholes everywhere, not just in Texas. He has dealt with plenty of them, but he really does not want to have to deal with anyone tonight when he just wants to spend time with Jake.

His insides squirm at the thought. Looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror once he’s washed the sweat of the day off of him and gotten himself semi-presentable, Bradley has to ask himself what it is that he’s actually doing here; what this… this thing with Jake actually is. Are they friends who’ve just added blowjobs to their shared activities? Thinks it and a beat later has to already shake his head at himself. Come the fuck on, you idiot, his own mind gripes at him. That’s not what this is, and you know it. 

Shit fucking balls, he thinks and fuck, actually starts sweating again. Can feel a few drops gather on his temples, the back of his neck as he honest to God starts to get nervous. Wonders if he should change and then curses at himself for falling into old habits, overthinking every little detail. His stomach will be in knots by the end of the night if he doesn’t calm the hell down. Don’t think, just do, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Mav rings in his ears and Bradley silences it as quickly as he can. He loves his godfather, he really does, but Jesus Christ he does not want his advice right now.

He takes another minute to just breathe and calm his pulse before he leaves the bathroom to find Jake in the kitchen, nursing the remainder of the coffee he brewed an hour ago. He looks tired, because of fucking course he does, getting up at the crack of dawn to run like a maniac instead of catching up on sleep.

“Ready to go?” Bradley asks him and Jake gets up without answering, puts the mug in the sink and turns around again.

He looks good, Bradley thinks with a hot flush, his own words echoing in his ears, even in faded black jeans that clearly have seen better days and a grey tee, fabric so worn and thin that it’s easy to make out the dog tags nestled between his pecs. Jake’s hair is combed back in his usual Hangman-fashion, but he doesn’t look like he’s made an effort (doesn’t really need to), which alleviates the nerves still clinging to the hem of Bradley’s shirt a little.

“Lead the way, Bradshaw,” he says, barely-there smirk tugging on his lips.

The drive isn’t long, the bar located just on the outskirts of Austin and while it’s not wallpapered with rainbow flags, the crowd is on the younger side, early twenties to mid-thirties, Bradley guesses. There are a handful of patrons drinking at the bar, some spread out over the booths along the back, but overall it’s quiet, which is not surprising on a Thursday night.

“You’re buying,” Jake tells him about two seconds after they step through the door, then makes a beeline towards one of the booths closest to the pool table, which Bradley made sure would be there in case they need to diffuse some tension. Or he puts his foot in his mouth.

“I thought I was just driving,” Bradley calls after him, even though he was fully prepared for Jake to not be a cheap date.

Jake doesn’t deign his protest with a response, just sits down and pulls out his phone, attitude slipping back into Hangman territory now that they’re out in public, which is interesting to see. Again, Bradley will try not to get whiplash. He orders a light beer for himself, making plans to cut himself off after a second and switch to water, and a vodka soda for Jake, because unless he is already blasted, he drinks like a twenty-year-old socialite. Setting the right drink down in front of him gets him a raised brow and a slightly surprised look in those very green eyes, but they’ve been out drinking enough times for it to not be that impressive, Bradley thinks.

“Thanks,” Jake says, then puts his phone down and adds, “Javy says hi, by the way.”

“Oh,” Bradley replies and has a sip of his beer. It doesn’t taste great, but he guesses it’ll do. “Tell him I say hi back. How’s he doing?”

Coyote’s been a bit quiet in the chat lately, but that’s nothing new or surprising. They all go through communication blackouts.

“Back on solid ground for a few days, actually. His cousin’s getting married so he’s over in Baton Rouge.”

Jake’s probably been to Baton Rouge with Coyote. Or not probably, Bradley corrects himself, definitely. He’s said so. Usually crashing with Coyote while on leave means he has been there multiple times, met the rest of the Machados, and it doesn’t bother Bradley, or make him jealous in any way. That’s not what this twinge in his chest is. It’s just a bit frustrating right this moment, because Coyote knows Jake so well, and there is a familiarity and mutual trust between them that only years of genuine friendship can grow. Perhaps he can ask Coyote to write a manual. Hangman 101.

But even if there was a manual, Bradley is pretty certain he’d be the last person Coyote would give it to. He likes Coyote just fine; he’s a great pilot and an even better person. He just always gets the feeling that Coyote doesn’t like him all that much.

Doesn’t realize he’s said that last part out loud until Jake snorts into his drink in response.

“Javy likes you just fine, Bradshaw. He’s just –”

Loyal to a fault, Bradley’s mind supplies helpfully. They all picked sides once he and Hangman really came to blows at Top Gun and Coyote had already been Jake’s friend for years, so he hadn’t really bothered with Bradley once Jake had made it clear what he thought of him. Even… even if it was a bit more complicated than that. Coyote was probably privy to the details with regards to Jake’s side of the whole drama.

Jake shrugs instead of finishing the sentence. Bradley is suddenly struck by the thought of Jake telling Coyote about these last couple of days; about them hooking up. And he cannot for the life of him figure out what Coyote might think about it. He knows what Natasha would say to him if he were to tell her. Could probably come up with Bob’s, Fanboy’s and everyone else’s reaction if pressed, too. But with Coyote, Bradley pretty much draws blank.

He figures that’s not exactly a good sign.

“Right,” he says for a lack of anything else.

Jake sighs, lifts a hand to rub over his face before looking at Bradley with a wry expression.

“You called me a trust fund baby.”

Bradley blinks at him. “What?” He’s sure he’s called Jake a lot worse.

“Pretty sure I started it,” Jake says and Bradley laughs.

“You usually did.”

With a surprisingly rueful smile, Jake agrees, “yeah, guess so. Javy can probably remember it word for word, but I think I threw a few comments your way and you said not everyone could be lucky enough to have their daddy pay their way into everything and out of every fuck-up.”

Bradley does not remember that specific fight either. He kind of gets it a bit more; how Coyote might be offended on Jake’s behalf since it wasn’t true in the slightest. And while Bradley knows now how very much not true it is, he knew it back then as well, because everyone with two functioning eyes and a slightly functioning brain could tell that Jake was fucking exceptional. Made the whole thing even worse, Bradley has to admit, that Jake really had been that good; is still good now, even better, probably. Mav isn’t useless as a teacher after all.  

“Okay. But, to be fair,” because Bradley thinks he deserves a bit of mercy here, “you’ve got the trust fund baby act down pat.”

He expects a smirk, maybe even a chuckle and a wink. Some remark in typical Hangman fashion, in the too good to be true category. Instead, the reaction he gets kind of pulls the rug out from underneath his feet. Jake drops his gaze to the tabletop. Clenches his jaw.

“I grew up gay in Texas, Rooster,” and maybe Bradley should’ve pondered on that bit of information a bit more when Jake volunteered it like it was nothing on their day out in Austin. It’s just… Jake seems at ease, comfortable in his skin and entirely unashamed. But it was stupid to assume that it came easy.

A few more pieces that have already dropped move into their proper place. Not playing football in high school because of a late growth spurt. No friends waiting to hang out, coupled with the complete refusal to volunteer any information about his parents, childhood or adolescence. Hell, even the affinity for books makes a lot more sense now. Bradley didn’t have it that easy growing up either. But he’d had some good years, before his mom got sIck, before all that anger filled his body with no idea how to release it; a solid group of friends, a mom and a Mav who always made sure he knew he was loved. The very real possibility that Jake didn’t have any of that growing up is starting to dawn on him.

He’d always just believed that Jake had been the one shoving kids into lockers. Not the other way around.

Jake’s eyes lift, their gazes locking. “Don’t tell me you’ve never learned how to put on an act.”

Hits too close to home, as always. Bullseye, every time, even with his eyes covered.

“Touché, asshole,” Bradley says, takes a swig of his beer and swallows past the itch in his throat. Glances to the side, to the paneled ceiling and then back at Jake, whose face is blank, carefully collected, because he probably thinks he already shared too much with Bradley.

“So,” he starts, “Javy saw through the act and kind of expects everyone else to do it, too?” Jake only shrugs. “Has it occurred to him that you don’t – well. That maybe you actually don’t want people to see through it?”

Something sharp flashes in Jake’s eyes, gaze becoming hard and piercing.

“Listen, I can’t control how other people perceive me, okay? Not my fucking problem,” elbows out, hackles up, digging trench after trench that nobody dares to cross.

It really should not be that fascinating. It shouldn’t intrigue Bradley that much, and even more; it shouldn’t make him want to persist. Should he really saddle up and try to rescue the princess if she’s put herself in the tallest tower herself? He grimaces internally at the metaphor. Calling Jake a princess might not go down well.

“You could always correct people,” Bradley tells him, and then somehow feels brave – or stupid – enough to add, “or, you know, not be like that.”

It comes out wrong. It’s not what he means, but he doesn’t know how else to put it. Foot, meet mouth. Jake pounces on his words before Bradley can course-correct.

“Jesus, Rooster, keep telling me how much you like me,” he gripes.

“Sorry,” Bradley apologizes, “that came out wrong.”

“Did it?”

He nudges Jake’s foot under the table; braces himself for a kick that thankfully never comes. “You know it did. I just mean… you –”

Cuts off, because he genuinely cannot exactly put it in words. He guesses in his head, he draws a line between Hangman and Jake, even though he is perfectly aware that it’s not that simple, and that there isn’t really that clear of a distinction. But he has come to think of Jake as the private person behind holier-than-thou-and-cocky-as-shit fighter pilot who wears his callsign with a shrug and a smirk, practically out of spite. Sometimes they feel like the opposite end of a spectrum, but Bradley guesses he truly does contain multitudes, and people are messy as hell, he of all people should know that; should understand what it’s like when people look at you and see one thing and you try your damned hardest to keep them from seeing everything else.

It’s a bit hypocritical, Bradley guesses, because he wasn’t exactly forthcoming either. Can’t expect to receive everything and give nothing in return.

“It’s fine, Rooster. People don’t like me. They don’t – they just… they tolerate me, okay? I know what I’m like. And I’m fine with that.”

He isn’t, he so clearly isn’t. And it is also not true, because –

“Coyote likes you,” he says. “If Phoenix didn’t like you, dude, she’d have punched you so many times by now.” He swallows another mouthful of beer, twists the bottle in his hands and has to bite down on his lips to quench the urge to pick at the label. “And for the record, I like you, too,” and watches as Jake suddenly goes shock still.

Bradley has the sneaking suspicion that this last bit of information is genuinely news to him as a heaviness settles in his chest. An understanding that this – whatever this is – means something. He doesn’t have to fully grasp the extent of it just yet, but it’s… it means something. To him. And fuck, Jake does, too.

They sit quietly together, not looking at one another, so long that it actually starts to feel awkward. Well fucking done, idiot, Bradley scolds himself in his head. This was supposed to be a fun evening out. Trust him to have the worst timing possible when it comes to unplanned heart to hearts. First Target, then Walmart, and now this dumb bar somewhere on the outskirts of Texas.

It's Jake who eventually – finally – clears his throat, downing his drink before getting to his feet.

“Well, Rooster. Let’s see if you still like me after I’ve left you in the dust.”

Says it, then strides over to the pool table, grabbing two queues. With a sigh and a too-long look at Jake’s jeans-clad ass, Bradley empties his beer and joins him.

Bradley only has himself to blame. Going out was his idea. Putting them in this bar with a steady supply of alcohol that he somehow agrees to keep buying for Jake is on him, and him alone. And oh boy, does Bradley hate himself for it right this moment.

He was an idiot when he thought Jake’s outfit was casual and thrown together without much thought, because these old jeans hug his ass just right, and the tee is so soft and thin that Bradley can see exactly how the muscles in Jake’s chest shift when he lines up another shot or leans back, one hand placed casually on the tip of his queue. Coupled with the fact that Bradley isn’t that great at pool to begin with, Jake absolutely smokes him, and is enjoying it immensely, smirk sharp and shining as he locks eyes with Bradley across the pool table.

“This is a very sad display, Rooster,” Jake taunts him after Bradley fails to sink another ball. It wasn’t the easiest shot, but it wasn’t that hard either.

“I’m out of practice.”

Jake snorts into his third – fourth? – vodka tonic, teases, “somehow I don’t think you were ever in practice.”

Then he proceeds to show Bradley how it’s done. And he’s fine with losing; hadn’t even entertained the idea that he might stand the shred of a chance against Jake. What he’s struggling with is Jake bending over the table, Jake worrying his bottom lip until it’s red and slick with spit, brushing past him as he walks from one corner to the other. Even sipping on his drinks has become an activity that has clearly left PG-territory.

Who the fuck eats a cucumber slice tongue first, anyway?

Quite a few people in the bar have glanced their way over the course of the evening, some so blatantly that Bradley actually expected them to come over at some point, but he figures the energy between him and Jake deters them. When it’s Bradley turn next, he grips his queue a bit tighter, has another sip of water and knows something is coming as he puts the glass to his lips, just by how Jake is leaning his hip against the table, folding his arms in a way that emphasizes his pecs.

“Come on, Bradshaw,” he drawls with a nod towards one of the balls, and Bradley thinks, oh shit. “Put it in.”

Bradley sucks in a harsh breath, water going down the wrong pipe, making him cough and splutter. Out of the corner of his watery eyes, he can tell that Jake is walking up to him, then he feels a few harsh slaps against his back.

It takes a moment for his breathing to return to normal, but his face remains on fire. He puts his glass down and glares at Jake, whose own face is a mask of innocence, even if the glint in his eyes betrays his true intentions. His hand slides from between Bradley’s shoulder blades lower and lower, leaving a burning trail until it comes to rest just barely above the swell of Bradley’s ass.

What did Jake say? Bradley would know if he was flirting with him? Yeah, Bradley thinks weakly, no shit. He ain’t subtle. And really, he isn’t surprised that Jake probably decided to make him eat his words right then and there. He’s petty like that. Hell, they both are.

“Y’alright there, Bradley?”

His own name zings down Bradley’s spine, shatters against where Jake’s hand is still lingering, so hot that Bradley can feel it through his jeans.

“That was a cheap shot.”

Jake raises his brows, like he’s surprised Bradley would think he’d play fair. They’ve known each other long enough.

“Just trying to be encouraging,” he replies, leaning in and curling his body towards Bradley’s, leaving only a sliver of air between them.

The proximity to Jake is heady. Now that Bradley’s had his hands on him, has seen him on his knees and gone done to his knees for him, it’s even worse, searing heat curling behind his ribs and rapidly spreading through his body until he is certain his blush has spread all the way down his chest.

“This not how you imagined it would be?”

It takes a minute for Bradley to understand what Jake means. Thinks at first he’s throwing back to his own words from yesterday, lying on the beach, just after their second kiss and Christ Almighty, did this really only happen yesterday? But then Bradley realizes that Jake is referring to the moment in the kitchen, right before their first kiss. The thought of that alone clogs his throat. He’d asked Jake then; about meeting at a bar, the Hard Deck or one just like that, with no shared past, no preconceptions or prejudices.

Hadn’t picked up on the fact that they are apparently in the process of playing out that fantasy.

“That depends,” Bradley replies, short of breath, the game all but forgotten.

He grabs the hem of Jake’s tee and pulls, effectively pulling Jake into him, their bodies touching toe to chest. Feels Jake’s chest expand as he inhales.

“On what?”

Bradley tilts his head until his lips are brushing Jake’s ear.

“On whether you’re coming home with me or not.”

It feels a little like time stands still for a moment and there’s absolutely the possibility of Jake deciding to be a smartass about this, say something about them going home together anyway since Bradley drove them here, and possibly another handful of options to make light of this, to twist Bradley’s words around and diffuse them. But when Jake’s hand dips just a little lower and his fingers dig in possessively, Bradley knows that it’s not how Jake is going to respond.

“I’ll meet you at the car.”

And with another squeeze followed by a sharp slap to Bradley’s ass, Jake steps back, turns on his heels, and stalks out of the bar with way more composure than Bradley is currently capable of. He nearly falls over his own feet as he leaps to the bar to close their tab.

They make it back to Jake’s sister’s house without crashing the car, which Bradley believes to be a small miracle, since his body is thrumming with desire in a way it never has before. Jake thankfully keeps his hands to himself, and they don’t look at each other, don’t talk to each other, until Bradley has parked the Bronco on the curb and they both leap out of the car.

Slamming into one another so hard they’ll surely have bruises the next day, their hands grapple for purchase on skin, on items of clothing. Bradley has his hand to the back of Jake’s neck as the other slides into the back of his jeans, bypassing his underwear to grip bare skin. Literally stepping on each other’s toes, Jake maneuvers them towards the side of the house and through the gate into the backyard.

Bradley’s jaw is aching with how hard he is kissing Jake; how wide their lips are stretching, their tongues sliding together hot and wet and absolutely filthy, spit already covering the lower half of Bradley’s face, his mustache damp with it. He is so turned on he feels physically ill, like he’ll die if he can’t push Jake into the grass right here, pull down his pants and bury himself between his legs. Knows he sounds like he’s in pain when he groans out loud as Jake fits a hand to the front of his jeans, squeezing where he is already hard as a rock.

Jake is clearly better at this, or has had more practice, because he somehow manages to get them across the yard and into the small outhouse and even shuts the door behind them without much cooperation from Bradley, who is biting his way along Jake’s jaw towards his ear, sucking the lobe into his mouth and relishing how Jake’s knees noticeably buckle under his ministrations.

They part for a few seconds, Bradley shrugging out of his shirt and unbuttoning his jeans just as Jake is doing the same. There’s nothing particularly sexy about it, efficiency winning out over seduction, both clearly too impatient to deal with someone else undressing them, further delaying the orgasms.

Jake is naked before him, leans over his makeshift bedside table to switch on the lamp, giving Bradley and downright pornographic view of his ass, the back of his strong thighs, the curve of his muscular back. He kicks off his underwear, desire twisting his stomach so much he thinks for the fraction of a second he might be sick. Then Bradley fits himself to Jake’s back, his nipples grazing Jake’s shoulder blades once he has straightened up again.

“Fuck, you’re hot,” he breathes out into Jake’s neck, his hips twitching involuntarily, his dick sliding across Jake’s ass cheeks, its tip bumping into the small of his back.

Jake’s head falls back onto Bradley’s shoulder with an uncharacteristically quiet whine, as if he’s forgotten himself for a moment and just let go, body loose and trusting. Bradley lost count of how many glasses of water he drank while Jake thoroughly kicked his ass at the bar, but his throat feels like sandpaper, his entire body hot and sweaty, ensuring that his chest is stuck to Jake’s back.

He has half a mind to just rut forward, let his dick slide along the cleft of Jake’s ass and then come all over it, but if this is the one shot he has of sleeping with Jake, Bradley will be damned if he doesn’t make the most of it. Pulling himself together just enough to get his limbs to listen to him again, he sneaks an arm around Jake’s waist, taking a hold of him, equally soft to the touch and hard, a pulsing weight in his palm. Bradley pumps him dry, making Jake breathe harshly through his teeth, in and out, in and out, until his entire body is trembling.

“Christ, Rooster,” Jake grits out, turning his head just so, biting at Bradley’s jaw.

Bradley stops, squeezes the base of Jake’s dick not as much that it will hurt him, but just enough to make sure he’s paying attention to him.

“I told you,” he murmurs, “no callsigns in the bedroom.” Releases his dick, turns him around in his arms, and pushes him down onto the mattress. Climbs on top of him. “It’s Bradley.”

And fuck, this feels good; this feels perfect in every fucking way and so much better than Bradley could have imagined. Their erections slide together, and Bradley’s hips start moving on instinct, without clear rhythm, stuttering away before he bites down on his tongue, the second of sharp pain clearing his head for long enough to stop moving.

“So, how do you wanna do this?”

Seems like Jake is still not as far gone as him, or just more controlled, because he’s still capable of deploying humor while Bradley thinks his brain is seconds away from bleeding out of his ears.

“You know how this works, don’t you? Not really boosting my confidence here.”

To retaliate, Bradley drops his entire weight onto Jake.

“Fuck off, you know what I mean.”

Even in bed together, naked, their dicks rubbing together, Jake gives him attitude, rolls his eyes at Bradley and huffs out a breath. Then he twists around, manages to somehow wiggle out from underneath Bradley’s not insubstantial weight to drape himself across the mattress and over the edge. He pulls what Bradley can only guess is Jake’s own duffle out from underneath the bed, starts digging into it, and is distracted enough to allow Bradley to keep kneading his ass while he rummages through it.

The bottle of lube nearly smacks him in the face.

“Like I said, Rooster. Put it in.”

It shouldn’t nearly make him come right then and there. It’s not a hot line. It’s not even a particularly good one. But Bradley’s teeth clamp down on his bottom lip, muffling the groan rumbling in his chest as Jake pushes himself back onto the middle of the bed, stretching out on his back with the hint of a smirk on his face, and a clear challenge in his eyes. Somehow, even once the possibility of sex with Jake was on the table, Bradley didn’t believe that Jake would be willing to… to give up even a shred of control here.

“You need instructions?”

Bradley groans for a whole other reason and while he’d normally be annoyed, he can’t deny that it helps take the heat down a notch to a level that is more manageable at this stage. They’ve barely even started. Far too early to already lose his head.

He pinches Jake’s hip. “Oh my God, shut up, you brat,” but his hands still tremble a little when he uncaps the bottle of lube to pour some over his fingers. “I’ve done this before.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Jake remarks before he sits up just enough to grab for Bradley’s dog tags, yanking on them hard enough that Bradley falls forward.

He manages to catch himself on the hand that isn’t covered in lube, stopping his fall. But Jake’s little stunt still aligns their hips again just right, making them groan in unison. His skin is burning like he’s been doused in acid, hot and tingling, his dick pulsing between his legs, the sensation strangely echoed in his tongue that feels just as heavy, just as starved.

Jake’s nipples are practically calling out to him. With one hand planted next to Jake’s head and the other slowly trailing down to where their dicks are sliding together, Bradley drags his tongue over one of the pebbled buds without preamble. Jake’s hip stutters and the inhale he hears is sharp, teeters out into a high-pitched whine. Bradley feels a little dizzy, just from that. He’s always considered himself more of an ass man, and Jake has an absolutely fantastic ass. But fuck him if Jake’s tits aren’t turning him on just as much.

“Ah, shit –”

He feels Jake’s hand at the back of his head, fingers tangling in his hair, pulling. Doubles down on his effort, sucking on Jake’s nipple, swirling his tongue around the areola before pulling lightly on it with his teeth and it’s like Jake’s entire body spasms underneath him, tensing up once, twice, before he is practically melting into the mattress, tension seeping out of him and disappearing into the sheets tangled at their feet.

It's intoxicatingly easy to nudge Jake’s legs open after that. Bradley strokes Jake’s dick a couple of times to get him properly hard, then he lets his hand wander lower. At the same time, he exhales over the bright red, sensitized bud, presses a tender, open-mouthed kiss to it before moving on to the other nipple. The breathless curses tumbling out of Jake’s mouth are like warm honey in his ears and Bradley can’t – he can’t think much more after that.  

He's done thIs enough time to be able to rely on muscle memory, thumb pressed to the perineum while his middle finger teases at the tightly furled ring of muscle that’s still clenched too tight to allow him in.

Bradley bites at Jake’s pec, his chest hair tickling his cheek, presses a whispered, “come on, baby,” to the warm and slightly sweaty skin.

Then he nudges his finger inside. Still barely, just to the first knuckle, too much resistance to press further, but this is normal, this is fine, and Bradley is sure Jake is perfectly aware how much patience he’s got. So he teases Jake’s chest with his teeth and lips, eventually licking his way up to the side of Jake’s neck to the sound of harsh breaths in the otherwise entirely silent room. Bradley latches onto the crook of his neck, the trapezial muscle hard and prominent, just the perfect spot to suck on salty skin for a moment before biting down just a little harder than before.  

With that, all air appears to leave Jake’s body with a long, drawn-out groan, and Bradley’s finger disappears up to the third knuckle.

“Fuck,” Bradley hisses into Jake’s skin. His memory never does justice to how hot it is, how tight the clench; how it always makes him feel drunk when he fingers a guy. How it is ten times worse now that he’s got his finger in Jake.

Pulling back slightly, working his wrist, Bradley watches Jake’s face, flushed and covered in a soft sheen, his eyes unseeing, glued to some spot on the ceiling. Lips parted, red and wet with spit. He is a fucking sight. Bradley has no idea how he’s gone his entire life without seeing this.

Without making Jake look like this.

“Is this okay?” he asks, surprised by how rough his own voice sounds in his ears.

Instead of an answer, he gets a harsh gasp when his finger seemingly skirts past Jake’s prostate as Bradley works to open him up. Jake’s eyes are squeezed shut, and Bradley sees him swallow, Adam’s apple moving up and down, his nipples so hard they could probably cut glass.

“You’re good,” Jake manages to press out.

Bradley refrains from echoing his own words back to him, even if too good to be true? Is dancing on the tip of his tongue.

“Tell me –” he starts, but Jake cuts him off.

“If you do something I don’t like, you’ll know,” he utters, and the one leg Bradley hasn’t got pressed into the bed with his elbow sneaks around his waist, urging him on. “Trust me.”

Bradley doesn’t doubt it, but he’d rather have Jake voice it out loud at least once before he adds a second finger. God, it feels incredible, he thinks, making it almost as hard to breathe as g-forces compressing his lungs, overwhelming and all-consuming. He kisses Jake before he has the chance to say something stupid, to put his foot in his mouth again and derail the whole fucking thing. Bites at Jake because… because he knows Jake can take it, will push back against him if he needs to, wants to and that –

That is a whole other beast. Having sex with someone who is your equal in so many ways. Who’s in it with you. Who won’t take any shit. Has never been interested in casual, but gone straight for Bradley’s throat, ready to draw blood.

God, fuck, this is all going to his head far too quickly.

Bradley pulls away, sits back on his haunches and tries to get his hammering pulse to slow down at least a bit, because if not, he’s going to shoot off before he’s even gotten his dick into Jake. And oh boy, he can only imagine what kind of teasing that would entail. He tries, really does try to calm down, but they view is almost too much for him, Jake spread out and gripping the sheets, his entire body glistening with sweat, dick hard and ass stuffed with Bradley’s fingers.

He twists his wrist and spreads his fingers, hypnotized by the way the muscles in Jake’s abdomen jump and twitch every time he manages to push against that nub up inside him. It’s flooring, to be pinned down, to have that relentless pressure on your prostate. Bradley hasn’t bottomed a lot, not because he has any sort of preference, but because his partners usually did once they saw what he was packing. But he enjoys it a hell of a lot. Feels his own dick twitch at the thought of getting Jake to fuck him at some point. He'd be relentless for sure; a perfectionist on every fucking level.

Bradley takes a hold of Jake’s left leg, squeezes the tight muscles, lifts his ankle up to Bradley’s shoulder to open him up more, eyes glued to the small puddle of pre-come that has collected right next to Jake’s bellybutton, three fingers now gliding in and out easily.

“Come on, Bradley,” Jake eventually tells him, “hurry the fuck up.”

“You’ll thank me later,” Bradley retorts, can’t believe that Jake is still giving him attitude. He really needs to do a better job if he’s still that coherent, because Bradley is sure struggling with stringing more than two words together.

“I’m fine,” Jake insists, tapping Bradley’s shoulder with his heel. “Glove up and get on with it.”

He can only roll his eyes in response and keep the movement of his fingers inside Jake going, because while Jake may say he’s ready, he still feels incredibly tight to Bradley. And he just – even though he is so hard it hurts at this point, his dick an angry red, even redder than Jake’s… Bradley needs to do this right. It is an irrational amount of pressure he is putting on himself, but it’s been years leading up to this, the longest and most fucked-up foreplay in the history of mankind for sure, so he just –

“Wait,” Jake suddenly says and every thought inside Bradley’s head comes to a screeching halt. “Wait, fuck!”

“What?” he can only reply dumbly. Didn’t he just ask Bradley to get on with it?

“God, fuck, I don’t,” Jake starts, then tilts his head back, pressing into the pillow, visibly swallowing down what sounds like quite a big lump of frustration. “I don’t have any condoms.”

If Bradley’s mind was screeching before, he is pretty sure he’s just crashed it into a tree. They’re both suddenly dead quiet and shock still. Bradley glances down to where Jake is stretched around basically half his hand, to both their dicks, red and hard, up to Jake’s heaving chest, his clenching jaw; his eyes, pupils blown large.

He breathes in through his nose.

“You’re telling me this when I am literally three fingers deep?”

Jake narrows his eyes at him. It’s kind of impressive, considering the position they’re currently in.

“How do you not have any condoms?”

“Shut up,” Jake immediately bites back. “Of course I didn’t bring condoms to my sister’s damn house, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Bradley breathes again. Fuck. Okay, they can… he can figure something out. He probably isn’t quite in the right state to put on his pants to drive to the nearest CVS, because he is pretty sure if he covers his dick now he might burst into tears. But it’s fine. It’s fine. They have gone without sex until now, they can probably make it through this night and then – then tomorrow Bradley can get a fucking family-sized pack.

Right now, Bradley can just finger Jake, get him to come like that; reminds himself that sex doesn’t have to be penetrative and –

“Shit,” he suddenly remembers, “I think I have one in my wallet.”

“Christ,” Jake says and – really? “Of course you’re that guy.”

Bradley pulls his fingers out with a squelch, decidedly does not look down to where Jake’s hole is now clenching around nothing, and tries to get to his feet without braining himself on the frame of the bed.

“You better pray I am that guy or neither one of us is getting laid, asshole,” he throws back at Jake, who looks far too casual and comfortable again, eyeing Bradley as he upends the contents of his duffle bag in a blind panic, dick swinging heavily between his legs, before he remembers that his wallet is in the jeans he pulled off and tossed somewhere near the door.

“Where the fuck –” he mutters to himself, frantically digs through the pockets. “Come on, come on,” Bradley chants to himself like a madman, belly swooping in relief when his fingers finally close around his wallet.

He searches through it and is genuinely near tears when he spies the little square package tucked in behind one of his cards. It can’t have been in the wallet for that long, Bradley thinks, maybe a year, and surely it takes condoms more than a year to expire. Letting out a sigh of relief, Bradley is back on the bed after two large strides, getting ready to tear open the foil, but Jake sits up in the fraction of a second and takes it from him. He uses his momentum and the fact that Bradley’s brain still needs a bit longer to catch up to what’s happening with all the blood in his body currently residing in his nether regions to switch positions, effectively pinning him to the mattress.

Then he swings his leg over and sits down on Bradley’s thighs. For a few seconds, Bradley can only stare at him. Jake tears open the foil and pulls the condom out, which is bright pink; a strange fact that Bradley’s currently underperforming brain decides to latch onto. It’s only when Jake starts rolling it down over Bradley’s dick that he stops being puzzled by the color and springs into action.

“Here, let me –” he starts, and starts pushing up into a sitting position, but Jake shoves at his chest, unceremoniously pushing him onto his back again.

“I got it,” Jake says, finishes rolling down the condom, giving Bradley’s dick a few tugs before reaching for the lube.

“I can,” Bradley tries again, even as his hips are twitching, as his hands fit themselves to Jake’s thighs, body already getting with the program even though his mind is still trying to catch up.

“I’m sure you can,” Jake tells him, lifting up and scooting forward until he’s hovering above Bradley’s dick, one hand holding him in place. “And I’m sure you’d be real nice and slow about it. But we’re doing this at my speed tonight. So,” he adds, and Bradley holds his breath when he feels that first touch, that first moment of resistance, “lay back, enjoy the view. And the ride.”

Then he sinks down.

“Shit, Jake –”

The corners of his vision actually go fuzzy for a moment. It’s so hot, and so tight, and Bradley thanks his lucky stars that this is far from his first rodeo, or this would have been over so humiliatingly fast. He takes a few measured breaths, squeezes Jake’s trembling thighs in what he hopes is a soothing manner. Jake has sunk down quickly, in one go, ass already fully in Bradley’s lap, but he’s going to need a moment, and Bradley really hopes that Jake is going to take it, too.

He has one hand behind himself, leaning on Bradley’s thigh, and now the other is wandering down his chest, past his hip and to Bradley’s fingers. Bradley’s heart jumps into his fucking throat when Jake lays his hand on top of his.

The Jake starts moving. Bradley very quickly realizes that he wasn’t kidding when he said that they were doing this at his speed, because Jake moves up and down in a practiced fashion, fast and relentless, barely giving Bradley enough time to do, let alone think of anything beyond the maddening heat and tightness of Jake’s ass as he mercilessly rides him into the mattress.

Jake isn’t vocal, teeth clamped down on his lower lip, but as soon as he has the angle right and has Bradley hitting his prostate with every other roll of his hips, he releases these gasps, a collection of ah ah ah’s that that make Bradley’s dick twitch even though it’s buried deep already. He can barely hear the steady slap of their damp skin colliding over the rush of his own blood in his ears, and he feels tingly all over and burning hot, the heat that is accumulating inside his body warring with the heat that is still hanging heavy in the room. He is so wet with sweat, and the air is so charged it feels electric, and when Jake finally shows signs of slowing down, gasping and leaning back, glistening in the dim light from the lamp on the bedside table –

Bradley moves his hands to his hips, holds Jake tight, and pushes up into him, going as fast as he can in this position with the damp sheets slipping and sliding beneath his body. It takes Jake only a few seconds to meet his thrusts, and another few for them to find a good rhythm that works for them both. Once they’ve got that down, Jake reaches down and touches himself, a loose circle he keeps pushing into every time Bradley’s hips snap upwards.

“Come on, Bradley, harder,” Jake spurs him on and Bradley is fucking stupid with it, with how much he needs to make him come, so Bradley plants his feet, and goes harder. “Fuck, yes!”

Jake’s hand moves faster up and down his dick, Bradley rabbiting into him, his hips colliding with Jake’s ass with a hearty thwack each time and then it’s over, it’d done. Jake comes in long spurts over his own fist and some of his come lands on Bradley’s lower belly like boiling hot water.

Bradley feels delirious, dick still hard inside Jake, every clench sending another wave of pleasure up his spine, so desperate to come he thinks his teeth are actually throbbing from it, but Jake is – Jake is breathing, coming down from his own orgasm, probably sensitive as hell and Bradley… Bradley can totally pull out and jerk off. Maybe Jake will let him jerk off onto him. The scenario is already playing out in his head when a sharp and painful twist to his nipple makes him focus again.

“What are you waiting for?” Jake asks him like he’s laying out another challenge. “Keep going.”

Bradley stares at him. “Are you…” He trails off.

“What,” Jake responds, “you don’t think I can take it?”

And that – well. That brings Bradley slightly back into himself, in a good way. Maybe Jake can be a tether after all. With a snort, Bradley sits up, perfect cradling Jake between his legs, chest and arms and thinks briefly that this is a position they really need to try as well.

“Not everything is a competition, you fucking lunatic.”

Then he flips Jake onto his back, gets one arm around his lower back, angling Jake’s hips, and the other around his shoulders, effectively caging him in. With his eyes firmly glued to Jake’s face to watch for even the smallest sign of discomfort, Bradley gives him a moment to breathe, to adjust to the new position, before he snaps his hip forward, chasing his own orgasm.

It doesn’t take that long, but it also isn’t over as quickly as Bradley would have assumed, and Jake has got to be smarting from sensitivity and overstimulation, but his mouth remains slack and open, gaze firm and unwavering locked with Bradley’s, silently spurring him on until Bradley hurtles over the edge, coming so hard he has to rest his forehead against Jake’s sternum for a minute before he can get his body to move.

“Ugh, get off.”

Jake pushes against his shoulder once he apparently decides that Bradley’s weight has become too heavy. So much for the afterglow, Bradley thinks and can’t bring himself to even be mildly irritated by it. It’s kind of shocking how endearing he finds Jake’s attempts to ruin the mood. Without protesting, Bradley rolls off of him and onto his back beside Jake, close enough that their shoulders and arms are touching, just collecting themselves for a few beats, waiting until their heartrate has gone back down and harsh pants are back to normal breaths.

There is come on Bradley’s abdomen. He slides curios fingers through it, collecting most of it. Then he slaps his come-covered hand onto Jake’s belly.

Jake flinches. “Oh god, you are a fucking child,” he bites out and pointedly moves away from Bradley before sending him a glare so frosty that it could probably bring a whole garden of flowers to wither away. “I’m gonna go shower.”

A shower actually sounds kind of good. “Want company?” Bradley asks with an easy smile even though he knows the answer to it.

“If you try and follow me, I will drown you in the toilet bowl.”

Jake swings his legs over the edge of the bed. Bradley stares at his bare ass unashamedly as Jake looks around the room for the pair of shorts he discarded this evening before they headed out to the bar. When he finds them, he pulls them on without bothering with underwear, then leaves the outhouse without another look. Bradley would be offended if this weren’t exactly what he’d expected.

He very purposely does not get up to lay down on the pull-out he’s slept on for a week. Instead, he stretches, wipes himself down with an undershirt he is definitely not wearing again, gets rid of the condom, and settles back in the bed without getting dressed just to test Jake’s reaction.

When Jake comes back in barely five minutes later, towel slung around his hips and hair damp, he stares at Bradley in his bed in all his naked glory for about ten seconds before he seemingly resigns himself to his fate with an overly dramatic sigh, dropping his towel.

Bradley gets a knee and two sharp elbows in retaliation. Jake will have to try a lot harder to bully him out of his bed.

day 8.

Bradley rolls over onto his back with a yawn, stretches, already instinctively reaches out for Jake, only to find the other side of the bed vacated. Motherfucker, he thinks, and blinks at the empty spot on the mattress in surprise. This whole running thing has got to be some sort of neurosis. He looks at his half-hard dick apologetically. Sorry, buddy, he tells it in his head, maybe another time. 

The fact that he didn’t have a shower after they had sex is coming back to haunt him now, because he feels really tacky and gross, and actually, it’s probably a good thing Jake is apparently not into morning sex, because Bradley guesses he wouldn’t have sex with himself either in this state.

Jake is not in the kitchen when Bradley makes his way to the house and into the bathroom, but he is there when Bradley steps back out, damp from the shower and clad in just a towel. He is fiddling with the coffee machine, has two mugs on the counter beside him, the pot of sugar ready as well. The smell of toast hangs heavy in the air. It’s painfully domestic.

Well. If it weren’t for the box of condoms sitting smack dab in the middle of the kitchen table.

The image of Jake – post-run – taking a single box of condoms and nothing else to the checkout counter makes him flush, and Bradley feels a pang of sympathy for the poor sucker who had to ring him up.

“You have no shame,” he calls out, leans against the doorframe and if he flexes his arms a little as he folds them across his chest, well… He doesn’t always play fair either.

“You complaining?” Jake responds, entirely too casual for what this box is implying.

Because Bradley gets that this is probably Jake’s weird, emotionally-repressed way of telling him that he doesn’t want this to be a one-time thing either. They wouldn’t need it otherwise. It somehow still makes a lump form in his throat and arousal accumulate in his belly when he thinks about laying Jake out on his bed again; perhaps this time on his side, spoon up behind him and slide into him all soft and slow and gentle in ways Jake hadn’t allowed him to be the previous night. Or perhaps he’d get him onto his hands and knees, hands spreading that perfect ass to watch him split open on Bradley’s dick.

Is filled with a burning hot flush when he imagines Jake pressing him into the mattress, hand between his shoulder blades, spreading his legs and then fucking him with the same ferocity he flies an F-18.

He doesn’t know how Jake feels about morning sex, but, Bradley figures, he is about to find out. With his half-chub already visible beneath his towel, Bradley walks across the kitchen and moves right behind Jake, tentatively parking his hands on where his hips are laid bare by Jake’s low-slung running shorts. Jake doesn’t react in any visible way aside from a very brief tightening of his shoulder line, so Bradley allows himself a moment to zero in on the small droplets of sweat clustering on Jake’s skin after his run, like little diamonds shimmering on his smooth, tanned skin. The smell of him from up close fills Bradley’s senses; sweat and skin and Jake.

Bradley fits himself to his back nose first, dipping towards Jake’s spine and then letting the tip slide up to his hairline before he tilts his head and presses an open-mouthed kiss to the base of Jake’s skull. The sharp inhale of air he hears in response makes Bradley follow his mouth with the rest of his body, chest to Jake’s back, and growing erection to Jake’s firm ass.

He swallows a grunt back down his throat, his fingers digging into hard muscle as he laps up drops of sweat moving his lips from Jake’s neck to his ear. It should be gross. It’s already too damn hot inside to be pressed together skin to skin, to increase the heat by giving in to the hot pang of want that tugs at a place sitting just behind Bradley’s bellybutton. And just – someone else’s sweat isn’t something Bradley thinks he should want in his mouth, but here he is, sucking on the soft-salty skin behind Jake’s ear like he can’t fucking get enough of it, spurred on by the quick, shallow breaths coming from Jake.

Somehow, it’s even hotter because of how quiet they’re both staying, afraid to burst the delicate bubble they’ve found themselves sharing.

Already feeling drunk with arousal, Bradley tries to press impossibly closer. His arms encircle Jake’s waist, fingers tickling across the hard pane of Jake’s belly, abs noticeably twitching beneath his hands. One of Jake’s hand comes up to cover his, applying pressure, and Bradley knows where Jake wants to push his hand; where he wants his fingers. Undoubtedly as turned on as Bradley, and just as hard.

And Bradley wants his hand down there, too. But right now, he wants something else more. One arm looping more firmly around Jake’s waist, pulling him back into Bradley and making it very obvious how turned on he is, he grinds his hard dick against Jake’s ass to alleviate some of the pressure already building in his balls. Then moves his other arm up.

He has never wanted anyone this badly. He has never really wanted to fondle anyone quite like this before, but Bradley feels stupid with how much he needs to get his hand on Jake’s chest. Feeling Jake’s heart beat a rapid staccato against his palm, Bradley squeezes his pec like he’d squeeze a woman’s tit, breathing out heavily into the crook of Jake’s neck, because he doesn’t… can’t quite –

Fuck, he could come like this. He’d be happy to come like this, too. Rutting against Jake’s fucking miraculous backside, palming his tits, finding his left nipple and playing with it until Jake grabs for his wrist, trying to pull him off as he writhes against Bradley from overstimulation.

“You’re a sex pest, Bradshaw,” Jake presses out between pants, trapped between the kitchen counter and Bradley’s greedy hands.

Bradley’s not. Not really. He has a healthy libido, but he isn’t itching to get his dick wet nearly as often as some other people he’s met, especially aviators and other military men pumped full of testosterone. He always liked to think he had better restraint; was more disciplined than that. But this… this is different. Switch flipped, floodgates opened. Suddenly, he wants with such an intensity it actually scares him a little.

“Maybe you just bring it out in me,” he says gravelly, as close to a truth they’re both skirting around and will, knowing them, continue to circle around for a while to come.

“I find that hard to believe.”

It makes Bradley pause. If he could pull Jake closer he would, but the glide of his hands on Jake’s body, while losing none of its intensity, slows down, more reverent than feverish. Bradley kisses the spot behind his right ear where he smells so unbearably good, then presses about a dozen more along the curve of his neck, lingering by Jake’s shoulder, nipping at the skin with his teeth.

“Well,” he says quietly, barely lifting his mouth away from Jake’s skin, “you should. Believe it, that is.”

Jake is quiet after that, and surreptitiously still. For a moment, Bradley wonders if he said something wrong, but he just told the truth. Not the whole truth, of course, because that whole emotional turmoil thing is a bit of a boner-killer, and Bradley would actually prefer to work through it first before dumping this mess onto Jake. Jake has trouble digesting simple earnestness. Bradley can only imagine how well he’d do with Bradley’s half-formed but fully-chaotic feelings.

He turns around in Bradley’s arms and while it nudges their dicks together, sending a jolt of pleasure through him, Bradley is suddenly overwhelmed by how it feels to have Jake fully cradled in his arms. The expression on his face is unreadable, but it’s not sharp, not combative, and it is definitely dawning on Bradley more and more how much of that apparent cocksure self-confidence and bravado really is a front Jake puts on to deflect from the fact that he really doesn’t seem to think as highly of himself as he wants other people to believe.  

Jake hasn’t talked about his parents, but Bradley sure feels like they did a bit of a number on him.

While he isn’t suddenly turned off, or any less aroused than he was a few moments ago, the need to fuck Jake is replaced by the need to somehow convey to him that this isn’t – it’s not not about sex, Bradley doesn’t want to kid himself there. The sex may just be the best he’s ever had already, and he does want more of it. But he wouldn’t want it if it were someone else. Not like this. Jake isn’t standing in for anyone else. Bradley wants him.

But Bradley isn’t great with words. So he kisses Jake, unhurriedly. Even though he feels a bit like he’s on fire with how aroused he is, he tries to take some of the urgency that’s still clinging to both of them out of it, presses of lips firm but not biting. Not as frantic as before. They have time. They can take their time, and Bradley –

His heart clenches a little when he thinks it, but he does want to savor this. Regardless of what this is, of where he and Jake are heading – there is a time limit on everything when you do the job they do.

It’s Jake who eventually pulls back, his lips red and wet; face soft. He slides out from where he is still trapped between Bradley and the counter and Bradley has a split-second to be disappointed before Jake grabs his hand and not just – not just their usual wrist or arm grab and pull. Jake actually takes his hand, interlacing their fingers, and Bradley’s stomach swoops so much it gives him vertigo.

Jake tugs him along, and Bradley follows, registering belatedly that he is still in just a towel that is really starting to slip, but with the simple act of picking up the box of condoms on their way out of the kitchen, Jake manages to pull a hundred percent of Bradley’s attention back to him, towel be damned. Without his erection flagging even a little bit, Bradley allows himself to be pulled out of the house and across the backyard, back into the outhouse where the air, despite the open windows, is hot and stagnant. Bradley sweats on impact; feels damp and too-hot almost immediately, which, coupled with the heat continuing to churn in his belly, makes him want to peel off his skin.

Jake turns them round and pushes Bradley back without releasing his hand, until the back of his legs hit the bed and he sinks down. Without pause, Jake climbs up, knees on either side of Bradley, not sitting in his lap properly, not even when Bradley reaches up to fit his hands to Jake’s hip in an attempt to pull him down.

Jake’s hands slide along his shoulders, and Bradley has to tilt his head back to keep looking at his face, going a bit cross-eyes when Jake touches their foreheads together so tenderly his teeth ache from it.

“Baby,” he breathes out, angling for another kiss.

Something in Jake shifts at that, and Bradley isn’t sure if he imagines the sliver of panic that surfaces in Jake’s eyes for the fraction of a second. But the tenderness is gone a beat later, Jake’s kiss almost punishing in its intensity, hurried like they’re on the clock, which they are really, really not. It’s early morning in the middle of buttfuck nowhere Texas and they have no plans for the day.

Bradley hears the quiet snick of a bottlecap. The bottle of lube they used last night must’ve still been somewhere among the messy sheets. Jake pulls back enough to drizzle some of it onto his own fingers, unceremoniously reaches behind himself to –

“Hey, I can –” Bradley’s brain catches up with what’s happening.

“It’s fine,” Jake says, then hisses, muscles in his jaw twitching as he probably pushes the first finger in a bit too quickly.

Okay, Bradley thinks, this is not how this is going to go. He gets it, at this point, at least he’s pretty sure he does; Jake wanting to set the pace the night before and him taking control of the way they’re about to have sex now. The way Jake is going about this, quick and clinical… it’s not like he wants to get it over with, because Bradley would pull the fucking breaks if it felt even remotely like that. Instead, it’s almost like he’s worried Bradley will change his mind unless he gets his rocks off in the shortest amount of time, as if Bradley hasn’t already proven that if Jake would let him, if he’d happily go at it for hours, squeeze as many orgasms out of him as possible.

Jake still doesn’t believe him when Bradley says he likes him – wants him.

“Okay, no –” he starts, and this time he sees it; that glimmer in Jake’s eyes that speak to a genuine worry. Like he thinks Bradley is about to reject him, which could not be further from the truth, so Bradley does his best to quench those worries. “Last night was your speed, today we’re going at mine.”

“Then this is gonna take all damn day.”

In response, Bradley just raises one brow suggestively and waits for the other shoe to drop, because that is kind of the point he’s trying to make here. There are certainly many worse ways to kill a couple of hours. And it’s clear as day when it dawns on Jake that that’s what Bradley intends to do, at least. It finally gets Jake to pause, gets him to blush and –

Yeah, sweetheart, Bradley thinks, I’ll fuck you all day if you let me.

Jake audibly clears his throat, puts the bottle of lube in Bradley’s hand.

“Well then,” he says. “Do your worst.”

Bradley can’t hold back the snort that’s pulled out of his nose by Jake’s attitude. He’s probably insane for thinking it’s cute how bratty Jake gets when he feels wrongfooted or has lost the upper hand. Then again, most of the blood in his body is pooling in his lap, so rational thoughts may not physically be possible at this stage. But Bradley is still in it enough to keep a hold of the lube and loop his free arm around Jake’s waist, twisting to switch their positions.

At first, Jake is reluctant to allow himself to be moved, but after a moment, he seems to give in, letting Bradley move them to the middle of the bed as he kicks the tangled up sheets to the floor. Laying on his side, he pulls Jake’s back to his chest, hears as well as feels the hitch in his breath and for a second, Bradley feels insecure in the intimacy of this position; worries that it is too much, too soon. But he thinks of the panic in Jake’s eyes, the many insecurities he takes so much care to hide behind sharp smirks and even sharper words, and decides to throw caution to the wind.

His towel is quickly shucked, and Jake’s shorts join it on the floor after an only semi-awkward shuffling. He can tell that Jake is a bit tense, so Bradley mouths at the column of his neck with a little bit of teeth, left arm going under and around Jake, holding him close with his right hand strokes him back to full hardness. Bradley keeps going until Jake’s breaths have becomes labored, his hips moving back and forth to fuck into Bradley’s fist.

There are so many things he wants to whisper to Jake. But Bradley doesn’t think he’s ready to say them. Is pretty sure Jake isn’t ready to hear them. This is more than just sex, that much has been clear from the start, but lying here with Jake and wanting to take care of him in ways Bradley has never really wanted to take care of anyone is – well. It kind of takes his breath away.

“Come on, let me hear you,” he utters when he sees that Jake is biting his lips again, even as sweat begins to trickle down the side of his face, curling along his clenched jaw.

Bradley leans forward to lick it off, his hip twitching forward unprompted at the taste, making his dick slide along the cleft of Jake’s ass, bumping into his balls.

“Fuck, Bradley…”

It’s quiet, like Jake couldn’t stop himself and fucking hell, it does things to him when Jake uses his name.

“That’s it, baby,” Bradley encourages him, moving his fist up and down a few more times in sync with the movement of his own hips against Jake’s backside, mirroring the way he’s hoping to fuck into him once he’s ready, before he pulls his hand back and blindly feels for the bottle of lube.

Everything that follows is a constant push and pull; Jake pushing Bradley to go faster, with his body, with increasingly breathless words and Bradley pulling Jake back to his tempo with the languid strokes over his prostate first with his fingers and then, after what feels like hours, with his dick as he thrusts in. They’re both soaked by the time Bradley’s hips touch Jake’s ass, Bradley’s hands sliding on Jake’s thighs, slippery with sweat. It should be unbearable, downright obscene, overheating bodies moving together squelching as much as Bradley’s dick in Jake’s wet and still so unimaginably tight hole.

“You feel so good, baby.”

Bradley feels hot all over, burning from the inside while standing in an open flame, but he still can’t get close enough, would crawl into Jake if it were possible, mouthing at him because it makes him feel that tiny bit closer. Uses his left hand to touch Jake’s face that is just as hot, helps steady his head when Jake twists back. They can’t get the angle right to kiss properly, panting into each other’s mouths, lips dragging sluggishly over salty skin.

“Fuck me harder,” Jake commands him, but it lacks bite, and it lacks his usual resolve, so Bradley just shakes his head.

“No, I’m fucking you just like this,” he responds and grinds his dick into Jake, a steady pressure on that sweet spot that makes Jake twitch and shiver all over.

“Damn sadist,” Jake tells him, but it is followed by long groan, Bradley angling his hips just so whilst digging his fingers into the meat of Jake’s thigh, opening him up just a little more, so he figures Jake doesn’t really mean it.

God, Jake makes him crazy in the best possible way. Fucking him is like flying with him and the fucking closest Bradley has ever come to finding that feeling of being in the air while having both his feet on the ground.

They keep going like this for a while; a whole lot longer than Bradley thought he’d be able to go, given how turned on he’s been since basically waking up. But eventually, the pressure building in his balls becomes too much and he gets a hand on Jake, whose dick is angry and red and curled towards his belly, to make sure he comes first. It’s barely a touch before Jake seizes up with a whine and Bradley’s name tumbling out of his mouth.

He clamps down on Bradley’s dick so hard his vision whites out, his hips stuttering uncontrollably as he shoots into the condom, fizzing all over like he’s just been electrocuted.

“Fuck,” he curses, head spinning, “fucking – shit.”

For a while, the only sound in the small room is their panting, their bodies stuck together. Only slowly, the outside world starts filtering back in; the rustling of the leaves outside as a light breeze blows through the neighborhood, a dog barking a few yards over, a car horn honking in the distance. All around them, people are starting their days, going on with their lives, and Bradley can only shiver, his chest clenching painfully, as he realizes that he never wants to go back to his.

He moves to pull out, but Jake’s hand reaches back, fingers digging into Bradley’s ass, keeping him in place.“Jake –”

“Stay,” he says quietly. His eyes stare up ahead, damp hair sticking to his neck and temple, skin red all over. “Just – stay.”

Who is Bradley to deny him? How can he deny Jake anything, really? So he just nods against the back of Jake’s neck, pressing his lips to the top of his spine, throat tight.

Stays buried inside him a little while longer.

Something changes after that. Bradley can’t put his finger on why or how, but something is different – feels different. Once he’s pulled out, carefully holding on to the bottom of the condom, they wipe themselves down in companionable silence, even if they can’t quite meet each other’s eyes for a bit. But – Jake takes his hand after that, tugs him along into the bathroom and into the shower. They stand together under the cold spray, which feels incredible after being essentially bathed in your own sweat for ages and it occurs to Bradley that this is the first time they have been naked together without it being a direct precursor to sex.

His chest feels tight as he watches Jake soap up, casually running his hands down his chest and over his hips and in between –

It continues to feel tight as they towel off, walk back to the outhouse to get dressed and spend the rest of the day lounging in the garden. Bradley can’t take his eyes off of Jake as he reads. It’s the James Baldwin book, he realizes, and spies the title on the cover. Giovanni’s Room. It’s not one he’s heard of before. It looks well-read and -loved, and Bradley wants to know if it means something to Jake.

His mom had read Emma by Jane Austen every summer; the same copy, year after year, until single pages were coming out and she’d have to superglue them back into place.

“What is it about?”

Jake doesn’t look up at his question, or gives any reaction that would tell Bradley that he’s even registered it. But, well… Bradley is patient, and he only needs to wait around five seconds for Jake to sigh exasperatedly.

“It’s about an American expat who’s living in Paris,” he starts, “and his relationship with a man called Giovanni,” and taps the cover.

It sounds like queer literature, which – well. He guesses it’s not as surprising anymore. Tasha probably knows it. She likes to read. Bradley just hasn’t emerged himself in queer culture as deeply as he probably should’ve given the whole… bisexuality thing. And he’s not repressed either, or a recluse. He’s been to pride, he never really made a secret out of his preferences, but at the same time, it’s still the Navy and like Jake said as well, life’s a bit easier when you don’t advertise it.  

“Is it good?” Christ, what a dumb question, Bradley silently scolds himself, and absolutely deserves the flat look Jake levels him with.

“I’ve read it about fifteen times so… yeah, I guess it’s good.”

He sounds like he wants to roll his eyes as well, but refrains, gaze turning back to the page and set to ignore Bradley for the time being.

“That’s a lot of times.”

Jake shrugs. “It was my favorite when I was like… fifteen, I think. First book I ever read that, you know…”

He trails off. The first book that had people like them in it, Bradley’s mind supplies and feels a bit choked up thinking about a teenage Jake, pre-growth spurt, finding himself somewhere on these pages.

“Maybe you could lend it to me when you’re done.”

That earns him a disbelieving laugh.

“Hey,” he calls out indignantly, “I read!”

Jake raises a brow at him. “What’s the last book you read, The Very Hungry Caterpillar?”

It’s not quite as bad. He went to school and college and he always had good grades in English, did all the readings and wrote all the essays, but it’s just never something he really got into in his spare time, as a hobby. He’d played baseball, and then there’d been planes, and that had pretty much been everything he’d been paying attention to growing up.

“To be fair, it was probably the F-18 manual,” he admits, and Jake snorts.

“’S a good thing you’re pretty,” he drawls and –

Bradley grins. “You think I’m pretty?”

There’s no denying the faint pink tinge to Jake’s cheeks, even if his eyes remain resolutely on his book, refusing to respond to Bradley’s wriggling eyebrows and teasing.

“Don’t push it, Bradshaw,” he just says, and flips a page.

Bradley leans back, smile staying firmly in place as he gets comfortable in his deckchair again, completely content to keep watching Jake’s face as he reads. It’s hot as hell, but there is a bit of a breeze going today, which feels amazing on his damp skin. They stay out in the backyard until Bradley’s stomach starts rumbling in the afternoon and he insists on cooking an actual meal.

Jake is only half as distracting and obstructive as Bradley thought he’d be, griping about peppers and garlic and then needling Bradley to add way more chili than he’s comfortable with. But it feels nice, and so frighteningly easy, moving around each other in the small kitchen, exchanging casual touches that would have previously made Jake stiffen and pull back.  

Is this what it would be like, he wonders, knees feeling a bit weak watching Jake do the first set of dishes as Bradley waits for the pasta water to boil. Like they’ve done this a hundred times before. Like it hasn’t been just over a fucking week since Bradley showed up on Jake’s doorstep with all his demons nipping at his heels.

And fuck, Bradley wants this; wants morning sex and shared showers and lazy afternoons just being together with no rush and no sense of obligation. He wants to cook together and sit down to a late lunch together, and just be together.

But he looks at Jake, and knows it won’t be that simple.

day 9 & 10.

The weekend disappears in a maelstrom of heat and sex.

Bradley finally – finally – succeeds in stopping the morning run by convincing Jake to participate in another form of exercise and he is more than a little proud that the handprints that he spies on Jake’s hips once Bradley has given him another orgasm might just stay visible for a few more days.

After that, and Bradley genuinely doesn’t know what comes over them, they cannot keep their hands off of each other. They only leave the bed to piss, and eat, and occasionally shower off the remnants of more sex than Bradley’s had in the last few years combined. It’s like a fever that won’t break, and Bradley feels ravenous, has barely pulled out before he needs to bury his face in Jake’s ass, sucking on his rim and thrusting his tongue where he’s just spent well over an hour fucking Jake open.

When he grows slightly concerned over the state of Jake’s ass, Bradley only considers stopping for half a second before tossing the lube and box of condoms Jake’s way. He can tell Jake is a bit taken aback, but he quickly gets with the program after Bradley gets on his hands and knees and tells Jake to give it to him good.

Jake fucks like he flies. Fast and relentless, not giving Bradley a second to pause or breathe, the snap of his hips hard and deep, the angle so perfect that Bradley’s toes curl and then go numb when he comes, vision whiting out with his mouth full of damp pillow. He’s sensitive after, but does not find it in himself to object to Jake stuffing three fingers into him as he jerks off onto his back.

Their bodies slide together in heat, stick together with sweat, constantly touching, lips parted to share spit and air.

In the early hours of Sunday, the sky opens up and they throw open the windows, get back into bed and listen to the rain, breathe simultaneous sighs of relief as the suffocating heat finally begins to dissipate. With the soothing, steady pattern of drops hitting the roof and the withered earth, they drift in and out of consciousness, bodies drained and loose-limbed.

It’s peaceful; a bone-deep calmness and contentment, Bradley’s head bedded on Jake’s lower belly, stretched diagonally across the bed, naked but soft, fingers fitting in the spaces between Jake’s ribs.

“I’ve never done this.”

Jake’s skin is twitching where Bradley’s mustache is probably tickling him.

“Done what?” he asks.

Bradley presses a kiss to Jake’s hipbone. “Spent an entire weekend in bed,” he says, voice thick, and strokes his hands up and down Jake’s sides, “doing this.”

He squeezes his eyes shut when he feels tentative fingers on his head, carding through his hair. He’ll have to have it cut before he ships out again.

“Never?”

“No,” Bradley shakes his head against Jake’s skin, lingers; breathes him in. “You?”

The reply he gets is a self-deprecating snort that doesn’t sit well with him. “Nah. Not exactly the type for relationships.”

Because this isn’t something you do with a one-night stand, is it? Or a hook-up. Or, Bradley realizes with that by now all too familiar lump settling in his throat, even someone you’re casually dating. This takes trust and familiarity and just… vulnerability, maybe. This is new turf for him. For both of them, he guesses.

“Me either,” he confesses in return.

When Jake replies, “I don’t believe that,” Bradley is not surprised, because just like Jake had perfected the mask he slips on around people he doesn’t trust, Bradley’s whole act and what he hides with it has left him equally unavailable for any sort of deeper connection. It’s actually resulted in very much the opposite, which is fine, it’s never bothered him. Maybe it should bother him now, but he can’t really feel regret for anything if it’s led him right to this moment.

Vulnerability, he thinks again, rolling the word around in his head and tasting it at the back of his throat. Maybe he can give it a shot.

“I mean,” he starts quietly, “people generally hit me up when they want something easy. Something casual. Because I’m easy, you know. Low maintenance. But, well – I’m not, you know. Not really.”

Jake is probably one of the very few people in his life who has always understood that. Not only because he regularly got a taste of how decidedly not easy-going Bradley could be when poked in the right spots. He’s pretty sure Jake has always been a bit more perceptive than most.

Bradley clears his throat. “I have a bit of a temper.”

“No, you?” Jake exclaims, voice drenched in sarcasm. “Never would’ve thought.”

He pinches Jake’s side. “Shut up,” he grumbles, but hides the resulting smile against soft skin right beside Jake’s bellybutton. “We really are a pair, huh?”

It takes a moment for Jake to respond. When he does, his voice is quiet, thoughtful; almost reverent when he says, “yeah, guess so.”

day 11.

“Are you sure this is right?”

Bradley sighs and puts the screwdriver on the floor, because if Jake asks him that one more time, he might stab him with it. He rubs his hands over his eyes, wiping away sweat and fatigue and glances over where Jake is sitting cross-legged on the living room carpet just a foot away from him, leafing through the instruction manual of the air conditioner that may very well become Exhibit A in Bradley’s murder trial. Perhaps he can plead guilty for manslaughter. Or, if the jury shows compassion, get off for self-defense, given the absolute hell Jake has put him through for the past hour and a half.

It should not be this difficult to set up this fucking thing. They both fly multimillion dollar jets for a living that contain far more complex technology than the air conditioner Bradley is currently attempting to mount to one of the living room windows. It probably would not be this difficult, or take this long, if Jake would stop second-guessing every damn thing Bradley says or does.

“Yes, I’m sure this is right,” he tells Jake exasperatedly and decidedly withholds that he really only is about eighty percent sure that he is actually doing it correctly. The manual sucks. It’s not his fault.

Jake hums, not convinced, gnawing on his bottom lip as he scans the text and diagrams, glancing over at the rectangular contraption Bradley was just about to attach to the window.

“You want to give it a go?” he asks, even though Jake, for all his griping, has not made any effort to do anything other than bitch at Bradley about everything he thinks he’s doing wrong.

Jake, unsurprisingly, does not supply him with an answer to that particular question. He keeps reading through the manual like it’s actually going to give him any answers, or point to an obvious mistake Bradley made and is now not admitting to. Eventually, he heaves out a sigh, like he’s the one who’s been nagged at all morning.

“Well, if you say that’s how it works – your call, Rooster.”

Bradley rolls his eyes, makes sure Jake sees him do it, then picks up where he left off.

“What would you’ve done if I hadn’t been here to help?” he asks, even though helping is underselling it by a lot. Aside from opening the box, Jake’s approach has been very much hands off. He can’t really imagine him doing this on his own.

“You think I’m not capable of setting up a fucking air conditioner on my own?”

Bradley shoots him a quick, placating look over his shoulder. “That’s not what I said.”

Paper rustles, following by quiet thump, Jake pointedly dropping the manual onto the floor. “I mean, I could do it. But you’re here, so…”

He trails off.

“Oh, so I’m free labor?” Bradley asks.

“Were you under the impression you were here as anything else?”

For a second time is as many minutes, Bradley lowers the screwdriver and looks over his shoulder, pointedly dropping his gaze to Jake’s crotch.

“I mean…” He wriggles his brows.

Jake flips him off, but the corners of his mouth twitch upwards and while he semi-succeeds in hiding his smile, he absolutely cannot conceal how much he likes the attention. They haven’t had sex today, Bradley thinks distractedly, looking at Jake in a pair of thin sweats that are cut off mid-thigh. For the first time since they starting having it Thursday. Bradley had been awake before Jake, which had also been a first, brewed some coffee and brought two steaming cups back to bed and then they just… didn’t get up for a few hours.  

Arousal stirs in his belly, and something in his expression must betray it, because Jake leans back a little, flexes his abs like the absolute bastard that he is. Bradley feels a drop of sweat trickle down the small of his back.

“Does it actually bring you joy?”

Jake tilts his head softly to the side. “Does what being me joy?”

“Torturing me,” Bradley replies around the lump in his throat.

He turns back towards the air conditioner, determined to keep working and get this goddamn thing set up today, because if his insides keep getting cooked by the non-stop turn-on Jake Seresin has turned out to be, Bradley at least needs a bit of cooled down air to help him chill the fuck out and return his body temperature to a somewhat normal level at least.

“Oh yes,” Jake drawls, “it is one of the few pleasures I have left in my life.”

Bradley doesn’t doubt it for a second.

Thankfully, without Jake further interrupting his focus, the air conditioner is up and running around forty minutes later. It’s still, overall, an embarrassingly long time, and it is probably a good thing their superiors weren’t here to witness it, because they’d never be allowed back into their multimillion dollar jets. Bradley connects it, presses the on button, and about ten seconds later, it gently blows cool air in their sweaty faces.

“Oh my God,” Bradley groans in relief, and falls back onto his back, closing his eyes. It might actually become bearable in a couple of minutes. He can’t remember the last time he wasn’t sweating his ass off.

“Seems like it’s working,” is Jake’s helpful comment. Bradley swallows the no shit, Sherlock back down. “If it stops, you’ll just have to fix it again.”

Or call a professional, Bradley’s mind quietly supplies. There’s no way in hell he’s doing that again. He’d rather go on another joyride in a forty-year-old F-14 than do another hour of DIY in Jake’s presence.

He tilts his head to the side, looks at where said shittalker is lying just a foot away, chest still damp, rising and falling slowly. Bradley nudges their arms together. Waits for Jake to look back at him before smiling.

“Hey,” he rasps. Despite the air around them rapidly cooling down, his throat feels dry; his face flushed.

“Hey,” Jake echoes, his eyes so uncharacteristically soft that even lying down, Bradley feels like someone just pulled the ground out from underneath his feet.

There’s probably plenty of ways to stop whatever feelings are beginning to fester in his chest. He doesn’t believe in love at first sight. Attraction and lust, sure, but not love. The first two, Bradley has experienced aplenty. Has never hesitated to throw himself headfirst into. But he’s probably only ever loved four people in his life, and three of them are in the ground. The fourth – well. Mav probably has nine lives, and only he knows how many he’s got left. And so Bradley knows that he’s careful with his heart, and that this isn’t anything that comes to him with ease, that he can just fall headfirst into.

He's too cautious for that. Too guarded. And Bradley knows he could probably argue his way out of it, try really hard to compress these feelings into a small little ball and just leave it rolling around in his body. And while he won’t be able to make it disappear or completely forget about it, he can put it somewhere quiet and dark and ignore it for the rest of his life. He can leave it, and then walk away. But while it’s going to be hard to do that – it's going to be even harder to want to.

Bradley can’t tell if some or any of that is visible in his expression. Maybe it is. He’s getting less and less concerned about it. Growing more and more confident that Jake… that maybe he –

That there is a possibility that –

Jakes reaches out, touches the tip of his index finger to the bridge of Bradley’s nose. He goes cross-eyed for a beat, before refocusing on Jake’s face and how unusually soft and relaxed he looks. He strokes down to the tip, then lower, first brushing over one side of Bradley’s mustache, and then the other, almost reverently.

“Hm,” he hums quietly, “it’s almost growing on me.”

“Can I get that in writing?” Bradley asks, his lips brushing Jake’s lingering finger before closing around its tip.

Jake hisses in a breath, and his blush is immediately visible, even through his tan. Bradley playfully gnaws on his knuckle, then pulls off and away, lifts his own hand to touch their palms together. The heat spreading from his chest through the rest of his body doesn’t dissipate as the gesture turns from indecent to tender, but rather than burning, it’s warming and absentmindedly, Bradley wonders if this is the difference between lust and –

And something else.

He rubs his thumb across the back of Jake’s hand, holding his gaze, lets their fingers tangle together for a beat before sliding his along the soft skin on the underside of Jake’s arm and up to his elbow. Jake’s nose twitches and Bradley is so fucking charmed by it he kind of wants to smack himself in the face and tell himself to snap the hell out of it. He doesn’t, though. Instead, he tugs on Jake’s arm, just a little, barely enough to be a suggestion, and given Jake’s usual combative and contrarian nature, Bradley more than expects him to mouth off at him.

So it is a surprise when Jake just… complies. Moves closer just like Bradley wants him to. Nudges his nose against Bradley’s before angling his head to kiss him, warm and slow, with just enough teeth to indicate that maybe this is heading somewhere else. Bradley really should be worried how quickly his body responds to Jake. How little effort it takes from Jake to get him there.

Just – fuck, just the way he smells. The way he sounds when Bradley’s fingers find the back of his neck and squeeze, just lightly.

Before Bradley can overthink; before his feelings can get in the way, trip him up, he rolls on top of Jake, unceremoniously, not bothering to keep his weight off of him, but wanting him to feel Bradley’s weight on top of him. Jake immediately spreads his legs to accommodate Bradley, heel nudging Bradley’s ass forward so that their hips align, not hard yet but Christ, Bradley is getting there quickly.

Grabbing the meat of Jake’s thigh where it’s pressed up against his waist, Bradley slides his hand up, up, up to where Jake is bare underneath his shorts, knowing Jake is going as commando as he is because Bradley watched him put on the damn shorts earlier. He rocks forward and when Jake’s lips part with a gasp, Bradley doesn’t hesitate to dip down and lick into his mouth.

They move together; slow but firm grinds of their hips together. Jake’s fingers wander up Bradley’s arms, featherlight, dance along his back and then up into his hair where they slide between the strands, at first softly, and then firmer, and firmer, before they tug –

Something electric shoots down Bradley’s spine. A groan, deep and rumbling, rolls out of his mouth and directly into Jake’s, disappearing into him, but Bradley thinks he can feel it reverberating in Jake’s chest that is so warm and solid against his. They can keep going just like this. Keep dry-humping like teenagers under the covers while everyone’s out, but God, he wants to take Jake right here on the living room floor.

Through the festering haze, Bradley suddenly remembers that there was another reason they didn’t have sex this morning.

His arms are trembling when he pushes himself up a little, regrettably putting some distance between their faces and upper bodies. Jake looks downright sinful underneath him, and Bradley has to concentrate really hard to hold on to that train of thought.

“We’re out of condoms.”

Jake looks up at him, puzzled, words probably not quite sinking in and Bradley really can’t blame him there. He isn’t sure how he managed to form a coherent thought at all.

“What?”

“Yeah, um,” Bradley offers, real clever. “We’re out.”

Jake’s eyebrows move up incrementally as realization dawns on him. He looks genuinely shocked. Again, Bradley can’t really fault him there either. It is fucking impressive.

“Jesus, did we use them all already? How many times did I let you put your dick in me?”

“To be fair,” Bradley says, even though he knows Jake is probably not in the mood for him to be a smartass about this, “two out of those times you put your dick in me.”

Jake’s expression goes from baffled to annoyed in less than a second, which is also quite something considering they’re both still hard as hell with no signs of flagging. His hands lower from where they’re dug into Bradley’s hair. He rubs them over his flushed face with a groan.

“Ugh, I don’t wanna know what my ass looks like,” he says, causing Bradley to snort.

“Well,” he says and chances another squeeze, “not sure how it looks, but it sure feels fucking fantastic.”

He falls back down onto Jake when he retaliates with a harsh twist to Bradley’s nipple. Jake oof’s and Bradley would utter an apology, but Jake did bring it on himself. He is not the lightest of dudes though, so he pushes back up onto his elbows, cocking his eyebrow at Jake. In response, Jake lets out a long sigh, brings his hands to his face and quickly rubs across it, pushes his hair back. It sticks up, air conditioner having not quite yet eliminated the sweat in his hair.

Bradley’s hips twitch, because Jake looks really hot like this. He always does, but Bradley is discovering a weakness for him in a disheveled state, when his armor is pulled backed, the façade just a little bit cracked. It feels precious, because it’s not something a lot of people have ever been witness to. Bradley just wants to envelop Jake with his whole body, shield him from view, a sudden surge of possessiveness spreading in his chest, festering.

Their clothed erections slide together, breathing picking up, Bradley’s elbows propping him up, making the movement of his hips slow and controlled. Jake stretches out like a cat, curling up into him, arms lifting to stretch up above his head. They’re out of condoms, but they can just do this, rubbing their dicks together like they’re two teenagers behind the bleachers. Bradley tips their foreheads together and they breathe, panting into each other’s mouths before Jake tilts his head up just so, catching Bradley’s bottom lip between his teeth, nipping sharply.

Bradley hisses, then dips in himself, kisses him hard, feels Jake’s groan rumbling behind his ribs, tickling his chest, the movement of his hips getting faster. He licks along Jake’s jaw, tastes skin and salt, then moves his head slightly to the right, mouth latching onto the inner side of Jake’s upstretched arm. There’s a hint of deodorant and shower gel lingering on the soft skin, but Bradley desperately drags his nose downwards where nothing artificial covers up the smell he’s so quickly come addicted to; just sweat and Jake and them mixed together, heat radiating off of their bodies and mingling in the air in between.

He's drunk on it. Or high. Possibly both. It’s the only reason he can think of why the thought pops into his head in the first place; why he is audacious enough to say it out loud.

“I had my physical last month,” he says to Jake’s armpit, then moves left, licks over his nipple, presses a few open-mouthed kisses to it, arms beginning to shake from holding his body up for so long.

Knows that Jake gets it – understands what he’s really saying. And fuck him, the air is getting cooler by the minute, but Bradley has just lit himself on fire.  

“Mine was two months,” he hears Jake’s quiet reply.

Two months is – it can be a long time. Something nasty claws at Bradley’s heart when he, just for a few seconds, considers that Jake may have fucked someone else between then and now. It clenches, maybe to protect itself, feels like it’s hiding in his throat when he finally manages to utter out a response.

“Did you… I mean –” he cuts himself off, needs to swallow his heart back down. “Was there –”

“No,” Jake says. Curt, quiet. But firm.

Bradley lets a long breathe out through his nose, slides up again and fits his mouth to Jake’s, rocking their hips together, this time firmer, with intent. Putting his weight on the one arm that’s already aching, he trails the other down Jake’s chest and hooks his fingers into the waistband of his shorts to –

“Wait, hey,” Jake pinches him in the side and Bradley’s brain stutters to a halt.

He freezes and – they both know they’re out of condoms, right? That’s why Jake told him to wait the first time. He doesn’t… he isn’t sure what –

“Jesus, Bradley, I’m not gonna let you rawdog me on my sisters living room carpet.”

Well, if he puts it like that.

“Rawdog, huh? Were you part of a frat and never told anyone?”

Jake rolls his eyes, then gives him a pointed look.

“You wanna go bareback, you’ll have to do it somewhere my sister can’t find any evidence of it.”

His tongue suddenly feels like lead in his mouth. Bradley thinks of the shower for a second, but they tempted fate enough with blowjobs in there. His legs already feel a bit weak just thinking about fucking Jake without a condom, there’s no way in hell he can manage to stay on his feet in a slippery tub. He’d definitely break his neck. What a way to go though.

It's a good thing Jake doesn’t need to overthink every single thing, because he pushes Bradley off of him after the silence stretches on for five more seconds, then gets up and pulls up Bradley along with him. They leave the cool living room together and walk back out into the heat, into their little shack that is hot like the inside of a toaster oven. Fucking hell, they should probably sleep in the living room tonight.

Aside from the abominable temperatures, everything is easy after that. Bradley knows Jake’s body about as well as his own at this point; knows where he’s ticklish and what spots are particularly sensitive, what gets him to bite his lip and clench his eyes shut. He knows exactly how Jake says he likes to get fucked, and how he really wants to get fucked.

He gets his mouth on Jake’s dick while he fingers him open, steadfastly and continuously telling himself to focus on that and that alone, because if he thinks about what this is leading up to, he might blow his load of the spot.

“Fucking hell, Bradley,” Jake pants, then audibly swallows spit that seems to have accumulated in his mouth. “You trying to dig for oil?”

Bradley splutters around Jake’s dick, and has to pull off to not accidentally choke himself.

“Don’t make me laugh when I’m blowing you, jerk.”

Jake raises his brows, pointedly rolls his hips, fucking himself back on Bradley’s stilled fingers.

“Then get the hell on with it.”

Bradley has never fucked anyone bare before. Never even entertained the thought before today, because he is not a fucking idiot. Even when he was younger, and a lot more stupid, sleeping around quite a bit just because he could, he’d done it responsibly, because the last thing he’d needed was the clap – or something worse. So he really isn’t prepared for what it feels like when he pushes inside without any layer between his dick and the hot, clenching walls of Jake’s hole as it sucks him in.

A groan works its way up his throat, but it’s choked out before it can sound past his lips. Bradley can’t get enough air inside his body to make a noise, or form any coherent thought for that matter, all his senses tunnel-visioning in on where he and Jake are joined. Fingers digging into Jake’s hips where they’re propped up on a pillow, Bradley has to touch his forehead to Jake’s collarbone and catch his breath, because it is so overwhelming, so thoroughly all-encompassing he can’t quite tell anymore where his body begins, or where it ends.

“You good?” he eventually manages to say, voice throaty, and pushes up to look at Jake’s face.

“Yeah,” Jake replies and Christ, if Bradley wasn’t prepared for how it feels to fuck into him bare, he is even less prepared for Jake’s face after he’s fully sheathed, flush high on his cheeks and lips parted in a silent gasp. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Bradley nods, more to himself than to Jake whose eyes are directed at the ceiling, unseeing. He can make this good for him, he can… he can make it so good Jake won’t be able to forget about it and it’s with another current of electricity shooting down his spine that he realizes that this might not just be the first time he has ever fucked anyone bare. This may very well be the first time Jake has ever let anyone fuck him without a condom.

The realization makes his hips stutter forward sharply and fucking hell, the glide is so hot, and so wet. Bradley pushes up, sits back on his haunches, hands twitching where they’re clinging to Jake’s sharp hipbones. He is a goddamn masterpiece, half in Bradley’s lap, half spread out on sheets they really should have washed at some point; defined abs and soft hair, darker than expected, and probably the most perfect pair of tits he’s ever seen. Certainly the most perfect pair he’s ever gotten his hands on.

Bradley’s eyes fall back down to where they are joined; where his dick is pushing into Jake, no condom, completely bare, and it hits him again like a solid punch to the jaw.

“Fuck, baby,” he pants, throat dry even though his mouth feels like it’s full of saliva.

He releases the grip he has on Jake’s hips to cup his ass for a moment, squeezing, feels the resulting clench around his dick. Then he slides up the back of Jake’s thighs all the way up to his ankles, positions them over his shoulders. Then he pretty much folds Jake in half. Dips back down, nips at his chest and his neck and jaw and lips, keeping his hips as still as he possibly can. A spurt of wetness against his belly, a dribble of pre-come gluing them together. Blindly, Bradley searches for Jakes hands, clenching the sheets, and he grabs them in each of his, moves them up, up, up on the mattress.

Interlaces their fingers.

“Fuck me, Bradley, come on.”

And Jake really does not need to tell him twice. Bradley starts rolling his hips again, slow at first, hard but searching, trying to get the angle right and clinging to the focus he has still left before he becomes overwhelmed by the sight of Jake relinquishing control and… and trusting Bradley to make it good, to take care of him.

He squeezes Jake’s hands, touches their foreheads together. They lock eyes and they don’t… Bradley can’t look away again, gaze frozen, the intimacy of it all making his teeth ache.

“Fuck,” Jake curses suddenly, “right there, Jesus, Bradley!”

It has him speed up, keeping the angle, snaps his hips harder and faster and he looks at Jake, just looks at him, keeps looking at him as his eyes water, as it collects at the corners of his eyes and his mouth drops open and stays open. He is usually so controlled and holds back and is so damn quiet, but it’s like Jake can’t help himself now, groans echoing through the small room alongside the sound of flesh slapping together as the room around them starts spinning.

Bradley can barely get enough air into his lungs. Jake has fucking ruined him for anyone else.

“You feel so good, baby,” he says, words slurring like he’s drunk, “you are so fucking perfect –”

Has to kiss him again, wet and hot, feverish with the need to make him come first and he should – fuck, he should touch Jake, get a hand on his dick, but when he considers loosening the hold he has on Jake’s hands, giving up the feeling of their fingers tangled together, tightly intertwined – he can’t bring himself to.

Doesn’t need to, in the end, as one minute bleeds into the next, bleeds into the next, Bradley losing sense of all time and space as he fucks into Jake as best as he can, needing to… to prove himself, maybe; prove that he can make him come, prove that Jake is worth it. All these thoughts and feelings jumble together in his head when he suddenly can’t look into Jake’s eyes anymore, because he is squeezing them shut, seizing up and then it’s just –

Heat, almost unbearable; a sudden wetness between their bellies. He is so tight, like a vice, and Bradley can’t breathe, he can’t think, body moving on instinct now, chasing the release that is so close he can taste it, sweet and sticky like honey.

Through the fog, he hears Jake say, “come on, Bradley,” breathless too, “come in me.”

His orgasm catches him like a too-strong wave close to the shore. Everything is spinning around him, and he feels dizzy and disoriented and he doesn’t know up from down, having lost all sense of his body as he shakes through burst after burst of pleasure, completely needing to surrender himself to it.

Bradley passes out; surely he does. Because he can’t recall how long it goes on, how he suddenly finds himself pressed to Jake, his face buried in Jake’s neck and soft fingers carding through his hair.  

Hears a soft shhh against his ear and only then realizes that he is shivering, shaking like a leaf from head to toe. Is still… fuck, still inside Jake, not entirely soft but getting there, his body slow to relinquish its grip on all that mind-numbing pleasure. Bradley needs a while to get his body back under control; to stop it from trembling in Jake’s arms. Jake, who, uncharacteristically, does not tell him to get off, or move, or bitch about anything else and instead is perfectly warm and still and calm. He strokes Bradley’s damp hair, fingers dancing cross his skull, and just holds him close until his dick finally slips out along with –

“Jesus fuck, Bradshaw. Where the hell did that come from?”

He barely manages to shrug, adds, “I don’t know,” because telling Jake that he’s never felt this turned on, this raw and overwhelmed, but also this much like himself, uninhibited, sleeping with someone, might be a bit much, a bit too heavy.

“I don’t think I can move,” he hears Jake say.

“That’s okay. I can’t move either.” Doesn’t actually want to.

day 12.

“You wanna go on a hike?”

The words tickle Bradley’s neck and pull him out of a comfortable semi-slumber. It takes a minute for them to register and actually penetrate the lower layers of his consciousness. His body feels heavy in the best possible way, his ass still a bit sore, but he instinctively pushes back against Jake anyway. And sure, he is a big guy, and he loves curling around someone smaller, even if that someone is just a few inches shorter, has obnoxiously sharp elbows and a mile-wide mean streak; but sometimes he fucking loves being the little spoon.

“Why d’you want to go on a hike?” he asks back, barely having lifted his face off of the pillow, his question muffled by it.

Jake’s nose rubs back and forth across his hairline, so tender Bradley feels it in his toes.

“Since you started preventing me from going on my morning run. Gotta get exercise somehow.”

Bradley snorts and pointedly rolls his hips. Jake isn’t hard, but Bradley is pretty sure he could get him there in a few minutes.

“Oh, I’m sure we’re both getting plenty of exercise.”

Teeth nip gently at the side of his neck.

“You’re a sex pest, Bradshaw.”

He catches one of the hands trailing up and down his flank in his and brings Jake’s arm around his body, presses a chaste kiss to his pulse point.

“And you’re recycling insults, Bagman. Maybe it’s time to come up with some new material.”

“Maybe,” Jake retorts, and this time when he sinks his teeth in, it actually fucking hurts, “you should try shutting up. And I swear to God, if the next words out of your mouth are ‘make me’, you can go back to sleeping on the couch.”

Bradley rolls his eyes, perfectly aware that Jake can’t see him do it. But he turns around so that they’re face to face, lands a kitten lick to the tip of Jake’s nose that makes him go momentarily cross-eyed before pressing a few close-mouthed pecks to Jake’s far too inviting lips.

“Maybe,” he says when their mouths part with a smack, swings his right leg over Jake’s to align their hips, bring them closer together again, “you need to be more convincing. If the options are going on a hike, or staying right here… well.”

It’s Jake who rolls his eyes this time, but his lips are twitching. It’s still heady as fuck, Bradley thinks, to see Jake this relaxed. His guard isn’t fully down, but it’s down enough, and Bradley doesn’t have the words to describe how it makes him feels to see these expressions Jake normally suppresses or tries to hide.

Jake leans forward, points his tongue to trace along Bradley’s bottom lip, but quickly moves back into his own space when Bradley tries to chase his lips, eyes shining with how pleased he is to have Bradley this desperate for him. He probably should get used to it at some point. Bradley is so fucking done with hiding it.

“I’ll wear the shorts that make my ass look great and you can ogle it as much as you want?”

Bradley pauses to ponder on that. All the shorts make Jake’s ass look good. That’s kind of the problem. Jake knows it, too. He probably has some thoroughly unsexy clothes buried in his duffel, but refuses to wear anything that won’t drive Bradley up the wall with uncontainable desire. Instead, he parades around in flimsy running shorts or cut-offs he may as well have purchased from pillow princess dot com.

“You like it when I look at your ass,” Bradley says and grabs a handful to underline his point. “You like what I do to your ass. And,” he adds and drops his voice, leans forward to whisper it into Jake’s ear like it’s a secret, “I like what you do to mine.”

He feels the tremor that goes through Jake against his body, and sees the way he bites his lips when he leans back again.

“Focus, Bradshaw,” Jake says coolly in spite of the flush coloring his cheeks.

“Right,” Bradley takes a moment to respond, and only after he’s audibly swallowed. “A hike. I mean, sure? Like, today?”

Jake shrugs. “There’s this wildlife refuge not too far from here. And I figure it won’t be too busy on a Tuesday.”

That stumps Bradley a little, because it sounds like Jake has been thinking about this. It’s not a spur of the moment idea that just popped into his head. He sounds a little hesitant even, despite his insistence for Bradley to focus, like he’s not entirely sure he wants to go on the hike he just proposed.

Or – no. That’s not it. He’s picked the spot. Maybe had it picked out before Bradley even got here; maybe well before he invited Bradley to join him in Texas. This hike has been planned for a while. Where Jake is hesitant is not whether to go or not, but… whether he wants Bradley to come along.

Huh.

Might be a bit hot to go on a hike. Still, Bradley says, “okay, yeah. We can go on a hike. Probably a good idea to get out a bit.”

He has no idea how much of the last handful of days they’ve spent in bed just… well. And he is slightly afraid to give an estimate. But fresh air, even if it’s hot air, and some conventional exercise will probably do both of them good. Might even help get Bradley’s libido back to a semi-normal level. Be out with Jake in public and like, not climb him like a tree and all that. Balance.

“Okay,” Jake echoes, quietly. “Okay.”

The sun beats down on them mercilessly as their legs carry them along gentle hills over well-walked paths, the occasional cloud slipping in front of it providing momentary respite, though never for long, and never very much. The ground is dry and dusty, so warmed up that Bradley feels like heat is hitting him from above and below. All sunblock he slathered on his shoulder just an hour ago is most likely already evaporated or run down his back and chest along with copious amounts of sweat. The shirt that had initially protected his shoulders from the inevitable sunburn (he did take a moment to silently curse his Irish and Scottish ancestry) has ended up wound around his head like the world’s ugliest turban.

Jake, golden fucking Adonis that he is, probably does not need to worry about sunburn anymore. He is, as promised, wearing a rather flimsy pair of shorts that Bradley continues to quietly appreciate as Jake walks slightly ahead of him. Quietly, because sans shirt, but with a damn Cowboys cap on backwards, he kind of looks like the douchebags Bradley did try very hard to avoid in college.

He'd told him so the second Jake had put the cap on in the refuge parking lot.

“You look like such a frat boy,” he’d said, adding, “I can’t believe I’m attracted to you.”

It hadn’t fazed Jake, who’d taken less than a second to return the barb with, “right back atcha, Magnum PI,” before leading with a tempo that indicated that he meant business.

So now they have been hiking through this wildlife refuge west of Austin for just over an hour, and Bradley honestly does not understand why anyone would do this for fun. He likes being active as much as the next guy, and the job demands a certain level of fitness and sure, he won’t deny that there is a bit of vanity involved in it all as well. But he likes impact sports. He likes the beach. He likes a nice climatized gym with decent weights. And Bradley would be curios how Jake can maintain the kind of muscle he carries if he didn’t know how much he eats, or that he can bench-press as much as him on a good day, given how much he fucking runs and – apparently – hikes.

At least the view is pretty decent, Bradley thinks when they stop for a water break. They’re both carrying backpacks with a few bottles each, because they aren’t idiots, and as much as Bradley didn’t want to end up splashed against a mountainside in enemy territory, he fancies dying of accidental dehydration even less.

Jake seems deep in thought as they rest up for a few minutes, a faraway look in his eyes, fingers absentmindedly fiddling with the bottle cap. He’s been pretty quiet all morning aside from the occasional joke at Bradley’s expense, kind of like he’d been right after the mission, and it is just as jarring. With a pang to his chest, it dawns on Bradley that this may be a glimpse at an echo of a teenaged Jake, thoughtful and withdrawn, disappearing into books because he’d been thrown into a world that hadn’t quite been ready for him yet.

It aches for a moment; the realization that he gets to see this, whether Jake is intentionally allowing him to be a witness to it or simply feels comfortable enough to let his guard down. But the ache doesn’t linger. It dissipates, leaving behind a warmth that’s not hot or burning but comfortable and comforting and Bradley is struck by the question if this is what it actually feels like.

If this is how it feels to fall in love.

Not butterflies in his stomach, making him feel unsettled and queasy and on edge. No sleepless nights and loss of appetite and thinking he can’t breathe. But instead, just – comfort. Warmth, and a sense of content settling over him like a blanket. No nerves, or dread, or a racing pulse, but –

Peace. God, finally, a sense of peace, and belonging, and… and home.

Fuck, he can already hear Tasha’s cackle at his predicament. Not even two weeks in Texas, and he’s gone and –

But well. This is it, he realizes. Too late to turn back now. He’s just… gone and done it. No use to worry himself into a frenzy over something that is probably a done deal now; over feelings that he doubts are just going to disappear if he asks nicely.

“Hey,” Jake’s voice suddenly draws him from his reverie. “You okay?”

“Mhm,” Bradley hums in response with a tight-lipped smile.

His heart is in his throat and he suddenly has the irrational fear that if he opens his mouth it’ll fall right out of it.

Averting his eyes, Bradley pulls the shirt off of his head, rubs it over his sweaty face until it smarts, probably sunburned already, too. Dragging the fabric down his arms, his chest, he swallows a few times, for good measure, and lifts his gaze again to find Jake still looking at him quizzically, clearly not buying Bradley’s dismissal, because – damn, when has he ever been able to hide anything from him.

“What do you do when you’re off-shore?” he asks to deflect. “When you can’t run or, like, hike? Because that’s gotta be a neurosis.”

Jake knows that’s what he’s doing for sure, be he is kind enough to indulge him.

“Treadmills, mostly,” he replies. “And yes, asshat, not like Kerri has already told me a dozen times I should go to therapy.”

Bradley has barely met Jake’s sister, but it was enough to get the impression she’d be really frank about stuff like that.

“Why don’t you?”

Jake snorts. “Right, because that would really score me points with the brass. Say one wrong word and they’d strip me of my wings. Idiot.”

It’s a fair point, even though a civilian might be bound by confidentiality, but it’s not like Bradley’s ever considered therapy. He is aware enough to know he probably needs it, but he’s learned what to say during his mandatory shrink sessions to keep the Navy happy and his ass in the air.

“So you run instead.”

“Yeah, Rooster,” Jake replies flatly, because Bradley is stating the obvious, “I run.” He pauses, twists the bottle cap back and forth, gaze sweeping back out over the gentle hills.

“It’s… all basically chemical reactions, right? Thoughts, feelings, all that shit. And so moving the body is just a way of like – processing it all.”

“You mean, like,” Bradley tries to understand, “digesting it?”

“I guess, sure,” Jake says, “probably a way to describe it. At least, that’s how I think about it. If something’s stuck in my head I just start running and it just gets…”

“Unstuck,” Bradley finishes.

He has to admit it does make sense. But it also sounds like Jake has merely found a way of handling the symptoms, not really addressing the cause. And that sounds awfully familiar to Bradley. Having to confront the past just by having Mav back in his life also means that he’s had, albeit reluctantly, needed to shine a light on this rage he’d carried with himself for so long. The rage had just been a symptom, nothing more, triggered by Mav pulling his papers. But the underlying cause of that rage – well. That’s a different can of worms he’s still not fully opened.

Jake nods, has another sip of water, and Bradley can’t but momentarily focus on the way his throat works, distracted by the up and down movement of his Adam’s apple.

“Maybe Kerri is right about therapy though,” he suggests quietly, as much to himself as well as Jake.

So much trauma between them, it seems. They’d probably make any therapist run for the fucking hills.  

“Kerri is right about most things,” Jake says.

“It’s gotta be nice that you get along with her so well,” he can’t help but comment, because it’s something he’d wished for every now and again growing up. Having a sibling might have meant a constant companion, someone in his corner, to share all that grief and weight of being orphaned.

So the snort Jake gives in response to that comes as a surprise.

“We get along now,” he thankfully explains right away. “We hated each other growing up.”

“Really?”

Jake shrugs with a rueful smile. He reaches for the backpack and zips it open, drops the empty bottle of water in it and zips it shut again. Leaning back on his hands, his legs stretch out, heels of his shoes dragging through the rubble of the path.

“We’re six years apart, so there really wasn’t anything we’d do together as kids. I think once I turned four or five, I just annoyed the hell out of her, and she thought it was funny to rile me up.”

Bradley has to smile, can imagine it too well. A gap-toothed blonde boy with a mighty scowl on his face, and a much younger Kerri poking at him. Well, Jake had to have picked the whole schtick up somewhere. Seems like his sister did to him what he’d done to Bradley.

“I went at her with a baseball bat once,” Jake continues and – Jesus, Bradley’s eyes go wide. “Then she pushed me down the stairs. One time, I bit her so hard mom had to drive her to the hospital because her arm just swelled up like hell.”

“Fucking hell,” Bradley breathes out, almost misses the fact that this is the first time Jake has mentioned his mother. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to be an only child. “How’d you go from that to…”

Jake breathes in deep, tilts his face up towards the sky for a moment. When he drops his head again and looks over at Bradley, there’s a poignant smile tugging at his lips.  

“Just… figured out it was easier to stick together,” he says cryptically and leaves it at that. “We go through ups and downs though. Didn’t speak for a year after I went to USNA.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I didn’t tell her I’d applied. She was mad as hell.”

A question about Jake’s parents sits on the tip of Bradley’s tongue, ready to jump off of it, but he can’t quite bring himself to let it. He doesn’t doubt Kerri hadn’t been pleased, especially if Jake had sprung it on her. When he’d sat with her in her kitchen, he hadn’t missed the way her eyes had continued to stumble over his tags, the unhappy twist to her mouth when he’d mentioned the mission. People who fight hard love hard as well, he guesses. She may have pushed Jake down the stairs as a kid, but Bradley doesn’t doubt Kerri would do quite a lot to stop anyone else from hurting her brother.

And he can’t really figure out where the parents fit in here.

Bradley doesn’t get the chance to voice any further thoughts or questions though, because Jake grabs his backpack and urges them on, the afternoon sun already high in the sky. So Bradley takes a deep breath, stuffs his shirt into his own backpack and follows Jake like he’s followed him since he arrived in Texas.

Jake doesn’t exactly set a breakneck pace, but it’s pretty brisk and it doesn’t take long for Bradley to have sweated out all the water he just had. At least he won’t be needing a piss for a while. And he has to give it to Jake; it does feel good to move his legs, to push his body like he normally doesn’t push it when he’s on shore leave and feel that strain in his legs, that burn in his lungs.

It's hot, but the heat is dry out here, and almost bearable, but his sunglasses keep sliding down his nose and it irritates the living shit out of Bradley. He pushes it up only for it to slip right back down and the curses he lets out under his breath must be loud enough to reach Jake’s ears, because he suddenly comes to a halt, turns on his heels and walks the three steps back to where Bradley has paused with a huff.

With a roll of his eyes, Jake grabs for his sunglasses with his left hand and slides them up his own nose before pulling his cap off of his head with his right. Then he puts it on Bradley’s head. The right way around, this time, effectively shielding his eyes from the sun.

It leaves Bradley so stumped he can’t even utter out a thanks before Jake has turned around and started walking again.

The eventual answers to a lot of questions that have been nagging at Bradley since he arrived on Jake’s sister’s doorstep are prompted by a throwaway comment that probably wasn’t intended to even register on Bradley’s radar.

They’ve been going uphill for a while, but it’s a steady ascent and not particularly steep, so when Jake eventually announces that they’ve made it to the top, Bradley briefly wonders what top? before he realizes that this is probably the highest point of the refuge, and that this was where Jake was leading them all along. They eat a late lunch sitting on a flat slab of rock overlooking the surrounding area, the Colorado River like a winding snake curling through the underbrush and the Austin skyline hazy in the distance.

It is, Bradley has to admit, really fucking nice. And even though he has definitely burned his shoulders to hell, he is real glad that Jake convinced him to go. As much as he would have loved to spend yet another day between Jake and the sheets of his bed, he figures that this is Jake sharing something with him he probably doesn’t share with many people, if any at all. He thinks about Jake sitting here on his own, and himself sequestered away in that empty house in San Diego, and it… it kind of scares the shit out of him that this could very well have been how their respective lives could’ve gone.

“This is nice,” he says after he’s washed the rest of his protein bar down with water.

Jake is still picking at his sandwich, eyes hidden behind Bradley’s shades.

“My dad used to take us here on weekends when we were kids.”

Bradley freezes, but Jake is focused on the tufts of bread he’s plucking away, not glancing his way. Used to rings in his ears and he isn’t sure if he should… if he can –

“I’m –,” he starts, feels his throat go tight, “is he –”

“Relax,” Jake says, even though he suddenly looks a bit tenser than he did just a moment ago. “He’s not dead. Or, at least,” he adds with a wry smile, “last I heard.”     

“Oh,” Bradley breathes, kind of relieved. “So, you’re just…” He doesn’t really know how to finish that question, not entirely sure what he’s even asking.

“Haven’t spoken to him in like, ten years, I think? Haven’t seen him in even longer.”

Bradley quickly does the math in his head. He thinks that puts their last conversation around Jake’s high school graduation, or maybe first year at the Academy. It’s a hell of a long time to go without speaking to a parent. He probably didn’t go a day without talking to his mom while she was alive. But, and it is maybe a bit embarrassing that it actually takes him a few seconds to remember, he did stop speaking to Mav for over a decade. And considering what prompted him to cut his godfather out of his life so completely, he is slightly worried about Jake’s motive.

“What happened?” he asks, cautiously.

There are so many options that suddenly pop into his head, one worse than the other, so when Jake just calmly replies, “nothing,” Bradley doesn’t really know what to do with that. But Jake can sense his confusion. Shrugs at the expression on his face.

Just coolly and steadily, entirely detached and with a shockingly even voice, explains, “they got divorced when I was, I don’t know, two or maybe three. Left my mom for his secretary, because he needed to be a fucking cliché. Mom got full custody, I guess mostly to get even. So we saw him every other weekend and in the beginning he… tried, I think, took us on hikes and trips, but –”

He cuts off. The bread of the sandwich is unsalvageable, ripped into many tiny tufts and pieces by hands that shake so that Jake’s voice can remain even, that his expression can remain composed. It might have all happened a long time ago, but that wound is still raw as hell, and Bradley knows all about living with something like that; about wanting to hide the gaping mess from everyone around him.

“It was all just… wanting to win us over, I guess, getting us on his side and not mom’s, trying to make each other look bad in front of us. And at some point, he stopped trying, and then Kerri didn’t want to go anymore, and then I didn’t want to go stay with him and stepmom number one, and then number two.”

Jake brushes some crumbs off his lap, restless fingers starting to tug on the hem of his shorts and Bradley is torn between the need to reach out and take his hands and staying absolutely still to not disrupt this moment.

“Mom didn’t make me go, because for her, it meant she’d won. Not that I had any clue that’s what was going on back then,” he adds with a self-deprecating laugh that really doesn’t sit right with Bradley. “Anyway, he sent birthday and Christmas presents, and it wasn’t like there was a big falling out,” not like with him and Mav, Bradley guesses, “even though he really wasn’t into the idea of me joining the Navy. He went to business school, so he always thought that’s what I should be doing, too. But that’s it,” Jake concludes and turns to Bradley with a barely-there smirk, like he can’t quite get the Hangman mask back on just yet. “Nothing dramatic. Just…”

Just a father not trying, Bradley’s mind supplies silently and he really isn’t sure which is worse. Because, fucking hell, for all his faults and mistakes and bad calls, at least Mav had always tried.

“What did your mom think?” he has to ask, because he’d made a lot of assumptions about Jake over the years, but him being raised by a single mom never really crossed his mind. Probably a bit narrow-minded of him, sure, because no mother-and-son relationship is the same, but it just never struck him as a possibility. He was so close to his mom. Jake didn’t even mention his before this day. “About you joining the Navy.”

The snort Jake lets out in response does not bode well for the rest of this conversation. He shakes his head mostly to himself, and there is that self-deprecating smile again that Bradley really never wants to see on Jake’s face again.

“Just another point to add to the long list of things she’s constantly disappointed with. And before you get your panties in a twist, Rooster,” Jake says breezily, like he isn’t just unfolding a few decades worth of unresolved family-related trauma. “It’s fine. We’re not a close family. Never were. Everyone just… kind of does their own thing.”

Bradley has no doubt that that’s how Jake thinks about it all. Just a group of people who aren’t close, who were not sentimental, but independent and self-sufficient.

“My mother and I get along better if we… don’t share the same space. I used to make more of an effort, but,” Jake shrugs again, “there’s no pleasing her. And she’s not – well.”

He pauses, tilts his head back, facing into the sun, its light reflecting off of his shades. Takes a deep breath.

“I called her, you know. Usually we just text on birthdays, maybe Thanksgiving etcetera. But before we shipped out for… I thought, I mean, there’s always a risk, but this time it was a real possibility that quite a few of us weren’t coming home. So I called her. Said the details were classified, but that I might not make it back.”

He stops. A part of Bradley really doesn’t want him to go on either, because he fears that once he hears what Jake’s mom said to her son in response, he might have to track her down and give her a piece of his mind. Another part, though, needs to hear it. And even more than that, he thinks Jake really needs to say it.

So he asks, “what did she say?”

Jake drops his head, takes off the sunglasses and folds them up, carefully sets them on the rock and for a few beats he is so quiet, and so still, that Bradley flinches when Jake suddenly moves again. His hand shoots up to his eyes and he rubs across them frantically, a muscle in his jaw twitching and even though it’s hot as hell, Bradley is starting to feel cold.

It doesn’t take more than two or three seconds for Jake to regain his composure, and to seem as disturbingly nonchalant as before.

“She said that it was a choice I made when I joined the Navy. The consequences of my actions, and that I should be able to deal with it.”

And it’s like… like the last pieces of the puzzle have suddenly slid into their rightful place, completing the picture. Bradley is pretty sure he’s gaping at Jake, jaw dropped, completely and utterly in shock that any person, let alone his mother, would say something like that.

“Are you,” he starts, has to pause to swallow a lump of rage that’s lodged itself in his throat, “are you fucking serious?”

And Jake just – he just shrugs it off. An unhappy twist to his mouth, a pinched expression, but he isn’t outraged when he damn well should be because how on fucking earth –

“It’s fine, Rooster, I –”

“No, are you –” Bradley squeezes his eyes shut, balls his fists, “are you actually trying to excuse –”

“I’m not, just – it’s –”

“Do not fucking say it’s fine, Jake, I swear –”

“I’m not, Bradley, will you just shut up, for a second, Christ,” Jake basically yells and Bradley snaps his mouth shut, still fuming, still furious, still feeling like he really wants to hit something. “I’m not trying to make an excuse. It’s… it’s why I’m not seeing her, while I’m here. Or, like, talking to her, right now. But it’s… complicated, okay? She’s not a bad person. Just…”

“A bad mother?” Bradley suggests, a bit sharper than what’s probably appropriate for him. It’s still Jake’s family, after all, but he’s so fucking angry on his behalf.

“Yeah, I guess,” and the way Jake visibly deflates once he’s agreed, once he’s admitted to it, reduces the hot burn of anger Bradley feels to a small simmer.

No fucking wonder Jake had been the way he’d been when they’d met. Bradley is honestly surprised he wasn’t worse. He’d been selfish, because he’d grown up needing to rely only on himself. He’d been harsh and an ass, because he’d never really learned about compassion, because nobody had shown him much of it. He’d pushed people away, because everyone who’d been supposed to hold him close had done it first.

Lord knows how Coyote managed to worm his way in. Perhaps that’s a story for another time. Another hike.

Bradley swallows down the lump of rage, the barrage of curses he wants to scream out, and without thinking too much, he pushes the remains of Jake’s dilapidated sandwich off the rock, scoots across, and pulls Jake tightly against his chest.

“Jesus Christ, Bradley, I don’t need –”

“I know, I know,” Bradley interrupts him gently, voice quiet, nose in Jake’s hair as his arms wind around Jake’s still rigid and stiff upper body. “But maybe I do.”

Because he really needs to hug Jake right now. Be as close as possible and possibly, afterwards, find every single person that ever made Jake feel like he was not enough, or too much; like he was not good enough, like there was always something wrong with him, when he is the most infuriatingly perfect person Bradley has ever met. He wants to find Jake’s dad and punch his lights out, and he wants to yell at Jake’s mom for being so cruel, and with an uncomfortably sharp twist in his gut, Bradley realizes he probably needs to tear himself a new one too, because -

Fuck, he’d thoughtlessly thrown so many words Jake’s way when he’d rile him up and sure, fucking sure, Jake had started it, but Bradley said so many things to him in return; things he now understands must’ve hurt like hell and he squeezes his eyes shut again, breathes harshly in through his nose, throat burning.

He’d yelled shit like ‘what the fuck is wrong with you? Were you never hugged as a child, asshole?’ and God, fucking – God – Bradley is such a piece of shit, he probably hadn’t been. It’s a bit much, actually, just one shoe dropping after the other as Jake finally relaxes and melts into his arms and that’s –

That’s just another damn thing, isn’t it? Touch-starved, he thinks it’s called; the tension in Jake’s body that never fully leaves, that always intensifies when someone moves in close, even if it’s just a hand to the elbow, a brush of shoulders, every muscle in his body curled tight, because… because it’s so unfamiliar to him. And now, how it always takes a few moments for Jake to relax, before he becomes so unbearably soft, because he's been starving for this kind of physical contact.

Hell, even the first few times they had sex start to make a lot more sense now.

“You must think I am such a piece of shit,” Jake mumbles into his neck.

“Why on earth would I think that?” he responds, confused.

“Because my parents are alive, and I can’t be asked to talk to them, and yours –”

“Fuck, Jake,” Bradley squeezes him just a bit tighter, “this isn’t a competition. Just because… I’m an orphan, doesn’t mean you can’t have shitty parents.”

He feels Jake’s hand go up to the base of his neck, fingers sliding into his hair, making his toes tingle.

“If you put it like that,” Jake drawls, sounding a bit more like himself again, and Bradley –

Fuck, Bradley is so in love with him. He doesn’t know what to do with that; how to get a lid on these feelings and… everything they drag along with them. It makes him feel a bit nauseous, actually, a little dizzy too, not used to… to feeling this much, to caring so deeply. The need to hold Jake close, to protect him, is overwhelming even though Bradley knows Jake really doesn’t need protecting. Jake is tough as hell, and a lot braver than Bradley as well, because somehow, he’s managed to lay it all out on this bit of rock between them, unflinching and unafraid, making himself vulnerable in a way Bradley has never managed.

Isn’t sure if he can, even now.

But he’s got to try. If he wants to hold onto Jake, onto this, in any way he can, he’s got to… he’s got to drop down and take the fucking shot. Wingmen, right? That’s what it’s all about. Jake just trusted him to have his back. Bradley needs to trust Jake to have his, too.

He pulls back a little and pushes that damn cap off his head, one hand rubbing through his hair, matted to his scalp, the other still around Jake’s shoulders, holding him close. Touching their foreheads together, Bradley closes his eyes; relishes this closeness, this intimacy he’s never experienced with anyone else and allows himself to feel comfortable in it. To feel safe with it.

“Mav pulled my application,” he eventually musters up the courage to say, so close to Jake that their lips nearly brush as he moves them.

Out of the entire Dagger squad, only Tasha is in the know, still, and even she doesn’t know the whole truth. Everyone else had seemed happy to just roll with them repairing their relationship post-mission, no further questions asked.

“My entire life, all I ever wanted to do was fly, and then he pulled some strings, and he told me I wasn’t ready, and I,” he continues, still finding it hard to speak around the residue of anger that still clings to his body, even though he gets it now, and he’s forgiven Mav. “I lost it. Screamed at him, punched a hole in the wall, and then I left and didn’t speak to him again until we all got called back.”

“Jesus,” Jake says with an exhale.

“Only told me after the mission that… that my mom had asked him.”

Jake’s hands slide along his shoulders to his arms, and he leans back, searches Bradley’s eyes, but Bradley can’t quite bring himself to meet Jake’s gaze, feeling unsteady and raw and just –

“She didn’t want me to die like my dad,” and that part, when Mav had told him, that had been easier to understand, easier to swallow and digest. But Bradley also knows what his mom was like, and while she was the best mom in the world, she could also be cruel.

“She didn’t want me to fly, and she knew what buttons to push to get Mav to promise her. And Mav being Mav – well. He was like, sure, hey, I’ll fall on that sword for you. Didn’t want me to resent her, so like the martyr he fucking is, he took all the blame and I –”

He finds Jake’s hand and grabs it, has to hold it tight, cling to it like it’s his lifeline.

 “Looking back now, I think all we needed was to sit down and talk for five fucking minutes, and it would’ve worked out, but he’s never been rational, and I… Losing dad, and then watching mom slowly wither away and die… I carried around this, this bag of – of anger. And I think I just… I needed that anger to go somewhere.”

“Mav just stepped in it, huh?”

Jake’s left hand finds the other, already entangled with Bradley’s, and he cradles it between his, so sweet and so gentle that Bradley feels a bit choked up for a whole other reason.

“I still think I was right to be angry, and I can’t… like, regret that part of it. But at the same time it’s probably what I regret most. It’s just so much time that… I’m not getting back. And when he got shot down, that’s all I could think about and I just… I think I just lost my mind for a solid ten minutes.”

“Yeah,” Jake says, soothingly rubbing his thumb across the back of Bradley’s hand, “that’ll do it.”

“Did a number on him,” Bradley goes on. Now that he’s started, he can’t seem to stop. “Losing my dad like that. It was just… a freak accident; a lot of unfortunate shit lining up. He broke his neck, when they ejected over water. Took ages to fish them out. Mav held onto his dead body for nearly two hours.”

There’s a soft buzzing noise in his ears. Jake squeezes his hand.

“I can’t really remember him. At all. I think I was too young. Sometimes I think that maybe I do, but I don’t know if it’s just – I can’t tell whether I really remember something about him, or I simply heard some story so many times it’s become kind of… ingrained, y’know.”

He feels a bit numb, but Jake’s touch helps, and so he intertwines their fingers and for a moment, just stares at their hands; the difference in size, his just slightly bigger, a bit paler. There’s a very small and fine scar on one of Jake’s knuckles, and Bradley’s lips tingle with how much he wants to press them to it.

“Mom would always say stuff like, remember when your dad did this and that and I’d say yeah, sure, even though I never really did. Everyone tried so hard to keep him alive for me, but all I really know for sure is that he was in the Navy, and he played the piano, and he loved to sing, and he wore ridiculous Hawaiian shirts.”

He hears Jake suck a breath in through his teeth, feels it in the way his fingers twitch and he figures this is the moment that a lot of shoes drop for Jake as well. Plop, plop, plop, one after the other. Welcome to Bradley Bradshaw’s pathetic little world.

“Yeah, so I listened to his records, and I learned to play piano, and started wearing these shirts and… and I joined the Navy.” He snorts, self-deprecating just like Jake had. They really are a fucking pair. “My entire personality is just… some fucked-up knock-off sprinkled with a lot of unresolved anger issues. Pretty pathetic, huh?”

He’s never said this to anyone. Never even said it out loud, always tightly locked away somewhere, always covered up by easy smiles, a pat on the shoulder, a song or two. It does feel cathartic to finally voice it, but it’s burned his throat on the way up and out. Exhausted and raw and a little bit messed up, he almost flinches when Jake’s palm slides over his cheek.

Jake gives him time, a steadying touch to ground him, nothing more, and when Bradley finally manages to raise his gaze, he finds Jake’s eyes waiting, green and clear and so full of – full of –

“You’re not pathetic, Christ, Bradley,” Jake tells him, quiet but firm. “You know I’m just teasing you because you make it work.”

It’s dizzying to think that within less than two weeks, they have gone from having stilted conversations to sharing truths they’ve not shared with anyone else. And even though they’ve had a lot of sex, in a lot of different positions and variations, perhaps been naked in each other’s presence more than they’ve been clothed –

In this moment, Bradley feels wholly and truly bare.

“You telling me I look good, Hangman?”

“Yeah,” Jake sighs, a gentle smile curving his lips. “Yeah, you look good.”

And it sounds like he’s saying something else entirely.

day 13.

Jake’s family is due back in the early evening, so they spend most of the day getting the house in order. To be perfectly honest, there isn’t much of a mess, because they did spend a significant chunk of their time in bed, but they still scrub the house from roof to floor, attack the bathroom with bleach and all other surfaces with all-purpose cleaner. Bradley feels a little paranoid about their little… sex shack and throws all windows open, airs it out so that it doesn’t smell like they’ve been going at it inside it for days on end – even if that is what’s happened. His face flames when he empties out the trashcan, hiding the used condoms with a few wads of tissue and sends a prayer to the heavens that nobody actually digs through it.

It keeps them busy for a while, and that’s fine, but Bradley can’t help but notice that Jake seems tense, a bit quiet. Neither one of them has really brought up how things should continue when Kerri, Gabriel and the girls are back. He doesn’t know how Jake wants to play it, and judging by the pinched expression Jake wears all day, he probably hasn’t made his mind up about it yet. There’s always the possibility that Jake isn’t out to his family, and maybe he isn’t to his parents, but Bradley is pretty sure that Kerri is in the know.

But he doesn’t know how to broach the subject. Whether he should just outright ask or follow Jake’s lead when his family gets here. Not that that’s going to address the underlying issue of not really knowing where they stand. Bradley thinks they’re on the same page; at least every fiber in his body tells him they are. But he’s also leaving in two days, duty calling him back as much as it will call Jake back too, and it will be entirely out of their control where they end up, and for how long.

It's not ideal. But what in life ever is?

Bradley really wants to figure out what they are, and what they could be. Yet every time Jake brushes past him, eyes downcast and focused on whatever task on hand, all words get stuck in his throat, and he can’t get anything out.

So he gets on with it, and in the afternoon they drive out to the nearest pizza joint, pick up a few family-sized pies that are probably big enough to feed an entire squadron, the smell making Bradley’s stomach rumble as it fills Jake’s truck. The living room is now lovely and cool thanks to the perfectly functioning air conditioner, which absolutely does not make Bradley puff up his chest in the slightest, and as a result, the rest of the house isn’t quite as hot as the outside anymore.

Jake’s family rolls into the driveway just after five, the girls’ voices penetrating the front door before it bangs open and they rush in at such a speed they nearly knock Jake off of his feet as they throw themselves against his chest. Bradley ducks his head to hide the way it makes his eyes sting a little and his throat clog up.

Ines and Lula register after just a second that the air is cool, dark button eyes zeroing in on the quietly buzzing air conditioner immediately and with a screech that could shatter glass, the dart over to the window to inspect it. Gabriel walks in carrying the bags, draws Jake into a one-armed hug, nods at Bradley, before making his way over to the girls to make sure they don’t accidentally break anything.

Kerri – well. She looks rested, at least, but also murderous when she sees what Jake bought against her wishes. The dark circles under her eyes have disappeared, making her seem about five years younger instantly, and her face is more tanned, fuller like her in-laws fed her lots of solid meals. After a staring contest between her and Jake that lasts a solid ten seconds, she huffs and rolls her eyes, and the hug she pulls her brother into is long and firm.

Her green eyes find Bradley’s over Jake’s shoulder; sharp and far too observant.

They all manage to cramp into the small kitchen around the far too small table. Nobody really gets a word in edgewise as the girls start relaying what appears to be a minute by minute retelling of their time at their grandparents’ house to their uncle, inhaling a quite surprisingly big amount of pizza slices in between words, fingers and cheeks shining with grease.

It's not long until Ines and Lula crash though, eyes drooping after the long drive and what was probably two weeks of constant excitement and fun, their grandparents spoiling them beyond belief. Kerri and Gabriel seem eager to head to bed, too, so Bradley and Jake volunteer to clean up, put the remaining pizza into Tupperware and then into the fridge. The house is dark and quiet when they shut the door to the patio behind them, two bottles of beer in tow, finishing a bottle each as they sit out on the lawn, legs stretched out, watching as the sun slowly starts its descent over the neighborhood, painting the sky pink.

There is so much Bradley wants to say; needs to say. It would be the perfect moment to ask Jake what he thinks, maybe even how he feels, and what they are supposed to do once Bradley has to make the trip back to San Diego the day after tomorrow. But for some reason, he just can’t get himself to talk, even gets as far as opening his mouth, only for his lips to press firmly together again as his eyes hungrily take in every inch of Jake, who looks so devastatingly beautiful in the warm light of the sunset.

They make love that night. Bradley does not know how else to describe it. They’ve fucked, and they’ve had sex, but this just… seems different. Under the covers, face to face, he rocks into Jake, cupping his jaw, drinking in every gasp, every soft whine and every flicker in his eyes. What Bradley can’t say with words, he tries his hardest to say with his body, holding Jake like something precious and kissing him with all the desperation he feels when he thinks about not getting to do this every single day.

This can’t be the end. Bradley won’t let it.

day 14.

Gabriel is back to work that day, but Kerri doesn’t have her first shift until the following week, so once Jake has come back from the run Bradley really didn’t want him to go on, once the adults are appropriately caffeinated and the girls watered and fed, they all load into Jake’s truck, Kerri and the girls in the back and Bradley riding shotgun.

It’s strange, not to be alone with Jake anymore. They’ve lived in a perfect little bubble for the last two weeks, and now that bubble has very noticeably burst and they are floating, and Bradley is so fucking worried that they are floating away from one another. All morning, he’s wanted to move closer to Jake, but didn’t. And now, he wants to reach for Jake’s hand, but doesn’t. He’s not really felt panicked before. But he really is starting to feel the beginnings of it now.

The back of his neck starts to tingle and he glances into the rearview mirror, finds Kerri already looking at him curiously, with a fine line between her perfectly shaped brows. When she catches Bradley looking back at her, she tilts her head softly to the side, as if quietly asking, what’s going on here? And it makes him wonder what Jake told her about him and their relationship before he even got to Texas; what Jake might’ve told her while she was away, or to what conclusions she came to herself while he was here, playing house with her brother.

They go to the same spot Jake took him to the previous week and thankfully, it being a Thursday morning, it’s equally deserted, and Bradley feels his nerves dissipate a little watching Jake’s nieces tear off their shorts and run down the stretch of sand towards the water with matching battle cries that have got to be echoing far and wide. They splash around in the river right away, evidently not as picky about their beaches as Bradley, and not worried in the slightest about water quality. When Jake joins them in the water only a moment later, the noise level increases significantly as Ines and Lula screech like banshees before launching a full-blown attack.

He feels drawn to Jake like always, and wants to be physically close to him, but there is also something that clamps around his breastbone and holds him back. So instead, he helps Kerri with the towels, bags and cooler, lugging everything over to a shady spot, because he really does not need to add to the mildly red tinge his shoulders and nose are already sporting. Kerri, in a one-piece and what Bradley assumes to be one of her husband’s shirts, is not quite as tan as Jake or her daughters, but probably also not very prone to sunburn.

She sinks down on one of the towels and draws her legs close, resting her arms on her bony knees, eyes firmly fixed on where Jake has now started to launch the girls into the water like Bradley foolishly thought he’d be able to do with Jake, their shrieking laughter making something warm bloom in Bradley’s chest, almost warm enough to scare away that frigid panic that has begun to curl around his neck like a scarf.

He's glad her attention is on her kids, and also that he remembered his sunglasses, effectively hiding the fact that he cannot tear his gaze away from Jake once it’s settled on him. So they sit together in companionably silence for a while, the ruckus in the water dying down until Jake and his nieces are floating in the water together, the girls chatting away again, but now that they’re not screaming, their voices don’t carry far enough for Bradley to understand what they’re saying to their uncle.

His entire body aches from the undeniable and immutable fact that he will leave Texas, leave Jake, tomorrow without having a single clue how he is supposed to handle that. He’s been happy to pretty much stay in denial about it all, but Bradley is sure reality is going to hit him, and hit him hard, the second he has to say goodbye to this.

There are so many thoughts swirling in his head, colliding and splintering off into even more questions that he does not have any answers for. But, he thinks, glancing at Kerri, maybe there are a few things she can give him clarity on.

“I was wondering,” he starts, and Kerri turns her head towards him, “when I met you; what made you think I was Rooster? You said it made sense.”

She chuckles. “Well, I wasn’t a fan of him joining the Navy, and I have kind of made my peace with it now, but back then he’d call, and he’d ask about the girls, and work, never really talk about what he was doing because he thought I didn’t really want to hear it.” Looking back out over the river, she continues, “the only time that changed was when he made the cut for this special flight training. What do you guys call it, Top Gun?”

“Yeah?” Bradley nods, not sure what she’s getting at.

“That was the only time he ever really talked about what he was up to. I think because he was genuinely excited. I had to look it up, you know,” Kerri adds with a wry smile, “to understand that it was a big deal. So half the time he talked about maneuvers, and some other technical stuff I didn’t understand. But the other half was just, Rooster this, and Rooster that, and he got so worked up over it all.”

Bradley’s face goes hot. He hopes he’s sunburned enough that it doesn’t show.

“And when you said that’s where you two met, and that you didn’t get along? I put two and two together,” Kerri concludes.

“Still a bit of a long shot,” Bradley comments, because it is. Jake didn’t get along with a lot of people.

“What can I say?” she retorts with a glimmer in her eyes that looks real fucking familiar, adding a wink to really top it off, “I know my brother.”

He doesn’t… quite know what to make of that. But Kerri evidently does know him well, and it probably took some time and a lot of effort from both sides to repair a relationship that, according to Jake, had been pretty contentious. She and Coyote should collaborate on that Hangman manual. It might come in handy now.

“I didn’t…,” he starts, “I thought I knew him better than I actually did. Turns out I made a lot of assumptions that were pretty off.”

“If you made them, he probably wanted you to,” Kerri says.

And Bradley gets that, he does. Jake pretty much said so as well. It’s just… Jake hadn’t been fooled, is the thing. While Bradley bought into the show Jake put on, Jake had probably seen through his act right away.

“Still,” he insists, kind of done with excuses. “I thought he was such an ass, and I guess I… I’ve just started to realize how much of an ass I was, too.”

“Well, you know what they say about hindsight,” Kerri tells him, gets to her knees to open up the cooler and dig through what they packed.

She pulls out two cans of soda, tosses one at Bradley, who thanks his well-trained reflexes when he manages to catch it one-handed before it can smack him in the face. He just presses it to his warm and slightly burned cheek, tries to organize the mess in his mind as Kerri cracks open the can and takes a sip. After, she holds it up in front of her face, and it looks like she’s studying the colorful font, but when she speaks up again a moment later, Bradley realizes she was just carefully deliberating what to tell him.

“He’s not an easy person to get a read on. I get him because I get it. We grew up the same. I was just real fucking lucky that I met Gabe straight out of high school, and that he’s probably the most patient man in all of Texas, because,” and she cuts herself off with a snort, “we got messed up real bad.”

Her jaw clenches in the same way his does, and for a beat, Bradley wonders what form her armor takes on; what kind of shields she pulls up when she doesn’t want people too close.

“Yeah, um,” he says, “he mentioned your parents.”

If this surprises Kerri, she doesn’t show it, eyes still focused on that can, fingers holding it tightly.

“It’s funny, isn’t it? That you don’t even consider you’re suffering abuse unless you get smacked over the head. First time I even considered that maybe my parents weren’t normal was when I went to Gabe’s for Thanksgiving. His mom hugged me and I remember just – clenching up,” she says and her shoulders tense up at the memory.

Kerri appears to get stuck in it for a few seconds, but when she unfreezes, shoulders relaxing again, she turns to look at him, and Bradley sees the same suppressed rage he’d felt when Jake had talked about his parents reflected back at him.

“It was really hard to unlearn. But I had Gabe, and my job, and then the girls.”

She pauses, her eyes searching and quickly finding Jake and her daughters. Jake has Lula on his shoulders, her small hands covering his eyes as she apparently directs him to chase after Ines blindly.

“I didn’t want him to join the Navy,” Kerri eventually admits, “because I thought, fuck, this is gonna make everything so much worse,” and Bradley can hear so much grief in her voice that he feels his own throat tighten in response. “He just went from one place that wasn’t good for him to another that – I don’t know…”

She trails off, can’t seem to find the words, and neither can Bradley. With a sigh, she puts the can onto the ground, twists it one way and then another so that it’s stuck in the sand and won’t fall over. Even when Bradley had met Kerri in her kitchen at the crack of dawn, overworked and tired, she’d appeared so steady, tough as nails. Now, though… now she seems a bit lost. Helpless, maybe, in the face of a choice her brother made, but everyone else also has to live with.

He wonders if this is how his mom felt.

“Jake’s the best person I know,” Kerri suddenly pipes up again. “He may not be a nice person, or easy, but he’s the best.” Says it like she’s done so before; like she’s defended him to others.

She doesn’t have to defend him to Bradley. He agrees. And maybe it’s a recent conclusion he’s come to, because he’d only known the cocky pilot for so long. But now, he knows the Jake who swallows his pride to be the spare and still saves the day, the Jake who reads to his nieces and reads up on things they love, who puts his money aside to buy them what they need and to support his family. Bradley doesn’t know it, but he’s pretty sure that there are two savings accounts set up to contribute as much as possible to his nieces’ college funds.

“He saved my life,” he tells Kerri, because while she knows about all the other stuff, she doesn’t know about this, and Bradley wants her to understand how right she really is about Jake. “I wouldn’t be here without him, and that’s not an exaggeration.”

She seems struck by that for a minute, perhaps usually needing to ignore the fact that risking their lives kind of goes hand in hand with what they do. The risk is calculated, most of the time, but Bradley knows better than anyone how real it is. He doubts that Kerri wants to be reminded of that. Jake saved his life, and Mav’s, and he doubts anyone else would’ve been able to, because nobody else was that fast, that precise, that good.

“We gotta talk,” Bradley says, and he doesn’t need to explain anything to Kerri, because as she said, she knows her brother, and she’s too perceptive to not have figured out that something is going on between him and Jake. “But I don’t… I don’t know where to start. I don’t – I don’t really know what to say.”

He doesn’t expect her to lay it all out for him; outline points a to z of how to have a constructive conversation with Jake Seresin. But Bradley wants her to know that he wants to try, even if he’s really damn clueless.

“I don’t think I need to tell you not to break his heart, do I?”

Fuck. Bradley’s eyes start to sting and he squeezes them shut, thankfully hidden by his shades, tilts his head back as if to force them back into his skull. His throat burns when he’s finally sure his voice won’t break.

“No,” he replies, trying his damned hardest to sound like it’s not affecting him as much as it does. But who is he really trying to fool here? “No, I’m pretty sure he’s about to break mine.”

The genuine sympathy in the eyes that are so similar to Jake’s is well-intended, but it still stings like a flat palm to his cheek. Maybe because a very small part of him had hoped that Kerri would tell him not to worry. Instead, she seems to have expected it. Bradley guesses everyone would have expected things to take this route, except him.

“He doesn’t want to,” Kerri tells him quietly, gentle like she’s talking to one of her daughters instead of him, “I’m sure he doesn’t. He just… he doesn’t know any better.”

It would sound patronizing in any other case, but Bradley knows that Jake really doesn’t know any better. That he probably won’t be able to help himself, even if he is self-aware enough to understand it all.

“I know,” he sighs because of it, “I can’t even really be mad at him for it.”

Bradley’s mad at a lot of people, and a lot of things; the circumstances in general. But not at Jake. They really have come a long fucking way.

“One piece of advice,” Kerri says as they both watch Jake and the girls glide through the water, “be careful what you throw at him. Because you don’t know what he might catch to use as an out.”

For someone who isn’t really all that good with words, actually has a tendency to put his foot in it, especially in tricky situations… this isn’t very good news.

“He doesn’t think people are gonna stick around because…” Kerri trails off with a shrug. She’s started drawing odd shapes into the sand with her finger, and Bradley distractedly wonders if she’s aware she’s doing it. “Well, they haven’t stuck around. Not really. So he pushes people away first. I had to swallow my pride a dozen times and use every trick in the book to get him to talk to me again before the penny finally dropped and he understood I wasn’t one of them. Then again –”

Kerri gets to her feet, pulls the shirt over her head and takes a few steps in the sand before she turns to him with slightly narrowed eyes, lips pulled into soft smirk.

“I’m also not a six foot pilot with doe eyes and washboard abs.”

“Doe eyes, what –”

Cackling loudly, effectively shattering the tension that was clinging to them, she takes off towards the river to join Jake and her daughters in the water. Bradley stays behind, looks on as Lula clambers off Jake’s shoulders, nearly elbowing him in the face, to fall into her mother’s arms, clinging onto her like a monkey. Jake dips low, and Bradley realizes only a second later that it’s to fill his cheeks with water that he then spits at an unsuspecting Ines. The subsequent screech is eardrum-shattering, but the laugh that splits Jake’s face at the fury in his niece’s face tears at Bradley’s chest, leaves it throbbing, pulsing as life seeps out of it.

The possibility of a life, playing out right in front of him, yet all he is able to do is sit here, immobile, and crow his fucking heart out.

Maybe he’s finally earned his callsign.

After a day at the beach, after burgers and so much ice cream Lula almost throws up on the way back to the house, Bradley finds himself sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall while Jake is in the shower. There was an uneasy distance between them all day, and it has left Bradley feeling like his ribcage has been cracked open with a crowbar and without any anesthesia. His chest is sore, and so is his throat, from all the words that are stuck in there and that he just cannot seem to get out.

His duffel is already kind of packed, not like he has a lot of possessions he needs to lug around with him; not like he’s worn a lot of clothes since he got here. It leans against the side of the couch they folded back days ago, having given up the pretense that Bradley was sleeping in it instead of in the bed with Jake. The sheets have been washed and folded away as well, but now, Bradley almost regrets it. Doesn’t know if Jake even wants him in the bed tonight, given how distant he’s been, how he has barely even looked at Bradley all day. Doesn’t know if he can manage to sleep next to Jake without having talked about all the things that have suddenly wedged themselves in between them.

Knows that it is impossible for him to hear the clock in the house’s living room out here, but hears it anyway, counting down the time; a steady tick, tick, tick.

Jake might be in the shower for five minutes of five hours, Bradley has no idea, but when he comes back and pulls the door shut, he’s in a towel, slung so low Bradley can see the tan line of the shorts he’s been in for weeks. It leaves his throat dry, but he is too damn preoccupied with the mess swirling around in his head to become even slightly aroused, and isn’t that a fucking change. Keeping his eyes on the ground, pointedly avoiding Bradley’s gaze, Jake shuffles around the room, drying off, before eventually dropping the towel, only to pull on a clean pair of shorts and that – well.

It's not exactly what Bradley would count as a final straw, but neither of them has worn clothes to bed in a week.

“Jake, can you,” he starts before his voice breaks, and he has to bite his lip, breathe in through his nose for a long five seconds, to get it back. “Can you… stop avoiding me, please.”

Jake fiddles with the elastic of his shorts, still not looking Bradley in the eye when he replies, “I’m not avoiding you.” Voice steady and quiet, like he’s completely unaffected. “We spent all day together.”

And Bradley – fuck. Kerri’s words echo in his ears. If this is how it starts, and he’s barely even said anything, this might go even worse than he prepared himself for.

“You know what I mean, Jake. Come on.”

He looks up. “Do I?”

His face is blank, carefully crafted poker face back in place and even though it’s not been this long, Bradley almost forgot what it’s like to be confronted with it. It prevents him from getting any sort of read on Jake, but he knows Jake better than that now, and sure, maybe he doesn’t know what it is exactly he is hiding behind this mask, he does know Jake is hiding something. Jake isn’t unaffected by any of this. Bradley just needs to get him to remember that they’ve got each other’s backs.

“Yes, you do,” Bradley replies. This is it, he tells himself, this is your last change, so fucking take it. “We really… we should talk.”

The mask doesn’t slip, but Jake has to work hard to keep it in place. He clenches his jaw, muscles twitching as he seems to be grinding his teeth together.

“About what?”

It’s like pulling teeth. Maybe Bradley should’ve expected it, but it’s been so easy to talk with Jake and they’ve – God, they’ve shared so much at this point that while Bradley didn’t think this would be simple, or effortless; he at least hoped that they’d be able to talk. But Jake doesn’t want to engage. Would probably go to bed in silence and get up without a word in the morning as well, quiet and stoic.

“About,” Bradley says and then, for a moment, is at a loss, because how is he supposed to put it into words? He can barely articulate it in his head. What is there to talk about but nothing, and yet also everything? “About… us, I guess.”

“You guess?” Jake responds mockingly and Bradley should have a better hold on his temper.

But he doesn’t.

“Oh, fuck off,” bursts out of him before he can control himself.

And there it is. Strike one. Exactly what Kerri told him to be careful about. He can practically see Jake catch Bradley’s slip-up and file it away in a little ammunition drawer to throw it back into his face the moment Bradley gives him another opening.

“Oh, first you say I’m avoiding you, and now you want me to fuck off?”

Bradley gets up. He wants to step closer to Jake, just hold him close until they’ve both calmed down so that they can have an actual conversation, but the tense line of Jake’s shoulders stops him. He doubts Jake is going to let him come near him right now, once again perched between fight and flight, precariously balancing on a tightrope between the two, and one wrong move from Bradley could easily tip him to either side.

He rubs a shaking hand across his face. His eyes already sting. He feels hot, and tired, and like a goddamned fool, because he just had to go and fall in love with this stubborn fucking asshole against his better judgment. Wants to smack himself a second after the thought shoots through his head, because that’s a fucking lie. His judgment works just fine.

“Okay, can we just… can you not make this difficult?”

“Oh, I’m making it difficult?”

Strike two.

“Yes, Jake,” Bradley tries, voice tight, doing his best to keep calm, to keep breathing, to remain steady in the face of the storm Jake seems hellbent on brewing up. “Yes, you are. And you know it. And you’re doing it on purpose. Why, though, I have no fucking clue.”

At least Jake has the decency to look caught, throat moving as he probably swallows down another dumb line meant to antagonize; to drive Bradley away.

“You know me,” Jake tells him, voice low and still disturbingly flat, “don’t act like this is a surprise.”

Bradley doesn’t know what Jake expects him to say to that. Whether he thinks Bradley will suddenly think, oh yes, I do know you, and no thank you? Does he feel the need to remind Bradley that he isn’t exactly the Golden Retriever of people? That he can be moody, and irrational, and spiteful just for the hell of it? That he comes with a whole lot of baggage? Well, tough luck, Bradley thinks, determined. He wants Jake because of it, not in spite of.

“I do know you,” he says, “I do,” insisting. “And I want to talk. About us.”

He can tell, with two hundred percent certainty, that Jake is this fucking close to throwing back another bratty line, but his lips purse, like he’s caught it at the last second before it slips past them. Instead he takes a deep breath, chest moving with it as he inhales, nostrils flaring as he breathes out through his nose.

“Okay, fine. So talk.”

This is Jake daring him, nudging his chin forward, all challenge, sharp edges, unforgiving. If only Bradley knew what to say. He tries to think back to his talk with Mav, but he’d done more listening than talking and he hadn’t felt any pressure, all anger and tension dissipated, evaporated in the smoke coming from the burning wreckage of an F-14. So it doesn’t really give him any clues on what to do, or what to say.

It might help if he were any clearer on what he wants, other than – than for this not to end. For Jake to be his, in whatever is possible for them. Maybe it’s not much, Bradley thinks, but with a sinking dread in his belly also worries that it just might not be enough.  

“I want to –”

Everything else gets stuck, like a lid slammed shut on anything else he might be able to mutter. Jake isn’t a patient man to begin with. Now, Bradley fears he could only have seconds, and it’s like trying to cling to something that’s turning into sand, running through his fingers as he can’t do anything but watch in a panic, frantically trying to catch the grains. And Jake – well.

He's like a predator. Smells even the smallest drop of blood in the water.

“You can’t even say it.”

“I want to…,” he takes a deep breath, squares his chest. Nobody can claim that Bradley Bradshaw can’t be motivated by spite. His entire military career has basically been a big fat fuck you to Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell. “I want to try, asshole. I just want to… try. See where this goes. No pressure.”

Jake scoffs. It’s a harsh and ugly thing, and Bradley’d rather Jake had just punched him in the face. Certainly would’ve hurt a lot less. It’s painful as hell to wonder whether Jake truly thinks giving this a go is a joke, or whether he’s convinced Bradley doesn’t mean it, and is falling back into old patterns to protect himself.

“Oh, come on,” Bradley groans. His hands are shaking and he clenches them into fists, his temper flaring, and he has to count to ten in his head; remind himself that this is just what Jake does, but not truly believes.

Still, he can’t help himself but ask, “You think this is some kind of joke? That this is funny?”

It was just a glimpse before, here and there, but right in this moment, Hangman slots back into place, eyes opaque, lips pulling into a smirk, and Bradley has to blink to make sure he hasn’t been thrown back to the Hard Deck, Slow Ride playing from the speakers.

“Oh, I think it’s hilarious,” Jake drawls and he wants so badly to appear nonchalant, but he can’t quite get the rest of his body to cooperate, every muscle still strung tight.

Bradley kind of wants to shake him; tell him to snap the fuck out of it.

“Is it?”

“Sure,” Jake replies, the shrug that follows stiff and strange because he can’t get his body to relax. “I mean, I let you put it in me a couple of times and suddenly you – what? Wanna hold hands now, Rooster?”

Somewhere, a few yards over, a trashcan falls over, following by the screeching of a cat, a dog barking loudly, and it would be so fucking funny if Bradley didn’t feel like crying in the face of Jake refusing to give him even one damn inch.

“This past week,” he says, voice low, rumbling, “that wasn’t us just fucking. This wasn’t just some… random hook-up. Just us blowing off some steam. It wasn’t,” he insists, “not for me, and not for you, and you know it.”

“You don’t fucking speak for me, Bradshaw,” Jake practically growls.

“I do, when you keep lying to my face,” Bradley stands his ground.

“I ain’t fucking lying, you –”

“Yes, you fucking are,” he cuts Jake off, and his voice echoes through the small room.

Once more, it seems like he took Jake by surprise. He probably didn’t expect Bradley to call him out so directly, still intent on getting Bradley to pull the plug on this conversation, on this whole… relationship, now that Bradley can finally admit to it, voice it in his head, at least.

“Come on, Jake. I know it’s barely been a week,” and it’s still hard to comprehend, if Bradley is being completely honest with himself, “but it also hasn’t. It’s been years, okay? For you, and for me, and maybe it wasn’t… this, and maybe it wasn’t, like –”

He breaks off, huffs in a frantic breath, thoughts still jumbled in his head but determined to push on regardless.

“Maybe we didn’t see it, or maybe we didn’t want to, what the fuck does it matter? But it was always going to lead to – to this. And if I hadn’t come to Texas, or if you hadn’t invited me to come, then… well, then maybe it would’ve happened in a few months, or a year, or when we got too fucking senile to remember why not.”

Jake’s eyes are so green, even in the fading light of the evening, shimmering with tears he won’t allow to spill over, come what may. And in the face of this unbearable misery Jake seems content to drown himself in, Bradley feels a sudden flash of exhilarating clarity.

“I want to be with you,” he says, punctuating every word with a jab of his finger towards Jake. “So get that through your thick goddamn skull.”

Bradley counts to five in his head before he sees Jake unwillingly deflate. Unwillingly, because the moment his shoulders lose some of their tension, he folds his arms in front of his chest, like he’s actively trying to get that tension back into his body; like he doesn’t want to let his guard down in front of Bradley. Why, he has no damn clue, because they have been naked, and they have been bare, in all the ways that count.

But at least Jake isn’t snapping at him anymore; at least he has stopped being deliberately cruel and obtuse at the same time. It still takes what feels like another minute for Jake to respond to the barrage of word vomit Bradley just upended over him.

“It’s not…” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “It wasn’t an option then, it’s not an option now.”

Bradley’s brain stumbles over the ‘then’, but falls face first into the ‘now’.

“Why the hell not?”

Jake sighs. “Do I really need to spell it out for you?”

His voice is still frighteningly steady, but his eyes are red, and his expression… almost pleading. Asking Bradley to tell him no; asking him to walk away now, leave things in tatters, their burgeoning relationship is pieces on the carpet between their feet. And sure, Bradley would give Jake anything. But he can’t give him that. He’s not that selfless.

“Yeah, actually,” Bradley replies impatiently, “please do.”

Maybe they should have done this sooner, he thinks desperately. Maybe they should have sat down and talked before falling into bed together, but Bradley had thought that they did. At least, that they’d talked just enough. Turns out he might’ve just continued making wrong assumptions about Jake, and their relationship, and what it could mean to either of them.

Jake’s fingers dig into his own forearms as he drops his gaze to the floor and continues to stare at the carpet like it’s the most captivating thing he’s ever laid eyes on, his lips firmly pressed together. Silence descends and it stretches on for minutes, the only sound in Bradley’s ears his own heart thudding in his chest, each beat like a thumb pressing down on a bruise.

“I don’t know what the hell you expect me to say,” Jake finally utters, “I don’t even know why I let you… when you asked if anyone else was stateside, I thought, maybe, you were on the outs with Maverick again, and didn’t… Javy let me crash with him, when Kerri and I were fighting, so I thought, well. Let him crash here, whatever, might even get along.”

“Jake…”

He steadfastly refuses to look up and return Bradley’s questioning gaze.

“We weren’t even friends, not really, and now you, what, you want to – be with me? Like you hadn’t… as if you didn’t –”

Jake breathes in harshly and for a terrifying second, an ice cold wave washing over Bradley, he thinks Jake might start to cry. He doesn’t, but it looks like a close call, his face twisting as he blinks rapidly, fiercely trying to cling to composure as emotions warring inside of him begin to seep through it.

“You had your mind made up about me well before you ever even said a single word to me,” he accuses and Bradley wants to deny it, but a part of him recalls those first few meetings where he’d thought, sure, he’s hot, but also, damn, what a smug prick. “So excuse me if I find it a little hard to keep up with that one-eighty. First you tell me I’ll get people killed, then we fuck, and suddenly you want to, what? Date me? You want a… a relationship after I fucking wanted you for – fuck. Fuck!”

His words hit Bradley like shrapnel after an explosion, his ears ringing with it, his chest aching, torn open, and he feels hot and cold at the same time as the meaning of what Jake just said sinks in; as everything he bit down on and then swallowed begins to shift it all into a new light. An uncomfortable silence, a desperate glance to the sky and then another eye-rolling mask as Jake had shrugged it all off, easing Bradley’s worries, as he’d denied liking him.

I didn’t spend the last couple of years pining after you like some Jane Austen heroine echoes in his head. The inside of Bradley’s mouth feels like cotton.

“You said… last week, when I asked you whether you’d liked me, back then. You said you didn’t.”

“Well,” Jake huffs, still looking everywhere but at Bradley, “I fucking lied, okay?”

Bradley’s stomach swoops, and not in a good way. It’s as if someone has pulled out that hideous beige carpet right from underneath his feet, but instead of landing on the ground, on his back, he just falls right through the floor, and keeps falling. It’s incomprehensible to him, and he cannot wrap his head around that Jake, by his own admission, has been… that he’s –

How did Bradley not know? How did he not notice?

Kerri’s voice is back in his head, telling him that if he’s made wrong assumptions, then that’s what Jake wanted, and now he just keeps thinking back to their first meetings, their first words exchanged, and he wonders if all that prodding and pushing hadn’t just been intended to push Bradley to be better, but also push him away. At least, push him away far enough for Jake to… because he’d been –

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he has to ask. Has to know what had gone through Jake’s head. Why he hadn’t let himself be open about it then. Perhaps it would explain why he won’t let himself be open about it now.

Jake just rolls his eyes, probably doesn’t believe this question deserves an answer. Maybe it doesn’t. Bradley feels – Christ, he doesn’t know how he feels. He still feels like he’s in free fucking fall. And he’s… he’s sorry, that it took him so long to catch up to where Jake had apparently been since the beginning. Yet at the same time, he recalls Jake standing in the bathroom, leaning against the sink, having just spit out a mouthful of spunk, telling Bradley, utterly convinced, that they would have been a disaster at Top Gun. Then, Bradley had thought Jake was only referring to them sleeping together. He shouldn’t be surprised, though, that Jake was playing three-dimensional chess while Bradley had been sure they were playing checkers.

And Jake is right, Bradley has to begrudgingly admit. They probably both needed some time to grow and mature; Bradley especially. He supposes he wouldn’t have been able to form any healthy relationship with his entire past bottled up and unprocessed.

But they’re here now, he reminds himself. They’re here, now.

“I get it,” he says, “I do. I was a mess until recently, so… yeah. But the last two weeks, Jake… you can’t tell me it wasn’t good. You can’t tell me it’s not been… real fucking good.”

It finally makes Jake return his gaze. Their eyes lock; Bradley’s pleading, Jake’s quiescent.

“So what?” Jake challenges. “Two weeks of… what? Playing house? This isn’t real. This isn’t our lives, Rooster. You’re shipping out again next week, I’m heading back to my squadron the week after, and who knows when either one of us have leave again. Might be months, even years, before it lines up.”

God, this sounds like Jake has thought about this. While Bradley was wading through his own feelings, Jake had apparently long since come to the conclusion that once Bradley left, that would be it. No questions asked, no objections raised.

“So? Like there aren’t other people dealing with this,” Bradley counters. “I mean, we could –”

“We could what?” Jake interrupts him irritably. “Write each other letters and bloody poetry like –”

“Like what?” Bradley cuts him off in return, his emotions flaring up again, his pulse picking up speed. “Like that’s going to be enough? Would that be so bad? Would having that be worse than having nothing at all? Don’t tell me,” he adds, his heart aching, “that for once in your life, you can’t take the goddamn shot.”

His eyes sting. Frantically, he wipes at them as they threaten to spill over, but Jake doesn’t respond, doesn’t move, does not give Bradley an inch. He still… still doesn’t trust Bradley to have his back, to not leave him, but Bradley doesn’t know what else to do to get Jake to believe him. He doesn’t know what else to say to convince Jake that he’s in it for real, even if he took too goddamn long to get here.  

And this is what it all boils down to, Bradley guesses. For the first time in two weeks, he feels genuinely scared. But Jake – Jake is fucking terrified.

“People want to be in your life okay?” he tries. “I want to be in it, and I’m not just suddenly gonna turn around and decide that I don’t anymore. You still don’t seem to get that I like you, and not just… I like you, so much, and I know you, okay, and I –”

“Don’t say it,” Jake grinds out between his teeth. One single tear, so painfully perfect and picturesque, finally spills over and slides down his cheek, but Jake still has his arms folded, so tightly that the tendons stand out, so it doesn’t get wiped away. “Don’t you fucking say it.”

Bradley presses his lips together. Looks into Jake’s eyes, red and fiery, and he doesn’t… he has nothing else to give, he realizes as coldness spreads through his body. Jake refuses to budge. No matter what Bradley tells him, his mind is made up.

Blunt force meeting an immovable object.

He finds himself deflate. A few seconds ago, he was worried he might punch a hole in yet another wall. But he guesses it’s true, what he said to Kerri. Bradley can’t be angry at Jake. For any of it. He wants to be, he really does. He wants to yell and scream and chip away at his armor so that he finally drops it for good. But he just… hell, he isn’t sure what he is. Maybe it was always going to end like this. As much as he’s convinced that they were always going to end up here, it is entirely possible that the only way this was ever going to continue was in a downward spiral.

Flat spin. Eject, eject, eject.

He has to get out of here before he forgets how to breathe. Rubbing across his face so that he doesn’t look quite so distraught, Bradley walks towards the door, bends down to pick up his shoes.

“Where are you going?”

Jake sounds panicked. Bradley is almost glad for it.

“For a walk,” Bradley says, pulls on his sneakers and half-heartedly ties the laces. It’s just… everything is draining out of him. “I need some air.”

He straightens up again, fingers finding the doorknob and he pauses for just a second, holds his breath. Thinks, come on, please. Tell me to stop.

But Jake doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t move an inch. With a sigh that pulls his heart all the way up into his throat, Bradley pulls the door open, and steps outside.

Bradley has no idea how long he walks through the neighborhood. Whether it’s two miles or twenty is anyone’s guess. The sky has turned from pink and orange and purple to a dark and deep midnight blue. A few streetlights illuminate the sidewalk. The occasional car drives past him, headlights momentarily blinding him, making him squeeze his eyes shut, over-sensitive from the tears he wasn’t able to hold back once he’d closed the door behind him.

He feels drained, now. Exhausted, and tired down to his very bones, but after this unimaginable mess has filled his head for the past two days, he suddenly feels utterly empty. Aside from the spot in his throat he thinks his heart still has its claws dug into, his body is practically numb.

Eventually, he comes to a halt, sinks down on the curb and pulls his legs up, looping his arms around them. He has his phone in his pocket, a usually comforting weight, and for a moment, Bradley toys with the idea of pulling it out, making a call.

Maybe phoning Mav so that he can distract him by talking about the state of the repairs on the P-51. Or maybe calling Tasha, hear what she has to say about this unholy mess Bradley’s got himself into. He thinks her voice might be comforting. Her words are, usually, too. He’s always appreciated her no-bullshit policy, talking straight and honest, giving him tough love when he needed and comfort when it was required.

But, fucking hell, how would he even begin to explain the last two weeks to her?

He probably wouldn’t admit to it out loud, but he’s also a bit worried that at the end of his tale, she’d ask him what the hell he had expected. It’s Hangman, Rooster, he hears her voice in his head, of course he’d hang you out to dry.

And that – well. He doesn’t think that’s exactly fair to Jake.

It’s late when he gets back to Kerri’s house. All lights are out in the main house, and Bradley also doesn’t see any coming from the small outhouse, so he tries to be quiet as he slips back inside and toes off his shoes. He should probably go shower, and he definitely should head to the house and brush his teeth, but Bradley genuinely feels like his knees are about five seconds from giving out.

He pulls off his shirt and shorts, leaves his underwear on before his eyes fall onto the bed. Jake is lying on the left side; the side Bradley had been sleeping on. He has his back turned towards the door, sheets pulled up to his shoulder, doesn’t move or react in any way when Bradley drops down on the mattress next to him. It’s a narrow fit for two guys their size, but there is a noticeable distance between them now that was basically non-existent all week.

For a long couple of minutes, Bradley just lies on his back and stares at the ceiling, forcing his body not to listen to the way it instinctively wants to curl up against Jake and draw his back against Bradley’s chest. Then, with a quiet and resigned sigh, he also rolls onto his side, facing the other way.

Bradley thought he knew what rejection tastes like. But it doesn’t just taste bitter. It burns.

day 15.

Bradley barely gets an hour of sleep altogether. He is on his back, staring at the ceiling, when Jake moves next to him. It’s barely dawn, sky still mostly a dark grey, and Bradley’s eyes follow Jake as he rolls off the mattress, tugs on a pair of shorts, a crumpled shirt, but Jake keeps his gaze firmly on his feet as he pulls on socks, ties his running shoes. He is out the door without a glance over his shoulder.

He reaches for his phone. It’s just past five thirty. Bradley’s needs to leave in a few hours to make it back to California before the weekend is over. This would be a whole lot easier if he’d just flown, but he fucking hates flying commercial. Now he’s starting to regret it a little, because it’s going to be one hell of a drive. But he also figures it might do him good to be on his own, to sit in his car and focus on driving; perhaps process the last two weeks before he’s immediately thrown back into action.

Mechanically, he showers, brushes his teeth, collects his toiletries and adds them to the already mostly packed duffel. He zips it closed, shoulders it and heads outside to load it into the Bronco that’s parked on the curb. As if in trance, he gets a pot of coffee going, knowing that Jake will be craving some, just like Kerri once she wakes up. Gabriel is already, or rather, still working; a long overnight shift working with teenagers recovering from substance abuse.

That titbit of information Kerri had mentioned offhandedly the previous day sits with Bradley as he watches on as coffee slowly begins filling the old pot. Kerri being a nurse and her partner doing what he does… that can’t be easy either, especially with two kids added to the mix. But they seem to make it work. They seem happy. The girls seem happy. That definitely didn’t come without some tough conversations, some compromise, some meeting on the middle ground.

A quiet, petulant voice at the back of his head whispers to him that if other people can make it work, then he and Jake should too, but Bradley silences it quickly. He tried, he really did, but there’s only so much he can say and do, so much resistance and refusal he can stomach.

Jake comes back an hour later, out of breath and sweaty and so fucking beautiful that Bradley’s heart clenches painfully when he walks into the kitchen. But he still refuses to look him in the eye, and they don’t speak. And so the tense silence continues as they sit down at the kitchen table at opposite ends, at least as much as that’s possible at a round table.

It doesn’t dissipate, even when Kerri walks in, already dressed for the day, about a half hour after Jake. She’s kind enough not to comment on it, just leans down to press a kiss to the top of Jake’s head, and brushes a comforting hand over Bradley’s shoulder on her way to the coffee pot. And while she doesn’t outwardly say it, she says that she’s going to take the girls out for breakfast and a mini spa day, some mother-daughters bonding time, presumably to give Jake and Bradley space to… do whatever it is they got to do.

Ines and Lula are brimming with excitement, so they don’t pick up on the tension that’s clinging to the adults as they race around, getting ready for the day out. And again, Kerri doesn’t say anything to Bradley, but she pulls him into a long and fierce hug before she follows her daughters out the front door, leaving him and Jake and their convoluted relationship behind.

Bradley feels dizzy from how quickly everything went from easy to downright unbearable. He doesn’t know what to say, and Jake still won’t really look at him. They could continue to sit here, pointedly looking in opposite directions, lips pressed together, or Bradley could just get it over with. No point to draw it out.

He swallows down the lump in his throat. “I, um… I should probably get going.”

Jake nods, eyes downcast. He is still the most beautiful person Bradley has ever laid eyes on, but right now, he looks about as shitty as Bradley feels, and like he didn’t sleep a single second, eyes puffy and slightly red.

“Sure,” he says, and gets to his feet, so Bradley mirrors him.

He follows Jake through the hallway and living room and out the front door into the unforgiving morning sun. With every step he takes towards his car, he finds it harder and harder to breathe.

“Right,” Bradley breathes eventually, coming to a halt next to the Bronco, about a foot between him and Jake. “I’m… not really good at goodbyes, so…”

He trails off as Jake finally lifts his gaze to meet his.

“So we just… don’t say goodbye,” Jake offers, and then makes his heart lurch desperately as he steps forward and pulls Bradley into a hug.

He is so warm, and so solid, and by this point so painfully familiar, that despite having a few inches on Jake, Bradley curls into him and presses his face against his neck, breathing in. His nose finds that spot that had essentially hypnotized him when they’d stood in that damn Walmart in the middle of the fucking night. Wetness shoots into his eyes, but Bradley squeezes them shut, and continues to hold on tight, half of him grateful that Jake is basically trying to give him an out, yet the other half still praying, still clinging to the hope that Jake might change his mind in the last second.

Just give me something, he thinks hopelessly. Anything.

But Jake doesn’t. He lets go eventually, steps back with wet eyes, lips pressed together, and shoves his trembling hands into his shorts. For a second, Bradley thinks he might be sick.

“You give ‘em hell,” Jake tells him.

His voice breaks on the last syllable, and it’s probably the thing that ultimately breaks Bradley’s heart. This just fucking sucks. They’re both bull-headed idiots and neither one of them knows how to give in and Bradley wishes, wishes so badly he could be that person, but he’s not. He stands his ground, knowing full well that this is about to break if he doesn’t budge.

“You too,” he manages to get out, lingers for a few seconds, but then he turns around, and climbs onto the driver’s seat.

His hands shake when he puts the key into the ignition and starts the car, and they continue to tremble when he places them on the steering wheel. Bradley does not look into the rearview mirror, because he fears that if he does, he’ll just turn right back around again. He just… he just needs to keep his eyes on the road. Don’t think, he says to himself, just do.

He prepared himself for the heartbreak. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt.

And if he has to pull over just a few minutes after reaching the highway to dry heave by the side of the road for a couple of minutes– well. Nobody has to know.

day 192.

“Oi! Rooster!” Fanboy shouts across the entire bar. “Hey, everyone, it’s Rooster!”

Bradley ducks his head with a smile. Seems like the party’s in full swing, and Fanboy, not one to be able to hold his liquor quite so well, is probably already on his way to being three sheets to the wind. The rest of the assembled Dagger squadron, currently occupying a table at the back, joins in the raucous greeting, half rising to their feet expectantly, the other half raising their arms in the air, waving like lunatics.

Phoenix is first in line and pulls him into a hug before Bradley can even utter a hello. She feels warm, smells familiar, just a little hint of beer and smoke clinging to her collar.

“It’s good to see you, Rooster,” she tells him with a smile as she pulls back, small hands curled around his upper arms, not letting go just yet. “You look like shit.”

He snorts. “Well, delays and missed connecting flights will do that to you.”

He’d actually meant to get to San Diego around midday instead of well into the evening, but the journey had been cursed from the beginning, and so instead of having the time to settle in, have a shower, maybe get some groceries and, most importantly, mentally prepare himself for their little get together, Bradley had raced home, barely managed to squeeze in a shower and a change of clothes, before heading to the Hard Deck a solid two hours too late.

She squeezes his bicep in sympathy, then steps aside to allow Omaha, Yale and Fritz to hug him as well. The smell of beer clinging to them is quite a bit stronger, but they’re easy smiles and bright eyes and Bradley finds himself relax. He waves back to Bob, who is trapped between Payback and Fanboy, which is an unfortunate position to be in, the two leaning over him to put their heads together, effectively trapping him in the corner. And Bob, being Bob, is too polite to say anything.  

Halo and Harvard already let them know that they wouldn’t be able to make it to this reunion slash quasi anniversary celebration of the mission, but scanning the corner of the bar they’ve taken over, Bradley can’t see Coyote anywhere, and he can’t see –

It’s kind of why he’d hoped to have a bit longer to sort out the mess his head has been this past week. Aside from the occasional message in the group chat, Bradley hasn’t heard from Jake in months. He hasn’t reached out either. He’d thought about calling him nearly every day at first, yearning to hear his voice unlike he’s ever yearned for anything, and he’d picked up his phone so many times to at least text him a tentative hello. But something had always stopped him.

Bradley had thought about calling Tasha quite a lot as well, desperate to confide in his best friend as he was trying to grapple with heartbreak; with missing Jake like a phantom limb. But he never had called her, or told her anything about those two weeks in Texas. And to be fair, she hasn’t asked. He can’t be sure if it’s just not on her radar anymore, or if she’s been waiting for the entire time for him to bring it up.

He guesses he’ll find out tonight.

Everyone else sits back down again, but Bradley lingers, eyes wandering. “Anyone else coming?” he asks, trying to be inconspicuous.

“Oh, Coyote’s here,” Fritz answers him, takes another swig of his beer, “but I think he just went to take a leak. And – oh. Hey?” he directs at the table. “Where’d Hangman go?”

“He, um,” Bob pipes up from between Fanboy and Payback, “said something about getting some air?”

Good old Bob, Bradley thinks, paying attention to absolutely everything. Bradley takes a deep breath, tells Phoenix to save him a seat and nods towards the bar. Everyone still has an almost full bottle of beer in their hand (Bob silently lifts his soda), so there’s no long order to rattle off to Jimmy once Bradley gets to the counter. He exchanges a few words with the old bartender as he retrieves a fresh beer for Bradley, insisting it’s on the house after he hands it over. No wonder Fanboy is already more than tipsy, if they’ve been drinking for free all evening.

He has to drive himself home later, so he won’t get to take full advantage of it, but all further thoughts evaporate from one moment to the next when he turns around and comes face to face with the one person who has been haunting his dreams and every fucking waking moment in between.

“Jake,” falls past his lips on instinct, and a fraction of a second later, he is frozen to the spot, eyes wide and mouth hanging open because –

Fuck, Bradley isn’t ready. He thought he was, but nothing could’ve prepared him for this; nothing could have prepared him for coming face to face with Jake again, who looks exactly like he did when they’d said goodbye on the curb in front of his family’s house. Or not exactly, Bradley realizes as something in his chest twist and curls unpleasantly. Jake looks a bit paler. A lot more tired. His features are a little sharper, like he’s lost some weight, just enough for it to be noticeable.

Seeing him feels like tasting a first drop of cool water on his tongue after a week in the desert. And his treacherous heart soaks it up immediately.

For what it’s worth, almost bumping into each other like this seems to have thrown Jake as much for a loop as Bradley. His eyes are wide and his shoulders are stiff and there is no easy smile or sharp grin to hide the – well. Shock, Bradley guesses. And for a couple of seconds that drag on for far too long, neither of them seems to know what to do but stare at each other. Part of Bradley hopes that none of the others glance their way to become witness to how unbelievably awkward this probably looks. They’d definitely cotton on to the fact that something went down in Texas.

God, Bradley’s hands are sweating. He holds the beer bottle a bit tighter because of it. Doesn’t want to accidentally drop it and draw attention to themselves.

“Hey,” Jake finally says, and Bradley can’t do anything but echo him.

“Hey.”

Fuck, what… what does he do now? Bradley is not sure whether he should say something else, or just – leave it. Is even less sure how to behave, and what to do. They shared too much of their bodily fluids to shake hands now, that’s for damn sure. So they keep looking at each other, and Bradley can’t quite articulate, even to himself, how relieved he is that, at the very least, Jake apparently isn’t cruel enough to throw a taunting ‘Bradshaw, as I live and breathe’ at him.

In the end, what feels like minutes is probably only seconds and, in the end, they move instinctively, simultaneously, coming together in a hug that instantly makes all air leave Bradley’s body. He feels lightheaded right off the bat, wants to keep it short, keep it brief; pat Jake on the back a few times like, yeah dude, all good bro, but – what did Jake say? The body remembers?

Bradley’s body surely remembers this.

It’s so hard not to bury his face in Jake’s neck and breathe him in and figure out if he still smells the same, because he certainly feels the same. He feels like he belongs right here, and – fuck, fuck, fuck – all the emotional work Bradley thought he’d done to… to get over him… Turns out that was all bullshit, because this right here, feels like no time has passed at all between their last hug and this one, and Bradley is still as heartbroken and raw and stupidly in love with this goddamn asshole.

Jake pulls back first, because of course he does, but at least Bradley thinks he can spy a slight flush on his cheeks, the only clue he gets as to where Jake’s head is at before he nods at the bar.

“I’m just gonna,” Jake says, clears his throat, looks like he wants to say something else, but doesn’t.

Bradley takes a shuddering breath. “Um, yeah, sure, I’ll… I’ll see you at the table,” he says, and watches as Jake sidesteps him.

He shakes himself out of it and makes his way back to where the others are engaged in an impassioned discussion. Bradley doesn’t try to understand what everyone’s on about, at first just eager to sink into the chair Phoenix saved for him, exhaustion sticking to his bones. Then his attention is immediately pulled in by Coyote, who has, evidently, returned to the table as well, sitting next to Fritz and another empty seat that can’t be reserved for anyone but Jake.

Coyote’s gaze is sharp and inquisitive, and Bradley wonders, not for the first time, how much Jake has shared with him about their time in Texas or… or his feelings towards Bradley prior to that. Like he told Jake, he’d always had the impression that Coyote didn’t like him very much. But maybe, as everything has turned out to be, it’s just a little bit more complicated than that.

It's only when Jake returns to the table carrying two bottles of beer that Coyote stops staring holes into Bradley’s skull. He turns to his best friend, takes the bottle that’s offered to him, and the two exchange a few hushed words Bradley can’t hear over the yelling that comes from everyone else at their table.

He can’t be sure, but with a sinking feeling in his belly, he thinks they might be talking about him.

Bradley allows himself to be drawn into various conversations over the course of the next few hours, but he just feels tired as hell, the three beers he’s had not helping. Their group has shrunk already, Payback offering to take care of a well and truly sloshed Fanboy, and Yale has excused himself as well, citing a breakfast date with a cousin who, coincidentally, is also in town. It leaves Bradley sitting between Phoenix and Omaha, but directly opposite Jake, who has been real quiet all evening.

Bradley’s been feeling pretty rough for the past hour or so; jetlag kicking in and the additional beer he’d been determined not to have making itself known. He wants nothing more than to drive home, and sleep in his own bed for the next twenty-four hours, but he also can’t stop looking at Jake. He has no clue how long Jake will be in San Diego. If tonight is the only chance he gets to see him. And sure, maybe he’s supposed to be more concerned with getting over him, but right now, his chest feels tender and full just from being in his presence again, even if all he wants to do is get his mouth on him again.

Taste his skin and feel the flutter of his pulse.

“ –ster, hey!” Phoenix’s voice suddenly permeates the fog surrounding his head. “I’m heading to the bar,” she probably repeats for him, Fritz already at her shoulder, ready to help her carry it all. “You want anything?”

“Just water,” he replies, because it’s probably a good idea to have a couple of glasses to get the whole sobering up process underway. “Thanks.”

She and Fritz disappear, and a moment later, Omaha gets up as well.

“Gotta take a leak,” he announces to them, then he is also gone.

Bradley is left at the table with a very sober and far too attentive Bob, Coyote, who has been eyeing him sceptically all night, and Jake, who, in his civvies, simple jeans and shirt, is looking far too much like he did that night at the bar, right before Bradley had taken him home, kissed him within an inch of his life and fingered him open and –

He gulps in a mouthful of air and pushes the rest of his beer away from him and towards the middle of the table. There’s barely a puddle sloshing around in the bottle, but Bradley doesn’t want to risk it. Fuck having a third beer; he should’ve just had some goddamn juice instead.

Glancing over his shoulder, he quietly wonders how long Phoenix is going to take with his water, and doesn’t notice that anyone has moved before he senses a body sink into the chair vacated by Omaha.

“Hey, you okay there Rooster?” Jake asks, sounding genuinely concerned.

Bradley feels torn between telling him to fuck off and licking into his mouth, so he forced himself to do neither. Instead, he gives what he hopes is an easy smile.

“Sure, just – jetlag,” he says, and it’s not even a lie. “You know how it is.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” Bradley says. The petty side of him wants to snap and bite at Jake, ask him why the fuck he suddenly cares when he was the one who didn’t even want to give them a shot, but he’s also too damn tired to start an argument now, especially not with Coyote also present. “Just need some water, some sleep, and I’ll be good as new.”

Jake doesn’t seem convinced. “You alright to get home?”

And oh, if Bradley were feeling any less like a wet bag of ass, he might’ve put some effort into being a bit of a dick to Jake to… well, not get even, exactly, but be at least a fraction as difficult as Jake was to deal with before this whole… thing between them fell to fucking pieces.

“Like I said,” he tells Jake instead, “just some water, I’ll be fine.”

Phoenix and Fritz come back with the next round and Bradley’s water a second later, Omaha in tow, but Jake doesn’t move back to his seat. They’re all still sober enough to notice, but nobody comments on the changed seating arrangement. Bradley probably has Phoenix and Coyote to thank for that.

He feels a lot better once he’s finished most of the water. Might just need another half an hour to be fine enough to drive himself home. He certainly doesn’t feel sick anymore, even if he is still exhausted as hell and tired enough that he can’t follow the conversation the others are engaged in.

But he is not too tired not to notice when Jake’s hand brushes against his underneath the table. It sends an electric shock up his arms and straight into his chest, making his whole body tingle. It might have been by accident, he tries to tell himself; tries really hard to convince himself. Until it happens again. Knuckles touching, skin brushing against skin, making the hair on the back of Bradley’s neck stand on end.

It has to be deliberate. Jake does not do anything without deliberation. Nothing he does is by fucking chance. His treacherous heart thuds away in his chest, harder and harder until it echoes between Bradley’s ears and Christ, what did Jake mockingly throw at him when Bradley was pouring his heart out? Wanna hold hands, Rooster?

He did. Turns out he still does. Turns out Jake does too, after all.

He hooks his pinkie into Bradley’s, tentatively, perhaps worried that Bradley will pull away when that is the furthest fucking thing from his mind right now. Jake is giving him an inch. Bradley gives him the next; slides their palms together, open and waiting and Jake, after an unbearable drawn out second, fits his hand into Bradley’s, their fingers tightly intertwining.

Bradley feels warm all over. He squeezes Jake’s hand; once, twice. And sure. It’s not enough. Not by a mile.

But it’s a start.