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“You get used to it.”
The only reason Jake doesn’t jump at the sound of Maverick’s voice behind him is because the creaky step gave away his descent down the stairs seconds prior. Though Jake is a bit surprised he was able to hear anything given the fierce concentration he has on the scene outside the window in front of him.
“Used to what?” he asks, continuing to furiously beat the scrambled eggs he was working on.
Mav steps up next to him at the counter and reaches up to open a cabinet drawer. He pulls out a hand painted mug with faded lettering reading ‘happy father’s day!’ and what looks like a child’s drawing of a brunette man holding a little blonde boy’s hand.
“Those two,” Maverick gestures out the window over the sink with his head. “The way they get each other. You get used to it.”
Jake looks back out the window. Bradley and Admiral Kazansky (“We’re at home, kid. Tom or Ice is fine.”) are sitting on the beach, close enough to the house to still be seen but far enough away that Jake can’t hear what they’re saying even through the crack in the sliding glass door. He’s not sure how long they’ve been out there talking, but the other side of the bed had been cold when he woke up, and they were already sitting outside when he’d crept downstairs to look for his boyfriend.
“When Bradley was little, we used to call Ice the baby whisperer,” Mav says, pulling his mug away from the Keurig as his coffee finishes brewing. “After a few years we figured out he was just the Bradley whisperer.”
Jake and Bradley had come in late last night and settled into the guest room of Maverick and Iceman’s vacation home. It was a little white house that sat on the shore of a quiet beach town just a little ways up the coast in an area that seemed like it was created just to offer a bit of peace and quiet to its residents. Jake had driven them both up at Pete and Tom’s- he still felt weird calling them that- insistence after Mav’s voice on the phone and Jake’s hand running up and down his back hadn’t been enough to get Bradley to stop shaking when he’d woken up screaming from a nightmare.
They’d been getting worse lately, the nightmares. They knew they’d come, of course, after the mission from hell. The whole squad had been assigned mandatory counseling and given time off to recuperate, and they were all doing what they needed to do to heal. Phoenix and Bob were road tripping across the country to go see their families on the east coast. Maverick went to his beach house with his husband. Payback and Fanboy had gone to fucking Disneyland.
And Jake and Bradley were making an attempt at being domestic. They went for runs together in the mornings and took turns cooking dinner at night. Jake watched football on the couch while Bradley read with his feet propped in Jake’s lap. They were doing the whole boyfriends thing for real this time, getting to know each other again and letting their relationship just fall into place where they’d fought it so hard in the past.
Jake still gets antsy whenever Bradley’s out of his sight, his brain constantly jumping to worst case scenarios any time he can't see Bradley happy and healthy right in front of him. Bradley still flinches at sudden movements and keeps the heat cranked up when he can feel the phantom cold of snow on his skin.
But they’ve figured out how to handle the bad days. Bradley lets Jake fall asleep with his ear pressed to his chest so the steady beat of his heart can remind Jake that he’s alive, that he made it in time to save him. Jake has Maverick’s contact favorited on his phone so he can call him and let Bradley hear his voice when he jolts awake with the former captain’s name on his lips.
They’re making it through, day by day. The only issue is that Bradley never wants to talk about it. Jake knows he’s not exactly the poster child of healthy communication and talking about his feelings, so criticizing Bradley for shutting down is a real glass house situation. The thing is, though, is that Jake cares about Bradley infinitely more than he cares about himself. And he’s doing fine. Really, he is. Bradshaw is the one who works himself into a panic every night and then acts like nothing happened the next morning. Jake can see how it's eating away at Bradley- the dark smudges under his eyes and the way he seems so apprehensive about everything. He just wants to help carry the burden, but he can’t if Bradley won’t let go of it for even a second.
Jake moves over to the stove to pour the eggs into a skillet, forcing himself to stop worrying over his boyfriend and whatever heart to heart he’s having with his dad outside. He knows he shouldn’t be jealous. He and Bradley may have a history that stretched across multiple years and several continents, but they’ve only been back together this time for a little over a month. They’re settled now, more than they ever were during any of their previous turbulent attempts, and getting back with an ex after a near death experience tends to really speed things along relationship wise. Jake’s practically moved in, and nothing’s official yet, but there’s serious talk about making the daggers a permanent squadron, which would keep them together for the foreseeable future. They’re planning a future together, but they’re also still figuring out their present.
So it shouldn’t make Jake’s heart clench painfully in his chest to watch Bradley open up to Ice when he barely admits to Jake that he’s struggling. The man raised him, for Christ's sake. He’s Bradley’s father in all but blood. He knows he’s being dramatic, but he can’t help the part of him that wishes he was the one out there with Bradley instead.
“I’m just glad he’s talking to someone,” Jake says.
Lord knows he’s not talking to Jake, and Jake has a sinking suspicion Bradley isn’t really talking to his therapist either.
He hears Mav hum from somewhere behind him. Silence settles over them as Jake pushes the eggs around the pan. There’s a smaller bowl with a single serving of scrambled eggs sitting off to the side, waiting for its turn.
“Can you grab the cheese from the fridge for me?” he asks, finishing cooking the main batch.
Maverick appears at his side with a bag of shredded cheddar a few moments later just as he’s sliding the eggs onto a plate. Before getting called back to Top Gun, Jake thought he’d probably never see Bradley Bradshaw again. Now he was standing in the man’s family vacation home and cooking him breakfast.
He pours the smaller batch of eggs into the pan and adds a generous handful of cheese as it cooks. Maverick’s still lingering by the stove, leaning back against the corner of the counter top and sipping his coffee. He doesn’t say anything, but Jake can feel his eyes on him.
Jake glances back over out the window. Bradley’s hunched over now, his head in his hands, and Iceman has a hand on the back of his neck. He forces himself to look back at the eggs.
Because that’s what he’s good for the morning after his boyfriend has one of the worst nightmare-induced panic attacks he’s ever seen. Goddamn breakfast.
He lets the cheese eggs stay in the pan a bit longer so that they start to brown on the edges before turning the heat off. He and Mav start moving everything to the table- both plates of eggs, the tray of bacon, and the blueberry muffins that had been sitting out cooling. Jake’s only measure of how long he’s been downstairs stress cooking is the size of the spread he’s been able to produce.
He’s only just finished setting the utensils out, Maverick pulling a jug of orange juice out of the fridge as he tells Jake about the most recent repairs he’s done on the Mustang, when the sound of the door sliding open grabs both of their attentions. Bradley steps into the house with Iceman right behind him, and he looks lighter than Jake has seen him in weeks. There’s still a tiredness to his features and dullness to those once bright eyes that Jake had fallen for years ago, but his shoulders are less tense and the smile he shoots at Jake when he sees him seems genuine.
“You do all this?” Bradley asks, taking in the table.
“What, and let Mav help in the kitchen? I don’t think anyone wants the house to burn down today.”
Maverick lets out an indignant ‘hey!’ just as Ice and Bradley both laugh in nearly identical soft huffs of breath.
Bradley walks around the table, slipping an arm around Jake’s waist and pulling him into his side. He presses a soft kiss to the side of Jake’s head and lets himself linger there for just a moment, lips against his temple.
“Morning, sweetheart,” he mumbles, quiet enough for only Jake to hear.
Jake leans back a bit, turning to face him head on and brushes a soft kiss against Bradley’s lips.
“Morning,” he says back with a smile.
Jake turns back towards Mav and Ice just in time to see the couple pull away from their own morning kiss. Jake wonders if he and Bradley look that obviously in love when they look at each other, or if they’ll still look at each other that way when they’ve been together as long as Maverick and Iceman have.
“Well y’all eat before it gets cold,” he says, pushing Bradley towards one of the wooden chairs and sliding into the one next to him.
“Did you-” Bradley starts before promptly being cut off as Jake hands him the plate with the crispy cheese eggs on it.
“One order of burnt eggs with cheddar,” Jake says.
“They’re not burnt , they’re well-done . And they taste better like this.”
“They’re burnt, babe.”
“Yeah well, take it up with the chef.”
Jake doesn’t miss the look Mav and Ice shoot at each other on the other side of the table, a soft smirk playing on both of their lips.
“God, Ice, it’s like looking in a time machine,” Mav had said after that first dinner when Jake had met him and Ice officially as Bradley’s parents.
Jake had been on his way to the bathroom when he overheard the two men talking softly in the kitchen. His mama had raised him with better manners than to eavesdrop, but he’d already done plenty of things in his life that would have Charlotte Seresin clutching her pearls far tighter, so he might as well dig that hole a bit deeper.
“Well, if that young man loves Bradley at all like I loved you at that age then I think they’re gonna be alright,” Ice said, voice a low rumble.
“You saying you don’t love me as much now, Tom?”
Jake couldn’t see them, but he could hear the teasing smile in Maverick’s voice.
“I love you more and more everyday, honey. More and more everyday.”
Breakfast goes smoothly, everyone chatting idly about nothing important. The Iceman Kazansky even compliments the muffins he made. He might just be his boyfriend’s dad right now, but Jake will probably always hero worship the man a little bit, so he has to work to contain his excitement in a simple ‘thank you, sir’.
Nobody mentions last night or the reason Jake and Bradley are crashing Ice and Mav’s getaway. If Jake hadn’t been there, hadn’t seen the way Bradley shook like he was about to come apart the whole drive up before practically collapsing into Mav’s arms in the driveway, he might have thought they were all just on a regular old family vacation.
He knows Bradley talked to Ice this morning, and neither of them are acting like the topic needs to be broached at the breakfast table, so that’ll just have to be enough for right now.
After everyone’s done eating, Jake volunteers Bradley and himself to wash up. Mav seems to get what he’s trying to do and drags Ice off to run some errands in town, leaving the two of them alone in the house.
They’re cleaning in companionable silence, Bradley washing and Jake drying just like they do at home. He tries not to let the fact that he already thinks of Bradley’s place as home distract him from what they need to talk about.
“You uh, you sleep ok? After we got settled in?” Jake asks.
God he doesn’t know how to do this. He’s so scared he’ll say the wrong thing, make Bradley clam up and throw even more walls up around himself.
“Yeah, fine. What about you?” Bradley says, like they were talking about the weather and not whether or not either of them had any more heart racing, hands shaking PTSD nightmares.
“Mmhmm, all good. I didn’t hear you get up this morning.”
He’s inching toward dangerous territory now. This is the make or break, where Bradley’s either going to actually start talking or shut down like he usually does.
“Wanted to let you sleep, since I kept you up most of the night.”
Their hands brush together as Bradley hands off the cup he just rinsed out. Jake tries to look over, catch his eye, but Bradley’s keeping his head down.
“I don’t mind. Ever. You know that, right?”
“I know. I do. It’s just…” Bradley trails off with a shrug. “And Ice is always up before dawn, even when he’s on vacation, so I kinda figured he’d be down here.”
Jake hums and leans in a little closer so that their shoulders brush as they move.
“Mav said you two were close.”
Bradley bites the inside of his cheek and furrows his brow a bit. It’s the face he gets when he’s thinking too hard about something that hurts. Jake’s seen that face a lot since they’ve gotten back together, since they’ve been making an effort to make it work this time.
It’s meant a lot of long conversations about all of the things that held them back before. Jake talked about his family, how he knows his dad loves him but he doesn’t think he likes him, and how his mom still tries to set him up with girls from her church no matter how many times he’s come out to her. He talked about how he had to become Hangman to protect himself, keeping people at a safe distance so that they couldn’t hurt him. Bradley talked about losing his parents, and then losing his other parents before getting them back after the mission. He talked about the years he spent away from Mav and Ice with only his burning anger to keep him warm, how he still feels guilty for all of it even though they’ve talked and forgiven each other ten times over.
So Jake knows Bradley’s relationship with his dads is still a sore spot, even when talking about the good times between them. It’s not normally a topic he broaches unless Bradley brings it up first, but he needs to right now. He needs to know Bradley isn’t locking all of his hurt up inside him until he inevitably explodes.
“I don’t know how he does it, but I just always end up spilling my guts to him,” Bradley says. “When I was a kid, I hated telling anyone I was upset. I’d just lock myself in my room and hide. But then Ice would come in, and he’d sit with me or take me on a drive or whatever, and he always knew what to say to get me to talk. And I was the fucking angstiest teenager in the world, I don’t know how he put up with me.”
Jake knows. He knows it from the pictures he’s seen on the walls in Ice and Mav’s house- Mav and Bradley with matching grins at a Padres game, Ice with his big hand wrapped around Bradley’s tiny one as they lit a menorah together, Bradley at his middle school graduation smiling at the camera while Mav and Ice looked down at him with nothing but pride in their eyes. He knows from the way Maverick knows how to talk Bradley down from a panic attack, or the way Ice had sat with him on the beach this morning. He knows from the way he’s seen them look at Bradley, like they can’t imagine loving anything more than they love their son.
“Because he’s your dad,” Jake explains.
Jake never had a dad like that. But he knows that’s how good dads should be, and he knows without a doubt that despite their mistakes and missteps, Ice and Mav were good dads.
Bradley doesn’t say anything to that, just nods and keeps working through the stack of dirty dishes on the counter. They fall back into silence for a while until-
“I’m gonna see if Dr. Usman can get me in for a virtual session this afternoon,” Bradley says.
Bradley hasn’t stopped scrubbing the plate in his hand, gaze fixed on the suds in the sink. If he needs to avoid eye contact to say that out loud then Jake’s uncharacteristically not going to push it.
“Ok,” he says carefully. “I think that’s a good idea.”
Bradley leans back into him, a gentle weight against his shoulder as they wrap up the dishes.
After the last dish has been dried, Jake walks over to the cabinet to put the stack of plates up. When he turns back around Bradley’s actually looking over at him for the first time since they started talking.
“Thank you,” he says, just above a whisper.
Jake knows he means thank you for being there. Thank you for this morning, and thank you for last night. Thank you for the night before, and every other night since they dragged each other home from the carrier. He knows what Bradley is trying to say, but Jake doesn’t feel worthy of his gratitude. He doesn’t feel like he’s done enough to earn it.
“For helping with the dishes?” he deflects, looking away to grab the newly cleaned forks off the countertop. “I made the mess, only right I helped clean it up.”
Because he might be trying to get Bradley to open up more, but the idea of having to step into the vulnerability with him makes Jake’s stomach turn.
“Jake.”
At the sound of Bradley’s voice saying his name, Jake looks back at him.
And if Bradley had been avoiding eye contact before he certainly wasn’t now. Those dark brown eyes are boring into him like they can see Jake’s very soul. His face is so intensely open, like he’s fighting to not shut down and turn away.
He’s trying, a little voice says in his head. He’s trying, you gotta try too.
“You don’t have to thank me,” Jake whispers back.
“I know. But thank you anyway.”
Jake doesn’t know what to say. So instead he steps forward to press their lips together and hopes that says enough.
Jake’s sitting on the couch downstairs flipping through some aviation history book that had been on the coffee table. He’s biding time while Bradley’s upstairs in their room on a call with his therapist. He’s just shut the book and tossed it back on the table, deciding it's not worth it to pretend to read anymore, when Maverick walks in and flops down on the couch next to him with a heavy sigh.
“Don’t retire, kid. It’s a lie sold to you by the government.”
“Was it the government that made you retire or your husband?”
Maverick laughs, shoulders shaking.
“Touché. Still, the point stands. I’ve got nothing to do. You wanna know what I’m doing tomorrow? And the day after that? Still nothing.”
Jake gets what he’s saying. He’s grateful for the time they’ve been given, especially for how it's allowed him and Bradley to figure their shit out together, but part of what makes a break a break is that it has an end date. He’s got an appointment scheduled for the psych eval that’ll clear him to go back to active duty, and they’ve all got orders to be back at North Island after the holidays. He’s only been grounded a few weeks and he’s already itching to get back in the sky. He can’t imagine what it’s like for Maverick after a lifetime of flying to just have it all go away.
“Come on, Mav. We both know even retirement can’t keep you down. This time next year you’ll probably have a whole nother hangar full of planes to break the sound barrier in.”
“You’re probably right about that,” Maverick says with one of his crooked grins. “Speaking of, you two should come out there sometime. Take the Mustang up for a bit.”
“I don’t think I can ever get in the backseat again,” Bradley had whispered to him late one night, not long after the mission. “Getting shot at and having no control at all… I don’t know how my dad did that and then came back for more.”
Jake’s palms practically itch with their need to wrap around the controls of the P-51. But if Bradley needed to be at the helm to get off the ground again, then Jake would settle for just riding along.
“Yeah, that’d be great,” he says.
Maverick must have seen something on his face or heard something in his voice, because his face gets serious all of the sudden. The way his brows tilt up at the inner corners and his eyes focus in… it's the same exact look Bradley gets on his face when he’s worried about whoever he’s looking at.
“How have you been, Jake?”
He’s still trying to figure out how to act when he hears the man call him by his first name. He knows how to be Hangman, or Lieutenant Seresin, but he hasn’t quite figured out how to be Jake .
“Me? I’m good,” he says, tapping into Hangman a bit with the way he quirks his lips into a grin. “I’m the best.”
Mav nods, and for a minute Jake thinks he’s gotten away with it. But then Maverick looks down at his lap, and then back to Jake.
“That mission…” Mav trails off, shaking his head. “There’s a reason you all got put on leave for so long. Even the top brass know it’s going to take time to come back from that.”
“Except I wasn’t on the mission,” Jake says, still forcing his tone to be light and teasing. “Maybe it is a good thing you retired, Pops, seems like your memory’s going.”
“You were, though,” Maverick says undeterred. “And I’m damn glad you were, too.”
Jake scoffs.
“I barely even flew.”
“You flew enough. And that’s not just my opinion, that’s a fact decided on by the United States Navy. You’re getting honored for being on that team right alongside everyone who flew the canyon. And having to wait on the carrier while you can hear everything that’s going on.. that’s a whole other trauma entirely.”
Jake bites his lip, looking away. He can feel heat rising up in his cheeks and hopes they aren’t turning red.
He hates that word. Trauma. He hates having it attributed to him, to what he went through on his end. It feels so heavy, and he doesn’t think he’s strong enough to carry it. He doesn’t think he’s earned the right.
“It wasn’t the same. Definitely wasn’t the same as what you and Rooster went through.”
“No,” Mav leans in a bit, like he needs to make sure Jake’s hearing him. “But different doesn’t mean less.”
He feels like he’s about to fucking cry. He’s gotta get out of here.
Jake steals himself, throws up a block and detaches. He just has to get out from under Maverick’s watchful gaze so he can make a run for it.
He turns back to look at the man across from him on the couch, expression carefully neutral.
“I’m fine, Mav, really. Thanks for caring, but I swear I’m good.”
Maverick purses his lips for a second before smoothing them out into a gentle smile.
“I’m gonna let you in on something that took me a long time to figure out for myself,” he says. “You can help people and need help at the same time. You can’t keep showing up for someone else if you always put yourself last.”
Jake doesn’t say anything. Can’t say anything. He just stares at him and keeps his mouth clamped shut to keep a sob from falling out.
“You’re allowed to feel things, too, Jake.”
And with that Mav reaches forward to quickly squeeze Jake’s knee before standing up and heading off down the hall, probably to drag his husband away from whatever COMPACFLT business he’s been dealing with in the house’s small office for the last hour.
Jake just sits. He’s not sure what to do with himself now. He can’t really move. Or talk. Or think. All he can do is sit there and let this feeling that’s somewhere between comfort and dread wash over him like a wave.
Jake’s in the bathroom wrapping up the final step of his skin care routine while Bradley sits in bed, curled up against the headboard with a book in his lap. His phone is off and tucked away in the drawer. It was all part of the nighttime plan he’d worked out with his therapist that afternoon- no caffeine after lunch, no screens an hour before bed, and there’s a handwritten list of breathing exercises he’s supposed to do before they turn out the light.
Jake splashes water on his face and dabs it dry. He hasn’t told Bradley about the conversation he had with Maverick earlier. Or, maybe conversation isn’t the right word. He hasn’t told Bradley about how Maverick came out of nowhere and dropped an emotional bomb on Jake that had left him so rattled he didn’t know which end was up until Bradley came downstairs after his session.
He turns off the bathroom light and heads into the bedroom, crawling under the covers and curling up against his boyfriend. Bradley reaches the end of his chapter just as Jake gets in bed, so he dog-ears the page and sets the book on the nightstand. Jake slides close into his side, his cheek resting on Bradley’s chest, and Bradley leans down and presses a kiss to the top of his head.
“You’ve been quiet today,” he murmurs.
“We’re at the beach,” Jake scoffs. “I’m relaxing.”
“We live on a beach everyday.”
“This is a vacation beach. It’s different.”
Different doesn’t mean less.
Maverick’s voice rings in his head again, like it has been all evening. He tucks his chin down to avoid Bradley reading anything on his face.
His efforts seem to have been in vain, though, as Bradley tightens the arm he has wrapped around Jake’s back and brings his other hand up to run soothingly through Jake’s hair.
“I know I’ve been… a lot to deal with lately. And I’ve been trying so hard to- to protect you from it. Whenever I could. I know that was one of our promises, that we wouldn’t shut eachother out anymore but… I don’t- I don’t really know how. To do that. And,” Bradley’s words come out disjointed, sentences stopping and starting like a sputtering car. “And I’m so sorry for dragging you into this… this shitshow. With me. It's not what you signed up for.”
Jake brings his hand up to lay on Bradley’s chest, palm pressed over his heart.
“I signed up for you. All of you,” he says, hoping Bradley can hear the conviction in his voice.
Bradley lets his hand fall from Jake’s hair to tangle their fingers together on top of his chest.
“I want to get better, and I don’t want to hold onto all this any more. Dr. Usman said I have to start talking about what happened before I can start to process, so…”
“She’s a smart woman,” Jake says.
Bradley laughs that soft breathy laugh of his that Jake had learned he inherited from Iceman this morning.
“Yeah, yeah she is. Figured maybe it was time I got over my shit and started listening to her.”
Jake leans back to look up at Bradley.
“You can talk to me. I want to hear it. Whatever you want to say, I want to hear it.”
Bradley smiles at him and presses another kiss to his forehead but he doesn’t pull back all the way.
“You can talk to me, too,” he says softly, lips ghosting over Jake’s skin as they form the words.
Jake can feel himself tense up again, shift away, pull back. He slides his hand out from under Bradley’s and rolls over so that he’s laying flat next to him on the bed.
“Why does everyone think something’s wrong with me?” he huffs.
“That’s not what I said,” Bradley sighs. “Wait, who’s everyone?”
“Am I acting like something’s wrong?” Jake barrels on. “Cause I don’t think I am, but y’all keep looking at me like I'm about to explode, and I don’t get why we’re focusing on me when we’re supposed to be focusing on you.”
He can feel Bradley’s gaze on the side of his face. He doesn’t look, but he knows he’s wearing that same concerned expression that Maverick had earlier.
“Am I not supposed to care about you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I just- I know I haven’t been… coping, or whatever. Not really. But I’m trying. I want to try. And you’ve been so amazing through all of it. But you went through your own shit, and I want- I need to make sure you’re taken care of too.”
“I don’t need you to take care of me, though. I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”
“Why can’t we take care of each other?”
Jake brings his hands up to press the heels of his palms into his eyes so hard he sees stars.
“Because you almost died! Multiple times, in a row!”
He feels Bradley wrap a hand around his wrist and rub his thumb back and forth across his pulse point.
“Jake.”
“You- you… I thought…” Jake sucks in a ragged breath. “I thought you died.”
It’s that confession that pushes him over the edge. It had been building for weeks, ever since the adrenaline wore off on his way back to his room on the carrier and Javy had to practically drag him the rest of the way down the hall. He’d given himself that one night to feel it, the weight of everything that had happened, and then he woke up the next morning and headed to go check on Rooster in medical with all of it locked up in a tight little box inside of him with a key that’d he’d hidden even from himself.
It had been threatening to spill out since then, and it had all been happening so silently he was able to convince himself it wasn’t real. The nightmares left him waking up paralyzed, unable to make a sound. He panicked so quietly that the sound of the shower running was always able to drown it out. If nobody else knew, if nobody else saw him hurt, then he could act like it had never happened to begin with.
But Bradley always asks how he slept, and Javy keeps texting to check on him. Even Phoenix had called him one day to ask how he’d been doing. When they’d arrived last night Maverick had wrapped his arms around Bradley and shuffled him into the house, but Iceman had lingered, reaching a hand out to clap Jake on the shoulder and walk with him up the driveway- “ Come on, kid, you’ve had a long night. Let’s get you settled in.”
And then Mav this afternoon, and Bradley now. Jake had spent his whole life learning that he wasn’t supposed to hurt, wasn’t supposed to feel. He didn’t know how to live in a world where that was allowed. He didn’t know how to handle having people care about him like that.
Boys don’t cry, Jacob.
Man up, Jake. Stop being a wuss.
Seresin men are tough as nails, you better start acting like it.
He feels Bradley tug his hands away from his face and pull him back into his arms. He tucks Jake under his chin and brushes a tear off his cheek that Jake hadn’t even realized had fallen.
“You’re ok, baby, I’ve got you,” Bradley murmurs softly above him.
He feels so fucking stupid.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” he gasps.
Bradley runs a hand up and down his back, like Jake usually does for him.
“That’s ok, just let it out.”
So he does. He cries for all of the times over the last few weeks that he hasn’t allowed himself the luxury. He cries for the little boy in a twin bed in Texas that had to muffle his sobs in a pillow.
He lets himself finally feel everything he’d worked so hard to ignore.
“I’m so sorry,” he heaves into Bradley’s neck as soon he catches his breath again.
“Don’t apologize. Not for this.”
It takes a while before he comes back to himself fully. Bradley holds him the entire time.
Eventually he pulls back a bit, but not far enough to dislodge Bradley’s arms around him. He scrubs a hand over his face, rubbing away the dried tears and snot that cling to his skin.
“Fuck, you’re supposed to be relaxing before bed. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do all that.”
“What did I just say about apologizing?”
Jake collapses back forward, laying against Bradley’s collarbone.
“I don’t take orders from you, Bradshaw,” he says, but there’s no real heat behind it.
Bradley laughs softly and rests his cheek against the top of Jake’s head.
“We’re a mess, huh?”
“A bit,” Jake says. “But we can be a mess together?”
Bradley’s arms tighten around him and Jake lets all of the tension he’s been carrying around fall off his shoulders.
“I like that plan.”
Bradley reaches over and plucks a notepad off the bedside table and holds it up. There's a list on it, written in Bradley’s chicken-scratch scrawl, of what Jake can just barely make out as the centering breathing techniques Dr. Usman had given him.
“You wanna breathe with me?” he asks.
Jake smiles and means it.
“Always.”
The next time Jake opens his eyes the morning sun is shining in through the window. There’s an arm wrapped around his waist and a sturdy chest pressed to his back. Bradley’s breath against the back of his neck is slow and even. He’s still peacefully asleep.
Jake knows that one good night isn’t the end of all the bad ones. One therapy session and an emotional breakthrough isn’t enough to completely heal all of their wounds. The bad days will come again, but then they’ll go like the tide. And he knows that they’ll be able to face whatever happens next, because they’ll face it together.
For right now he’s warm in bed with his boyfriend snoring softly behind him, and everything’s quiet and everyone’s ok. So Jake lets himself relax for the first time in what feels like forever, and he drifts off back to sleep.