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Javier Machado has been friends with Jacob Seresin since flight school. Jake was Academy, through and through. Javy isn’t. He did NROTC. Still, they’ve been joined at the hip for years now. Javy would say he knows Jake better than anyone in the world – except possibly his mate, whose existence Javy only knows about because he caught Jake mid patch-change one time, and saw the scar. Jake hadn't reacted well. An extremely uncomfortable conversation had then ensued while Javy tried to make sure his best friend was okay, that he wasn’t being hurt by the one person who was supposed to protect him above all else. Jake’s little smile, and the warmth in his voice when he described the alpha (it didn’t get much more detailed than “He’s the best” but Javy will take what he can get) had lifted an impossible weight from his shoulders.
Still, he has to admit, he knows next to nothing about his best friend’s family. Everything he’s learned comes in bits and pieces over years of tiny slip ups, glimpses at a happy home life with the names all redacted.
He knows Jake’s real name isn’t Seresin, that he picked his current surname for his application to the academy. He’d told Javy one night, while they were stuck on a night rotation, nothing to do but talk.
“We flipped a coin for it, my siter and I.” It had come out of nowhere, but Javy was too curious to break his friend’s strange reverie. “Head’s was Bube’s maiden name, tails was Nana Abbie’s” he grins at Javy, all mischief and sparkle. “I got heads.” This is the first time Javy has heard anything about Jake having a sister.
“Why not just use your mom’s?”
“He’s in the service too, he’s probably as well-known as Pops. And I want to do this on my own, no baggage either way.” Now that was interesting. Javy also hadn’t known Jake’s mom was a male omega, let alone in the Navy. He’d known about his dad, that he’d wanted Jake to keep his name, keep some kind of protection. Not for the first time, he wondered just how important Jake’s Pops was. Jake was always far more forthcoming with his academy escapades than any family talk, and the pervasive bubble of untouchability that connection had given him was apparent in every one of them.
He'd learned more, over the years; that Jake’s sister was an alpha, that she – like him – had inherited a talent for mischief from their mother that drove their father insane. That all four of them were pilots, and his parents had instilled in himself and his sister (entered in his phone as ‘Nasty’) a love of flying that surpassed almost everything else in his life.
Still, he didn’t get the full picture until more than a decade after they met. On the beach, at Miramar.
Dogfight football was not what he expected from this “Special training detachment,” but it was also more fun than he’d had in what felt like years. Captain Mitchell had promised it would bring them together as a team, and it did. It also gave him the final pieces to the puzzle of his best friend. They mystery of Jacob Seresin was solved when, halfway through the first round, Maverick took his shirt off.
Javy’s mama had always been a fit man; chasing after five children, and a career as a firefighter, made sure of it. Javy can remember, somewhere in the haze of young childhood, before more solid memories had started to form, sitting on the couch between his parents, tracing his fingers over the pale little lines on his mother’s swollen belly. He distinctly remembers the feel of Daddy’s long acrylic nails, scratching through his hair. He can’t remember what he said, if he’d asked a question, or if he’d just been in the same position for long enough that Mama had eventually told him “They’re called stretch marks, Mijo.” And he must have asked what that meant, because Mama had laughed and explained “They happen when mamas’ tummies make room for babies” he’d moved Javy’s little hands “this one is from you” he shifted them again “and this one is from Princesa over there!” He thinks Daniella had been set up in her bassinet on the floor. Or maybe Daddy had been holding her? “It’s ‘cause we get so big, big as a house!” Daddy had moved her hand from his head to Mama’s, he thinks she’d been stroking his hair? And said something that made Mama blush bright red under his tan, the colour striking against Daddy’s dark fingers. If Javy had to guess, it was something along the lines of “Sexiest thing I’ve ever seen!” She said that a lot, it’s how Javy ended up with four younger sisters. He has more than one memory of Daddy’s absolutely horrendous flirting with Mama in the kitchen before school, full of warm haze from Mama cooking breakfast and Daddy passing the hot comb through his sisters’ hair.
Maverick is wearing a sports bra under his shirt, the kind specifically made for male omegas, ones who’ve had children. And Javy recognises those silver-white lines on his torso. Several other factors click into place, and he doesn’t know how he hadn’t noticed it before. No wonder the way Maverick flies had looked so familiar, he’s been seeing it since flight school. From the snark, to the strut, to the damned smirk, Jake Seresin is an almost carbon copy of his mother, it’s just so obvious. It also explains a lot of the weirder things about Jake’s behaviour since they arrived at Miramar. Jake typically doesn’t let anyone he doesn’t know get close to him, and he definitely doesn’t touch them. So it had brought Javy’s hackles up when the old timer in the Hard Deck (He knows it was Mav now, but at the time he was just some stranger in a leather jacket) had pulled him into what had looked like an awkward and smothering hug when Jake went to grab them more beers. Jake’s nonchalant announcement that the bottles for their newcomers were “on the old man” had made his stomach twist. With his new hindsight, it looks distinctly like his Mama demanding he pay “mom tax” (at least one prolonged hug, sometimes a series of smothering kisses all over his face) every morning before he was allowed to take his lunchbox and leave for school. It would also explain the uptick in borderline-insubordinate quips Jake’s felt perfectly comfortable volleying off their instructor of all people. He doesn’t think he's ever seen his friend’s shoulders so relaxed. Especially that first morning, coming back from the mysterious off base housing Javy hadn’t known he had. Putting it together with Maverick letting slip he and his mate had a place in town, well, Javy always felt better after he’d been home too. Mother and son grin at each other, identical expressions of mischief.
He gets sacked by Trace, ending up on his back in the sand, sharing his revelation with the sky.
“Quit staring Coyote, its rude.” Then she hops off him and runs back to Maverick to start the next round. He watches her go. Jake yells “Hey Nasty!” and she effortlessly catches his thrown ball, running it down the beach. Everyone cheers. Does she know her running form is exactly like her mother’s?
A hand on his shoulder makes him jump. It’s Jake.
“You okay, man?” he nods, tries to shrug it off and look reassuring. Jake follows his eyes, confusion settling in his own when pinpoints Mav.
“You worried about Ma? He’s okay, not the first time he’s punched out. And he wouldn’t be joining in if he’d busted a rib,” Which is when Javy spots the bruising. Yellow-green splotches just peeking out from under the band of Maverick’s bra, almost hidden by his tan. “Pops would kill him if he tried!” Jakes eyes go wide and the colour drains from his face when he notices the slip. “Uh… I mean – ”
“Is this why you never wanted to introduce me to your mom, afraid I’d call you out? I already knew you were some kind of Nepo-baby, and I’ve seen the shit you pull, did you think I’d be starstruck?” Jake’s laugh is relieved, and they join the rest of the group watching Harvard and Payback wrestling each other into the surf, the ball they were fighting over floats, entirely forgotten, back onto the shore.
Right by his feet.
He scoops it up and throws it, no real direction, just away. Halo catches it. And just like that, the fight’s back on. He gets Trace back in the next round. Sand fills his mouth and the ball sails over their heads. Laughter bubbles from his chest and escapes in gasps as he dodges out of reach of her faux enraged grasp. He uses Jake as a human shield. Jake ends up in a headlock. He deserves it. Javy’s sure Natasha would agree with him, probably not for the same reasons, but she’d definitely agree. His sisters are the same. Maybe not Marie. But the other three? He’d be toast.
Maverick finally sits out when he gets knocked flat on his back in the surf and Rooster hauls him up and shuffles him back into a shirt and then into a beach chair. Javy still hasn’t figured out what’s going on between those two; he’d call it favouritism, but they don’t seem to like each other all that much. Rooster fusses over their CO, shoving bottles of water and sunscreen under his nose in one big paw. Jake and Nat, when he checks on them, are standing at the other end of their ‘field’, but their attention is solely on the duo over by the back of the hard deck. The game shifts around them. Hondo blows his whistle. Maverick bats Bradley’s concerned attention away and settles in next to Penny. Javy spots one of the balls flying towards him and runs to catch it. The sun is just beginning to set, bright orange where it hovers above the horizon. What remains of the afternoon is warm, and filled with the shouts of this squad that are rapidly gelling into a group of friends. Jake is in the middle of the huddle, arms firmly around his sister… and Bradley. A couple more details shift into focus, but they don’t matter. Nothing matters right now but the smell of the beach, and the glow of the sun, and the joy of his friends. They’ll go back to thinking about the mission tomorrow. For now, they can all just be.