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Jake is well aware of his worth as a pilot - what can he say? He’s the best. He’s trained most of his life to master the act of flying. Every detail of his life is tailored to a science to set him above and apart.
It’s a damn shame those same, clear-cut rules don’t seem to apply to love and romance.
If a string of failed relationships, all of which he’s been cited as the problem in, is any indicator, he isn’t exactly a master of the emotional arts. Too cold, too smug, too much of a bitch, too obsessed with work - not even a fraction of the reasons he’s been given time after time as an excuse for a speedy exit. The common demoninator is always, unequivocally and clearly revealed to be, him.
Because the honest truth is that Jake is everything they say he is. He is vain and self-obsessed. He is obsessed with the air and the way he feels at him in it. He is cold, and uptight, and sometimes he’d rather slam his fist into a brick wall than talk about his fucking feelings. And there are about a million undiscovered, make-or-break flaws sitting under the surface that no past boyfriend has ever scratched deep enough to find.
Which is why he can’t really imagine how he bagged someone so…good.
Bradley Bradshaw is good to his very core. Under a few layers of daddy issues and stubbornness to rival Jake’s own, he is good beyond belief with so much goodnes to share. Jake is…
He’s not that. Jake is complicated in the way movie villains are complicated - in the way no one likes but everyone grudgingly respects for the sake of the narrative. Or maybe he’s really not, and he just wants to think that there’s some nuance to his assholery that he can see and others can’t, just so that his ego doesn’t shatter entirely. Either way, any goodness in him is so tangled with the bad that he can’t really understand how Bradley can see through the mess.
So maybe, in the way that criminals on the run are always holding their breath, he’s always - just a little bit - waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He thinks maybe it has.
“Okay, I’ll be back in a few hours,” Bradly fucks with his hair for another few seconds before spinning around to face Jake, arms open and wearing his ‘what do you think’ look. He’s been going out a lot lately - without Jake. With the squad, or at least, the part of the squad that would never invite Jake anywhere.
He doesn’t blame them- Not that he’d ever tell them that.
“Jake,” Bradley demands his attention with a hand waving in front of his face. Jake knows he should listen - usually, when soemoen thinks their partner is pulling away, they should be making every effort to pull them back, right? But his chest feels so heavy, and his throat feels so tight. “Babe, you in there?”
And it’s not anything Bradley has said - no, they’ve said a lot of nasty things to each other over the years, none of which havd really meant anything. Bradley would never purposely make him feel like this. Like…like lonely even though the man he loves is standing right in front of him. Bradley would never make anyone feel like that.
Which rounds back to the root of the problem, the problem of time, the sand in their hourglass rapidly running out, Jake watching it slip through his fingers and being powerless to do anything about it. They haven’t actually had dinner together in three months between missions and Bradley’s new job as a part time instructor and the squad, which is apparently far more appealing than Jake.
Jake misses him and he’s not even gone.
“Jake, the fuck is goin’ on with you?” But if Jake says any of that out loud, he might as well push Bradley out the door with a fully packed bag. The only thing worse than being cold and arrogant? Being clingy and desprate. He’s learned that from experience.
Best to choose the lesser of two evils.
“Nothin’. You look great,” he can’t really feel the smile he’s pasting on through the numbness, but it’s muscle memory at this point. “You always do.”
Bradley looks at him a moment with that indiscernible expression. The one that Jake, despite being an expert in the book of Bradley Bradshaw, can’t read.
“No,” he eventually bursts through the silence, licking pursed lips and folding his arms in that stern, parenting way of his he must have picked up from Mav along the way. “No, none of that shit. I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s goin’ on with you.”
Jake opens his mouth to smooth talk his way out of this as he always does - some thin placations, some half-baked reassurance, and he’s golden - but Bradley cuts him off before he gets a single word out.
“And don’t say nothing. I’m not stupid. You’ve been spacey for fuckin’ weeks.”
Has he? Man, he’s usually so self-aware. In fact, he prides himself on it - not that anyone else knows that. Jake has learned that, when the world only ever views you as the self-obsessed dickhead who can see only his own strengths and never the weaknesses, it’s just easier to let them be right.
Maybe somewhere along the way, self-awareness turned into delusion.
But it doesn’t matter either way. Jake has been through this same conversation a thousand times before, and he never wins. “ Relationships aren’t a competition, Jake ” one of his exes had once said. Which led him to wonder then, how he always seems to lose. His words are worthless, his excuses fall apart at the seams once the other person has made up their mind and he just…
He wants to keep Bradley a little longer.
Even if the nights are lonely, and the missions feel longer, and the few days they could spend together are somehow spent apart. Even if he can feel Bradley pulling further away each day. Every single one of his relationships has ended with a bang. Is it so wrong that he would like something a little softer, just this once?
Bradley is his first true love, after all. Maybe he just wants something special for his first true love.
“ Jacob .”
So he summons all his charm and from the depths of his chest manages to gather the words,
“Are you getting tired of me?”
Those…those weren’t the words he gathered. So why did they come out?
Bradley’s eyebrows just crinkle inward, those damn kissable lips drawing into a frown - maybe he can just kiss this away. Is that possible? Would Bradley stay for sex-
No, god, why is he even saying that? He’s better than that…he thinks-
“I fucked up.”
“Huh?”
Jake’s heart sinks in his chest - he’s heard that one before too, when they’re trying to break it to him gently. Soon to come are the accusations; “ You’re not present enough in this relationship.” “All you ever think about is work.” “All you ever think about us yourself.” And bile is creeping up in his throat as he tries and fails to ready himself for the onslaught but it hurts so much more when it’s Bradley.
Bradley doesn’t move from where he’s standing looking sharp and beautiful. Jake commits him to memory - the way he looks, the way his presence feels warm in the room, the way his cologne lingers in the air - just in case this is the last time they’re ever like this.
“I must have fucked up to make the man I love think that I’m getting tired of him,” there’s no hint of dishonesty in his voice, though it doesn’t stop Jake from searching for it.
“You-“ Jake can’t believe what he’s about to say, can’t believe he’s about to let himself sound so pathetic in front of another human being. And worse still is how his voice trembles when he manages the courage to say his thoughts out loud, “You never want to spend time with me.”
He doesn’t even sound like himself and he hates it. He’s not this person - desprate and in love enough to show it. Only Bradley makes him this person.
“You go out with Pheonix and Bob and- and all these people who just fucking hate me-“
“No they don’t-“
“ Yes they do, Bradley,” his voice is too loud when it spills into the room and suddenly he feels short of breath and all he can think about is the burning behind his eyes. “Everyone does. Javy and you are the only people who don’t think I’m a waste of space and- and fuck -“
“ Jake .”
“ What .”
Bradley pauses, heavy and sullen. He licks his lips once, twice, three times as he always does when he’s thinking real hard about what to say next, choosing his words like a witness from a lineup.
But then he says,
“We’re only six months into this relationship-“ And fuck Jake can’t do this. He’s not ready. He asked for a soft ending, he begged the goddamn universe, or God, or whoever the hell gave him Bradley Bradshaw in the first place to do one more favor for him so why is it all falling apart? He doesn’t remember standing, but he’s on his feet and heading toward the door before his thoughts catch up with his body because the heat in his chest feels like it’s going to explode and take him with it, and he just needs to breathe- “Jake fucking stop! ”
“No!” He can’t. He doesn’t understand why this always happens to him. He doesn’t get why he hasn’t fixed himself yet. “No…I-…it can’t end like this. I don’t want it to end like this, Bradley.”
Bradley sighs, something relieved and light sitting soft on his shoulders and Jake can’t understand how he can find even a modicum of reprieve in this situation when he feels like every breath he takes is harder than the last.
“It’s not ending at all.”
“But you said-“
“Let me finish a goddamn sentence babe,” Bradley laughs - he fucking laughs something golden. And the relief that swells in Jake’s chest at the sound of it is so deafening he barely catches what his boyfriend says next. “I was going to say…”
Bradley doesn’t actually say what he was going to say next. Instead, he steps up into Jake’s space so close that they’re chest to chest, only inches away, his warmth seeping into Jake’s skin and making his feet feel heavy, stuck to the spot. His hands hover around Jake’s shoulder for a moment as if trying to find their place before eventually settling at t he nape of his neck. And they’re so warm with their weather-worn calluses and their gentleness of touch that Jake can’t help but melt - just a little bit - into them.
Then Bradley’s voice comes so softly that a whisper would strain to listen and a shout wouldn’t hear it at all.
“That…we’ve been in this relationship for six months, and for all six of them I’ve been falling more and more in love with you every single day,” rough thumbs trace along Jake’s jaw as his heart turns to putty in Bradley’s hands and his vision begins to blur with more tears. Every single day? No one has ever loved Jake for every single day - suddenly looking Bradley in the eyes is too much to take. “And that’s…too fast. When we started, I told you we’d take it slow and I wasn’t doing that.”
Bradley takes a solid breath then closes his eyes as he leans forward to press their foreheads together. A tenderness swells in Jake’s chest and threatens to overflow into more tears if he’s not careful.
“I was…slowing myself down.” They take a moment like that, Bradley’s slowing breaths warm against his cheek as they draw further into each other’s orbits.
“Like- okay,” then Bradley bursts in again - which is fine by Jake, because Jake just loves the sound of his voice when it’s meant to be heard by him and him only. “You know when you would get a boner at weird time in highschool, so you would think of your naked grandma?”
Jake’s voice is creaking and rough from his throat after being misused, “I dunno what you’re talking about. My boners were always perfectly timed.”
“Naturally.”
They curl together like perfectly cut puzzle pieces, Jake finding his way to the crook of Bradley’s neck and wrapping his arms around his boyfriend - he feels so whole for the first time in weeks. Even though he can feel his own heartbeat slowing, Bradley’s beats so much louder. Jake presses his ear against his pulse and savors the music of it.
It’s only after a moment of content silence that Bradley gently pushes a foot of space between them and the anxious little boy that lives in Jake’s chest and tells him terrible things - like this is the moment where Bradley reveals it was all one big charade, that everything was building up to this moment where he leaves Jake standing alone and cold.
But then he begins unbuttoning his shirt and launches into one of his absent minded-rambles.
“You really thought I wanted to go drinking four nights a week? I’m thirty-six years old, dude. And I value the health of my pancreas…or gallbladder or-“
“Liver.”
And the boy stops saying anything at all.
“Smartass.”
“Dumbass.”
He takes a pause before he dares to ask the question that’s been ready and waiting on his tongue for a while now.
“Then what we’re you doin’ all those night you went out?” He forces nonchalance into his voice before deciding that he doesn’t really want to hear the answer. “Wait let me guess.”
Bradly spares a glance over his shoulder as his shirt falls to the ground, “Shoot.”
“Orgy.” Jake appraises him with his eyes - his muscles shoudlers, the divots of his abs.
“Nope, those usually involve at least a few women.”
“Back alley rave.”
“Another truly terrible guess”
“You’re a vampire.”
“I can’t even look when I get the flu shot, you I’m sucking blood from people’s necks?” Bradley scoffs as he moves onto unbuckling his belt and dropping his pants to the floor.
“Why are you getting undressed?” Jake finally finds the space in his chest to ask, feeling an ease float over him. The urgency of needing Bradley in his grasp has faded now that Jake knows he’s not going anywhere. Now…well, he’s free to simply admire his weirdly naked boyfriend.
“Cause I’m staying in and it’s hot as balls.”
Jake’s heart warms.
“But you’ve got a date.”
“ Had a date,” Bradley steps lightly over to him and thumbs at the hem of his shirt, muttering a muted “get rid of this” before continuing on, “With Nat’s couch whatever junk food she happens to have in her apartment. Which is none because she’s a health-freak like you.”
As if on autopilot, Jake strips down to his underwear, a reciprocal habit that makes the playing field feel equal again. Callused fingers run down Jake’s chest as chapped lips take to kissing every inch of Jake’s face they can reach - heat flares up his spine and prickles in his fingertips.
“Now, I have a date with you.”
And hell if Jake doesn’t love the sound of that. Except-…there’s one more thing. One more thing he needs to make sure doesn’t slip through the cracks.
“Hey now Bradley Bradshaw,” at the sound of his full name, Bradley pulls back to stare at them with those enormous doe eyes, full of questioning and the glow of warm bedroom lights. He places his hands on Bradley’s chest, one over his heart. “Next time you wanna alter the rate at which our relationship goes- actually, next time you wanna alter anything about our relationship, talk to me first.” Jake kisses the words against his lips. “Or at least run it by me.”
Bradley’s hands slow at Jake’s waist and pull him in as close as two bodies can go.
“Promise I will.” He whispers with a sincerity Jake swallows like hot chcolate on a frigid winter day. “I shouldn’t have kept you in the dark and tried to deal with it all myself in the first place. I know relationships are a two way street. I’m sorry.”
That’s all he really needs - a promise that they’re going to try, confirmation that Bradley won’t pack up all their issues and leave, abandoning them on the front doorstep.
Then Bradley kisses him deep and slow and full of so much love that Jake is almost overflowing with it. Jake leans into him fully, sliding his hands up to cup scarred cheeks and sink his fingers into curls so soft he could be convinced that they’re made of clouds. When did he start getting so lucky in life?
When they pull away, Bradley whispers against his lips, “I will never leave you. And I will never stop loving you. I dunno who put that idea in your head, but tell them to shut the fuck up.”
And Jake swears he may melt to nothing in his arms.
“I love you, Bradley Bradshaw.”
Bradly steals the words from his tongue with a kiss, “I love you more, Jake Seresin.”