Work Text:
"Don't you think it's time to move on?"
The question reminds him of one of the many reasons Jake hasn't been back to Texas lately. His sister means well, but Jake hasn't felt ready to face her interrogations since he stopped seeing his therapist. He still hasn't told Eleanor about that part.
"It's been five years, Jake." She points out, as if he hadn't felt every single second of those years slip away. "I don't know how much longer I can let you wait for someone who isn't coming back."
"You don't have to let me do anything." He murmurs, brushing off his sister's question. "It's my decision."
Ellie continues, ignoring Jake's attempt to ignore her. "Wouldn't Bradley want you to be happy?"
Jake exhales sharply at the name most people have learned not to mention around him. "What does it matter what he would want? He's not here, is he?"
"You deserve a life, Jakey. With or without him." Ellie says with a gentle smile. "Haven't you ever thought it might be time to find someone else?"
"I don't want anyone else, Ellie." Jake absentmindedly picks at a loose thread on his shirt. The printed design across his chest has all but faded now, the outline of a Ford Bronco just barely visible under the soft light of the living room.
Jake remembers when he first stole it from Bradley, wearing it home after the first night they spent together. He'd kept it all these years, through deployments and arguments, tucked into the suitcase he left with when he and Bradley called their relationship quits.
"Danny from work was asking about you."
"I don't need a new boyfriend."
"I never said you did." Ellie replies. "One date couldn't hurt, right? It'd get you out of the house for a little while."
Looking around the room, Jake can see her point. This is the house they grew up in, Ellie's place since their parents passed and Jake joined the Navy. The echoes of their childhood still linger here, the walls a time capsule of photos and their mother's paintings. There's a gap on the mantle where a picture of Jake and Bradley once sat, taken down and kept safe in the box of Bradley's things Jake still holds on to in case he ever comes asking after them.
"One date." Jake resigns himself to agree, knowing Ellie won't get off his back until he does. Sometimes it's sweet how much she cares. This is not one of those times.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
It's Saturday, and Jake is tapping his fingers on the hardwood table of some fancy restaurant he's only ever walked past before. Hell, he's hardly even been into Corpus Christi since he came home two weeks ago, fresh off a deployment and with three months to let himself go stir crazy.
He arrived early, unsure of the etiquette after so long spent out of the saddle. Danny pushes open the door right on time, spotting Jake from across the crowded restaurant and heading over. Jake rises to greet him, pulled into a polite hug before he can protest.
Danny is all smiles, black hair and soft features. Clean shaven, an inch or two shorter than Jake. Nothing about Danny reminds him of Bradley, yet Jake's traitorous mind still wanders there.
Jake laughs politely at Danny's jokes, tries to engage with his anecdotes about work. He doesn't know how people manage the whole teaching thing—he turned down the offer to teach when it was offered to him at Miramar. Still, it's clear Danny loves it, and Jake knows Ellie does too.
It takes a little while to fall into the rhythm of it, but Jake eventually finds himself trying to get to know Danny. Ellie would kill him if she found out he'd brushed off her coworker without putting any effort in, and Jake knows it.
Despite himself, Jake actually starts to have fun. He'd forgotten what this felt like, the meeting and the getting to know someone new. The last time he did this was in his mid twenties, when Bradley's attempts to make an honest man of Jake began in earnest. Bradley never did get the chance to see his work come to fruition.
In the night air as Jake walks Danny home, he could almost see himself making this work. No ghosts come forward to stop him as he speaks words out loud that he couldn't have ever imagined himself saying. "We should do this again sometime."
Danny smiles at him where they stand close, metres away from Danny's front door. "I'd like that." He replies, looking at Jake expectantly.
It takes a moment of his mind faltering for Jake to remember what comes next. He moves carefully as he presses a chaste kiss to Danny's lips, trying not to think about the last person he kissed. Danny smiles against him, and Jake finds himself smiling too.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
Their second date goes much the same as the first, though Jake finds himself slipping out of focus more than once over pizza on Danny's couch. After dinner, the movie in the background sits forgotten as they exchange polite conversation.
Danny stands and shoots him a look, and far be it from Jake not to take his hand and follow him into the bedroom. Jake feels a little too old for this as they kiss like teenagers, but he's too lost in it to care. Jake is mostly sure he wants this, something new, sweet, and nothing like what he had with Bradley.
When Danny's hand finds the sensitive skin at Jake's waist, soft and light, Jake can't help the way he tenses up. He tries to fill the gaps in his knowledge, remembering only broad, rough hands and the scratch of a mustache against his neck.
Even now, Bradley is still finding ways to get in Jake's head.
"We should stop." Danny's voice comes faintly. "Jake?"
The words get through, calling Jake back into the room. "Sorry." He tries, hands falling away from where they had rested on Danny's chest. "I don't know what that was." He lies.
"I think I have some idea." Danny remarks. "I like you, Jake—but I don't think I can do this."
"Let me guess, 'it's not you, it's me.'" Jake mutters.
Danny gives him a smile, sweet but somehow sad. "It's you, actually." He replies. "It just doesn't feel like you really want this."
"I do want this." Jake manages to declare. "It's just… been a while."
"Whoever he was, it's pretty clear you're not over him." Danny pulls away from Jake, straightening his shirt. "I can't be someone's second choice, Jake."
Jake understands, or at least tries to. He stares at nothing as he tries to decide where he can go from here. He couldn't even get this right without Bradley getting in his way.
"Do me a favour, Jake." Danny says as Jake finally stands to leave. "Call him. I have a feeling he's missing you too."
If only that were true, Jake thinks as he walks out into the night.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
Down by the water, Jake lets the salt spray mix with the tears that refuse to fall from his eyes. The splintered wood beneath him creaks as he shivers in the evening chill.
Before he can talk himself out of it, Jake takes Danny's advice and punches Bradley's number into his phone, letting it ring until the default voicemail message plays. No such luck as to hear Bradley's voice one last time.
"Long time so see, huh?" Jake speaks into the nothing on the other end of the line. "I waited for you, you know. How stupid is that?"
He sniffs, feeling the burn as a single tear slips from his lashes. "You died, and I'm still here waiting for you to come home.
"You just had to go and be a hero, didn't you?" Jake's voice breaks as he tries to keep hold of his words. "Didn't you ever think about what you left behind?
"Of course you didn't," He gets out as more tears follow the trail set by the first, "I never earned that from you. Things got real, and I ran away. Do you know what I'd give to be able to take that back?
"If you just came back, maybe I would've had a chance to fix it.
"You always were a stubborn bastard. I thought I hated you for that." Jake fails to hold back a sob. "Turns out I couldn't hate a single thing about you if I tried. I really tried, darlin'." He admits, knowing he lost the right to call Bradley that a lifetime ago.
"You want to know the worst part?" He says through a hollow laugh. "They never found your body, but if they did…" Jake pauses. "If they did, I'd still be here waiting."
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
Jake never much liked drowning his sorrows, but he supposes it was never really about enjoyment. He drinks himself stupid at a bar he once took Bradley to when he first brought him home to Texas. He'd never gotten close enough to someone to show them this part of his world before, and he never has since.
That was young love in its sweetest form, so alien now as Jake basks in his solitude in a room full of people. He's not usually a quiet drunk, but he used up all of his words on a phone call to no one. The burn of whiskey is about the only thing strong enough to remind Jake he wasn't fortunate enough to die right alongside Bradley that day.
"Rough breakup?" Comes a voice from behind him. It's all wrong, too soft and too familiar for a place like this. In his stupor, Jake can't place it.
"You could say that."
"Been there." The man continues, honey in his tone. "You mind if I join you?"
Jake shrugs and stares at the condensation racing down the outside of his glass.
"Jake." The voice murmurs. That's not right at all. Jake hasn't heard his own name sound that sweet since… since— "I think you've had enough now." The man interrupts Jake before he can form the thought, placing a hand on Jake's arm.
Jake snatches his arm away, almost toppling his glass as he reels around to face the stranger beside him. Only it isn't a stranger he finds.
It's a ghost.
Perched on a barstool next to Jake like he belongs there, brown hair longer than Jake ever remembers it being. Freckles dust his nose and cheeks, constellations forming on his tan skin. Jake had thought ghosts were supposed to be pale, but this one seems so alive even in the dim light of the bar.
There's a scratch of stubble where the mustache should be, another trick of Jake's memory. Jake finds himself reaching out, pausing just inches away from a scar on the side of his neck. The white line shines clear, a stark contrast to the faded scar that cuts just below is Adam's apple. Jake digs around in his memories, but he can't place the unfamiliar scar's origin.
He's half expecting his hand to pass right through as his thumb covers the thin ridge of scar tissue, solid and tangible. There are grey hairs beginning to make themselves known on the ghost's temple, something he never did live long enough to have.
The figure reaches out again, the calluses of his palm against Jake's jawline too harsh a reminder of what he lost. "Why can't you let me move on?" Jake whispers, bitterness soaking his tongue with the last of the whiskey. "You're not real, Bradley." He bites out the name. "You have to let me go."
Bradley's ghost doesn't fade away. "I'm right here, Jake." He says, his voice so much softer than the last handful of times they spoke. "Let's get you home, okay?"
"Get off of me." Jake snaps, pulling away and pushing himself to his feet. "You're dead, darlin'. Won't you just stay dead?" He adds with a shove to the ghost's chest. Jake watches as Bradley stays solid where he sits, his chest rising and falling like he hasn't for half a decade.
It fills Jake with every bit of the anger he hasn't let himself feel in that time. He swings his arm around, not realising how much he'd needed to until his fist makes contact with Bradley's nose.
Can ghosts bleed? Jake wonders as he watches blood the colour of strawberries drip over Bradley's lips and down his chin. He doesn't remember that from the ghost stories he heard when he was younger.
Jake grabs at the collar of Bradley's shirt, no heart left to throw another punch. He only lets go as they're thrown out onto the street, their welcome outstayed.
Even on the cold concrete, the spectre beside Jake refuses to go away. Jake lays his head on Bradley's shoulder. The world doesn't fall away from under him as he breathes in the sweet citrus of Bradley's skin.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
The first thought that occurs to Jake is that he hasn't been this hungover since the morning after Bradley's funeral. The second—that this isn't his bed. The third thought is that the singing he hears through the walls isn't coming from a radio.
Jake drags himself out of the bed that isn't his and finds himself in a hallway, sparsely decorated with stock photos of sunsets, nothing that might constitute a clue to who lives here. Did Jake really get drunk enough for a one night stand last night? He grew out of that phase when he grew into his callsign, or so he thought.
A faint memory sits just out of reach, a dream that slipped from his mind just as soon as he tried to grab hold of it. He braces a hand to the wall and follows the melodies to a door at the end of the hall. That's when it dawns on Jake that the dream wasn't a dream at all. The red and purple of his knuckles as he turns the handle tells him that just as clearly as the shape of the man in the next room does.
Not a ghost, after all. Singing and shuffling his feet to the music, every bit as alive as he can't possibly be. Jake shudders as Bradley turns towards him, the bruise across his nose in plain view. Bradley looks like he has something he wants to say, but Jake isn't willing to hear it. He turns and finds the front door, stumbling out onto the street.
He's still in the city, staring down a street he must have walked a thousand times with his friends after school—back when he was a dumb teenager, heart unbroken. All this time, Bradley has been right under his nose.
Jake doesn't know where to start, so he doesn't. He walks away as he hears Bradley calling after him, eyes focused firmly on the cracks in the pavement as he steps on each and every one of them.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
Jake stumbles through the door in a haze, head spinning from the booze and his world threatening to tilt on its axis.
"Where have you been?" Ellie demands as she rushes into the room, worry painting her face.
"With a friend."
"You don't have friends." Ellie retorts. "Danny told me what happened."
She's got him there. He kicks off his shoes and slumps onto the couch, scrubbing both hands over his face. "He's not dead, El."
"Jake, it's been five years." She steps behind him, stroking his hair the way their mother used to. "You really think he's still out there somewhere?"
Jake sighs deeply, laying his tired bones to rest. "I know he is, Ellie. I saw him last night."
"This again?" She asks, concerned. "When did you last talk to Dr Jones?"
"I really saw him." Jake raises his hand to show her his bruised knuckles. "Gave him a piece of my mind."
"How much did you have to drink last night?" She checks his forehead temperature like he's a sick toddler. "You promised you'd tell me if it ever got bad again."
Jake pushes Ellie's hand away and sits up, meeting her eyes and steeling his resolve. "I'm not going crazy, Ellie, I swear. He was still real this morning—" He pauses, realising what he's implying as Ellie's eyebrows shoot up. "—Nothing happened, he just made sure I didn't pass out on the curb. He's right here in the city, probably has been all along."
"What the fuck." She replies, and Jake can't fault her for the reaction. "Did he tell you where he's been all this time?"
"I never bothered asking. What does it matter? I don't want to see him again."
"Not even to get the truth?" She presses. "What happened to still not being over him?"
Jake winces. "The version of him I knew, maybe." He forces his eyes shut as nausea ripples through his. "He lied to me, El. How do you forgive someone for being alive?"
"I don't know, Jakey. It can't hurt to hear him out, surely. I know how badly you want answers, even if you won't admit it." She squeezes his shoulder, startling as an alarm rings out from her phone. "I have to go to work, okay? Call me if you need anything."
"I will."
"Promise?" She says, offering her pinkie.
Jake links his pinkie with his sister's and smiles. Some things never change.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
Jake doesn't know how long he falls asleep for, but the sun is high in the sky when a slightly frantic knocking at the door wakes him where he lays on the couch.
He'd let himself forget that Bradley had been here before, that he knew exactly where to find Jake. He sure remembers now. "Can we talk?" Bradley asks from where he stands on the doorstep, waiting to be invited. Not a ghost, but vampire still isn't off the table.
Powerless as always to Bradley, Jake steps aside and lets him in. "Coffee?" Jake asks like this is just another morning. Bradley hums a yes and follows Jake to the kitchen. Even now, he's still finding ways to haunt.
They sip their drinks in silence as Jake sizes this new Bradley up, so similar and yet so different to the one he lost.
It's Bradley who finds the words first. "I never wanted this." He says into the empty air.
"What did you want, Rooster?" Jake snaps, knowing the use of the callsign will make Bradley squirm. "I thought you were dead."
"That was how it had to be. If you'll hear me out, I can try to explain."
"Fine." Jake mutters bluntly, giving Bradley an ounce of grace.
Bradley offers a weak smile in return. "After we went down, Mav and I were caught. It took them three weeks to find us. Everyone on land already thought we were dead, and no one was sure if anyone would be sent after us since we'd seen so much.
"They offered to have me and Mav sent someplace safe, in case anyone came looking. They told us it would help keep you and the rest of the daggers safe, so we agreed. I've been here ever since."
"Doing what?" Jake asks, curiosity overriding the ugly resentment that rises in him. "You're still Navy?"
"Under wraps, but yes." Bradley continues. "I wanted to reach out so many times, believe me, but it would have compromised everything." He takes a moment. "I hoped everyone would just move on, but…"
"But people actually give a shit about you, Bradley. You never realised that?" Jake manages as he looks up from the dregs of his coffee. "Is that even your name anymore?"
"Henry." He replies with a sad look. "They made me change it."
Jake considers the name. "It suits you." He settles on. "This version of you, at least."
"I'm still me, Jake." He insists, and Jake can almost believe it for a second. "I still feel the same about you."
"And how do you feel?" Jake tries to sink his teeth into something. "You never did get to tell me when you came back."
Bradley reaches out cautiously and covers Jake's hand with his own. There's a new scar there too that Jake hadn't seen last night, the tip of Bradley's finger warped from frostbite. "Like I have all along, even after you left. I want a life with you, Jake."
Jake stares at his hands, the one not covered by Bradley's trembling. "Then why didn't you come home?" He chokes out.
"I couldn't, Jake." Bradley says, closing his other hand over Jake's, keeping it from shaking. "I couldn't put you at risk."
"You said it yourself, they gave you a choice." Jake doesn't try to pull his hands away. "Didn't I deserve a choice too?" He says, anger collapsing as his eyes fill with tears despite how hard he tries to will them not to. "I wouldn't have cared, don't you see that? I would have come after you if they let me launch."
"That's why I had to go, Jake. Someone had to protect you from yourself."
"That's what this was about?" Jake asks, standing and stepping away from Bradley. "If you wanted to protect me from myself so badly, why did you leave me alone?"
Bradley can't find his words, but stands and wraps his arms around Jake, cradling him close.
"Sometimes I wish I never met you." Jake says, the truth falling from his tongue. Bradley just hums in understanding, so impossibly gentle even after all this time. "I don't know what to do with that." Jake murmurs.
"Me neither."
"Where do we go from here?" Jake asks against Bradley's shoulder. "No one else knows you're alive?"
"Only Mav." Bradley explains. "But he doesn't know where I ended up. No contact is pretty much rule number one."
"Would you come home, if I asked?"
Bradley goes quiet, trying to form his answer. "I don't know how." He whispers, his voice threatening to break. "Would you show me?"
Jake pulls away and takes Bradley's face in one hand, something fluttering in his chest as Bradley leans into the touch. "Always." He promises, sealing it with a kiss to Bradley's lips. Bradley's skin is warm under his touch, his cheeks flushed red with the blood still flowing in his veins, more alive than he ever was in Jake's wildest dreams.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
In the desert, the heat makes it easy to forget the familiar unfamiliarity of having Bradley back in his life.
They're on their way through the Mojave, set to reach the address Jake called in favours to track down in just a few hours. "What do you think you'll say?" Jake queries as Bradley keeps his eyes firmly on the road ahead, taking his turn behind the wheel so Jake can get a little rest.
"I don't know." Bradley replies. "It's not like we were on the best terms before all of this."
"We weren't either." Jake reminds him. "Look at us now."
All of this is still so new, both of them finding their feet. Jake hopes things will settle once they're back in San Diego, but knows it might take a while. Bradley had a whole other life these past five years, one Jake is still trying to fit together the pieces of as Bradley begins to talk about it more and more.
They pull up to the hangar just as the sun dips below the horizon, exhausted and stiff. It's too late to turn back now. The door is unlocked, and Jake hangs back a little as Bradley steps in, calling out to announce that he's there.
There's a clatter of tools off in the corner, followed by the sound of someone dragging themself out from under one of the old cars nestled there. "Bradley?" Comes Maverick's voice.
"Hey, Mav." Bradley says, and Jake gets to watch as he struggles to keep from smiling. Maverick is running over before Bradley can stumble through any more words. He tackles Bradley into a hug, almost knocking both of them to the ground.
Maverick catches Jake's eye over Bradley's shoulder, whispering a silent thank you as if he knows somehow that it was Jake who brought Bradley home.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
Everyone is here
Almost ready is the text he gets in return.
Jake can't help glancing around, waiting for Bradley to make his 'grand entrance', as he keeps calling it. Their whole squadron is gathered, ten friendly faces squashed into one booth, another table pulled up alongside to make room. Jake quickly loses himself in the conversation. Everyone here is someone who kept him afloat after the mission, endlessly understanding even with how prickly Jake used to be.
They mourned Bradley together, attended the funeral clad in their dress blues, shedding every tear they had in them. Even the few who hardly knew Bradley before the mission had felt the loss. Bradley has that affect on people, he always has. So charming, such a showman about everything he does. The kind of person you couldn't forget if you tried.
Across the room, there's a ripple of confusion from the crowd as the jukebox cuts out. Jake grins and Phoenix fixes him with a raised eyebrow in response.
The first few notes are tentative, he's getting himself used to the piano again. Then the opening chords of the song settle over the bar. The rest of the daggers look up from their drinks, recognising the song and the voice that comes with it.
In the rush of realisation, Jake is dragged right over to the piano with everyone else.
Bradley doesn't make it two verses into the song before he's engulfed in a hug from Phoenix, the rest of the squadron forming a queue behind her. "Don't you ever do that again, Bradshaw."
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
At Jake's place that night, their place now, he decides it's time to do a little decorating. Together, they work their way through boxes of photos, some of them from the storage unit Bradley left his things in after he disappeared. They find a place for each and every one to go on display.
A thousand memories are brought to light, the good and the bad.
With Bradley beside him, Jake could care less about the bad.