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The dark gray metal door loomed before Jake's green gaze, as still and unchanging as the breaths that were shaking his chest at a slower pace than he would have liked.
The suicide mission he, Rooster, and everyone else had been brought together for at TopGun was scheduled for the next morning, and Jake felt a terrible knot tying his insides and preventing him from finding some peace.
The craziest thing was that, he reflected as he continued to stare at that damned metal door, he was in a brightly lit corridor in a military base on a night he should have spent in bed resting, not worrying about whether or not to bang his knuckles against that hard surface and try to cross the threshold of that door.
Jake stared at it as if he could give him the answers he was looking for, as if, somehow, the questions he had could finally find a solution beyond it, in the person inside that room.
Words, he didn't even know what exactly, only threatened to emerge from the spiral that had been enveloping his mind for hours, like a tornado that had dragged him to the center: everything was motionless around Jake, while the rest advanced at a terrible speed that he didn't control.
Minutes, seconds flowed like grains of sand inside an hourglass that he couldn't block in any way and Jake felt his clawed fingers around his fist, locked in an incomprehensible vice.
Assuming he had managed to move his muscles and knock on that stupid door, what would have happened next?
Bradley Bradshaw would be there on the other side, with his dumb mustache and the sweet look he had fixed on him, probably as furious as he had seen him the day when Jake had dared to talk about his father and... no, Jake couldn't really open his ridiculous mouth again and do something like that to him.
What they would do after dawn was a really dangerous business whose outcome only God could know, but Jake knew, with a certainty that gripped his heart in an ice-cold grip, that Rooster would be chosen by Maverick.
That Mav, precisely because of their shared past, would have taken him into the skies with him as a wingman, and that no one would have been able to give him the certainty that Bradley would return alive from this.
And the awareness that he hadn't been able to truly, properly apologize to him for having raised the issue of his dead father, that he hadn't even explained to him the reason that had led him to be so brutal and almost cruel towards him, and that the next day, at that same time, perhaps he could find himself crying for a person he felt towards feelings that were very clear and extremely confusing at the same time, hit Jake like a very strong slap in the face.
Jake was the first to follow the sacred line of thought of Don't think, just do... following his instinct and stopping thinking was what made him what he was - the best pilot around, simply put.
But being the best, something he had fought tooth and nail for for the last twelve years of his life, would have been of no use to him in that circumstance: it would not have made him choose by Maverick, and it would not have helped him to make things clear with Rooster, and would not have taken him to fly a plane instead of him on that mission.
Being the best was a disadvantage - he never thought he'd even have that idea in his entire life, God - as it was dying to want to tell Bradley Bradshaw things he hadn't confessed to anyone, not even fully to himself, about what he really felt for him.
It was easier to hide everything behind a big toothy smile, salacious jokes and a rivalry that was the ultimate boundary for Jake to stay within.
It was the safest thing, the safest way to dance around Rooster, to finally have his attention, but never take that final step that would allow him to expose his vulnerability and tell him why he hurt him so much sometimes with his words and gestures.
Jake continued to stretch the muscles of his right hand’s fingers to avoid shaking, his brain having memorized every single shade of color of that fucking door by now.
And he still didn't know what to do.
After all, in the end, what did he have to tell to him?
Hi Rooster, I'm here before a mission I feel like you will definitely be chosen for, while I will be forced to stay here and listen to how you will probably die, and this will traumatize me for life, and I will never forgive you for leaving me, to tell you I'm sorry for how things went between us during all these last years, that I dragged your father into a fight to get your head out of your ass and make you fly like I know you are able to fly, to have a chance of coming back to me, because here's what's at stake, your fucking life, Rooster, and I don't want you to die, I absolutely and definitely don't want you to die, because I lo-
The strength of that final thought, of that simultaneously unexpected and sensible conclusion, shocked Jake as if someone had just catapulted him into a free fall without a parachute for kilometers, with the ground he could crash onto getting closer.
Nausea crept into his stomach with a speed that almost made him dizzy while standing, and Jake felt more ashamed of himself than ever before.
What the fuck was he doing there outside Rooster's door, at that time that night, like a Romeo desperately in love waiting for his Juliet?
No, he shouldn't have said a single word to him for anything in the world, he shouldn't have confess his feelings and thrown weights of that magnitude on him to free his conscience and his heart, it would have been worse than being a coward... he just should have shut the fuck up, for God's sake, shut up at any cost, and prevent to everything he felt coming out at the wrongest time ever.
The very idea that Bradley might get hit by the enemy, might die and never see him again, never get to look at his ridiculous Hawaiian shirts, his silly mustache, and listen to his voice singing on the piano reduced Jake on his knees, the pain splitting him from side to side as if he were being torn to pieces with a very sharp knife.
But he really never, ever couldn't do that to him.
Rooster could never forgive him – also because Jake knew it would be a one-sided declaration.
It wasn't worth dumping on him a love that didn't even make sense in its existence (who starts having feelings for the only person who could never see him in any other way than an arrogant asshole? Only Jake Seresin, that's who) and that Jake had carefully kept hidden in the most secret folds of himself for far too long.
He just had to be the good soldier he had always been, obey a higher calling, and make sure that when Maverick called Bradley's name, no one would be able to read in his eyes and on his face the sheer and pure terror about it. No one should have ever understood that he would have gladly cut off an arm and a leg to swap with him on that fighter jet and that facing terrorists plus a mountain with a g-force so crushing it would make you pass out and the real possibility of dying would be the right price to pay to keep Rooster safe.
With uncertain hands, Jake took out from the back pocket of the jeans he had hastily put on before leaving his quarters a little box, where he kept his toothpicks - he always carried it around with him, it was like a security blanket that helped him -, he opened it trembling, and put one single toothpick between his teeth with his eyes closed, playing with it with his tongue to try to relax.
It was a very difficult thing to do, but he had to do it for himself and for the man on the other side of that door, unaware of Jake's torments and the fact that he had been constantly, painfully at the center of his thoughts since they had seen each other again weeks ago at the Hard Deck just like the sun was the center the Earth revolved around.
Jake could only do one thing now: go to bed, sleep as much as possible, be fucking ready for the mission tomorrow, and make sure to get involved at any cost to save Rooster, if necessary. He wouldn't give a fuck about direct orders, he would put his career on the line and face a Court Martial and the entire United States Navy, if necessary.
Fly as fast as he had ever done before, defy the laws of physics and gravity to run to him, be the best pilot ever to walk the skies, bend the world to his will to get to him – oh, he would do all of this for Bradley, of course.
Jake's lungs let out a deep breath before he put the toothpicks box back in his pocket, and walked away from that door, from Bradley, and from everything he wanted to tell him.
It wasn't the right time, and even if Rooster returned home safely, there could never be a future for them together, he was sure of it. He would keep his mouth shut forever – they were just feelings, they would fade with time and distance, right?
A voice in his head, dangerously similar to Javy's, rang out with a Liar that pierced his heart.
Jake walked silently away to his room, ready to carry the weight of the world for Bradley.
Ready to do anything for him, except tell him what he meant to him.
Bradley opened the door of his room at 4:30 in the morning, with his mind sufficiently awake and a deadly agitation that was tightening his stomach so much that it almost prevented him from breathing, thinking, or doing anything.
Dressed in his flight suit that seemed to weigh a ton on him and with in his heart the constant thought of his father, a man he looked very much alike, composed by an handful of personal memories about him and mythical tales that had put him on an heroic pedestal – Dad, today will I finally join you and mom, or will I be guaranteed to see another sunrise? Everything depends on your best friend, dad, I suppose -, he kept his gaze downwards to try to gather a very needed focus before trying to have breakfast and go to the briefing that would lead to the formation of the definitive Daggers Squad that would fight in the sky that day.
On the gray floor outside his room - God, everything was grey: floor, door, room, bed, the sky, and his own mood - a brand new toothpick stood out absurdly. It was like a beautiful tiny spot of whiteness in a world that appeared black and white, almost.
Bradley picked it up and looked at it, immediately knowing who it belonged to.
Hangman, Jake... had he been outside his door last night?
What could Jake possibly want from him hours before such a mission?
His heart did a very dangerous somersault in his chest at that thought: maybe, maybe Jake wanted to talk to him, clear things up with him in case he had been chosen and the mission had gone badly (and God only knew that there were a million different ways in which this flight could be deadly for himself, for him, and for Maverick... it was literally based on a series of unrepeatable miracles), perhaps Jake would have wanted to apologize to him-
No, stop it, Bradley. Focus on the mission, on what you can control. Don't think, don't think, don't think. Just do.
So, following an instinct obscenely and totally liberated for the first time in his life, Bradley took that stupid toothpick, immersed in total silence, and stuck it in a hidden internal pocket of his flight suit, just to have it on him whatever happened.
He could never have Jake Seresin the way he truly wanted, despite all the disparate ways he had craved and sometimes gotten his magnetic attention whenever their destinies had intertwined over the years – he had never shaved his mustache on purpose just to receive his teasing, he had never stopped wearing his dad's Hawaiian shirts because he knew they ensured his gaze on him, he started singing on the piano to make sure his voice was heard from his ears - but he could have a small, tiny piece of him on his body when their final fate was chosen.
A heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that Mav would choose Hangman – it was just the most sensible thing to do: he was the perfect pilot for that mission in terms of mental attitude and abilities, he had a better chance than him or anyone else of returning alive from that mess, and Bradley... Bradley would end up hating both of them with all his heart for cutting him off. But he also knew that his exclusion would mean the total loss of that semi-relationship he had now established with Mav, because not choosing him meant not having faith in him and in the pilot he was - and therefore Bradley's mind went back to the words Jake spat out the day he mentioned his father, to the fact that either he would fly like never before, forgetting himself, the perch he clung to desperately waiting for the perfect moment, and his calm and conservative approach, or he would never touch the ground alive again.
It all came back to Jake Seresin, one way or another, for Bradley.
And this was the real tragedy that he couldn't shake off his shoulders.
He was a fixed point in his life, the axis his existence revolved around, a piece of the mosaic that made what Bradley Bradshaw was, just like the fact that he was a Navy pilot or that Great Balls of Fire was the his best piece on the piano.
It was a real shame that Jake hadn't found the courage to talk to him - and that surprised him a lot, because Hangman certainly wasn't known for being someone who backed down from a challenge, a provocation or an argument - because Bradley knew that, despite everything that had happened between them, he would listen to him with his heart and his ears open.
It was a real shame that things between them remained unresolved like that, in a connection that perhaps could have been much, much more if only they had both learned to overcome the doors they were hiding behind.
It was a real shame that Bradley realized how much Jake really meant to him and how much he would have liked to have had him by his side during the night he had just spent alone, so full of anguish, just when he was on the verge of losing him, one way or another.
That thought made his lips curl into a shriveled smile that tasted of bitterness and personal defeat.
But Bradley, at that moment, decided to let out a deep breath and emptied his mind, white as an untouched canvas. He could no longer even visualize his own past and his own future, or Jake’s future: everything inside him was now towards the present mission, towards flying, hitting, and returning home, whatever happened and whoever was chosen to fly.
And if for him home had now become not only the old house on the beach where Nick and Carole Bradshaw had lived the happiest years of their lives together with him, but also a pair of green eyes, an ironic smile, and a warm and cocky voice with a Texas accent, so be it.
Bradley would have taken his secret with him anyway, splitting from Hangman into a new life far away God knows where after this assignment or six feet under next to mom and dad.
His fingers reached into the pocket where he had placed Jake's toothpick – it stung and made him bleed just like him, but it was a great, little comfort to have it with him.
Bradley was content with this as his legs carried him to the briefing and towards an unknown, yet strangely already sealed, destiny.