Chapter Text
The pathway was obvious, but only to him. Closing his eyes and breathing out steadily through his nose opened a whole new type of sight. Something no radar or wingman could replicate. With seemingly unfounded confidence Hangman whipped through the air dodging shots from their mock enemy, Maverick, and ignoring shouts from Phoenix and Bob. He was honouring his call sign for sure and this, despite knowing what Maverick was planning before he did, doomed him.
He did his best to ignore Phoenix’s glare while they did their first set of many, many, push-ups.
His ability to ‘see’ had manifested young. A head spinning amount of déjà vu made it hard for him to tell dreams from reality until his mother sat him down and explained that from now on there wouldn't be a difference.
It wasn’t an exact science. Most of the time the sight played alongside his human vision like a second stream of thought. Other times it flashed through his mind like a warning sign. The element of his gift that he found the most annoying were his dreams. He always fell asleep praying for a night without a vision. They were foreboding and cryptic, hinting at things larger than anything a navy pilot could hope to affect. Given his peculiar advantage, Hangman excelled when he worked alone. Unless he could convince the people flying with him to trust in him without question— which good fucking luck with that —they’d undoubtedly make the wrong choice. He resigned himself to that fact early in flight school. No matter what way he was seeing the future however, one thing was always true. He used it to be the best damn pilot you could imagine.
~~~
“You can’t tell people, you can warn them discreetly but never never tell them how you know what you know.” Jake's mom stressed as she laid out the ten psychic commandments. “If you see a ghost—they’re surprisingly rare—don’t freak out. Do not ever touch a Ouija board, they’re gimmicky crap 90% of the time but god forbid someone like us gives it a whirl…“
Jake, twelve years old and a few weeks into his psychic career had heard this speech at least a dozen times. His sisters, both already through the worst of psychic development, entertained themselves by teasing him.
“You look like an idiot, work on the poker face.” Eleanor laughed as Jake snapped his jaw shut, it having fallen slack as a vision had taken over his eyes.
“Or you could spin in circles until you puke to make it go by faster.” Ava, the meaner of the two, suggested.
Overall it wasn’t the roughest transition. Jake learned to keep a smile on his face no matter what played out in his mind's eye and by high school he’d understood when to keep his cards close to his chest. The less information volunteered the fewer questions on its origin. As had become par for the course for the Seresin’s, Jake's reputation as a cocky asshole flourished but, hey, at least he wasn’t burned at the stake.
Years passed and Jake, now Hangman, qualified on the F-18 flight system and quickly his reputation as a risky but shockingly lucky pilot spread. It was on his second deployment that, for the first time since middle school, a vision knocked him on his ass.
He had a fever and they wouldn’t let him fly. It was a simple trip and there were plenty of people in reserve willing to get more flight hours under their belt. His replacement, a young pilot from Texas, callsign Lasso, paid his respects by dropping by Hangman’s bunk and laughing at his feverish state.
“Feel better man” He smirked, “l want to see you up and running by 0600 tommorow.” Hangman groaned and flipped him off but he just chuckled.
“See you later.”
Eject! Eject! Eject! Alarms blared in Hangman’s ears and he felt the pain of a bad landing as if he’d been the one in the cockpit. He wanted to get up and tackle Lasso to the ground, put him in the medbay so he couldn’t fly for a week even if that put himself in the Admirals office facing a charge. Instead Jake rolled over and tried not to cry.
By 0600 the next morning Hangman’s fever had eased, around the same time, Lasso’s family got the news that their son wasn’t coming home.
Lasso wasn’t the first person Hangman had seen the scythe hanging over. Predicting heart attacks and car crashes are to a psychic as swimming is to a fish. But he was the first to shake his hand and laugh as the reaper closed in.
Jake made a point of avoiding people before they took off. He would rather deal with the shock than the dread.
And he successfully never saw a dead man get into a plane until a detachment years later.
~~~
The irritating beep of a simulation missile hitting their planes had been ringing in the ears of every pilot on North Island since the detachment had started. But as Hangman shaved that morning it was screaming in his mind,
Give me tone Damnit! COYOTE! Captain Mitchell’s voice shot through his head as his vision went black. When it snapped back he nearly collapsed as a second vision immediately took over his consciousness. Birdstrike! Eject! Eject! New voices screamed as the deafening sound of a plane hitting the ground echoed in his head.
He was shaking during breakfast, which he rushed through not wanting to look at the faces of people he wasn’t sure would make it to lunch. Unaware he was one of the pilots Hangman was avoiding, Coyote sought Jake out, wanting to know why his friend hadn’t wolfed down the barely edible mess breakfast like he usually did.
“You sick man? I don’t think they’ll let you bring a bucket into the air.” He laughed at Hangman's pale face.
Why do they always laugh right before, Hangman thought. He agonized for a moment hearing the voices of his mother and her rules alongside Maverick and his yelling in his vision.
“Javy,” he poured sincerity into his words, “don’t fly today.” Coyote, surprised at the lack of jackass spirit in his buddy’s demeanour, just hummed. “Man I can’t, I can’t explain why or how or literally anything that’ll make you listen to me but please don’t fly today.”
Coyote lifted a hand to Hangman’s shoulder. “I hear you dude, we all get a bad feeling sometimes,” Hangman scoffed, “but we have to be able to fly on the good days and the bad days.”
Hangman stared over Coyote's shoulder watching Phoenix tease Bob as the two unknowingly walked across the pavement to an early grave.
“It’s usually best not to do anything about what you see darling, let what wants to happen happen.” His mother had warned him off the hero's path. “The universe needs accidents and death as much as it needs luck and survivors. What’s predicted will come due whether it’s today or tomorrow or years from now.”
Fuck it.
Hangman turned and left without another word, leaving Coyote confused in his wake.
One thing that was consistent in the military was that delays compounded quickly. For all the stress put on timings and orders, shit always got back logged. Another thing true about the military, shit didn’t get updated. The cameras on base were few and far between. Marking most entrances and a few exits. Putting most of the halls in a blind spot. His ass covered by the lack of cameras Hangman decided on the oldest trick in the book. He was gonna pull the fire alarm.
~~~
With the alarm still blaring and most of command evacuated to the parking lot Coyote and the others flying in his relay weren’t permitted to take off until 1100, 3 hours past the original timing. Vice Admiral Simpson was pissed and once it was determined a false alarm he vowed to find whoever pulled the alarm and court-martial them.
Little else had changed other than the time. Hangman's ears still rang with yells and simulated middle strikes but the black cloud over his friend's colleagues heads had grey’d. All things considered, Jake had hope.
Hangman was listening to the radio communication from the lounge while they flew. He was sunk into the deep leather couch, projecting an air of suave confidence while every muscle in his body screamed to contract in on himself. He couldn’t let himself look worried. Rooster and a few other pilots listened more attentively to the communication. All things considered, the flight was going well. They were about to hit coffin corner and start the painful pull upwards, thousands of pounds pressing down on them and, at least during training, it was the home stretch.
“Coyote!” Maverick yelled, voice cracking over the radio. For a moment Hangman didn’t react, thinking it was a repeat of his vision, “He’s in G-Lock! Give me tone, Damnit! Coyote!” Hangman jumped up, heart pumping and the sick déjà vu adjacent feeling of a vision coming to fruition made him want to puke.
But Coyote woke up. Just barely pulling up in time to avoid colliding with the ground. Relief was short lived as the crew had barely taken another breath before Maverick was again yelling over the radio
“Birdstrike!” He screamed, Phoenix echoed his call and began enacting the drills she was trained on. They went down. Ejecting, yes, but that was a Hail Mary for a reason. It didn’t always leave the pilots alive.
As a team dispatched to where their GPS pinged them the remaining pilots on base had no update on Phoenix and Bobs status, the spare radio under Bob's seat inactive. Hangman snuck away, desperate to reach into the future. If he could see anything to do with them that would suggest not having died on impact he'd at least calm one fear.
A bathroom far down an old hallway was empty and likely to stay that way. Lying on his back on the floor between a pair of broken showers and leaking sinks he pressed the palms of his hand into the cold tile and exhaled slowly, leaving his lungs empty, envisioning the faces of the two downed pilots. It took a few minutes to calm down enough to let the vision in. As his heartbeat slowed and his breathing steadied, the black nothingness of closed eyes rippled like water. He heard before he saw, bells and cheers, a fork clinking against a glass. He saw white lace and a bouquet flying through the air. Bob had tears in his eyes which worried Hangman until he saw the grin on his face. His old-fashioned glasses were reflecting the just as wide smile of Phoenix.
When the vision faded, Hangman kept his eyes closed and would have been embarrassed to admit it took him a full minute to understand what he’d seen. He could question Phoenix’s choice in a husband later, for now he was just grateful that it looked like they would live to see a wedding.
He kept lying on the floor.
Which he regretted when the door opened.
Rooster didn’t say anything as Hangman shot up quickly, stumbling slightly into the sink and red in the face despite his best efforts to keep his cool.
The awkward silence stretched between them until Rooster broke it,
“You alright?”
“Yep.”
Rooster nodded slowly, wheels turning as he considered the odd sight he’d walked in on.
“…whatcha doing?”
“Trying to get some sleep, can’t use the lounge when you're all crying your eyes out in it.” It was a shitty thing to say and Hangman knew it. He half hoped that Rooster wouldn’t believe him or that he’d knock him in the head at least.
Rooster’s expression didn’t change from the mild annoyance he usually displayed when looking in Hangman's direction, “Bob got through to command- All Okay.”
“Good to hear, it’s been an eventful morning already. I'd rather not add a double funeral to the docket.”
Rooster cringed at the joke, “You're such an asshole, they could have been dead and your trying to take a fucking nap.”
Hangman opened his mouth to retort but Rooster had already stormed out before he could.
Coyote found him late that night. Cleared by medical to fly again and somber over the near death experience he sat down by Hangman far from the few others who remained in the area.
“How’d you know?” They both knew what he was referring to without elaboration.
“Like you said, just a bad feeling.”
“You wouldn’t pull the fire alarm over a bad feeling.”
Hangman didn’t say anything. Somehow both upset and proud that someone knew him well enough to clock him for the alarm fiasco.
“You know, growing up my grandma was always superstitious.” Coyote steeled himself to ask what to any other pilot would have been a stupid question, ”She’d say some people could be a little psychic…”
Still silent, Hangman nodded.
“You a little psychic?” Coyote asked nonchalantly.
Hangman pursed his lips and pushed the most important psychic commandment from his brain, “I’m a little more than a little psychic.”
“You knew I was gonna pass out?”
“I knew, yeah.” He saw Coyote gearing up for another question and decided to answer before it was asked, “I knew about Phoenix and Bob too.” They were both quiet as reality set in. Hangman was surprised by the lack of worry he felt having revealed such a big secret to Javy.
“We’re we supposed to die?”
Hangman pulled at the fabric of his pants, “I think so, yeah.”
Coyote looked up at the ceiling, emitting a whispered prayer punctuated by a loud, “Holy fuck man.”
Hangman broke into a laugh and Coyote soon matched him.
~~~
A third presence had been listening to Hangman's confession. A presence that Hangman had felt but had had no name for. When it came to matters of the dead, Jake had been taught not to react, to just ignore, and never converse. To possess the skill of a medium was dangerous, ghosts were dangerous, Nick Bradshaw, who tailed his son around base like a cross between a proud father and a lost puppy, was dangerous.
.