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There are worse things than being forced to spend an evening with a fellow aviator while they travel, but Jake sure hadn't expected the evening to be fun.
He'd picked the place, with all his usual precision—somewhere decent but informal, just far enough from the hotel that it didn't feel like they were still caught in its orbit, close enough that they won't have to spend more of the evening in each other's company than strictly necessarily.
He and Rooster are good, these days. But they're not friends.
Somewhere between the second drink and their entree, though, they'd forgotten that fact. The conversation had grown looser, easier. Bradley laughed like he wasn't thinking about it, like he wasn't bracing for Jake's next barb.
Jake notices things like that about people, has learned to watch them closely and find the cracks—those vulnerable spots he knows he can press at, if he needs to. With Bradley, though, it's gone beyond just looking for ammunition.
He notices the way Bradley leans in when he's really interested in what someone's saying. That he talks with his hands when he forgets himself, gestures broad and expressive. That sometimes, just sometimes, he forgets to put up that Rooster front, and is just… Bradley.
It's kind of nice to see it. Jake's not lingering on the thought.
By the time they step back out onto the street, way later than Jake had anticipated, the night has cooled off. The city's still alive—traffic in the distance, smokers spilling out of bars, music bleeding faintly up through a basement.
Bradley looks one way down the street, then the other.
"You lost, Bradshaw?" Jake asks. Bradley rolls his eyes.
"I just followed you," he points out.
"Miracle you could keep up," Jake says, trotting out the old and well-worn classics. Bradley doesn't bother biting, just knocks Jake's shoulder with his own to spur him into action. Jake laughs, and sets off back the way they'd come, toward the hotel.
When they cut down a side street, the noise of the city thins out. Fewer people, fewer lights. It had seemed welcoming enough, earlier—before the sun went down. Now, Jake's not the only one who's a little more wary. Beside him Bradley's shoulders are set just a fraction more firmly.
They pick up on the thread of the evening's conversation, idly talking about nothing in particular: the best seafood joint near base, the likelihood of Phoenix picking up the promotion she's angling for, the latest episode of The Bear.
The figures ahead of them seem to appear out of nowhere. One moment the street is empty, and the next there's two bulky men leaning against the wall, postures casual but eyes bright and focused on Jake and Bradley's approach.
"Hey," one of the men says as they draw closer. By unspoken agreement they ignore him, their conversation pointedly light. Jake sees the way that Bradley's gaze flickers briefly over both men, and dismisses them.
"Hey," the man says again, and this time he pushes himself up off the wall, blocking them from going any further. "I'm talking to you."
"Sorry, man," Bradley says, tone neutral. "We gotta get somewhere."
"Yeah?" the man sneers. He's got a missing tooth, Jake notices, just visible when his lips draw back. No prizes for guessing how he lost it. "Not anymore, you're not."
Bradley exchanges a disbelieving look with Jake. They're both taller than these guys, and bigger too. Bradley's tags are loose over his shirt. They're hardly your typical targets for a mugging, even alone in an alley at night.
Jake will feel stupid, later, for the amusement that tugs at the corner of his lips, echoed in Bradley's answering expression.
"Okay," Bradley says. "Can we not do this right now, please?"
"It's a real ball-ache for us to fill out incident reports with our XO," Jake drawls. His tone is less friendly than Bradley's, a little of his disdain bleeding through. He can't help it—these guys are pond scum, cowards with a god complex, lording it over a single city alleyway.
The man's glance darts behind them, just for a moment, and Jake's stomach sinks. When he turns his head, there's two more guys who've managed to close in behind them without making so much as a sound.
Suddenly, it's not funny anymore. Especially not when Jake clocks one greasy-looking guy with his hand resting comfortably inside the bulky pocket of his jacket.
Jake's attention narrows, even as he does his best to keep both groups in his peripherals. He tracks the line of the greasy man's shoulders—loose, confident, ready—the solid set of his feet, the way the man next to him is hanging back half a step, giving him room. It's not random. He can't tell what's in the pocket. Could be a gun, could be a knife. Could be nothing at all, but Jake's not betting on that.
Bradley's already moving, palms up in a gesture of surrender, voice even as he reaches for his wallet like he's done this a hundred times before, knows the script and how it's supposed to go.
"Hey man, it's fine," Bradley says. "Take what you want. Nobody's looking for trouble."
Jake follows suit. It'll be a bitch to cancel all his cards, and he's got a good chunk of cash in there, but it's still a small price to pay for them both getting out of here with their faces in tact. The wallets are plucked from their hands, and Jake holds his breath.
Greasy shifts half a step closer to Bradley.
Everyone's looking at him—the talker. They'll go for him first, Jake thinks, and if it's a gun then it's game over and if it's a knife then the odds aren't that much better, because Greasy will be able to get it lodged in Bradley's kidney before he can even think about turning around.
A furious calm descends on Jake, still and terrible.
It's a feeling he's experienced twice before in his life—both times in the cockpit. Never with his feet on the ground. It's almost out-of-body, detached. Acceptance.
"You know," he says, loud and cocky—insufferable smirk fixing itself against his teeth. "I think they are, in fact, looking for trouble, Rooster."
All eyes slide his way. Bradley's too, his brows low and an urgent look on his face that could not more clearly communicate shut the fuck up, Hangman.
Jake knows what he's doing. He doesn't shut up.
"'Course, I might look for trouble too," he says. "If I was so desperate to be a big fish that I got comfy in a small pond. Well—more of a puddle, isn't it?"
"The mouth on you," one of them croons in a tone that he probably thinks is threatening, but which just singles him out as having watched one too many mob movies.
Jake wants, desperately, to step in front of Bradley, but he knows that the second he brings attention back to him that all this is for nothing. So long as they're looking at him, then Bradley's got a chance to get away clean.
Jake lets his smile widen. "You been looking?"
It's the eyebrows that do it, probably—the innuendo in the rise of them, the challenge. The bait gets snapped up.
The first punch is sloppy, angry. Jake sees it coming, gets his arm up in time to deflect it off his shoulder, but the second lands. Hard. It cracks against his jaw, snapping his head to the side. Before he can recover, the breath is driven from his lungs when someone else lands a blow on his back. The world jolts.
There's shouting. Bradley's voice, sharp with it.
Jake tries to straighten—too slow.
The third blow catches him across the face and sends him back into the wall. His head slams against brick with a dull, ugly crack, and the world whites out for a second, sound dropping away into a high, thin whine.
For a moment, he's nothing but pain.
He blinks hard, and his vision swims back into focus in jagged pieces. They've turned away from him, satisfied that he's not an immediate problem. And there—there's the guy with his hand in his pocket, except it's not in his pocket anymore.
The knife catches the light as it comes free, quick and easy. Bradley's right in front of him, busy fending off another guy.
Jake moves. It's not clean, it's not co-ordinated: Jake can barely tell what his limbs are doing. He's all momentum and instinct and rage. When he puhes off the wall it's like a high-G climb, vision tilting sideways as he launches himself into forward, and right into Bradley's space.
The knife bites into his side as he twists his body in front of Bradley's, a sharp line that barely registers as pain so much as it does heat. There's rage caught between his bared teeth as he shoulders his whole body into the man, getting his fingers around his wrist hard enough to feel bones grind together beneath his grip.
He slams it back into the wall, not caring if his fingers take the damage too, the rough brick shredding his skin. Once, twice—a third time, even harder. Something cracks. The knife clatters free and hits the ground, spinning dangerously on the bounce.
Jake doesn't let go.
There's a muted roar in his ears now, something low and vicious, and he can't tell whether it's in his head or if he's shouting. He drives the man back into the wall again, full body, forearm braced across his throat this time. His whole world is narrowed down to this.
"Jake—!"
Bradley's voice cuts through. Close, urgent.
There are hands on him, pulling him back before he can follow through on whatever comes next. Jake stumbles, footing unsteady and vision still swimming, but there's somebody holding him up, or maybe dragging him away.
He hears the sound of pounding footsteps, running, and then the alley is empty once more.
Bradley's got an arm around his chest, the other clutching a handful of his shirt. Jake sways against him, adrenaline still burning through him with nowhere to go.
"Jesus Christ," Bradley says. "Jake—"
Jake turns, expression dark and deliberate, and gets his hands on Bradley, pressing against his sides, his stomach, his shoulders, making sure there's no injury. There's blood on him, but Jake realises it's probably his.
"I'm fine," Bradley says. "What the fuck were you—god."
Jake sways again.
"Incident report," he says. "What a fucking ball-ache."
By the time Jake's waved off anything but the most basic first aid and they're done filing their police report like good citizens who know that their chain of command are going to find out about this one way or another, so they might as well do it right and minimize the consequences, there's an air of exhaustion between them.
They trudge back to the hotel, neither of them saying anything. Jake can see Bradley watching him, like he's ready to reach out and steady him at a moment's notice. He doesn't need it. He's fine.
His fingers are throbbing and he's nursing a headache that'll only get worse. His jaw is tender and although the cut on his side was more of a scrape, the fabric of his shirt catching the blade enough to save him stitches, it smarts when he moves just wrong.
And he's fine. Because Bradley is fine.
Still, Bradley doesn't even pretend to consider letting him shuffle off to his own hotel room. He shoves Jake firmly into his, and then disappears to fetch ice from the machine. Jake sits on the edge of the bed and waits, floating in a haze of distant pain.
When Bradley returns, he wraps ice in a towel and hesitates in front of Jake before he sinks to the floor, kneeling up to hold the ice against Jake's jaw.
"Why'd you do that?" Bradley asks, voice low: the question he's been wanting to ask all evening.
"Don't be stupid, Rooster," Jake says wearily.
"I'm serious," Bradley says. Jake lifts his hand to steady the ice, adjust it to where his jaw is aching hardest. Bradley doesn't move his hand, lets Jake's fingers settle over his own. Follows the pressure of them.
"Guess I'm just not done saving your ass," Jake says.
It'll sound like a joke, he knows, but it couldn't be further from it. Some days, it feels like saving Bradley is all there is.
Which one of y'all has got what it takes, he'd said, on that day in the Hard Deck, to follow me.
But the truth is, Jake would follow Bradley anywhere, and it's always been that way. Even when they snapped and bit, when they clashed and they fought. Even when Bradley had pinned his callsign to him, even then—Jake would have taken the hit. Bradley doesn't know it, probably wouldn't even believe it, but it's true.
Jake quit trying to figure it out a long time ago.
Bradley's staring at him, those big brown eyes sad and serious. Jake only realises Bradley's other hand was resting on his knee when it disappears, the sudden cessation of its warmth sending a shiver rolling up his spine. And then Bradley's fingers are drifting along his face—sketching gently down the slope of his cheekbone, thumb brushing over his split lip.
"I can't stand the thought of you getting hurt," Jake says. "Not when I can do something about it."
Jake drops the words between them like it's confession. Like he's hoping for absolution.
There's none of the arrogance of last time. Jake's not blowing through the smoke like a victorious avenger. There's nobody to perform for, here.
"Jake," Bradley says, and then seems to stall. Lost for words. "You look good," he says, helplessly.
Jake laughs, but it turns into a wince.
"Bradshaw, I look like shit."
"Not to me," Bradley says, like a promise. "Looking pretty heroic from where I am."
Jake nudges his face against the ice, like he might be able to feel the touch of Bradley's palm through it, and lets his eyes fall closed. Keeps them closed when Bradley leans up, leans closer, presses the gentlest kisses against the bruise at his temple, onto his eyelids, the tip of his nose, the corner of his mouth.
"Thank you," he murmurs. "Please don't do that again."
"I'm not making that promise," Jake says, and opens his eyes to look at Bradley looking at him. He smiles, soft and tired. "But not any time soon, that's for sure."
He lets Bradley fuss over him, because he's too tired to fight and because he's still trembling with it—this new, soft thing. He doesn't quite understand it, he thinks, not through the fugue that's settled over him, and he's too scared to ask in case he scares it away.
So he lets Bradley take him to the bathroom and strip him down to his boxers. Lets him clean the last traces of dried blood from his skin, and then gently run the hot wash cloth over his limbs, his torso, the warmth of it soothing. He lets Bradley take his room key and reappear with some of his clothes, lets Bradley dress him in sweats and a loose t-shirt, careful of his battered face. He lets Bradley pull the covers up over him.
Lets Bradley slide in behind him, too, nose at the back of his neck and tuck an army softly around him.
Somewhere on the edge of sleep, warm and aching, wrapped up in Bradley and breathing in the scent of him, he figures it all out for one, shining second. Laughs to himself a little, realizing just how long he's wanted this—the way he'd rather have swallowed his own tongue than admit it to himself. He slides his hand over Bradley's where it's splayed firm on his stomach, lacing their fingers together.
Maybe it'll be complicated, in the morning. But right now, it's simple: he's going to follow Bradley Bradshaw. Wherever he goes.