Archive of Our Own

"Hey, baby, do you need a hand in here?"

Jake tossed a hooded glance over at his precious golden retriever fiancé, who was bouncing on his heels in the doorway of Mrs. Evelyn Johnson's living room and looking all hunky in his tight station tee, his hair curling in the heat.

It was the third time they'd been called to the sweet old lady's home this month. She was eighty-nine, diabetic, and lonely, and usually asked Javy and Jake to take out her trash or scoop the litter box out for her rotund tabby cat before they left. It had been a slow day at the station, so Bradley had tagged along when they got the call - he loved the sweet old lady- but he'd quickly grown bored out of his mind with nothing to do.

"Bradshaw," he growled under his breath. Javy smirked but kept his attention on the blood pressure monitor.

Bradley's big brown eyes widened like he'd just remembered something. "Oh! Shit-shoot. Sorry, hon-I mean Seresin."

Jake rolled his eyes and had to bite his lip to keep the smile from forming. He had to stay firm.

"Miss Evie," Bradley entered the room so the old woman could see him without having to turn her head. "These two knuckleheads treating you good in here, sweetheart?"

Evelyn's gummy, toothless smile was genuine. "Oh, yes," she beamed, and primly adjusted the crochet blanket on her lap with her free hand. "They're such sweet boys," she reached over and patted Jake's hair.

Jake grinned up at her from his crouch by her chair. "Mrs. Johnson," he nodded to Javy and began packing up his med kit. "You're numbers are looking great, so I don't think you need to go to the hospital this time unless you just really want to."

"Oh, no, I'll stay here and watch my stories. Bradley dear, would you mind terribly? The sink in the bathroom has been dripping for days."

"Say no more, beautiful," he was already loping down the hall, obviously excited to be of service instead of just standing around watching the paramedics work. "I'll have it fixed in no time!"

Evelyn giggled and leaned a little closer to Jake, who was busy quietly shooing a hissy Mister Mittens out of his bag. She patted the blanket with her gnarled, arthritic hands and the fat cat jumped up into her lap. "You know," she tried to whisper, but her hearing was terrible and her croaky voice was probably loud enough for Bradley to hear in the back with his head under the sink. "That beau of yours is quite a charmer!"

Javy was visibly shaking with silent laughter now.

"And so handsome!"

Jake pursed his lips together and nodded once. "Yes ma'am. How 'bout we find your stories on TV before we leave, yeah? Days of Our-"

"-And he's really so handy around the house. You know he fixed my stove last time you boys visited."

That visit had been a week ago. Bradley had plugged the stove back into the outlet from where it'd apparently fallen out, and had then gotten a scathing phone call from Mrs. Johnson's daughter, who'd unplugged it in the first place to keep her mother from burning the house down.

Jake nodded patiently. "Yes ma'am, he sure did. Where's your remote, darlin'?"

"I just bet you can't keep your hands off him, huh?" Mrs. Johnson tried to wink conspiratorially but just managed to blink awkwardly. "I know I sure wouldn't if I were you!" Machado gave up trying to be silent and belted out a single honk that sounded like a seal.

The aquatic animal, not the Navy SEAL currently showing off his apparent domestic prowess in the raunchy old lady's powder room.

Jake slumped and gave up. "Yes, ma'am."

"Scoot up a bit, baby."

Bradley nudged Jake's hip with a gloved hand so he could duck further into the wrecked SUV to secure the dash. Jake was currently almost straddling the dazed driver in an effort to gain enough leverage to staunch the bleeding, while the rest of their team scrambled to cut the man's pinned legs free from the mangled metal.

He didn't miss the look of confusion on the driver's bloody face, or the garbled "baby?" he whispered between labored breaths.

"Dammit, Bradshaw," Jake hissed, teeth clenched.

"Fuck, sorry!" Bradley was beside them now, his long body contorted within the crunched-in passenger seat, and looking sweaty and sexy in his turnout gear. A contrite little smirk twitched his mustache. "You can ease up, Seresin, we're ready out here now."

"I'm okay, baby, I promith it dothen't ethen hurth," Rooster muttered around the rag he held to his rapidly swelling lip and tongue while Jake fretted beside him.

They'd been called to a family reunion that had ended in a vicious brawl, and the grill had been knocked over in the unfortunate melee and set a small shed on fire.

The suburban backyard was teaming with police officers and firefighters, and multiple drunk and disorderlies still primed and ready to throw down even after the small blaze had been doused.

Natasha shook her head in disgust and adjusted the bandage on a thoroughly trashed middle aged woman's forehead. She was still trying to put up a fight even after falling face-first into the koi pond by the charred shed. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, an officer had gleefully dumped her off with the paramedics and took off back into the fray without a second glance.

"This is why I never go to family gatherings," Nat had to almost shout over the chaos around them.

Jake snorted over his own wasted charge as he checked for concussion. "Shit's a normal Tuesday in my family." He quick-stepped out of the way when the young man he was holding up listed sideways and violently retched into the turf. "Yep. That, too."

He looked up to see an officer tackle a spry older man to the ground, wrestling his hands behind his back to cuff. He didn't mention anything about that looking familiar, as well. He did have a rowdy bunch of cousins back in Texas.

The slurred obscenities screamed between family members had been mildly amusing for a while, until Rooster trudged over, one bare hand covering his bloody mouth and the other already outstretched to Jake in a clear effort to keep him calm.

"I'm thine, don't worry," he'd stated preemptively before Jake could open his mouth. "I got way worth in the THEALS."

"What happened?" Jake demanded as he yanked Bradley by his red suspenders and forced him to sit on the ambulance bumper.

"Tried to break up a thight," Bradley said dolefully, and thanked Jake for the cloth handed to him. "Bit my thongue. Theth people are crathy."

Jake frowned, itched to run his fingers through Bradley's sweaty hair. "You're not a SEAL anymore, Bradshaw. You've got to be careful."

The concern on his face must have been obvious, because his sweet fiancé blinked his big cow eyes up at him and promised it didn't hurt. But before Jake could quietly admonish him for the baby slip up, a slurred, enraged feminine voice shrieked near them, and unfortunately caught the attention from most of the crowd still in the back yard.

"Baby?" The tiny, combative older woman in cheetah-print leggings was being carried by the elbows between two struggling officers. She zeroed-in on Jake as they passed by the ambulance on the way to a squad car. "Tell your fuckin' boy toy to keep his fuckin' hands to himself or I'll break his fuckin' jaw next time!"

"Boy toy?" Nat's charge perked up, and Jake only then noticed the pond scum still caked in her bottle blond hair. There was a lascivious glint in her eyes as she looked between him and Bradley. "Please tell me you two have an Only Fans."

"Yeah Rooster," a firefighter from Station 16 piped up meanly, "been waiting for that myself since you brought that cutie home with you," he winked at Jake as he trotted by.

Jake felt his face heat up, and it wasn't only due to embarrassment. He turned and pinned Bradley with a flinty glare.

Bradley gulped. "Oopth. Thorry, Therethin."

"You okay, baby?"

Jake was bent double, gasping for air and a little in awe of the stunt he'd just successfully pulled off. The lady had fallen almost half way down a sheer cliff during a rock climb and had gotten tangled up in her own rope.

He and Javy had almost come to physical blows deciding which one of them would repel down to untangle her and secure the compound fracture that bent her leg at a grotesquely unnatural angle. In the end, Jake had-

"…way more experience with ropes!"

"Don't you even think about elaborating on that, Jacob, I don't wanna know!"

"I used to repel out of helicopters, jackass! On ropes!"

-so he had the dubious honor of sliding down the roughly four hundred foot drop and McGyver-ing a splint slash sling for her mangled leg so the squad could haul the insensate lady to safety.

Jake jerked his helmet off and hurled it at Bradley, hard. It missed by several inches, but it got the point across while he caught his breath. He made a vague, flappy gesture toward the loitering news crew a few feet away, blinking owlishly at them.

"Oh! Crap," Bradley ducked sheepishly and scratched at his neck. "Sorry. I mean…good job, Seresin!"

Jake's grin looked more like a grimace, but he shot him a wordless thumbs-up anyway.

"All clear up here, baby," the garbled static over the radio hooked to Jake's shoulder had his jaw clenching tight.

He sighed, slumped and put-upon, and adjusted his grip on the gauze he pressed against the kid's sliced-open knee, and waited for the rest of the 86 to come back out of the abandoned building.

They'd been called to the scene after this motley crew of boys had tangled with rotten, broken floorboards and lost, but they all apparently felt well enough to pester Jake straight into a hissy fit. The tween boys had been giving him hell since they'd arrived - about his looks, about his intelligence, about how old he was, about his wack career. Javy was the oldest of his siblings, he let their taunts and jabs bounce off with a laugh. Jake was the youngest of his family, he was used to being the one doing the jabbing and taunting.

The freckle-faced vandal in his immediate care snorted. "Did that dude just call you baby? Gross!"

Where the hell was Javy?

"Shut up you dopey little piss ant," Jake ground out and fingered the RSM. "Bradley."

One word, sharp and biting. A warning.

More static crackled in his ear. "…Oops. All clear up here, Seresin."

"Is that your boooyfriend?" Another of the young boys taunted. "Are you the top or the bottom?"

Jake really wanted to find a locker somewhere so he could shove these dweebs into it. "Hey, I will leave you little shits in this ally to bleed to death."

"My dad'll sue you!"

Fuck, what was the world coming to that you couldn't even bully children these days without threats of legal action? "Not if he can't find yo-"

"Jake, buddy," Javy called, finally trotting back from his trek to the rig for more alcohol wipes, the cautious amusement clear on his face. "Are we having a moment?"

Before he could open his mouth the third kid piped up, still holding the bandage to the bump under his wild red hair. "He's mad cuz his man called him baby in public. My mama hated when my daddy did that, too. They were both cheatin' on each other and now my mama lives in Reno with a lady. You cheatin' on your man, Mister?"

"I am not cheating-" Jake paused and took a deep breath, and reminded himself for the fourth time in as many minutes that he was the adult here.

"Hey, little fellas," Javy came to his rescue and waved an officer over to them, "since you're all feeling good enough to rag on my friend here, let's talk about how much trouble you're in," he clapped Jake on the back and added under his breath. "Almost as much as a certain firefighter I know."

"Look, baby- I mean Jake!" Rooster shouted happily down to him from his precarious perch high in a tree beside the highway. He lofted the angry, hissy kitten he was holding triumphantly. "He's almost as cute as you are!"

Several eyes shot his way from the murmuring crowd surrounding them, some discreet, others decidedly not.

The little girl waiting for her cat to be saved looked up at her mother. "Who's that fireman talking to, mommy?"

The mother locked eyes with Jake, only for a moment, long enough for her face to flush and her gaze to rake down his uniform before she caught herself with a guilty shake. "Nobody, sweetie, look he's saved Snowball."

Beside him, Bob practically vibrated with silent laughter.

"Shut up, Bobby," he knocked his shoulder into Bob's.

"Didn't say a word, man."

The thing about Bradley Bradshaw was that he really loved his pet names.

Maverick said it had a lot to do with his parents, Goose and Carole. Bradley had thought Carole's first name was Honey for the first six years of his life, and that Goose's name was Stud.

Maverick and Ice were really no better. He'd grown up listening to them call each other sweetheart (and maniacal dumbass, but that one was mostly one-sided), so pet names were an ingrained and important part of his life. They were a way to freely express affection and adoration, and Bradley was consumed with affection and adoration when it came to Jake.

He just couldn't help it. He had the same reaction upon seeing his adorable fiance as people had when they saw puppies or kittens or A-10 Warthogs. Jake's pretty green eyes and rosy, perpetually sunburned cheeks, and his cute little nose and fluffy untamed hair, and ooh that shit-eating grin with those precious dimples, had unbridled cute-aggression bubbling to the surface every time Bradley looked at him, and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to latch onto him with a squeeze and start gnawing on him.

A lot of times he did it anyway, but he at least had the wherewithal to try to keep the hickeys below the collar, and Jake was a trooper and didn't try to fight him off unless he got a little too grabby in public. In fact, Jake was usually a very enthusiastic trooper, all giggly and squirmy and yanking on Bradley's hair - which he knew drove him wild.

But Jake had asked him the night before his first shift at Station 86 as a new paramedic, "honey, can you not call me pet names at work, please? Just for shifts. Let's keep it professional, okay?"

And in his defense, Bradley's brain still wasn't quite back online yet from the leg-shaking orgasm he'd just received. The question had puzzled him, so much so that he'd dumbly asked, "What am I s'posed to call you, then?"

And Jake, sweet, patient Jake, had reached up to grasp his face with both hands and said with a laugh, "my name, dumbass."

Bradley didn't really understand why, but Jake had asked, and he'd been naked when he'd asked, and Bradley would rob a bank if Jake asked him to, so he tried. He tried so hard.

He'd been great the first few weeks, all Jake this, and Seresin that. Jake looked so damn fine in his fitted black uniform, he was so capable and so smart and so professional that it hadn't been difficult at all to separate Work Jake from soft, clingy Home Jake.

But then a schedule switch had them working different shifts from each other for a long, miserable while, and three weeks later when the world was righted, Bradley had been so happy to have Jake back with him it'd just…slipped out.

"Good to have you back, baby!"

And Jake had given him a look. The first of many.

And then it just…kept happening. Not terribly often, all completely by accident - Bradley wasn't a jerk who ignored his partner's wishes - but it was an unconscious, reflexive reaction that he sometimes had no control over. Every time it happened he did feel bad, even though he was still confused as to why it was a big deal in the first place.

"You and Javy call each other baby all the time," he pointed out on the way back to the station after visiting Mrs. Evelyn again. He was on his knees in the back of the ambulance, leaning into the open door between the seats up front.

"That's different," Jake replied from behind the wheel.

"How?"

Jake met his eyes in the rear view mirror. "Well, for one thing I'm not having sex with Javy."

Bradley blinked. "Well…that's a relief, I guess."

Jake sighed and took a turn a little too fast. Bradley held onto the back of the seat to keep from falling, but he said nothing about Jake's driving. He was learning.

"It's a…I don't know, okay? It's like a power dynamic…thing. I don't want our personal life to interfere with our professional careers."

Bradley's lips quirked. "Honey-shit, Jake. I'm sure you've noticed, but most of my personal life is my professional career. These guys practically raised me. Mav changed my diapers when I was a baby. Slider taught me to how to drive a stick. Wolfman gave me my first beer when I was fourteen and I puked in his shoes."

"Yeah, but again, you aren't sleeping with any of them."

"Gross, but also again, I still don't understand why it matters."

Jake turned to face him, which was a little disconcerting since he was driving, but a distraction apparently caught his eye and he frowned. "Javy, quit it. You can't hang yourself with a seatbelt, you don't have enough leverage."

"Why do you two always have private couple conversations when I'm trapped in a moving vehicle with you?" Machado groused, and petulantly untangled himself from his seatbelt. "I'm sure there's something in the Geneva Convention about this."

"If I had to wait until you weren't around I'd never get to talk my fiancé at all, man," Bradley replied with a huff.

"I know we're close, but you guys realize I'm not actually a part of your relationship, right?"

"I believe I've just now established that fact, yes," Jake replied lightly.

"Good. Just so we're all on the same page."

"Bradshaw ain't even in the same book as me, and you're talking pages?"

Bradley frowned. What did Jake mean by that?

Oddly enough, it was Callie who gave Jake The Idea.

"You wanna break Bradshaw of the baby thing once and for all?" Bassett smirked, her voice low and conspiratorial as they washed the ambulance.

Jake knew that was a hopeless cause, but he was desperate for his loving almost-husband to at least tone it down a little, and Callie looked particularly devious.

He was intrigued.

"What do you have in mind?"

It was two shifts later when he got his chance.

The entire squad sat around "the big table" in the common room - Cap made them eat together "as a family" at least once a week. Today was spaghetti and salad, and it was Bradley's favorite so he of course had elbowed his way to the front of the line, plate at the ready. It was every man for himself on spaghetti day at Station 86.

Now he sat there in front of Jake looking unfairly hot in his backwards cap and tight station t-shirt, his bare arms bulging nicely from his workout earlier. There was a little sauce in his mustache that Jake really wanted to lick off. He sat at Maverick's right, Cougar on the other side, his head thrown back with unconstrained laughter.

Bradley looked so at home among the squad, seemed years younger, and the sight of him so loose and jovial and at peace warmed Jake's heart. This squad, these people, were truly a family. And what's more, they'd all opened their arms to Jake the moment he'd stepped through those bay doors the first time, welcomed him and loved him and called him theirs. Perhaps he could get used to it eventually. He hadn't been part of a team since…since he was stationed with the Marines.

It felt good to belong to people again.

Before he got too maudlin, Jake stood up to get a second helping of food and to see what was taking Javy so long with the brownies he'd insisted on making. Payback and Fanboy were with him, and Jake prayed they weren't in the kitchen cooking up another prank, at least one that involved the brownies. It would break his heart and his demanding sweet tooth if he bit into one and it was full of toothpaste or hot sauce again.

"Hey baby, will you bring me another Diet Coke while you're up?" Bradley sweetly called around a mouthful of noodles.

Jake glanced over to Callie, who sat between Bob and Harvard, demurely twirling noodles on her fork. She winked in encouragement, and a Cheshire smile stole across Jake's face as he met Bradley's shimmery cow eyes from across the room.

"Yes, daddy."

Those shimmery cow eyes blew wide.

His jaw dropped.

Several forks clinked harshly onto plates.

"Rooster. Jesus." Maverick looked at his godson, devastated and positively scandalized.

Hollywood and Wolfman both bucked like they'd been shot, and fell into helpless hysterics.

"Are you kidding me, Bradshaw?" Nat was apoplectic. "Right in front of my fucking salad? Right in front of Bob?" She thwacked her boyfriend's back hard to dislodge the piece of garlic bread he'd just accidentally inhaled. Bob coughed once, and the rough wheezing turned into fits of giggles.

"New house rule implemented immediately," Slider bellowed, pointing an accusing finger at Rooster. "I don't know how to word it right now, but essentially it's no fucking weird sex talk when I'm in the room. Ever."

Jake stole a quick glance behind him as he opened the door.

Bradley's cheeks were flushed a ruddy red, his big brown eyes were wild now and fraught with panic and something else Jake couldn't quite place. He'd pushed himself a little away from the table like he expected to be physically attacked, but he seemed to be frozen, a deer in headlights.

"I didn't-" he struggled to speak, "-he doesn't…he's - he's never…Jake!"

Jake high-tailed it into the kitchen and slammed the door behind him just as more voices raised indignantly, leaving Bradley alone to deal with the aftermath.

Javy was already giggling - he'd known what Jake was going to do but not the timing. "I'm so glad there's security cameras in there," his best friend hooted, "I want to zoom in on everybody's faces when you said it and make a TikTok video."

Payback shook his head as he pulled out his wallet. "I can't believe you did it," he passed a crumpled twenty to Jake, who smugly plucked it out of his hand and then beckoned for Fanboy to hand over his share.

"I can't believe you guys bet money I wouldn't," Jake replied, "I'da done it for free." And he would have, because Jake was nothing if not shameless. "Brownies ready yet?"

"Ten more minutes."

"Ice cream?"

"Of course, am I a psychopath?"

Someone roared out front, deep and guttural and viruent. Possibly Harvard, possibly Slider, probably Cougar, but the startled yip that followed was definitely Rooster.

"Why are they all pissed at Bradshaw?" Fanboy asked, his face scrunched in confusion, "You're the one that said it."

"Because," Jake replied as he opened the fridge and pulled out a can of Diet Coke. "He's the daddy, and as he's clearly pointed out since I started working here, I'm just the baby."

"Jake! Jake, you come out here right now and tell them you don't call me that! Jacob!"

"Well, he's definitely not calling you baby now," Javy said with a laugh.

"Coming, daddy!" Jake merrily called out into the chaos of the common room, and winked at his bemused friends. "Let's see how long it lasts."

A well-timed call came in right before Jake had to face the aftermath of his mischief. It had been a routine smoke alarm call, a cooking disaster that ended with a house full of billowing smoke and a ruined stock pot but thankfully no fire to put out, and forty five minutes later Yale was backing the Engine into its place at the station.

Javy jumped out in a huffy mood because of his ruined brownies -he'd had to turn the oven off when the alarm sounded - so Jake hung back to check the Engine's med kit by himself.

He'd lost sight of Bradley as all the firefighters fell out to head to the showers, and he wondered for a moment if his fiancé was truly mad at him for the daddy thing. Bradley had barely glanced his way during the call, hadn't said a word to him yet even though the rest of the squad had already moved on from yelling to jovial picking.

Except for poor traumatized Maverick, who still couldn't look either of them in the eyes quite yet.

Finishing up, he stowed the kit and made his way back to the common area to see if he could possibly salvage Javy's brownies and possibly track down his fiancé. He hoped Bradley wasn't mad. He didn't intend to even truly embarrass him, just wanted to give him a little taste of his own medicine-

-The door to the storage closet flung open beside him, startling him terribly.

A steely hand shot out from the darkness and yanked him clean off his feet, and a second later he was shoved forcefully into second shift's turnout gear hanging against the far wall. And then, before he could speak or yell or defend himself, he was being devoured.

"You little shit," Bradley growled as he all but mauled Jake's neck. He smelled of smoke and sweat, and Jake instantly became lightheaded as all the blood in his brain rushed south at the scent of him and at the sound of Rooster's raspy, lust-addled voice.

"What -aah!- what happened to baby?" Jake gasped with a happy grin, and knocked Bradley's cap off so he could tug fitfully at his curls. Bradley nipped at the skin of his neck again, and Jake trembled all over.

"You fucking menace."

Jake felt teeth graze his carotid, and he yanked harder at Bradley's hair before he could latch on.

Callie's plan had backfired monumentally, and now Jake was reaping the exquisite consequences of his actions.

He wasn't all that broken up about it.

"Not…hmm… oh shit, B…" he brought a leg up to wrap around Bradley's waist. "Keep it below the collar, Bradshaw, we ta-hah-alked about this," he had the wherewithal to remind him just before his eyes rolled back and his mind was completely consumed with fiery pleasure.

Bradley pulled his face out of Jake's throat and attacked his mouth, his hot tongue lashing its way in almost to Jake's tonsils, his strong hands and arms wandering and grappling fretfully for the tightest purchase on his body, and Jake's legs gave out. The only thing keeping him from melting to the floor was Bradley's knee shoved between his quaking thighs.

Bradley growled again against his lips and he was pushed harder into the wall. "You call me that-" teeth caught Jake's lower lip, drawing out a weak whimper, "-and you think you get to call any shots right now?"

Jake's heated brow furrowed, but before he could speak Rooster was back at war with his mouth, biting and sucking at his uncoordinated lips as he tried and failed to keep up. Hands wandered down to Jake's ass, gripped and lifted, and Jake went limp in his hold.

"Stay quiet for me, baby," the deep voice was pressed against his ear, his knee firm and solid between Jake's legs, and Jake only then realized he'd been keening little bitten-off cries, growing louder by the second. "What if they heard you moaning my name in here, huh?" He murmured between kisses. "Heard me taking such good fuckin' care of you." Sharp dark eyes raked over his face, his quaking body. "What if somebody opened that door right now and saw you like this, all sweet and stupid for me. What would they think about what you called me, then, huh?"

"Brad-" the whine was cut off as his lips were claimed again, and Jake couldn't stop shivering then. He rutted uselessly against the knee driving him insane.

Bradley had always been an intense lover, always knew exactly how to take care of Jake even better than he himself ever did. He was always present, always so sweet and accommodating to Jake's every mood and whim.

But this, this was something different.

There was a feverish, frenzied glaze over Bradley's eyes under the closet's dim light bulb, a spark of wildness alighting the deep whiskey darkness in them. Something dangerous and barely restrained lurked there, and Jake suddenly wanted nothing more than to chase it and unleash whatever untamed beast restlessly paced in containment just underneath that sweet golden retriever façade.

Jake was instantly, violently aware of the reality that his dopey, adorable fiancé was a Navy SEAL.

Bradley had countless classified missions successfully under his belt, a veteran decorated for his valor and heroism, a war machine made of flesh and bone and grit and sinew. He'd been forged under fire to develop such incomprehensible mental and physical strength and prowess, that Jake couldn't even begin to fathom what he was actually capable of besides being able to thoroughly take him apart, exquisitely rending him to his most base elements and then holding him together until Jake was made new.

Jake wanted. He burned with desire to be veritably torn apart by this ferocious beast wearing his gentle Bradley's face.

"Oh, Da-" the word almost slipped out of his bruised lips in a strangled gasp, but Jake's singular working brain cell electrified his nerves before it escaped his mouth, and he shook himself out of his lust-induced stupor and firmly yanked at Bradley's hair. "-Dammit," he silently cheered at the save, "we're at work, Bradshaw."

Bradley hummed against his skin and pressed his face back into Jake's throat. "You started this, baby."

Jake thumped his head back into the coats hanging behind him in and effort to clear his mind a little - and also to give Bradley more access to his neck. He was going to look like he'd been mauled by a badger if they didn't put a stop to this soon. "No I didn't, B, you did."

Bradley hummed again, peppering kisses into his skin and obviously only half listening. Jake took a deep breath and decided to kill the mood before Bradley took the heated make-out session to the point of no return in a fucking storage closet at work.

"I was always 'John Seresin's kid' growing up."

Bradley paused, and then he pulled his mouth off Jake's collarbone with wet, sucking pop that made Jake squirm in his hold. "Huh?"

The frenzied haze lifted from Bradley's brain and he came back to himself and his surroundings. He had Jake pinned down and immobile, but it seemed like his angel was okay with the situation judging by the raw desire etched into his pretty, upturned face.

Jake sighed and brought his feet back down to the floor, and tucked himself against Bradley's shoulder to rest and explain. "Back home. I was always Doctor John Seresin's boy. In school I was Phillip and Joey's dopey kid brother. Even in when I was stationed with the Marines, I was just the dweeb corpsman who tagged along with the Hell Hounds. And then I was just a faceless medic patching up the real heroes." The self-depreciating smile looked odd on his fiancé's usually smug, proud face.

"Oh." Bradley had an inkling of where this was going, and he tightened his arms around Jake's waist. He didn't need to interrupt, to tell Jake that he'd been his hero since the moment they'd met, because he hoped Jake knew that already.

"I've never been able to just be me, ya know?" Jake squeezed his shoulders, an almost apologetic glint in his eyes. "This is gonna be my home forever, B. With you. I want people to know me as Jake, not just as Rooster's husband."

Bradley whined and melted at that word. That word had more of an effect on him than the "D" word Jake had surprised him with earlier ever would. He fell into Jake a little more and pinned him harder against the wall of jackets for a moment before easing up. Only three more months until it was official, and Bradley's bones were going to vibrate out of his skin waiting for that magical moment.

Jake smiled up at him, so sweet and so knowing. "I can't wait to be married to you, darlin', I can't wait for people to know I'm your husband. But I want to make a name for myself, too." His lips were kiss-swollen and shiny, the little patch of skin under his nose was red from the harsh scrape of Bradley's mustache. He looked dazed and disheveled, but not nearly as debauched as he was going to be as soon as their shift ended.

"I know you can't help it," he continued, and laughed a little, quiet and genuine, and brushed a curl from Bradley's face. "I love that you're so full of love you just can't seem to contain it sometimes. Just…try. For me? At least in public when we're working. Maybe around the station it'll be okay. Since we're family, after all."

A clatter and a shout sounded just outside the closet door, then a laugh, and Bradley stood still over Jake, shielding him from sight, and held his breath until whoever it was walked further away. The door remained closed, but no doubt they'd be found if they lingered much longer.

Jake read his mind, because he could do that, and he pushed Bradley a little away so he could straighten up his rumpled uniform. There was no hiding the mustache burns or the hickeys high on his throat. Bradley was going to be in so much trouble when Jake saw the state he was in. He reached up and tried to fix Jake's wild hair but it was a lost cause. The squad was going to have a field day when they saw him.

He bent down to look for his ball cap in a sudden fit of possessiveness, and put it on Jake's head instead of his own. Jake laughed and pulled the bill lower over his eyes. He always looked so fucking good in Bradley's clothes.

"You drive me crazy, honey," he rasped out, and had to wiggle and adjust to get more comfortable. He was glad his uniform pants were baggy enough to hide what Jake did to him. "I really can't fucking help it, sometimes. I'm sorry."

Jake smiled up at him, smug and proud and self-assured again, no trace of the pretty stranger with low self esteem he'd caught a glimpse of earlier.

"I'll make you a deal," Jake pressed his hands to Bradley's chest, fingered his collar to pull it straight. "Cool it for now, and when I become an RN and get established at a hospital, you'll never have to call me Jake again. Public, private, wherever you want, I'll be your baby, and honey, and sweetheart and-"

"Don't forget fucking menace and little shit," he murmured around a salacious grin and bullied his face back into the crook of Jake's neck. Jake laughed and shivered all the way to his toes, his fingers already back in Bradley's hair to pin him against his throat.

"Call me that one more time, please," Bradley pleaded quietly.

"What? Da-"

"-No! God. No. The other thing."

Jake blinked, confused, but then he smiled and brushed a thumb across his cheek. "My husband," he drawled reverently, and Bradley whined and held him tight.

"You can't ever call me…that other thing… ever again. At least not in public. You're gonna be the death of me one day, honey."

"We'll see about that, stud," the reckless gleam in his eyes made it clear that it would depend entirely on Bradley's ability to stay professional when he needed to.

"You're such a fucking brat," he pulled Jake in for another kiss, a gentle promise this time. "I'll try. Won't say I'll succeed all the time, but I'll try harder. If anybody deserves to have a name for themselves, it's you."

Jake pulled him into a tight hug, bounced up onto his toes to press another quick peck to his lips. "I love you, darlin'."

"I love you more, Jake Seresin."

Jake's mouth pulled down into a pout. "Nobody's around right now, asshole."

Bradley smiled and pulled back just a little to meet his precious, tempestuous lover's pretty green eyes, somehow sparkling brightly in the dim room.

"I'll never win with you, will I?"

"Best just get used to it now, B."

"You're right. I love you more, baby."

Static crackled over the radio.

"Hey baby, I'm sending Payback out to you, he's jammed his finger again."

"…Copy, daddy."

"Fuck."

"Boys. We talked about this."

"…Copy, Cap."

"Sorry, Mav."