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At 0925, Jake hears the ominous drag of a suspiciously heavy weight across the floor in the kitchen. His stomach sinks.
Sure enough, when he pokes his head in, there's a large, messy toolbox heaving out its insides by the open sink cabinet. Bradley is kneeling next to it, squinting into the dark space under the sink, cleaning supplies liberated from the cabinet to allow access to the piping.
“No," Jake says, very loudly and firmly.
Bradley aims an amused look over his shoulder. "It's the best time to do it,” he says, in what he probably thinks is a very reasonable tone. "We won't need the sink for a while and I’ve got nowhere to be till dinnertime."
“Great," Jake bites out. “Sounds like a fantastic time to call a plumber."
Bradley tuts dismissively. Jake can already feel the headache starting to build.
“It's an easy fix," Bradley says cheerfully. “I got this." He smiles over his shoulder again at Jake, warm and fond. “You go deal with the bank stuff and meet Coyote like you planned, don't worry about me. This won’t even take long, anyway."
Jake lets out a controlled and frankly very restrained sigh. "I’ll do the bank stuff in the living room,” he says through gritted teeth. "In case you need me.”
"No, no, there's no need,” Bradley says soothingly. He’s peering at the piping, flashlight in one hand and the other tapping out a jaunty little rhythm on his thigh. “You just carry on with your day, I got this."
Jake abandons himself to the pit of despair opening in his stomach and swears viciously under his breath as he stomps away to go get his paperwork from their office. It’ll be a pain to do it at the coffee table instead of at a desk like a normal fucking human but what choice does he have?
*
At 1017, a hollow, muffled "Jake?” floats out from the kitchen. Jake sighs, drops his pen on his half-filled forms, and slouches over with very poor grace.
“What," he snaps.
Bradley’s sitting with his head and shoulders squeezed into the cabinet under the sink. There's already a respectable puddle of water slicking the floor around his knees and large damp patches have grown on his shorts.
“Do me a favor and come hold this for me," he says into the cabinet, garbled because he's probably holding a wrench in his fucking teeth like Kitchen Sink Fabio.
Jake sighs and steps over the worst of the water. It's a tight squeeze to even wriggle his arm past Bradley's broad shoulders so he can reach whatever the hell it is he needs to hold; he definitely can't see what he's doing. He lets Bradley position his hand around something metallic and disgustingly wet and slick, not bothering to hide the exasperation in his sigh.
"Just hold that tight for a sec, okay?” Bradley gropes blindly behind him for the plumber’s tape that is nowhere near his hand. When the pathetic flapping doesn't yield results, he pulls back from under the sink; inevitably, he bangs his head on the lip of the counter and yelps in pain.
Jake tries and fails to tamp down a growl. "Bradshaw,” he grits out. "Call a plumber, for the love of god.”
"No, no, this is basically done,” Bradley insists, unspooling a length of tape and winding it over his long blunt fingers. Jake scrubs roughly with his clean hand at the back of Bradley's head where it had hit the counter and Bradley looks up from the tape to aim a quick, sweet smile at him that almost—almost—punctures a hole in Jake’s ballooning frustration.
"Hold it tight?” Bradley asks, ducking back under the sink; Jake grunts an acknowledgment and tightens his grip. "Just a couple of minutes."
Much, much longer than a couple of minutes later, Jake snaps.
"My fingers are cramping and my back is sore,” he says irritably, and Bradley makes an annoyed sound.
"Yeah, it's—it’s stuck somewhere, I’m gonna need the—” he fiddles some more in the unseen gloom under the sink, callused fingers catching on Jake's until he sighs and pulls back, more carefully this time.
“Okay, you can let go. I’ll have to loosen it up a bit before I can do anything else." He frowns into the sink base as Jake straightens up with a grunt, wet hand held away from himself till he can escape to the sink in the downstairs bathroom to wash it.
"If I had any faith you knew what you were doing, it’s gone now,” he tells Bradley, and marches off. Bradley calls an unconcerned go fuck yourself, Seresin after him.
*
At 1136, Bradley summons him back to the kitchen. To Jake’s complete lack of surprise, whatever the hell it was that needed to be loose is still not loose enough. Jake washes his hands again and goes back to his forms.
*
At 1241, Jake walks into the kitchen, buckling his watch. “I’m heading out to Coyote’s," he tells Bradley's back. Bradley's tank is now visibly damp with sweat.
Bradley grunts.
"I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
Another grunt.
“Bradshaw, I’m serious, just call a plumber."
Bradley lets out a disgruntled rumble. “Enjoy your lunch," he says. “This’ll be done by the time you're back."
“It better be," Jake says darkly, and walks out.
*
At 1424, Jake shuts the front door behind him, whistling idly; he hangs his keys on their customary hook and saunters into the house.
At the kitchen door, his whistle sours and dies into nothing.
“Bradley," he sighs, a hiss like escaping steam.
"Kinda busy,” Bradley grits out tightly. Which Jake can see for himself, actually, thank you very much, Rooster. The puddle from earlier has expanded to about three times its original size and has acquired several clumps of slimy black gunk, the liberation of which seems to have required almost all the contents of Bradley's giant toolbox and also possibly some kind of explosion.
At the center of the blast radius, Bradley's given up on his sexy little kneel from the morning and is just sitting on his ass in the puddle with his shorts soaking wet.
“Busy doing what?" Jake demands, glaring at the hunched, sweat-soaked back of his fucking idiot of a boyfriend. “Making it worse?"
“Go fuck yourself, Seresin," Bradley intones dully.
"No thanks,” Jake bites out. "It's been fucking hours, Bradshaw."
Bradley's back stiffens. “Like you’d do any better," he says scornfully, and then grunts with the effort of whatever bang-on-pipe-with-rock bullshit he’s doing.
"Matter of fact I would,” Jake snarks. "I’d have had it done in an hour; you know why, Bradshaw? Because I’d have called a fucking plumber."
Bradley growls again. Jake chooses to interpret the sound as more pipe-banging grunting, for both their sakes. "Would you give it a rest?” Bradley snaps. "This is a simple fix, I don't need a plumber, it's just—taking a while—”
"You know what else is gonna take a while, Bradley?” Jake asks irritably. "Cleaning up this fucking mess. Which I hope you enjoy because I’m not the one that's gonna do it."
“I’ll fucking clean up, Jesus," Bradley mutters, and then, softer and probably not meant for Jake's ears, "god forbid Princess Jake gets on his knees for anything other than sucking dick.”
Jake, already marching out of the kitchen, wheels sharply back around, stung. “Yeah, well, Princess Jake wants to make dinner at six," he snaps, and watches Bradley's minute flinch with a distant, joyless satisfaction. “And if he doesn't have access to a clean, functional kitchen by then, you're sleeping on the fucking couch—"
Abruptly, Bradley hurls the wrench in his hand at the floor, hard enough that Jake steps forward reflexively to see if it's left a mark.
“Would you fucking get off my fucking back, Jesus!" Bradley snarls. “I heard you the first ten goddamned times, okay? I should have called a plumber, I should have—" his voice chokes into a silence that rings loud in the warm, sunlit kitchen.
After a long moment Bradley carefully extracts his head from under the sink and reaches for his wrench. He has to practically lie sideways in the disgusting sink water to reach it, but all he does is curl his fingers around it, straighten up with a tight grunt, and tuck back under the sink.
Jake stares at the back of Bradley's now thoroughly soaked tank for a moment before walking slowly out of the kitchen, plucking his keys off the hook, and quietly leaving the house.
*
At 1518, Jake’s keys are back on their hook. He stands in the kitchen doorway for a long moment, staring at the slump of Bradley's back.
“Bradley."
Bradley's arm, moving methodically to presumably finally use the wrench as something other than a projectile, doesn't stop.
"Bradley,” Jake says again. “You in a good place to stop for half an hour?"
The arm pauses. For a few beats, there's nothing. Then:
"Gimme a couple minutes.”
Jake hums an acknowledgment, walking in and setting a brown paper bag on the kitchen table. He moves over to the cabinets to reach for a plate and glass, the latter of which he fills with cold water from the fridge.
Bradley pulls himself out from under the sink as Jake picks his way back across the puddle to the kitchen table to set the glass down and then slide a large sandwich and thick-cut fries out of the brown paper bag and onto the plate. Jake leans on the table, watching as Bradley uncoils effortfully from the floor, staring at him.
"Go wash your hands,” Jake tells him. "You're gonna sit down and eat this and you're not gonna argue.”
Bradley's face, sullen and dully flushed, spasms with some unnamed emotion before he turns back to the sink—which apparently is at least functional for the moment—to wash his hands. Jake stays where he is, silent. The muscles of Bradley’s back ripple with the movement of his hands. His hair, damp and untidy, curls at the nape of his neck. It's going to be out of regs if he doesn't get a haircut in the next few days.
When Bradley turns back around, eyes downcast and cheeks still flushed, Jake hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “Couch," he says. “C’mon. You're not eating lunch in this disaster area."
Bradley opens his mouth—
“I put down a towel.”
*
At 1547, Bradley sets his half-eaten sandwich down on the plate and tucks his arms over his stomach. He’s still chewing contemplatively, eyes fixed on the neat stacks of paperwork Jake has left on the coffee table, ready and only awaiting Bradley's signature.
Jake, at the other end of the couch, waits.
“That's my dad's toolbox, you know?" Bradley says, finally. He swallows, reaches for the sweating glass of water and noisily gulps it half empty in one go before putting it carefully down on the coaster. He squints hard suddenly. Brain freeze, Jake thinks, and smiles.
“I know, Bradley," he says.
“He wasn't home much, obviously, and, I mean, I don't remember all that, of course, but." Bradley shrugs, picks at a loose thread on his disgusting shorts. Jake is going to have to intervene and throw them out before Bradley tries to put them in the laundry basket.
Bradley shrugs again. "Mom always said she'd leave all the house stuff for when he was home, y’know? Like she never needed a plumber or a carpenter or anything like that till—” Another jerky shrug.
Jake scoots a little closer on the couch—not close enough to risk contamination by sink juice, but enough that he can nudge Bradley's knee with his own. "I’m telling you right now I’m drawing the line at carpentry, Rooster,” he says, dead serious, and Bradley laughs a crackly little laugh, says, “Solid copy," and picks up the rest of his sandwich.
Jake’s jeans are starting to acquire a little damp patch where his knee is still touching Bradley's. Jake doesn't move. He was going to wash them anyway.
*
At 1819, Jake is resignedly scrolling through Uber Eats when the house rings with a bright, triumphant “Jake!"
Jake looks up, startled, and then huffs a laugh, shaking his head ruefully before he hops off the couch and marches over to the kitchen. He catches himself on the doorframe and leans in, grin already blooming in place.
"What's good, Mario?” he asks cheerfully, and Bradley, sitting in a significantly smaller puddle than before and wearing a wide, wide smile, throws his hands in the air with a whoop—and then he sings out the little Mario wins! tune, loud and bright and perfectly in key.
Jake just stands there and stares at him, this giant dork beaming up at him pink cheeked and bright eyed and so fucking pleased with himself, and bursts out laughing before he strides across the kitchen, catches Bradley's wrists in his hands, and hauls him to his feet so he can squeeze him into a hug so tight Bradley actually squeaks.
Bradley laughs, dropping his arms over Jake’s shoulders, grinning. “So is that a go on the carpentry?" he asks, the cheeky little shit, stinking of sweat and sink juice and god knows what else, eyes sparkling, and Jake beams back at him and says "I will break every bone in your hands, Bradshaw, that's not a threat, it's a promise,” before squeezing Bradley close and smacking one, two, three loud, obnoxious kisses on his smiling mouth.