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He’s perfectly still.
It’s almost like a painting, or a frame of a movie. He can imagine painting him, framed by the moonlight and the reflection of it against the waves that surround him, gently lapping at his shins, its smooth caresses a promise of something greater than them all. The waves hold him as though he’s something valuable, something wonderful and terrific all at once, something beautiful.
He is beautiful, when he’s not being a dick.
Bradley wades through the shallow water and ignores the thrumming unease in his veins as he finally comes closer to Jake, still staring out into the distance and merely glancing in Bradley’s direction.
“You’re gonna catch a cold, out here in the water,” Jake says, breaking the silence far quicker than Bradley had expected him to. There’s a joking tone in his voice, his accent thicker than usual, and a half-smile plays on his lips. Bradley would know this if he was staring, which he is not, but also very well might be.
“And you’re not?” Bradley hums, and Jake huffs. The sea breeze whistles by on a leisurely current, ruffling his hair and tinting his cheeks pink with its chill.
He does look cold, far more so than he’s trying to put across. Seemingly unconsciously, he rubs one of his arms over and over, twisting his hand over his wrist. Goosebumps follow his hand in waves, rising with the cool air around them. Bradley hasn’t seen him so subdued in a while. He’s used to walk-like-he-owns-the-place Jake, to sarcastic jabs and untouchable Jake. This is something new, and he almost feels like he’s intruding. He can’t help but feel like this is something he isn’t allowed to see. Jake hasn’t sent him away just yet, hasn’t sent him packing back to their friends in the Hard Deck, and his hope rises despite his reservations.
Bradley shrugs off his jacket and holds it out to Jake. There’s a good few feet between them, and for a moment Jake only looks at his jacket, barely avoiding the water and highly reminiscent of another time. His eyebrows draw together as he fights whatever internal battle he always seems to be waging.
Finally, he sighs defeatedly, and his shoulders slump as he reaches across to take Bradley’s jacket and put it on. It suits him because everything suits him. Bradley sloshes through the shallow water until he’s in front of him. Jake won’t look him in the face and he’s still oddly hunched in on himself. Bradley does a terrible job of pretending he’s entirely casual as he fixes and flattens the lapels of his jacket, smiling at Jake when he’s done.
“Looking sharp, Sersesin.”
Jake finally looks up at him, something akin to awe in his face as he smiles.
“Likewise, Bradshaw.”
Bradley pretends to wave off the compliment, picking at his shirt. It’s his favourite, and Jake’s least favourite. If he was more honest, he would admit that that’s part of the reason it’s his favourite, because Jake stares at the garish colours more often and by extension, him.
“In this old thing? No…”
“Shut up,” Jake snorts, rubbing his arm again. “You love that shirt.”
“It’s a good shirt.”
Jake’s nose scrunches up as he hums disapprovingly.
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“You’re jealous you haven’t got one, is all.”
“Jealous isn’t the word I’d use. Glad, maybe. Relieved.”
Bradley gasps, taking an unsteady step backwards and feeling his feet sink in the gravelly sand as he puts a hand on his chest.
“I can’t believe this. I trusted your taste.”
Jake grins. “You did?”
“‘Course.”
Bradley steadies himself in the water. The sand beneath him is on a decline, it gets deeper much quicker than it would seem to. His nerves are still shaking in preparation for a disaster that won’t come, as he takes another step back. Jake watches him, still completely motionless.
“Come out further,” Bradley prompts, outstretching his hand. To his surprise, with little hesitation, Jake walks forward to take it and lets Bradley lead him out until the water is lapping at their knees. Jake’s jeans are already drenched, even rolled up, but he hardly even seems to notice, merely giving Bradley a questioning look as he stands in the deeper water, whispering around them.
“You hate the ocean,” He says slowly.
“But you don’t.”
“...So?”
“So I like seeing you happy. I don’t hate that.” Bradley reaches down and splashes some water at him, and Jake smiles on instinct as he shields with his hands. “It’s worth it for that.”
“When did you become such a romantic, hm?”
When I met you and remembered that love can be found, Bradley doesn’t say.
“It’s in my nature, I’m afraid,” he says instead.
“That’s news to me,” Jake says softly, still smiling faintly and watching the light refract against the water. The surface breaks as it passes them, but it reconnects with the fray almost immediately. Bradley wishes it were that easy, if he could ebb and flow and find connection despite the parts of him lost along the way.
They’re quiet for a while, because Bradley is looking at how Jake’s mouth moves when he smiles and how he squints when the wind blows past and how wonderfully holdable his hands look.
“Why are you out here, anyway?” He asks before he can test that theory.
“Just thinking.”
“About anything in particular?”
“I’m sure you can guess.”
Bradley hums. A part of him feels like he should be brooding a bit more. Sure, they all made it back from the mission alive, but some part of him still feels dead in the snow, blown to debris over the ocean.
But for some strange reason, he can’t find it in himself to grieve for it. There’s a lightness in his step that he hasn’t felt since he learned to walk. He’s faced death, looked it square in the face and been given another chance, just one more, to do things right, to do things better.
He looks at Jake, nervous and doubtlessly overthinking every scenario to death, and steps closer. He doesn’t reach for him, aside from their shoulders occasionally brushing they don’t touch at all, but he stands with him anyway, even as the cold of the water really starts to seep in and he can feel a shiver rattle his bones.
The moon is low in the sky, half obscured by clouds and half vanished in Earth’s shadow, but the remainder is bright, casting its glow over both of them until Jake inches closer again and leans his head on Bradley’s shoulder, a comforting weight that he leans against in turn, and listens to the peaceful waves shuffle past. They’re not competing, they’re not rushing to save each other’s lives, but it still somehow feels important, as Bradley listens to Jake huff and lean in closer. His steady breathing is a quiet backdrop to one of their first quiet moments together, and Bradley closes his eyes and lets it drag, committing every detail he can remember to memory, in case it never comes again.
“Glad you’re alive,” Jake mutters near his ear, short and embarrassed. Bradley smiles, but doesn’t move or make a big deal of it.
“Me too,” he says, and as their hands knock together and stay together, suddenly, for a moment, the ocean surrounding them and the mission and the death that still stains his footprints don’t seem quite so bad.