Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was surprisingly cold on the carrier, something about the wind off the water and the storm patterns so far away from solid land. Bradley should have listened to that part of basic training a little closer, too ready to get in the cockpit to worry about where he would be landing. Even after crawling out of the deathtrap fossil that had somehow stayed together on a wing and a prayer long enough to get them both the hell out of the ruined airfield and the ensuing dogfight that was sure to haunt the nightmares of Bradley’s foreseeable future, it was still so cold on the deck. It was like the chill had settled into his bones, clearing out the memories of warmth in the process.

Even after being crushed in the mass of people who had emerged from every corner of the floating city to congratulate him and Maverick for somehow pulling the mission off despite the chain of cosmically bad luck that ended with them flat on their backs in snow drifts taller than the both of the stranded men, it was somehow still fucking freezing on the mobile air strip. Bradley hated the cold, always had and probably always would at this point. He’d spent his whole adult life planting himself as firmly as he could considering the sunniest places with air strips and planes to fly and yet, like everything else in his life, he ended up right back, staring wherever he was running from right in the face. It would almost be funny, the way those old roadrunner cartoons are funny at first before they just start making you sad, wishing that old coyote would just catch a break for once.

The sea of uniformed strangers parted to let a few familiar faces through to the returning pilots. Spirits were high and old rivalries were left behind as Bradley was just about crushed between Phoenix and Bob, twin triumphant grins on their faces as they appointed themselves to the role of escorts to make sure Bradley actually went to medical for once instead of waving them off and crawling back to his barracks room once the cheers faded out to lick his wounds. Phoenix would never let him forget the time he tried to get her to let him walk off a decidedly broken leg, he stood by the fact he was back in the air not two months later, so really it couldn't have been that bad.

“You didn’t do all that to go die of a concussion or something like that because you can’t just listen to the doctor for once.” Bob ordered firmly, preempting whatever half excuse half bullshit attempt to reason Bradley was about to come up with, listening to the frankly terrifying pair seemed easier.

The crowd kept them pressed on just this side of too close together to try and slip away and frankly, they were still out in the middle of the ocean, and Phoenix might have admittedly been onto something with that med bay idea. As the adrenaline started to fade slowly, the bone deep ache of a day spent cheating death in a thousand little ways and more than a few major ones started to catch up to him.

The idea of staying upright in the crowd, after the day he had, surrounded by a ship full of people there alive and celebrating because of him and his unit started to slip into surreal territory the longer he stopped to think about it. Paired with the slight queasy spin the world had taken on since being shot down the first time, Bradley was quietly grateful the unit had taken to surrounding him and Mav, propping them both up more than either of them would ever admit. The contact helped shake the chill away, it was life affirming in its own way. It was alive and moving and for once Bradley was a part of it, at the center of the mass of people, all warm bodies and high spirits.

And then as if he was always there, Jake appeared as easy as can be out of the crowd next to Bradley, replacing Phoenix the second she turned back to yell at Fanboy to “get back from the edge of the boat” and how they wouldn’t stop to fish him out. It was nice to see that things were still the same even on the other side of this thing they had done. Phoenix and Bob were still going to do their best to drag the rest of them into acting somewhat respectable and the rest of them were going to do their best to make that as hard as possible. It made Bradley think of a family, people bound together by choice and not just circumstance, it made him almost sentimental. The throbbing head wound and the cut slowly oozing above his eye not helping steady the train of thought he found himself on.

“Looking good out there Jake.” Bradley said before his head could catch up with his mouth, bumping shoulders with the other man forgetting the shock of the dislocation and subsequent relocation of that arm, catching himself before he did something really embarrassing like fall right over and stay flat out on the deck of the ship until he got dragged off to medical.

Something that looked an awful lot like worry flashed over Jake’s face before he caught Bradley staring back at him and all of a sudden the top of the world grin was back like nothing ever happened. It was a bad expression on him, made something deep down and somehow still far too close to the surface twist in Bradley's stomach, like he needed to do something to chase it off away from the other man.

Maybe Bob was right about that concussion thing, Bradley thought as the deck seemed to sway just slightly out of rhythm with the waves, giving him an odd sensation of falling and standing very still at the same time. That was as good an excuse as any to lean more on the man posted up right alongside him, like a buoy in the rocking ocean.

“I am good Bradley.” Jake said without thinking, falling back into old routines while trying to get a real look at the man next to him, the easy rhythm of their back and forth not needing any real thought at his point, as familiar as the twists and turns on the road back to his childhood home. He still was not completely convinced that Bradley was actually there, that his plane had gone down over the mountain range and stayed there and that this was all a very elaborate apparition.

That thought faded as Jake started to notice the bruises littered over what sun kissed skin he could see around the singed flight suit, the too stiff way he was holding himself, and the way Bradley swayed slightly as his hands shook around the helmet he still held tightly like somebody was going to run up and take it from him. He had to be real, the cut slowly dripping red, red, red blood just above the other man’s eye knocking Jake back to reality and back into the decidedly real presence of the other pilot. Ghosts didn’t bleed, he figured, they were too busy haunting old houses or scaring little kids or whatever the fuck they did.

Bradley was startlingly alive. Alive the same way he did everything, in spite of the world around him and in bright, movie-worthy technicolor. The sun shining on him like a testament, some sort of spotlight from above to highlight just what he’d survived to get back to the carrier. It was almost enough to make Jake mad, even after all that training and competing, he still got himself shot down and somehow made it work out like a dream. The sun seemed to rise and set on Bradley Bradshaw, he decided. That was the only way he could rationalize it, something or someone up much higher than the two of them owed him a favor and by god was Bradley coming to collect.

Jake slung his arm around Bradley in celebration, but kept it there like a steel band as they both slowly made their way across the deck and through the crowd into the depths of the carrier. Phoenix ordered him to drag Bradley to medical by force if needed, with a tone and a series of fairly graphic gestures that would have put the fear of an early and very painful grave into just about anybody else, if he didn’t hear the real concern buried under the attitude and bravado.

For once the orders didn’t chafe under his skin the way so many others did. He figured it was probably because he had planned on following them anyway and Bradley tucked into his side like he could hide him there from the world would have felt right under any other circumstance.

The wind-chill off the water felt as far away as the snow capped mountains as they bumped into each other, walking like some half-remembered fairytale creature with four legs and too many empty hands, as they ambled through the crowd., shaking hands and sharing smiles all the way. At some point after they passed through the first door into the ship and the crowd had stayed behind in the daylight, not quite willing to descend back into the cold of the ship themselves. Some of the fight that was holding Bradley upright slipped out the farther down they went and he leaned more on Jake as they tried to find their way through the labyrinth of the ship.

His stutter-drag breaths around what had to be at least a couple broken ribs echoing down the metal walls, pressed up against the side of Jake's neck, not that he was paying as much attention to that as he’d like to be considering the current circumstance. The cut above Bradley’s eyebrow still dripped down the side of his face, dropping onto the ruined flight suit right above his heart, spotting down his nametag. A few of the drops get on Jake’s flight suit in the process of their walk, tying him further back to the land of the living. Ghosts couldn't mark up the living, couldn't leave something so permanent on the living. It reassured Jake in a way he didn't want to confront, the wave of caring over him felt less like he was drowning and more like he was moving with the motion, like the buoys they’d passed on the way out.

The walls of the ship seemed to lead them around and around in circles for ages until the door to the med bay opened just like magic and the pack of corpsmen descended upon the battle-worn pilots with no hesitation. Next thing Jake knew, they both were separated and sat on exam beds across the room both making brief eye contact like they had to check the other was still there, breath catching until they could see the other again. The chill of the boat’s interior sinking in through the flight suits now that they both were off their feet and lit by the harsh fluorescents. Bradley made an ugly face before schooling it into that blank look he got when he had to swallow some orders he was dying to bite back at as the doctor unzipped the top of his ruined flight suit to see the worst of the bruising and Jake fought some deep set urge to bundle him up somewhere far away from here, somewhere warm, somewhere safe, and where the sun shone down every day without a cloud in sight. It stuck in his throat, this rush of affection for the other man, it brought him back to their days at flight school when just looking at Bradley made him want to go out and hit something, ugly mass of feelings curled up inside.

Bradley wasn’t meant for the cold and the damp, Jake thought as the nurses fussed over him across the room, it didn’t suit him. Those terrible shirts of his that he wore like a second skin in the increasingly short windows of time the Navy let them both back into solid ground without uniforms and orders, screamed beaches and tropical places. Jake had picked up on how he had avoided any assignments that even had a chance of snow over the years they had orbited each other after finishing flight school, top of the class together to the surprise of both men.

The rest of the class had a running bet that they were going to crash and burn trying to outdo each other, by graduation day they were privately surprised that the bet never came to pass, despite their best efforts. Time apart leads to something like maturity, that's what he kept telling himself anyway, and that ugly green jealousy at the other pilots' undeniable talent gave way to genuine admiration and back to the pigtail pulling back and forth they've had going for years now.

The rest of the Dagger unit filed in behind them in short order. If the sight of about a dozen pilots in varying stages of battered, bruised, and half in and out of uniform was unusual during a time of relative inactivity mission wise anyway, the staff gave no indication, moving with brusque efficiency. Most of them had no real injuries to speak of, more hyped up on the speed rush high of adrenaline than anything else really. Without missing a beat, the usual back and forth they had come to acquire over the course of their training picked right back up, old bets and even older jokes called out over the med bay beds much to the annoyance of the people trying to make sure everybody had come back to Earth in one piece. Even so, the attitude of the room was light, they all made it back somehow and still finished the mission.

With the slightly sobering realization that he had kept closer tabs on Bradley for years than can be strictly reasoned as a competitive interest still ringing in his head, the Doc cleared him and ushered him out of the med bay with all the usual warmth of Navy medicine. As he was all but shoved out the far too short door in what had become the designed waiting area that had been quickly filled with the rest of the Dagger unit. It was nice, Jake thought, the way they all started falling in together, doing their best to watch over each other in what ways they could. He wasn't sure when they had all crossed that line from crewmates to friends, but stood there pressed shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the unit, he found himself strangely thankful.

He turned back and caught another look at Bradley, the center of attention in the white walled room, lighting it up with that lopsided smile, that stupid out of regulation mustache he somehow pulled off quirked up to one side, as the corpsman listed off an improbably long list of dents and dings acquired over the course of the mission and the resulting racked up mandatory time off. Jake gave it two weeks before he was back up in the air, regulations and injuries be damned. Bradley moving to wave off the doctor trying to put a sling on his arm was the last thing Jake saw before the door slammed amid the chaos inside, leaving him in the cold hallway turned gathering area and with no clue how to get back to the main deck or any other part of the ship for that matter. The unit had all parked themselves there and nobody was offering any directions so it looked like they were there for the foreseeable future.

Maverick was cleared by medical minutes after the unit was finally all pushed out of the med bay for good, calling in yet another one of his miracles, being shoved out with slightly more grace than Jake and the rest were afforded as relatively junior pilots considering. Somehow the man ending up only walking away with his own museum worthy collection of multicolor bruising and a minor concussion despite being shot at on land, in air and then proceeding to fall out the sky twice in just one short month. Bradley, on the other hand, was saddled with a few broken ribs, a moderate concussion that made the room spin now and again the first week back on solid land, a fading black eye that made him look like a down on his luck boxer in Jake’s opinion, a very dislocated and then promptly located shoulder, and enough cuts and bruises to earn what had to be half the bandages on the ship and good painkillers from the unit’s first and hopefully last group outing to the very well stocked carrier med bay.

For all his charm and eventual pleading, the corpsman put Bradley on strict orders to not drink under any circumstance on the painkillers, dooming him to being the only sober one at his guest of honor party. The idea of that bothered him less than he thought, maybe the shock of not being dead was still wearing off he thought, waving off Bob’s impending mother henning at the sight of the sling being brought out for the recently un-dislocated shoulder. Fanboy’s rather loudly complaining from where they all sat in the hall that it wasn’t a cast they could all sign startled a laugh out of him, kicking off the rest of the unit in almost hysterical laughter, the shock of the day still in full effect.

After what could have been hours or just a few minutes, sick of the collection of half delirious pilots most likely, one of the sailors broke away from the med bay to drag them off to a bunk room with orders for them to stay there until they got back into port or at the very least try to stay out of the way for the time being. There was shocking little objection to that, most of the unit proceeding to pass out on the nearest bed shaped object or wherever they managed to sit down first. Jake still wasn't sure just how Yale and Harvard managed to fit on the same bunk, all curled up like barn cats in the winter, but it was more impressive than confusing all things considered. He found himself walking back down the way to the med bay, only getting lost once or twice before finding himself back at the door that had been shut to him just a few hours previous.

The ship pulled into port with as much fanfare as can be expected considering. Jake stayed firmly by Bradley’s side the entire time, watching the rise and fall of his dog tags where they rested on his chest as he was thoroughly racked out in the med bay. The rest of the unit had filed in one by one as they had woken up like they all needed to see him with their own eyes, like they also couldn't quite believe that he had come back to them. Somebody had pressed a cup of absolutely heinous jet fuel posing as coffee into Jake's hand at some point before fading out somewhere in the background. He turned to thank them but found the room empty.

The room was silent, strange on a boat so filled with people. Jake wasn't sure if he had seen the other man sit this still or for this long by choice, even when flying he seemed like a live wire, an object in constant motion. Stillness felt wrong on him, like an ill fitting suit. At some point Jake drifted off leaning ever so close to the bed and the man laying on it like a picture from a storybook, perched in the just too small plastic chair every hospital and emergency room seemed to have. Somebody must have come in and taken a picture of them half curled towards each other, much closer than anybody had ever seen them in the light of day. Jake woke up to about a dozen teasing texts from Coyote about snagging the returning hero. He rolled his eyes and texted back that if anything it was the other way around before turning off his phone and going back to sleep.

The unit dispersed as soon as the ship docked, half claiming they needed a real meal and nothing from a can or packet like the carrier's kitchen had so generously provided. The other half going to wash off the day and change into human clothes, ready for a long night at the Hard Deck. Bradley was the last one off the boat, squinting up at the sun like it almost confused him, having left his signature sunglasses back on dry land. Before Jake could say anything, Bradley had slid into the backseat of Fanboy’s surprisingly practical minivan with a grace he should absolutely not have at the moment and peeling off into the general direction of the base. Jake's phone pinged with plans from everybody to meet up in just a few hours for the victory lap party, with promises of hell raising and general chaos the running theme.

Choosing to put the feeling that he had been left behind aside, he made his way back to his assigned living quarters, the wanting of a real shower now quickly becoming a need. After the hot water runs out and the steam fades out from the bathroom mirror, Jake finds himself in what passes for civilian clothes pulled up from the bottom of his travel bag, standing at the counter in his kitchen. The dishes from the sorry excuse of a meal he had pulled together that morning still waiting to be washed in the sink. It had only been a day, despite everything. It was an odd thought, so much could change in a day with the world staying so much the same. He stood there for a moment, washing the plate and setting it up to dry, the lights from the Hard Deck visible through the kitchen window just down the beach, people starting to stream into the bar like moths to a flame.

Before he knows any real amount of time has passed with him just watching the flow of people, Phoenix comes screeching up to his front door with a complete disregard for any semblance of traffic laws, music spilling out into the night from her open window like fanfare calling out her arrival. Bob sat relaxed in the passenger seat like his copilot’s driving wasn’t more suited to a F1 track than the cracked base roads in desperate need of repaving, all while doing his absolute best to give her directions to the last stragglers of the unit scattered around the base over the blaring radio. “Get in Bagman! Places to be!” She called out, leaning out the window, her usual confidence back in full force, an easy grin stretched over her face like it never left.

How Bob knew where they all lived dotted around the base wherever there was space after being called up on such short notice was frankly a little scary but not completely unwelcome. He was living up to the stealth part of his title a little more everyday. Coyote had threatened to put a bell on him the other day, the man seeming to simply appear out of thin air.

The fact they came to pick him up was strange, he could still see the bar from his window, could hear it most nights over the sound of the waves, and had told them that again as they had all split off to do their own things before regrouping back at the bar. As he made his way out his front door for the night, he decided that it wasn't worth it to argue with the pair now after seeing the way Natasha was treating road signs like personal affronts to her ability to drive like a bat out of hell.

“Who the hell gave you a license Nix?” Jake asked, folding himself into the backseat of the glistening red car that looked right off a factory line somewhere, made for speed and most definitely not the chauffeuring she was currently attempting. A little phoenix keychain sparkling from where it hung down from the rearview mirror bouncing back and forth as they pulled out back onto the main road, she was nothing if not on brand. “I’ll have you know I’m the drag racing champ back home, seven years running now.” She bragged proudly meeting his eyes in the mirror, all the while pulling the most illegal u-turn Jake had ever seen in his life in the middle of the empty intersection, traffic light blinking in protest.

“And you fly planes with that track record, why?” Jake couldn't help but press, trying to distract himself from the way the speedometer seemed to just keep ticking up as they blazed their way down the highway. “Because, despite the events of the last few weeks, there's far less crashing into the whole blaze of glory thing involved in flying than driving. Your car sparks a little bit in the middle of a race once and all of a sudden that's all anybody talks about. Are you sure this is the right way?” She continues, interrupting herself, taking one hand off the wheel to punctuate her statements with fairly expressive gestures, the whlte dashes blending into one line as she leans over to try and see what directions Bob’s phone is spitting out. Jake reached over as they both were distracted and pulled his seatbelt that much tighter, suddenly wishing for the relative safety of his cockpit over whatever was happening in front of him.

“She finished the race with the car completely on fire.” Bob turns back to tell Jake the story with well worn fondness while Nat’s distracted by the blinking red light he can see her thinking about running. “It doesn't help that you were racing the base commander's kid during flight school either Nat. And yes, this is the right way. Halo said she was staying in the house just past these decommissioned hangers up on the left.” He finished, the light turning green just before she made up her mind. “It was barely on fire!” She jumped in, still trying to downplay the more dramatic details of the story years after the fact.

“Nope, big ball of fire. Somebody had to call 911 and make you go to the ER for smoke inhalation.” Bob replied, emphasizing making it clear he was the only one on the side of reason in that story. “Still beat the dumbass in that piece of shit junker and got the best callsign out of it so I won.” She fired back competitive fire in her voice at the memory, missing her turn again just to see Bob roll his eyes again and attempt to reroute them again for what had to be the fourth or fifth time just since Jake had gotten into the car.

After a few more hairpin turns, the lone little house at the end of the road came into view finally. The lights were off and no car was parked outside the lone house. This set off a wave of increasingly graphic dictated threats to be relayed by Bob. The group chat that had sprouted up overnight lighting up Jake's phone screen in the backseat as they tried to find the few remaining members of the group who had not adequately communicated their whereabouts prior to the carpool from hell commencing. Jake’s admiration for Bob as a pilot and as somebody who was quickly becoming a friend was quietly growing in the backseat, the thought of submitting himself to this daily and willingly was an absolutely abhorrent idea to his totally rational self-preservation instincts.

“Besides I was on my last strike for speeding when I joined up and my recruiter said he could waive that if I went straight to flight school-” Natasha cut herself off from however that story was going to end with an impressive string of curses as a car going the actual speed limit pulled in front of them, Bob not looking up from his phone as if this was a totally normal turn of events for the pair. Jake knew they made a good pair, had flown with them a few times before TOP GUN, even still the way they could communicate and go back at each other without even thinking about it, like they were two people moving with one brain was something to watch. “I’m not going to keep telling you where to go if you keep ignoring me Nat.” Bob said, tone full of that fond exasperation earned after years of time spent with each other. “I’m making my own path killjoy!” She laughed out around her response, looking back to see the way Jake was pressed back into his seat as if that would make her slow down.

Jake was saved from the trouble of actually having to hold a conversation with them after that, the two in the front immediately launching back into their attempts at pathfinding their way halfway across the base and back again. Apparently Halo had stopped answering her phone as they had pulled up at her decidedly empty house and taken Fritz off the grid with her and now the whole chain of communication was catastrophically thrown off. Several very creative threats were dictated to Bob and he continued to try and relay them in the unit group chat, no responses had come through from the intended recipients but one from a now terrified Yale said that he’d pass the message along if he saw the rogue pilots.

Jake was just glad they all flew better than they planned, eventually Bob giving up on trying to censor the increasing graphic statements from the driver and suggesting they might have just beaten everybody to the Hard Deck and if not they could just find their own way there. It was as good a suggestion as any, it was beginning to feel like they were just going in circles so Nat could show off to the few people out driving around at the early twilight hour.

The trip was scarily quick after that, now that a destination was actually set, speed limits an offensive suggestion for her, somehow staying as steady on the road as she did in the air despite her eyes straying everywhere but the road, her laugh echoing down the highway out the open window as they came flying into the very last open parking spot right in front of the Hard Deck. Just like Bob said, both of their missing pilots were deeply engrossed in the first of many drinking competitions of the night, surrounded by a crowd they collected in the absence of the rest of the group.

Nat wasted no time in going in and giving them the scare of their lives, both fumbling their way through apologies at the missed texts and buying the first round for the new joins to the event as an apology. The remaining members of the unit moved back to join them as the bar filled in steadily for the night. Bradley came strolling in, fashionably late to his own party as usual, sandwiched between Fanboy and Payback, both doing their level best to drag his version of the story of the day out of him as they made their way over to the rest of the group before being distracted by some bet called out over the other side of the bar and dropping the conversation entirely.

After that victory party goes over and out far quieter than anybody had expected, pilots included. None of them feeling the usual desire to poke and prod at each other, content to let the old rivalries rest for the night, all happy to just be in each other's company for a little while. The slow comedown from the adrenaline of the mission was cushioned by the lights and sounds of Penny’s bar filling up with what seemed like half the base trying to hear what happened that brought an aircraft carrier full of the best and brightest the Navy had to offer into port unannounced that afternoon.

The pilots had migrated to their usual corner, Yale and Omaha quickly racking up another game of pool with no real stakes as Payback launched into his second retelling of the events of the day, complete with gestures and sound effects to a captive audience quickly on their way to being too drunk to remember the details of in the morning, Fanboy and Phoenix sitting back and jumping in to add in their accounts when needed and adding their own color commentary all the while.

Bradley was more than happy to sit in the back, letting everybody else beat him to the stories, propped up against the wall, sipping at the slowly warming soda Penny had sent over with Jake the second Bradley had sauntered into the bar. He’d managed to wave off Nat’s offer of a ride over, not eager to make that mistake twice after he’d heard her spectacular crash and burn story from Bob only for her to send over Fanboy instead with strict orders for him to personally escort him to the party. He had pulled up in his hand-me-down minivan covered in bumper stickers from what seemed like everywhere, somehow not at all what Bradley was expecting the man to drive. Fanboy had been in the passenger seat and Payback had been driving for some reason, Bradley had a suspicion that the two in the front had come from the same place and that he was third wheeling something getting ready to happen. The ride was smooth sailing after that, the roads clear and the rise and fall of the conversation of the other two men a steady backdrop to the motion outside Bradley’s window.

Jake let out a low whistle as he came over to Bradley’s staked out corner of the lively bar. “Looking good there Roo.” he said shit-eating grin back in full force, just loud enough for the both of them to hear over the latest argument over the pool table, as he slid the soda across the age-worn table. For some reason, all of Jake’s whatever it was, attitude or whatever made him so infuriating, didn't seem to get under his skin tonight. The way he looked at Bradley after he jumped down from the F-14 and how he held him closer than he really needed too, walked him halfway across the carrier before somehow vanishing on a boat in the middle of the ocean somehow, felt burned into Bradley’s memory just as much as the way the craters on the airfield smoldered up there in the mountains.

He’d turned his phone on once they were on dry land again to a picture from Coyote of all people, still having no idea who gave the other man his number, of Jake asleep in the chair next to his bed in the med bay while he was knocked out from the meds. It was a strangely peaceful picture, both of them relaxed in each other's company. Bradley strangely touched to find out the second half of Fanboy’s story of them getting lost on the carrier and turning around to see how Jake had wandered off is at least a little bit based in reality.

He wanted to be more alarmed at how little that bothered him, that the man next to him had willingly sought out his company, had come to find him to make sure he was alright, but that was a future Bradley problem he figured. They had the rest of forever to rile each other up now. The idea of them both old and gray at some nursing home somewhere still bickering back and forth about who had the faster flight times made Bradley laugh to himself, they always seemed to end up right in front of each other, no matter how far or how fast they traveled. It was nice in its own way, somebody to come back to, even if they were something still undefined to each other. Not quite rivals anymore, maybe closer to friends than anything but that didn't seem to sit right with him either for some reason.

“I am good Jake, very good.” came Bradley's response, feeling a wave of deja vu rush over him the last time they went back and forth at this bar, it felt like a lifetime ago just as much as it felt like the scant handful of weeks it had actually been. He sat up and shot his crooked grin back at blonde, stretching himself out as much as his impressive collection of injuries would allow on such short notice, forcing down the wince that followed any sudden movements or any movements at all, if he was being honest. It didn't hurt as much as he knew it would, if anything it was the feeling of a hurt to come that was giving him pause, like a ghost of somebody who hasn't died yet, like an ache for something that he couldn't remember ever happening. It was an odd feeling, not suited to the lively atmosphere in the bar so he tried to set it aside and focus on what the man next to him was saying to him.

“I bet. They let you out of the hospital looking like that Roo? Feels like I’m on call over here.” Jakes’s response came as he slid into the chair next to Bradley, careful to not bump his bad shoulder, using the movement to get a good look at the other man under the warm bar lights. “Didn’t do all that for you to keel over on the pool table.” Bradley looked like he was all lit up from within at this angle, something about the aftermath of cheating death always made him look something annoyingly close to heaven sent, like he crash landed right here for him to come find like one of those storm chasers looking for the next big one.

The idea of Bradley crashing sent a brief wave of unchecked nausea over Jake so he shook it off quick as can be, turning his brain over to the task of cataloging the just this side of shocked smile on Bradley’s face right now, like the fact he was still breathing kept creeping up on him, giving him a little shock with every new breath taken. Somehow that didn't stop him from looking over at Jake with that troublemaker glint in his eyes and coming back with, “If that’s the case, I’m really in trouble now.” Jake grinned into his drink, somehow even looking like one foot in the grave Bradley still wouldn't back down from him. It helped settle the nerves he was ignoring, Bradley was here and alive enough to be a menace, all bruised like a peach and solid-warm-alive sat at the beat up pub table.

The clatter of the pool balls and the back and forth of the near constant stream of new people into the bar kept the two men in their own little pocket of quiet conversation, tucked in the back alone together. Drinks seemed to find their way over to the table like magic as the night went on, people sending them over for the returning heroes or some old tradition like that. Jake had started passing them off to Bob at some point so he could then pass them off to whoever was dangerously close to finishing their own drinks, trusting him with the general health of the rest of the unit. The idea of them doing all that training only for the neon-colored lethal concoctions that kept coming their way to be the thing that finally finished them off was endlessly amusing to both men perched in the back.

The jukebox seemed to wake up after a short while of building chatter and started to play a song every pilot in the bar seemed to know about the woes of being a grounded fighter pilot waiting on a fight that was never coming and was stuck on the ground. The irony not lost on anybody in attendance, a small smile twisted over Bradley’s face as the rest of the Dagger unit started to drunkenly sing along as the song ramped up, Bradley himself chiming in when the narrator claims the system screwed him over and out of the cockpit with the same high energy of the rest of the unit, too buoyed by the energy of the room to think about being mad over long past events. He got himself here one way or the other, surrounded by the best and brightest, starting to slowly realize that even now, this isn't a competition. He could sit and laugh with them without having to prove anything to anybody, it was a strangely prickling feeling, not unpleasant just poking at something that felt as much part of him as anything else. Resolving to shake it off and just enjoy himself without spiraling after a job shockingly well done, he launched back into the chorus with the now full and well past drunk bar as the singer rallied back and demanded to fly again.

The bar slowly emptied out over the next few hours, what felt like the entire population of the base having rotated in and out to celebrate the safe return of their pilots enough for one night and gradually trickled out into the night, the promise of a base wide weekend off sending most everybody home, ready to start up the festivities with renewed vigor the following day. Bradley having sat back against the wall at some point, still nursing his slowly warming soda and having given up on trying to follow the increasingly animated and surprisingly close conversation between Payback and Fanboy about the finer points of whatever thing they were both obsessed with at the moment.

He was more than content sitting surrounded by the sounds of celebration and friendly competition from his friends and strangers alike. At some point he must have dozed off back there in his own little world, propped up by the wall decorated by generations of flight patches and unit photos of bright-eyed pilots just like the ones packed into the just too small bar, warmed by the breeze off the beach coming through the open window. The history of the base and everybody that had come before him didn't feel as overwhelming now that he had a place in it he supposed, someday somebody just like him was going to see his class photo up on the graduating class wall and pass the story of what they had done on to his classmates the same way he had in the past. Not every cycle had to be a bad one he supposed, there wasn't always this need to break the chain so violently, sometimes things were good enough to want to come back to.

A gentle nudge to his good arm woke him up after what felt like just a few moments of quiet. “Earth to sleeping beauty. Leave it to you to sleep through your own party.” Jake said, the same Ken doll perfect smile on that face of his, after watching Bradley blink the sleep out of his eyes, still using that ‘just for the two of us’ voice that twisted something up real small in Bradley’s chest. “Fuck off.” he shot back, any heat in his words lost around a yawn. He ran his good hand down his face, taking in the bar halfway to closing for the night, empty except for the two of them.

The jukebox let out the last crooning notes of some long forgotten love song as Jake moved back behind the bar with a quiet little laugh at the sleep still in Bradley’s tone, cleaning up and closing out as if he was perfectly at home. The longer Bradley found himself around the other man, the more he discovered there wasn't anything he didn't dedicate that complete and total focus of his on, aiming to be the best at everything or die trying from aerial combat maneuvers that no commanding officer in their right mind would sign off on to cleaning the bar the base seemed to orbit around like a planet of all its own. He was going to be the absolute best and make it look annoyingly effortless in the process. It made it hard to hate the guy, Bradley thought to himself as he watched Jake round up the last few glasses and put them on the bar rack to dry out with a well practiced ease. It made him curious, that level of experience in a world so far separated from the one they inhabited, it was a learned set of skills, practiced over time and repetition. It spoke of a whole life lived outside of each other, so much seen and done before whatever this appeared and took root. Bradley wanted to ask, wanted to just know where that easy confidence every one of the other man's actions seemed to drip with.

“This pilot thing doesn't work out, sure Penny would give you a job at this rate.” Bradley says breaking the silence that had settled over the bar, motioning to the whole bartender thing Jake’s got going on, faded blue jeans and a white shirt on the cusp of being too tight for casual wear, rag thrown over his shoulder, looking straight out of an old western, the picture of the good old American boy from years past. He gets a chuckle in response, feeling strangely warmed up by the casual domesticity of the scene. It made him think of kitchen counters full of home cooked meals, a lifetime of smile lines perched on the corners of a familiar mouth collected together, and the smell of laundry soap. It made him think of all the little things he didn’t want to think about while Jake stood right in front of him. Things that came with a life set on the ground, head firmly out of the clouds.

“Afraid my bartending days are long over Roo. Just doing Penny a favor, she about jumped over the bar when Mav walked in, you should have seen it.” Jake’s response came out almost like an after-thought as he looked up to see Bradley slide into one of the chairs at the bar, setting down the last glass he was cleaning on the rack, standing it at attention with the rest of the glasses. “You used to bartend?” Bradley asked, suddenly curious about the idea of The Jake himself behind a some middle of nowhere bar in his hometown before his piloting days, eager to sidestep the mention of his adoptive parent? Mentor? Friend? That wound is coming around to something like healing, but there's no reason to go poking at that halfway to scabbed wound right now, he thought, sliding his empty glass over to Jake on the other side of the bar with none of his usual flourish, not wanting to break the easy air that settled over them both. Plenty of time to mend fences with both feet planted firmly on the ground by people much higher up than Bradley cares to worry about for the foreseeable future. He’d get back up there soon, the same way the sun was always going to keep rising in the morning. It was an eventuality at this point, a fixed point to rotate the rest of his life around.

Jake rolled his eyes as he picked up the now empty glass, wiping it down before using it to point at Bradley. “Just for a little bit back home before flight school.” The glass catching the light just right and throwing little reflections like broken glass on the side of all the roads he’d ever driven on, always there-moving with the flow of traffic but somehow never really going anywhere. There was the start of something there, Bradley thought, getting some flash of insight into how the two of them always seemed to be moving in opposite directions but never really seemed to be able to leave the other, at least not the way they felt like they always were.

“It’s the same everywhere you go, Roo.” He followed up as he set the glass next to the last of its companions on the rack to dry. “That so?” Bradley said, meeting Jake’s eyes over the bar as the jukebox flashes and clicks onto another golden oldies broke down love song. “It’s not rocket science, just keep the drinks coming, keep people talking, and then they leave happy.” His reply on just this side of too friendly, that smile of his not helping the start of the mixed signals Bradley knew he was too tired and too concussed still to puzzle out in any real way, a little of the usual back and forth between the two starting to slip out. It was just too easy, they weren't competing with anybody but each other really these days. Jake leaned forward against his side of the bar, crossing his arms and looking down at Bradley with a look in his eyes that could be something close to fondness if you looked real close.

“You learn something new everyday.” Bradly snarked back, flashing his lopsided grin back at Jake, looking every bit the trouble he raised all over and back again. “Now don’t go spreading that around, next thing I know Coyote is going to try and get me to make something complicated and I’m going to have to show off.” The other man replied, fully committing to sliding back into the casual competition that felt as easy as putting one foot in front of the other, walking them back to familiar territory.

Bradley was relaxed and starting to get all loose around the edges now that the bar had emptied, and wasn't looking back at the door every few minutes like he needed to run. It gave Jake a few seconds pause, wondering when he started caring about the man sat in front of him, pretty like a picture, outside of the constant one-upping they were both known for enough to notice the way his hands rested on the bar top nice and easy now, after the way he held his glass close the whole time the party went on, a slight tremor every time the door slammed or a round of drinks clattered over the noise of the bar.

“God forbid you show off. Would ruin this whole humble thing you got going on.” Bradley smiled around the words, the idea of Jake sitting behind the ancient bar mixing up a fruity drink, umbrella and all, on command starting to warm him up from the inside out, the picture edging its way back over closer to the domestic fantasies Bradley had done his best to bury over the years. Something about the other man seemed predisposed to setting him ever so slightly off his carefully calculated axis, just a little too willing to run his mouth and have to go chasing it down afterwards.

“Tell you what little Roo. I won’t tell anybody you sleep through your little victory lap party and you keep my incredible bartending skills just between us.” Jake offers, easy smile on his face, looking in that moment the picture of the all-American boy from days long past, like mischief was the furthest thing from his mind rather than the first. He looked like a recruiting ad given flesh, god knows Bradley had fallen for the same tone he was taking right now in the past. “Hmm what’s in it for me?” Bradley says in that ‘cat that's got the cream’ voice of his, same hell-raiser look on his face, same as the first time Jake saw him across the same bar.

Even bruised like a peach and wearing another one of his god awful Hawaiian shirts, Jake had to admit he’s still far too willing to follow into whatever trouble Bradley could scare up and still couldn't be damned to care about the fallout. “How about this?” Jake shoots back a wicked look of his own as he grabs two beers from the cooler under the bar. “One won’t kill you after the day you've had and if it does, what a way to go.” Bradley takes the offered beer with no hesitation, cracking it open and taking a drink.

“What’d you say ? I won’t tell you if you won’t.” Jake said trying to match the trouble that Bradley’s voice always seemed to hold and ending up on somewhere a little closer to the intonation of a promise, something more serious than a technically stolen beer to be kept between the two of them, holding his bottle out for a moment before Bradley clinked his bottle in agreement. “Secrets safe with me, Seresin.” Bradley replied after taking a drag from his drink.

“That’s all it took to get a real name out of you? Should have got you all liquored up earlier Bradshaw.” Jake shot back with a wink, dragging out Bradley’s last name an extra syllable, not missing a beat in snatching up the tiny new bit of intimacy between them, however small. Bradley let out an honest to god laugh at that one, rolling his eyes at Jake’s brashness that can't help but come off as unfailingly charming, when he's not acting like a complete dickhead about it. Jake smiles like a neon sign lighting up the night, knocking back the shadows of a hard fought day that threatened to creep back in around the edges and Bradley can’t help grinning back at him like an idiot.

The jukebox finally gives up for the night, the last few notes croaking out before it shuts itself off, lying in wait for the next night of sailors and pilots to flood the bar in high spirits, looking for a little bit of trouble to call their own. As the electrical hum that the ancient machine lets out fades out leaving the bar quieter than either man had ever heard it, Bradley eases up from his perch at the bar and starts moving towards the back door of the bar. “Come on. It's a nice night out.” He motioned with his good hand at Jake, half out the door already, not looking back, used to Jake’s unfailing ability to stick just a few steps behind him as he turned to the nearly empty beach. The sunset casting orange and pink streaks across the sky, giving the beach a hazy, half-real, half-dream air about it.

Jake grabs the spare set of keys hanging just under the bar, not wanting to risk Penny’s wrath at getting locked out accidentally before walking out the door, catching it just before it can slam. He catches the sight of Bradley sat farther down on the beach, his eyes closed and head tipped back, soaking up the last bits of the sun for the day. The sunset throws his profile into soft colors and easy lines, it softens out the harsh bruises he earned flying for his life, makes them look like part of him and not just a consequence of the life they both ended up living. It makes Jake wish he could draw or something like that, just to capture the devastatingly rare look of peace on Bradley’s face. It’s the kind of view that deserves to be taken down and looked at years from now, pulled out of an old family photo album with a well loved story and a look of age-worn fondness cast at each other from across the room to go with it. He moves down the beach and sits just too close to Bradley, bumping into him lightly, but the other man doesn't say anything. The silence between them stretches out the way the days in front of them seem to, soft and elastic, worn through with time.

“You grew up in all of this?” Jake blurts out with a lazy hand wave after the silence stretches out, attempting to displace some of the oppressive late summer, early fall heat rolling in off the open ocean. Just because Bradley needs the heat like some kind of oversized reptile does not mean Jake himself wants it too. He had no problem picking up the cold weather based assignments Bradley left to the wayside, the snow reminding him of shoveling snow and the rare days off from school he grew up with. Some half-remembered joke Harvard cracked at the party about opposites finding each other rings out in his ears for just a moment. “Depends what’s all this means?” Bradley draws with that tone he only uses when he knows he's about to hear a joke that's worn through at the edges with age, reaching down with his good hand to slide on his ever present sunglasses even as the last bits of sun for the day are starting to fade down the horizon.

“You know all the military stuff with your dad.“ Jake follows up, looking over at Bradley finally after tearing his eyes away from the brilliantly orange sunset creeping down past the breaking waves. The beach was clearing out by the minute but neither of them showed any signs of heading back to their respective government issued places. They were both on mandatory recovery time after “saving the free world” for the foreseeable future, so there was a lazy summer vacation feeling to the days creeping up on the horizon. Sleep late, fuck around, and somehow end up back at the beach or the bar was the plan until they both could get back to flying away to new horizons that all ended up blending together with time.

Most everybody else in the unit had fights booked back to wherever they came from on such short notice already, leaving the two men to ‘hold down the fort-base..whatever you know what I meant”. At least that’s what Nat had said, half joking, mostly not, as she left the party early to catch her flight back to her girlfriend’s place up near the base in Lemoore, a ring box flying back up with her. Bradley really hoped it went well, had sent her off with the best of luck and promises to check in every so often. “Don’t get all in your head again.” She shot back at him as she got into her taxi to the airport, somehow always beating him to the last word.

“Just talk to each other like normal people do!” was how Bob had phrased it so delicately after Bradley had said something about Jake having a staring problem before going off to give Phoenix a run for her money at the pool table the unit was claiming as their own. He lost miserably, but it wasn’t totally bad advice.

“Yeah yeah something like that.” He replied without any real heat to his voice, feeling more than seeing Jake look over at him, surprisingly curious to the line of questioning that had opened up before them. There wasn't any real reason to keep his sunglasses on now that the sun was noticeably becoming more absent but it gave him an excuse to avoid eye contact for a few more moments and maybe steal another couple glances over at the other man.

Jake shot a blinding, slightly less than sober and completely head over heels endearing smile at Bradley’s admission and took another drag from his beer. “I knew it.” He said, Bradley not needing to see him to hear that shit eating grin in his voice. “Bullshit you did. You sure as shit didn't know that during training.” Bradley said, with a trace of the bitterness of the days of hyper-competitive Top Gun training slipping into his tone. Anger was still the easiest way to keep that old wave crash of sadness from pulling him under, the easiest way to stop counting the days since he’d visited his parents grave. The good son act had never quite come to him as easily as everybody had hoped, himself included.

“Alright, alright I had that one coming.” Jake admitted, raising his hands in an attempt at a placating gesture, one clearly done without much practice. Bradley shrugged it off, no real desire to start up that argument again, willing that dry-mean heat in the back of his throat that rose up before he said something he was about to regret.

A few moments pass with the waves providing a backing to the slowly thawing silence between the two men that became comfortable after the crash and flash of flight school blended into the time spent sitting on the beach or at the bar on all the bases they both ended up on assignment at after the rest of their units faded away and wandered off into the night, leaving the two to meader their way into actually try to get to know the other, until the combination of time, cheap beer, and hospital painkillers helped soften the last of old grudges between the two. It wasn't like the stories Jake had grown up hearing about falling into something with somebody else, it was something all his own, a path he’d fought hard to make for himself.

Jake’s mom had been an old school, classic romantic on the other hand. He’d grown up hearing the story of how his parents had met until it had worn through at the edges. They had met at the hole in the wall diner his mom had worked at and his dad came everyday with a flower from the shop down the street until he’d brought a sunflower all curled up towards the sun and she had said that was her favorite and just how did he know that? She had told Jake one night his dad was working late and she was making dinner for the both of them that she really didn't have a favorite flower before that, the kitchen a world of just their own for those moments, the crickets sounding through the screen door like they were listening in too. She had seen the look in his dad’s face, all open eyes and hopeful smile and seen a whole life with him in that moment. From then on every time she saw a sunflower she saw the way he’d lean over the counter just so she could refill his coffee, sitting there for an hour before his shift at the mechanics down the street so he could walk her down to her car, just for a few more moments with her.

Jake had grown up seeing the way his mom had always lit up when his dad brought home flowers every Friday like clockwork, the way his mom would always do up his dad’s ties whenever he had cause to dig them out, and had a spent a life trying to find a way to make that what he could find a way to want for himself. The thought that he wanted to find out if Bradley even had a favorite flower hit him hard and fast under the moonlight.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bradley asks, curiosity getting the better of him after a few quiet moments. “What's what supposed to mean Roo?” Jake follows up without missing a beat. “You said you knew I grew up in all this, how?” Bradley asks, looking over at Jake sprawled out in the sand, looking more the picture of a magazine model on his day off than one of the top Naval pilots in the world, not that he was complaining. “You don’t know how to stay put for one. I think this is the longest I’ve ever seen you sit still, little Roo. “

Bradley rolls his eyes at the stupid nickname he can’t seem to shake, Jake being the only one to use it like it was his own, not even bothering to argue that he was the taller of the two men anyway, before streching his legs out in the sand noticing that he had been unusually still since they sat down. Something about the other man seemed to ground him when they weren’t actively competing, not that he would ever admit that out loud. Jake didn't need to know just how much he had an effect on him, Bradley reasoned, that wouldn't end well for anybody.

“Is that so?” He asked, not really looking for an answer, content to just sit and listen. Jake lets out a little half laugh. “I say so, so it is darlin.” He punctuates this statement by taking another drink of his beer and setting the bottle back down into the sand. The sun is fully gone and the San Diego heat has finally broken enough to actually relax back into the soft sand. “So it must be true then, if the great Jake Seresin says it is?” Bradley snipes back without any malice, settling back into his seat in the sand, shifting his sling around for what felt like the thousandth time that night, the weight reminding him of the straps on the plane he’d barely walked away from that afternoon.

“We’re on a first name basis now Bradley? Don’t you know how to make a guy feel real special.“ Jake says putting as much emphasis on Bradley’s name as possible, dragging it out and adding his own style of dramatic flair to it, with a wink shot up at the other man still sitting upright facing the waves. Bradley didn't think anybody had ever said his name with such single-minded focus, it made him feel like he was under a microscope, like he was being looked at and studied. “You’re a menace, you know that?” came his reply, this time it was Jake’s turn to hear the smile in Bradley’s voice. Jake lets out a dramatic scoff and grabs his chest, bumping Bradley with his elbow and inching ever closer over the course of his dramatics. ‘You wound me Bradley. I may never recover from this crushing blow.”

“How will the population of the base go on without you?” Bradley replied, finishing his own beer, decidedly this side of tipsy, starting to consider that the Doc might have been onto something when he said not to mix his painkillers, beer, and the mother of all concussions. The amber brown streetlights clicked on behind them with a soft buzzing electrical hum as the waves crashed down on the beach, again and again.

“I’m sure Halo will be more than willing to offer a shoulder to cry on.” Jake replies, shit-eating grin back in full force. “Like I said, you're a menace.” Bradley rolls his eyes, not even trying to hide the grin Jake brings to his face like it's second nature to the other man, another one of his annoyingly perfect talents. Jake’s got a real easy charm about him, Bradley thinks, in another life he could have done something far far away from the death defying flying he’d made his trademark. Something easy, something in a nice office somewhere, selling insurance or something that everybody needs, something a hell of a lot safer than flying like a maniac, chasing trouble across the sky and raising hell the whole time. Bradley shakes off the thought as it comes on, the idea of thinking of Jake's future when he himself made a point of not thinking about his own stuck somewhere down in his chest with that funny feeling Jake gave him more often than not these days.

They fall back into another comfortable silence as the cries from the sea gulls ring out across the water now and then. The moon reflects over the ocean like something out of an old painting and the waves keep their steady beat on the shore, giving Bradley something to count instead of thinking about how he was this close to being pressed up against Jake’s side just like when they were attempting to navigate the maze of the carrier. The memory of just how warm the other man had been, a solid weight to lean up against, rose up unbidden in Bradley’s mind, bringing back the images of a domestic life he didn’t ever count on for himself, too committed to being the best in the air to think about setting up any kind of roots on the ground.

“You didn’t take the time off they offered either.” Jake says, breaking the silence as if the conversation never ended. “Does it look like I’m on duty right now to you?” Bradley says lazily gesturing to his slightly more unkempt than usual Hawaiian shirt and bandage getup, looking like a tropical half-drunk Frankenstein. “On duty at a Margaritaville maybe.” Jake said with a snort Bradley would die before admitting was stupidly charming, it made him more human, something Bradley could just look over and grab. It takes a split second for the comment to catch up to him and as soon as it does he reaches down and steals what's left of the blonde’s beer and downs it before he can say anything, setting it down in the sand next to his with a triumphant grin. “Now who's the menace?” Jake said, tilting his head back up at Bradley who shot down a scarily accurate version of Jake’s version of the hell-raiser smile, something he had to have seen a thousand times over the years they kept up the back and forth that tied them together.

Jake decides to let the beer theft go for now, it was shitty beer to begin with, it was free, and it got another smile out of the man next to him so Jake decided to take that one laying down with another lazy wave of his hand, letting another beat pass before trying to pick up the unraveling thread of the conversation. “Everybody else went home the second we got back.”

Bradley shrugs before replying. “I’m pretty settled here I guess. Settled as I can get anyway. Besides, not really a place to go back to.” Moving every few years growing up and enlisting as soon as he could wasn’t really conducive to putting down any sort of real roots anywhere in particular. Not that he was complaining, the first thing he got on a new base was a place to sleep, a plane to fly, and a job to do. What else did he really need? The thought of staying in one place, with people waiting on him to come back safe sent a shiver down his spine. It was the life his dad wanted, the life he had before his accident. Can’t lose something you never had or leave behind people who didn’t know to wait around for you in the first place was Bradley’s idea on the matter, staying just long enough to leave a more than a few stories about the way he flew and a few pissed off higher ups before jetting off to the next set of orders.

“See that's classic military kid right there. Told you I knew.” came Jake’s response, sidestepping but committing the casual admission Bradley just laid at his feet to memory, not wanting to spook him into running away again, either in real life or scaring him back into locking back down in head of his. “You lost me. Bradley replied, trying to follow along with the train of thought the other man seemed more than content to keep to himself, more invested in this not quite argument, not quite conversation they were having. Most of their interactions straddled that line if they were both being honest, it was just a toss up who pushed it in what direction first.

“Oh if it was that easy I would have lost you years ago sweetheart.” Jake replied, willing to push this conversational mood Bradley was into its limits, pressed up against his good arm and down the other man’s side, as delicate as possible, not wanting to open any barely closed scrapes, giving off heat like Bradley’s own pocket of sunshine wrapped up in washed out blue jeans and beat down work boots, before saying, “Hard to go home when home’s a bunch of government issued cement boxes up and down the coast.” He finished this with a gesture at the base behind them, the aforementioned government issued cement boxes seemed almost indignant in the buzzing glow of the streetlights.

The lights inside the houses clicked on and off as the families inside went on with their lives, untouched by the presence of the men on the beach. It made Bradley feel fuzzy around the edges, that could have been him growing up, he’d lived in more than his fair share of the concrete shit boxes and had seen his share of drunk sailors passed out on the beach in his time. That old deja vu pricked over him at the thought that he always seemed to be coming back around to whatever he started running from in the first place.

“Wasn’t so bad. Got to see the world and all that.” was Bradley’s gentle response, feeling strangely protective of his upbringing now. Sure Jake wasn't far off, the housing was less than stellar at the best of times, being the new kid wherever he went growing up sucked, and moving every few years halfway across the country and back again wasn't great but it was his, and that made it something he felt like he had to defend. His jaw set, ready for a fight even when there wasn’t one to be had, that old anger rising up easy and red.

Jake nodded along, not pushing for a fight, just trying to find out some more about the enigma that was Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw. “And yet somehow you ended up right back here.” Bradley shrugged at that. It was true, everything in his life seemed to circle back around and end up back here at Top Gun, place must be cursed or something. Jake kept going, no signs of stopping as his momentum built up, and he followed up with, “You know there's other places right? Whole big world of them in fact.” His usual “look at me” tone having given way to the ‘just for the two of them’ tone from earlier Bradley still didn't know what to do with, he wasn't somebody people took soft tones with; all harsh edges, bruised hands, and bitten off anger. Not that he would have ever admitted that out loud or how he wished for a little bit of the ease Jake had around him in the cold light of day.

Under the moonlight and the stars, he could indulge the other man for a little longer, it was just the two of them and the whole world had this ‘glass half full’ glow to it Bradley wanted to bottle up for the long nights between missions. Everything seemed a little easier and he felt less like he was running away from something and more like he was running towards. Towards what, he still didn't know. He took off the second the casualty officers knocked on his door for his dad, made it almost two full streets over before his mom caught up to him and told him that even he couldn't run from this one.

On the nights that didn’t hold the soft glimmering warmth the man next to him gave off like breathing, he thought the real reason he kept running was because he didn’t really know how to stop. That he’d keep running, keep picking fights, keep taking up too much space the wrong way at the wrong times until his lungs burst and his heart gave out, leaving him splattered out of the side of the road somewhere as alone as he was when he started out.

“You can’t really fly the way we do out in the real world.” Bradley started, fighting his way out of his head before he got following a train of thought to an ugly place.’’Sides, it's what my dad did. Never really had a backup plan.” He finished with another half-hearted shrug around the hospital issue sling, feeling the start to the shake in his hands again and trying to shove that down back to the corners of his mind. Turning his head back to the open ocean, trying to shake off the feeling that he let too much of himself show, a naked feeling that wasn't all bad he thought, just strange and foreign to him. Like a new shirt, yet to be broken by time and wear.

“You’re telling me Delta Airlines doesn’t want you out flying 747’s like you’re in active combat? There goes my retirement plan.” Jake jokes, seeing some of the tension that sinks into Bradley’s solid frame any time his dad gets brought up ease out at the stupid joke he cracked without even thinking about it. When he got so in tune with the intricacies of Bradley Bradshaw will forever be a mystery to him. Not a bad one by any means. Jake spent so long trying his best to rile the other man up that winding him down is the same old dance the two of them had just in reverse. The points of contact between them tingled with pleasant warmth. He hoped that it helped thaw out the memories of being half frozen on the exam bed of the med bay, and hoped it made the other man feel less alone on the beach.

The breeze catches the thin fabric of the bright Hawaiian button down that Bradley insisted Payback make a stop over on the way to the bar to pick up, refusing to break his streak of wearing one of his dad’s old shirts after a successful mission. Something about the ritual calmed down the ocean crash of adrenaline leaving his body after touching down on the air strip. Something about the motion reminded Jake of a superhero cape billowing out in the wind, after the stories he grew up with about super powered giants and invincible aliens from galaxies far away fighting for the fate of the universe. He decided he preferred the man next to him, cut over his eyebrow butterfly bandaged shut, the black eye fading slowly, the exhaustion of the day finally starting to show in the cast off shadows of his face. There was something so achingly human about him, something so transient. It made Jake want to play a shining knight and be noble for him.

He was getting soft in his old age and the idea bothered him less than he thought it would.

Bradley let out a bitten off laugh at the idea of Jake thoroughly traumatizing a passenger plane of commuters with his creative approach to following flight plans and orders in general. The fact he made it as far in the Navy as he had was a testament to how good a pilot he was and how much CO’s were willing to overlook in the face of near blinding talent. “Last I checked, nobody's shooting at you doing the Vegas tourist loop.” Bradley offered, seeing a flash of life outside of uniforms and the gates of the base. It wasn't ever anything he’d let himself stop to consider but that picture of Jake somewhere far far away from here, flashing that devil may care smile at somebody else a thousand miles away rising up quick and unbidden. It left a metal taste in the back of Bradley’s throat, he decided it was best to wash that back with the last of his stolen beer and leave that train of thought for another long way off time.

“For one I wouldn't be doing the Vegas loop, I have taste Roo, come on. I would fly up the East Coast. You know New York and up there. None of this West Coast heat wave shit.” came Jake’s response, loaded with put upon indignance at the idea of ferrying tourists in varying stages of intoxication in and out of Vegas every weekend.

“Don’t tell me you’re an East Coast baby.” Bradley says, latching onto the second little bit of Jake’s background he’s let slip tonight. Used to bartend and from the East Coast, at this rate he’ll get the full background on the man sometime in the next few years. “New England born and raised, sweetheart.” is the other man's response with that trademark thousand-watt grin. “Oh my god I should have known the way you bitch about the heat.” Bradley fires back with an answering grin of his own, something about the way the other man made everything between them seem just a little charged, like Bradley had stuck something in a light socket and he was getting lit up from the inside, made it easy to laugh at his jokes no matter how many times that had been repeated and traded between them like good luck charms.

The street lights flickered slightly, casting an artificial firefly glow with the soft electrical buzz over the beach and both men sprawled out over the still warm sand. The stars were out in full force tonight, the constellations charting a map that ticked in the back of Jake’s junior boy scout brain. Something in the night air reminding him of nights spent sneaking out his bedroom window as a teenager, this vague idea that they're going to be caught, the thrill of the quiet back and forth, and the hard-won fact that the urge to touch the sun kissed skin laid out next to him wasn't going away any time soon.

“I happen to bitch about the heat a completely reasonable amount for your information Mr.California.” Jake attempts to reason with Bradley, who has finally given up on the sunglasses, sliding them back into the pocket of his ridiculous shirt with a well practiced gesture, and is just now looking over at Jake with an lazy, amused grin on his face. Jake has to admit that he wears happiness well, even if he doesn't know it. Sun kissed and smiling without a care in the world is how Bradley Bradshaw should always look if Jake had any say in it.

“You looked like you were about to melt the entire time we were out on the air strip!” Bradley said with a laugh echoing out over the empty beach, remembering the speed that Jake ran to jump into the cool water after the beach football “training exercise”, dragging the rest of the unit after him. Penny took a picture of the whole unit half in and out of the waves and had put it up on the wall at the bar, quietly without telling them, with the smile and quiet wisdom of a woman who's seen many junior pilots rotate in and out of her bar. Bradley had noticed it on the way into the bar that night and had almost not noticed himself, head thrown back laughing at a half remembered joke tossed out into the afternoon heat. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen himself so out of his own head before, not caught up in the constant rush forward and faster. It was disorientating in a good way, he thought. It made him want to meet the man in the picture, ask him how to meet himself halfway, to go so far toward that the past was a stranger to him the way the future held an unformed shape to the present.

Jake reaches up and shoves Bradley’s shoulder lightly. “It was like over 100 degrees Bradley!'' He drags out Bradley’s name again for effect, Cheshire cat grin smooth as butter sliding over his face, making eye contact to really draw out his point, “And it's the middle of the desert. Totally and completely reasonable to say it's too hot to function.” He settles back, laid out in the sand curved towards Bradley’s taller frame.

Bradley rolled his eyes again. “Can’t handle the heat and all that.” He replies leaning over to nudge back at Jake. Over the course of the back and forth of the evening they had slowly moved closer together and now their shoulders were touching, laid out on the cooling sand, pressed against each other under the silver-gray moonlight. Neither of them made the move to get up, both waiting to see if the other was going to get up and call it a night first.

“See, this isn't so bad. This is good weather.” Jake fires up again, propping himself up on his elbow to look down at Bradley to send his point home, not backing down from the weather based hill he’s staked himself on. “It’s not too hot, not too cold, it's perfect.” he concludes as the lights from the bar flick off for the final time that night as if to punctuate Jake’s point. Jake would have moved them down to the beach a lot earlier if he knew the bar was on a timer. Responsibility be damned.

“Alright Goldilocks it’s the middle of the night. That's the only time the sun isn’t out, you vampire.” Bradley replies, not admitting that Jake was right, it was a crystal clear night, the breeze carried the salty ocean air right past them like a dream, and the beach was empty aside from them and the last few seagulls crying out for each other across the open waters.

Jake shrugs and lays back on the sand, not breaking the point of contact between the two men. “Guess I’ll be nocturnal now. Sleep all day and come out at night when it's human friendly temperatures again. Try not to miss me too much sunshine.” He finishes with the wink Bradley just knows was echoing in his tone somehow. Bradley wondered if Jake could hear what his face was doing while they were talking or if that was just a symptom of Bradley’s own staring problem,

“Somehow I can't see you only coming out at night. Less people to look at you than.” Bradley drawls back, looking over at the other man with the exasperated fondness mixture he's come to associate with the Jake Seresin at this point, ignoring the feeling the casual pet name brought up and how he was “Jake” now in Bradley’s thoughts, not Hangman anymore. That felt like the most intimate moment of the whole evening so far at least to him anyway. `You may have a point Bradley, I’ll concede.” Jake’s reply came after a moment of dramatic consideration of this dilemma.

He said Bradley’s name like it was something secret to be shared just between them, like it was something precious to him. Bradley really didn't know what to do with that thought. Maybe he was getting soft, too much time on his own and too much life on the edge wore him through. This felt easy, felt right. It felt nicer then he was used to, if he was honest, that ugly anger-heat melting back under his skin the longer they both sat there.

“I’m sorry- did you just agree with me for once? World’s gotta be ending. Did all that fancy flying for nothing” Bradley started before Jake cracked his eyes open, seeing his opening and pouncing. “Apology accepted little Roo.“ Bradley snorts in response before Jake continues. “Don’t go spreading that I get agreeable after a few drinks and some nice conversation around, I have a reputation around here or so I’m told.” Bradley rolled his eyes again at the menace of the man he's chosen to spend his twilight hours with. “Don’t tell me you’re getting soft on me Jake.” He says, far softer than he intended, Jake’s name coming out almost under his breath, the sound tucked between the two men, something about the easy smile on Jake’s face sending all kinds of crossed wires and signals in Bradley’s brain.

“What can I say? Something about the company?” Jake says in that tone, uniquely his, he only uses when he knows he's won. The way he-Jake looks over at Bradley with that prince charming smile and big doe eyes shuts down the part of Bradley’s brain that prides itself on being the rational center, not listened to often but just as stubborn and loud as the rest of the man. Bradley lets the silence fall back over them, not sure where to go from that, the ground beneath him feeling more and more on the edge of unsteady. They've been pushing closer and closer to the parts of Bradley he keeps to himself all night, this turn of the conversation can only push that further and he couldn't seem to decide if that was a bad thing or not anymore.

”Come on now, you gonna make me keep chasing you, Roo?” Jake says, turning to fully face Bradley now, waiting on the other man to answer in his own time.

“What do you mean keep chasing Jake?” The question slipped out, so quiet Bradley wasn’t sure the other man even heard him, feeling frozen in place like a bug on a cork board under Jake's gaze. “Far back as I’ve been flying with you, I’ve been one step behind you Roo.” The nickname feels more intimate than anything else Bradley’s ever been called, good or bad, he thinks he could listen to the way Jake says his name for hours. “Gave up trying to catch you years ago, figured you’d come back when you knew you had somebody down here waiting.” Jake said nice and easy, like he didn’t just crack Bradley's world in half, off its axis, sending him spiraling out, bracing for a crash landing in unfamiliar territory.

He opened his mouth before closing it slowly, trying to reach back out for a familiar jab or callback to younger days back when it was so easy to hate the too perfect face and too white teeth stretched out in that smile that seemed to follow Bradley around, even when they weren’t on assignment together, he could swear he saw that troublemaker grin on every base he landed on no matter how far away they really were.

“Don’t do that.” was all he could come up with, after the moment stretched out taffy long and ocean breeze salty between them. He tried to roll his shoulders back and was reminded again, for the thousandth time that night, of the sling and the dislocated shoulder popping out in impact with a noise that still echoed in his ears and just how close he came to dying on the mountain range. Dying in the backseat of Mav’s plane, backseat to the guy flying like a maniac, just like his dad did all those years ago.

Only difference is Bradley made damn sure he wasn’t leaving anybody behind, no wife left looking at the half empty bed and a closet full of old uniforms left to sit waiting for ceremonies that were never coming. No kid left sitting out on the doorstep waiting for his dad to come back as the streetlights clicked on and the sound of his mom crying in the night drifted out the window. No brand new bedtime stories of dogfights and plane maneuvers that set your teeth on edge just hearing them roll over and over in his mind until he can tell it like he was there, nobody there telling him about how the world was so so pretty that high up it made your chest hurt, made you feel so so small way up there like you could just drift off and never come back down.

Jake propped himself up again, looking back down at Bradley doing his best impression of a man relaxed and failing miserably. He wasn’t angry, wasn’t spitting the same old venom as when they were junior pilots together, getting that look of almost divine anger in his eyes that made them shine the way the sun shone off the water. He looked so scared, the way little kids get scared in the middle of the night when nobody’s around to see the monster that’s just under the bed, like their whole world is falling apart and they just can’t ask for help around the fear. It made Jake's chest hurt, reaching out over at the other man and placing an open hand over the other man’s arm, taking a careful moment to avoid the bruises still littered down his arm.

It felt like it had been days and they should have faded away since watching him crawl out of that barely functioning plane into the crowd, more shocked that Bradley and Mav were alive than that the mission was a success, and at the same time it felt like just a few minutes had passed since hearing that his plane had been shot down and hearing the impact over the comms. He had felt that impact like it was his plane crashing, could have sworn he could smell the burning fuel and the scorched earth from where he sat on the carrier. It felt like something had been carved out of him slowly and ugly, something important he wouldn't even know how to start trying to get back.

The moment he saw Bradley’s bright helmet sitting in the back of the junker F-14, smoke from the plane Jake had shot down without thinking was almost as sweet as the first time he flew, the same swooping feeling in the pit of his stomach that made him feel like he was looking over the edge of the world and waiting for the expanse to blink first.

“Don’t do what? You know you’re allowed to want things, right Bradley?” Jake said, somehow managing to cut right down to the center of Bradley’s head like he lived there. His voice came out all nice-soft like he was talking to a wounded animal or something that needed a soft touch, once Bradley met his steady gaze. The raw want paired with this affection that felt bone deep and instinctual, like it was as eventual as the sun rising and setting over the water in his eyes was too much for Bradley, people didn’t look at him like that. He didn’t stay around or show enough of himself to let that look come around. That was the sacrifice he made, the long shadow of his dad still finding a way to hang over him, reminding him of the fact he remembered the pictures of his dad propped up on the mantle over the real thing, on real bad days he couldn’t remember the sound of his dad's voice ringing out through the back door, announcing that he’d made it home safe again.

The way Jake kept looking at him bringing up the worn through childhood dreams of moving boxes shoved in a back closet and forgotten for good this time, a real storybook mailbox, and a completely unpacked kitchen, something Bradley and his mom never quite cracked afterwards, moving around too much to care at a certain point, giving up and only keeping around enough plates for the two of them. Bradley stopped asking people to come around pretty quick after that, the table never seemed big enough and the house just got smaller and smaller over the years around his anger, his mom's ebb and flow of never ending grief, and the space his dad took up even after he was gone, medals still glinting over the mantle just like the day of the funeral, always the first things up in the new house and the last things sealed away, carted with them all around and back again.

Jake made him want a future, a real house in some real quiet town, some place close enough to air strip so they could watch the planes but far enough away so they could sleep through the takeoffs and landings of a thousand pilots just like them, and a dog maybe. Made him want to round off his edges, learn how to make himself fit into the same world everybody else seemed to live in so easily, and have a full set of matching plates for as many people as they could fit in the kitchen. Bradley could almost see it, the whole unit crammed into the just too small house, laughter bouncing off the walls, a family's warmth around them all. The picture was less sobering than it had always been in the past, it felt almost tangible the same way Jake held him like he was going to fall off the face of the world. Jake’s hand on his arm grounded him to the beach and in the moment, forcing him to at least try and explain himself to the other man.

“You can’t just say things like that.” is what Bradley settled on finally, tone uneven and almost shy in his rush to just get them out, not being able to put the swirling mass trapped in his chest into words the way he wanted to. Nobody ever accused him of being silver tongued, he could fight with the best of them and could keep picking himself off and carrying on forward to the next fight but Jake always knew just what to say, perfect words to wind him up or take the words right out of Bradley’s mouth. Part of Bradley wishes they put all that bitterness behind them earlier, half the trouble he got himself into Jake could have talked them right out of with that boy scout smile of his and good old charm that made Bradley think of summer camps and pressed collars.

Everything about Jake made him think of the opposite of himself, the way the man always seemed so grounded in himself. He was somebody to come home to, somebody with home within themselves. Jake was the guy you brought home to meet your parents, he’d do something only someone from a good upright family would remember like bringing flowers and saying “I’ll have him home by 8, sir.” Exactly the opposite of everything Bradley was. He would put money on the fact Jake was never snuck out a window in the middle of the night or wasn’t the last number called after a long night. He deserved good and easy and simple, there was a good man under all that dickhead attitude. It wasn’t half as buried as Jake acted, he was always the first one to catch if anybody in the unit was a half step behind. His method of motivating them could use some work, but they’d all had worse and knew when the words had a real edge and when they were an excuse to give a hand up without admitting defeat.

The softest little smile Bradley had ever seen thrown his way with an edge of sadness in Jake's eyes, greeted Bradley tilting his head over after some gentle nudging. He felt like running away, felt like screaming, felt like picking a fight but most of all he felt like he was going to sit there and do whatever Jake wanted him to do. Whatever he had to do to keep that weariness out of his eyes, a swell of something protective and instinctual curled back around Bradleys ribs, pushing away the ache that crawled back in the longer the men laid out on the beach. Bradley knew that he probably should mind the pain edging it’s way back into the sides of his mind, should hate the way it made his breathing stutter out with just the smallest catch to it every few inhales and a new barbed drag out on the exhale, but he was always better when it hurt a little. It made things easy, kept him down on earth, kept his head forward and one foot in front of each other.

He felt the same slight tremor that started in his shoulders, traveling down to his unoccupied hands, in the few electric seconds before a fight and in the quiet wake of memories long since left behind or forgotten. A shake like that would ground you forever, nobody will take a chance on a pilot without a steady hand. It was just another thing Bradley got good at shoving into the back of his mind, ignoring it and like most everything else he treated this way, it went away and only reared its ugly head in the quiet moments alone watching the street lights reflect off the cheap barracks paint. Before he could sit up and try to make an excuse for a quick getaway, not wanting anybody to see the crack in his carefully put together self, he felt Jake give his good hand a gentle squeeze and after a beat with no response, laced the fingers of both hands together. Bradley let out a breath that he didn’t know he was holding in and settled back into the sand, the touch starting to bring him back down to Earth.

“How many times I gotta tell you Bradley? I’ve been waiting for you down here for ages now.” Jake said softly, feeling the tremor against his hand, feeling more than hearing Bradley taking a deep breath in, trying to shake the words clotted up in his throat. “Didn’t your mom ever teach you not to leave a guy hanging?” Jake said, falling back on the same old jokes they always had, trying anything to get that smile back on Bradleys face, trying to get him to just breathe out again. He got a watery laugh that seemed to rattle in the other man’s chest for just a half second. It wasn’t much but he’d take it over that scared little tremor.

“Felt like all I did growing up was sit around waiting. I’m not very good at it” Bradley says after a moment, that sickly splayed out feeling back in full force. “Sounds like it’s about time you had somebody waiting on your stubborn ass to get back down for once Roo.” Jake said back, something like a promise in his voice, putting the focus of the statement back on Bradley, trying to keep telling him he was worth the time and care he afforded everybody but himself. The conviction in Jake's voice lighting up the words like fireflies as they spilled out. Bradley thought if he closed his eyes right now, they’d burn behind his eyelids like the billboards backdropped against the night sky. It was a nice picture he decided.

The easy confidence in his words, no second guessing, no back up plan sets Bradley over the edge. Before he can catch himself, attempting to reason his way back to some safe middle ground between the two like they had before tonight, he turns his head to the side and kisses Jake right square on that perfect little smile of his. It’s as much of the same promise Jake had been making all night as Bradley can make, he can’t swear to stay but he’ll always come back somehow.

“Took you long enough. Been waiting for you to do that all night Bradley.” Jake smiled around the words, sounding every bit the kid on Christmas morning. He sounded so happy it made Bradley’s vision go fuzzy around the edges, the thought that he did that, made the other man look at him like that was almost too much for him. That cocky grin of his that had actually gotten under Bradleys skin for ages was now somehow coming off as an almost abashed happiness, like it was too much to show all at once, pulling at smile lines Bradley wanted to trace. The urge to touch the other pilot wasn’t new, it had been there for as long as he had known the other man, it had never come on so raw before, so fierce in his chest. It matched the answering smile that spread over Bradley’s face, his brain still not caught up to him enough to put the walls back up.

“Oh really?” cane Bradley’s response, just a half second slower than usual, caught up in the way Jake was still just looking at him. It kept him in place, not unpleasantly he thought for the first time since his plane skidded to a stop this morning, seeing the way Jake's focus ticked over him the same way he looked at everything he cared about, from his plane to his unit. Like he wanted to crawl inside and see how it worked, see every gear and wire, to know them inside and out. Bradley wanted, wanted that so bad it hurt. This had stopped scaring him, he realized.

“That all you got to say after that? No big declarations of love?” Jake teased, his brain just now caught up enough to savor the sight of Bradley speechless and with a healthy flush over him, it made him look so, so alive. Bradley answers with, if Jake didn't know any better he'd almost say shy, squeeze to the still joined hands before answering quietly, as if he was making sure Jake was still there, that he wasn’t about to get up and walk away from this.

“I’m here as long as you'll have me.” The words, spoken with a bone deep conviction, echoed with a permanence to them. Bradley couldn't remember the last time he was so sure in something he’d said or done out of anything but that white hot anger of his. He’d like to stick around- to have somebody to want him to stick around, have a real home to come back down to, to have Jake sitting all sun warmed and comfortably solid with him on the beach watching the breaking waves like this. The thought rose up as he rolled it over and over in his mind, all rounded edges and soft colors like the glass he found washed up on the beach sometimes.

Jake knew exactly who he was, inside and out, he had this way of fixing Bradley to the wall with this look like he could crack him open right there in front of everybody without a second thought. They had come up together, best of the best wherever they went, and then flown together more times then they cared to keep track of at this point. He’d never been able to really hide from the man, he had this way of pulling out whatever was coiled up in his head with that devil may care attitude and force of nature personality. They pushed each other harder than anybody else, not always forward, more than often against each other but they'd never really left the other's orbit since they met.

The more Bradley thought about it, the more this push-pull between them seemed so eventual, they would have always ended up here eventually. If everything in his life was doomed to come full circle at some point, he was always going to crash back into Jake Seresin with all the same relentless focus that had taken him this far and back again.

One of their instructors at flight school had said that you could have set a compass against Jake, that he’d always find the way forward and out no matter the odds. Bradley had rolled his eyes and moved on at the time, coming to the slow realization over the years that they might have been right. Sure as the sun rises every morning over the horizon, Jake was right there, sometimes pushing, sometimes dragging him but always moving him forward. Making him just a little better in all the little ways he could then he had been the day before and the one before that. That was the type of person Jake was, he had to be the best but he was going to make everybody around him just a little bit better in the process.

“What makes you think I’m letting you out of my sight after that shit you pulled earlier? Somebody’s gotta keep you from getting yourself killed.” That unsettled worry that settled over Jake after hearing the crash over his comms just under a day earlier creeps its way into the attempt at a joke. That knee-jerk fear that had come on with all the force of a hurricane and had been slowly making its exit over the course of the night spent with Bradley, whole and alive, but the memory of the ugly hopelessness he had stared down in those agonizing moments still echoed in his ears. It was the quiet that had settled over the radios after that had just about killed him, it had seemed so heavy over the carrier, Jake could barely get a breath in around it from where he sat. He had caught himself counting the rise and fall of Bradley’s chest the longer they laid out over the sand. It was soothing, a reminder that he was here, he was real, and he could still curl up under Jake’s skin like nobody else was ever able to.

“And that somebody is you? I seem to remember you disobeying your fair share of orders too.” Bradley responded, a warm feeling spreading over him at the claim Jake staked without a second thought. The thought of being tied down didn't make his skin too small around him like it used to. It made him feel grounded, the idea of a life lived with somebody instead of against them settled him in ways he didn't know possible.

“Well one of us has to be the responsible one.” Jake shot back, not willing to admit that his own track record had some spots that looked less than stellar. He’d ever crashed before but he’d had some close calls that still woke him up in the middle of the night sometimes, breath catching all barbed wire in his throat.

Bradley grinned all wide and easy, “Oh we’re fucked then.” His words spilled out easily, like something had been uncorked over the evening's events.

“I’m flattered Roo but, at least let me buy you dinner first. I was raised with manners.” Their old banter lent itself easily to working to get that flush back up in Bradley's cheeks, Jake thought.

“Is that so?” Bradley’s tone had softened, knowing that Jake understood what he meant when he offered to stay. His thumb traced a path over Jake's knuckles where their hands were intertwined. They were working hands with calluses and the hairline scars of a life lived well. Someday he wanted to sit the other man down and hear all the stories each little scar carried, and do the same in return. He wanted to know everything that had brought them both there, know how Jake had turned out the way he had, wanted to curl into him and stay there.

“Scouts honor, little Roo. My mom raised a real proper gentleman.” Jake's response with the half cocked smirk, loaded with so much affection Bradley thought he was going to burst from it. This was so easy between them, he didn't know why they didn't just let it happen so much earlier. The years of picking fights and nursing grudges across state lines and flight planes seemed so far behind them now. The hazy idea of a future stretched out in front of them, as open as the horizon spread out before them.

“You going to give me your letterman's jacket and everything?” Bradley teased. The thought of them walking down the base, Jake's hand in his back pocket and his jacket draped over him like they were love-drunk teenagers cutting class to go down to the beach and not world-worn adults with files as long as they were tall of successful missions across the world filled him with this giddy sort of happiness that made him think years long since past. It tasted sweet on the back of his tongue, like the first couple days of summer as a kid, where the world is hot and there's no limit to what you can do. Something about the man next to him made him sentimental and soft, made him want the world to make a place for them.

“Depends.” Jake drawled out with that grin that drew you in like a co-conspirator, caught up in the way the streetlights made Bradley’s face look like he was lit up all sainted, head laid back on the sand like he was set there fully formed for Jake to stumble upon like a dream half remembered in the daytime, the pink glow of his cheeks the only thing carried on, something Jake doesn't think he’ll ever be able to chase from his mind.

“Depends on what Jake?” The question came out with the usual confidence they both carried themselves with, but with the new softness between them crept in, dulling the edges of the usual back and forth.

“We going steady darlin’?” The warm curl of a southern touch to the word sweetened the question, picked up from some tour at a base somewhere down south. They were both a collage of the places they'd been and the places they'd been left a mark. It was dizzyingly to think about how much they had seen and done just a half step apart from each other.

“You see me sitting out here with anybody else?” Bradley responded, thinking that if he traced it back far enough he could find every moment they had just missed each other, how he could have had the length of the other man laid out beside him years ago.

Jake absolutely does not take a few seconds pause to think about where his old jacket would be, probably boxed up back home with everything else he left there when he enlisted. The image of Bradley wrapped up in it like they were teenagers again doing its best to completely derail his train of thought. “You have a real way with words, has anybody ever told you that? Such a charmer.” He draws out, setting the image of Bradley wrapped up in his clothes aside for another time.

He gets an answering shrug with that same little half cocked grin of his from the man laid out next to him. “Worked pretty well on you apparently.” The words are the same as the ones they tossed back and forth for years but the way they fall from Bradleys mouth is new, like he’s rolling them around before giving them over, like he's trusting Jake with them.

Jake huffs out a dramatic little breath, playing up his reaction, always angling to see the heat rise up in Bradley’s face. Passion suited him, the way the flush sat high on his cheeks, lighting him up from the inside out, making Jake go soft around the edges. He’d spent years pushing, pushing, pushing to draw this raw feeling out of the other man. “That it did sweetheart. That it did.” He raises the joined hands and presses a kiss to the back of Bradley’s hand. The affection felt as easy as breathing, like it was always there, this easy under current of warmth between the two of them. They were drawn to each other across years and miles upon miles, something inside them both tugging back to the collision course they'd set out on years ago without even knowing it.

Both men had been the world over, seen and done so many things in the face of increasingly impossible odds, and spent their lives chasing the next mission, the next challenge, proving to everybody looking their way for even a few moments they were the best there were no questions asked. Competition was what they were known for and they were good at it. He’d never thought it would be so easy to let all that fall away, to sit here with open arms and just wait for the other man to come around. .

The way Jake touched him, all sweetness and without any expectations, sent sparks across Bradley’s bruise mottled skin. Made him want, a bone deep hunger that he knew in the far off way his whole life. He knew it in the way people had told him it would happen, that someday somebody would look at him like he was a whole world to them. He wanted Jake to never stop touching him, he wanted to bundle him up far away from the rest of the world, he wanted wanted wanted so badly he felt dizzy with it. Most of all he wanted Jake to feel the same way, to want to keep him all to himself, to want to keep looking at him like he was all he could see.

“You mean it?” Bradley asked, looking back down at their hands. He felt like he knew the answer well enough by now. He wanted to hear it, a selfish possessive streak rising to the surface in a way he’d never felt before. It felt ugly in a warm way, not unpleasant necessarily, but it craved something-something lasting and permanent. It wanted hearts on sleeves and confessions, it wanted proof, something that meant it was going to stay and not jet back off in the morning light.

Devotion came easy for Jake, it was an extension of a focused personality with a lifetime dedicated to being the best. He’d had his entire flight manual memorized by the time he had taken that first step into basic, been top of every one of his classes for as far back as he could remember, and read back every detail from all his old mission reports going back to his very first. All that took time and so much work. What he had with Bradley never felt like work, like it was something he had to do, it felt like something he got the chance to. It was easy to love the other man, he was brilliant and stubborn and beautiful and so talented it hurt. He was like a sun all on his own, burning out in space, blinding in his intensity and drawing everything around him into his glow. It made you want to be better by virtue of being around him. It was a feeling Jake never got tired of, never got used to either. It was deeply settling for him, not that he would ever admit it out loud, to see Bradley look as off-center in the quiet moments they'd shared as he felt around the other man usually. That he wasn't the only one feeling so turned around, so thrown off his axis with the vulnerability surfacing under the moonlight.

“Come on, look up at me Roo. Gotta make sure you're listening nice and close.” Jake waits for the other man to drag his eyes away from their hands, as if he is trying to puzzle out the meaning of the affection directed at him, like he's not used to this much human contact before. It makes Jake hurt a little bit, stuck at the idea of the man in front of him passing through this world without being properly cared for. It made Jake want to make him a proper meal and not let him leave until he slept a full night in a real bed. He’d never much considered the domestic life either but the look of contentedness that spread over Bradley’s face after a little bit of hand holding and a few patient words, like the one thing he really needed was another person to just touch him like he was the world, made Jake try and think back to what he had left in the base issued fridge in his barracks room. If he had enough to make something resembling a decent meal to soak up the last of the cheap beers they drank, enough to provide something real, something to prove to the other man what he felt so deeply.

“On purpose Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw I am going to care about you on purpose.” Jake sat up, looking down at the other man still laid next to him, dropping the banter and jokes that so usually passed between them, making sure Bradley was looking right up at him, taking in the words like they were the most important thing he’d ever heard. “And that’s a promise, darlin. Scouts honor and all.” He finished off, resting his free hand over where Bradley’s dog tags had come to rest on his chest as if to anchor him there further, like he was going to run away at the confession. The stutter beat of his heart caught off guard by the rawness of the conversation fluttered under Jake's hand. The street lights flickering caught the metal links of the chain, throwing off little lighted sparks between the two men. It made Jake think of fireworks almost.

That cotton candy soft flush that had spread over Bradley’s face the longer they sat as Jake's promise sat between them. The rush of the day had long since faded from the men and Bradley had began the comedown from the high he’s been riding for hours now. The thin fabric of the shirt he was wearing did nothing to stop the heat from Jake's hand, rested on his chest so easily like he was staking a claim despite there being nobody around to see it. Like he needed Bradley to know how much he needed him to stay right there in the moment with him. It made him feel small, like something that could be taken care of and not just passed along. It made any thing he was going to say curl up in his throat, it’d been a long time since he’d had the focus on somebody so intently.

At a loss for words, he squeezed where their hands were joined three times, the way his mom used to do when he would go off and not say anything for days growing up. “I’m here, I care, I love you too.” That's what it’d meant growing up, it was a way for him to let off the pressure valve on the feelings too big for him to feel, to let some of that pressure off his chest, to keep him from exploding from just too much inside. He hadn't done that in years, something just kept dragging him back full circle.

Jake let them both sit with that for a moment, the words having come out far easier than he thought was possible. The act of caring so opening, wearing his heart out on the line like he was still the kid who worked two jobs in high school to buy his girlfriend roses once a week. “Now as much as I'd love to stay here all night staring at you sweetheart, you’re about to be in a world of hurt. Come on before those sweet pain meds of yours start wearing off.”

“Trying to take me home?” Bradley shot back, with a dazzling grin that pulled at the bandage over his eyebrow. The sight of Bradley laid out on the sand, looking up at him with the easiest smile he’d ever seen did something to Jake.

“Been trying for years now sweetheart. Nice of you to join the war effort.” Jake responds, pulling himself up off the sand, coming to stand in front of Bradley. His shadow falling down covering the other man, it made that caveman urge to protect the other man rise up. To be possessive and leave marks and to claim him all for himself. There would be time for that later, he thought now is the time to get some real food, not just the bar snacks he spent the night sneaking over when he thought the other man wasn't looking, in Bradley’s system.

“Now come on up, Roo.” He stretches out an open hand, offering something more than help. He was offering himself to the other man. Bradly reached up with his good hand with any hesitation. Jake pulled him up as carefully as he could, Bradley still coming up swaying slightly, coming to rest pressed up against Jake’s side. He curled his arm around the other man’s waist, creeping under the bright shirt to come to rest on the sliver of hip bone that had come exposed over the course of the evening. Bradley smelled like salt, sand, and that last hint of jet fuel that felt like it never washed off of them, like it was part of them at that point-the thought far less surprising than it was just a fact of their life. It was something Jake wanted to get used to, could see himself getting used to, the solid line of Bradley’s frame fitting into his easy as can be, the last few inches he had curled up around him like a promise, and his warm breath fanning over Jake’s neck all pressed close and heavy.

“Careful people might get the idea you like me or something.” The words mumbled, tucked into Jake's neck were more felt then heard. Even after the night they’d had, he resolved himself to tell the other man just how much he cared every day going forward. If time had shown anything, Bradley Bradshaw was stubborn in everything, even when he got just what he wanted. Jake wouldn't have had it any other way, that little bit of fight in the other man even when the only thing he had to fight was himself was what had drawn them together in the first place.

Jake needed the challenge, the push to do-to be better, the bone deep need to care about something. Bradley had come screaming into his life, all sharp edges ready to cut and a mouth full of words fit to burst out every which way. Jake kept coming back to the idea of eventualities, they were always going to end up something to each other, left with something of each other every time they broke apart. Part of him hoped that Bradley had figured out whatever this was earlier and had been trying to tell him in that angry way of his, the way where you had to come to him with an open hand like a stray dog, letting him come to you first. Knowing full well there was a chance he’d snap back at you and you’d be the one left with a bleeding hand and a heart still out on your sleeve for everybody to see leaking out into the street. Another part of Jake, selfishly he thought, wanted to be the first one to know what that feeling was, to be the first one to fall, an old competitive streak still looking for the last little edge.

“I think everybody got that idea when you fell asleep on me during your little party darlin. You’re awfully cuddly, you know that? Not that I’m complaining.” Jake got an honest to god laugh in response as Bradley did his best to mold himself even closer to the warmth coming off the other man. They painted a painfully similar picture to just a day earlier, stumbling around the ice-cold carrier. Jake could see his assigned quarters just up the beach, just a short walk and then he could put them both to sleep in a real bed for once. The back porch light flickering like a lonesome lighthouse in the dark, blinking out into the night just for the two of them.

Bradley’s laugh sat sticky-warm on the hollow of Jake’s neck, warming him up to fever pitch from the inside out. He could feel the flush sitting high on his cheeks and a passing thought to the image he’d so carefully cultivated over the years utterly shattering with a few soft touches and teasing jabs came and went just like that. They managed to strike up some kind of rhythm, swaying back and forth as the sea breeze started to cool over the water. Bradley seemed to be done talking for the night, choosing to hum something quietly right under Jake’s ear, still somehow perfectly in tune, much to the detriment of Jake’s attempts at focus.

“The rest of the unit has been betting on this happening for months now, you know that right?” Bradley piped up from his perch, his hand coming to rest around Jakes back as they ambled up the beach. The back door swung open easy, the lock never catching right in the summer, something about the heat or the humidity. Jake wasn't sure, he’d made it a point to spend as little time there by himself as possible. Something about the quiet of an empty room always unsettled him, the only reactions were his own in some self-imposed echo chamber. Some half-remembered thought from years past seemed to surface unbidden, “It’s easier to be brave when you're somebody else.”

“Even Bob?” Jake asked, pushing back the ideas of how much of himself was really just a performance at this point. He somehow managed to shut the door behind them and moved them both over to the sorry excuse for a kitchen. The chair at the table still pulled out from this morning, a lonesome reminder at just how empty the house was usually, just him sitting there watching the sun rise over the beach just that morning. He tried to slip the other man into the chair with a little bit of grace, still worried about how fragile he looked under the soft lights.

Who do you think started it?” Jake laughed quietly as he turned to try and start to find something edible left in the kitchen. There wasn't much of anything left, there never was this close to the end of an assignment, the shelves sitting empty and waiting for the next person to show up. Jake wondered absently if the house got hungry too, like it needed people there as much as they needed a place of their own. It was an odd thought, this idea of mutually assured need, it made him want something deep in his chest. It made him want to provide what he did not know.

“It’s always the quiet ones you gotta watch out for.” Bradley half mumbled, rousing Jake from his musing on the nature of need for the time being. “That you do sweetheart.” He answers back, the terms of endearment flowing easily every time he looks over at Bradley, the way he looks like he was always there at his lopsided kitchen table. “How do you like your eggs? That's all I have left here.” Jake asks as he pulls out the well used pan that was sitting in the back of the cabinets when he moved in, leftover from who knows how many moves ago. Bradley takes a moment to respond, just long enough for Jake to think that he fell asleep there, before answering with that razer edge surety of him. “Scrambled with cheese.”

“Alright princess coming right up.” Jake hums, moving around the kitchen as the smell of the attempt at breakfast filled the room. He wasn't a chef by any means but he could hold his own in the kitchen, he had gotten straight A’s in his home ec classes in high school thank you very much. Before long he had a plate of scrambled eggs with the cheese mixed in all special and an ice cold glass of water slid over the table right in front of Bradley. “Dinner is served, eat up.” Jake said with that old flourish of him creeping into his voice, the way Bradley looked up at him from where he was sitting turning his world just slightly off his axis. He chose to sit across from the table with a glass of water of his own, starting the process of sobering up for the evening.

To his credit, Bradley was military through and through. He cleared his plate fast enough that Jake was starting to worry about him choking and made a move to get up to put the dishes in the sink, those good manners of his showing through that attitude of his for once. Jake waved him off and set them in the sink, deciding that was a future Jake problem and could wait until the morning. He turned back to see Bradley staring out the same window he was looking out earlier, the bar lights long since turned off. He made a good picture there, the light from the stove behind his head, framing him like a halo, softening all his edges. Jake could see the way exhaustion was weighing him down there and now that he had eaten some semblance of a meal, decided to at least try and move him to a more vertical position.

“Come on, let's get you over to the couch, Roo. Much more comfortable I promise.” Jake said, moving around the table and offering a hand up. Bradley took it, “Bet you tell that to all the girls.” Bradley said, finding his place back at Jake's side, falling in to step with him was easy. The layout of all the base housing was the same, especially when you had grown up with it, the faded couch scarcely a few steps from the small kitchenette.

“Just the ones I really like.” Jake deposited Bradley onto the couch, with a wink he was almost positive the other man didn't see, as delicately as he could, still feeling his eyes sticking on the medical grade sling sitting across Bradleys chest like a reminder of how close a call the day really was. as he turned on the one lamp that came with the house, lighting up the room weakly from its corner before sinking into the couch, pressed up against the other man, arm slung around the back of where Bradley was sat like they were high schoolers at a movie, not quite ready to give up the easy contact between them just yet.

Bradley started the slow slanting of the exhausted over in Jake’s general direction. Before long he found his place back settled in the hollow of Jake’s neck, curled up around him like he had never been anywhere else, like he’d never left. It flared up bright and possessive in Jake’s chest, like he was being claimed, marked up in some way that he couldn't see or at least couldn't see yet.

It made him think of his mom’s sunflowers all unfurled in the summer heat, swaying in the wind. She’d always end up planting the seeds from the ones his dad brought home, this was how they stay alive, some part of them living on in what they made is what she always said. She would drag baby Jake out every Sunday morning to help weed the little patch of sunshine and would always lean in and tell him love was the easiest thing in the world, that falling in love felt like falling from the sky, like falling into the ocean on the hottest day of summer. Then with her hands covered in the dirt his dad hauled from halfway across town in Jake’s bright red wagon so the flowers would grow that much taller, she would sit back and say love was the hardest choice he would ever make. She would give him that sweet as pie smile she had way back then and would tell him when he got older he would know what that meant but for now all he had to worry about was planting the seeds nice and deep so they would grow big and strong under the southern sunshine.

He wished he could call her like he did when he had first shipped off and tell her all about Bradley, about how easy it had been to fall, about how hard it had been to choose to stay and wait for the other man.

The house seemed so much less empty in the soft lighting now, like it was something closer to a home if Jake was going to be a romantic about it. His mom always used to say that she felt at home anywhere his dad was. Jake was starting to get what she meant by that. It only took about thirty years and going around the world and back more than a few times to see how nice it was to sit all settled around the firecracker of a man next to him, halfway to passed out, good hand wrapped around Jake’s arm like he's scared he’s going to get up and leave him here. Jake’s not sure he could walk out even if he wanted to at this point, too ready to clear whole parts of his life out for Bradley to keep looking at him the way he had been doing all night, like Jake was the only thing in the room with him, like he could learn to be patient with him, like he’d stay and wait for all the bluster to wash off like a second skin with time.

The ancient AC unit chose this moment to kick on, a quiet hum quickly fading into the background. The house never really got cold, some of the beach heat always managing to sneak in somehow. Without thinking Jake reached up to the faded blanket laid over the back of the couch and draped it over the both of them as best he could considering his lap full of a near unconscious Bradley.

“Are those little planes?” Bradley asked, sleep making his voice all soft around the edges, eyes tracing over the pattern scattered over the well loved blanket. The stitching was starting to fray just around the edges but he could see where somebody had been patching it up slowly over time, the slight changes in fade pattern tugging at him. This was a thing made and kept out of love, something precious, and Jake had wrapped him in it without a second thought.

“Yeah my mom made it a long time ago now.” Jake had helped her, had handed her the fabric and sat at the table with her while she showed him what to do. She’d taught him all the tricks her mother had taught her, how to thread the needle and how to hide the stitches in any kind of fabric. The blanket had been their first project together, he could still see the little kid crooked stitching up the side laid out across Bradley’s chest. The blanket always found its way around with him, it gave him a little project on the longer nights alone and it made him think of his mom.

“You would have liked her I think. She loved taking care of people. You couldn't walk in the door without her shoving food at you.” Jake continued, not sure why he felt like he had to tell Bradley about his mom, he hadn't told anybody any of these things in the years since she’d passed. He needed the other man to see him, really see him outside of the flight suits and lives they had ended up living. He’d had a life before all this, full of its own kind of love and safety. Jake wanted to share that part, the parts before they had ended up as Jake and Rooster sat across from each other at flight school as opposed to how they sat curled around each other now.

“She sounds nice.” Bradley said so quietly into Jake’s neck, the words tracing over his pulse point. He wanted to shudder at the contact, shake apart at the seams under the weight of the other man. He managed to scrape a response up from the static that had filled his head since Bradley had curled up around him like a weighted blanket, “She was the best.” He got a sleepy nod from the other man, far closer to asleep than awake. The quiet settled back over the room, pressing down on Jake's chest, like it wanted another confession from him, something deep and personal to break its presence up.

“I think I missed you before we ever met.” He blurted out without thinking after a few achingly quiet minutes, the words almost crackling with something he didn't even know how to name. Jake was reasonably sure that Bradley was asleep, soft breaths coming out measured against the side of his neck, the rest of the ridiculously long man having swung up onto the couch at some point as well, the rest of him draped over Jake, effectively trapping him there not like he minded much. It was easier to be honest when nobody was looking at him, the feeling of a secret he kept from even himself settling over him at the confession.

The feeling of those three taps on his arm again, he was going to have to ask Bradley what that meant in the morning when he was still all sleep soft and open, brought him back down to Earth. “Love you too Jake. Now go to sleep. I can hear you thinking.” Bradley mumbled out the words, clearly doing his best to hold out the last few moments, like he was trying to chase Jake to sleep. Someday they'll find something they wouldn't turn into a competition. His warm-solid weight doing more to put Jake to sleep than any of the drinks he’d had that night, sitting there far closer to sober than when they had sat at the pub table just a few hours before. The sound of Bradley’s breathing evening out settling something in his chest, the last bits of the fear from the mission seeming to finally slip away.

The words took a few minutes to sink in, Jake halfway to asleep himself, before hitting him with all the force of a semi truck hitting that hidden patch of black ice on the highway. He’d made it a point of his persona that he always had something to say, much to the dismay of everybody around him, never being caught without his words and wit to keep everybody at arms length. He turned to look at the other man as best he could without moving him too much and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. The way Bradley’s hair caught the light, curling ever so slightly at the ends, the soft rise and fall of his chest pressed up against Jake's side, felt more like a confession than his words.

He was trusting Jake with himself, to not hurt him and to take care of him. It was an overwhelming feeling, locking him into the moment, committing as much of this to memory as he could. If this was just a one off he could live with that as long as he remembered it, he thought. Knowing and having could be two different things.

He didn't want to think about forever, about having this always, that's how people get their hearts broken, thinking about years down the line. Jake lived his life day by day, always had and it’d taken him this far,no reason to go shaking up old habits he thought

The moonlight still glinting off the waves through the window painted a comforting picture. It felt like everything had changed and nothing had at the same time. The sun was still going to rise in the morning and Jake was still going to get up late and almost burn his breakfast making his coffee just right like every other morning, leaving the dishes in the sink for whenever he stumbled back in to deal with.

The thought of setting out a second cup in the morning and showing Bradley just how much he cared over a real breakfast was the last thought that chased him to sleep with a smile. It wasn't forever, not yet anyway.