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Chapter Text

The moment Bradley stepped through the final gate was anticlimactic to say the least. He was the last in a short line of inmates being released today and had nothing but a small plastic bag clutched in his right hand and the clothes on his back to call his own. Jake had picked a prominent position to wait in, but he wasn’t surprised when Bradley didn’t immediately notice him, too busy as he was stealing deep breaths of air like he was expecting to be dragged back inside any second and was making the most of this brief bout of freedom whilst he still could. Only, they had it guaranteed that wouldn’t be happening. After eight long years of incarceration, Bradley had finally been exonerated, and it was long past time for Jake to take him home.

There was a bus idling a way down the road which a few of the other freshly-released inmates had started heading for. One guy was already in the truck which had been idling closer to the gate than Jake waiting for him to hop in so that it could speed away. A couple of the others just froze once they were outside, so clearly at a loss for what to do now that they had to think for themselves again. Bradley took a few hesitant steps in the bus’ direction before pausing to scan the pathetic excuse for a parking lot instead, as if some sort of sixth sense had prompted him to stop where logic was telling him to fend for himself. It was evident from his posture that he wasn’t expecting to see anyone he recognised, so the double take he did when his eyes landed on Jake was far more gratifying than Jake had expected it to be.

Seeing that exact reaction was why Jake had kept his being here today as a surprise.

His instincts fought between straightening up under the weight of Bradley’s stare and settling further into the arrogance of his lean against the driver’s side door of the Bronco.

Something about the way Bradley looked at him felt different, but Jake was far from thinking that was a bad thing as he flushed cold and then hot because of it.

Bradley had always been an intense man.

Prison, it seemed, hadn’t done anything to change that.

When it became clear that Bradley wasn’t going to move any further without some kind of prompting, Jake waded through the debilitating fog of desire threatening to overwhelm his brain enough to jut his chin in a single pointed movement. An unspoken instruction for the man he loved to get over himself and bring the waiting period of their separation to an end.

Jake wasn’t sure what exact reaction he had been expecting, but the dejected slump to Bradley’s shoulders and his inability to maintain eye contact the closer he got, seemed so far out of character, that Jake felt a waiver of doubt about whether he might have imagined the countless promises they had made one another over the years. Whether perhaps he was the fool for thinking they could make things work again out in the real world. Whether Bradley was in fact disappointed to see him here because he had been hoping for someone else… Then Bradley stopped a few paces short of him, hands trembling as he dropped the bag of meagre possessions which had been returned to him on the ground, eyes roving over every inch of Jake like he was committing the sight of him to memory the exact same way he had the last time they had seen one another, mouth agape with the kind of shock that said he had never dared hope even for a second that this is what would be waiting for him the moment he left the hellhole that had been his home for so long, and Jake realised all at once what the problem was with a healthy dose of smug relief.

“Bradshaw,” he murmured, tone as even as he could make it with the hopes of seeming as normal as possible to help reassure Bradley that this was real. “As I live and breathe.”

The laugh Bradley choked out sounded equal parts like a sob and a surprised cough. His eyes finally traced upwards to meet Jake’s again, amusement making them sparkle just as much as the tears welling up. “Jake,” he replied, voice heavy with emotion. As if he believed that word was something sacred which needed treating with respect when he said it. “You look good, baby.”

They had spoken just a few days ago, before the appeal had been approved, and yet Jake could have sworn it had been a lifetime since he had last heard Bradley’s voice. It was as if he had forgotten what it sounded like, his memories of its exact cadence being warped and destroyed by the distortion of them speaking exclusively over the phone for the entirety of his incarnation.

“I am good,” Jake replied after a second’s delay, shrugging off how much of an understatement that was. “Too good to be true, in fact.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

Jake chuckled as he watched Bradley quite obviously pinch himself, feeling the lightest he had in years.

Bradley looked older. The last time Jake saw him he had been twenty-seven, now he was thirty-five. It was strange to see but the evidence of just how much time they had lost was hidden right there in the maturation of his features. He seemed frayed around the edges. Weary with the exhausted kind of tension all of the inmates Jake had seen carried themselves with. Though he had smiled a few times since catching sight of Jake, he seemed incapable of holding that expression on his face. The frown, now in place again, was almost permanently etched into his expression. Cuts which were freshly scabbed over at the time of his sentencing had long since faded into thin white scars, feigning invisibility. He was bulkier too than he had been in his twenties, having spent a lot of time in the gym to keep himself busy. If Jake wasn’t being run ragged by the intensity of his emotions in that moment, his attention might have lingered more over the impressive bulge to Bradley’s biceps, straining against the thin cotton t-shirt he was wearing, or the understated power in his shoulders as he rolled them like he was feeling uncomfortable under the weight of Jake’s scrutiny, but that would come later when Bradley was showing off his newfound strength and all the benefits of it.

“The moustache’s new,” Jake murmured, in an attempt to justify the fact that he couldn’t tear his gaze away.

Bradley breathed out a quiet laugh, “yeah. I was trying something a while back and it kind of stuck.”

“Makes you look like your dad.”

“Mm, I thought so too.” Bradley sighed, shuffling from foot to foot and scuffing a hand over the back of his head like he was feeling awkward about this topic of conversation. “I was gonna…” he began in a resigned tone, shrugging and shaking his head like he couldn’t quite find the right words to express himself. “Freshen up first. You know, shower and shave and all that shit before I- I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

“You got away with using that excuse to stop me from visiting for eight years, Bradley, you really think I’m gonna let that bullshit fly when you’re a free man?”

“No, baby,” Bradley couldn’t fight against the smile upturning the corners of his mouth now. “I should’ve known better.”

“I missed you,” Jake said, conscious that that was a wholly inadequate way of expressing how he felt.

“God, Jake,” Bradley let out a strained sigh. “You have no idea how good it is to see you.”

Jake shrugged himself away from the truck, feeling something desperate and needy snap inside of him as he registered that there was still far too much real estate between them. Bradley startled backwards a step when Jake reached for him however, leaving them both frozen in shock at this unexpected turn of events.

“We need to go,” he said before Jake could put voice to his hurt and confusion.

“Bradley-”

“The moment I start touching you, I’m not gonna be able to stop, Jake, and we can’t be here when that happens. We need to go, okay, baby?”

Jake might have been embarrassed by the half-whine, half-groan that escaped from him if he didn’t feel anywhere near as wound up as he did. As it was however, he just stalked forwards to snatch Bradley’s bag up from the floor, glaring at him when he skipped back further out of reach, before turning to throw it on the backseat of the truck.

“You wanna drive?” He asked, intent on giving Bradley every opportunity to return to normal that he could even when he was mad at him for his seemingly limitless self-control.

Bradley huffed out a laugh from behind him, sounding closer than Jake had expected. He turned again to see him standing less than a pace away and looking beyond frustrated by the distance he was maintaining. Jake felt a rush of stubbornness, tempted to force Bradley’s hand and take what he wanted now rather than waiting like he had been asked to, but stifled the inclination, understanding on some implicit level that they were both stuck on the same tightwire right now and that they had to tread carefully to make sure they survived past the end of the day.

Jake dangled the keys in front of Bradley from the tip of his finger, taking in his hesitance with a fierce burst of affection. “I renewed your licence,” he murmured, tipping his head towards the truck in a cajoling manner. “And kept your other baby ticking over. She missed you almost as much as me.”

“You used to hate her,” Bradley said, taking the keys with great care, as if they were a live animal that might snap at him with sharp teeth if he wasn’t careful. “I remember you threatening to get her crushed once.”

“Yeah, well, turns out a lot can be said for sentimentality,” Jake muttered with the roll of his eyes, ignoring Bradley’s pleased expression as he rounded the front of the truck to hop into the passenger seat. He waited until Bradley had climbed in, and made himself comfortable, and grunted with surprise when he jammed the clutch down much harder than was now required to get the damned thing into gear before adding, “updating some of her parts also went a long way towards improving our relationship.”

“I bet.”

Bradley flashed a smile across at Jake, doing another double take with a much softer expression this time around as if something had taken him off guard.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Bradley shook his head like he was despairing at himself. “I just never thought I’d get to see you like this again.”

Jake had to fight a fierce internal battle not to reach out for him, sitting on his hands instead in an attempt to resist temptation and respect his wishes. “It’s a good view, huh?”

“Best I’ve ever seen.”

Jake sighed out a shuddering breath and took to staring straight ahead since looking at Bradley was so dangerous for his own much more tenuous self-control. “Bradley?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Let’s go home.”

Bradley didn’t need telling twice. His focus diverted to getting the truck moving again without even so much as another smile sent Jake’s way. Things were a little stilted and jerky at first as Bradley re-acclimatised to the process of changing gears and learnt to account for how responsive the brakes now were, but it wasn’t long before the prison was fading out of sight in the rearview mirror, the perfect reflection of just how much they both intended on leaving every part of this nightmare behind them.

Chapter Text

The first time Jake met Bradley Bradshaw he fell in love.

Of course, he didn’t quite realise that was the case at the time.

In his defence, why would he when the first conversation they ever had devolved into an argument after Bradley patronisingly asked to see his ID when he tried to buy a round of drinks during his first visit to the Hard Deck. In Bradley’s, Jake had always looked a lot younger than he was and so technically it was only due diligence which had prompted him to ask that question.

At twenty-one, Jake had been nothing more than a baby-faced, cliché of a naval recruit, following in his daddy’s footsteps the way he was expected to and upsetting him all the while because he was exceeding the precedent set with nothing more than his natural talent. Jake had been thrown in the deep end when he was called up to Top Gun well ahead of his time and was ostracised by his cohort as a result because they held their jealousy against him. No one liked being shown up by the new guy, after all. Especially not when the new guy was at least five years younger than the average and could back up every single part of his arrogance with skills that put even some of the tenured instructors to shame.

For others, it might be strange to be so in their element whilst being so clearly out of place, but that was Jake’s comfort zone. He found himself rising to every challenge he was set, even when his attitude wasn’t winning him any new friends.

Going to the bar to wind down as a unit at the end of a day’s training wasn’t an optional part of the experience. Jake learned quick enough that, whilst the others weren’t all that fussed about actually spending time with him per say, there was an unwritten rule about that bonding experience which he was required to partake in. Showing up every night without fail earned Jake a begrudging sort of respect even though, after that first night, he was much more inclined to hang out by the bar getting under Bradley’s skin than he was with them.

Four years older than him and in the middle of a graduate degree in mechanical engineering, Bradley was the exact kind of dangerous Jake should have been avoiding if he wished to continue treating his career as his biggest priority. Jake was powerless to admit just how irresistible he found him the better they got to know one another. Bradley bartended both to help make ends meet and because it got him out of the house. He was diligent, resourceful, smart as all hell, and could keep up in conversation with Jake about his training with more than a casual interest in things thanks to his own personal background in the navy.

The tension between them grew to immeasurable levels long before either one of them grew the courage required to do something about it.

Bradley obsessed over Jake’s predicament with morbid fascination, caught somewhere between pity and exasperation on any given day over the fact that Jake was adamant about not rocking the boat any further than his mere presence already did with his colleagues. Jake was a big boy, after all. The last thing he needed was some big, strong, opinionated man wading in trying to solve his problems for him. Especially when they were temporary problems that he only had to endure for the duration of that detachment. His plan was to win the trophy, lord it over all the assholes who thought he didn’t deserve to be there yet for something so simple as him being younger than them, and escape back to his squad where his actual friends would be ready and waiting to celebrate his accomplishments with him. He didn’t need to be looked after. He didn’t need coddling. And he sure as shit didn’t need some relative stranger feeling sorry for him for circumstances which were so far out of everyone’s control it was laughable it was even something he was dealing with.

The conflict between feeling smothered by and grateful for Bradley’s attentions kept Jake awake some nights.

It took Bradley leaping to his defence when some random asshole who had been making advances all week finally ran out of patience in waiting for Jake to put out to make Jake realise that he had developed feelings for him. It took Bradley apologising after the fact for intervening and causing a scene when he knew Jake could handle himself to make Jake suspect that those feelings might be reciprocated. It took the shouting match that they found themselves stuck in after the fact as they both said the same thing in different words without registering that they did indeed agree that the whole situation could have been handled better to make either of them summon the courage required to make a move.

But that argument was all they needed to get together in the end.

Jake was hooked long before their first kiss ever came to pass, but their lips connecting cemented everything he felt into place in an irrevocably permanent way. He loved Bradley with a passion he had never felt before for anything but flying. His first love. Only love. Expressed through fierce kisses as he demanded Bradley take him home that instant and the later awkward but unashamed admission that he had never gotten further than third base with another man before.

Bradley held him so gently. Insisted he could wait if taking that step wasn’t something Jake was ready for. Vowed he would make it good for him when Jake countered with an indignant response over how sure he was about knowing what he wanted. And utterly wrecked him for anyone else in the future. Bradley delighted in wringing every little reaction he could out of Jake, in his responsiveness, in the fact that he was the only person in the world who had ever had the fortune of seeing him like that, and he threatened to never let Jake leave his bed afterwards. Which he seemed adamant about following through on until he had wrangled more than a few dozen promises out of Jake that he would be back the very next night (and every other night thereafter).

The rest was supposed to have been history between them.

Bradley continued his studies, having found his place in academia after other avenues were taken from him against his will. Jake won the Top Gun trophy, returning to his original squad as a more well-rounded pilot still miles ahead of the rest of his generation in terms of latent skill. They made a family in one another where Bradley didn’t have one. The respective deaths of his parents had left him feeling jaded and bitter about the world, he was the first to admit that, but it was cutting out the rest of his adoptive family after his uncle intervened in his career plans which had made it hard for him to trust anyone new before Jake came along. And then Jake took him home, introduced him to his parents, his sister, and tried his best to prove that that trust was well deserved.

Against all odds they survived through nearly two years of long-distance dating before moving in together.

Bradley had been renting out his childhood home before then, content to stay in dorms and subsequently rent himself a tiny studio apartment whilst it was just him. Taking into consideration the fact that Jake was willing to transfer squads to be with him more permanently however, he reclaimed the house and told Jake he had free licence to decorate in whatever way he wanted so that they could make it their own.

The bungalow was the perfect kind of starter home: big enough to settle in without them having to live on top of one another but not so big that they had to worry about getting lost in it.

They had been living there for two months and were in the middle of redoing the kitchen when everything went wrong.

Chapter Text

Even after they got home, Bradley seemed hesitant to get into Jake’s personal space at first.

Jake had to remind himself a few dozen times over that it likely had nothing to do with him at all. He had done his research, inadequate as it probably all was, but he still couldn’t imagine what exactly Bradley was going through. The concept of having his freedom taken for so long and then returned to him all of a sudden was too abstract, too foreign, too inconceivable for Jake to truly fathom. He could, would, ask Bradley about it soon enough, but he wasn’t about to go demanding an explanation from him about his experiences the literal second that he walked through the front door.

Everything about this was going to be an adjustment.

It would take time for them to recover, both individually and as a couple.

So long as they did so as a team though, Jake knew there was nothing for them to worry about.

“Are you hungry?” Jake asked, leading the way to the kitchen as he repeated the mantra about making things seem as normal as possible. He fought down the itchiness in his fingertips craving Bradley’s touch, vowing to do all of this on the terms he had set out for as long as was necessary to help him settle in. “Or do you wanna, like, take a shower?” He added, feeling uncharacteristically awkward and self-conscious where he knew he had no real reason to. “Or a nap, or go out, or some combination of all the above…?”

Jake turned from where he had been about to open the fridge when he didn’t get a response to find Bradley propped against the door jamb, his arms folded like he was fighting to keep his hands to himself as he watched Jake’s every move with a dazed expression.

“What?”

“I just-” Bradley shook his head to himself as he huffed out a disbelieving laugh. “I can’t believe how lucky I am.”

“Lucky?”

“Yeah, baby.” Bradley took a few steps into the room, looking like he hadn’t yet registered that he was moving. “I never thought you’d still be here when I got out… hell, I even told you not to wait for me, but here you are, just… taking care of me.” He backed Jake up against the fridge door, smoothing one hand around his waist whilst the other raised up to cup his jaw with his thumb brushing over his cheekbone. “I don’t deserve you-”

“Bradley-”

“No, I know you’re gonna say that’s not true, but it is,” Bradley insisted. His eyes wide as he stared down at Jake, his expression wholeheartedly earnest. “Everyone said you’d’ve moved on by now. I mean, shit, I worried you might one day, but you didn’t, did you?”

“I couldn’t,” Jake said, winding his arms around Bradley’s neck to tug him closer. “I- you know this, you know I couldn’t ever get over you.”

Bradley looked thrilled to have it reiterated.

It had been an ordeal to go through, them confirming their commitment to one another in light of the circumstances. Bradley had once been resigned and acceptant to the thought of them not being together forever. He had tried to set Jake free, encouraged him to live his life, even though it was obvious the thought of it was breaking his heart at the time, and had been guilty to feel so relieved when Jake went on to explain how much that whole exercise hadn’t worked out for him. And now here they were, Jake hoped, stronger than ever.

“Never hurts to hear it again, baby.” Bradley’s grip on Jake’s jaw tightened as he raised his chin to better meet his eye. “You promised to tell me about it sometime…”

Jake rolled his eyes, “we’re still on that?”

“I wanna know, Jake. It’s been driving me crazy you holding out on m-”

“Bradley, it was years ago, it didn’t mean anything.”

“He’s still the last person to touch you, baby.”

“Well, there’s a pretty easy way of changing that…” Amusement sparked in Bradley’s eyes as Jake tried to tug him closer again, his gaze dropping down to Jake’s lips and back up again like he was trying to feign disinterest but failing miserably. Jake scoffed. “Later, Bradley. You’re not making me wait longer just to have that conversation.”

“I love you.”

“I am loving you less and less by the second…”

Bradley breathed out a pleased laugh and ducked forwards to brush the tips of their noses together, drawing a strangled whine out of Jake as it registered that they still weren’t kissing yet.

“Just one more thing first,” Bradley murmured, leaning back again to meet Jake’s gaze. Jake huffed and rolled his eyes again, but waited for Bradley to get on with it, arching his brows in invitation when it took him a few too many seconds to collect himself. “Marry me?” When Jake froze in shock, Bradley just doubled down on his proposal. “I know I don’t have a ring or anything yet, and I know this must seem kind of sudden, but I’ve-”

“Bradley-”

“-been thinking about this for a long damn time and I-”

“Bradley-”

“-wanna treat you right. You deserve the whole goddamn world, baby, let me give it to you.”

Jake sighed as Bradley finally finished speaking, smoothing his hands along his shoulders as he tried to smother his doubts and collect his thoughts.

“Bradley, I-”

“Don’t say no,” Bradley whispered.

“I’m not saying no.”

“You’re not saying yes either though, are you?”

“Bradley-” Jake tightened his hands around Bradley’s neck again, preventing him from pulling away as he felt his spine stiffen with disappointment. “Hey, I want to. I do,” he insisted when Bradley’s expression soured like he didn’t believe him. “But I don’t want a proposal just because you feel obliged to ask-”

“Do you seriously think-”

“No, no, I just- you only got out today, Bradley. It’s too soon. Ask me again another time.”

Bradley’s eyes darted over Jake’s face as he processed that request, as if he was doing some fast calculations and struggling to decide whether he liked the answers he was getting.

“When?”

Jake grinned, his confidence returning now that it felt like they were getting back on the same page again. “I think you can figure that one out for yourself.” Bradley’s lips twitched like he was fighting off a smile. “And, anyway, I don’t need a ring for you to give me the world…”

“Is that right?”

Jake breathed out a quiet laugh and tilted his chin up of his own volition in a silent instruction as he murmured, “I love you.”

Whatever control Bradley had had to hold himself back so far snapped in an instant. He kissed Jake like a starving man being presented with a feast, like a drowning man finding land, like he hadn’t touched him in eight long years and had never really believed that he would get to feel this again. His restraint crumbled in an instant.

He hadn’t been lying when he said he wouldn’t be able to stop once he started.

Jake’s true appreciation for that newfound strength of Bradley’s which he had only distantly noticed before came into its own now. Bradley’s hands trailed along the curve of his spine and glutes to the backs of his thighs, pressing against him for a brief moment before encouraging him to jump up into his arms. He carried Jake with ease out of the kitchen, across the living room, and into their bedroom, murmuring something about being grateful they lived in a bungalow in the short few seconds that he came up for air. Jake joked back that he had other things to be more grateful for just as Bradley dropped him on their bed, giving him a breathtaking view as he shucked his shirt off over his head.

“Jesus,” Jake muttered, wasting no time in discarding his own t-shirt so as to make the most of raking his gaze over every inch he could see of Bradley. He was all hard planes and compact muscle now where there had once been a little give around his stomach. “Maybe I should be worrying about you moving on not the other way around.”

Bradley scoffed as he got to work on tugging Jake’s jeans off of him. “I promise this is all for you, baby.”

“Mm, so you didn’t meet anyone in there worth beefing up for?”

“No, baby.” Bradley snorted, easing himself down to hover over Jake. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I got plenty of offers…” He chuckled as Jake let out a disgruntled sound and caught him up in another fierce kiss. “It’s only ever been you, Jake.”

It shouldn’t have been as reassuring as it was to hear that when Jake had all the evidence in the world to prove that the two of them were still unreservedly committed to one another, but Jake appreciated that Bradley had no problem confirming that was the case anyway.

Bradley divested them both of the rest of their clothes in a perfunctory manner before sitting back on his heels to stare, slack jawed, like Jake was the best thing he had ever seen. Jake preened under the weight of his gaze, flexing his muscles as he stretched his arms up to tuck his hands behind his head. He fixed Bradley with a smug grin, raising his brows expectantly when their eyes met.

“I’ve been thinking about this moment every single day since I last saw you,” Bradley confessed with abject reverence, his voice sounding the smallest it had since Jake had first seen him earlier that afternoon. “And I have no idea what to do now that I’m actually here.”

Jake didn’t either. There was something about today which had taken on a dreamlike quality. He was terrified he would wake up in the morning and discover he had imagined all of this. The way Bradley was holding him, the fact that his hands barely stopped moving, that his fingers were leaving imprints all over his skin, showed he felt the same way and was still desperately trying to convince himself that this was real.

There was one way to help prove it to the both of them though, and Jake knew the exact words needed to entice Bradley.

“How about you show me why you were worth waiting for?”

Bradley broke out into a bright, unguarded smile at the challenge set, draping himself over Jake’s chest to kiss him soundly once more before he got to work reacquainting himself with every inch of his body.

“Keep your hands there for me, baby,” he said, tracing his fingers along the curve of Jake’s elbow like he wanted to ensure he had touched every single part of him. “God, I can’t believe I forgot how sensitive you are,” he added, marvelling at the way Jake gasped when he grazed his teeth over one of his nipples.

Jake could feel him grin against his skin. He repeated the action whilst his thumb came up to tease against the other. Jake twisted his fingers into the pillowcase above his head in an attempt to heed the instruction Bradley had given him as his instincts screamed at him to return the favour. Bradley blew over the spot he had been working on once he pulled away, chuckling over Jake’s reaction as he struggled to decide whether to squirm away or lean into the feeling.

“My memories don’t do you justice, baby.”

“Mine either,” Jake replied, distantly surprised by how slurred his voice already sounded. “Oh shit,” he groaned as Bradley started licking and sucking his way further down his chest, leaving blossoming red imprints in his wake with the single-minded purpose of marking his territory. “Your mouth, baby, it’s just…” Jake trailed off into another high-pitched whine as Bradley bit down even harder on the spot he had just been working over, losing track of what he was trying to say before he could finish his sentence.

“I love it when you call me that,” Bradley murmured into Jake’s hipbone.

Jake chuckled, knowing that was the case but having forgotten just how much power he wielded in that manner. He wasn’t one for constantly using pet names. Not like Bradley, who defaulted to them sometimes so religiously sometimes it felt like he had forgotten Jake’s actual name. They only tended to come into play for Jake when he was overly stimulated, or tired, or trying to take advantage of Bradley. It was like a secret weapon. One Jake had neglected to make the most of before now.

“Are you still clean, baby?”

Jake huffed out a laugh at the question, trying to hide how much it took him off guard after the onslaught of focused attention Bradley had been lavishing him with as he steadily worked his way downwards. He blinked his eyes open, not having realised they had fallen shut until that moment, to find Bradley leaning to the side of him, fishing his way through the drawers of their nightstand. Irked that Bradley still felt the need to ask after everything they had already talked about, Jake didn’t dignify it with a response past the point of reaching up to backhand his shoulder.

“Ow, hey!” Bradley laughed. “I didn’t mean- sorry, stupid way of asking, I just noticed there aren’t any condoms in here?”

“Do we need them?”

Bradley grunted out a short breath as his hips seemed to grind into Jake’s hips involuntarily. Jake smiled at the reaction and the confirmation of just how rock-hard Bradley was at the moment. He couldn’t feel too smug, he was the same, but it was nice to feel how much of an effect he had on Bradley regardless. It seemed ambitious to think that Bradley considered condoms necessary right now, but Jake appreciated the forward planning nonetheless. Maybe Bradley would surprise him, but Jake wasn’t all that convinced either of them would last for long enough to make expending that kind of effort worthwhile.

“I didn’t want to assume, baby, it’s been a while,” Bradley mumbled as he snapped the last drawer that he had been looking in shut. He shifted to look Jake in the eye again, brows raised with an affectionate grin. “I guess I don’t need to worry though, huh?”

Jake shook his head, hooking his arm around Bradley’s neck as he drew him in for another kiss, just because he could. He smiled into it when he felt Bradley’s weight shift and heard the click of a bottle cap. Bradley chuckled as he broke away from Jake, taking to pressing distracted kisses down the line of his neck instead as he crooked one of Jake’s legs to make space for himself to settle in.

“Need to learn how to multitask again,” he muttered, mouthing at a sensitive spot of skin on his inner thigh like he intended to leave a mark there but was too busy concentrating on something else at the moment. Jake chuckled over the sheer frustration in his voice, like the thought of not being able to do everything he wanted to do all at once was a personal affront. Bradley surged back upwards all of a sudden however, catching him up in another desperate kiss. “God, I love your laugh.”

Jake hummed out a satisfied breath, something lighting up inside him over the simple gratification of having the man he loved compliment him. Bradley kissed him again before slinking downwards and shouldering his way between Jake’s thighs with more explicit intent. Jake stifled the surge of vulnerability he felt as Bradley spread his ass cheeks apart, conscious that that feeling came solely from the fact that it had been far too long since he had been touched like this.

“Relax, baby,” Bradley murmured as one finger probed against his hole with gentle insistence. Jake sucked in a short, sharp breath and forced himself to exhale slowly, whining when that earned him a smug and pointed, “good boy,” for his efforts. Of course, Bradley hadn’t found it in himself to forget how much Jake liked it when he praised him. “Fuck,” Bradley muttered against Jake’s thigh a few seconds later, voice infinitely more strained as his finger kept working in and out of Jake. “You’re so tight, baby.”

“Jesus, fuck. Eight years, Bradley, are you really surprised?”

“Yeah, but…” Bradley snorted like he was the more embarrassed of the two of them right now. “Not even by yourself?”

Jake shook his head against the pillow behind him. “Ain’t the same,” he admitted, grumbling at the lack of progress when Bradley pulled out for long enough to add more lube before pushing in with that same one finger again. “Couldn’t get the angle right. Just made me miss you more.”

Bradley sighed out a choked off groan. His entire body shuddered as his teeth clamped down on a patch of skin along the crease of Jake’s hipbone, harder than he had done with any of the other marks he had left.

He had big hands, Jake loved that about him, but it did also mean that he appreciated when Bradley wrapped his lips around him and sank down with enough enthusiasm to distract him from the stretch as he added a second finger. It wasn’t painful so much as it was an onslaught on his already overwhelmed senses. Jake’s earlier prediction about not lasting long came true much sooner than he was expecting as it took nothing more than the suggestion of Bradley nudging against his prostate as his fingers scissored together for his orgasm to slam into him. Bradley moved with him as Jake’s back arched off of the bed with the force of it, his name on the tip of his tongue, lost somewhere in the midst of a breathless groan.

Jake squirmed when Bradley kept working him over for a few seconds longer than was comfortable and puffed out a pleased sigh when he released him in favour of surging upwards to capture him in yet another passionate kiss. Bradley seemed pleased with the way Jake chased after the taste of himself on his tongue and amused by his displeased hum and grabby hands when he moved to pull away.

“Let me just get you cleaned up, baby,” he said, brushing another kiss against his lips as he pressed his chest into the mattress like he wanted him to stay put.

“No,” Jake’s hands grappled over the backs of his shoulders, trying to stop him from leaving, before winding downwards with the intention of taking hold of him. He breathed out a confused whine as he found Bradley was already soft and sticky from the mess he had made in his briefs. “Wha-”

“Yeah, I was never gonna last,” Bradley chuckled like he wasn’t even the slightest bit ashamed. “Been way too fucking long since I’ve had the privacy for this shit,” he explained umprompted, breaking Jake’s heart with the resignation in his expression. “And just look at you, baby, I couldn’t help myself.”

Jake laughed because he was supposed to as he smoothed his hands back up to link around Bradley’s neck and kissed him again. “You are the perfect man,” he said, wanting to make it clear that he was happy with whatever Bradley was capable of giving him at the moment.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Bradley demurred, pressing his lips to Jake’s at least a dozen more times before slinking off of the bed and out of the room.

Jake stretched, arms above his head and toes pointed, leaning into the satisfying lethargy in his muscles as he made himself more comfortable and setting aside his doubts to be worried over later. The domesticity of listening to Bradley move about their private space took all of the fight out of him. Jake could feel his remaining energy drain away but forced his eyes open again when he felt the drag of a wet cloth against his skin. Bradley was watching him with morbid fascination, as if he was still half convinced he was dreaming every single part of today and wanted to make the most of the delusion. Jake couldn’t blame him; he suspected that feeling would be haunting them both for a little while yet.

Bradley curled himself around Jake once he was done pottering about, threading one knee behind Jake’s as he settled behind him whilst his hands began skating all over him again like he was still trying to commit everything about Jake’s body to memory. Jake didn’t think he had changed all that much, hardened maybe, developed his muscle mass and grown into his stature as he had aged too, but the differences were probably standing out like neon signs lighting the way for Bradley to catalogue in his own time. Jake could only hope that he did in fact like what he was seeing as much as this afternoon’s performance had implied.

“I love you,” Bradley whispered in his ear.

Jake linked their fingers together, fixing one of Bradley’s arms in place and encouraging him to hold him tighter whilst he brought the other hand to his mouth to press a kiss to the back of his knuckles. “Don’t leave me again, Bradley,” he murmured, conscious that it was an unfair ask but demanding it of him regardless. “I can’t lose you again.”

“I’m not going anywhere, baby,” Bradley promised, earnest enough to sound convincing even though that was the exact same thing he had said before the last time he had been taken away.

Chapter Text

Date night was something sacred for Jake and Bradley from the very beginning of their relationship. Bradley seemed to have some internal list running in the back of his mind for new places they just had to explore and delighted in surprising Jake with each new adventure he arranged. Jake had resigned himself to being along for the ride early on in proceedings since Bradley had always been the bigger planner out of the two of them. The bar he chose that night boasted about the popularity of their chicken wings, so it wasn’t difficult for Jake to puzzle together Bradley’s motivations for the evening ahead from the moment they walked in. After eating, they split their time between the darts board and the bar, living in one another’s orbit without much attention spared for the other patrons around them.

Jake supposed after the fact that that must have been why he hadn’t noticed they were being watched.

Neither of them were hiding their relationship. They had been stealing kisses when one or the other of them felt tempted to all night. Chaste, fleeting things to celebrate a good shot or say thank you as they took turns in buying rounds. When they left the bar, they were walking hand in hand, laughing over the ongoing debate on who was a better darts player which had been running between them since their first game.

Hindsight would make Jake wonder whether they were flaunting their happiness more than he had realised, but the reality was that they shouldn’t have had anything to worry about.

Bradley was talking about something mundane when it happened: the funding application he had submitted for the PhD program he was hoping to be accepted onto. They were a few blocks over from the bar. Seconds away from arriving at where they had parked the truck. The streets were empty and lifeless outside of their happy bubble. It was a normal Friday night.

And then, utterly blindsided, Jake was stumbling to his knees as a sharp burst of pain blossomed across the back of his skull.

Later, he would find out a bottle had been smashed over his head, but in the moment, he was just confused and in pain. Jake fell forwards. Grit and dirt embedded itself in the meat of his palms as he planted his hands on the ground to steady himself. There was shouting all around. Bradley’s angry and fear-stricken voice mixed with the stranger who was ranting about how fags are fucking up the military and DADT being repealed is what’s wrong with this country. Jake didn’t discover until after the fact that their attackers had taken personal offence to the combination of his dog tags being on show and the fact that he was so unrepentantly dating a man. Eight years later and he still wouldn’t truly understand why that offence had led to them being physically assaulted or how it ended with Bradley being arrested, but he had been forced to come to terms with the consequences whether he liked it or not.

Jake shook his head against the ringing in his ears and attempted to stand just in time to receive a solid kick to his gut which laid him out on his back as he struggled for breath. Another blow hit the same spot, making him heave like he was about to throw up, and then a few more landed all along his chest. Jake turned on his side, curling in on himself and drawing up his knees to try and protect his midriff as he made a grab for the leg attacking him, intending on taking whoever it was down. Instead, he heard mocking laughter and more taunts about his sexuality as his attacker danced out of reach and turned to targeting his head.

There were stars in Jake’s eyes as he tried to get his feet under him, understanding in a distant way that staying on the ground was going to get him killed.

He heard the crunch of bones snapping and could only pray that it was Bradley delivering the damage not receiving it as dizziness kept him on his knees.

A body landed near him as his beating temporarily paused. Jake struggled to blink his eyes open for long enough to catch sight of the shaved head watching him with a blank stare. Relief that it wasn’t Bradley out for the count yet tempered the shock Jake felt as he took in the man’s bloodied and broken nose. Adrenaline was preventing him from panicking. Jake struggled to keep track of what was going on. He shook off another wave of dizziness as he looked around in search of Bradley. A hand fisted in his hair before he could find him and wrenched his head backwards. Jake glared up at one of the men responsible for ruining his life, spitting some of the blood welling in his mouth at him in an attempt to throw him off guard as he twisted to sweep his legs out from under him.

His gambit failed but he couldn’t be blamed for thinking he had succeeded in the moment because the man disappeared from behind him.

What he would later find out is that Bradley, who had initially been grabbed from behind and subsequently fought off the guy with the shaved head by knocking him out with one well-placed elbow to the face, tackled Jake’s attacker away from him before unleashing the full force of his anger.

Jake had been given the evidence photos to look at after the fact.

His stomach hadn’t been steady enough for him to turn over more than the first one as he tried to reconcile what he was seeing in it with what he knew of the man he loved.

Without someone there to physically hold him up, Jake’s strength failed in the moment. He slumped onto his side again as he lost consciousness. The last thing he remembered from that night was the terror in Bradley’s expression when he landed beside him and started begging him to stay awake.

Chapter Text

“Who’re Nia and Romesh?” Bradley asked, waving the envelope he was holding at Jake when he glanced over his shoulder to look at him.

He had started pawing through the stack Jake had abandoned on their kitchen table over the last few days to deal with when he had the time and inclination after they ventured in there late that morning in search of breakfast, the start of their day having been significantly delayed by Jake wishing to return the favour of mapping out how Bradley’s body had changed in their time apart. Jake had been staring into the fridge, seeking inspiration, but he turned now to take the envelope from Bradley as he snorted to himself over the question.

“I’ll find their forwarding address later,” he murmured, setting it aside on the counter before snatching the rest of the stack from Bradley to flip through. He found another two to add to the pile and rolled his eyes when he glanced up to find Bradley staring expectantly. “They used to rent this place. I told you that.”

“We’re still getting their mail?”

“Well, to be fair, they only moved out a couple months ago. You know, when I transferred back here permanently for the Daggers. It’s not all that unreasonable.”

“Yeah, but…” Bradley looked like he was struggling over whatever he was thinking about for a long moment before he crossed the room to loop his arms around Jake’s waist and draw him close. “I thought you came back sooner than that? Your first detachment with the Daggers was years ago?”

Jake huffed out a humourless laugh and shrugged. “I couldn’t stay without you here; it didn’t feel right.”

“Baby-”

“No, don’t worry, it’s my hangup, it’s just-” Jake shook his head, “I never wanted to get used to how empty this place feels without you and it was easier to feel like we were gonna be okay when I was the other side of the country.”

Bradley looked like the guilt was consuming him but that he was trying to smother it regardless. “You never told me?”

“What would that have helped, Bradley? There was nothing you could do about it.”

“Yeah, I could’ve like been there for you though, Jake, I could’ve, I don’t know, you could’ve talked to me. Why wouldn’t you- how much have you been keeping from me just because you didn’t want me to worry?”

“Probably just as much as you’ve been keeping from me for the exact same reason.”

Jake clenched his jaw as Bradley’s hands trailed up to cradle his head. His thumbs smoothed over his cheekbones like he was pre-emptively wiping away the tears Jake could feel prickling in the corners of his eyes. His actions were much too careful, too gentle, like he thought Jake was fragile and precious and needed taking care of. Just like always. Jake loved him for it but the tendency for overprotectiveness could also get stifling in the wrong context.

“You should’ve told me, baby.”

“You don’t have a leg to stand on when you never let me visit, Bradley.” Jake shoved him away as his anger welled up too fast for him to rein control over, putting some space between them as he finally got some of the hurt Bradley had caused him off of his chest. “It took you years to write back to me at the beginning because you were trying to force me to move on when I had already made it clear I wasn’t planning on doing that. You cut me out because you were trying to protect me from what you were going through and, what, I’m in the wrong because I didn’t feel the need to go into detail about how much I couldn’t live in our home without you? You knew I transferred back when we weren’t talking, what did you think that meant?”

“Hey, hey, c’mon, baby, I’m sorry,” Bradley was saying as he followed Jake, backing him up against the kitchen counter and smoothing his hands around his neck as he tried to calm him down. “I’m sorry,” he repeated once Jake’s rant ended, “that wasn’t fair of me.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

They both stared at the other in silence for a long, tense moment before Bradley ducked in and kissed Jake with enough passion to make his head spin. He forced himself to start thawing out, conscious that he had already long since forgiven Bradley for the past and that he couldn’t prove that they had moved on from it if he kept holding Bradley’s mistakes against him.

“I’m sorry,” Bradley said again against Jake’s lips before pulling back to meet his eye. “And you think I’m being dramatic when I say I don’t deserve you.”

Jake scoffed and rolled his eyes, but he refrained from saying anything else right now when he didn’t quite trust himself to not keep lashing out. He tipped his chin up for another kiss, which Bradley readily gave him, and then shoved him away in a much friendlier manner than last time before returning his attention to what they were going to have for breakfast. Bradley swarmed in behind him and ended up staying latched to his back for the time it took Jake to make eggs for them both, his chin hooked over his shoulder so that he could press kisses to his cheek every so often.

They didn’t speak for a while after that.

Bradley because he seemed wary of setting Jake off again and Jake because he didn’t know how to start up a conversation about any of the things that they needed to talk about without risking turning it into another argument.

“Your phone’s blowing up, baby,” Bradley murmured as he returned to join him on the couch, breaking what had become a comfortable silence the longer it lengthened as morning turned into afternoon. He had gotten up to throw a light lunch together for them both and handed Jake his phone alongside the plate he had made for him. Though he seemed perfectly content to let Jake scan through the messages in his own time, he was quick to prompt him for an explanation the moment he put it down. “Everything okay?”

“Mm, the squad are just getting desperate to feel included.”

Bradley snorted, “what does that mean?”

“They’re kind of obsessed with you? Or, with our whole situation in general anyway, and they’re drama whores because nothing interesting happens in their own lives, so they’re looking forward to meeting you.”

“Oh, great,” Bradley couldn’t look less enthusiastic. “When’s that going down?”

“When you’re ready.” Jake shrugged as Bradley frowned at him. “That’s what they’re pissed about. They want us to come to the Hard Deck tonight, but I told them to fuck off and that we were doing things in our own time, and apparently that’s not good enough.”

Bradley was quiet for a long moment before he asked, “you’re actually friends with them?”

“Ain’t painting them in the best light right now.”

“The Daggers are the squad Pete’s working with too, right?” Bradley sighed and rolled his eyes when Jake nodded. “Guess we gotta go then.”

“What did I just say?”

“No, I know, baby,” Bradley huffed a laugh and knocked their knees together, “and I appreciate you, but we might as well get it over with. And, anyway, I know they’re important to you.”

“Yeah. They can still wait if you need more time though. They’re probably not actually expecting us to resurface until at least the end of the week anyway.”

“And why’s that?”

Jake grinned and gestured towards Bradley’s half eaten sandwich. “You’ll need your stamina if you want me to show you…”

They didn’t end up getting to the bar that night. Bradley’s best intentions aside, there was no reason for them to get out of bed until late in the evening when they needed more sustenance to keep going. Inch by inch they were slowly building up their stamina together again but it still felt a little like they were working with hair-triggers the moment they got their hands on one another. Case in point, the fact that they had yet to successfully have actual penetrative sex without one or both of them coming much too quickly to make it worth the effort. It had only been a day, so neither of them was that concerned by the prospect, it was more an entertaining hurdle they were trying to overcome together which had turned into a competition of sorts to see who could last longer on any given occasion. The involuntary abstinence they had both endured during the years of their separation was coming back to bite them now, but it was a relief for them both that their libidos were on the exact same page. Like they were teenagers just discovering sex for the first time all over again.

That isn’t to say they weren’t having fun with it.

No, that was the problem, they both got off on teasing one another far too much for it not to be an enjoyable experience.

When it happened, the next morning, it therefore felt inevitable.

Jake woke in the early hours to Bradley pressing kisses against the back of his shoulders and pushed back into him with desperate insistence, conscious of how loose and relaxed he still felt from when Bradley had worked him open the night before. It took barely any effort for Bradley to pat around them and locate the lube where it had been abandoned under a pillow so that he could reassure himself Jake was thoroughly prepped before finally sinking inside him. Homecoming, it felt like. As if Jake had been holding his breath all this time, lungs fit to burst, painful and desperate waiting for Bradley, until now when he could finally exhale. He drew Bradley’s arms tighter around him, begging him to never, ever, let go again. It was as if Bradley was trying to crawl inside of him but everything about that morning stayed slow and gentle. Intimate. There would be time for hard and rough and kinky later. Jake needed it exactly like that right there and then. Bradley must have read his mind for how perfectly he gave it to him.

He came untouched with a quiet groan as Bradley whispered in his ear about how much he loved him, and he might have been embarrassed about how easy it was to unwind him if Bradley didn’t follow right along in his footsteps.

“Pete’s joined in on the peer pressuring about heading to the Hard Deck tonight,” Jake said when he was checking his phone later that morning after they had finally made the effort to crawl out of bed.

He snorted as he continued reading through the messages Pete had sent him, doubly so when he realised most of them were directed more towards Bradley than him. That reminded him of something he had neglected to do before however and he handed the phone over to Bradley to handle responding as he went to locate the one that he had bought for him. He had set it up for him already, leaving only the passcode left for him to choose as a point of principle since he wanted to make sure that Bradley had every opportunity to maintain his privacy now that he could. The lock screen he had changed to an old photo of the two of them out of sentimentality and seeing it when he double checked that he had charged the phone reminded him that getting some updated photos of them together was something of a priority just as much as it brought a smile to his face. All of the photos they had were nearly a decade old now, Jake was desperate for something more recent to help prove that they were starting to move on with their lives. That was a thought he set aside for now however, not wanting to overwhelm Bradley with the full depth of his neediness all at once.

“Here.”

Jake placed the phone on the table in front of Bradley before settling opposite him with a hidden grin as he watched him tap out a slow response to Pete, squinting at the screen like he was some geriatric old man struggling with new technology. It took Bradley a few minutes longer to finish texting and refocus on the present he had been given, but his gaze immediately snapped up to Jake once he saw it.

“What’s this?”

“Now, that much should be obvious.”

“Jake-” Bradley cut himself off as a flush started burning across his face. “Baby, you didn’t have to do that.”

“I know I didn’t have to.” Jake rolled his eyes. “I would like to be able to keep in contact with you though, so it is pretty self-serving… especially when I have no idea what actually happened your old one.”

“Fair enough,” Bradley said with a snort. He breathed out a pleased hum when he went to switch it on and discovered the photo waiting for him. “I always loved that one.”

It showed the two of them covered in glitter and neon paint after an event at a club they had attended. Bradley was wrapped around Jake from behind, beaming at the camera with his chin tucked over his shoulder whilst Jake’s head was half twisted to away from it so that he could press a kiss to his cheek.

“Me too,” Jake murmured, smiling at the memories of the night it was taken.

He shook himself out of that trail of thought before he could get too carried away however, leaning forwards to show him how to change the settings in a quick crash course. The fact that Bradley told Jake literal seconds after setting it that he had made the passcode his birthday left him feeling floored by his affections for a long moment before he could think to confess that his own was still set as Bradley’s. The fingerprint and facial recognition settings they left unused for the time being, the guarded look in Bradley’s eyes being enough to show how daunted he felt by the advancements technology had made during his time away as much as Jake thought he disliked the idea of using his thumbprint for something so frivolous.

“Well, that’s one problem solved,” Bradley said, more to himself than Jake as he continued to fiddle with the phone.

Jake snorted, “what, you got a list or something?”

“Eh, kind of? I need to figure out a job before I start feeling like I’m freeloading off of you-”

“It’s been two days, Bradley.”

“-actually, it’s two problems solved now since you did such a good job looking after the Bronco,” Bradley continued, making Jake think his interjection was going to pass by unnoticed until Bradley frowned at him. “And that’s not the point, baby. I’m not gonna start taking advantage just because-”

“My god.” Jake rose from his seat and rounded the table, shoving Bradley back until he made space for him to straddle his lap. Bradley smoothed his hands along Jake’s thighs as his weight settled and smiled when he asked, “am I not allowed to look after you for a little while?”

“You wanna take care of me, baby?”

“Duh.” Jake ducked down for a kiss that had Bradley clutching him tighter like they were about to go for another round this morning. “You deserve some time to rest. Let me do this for you.”

“Well, when you put it like that…”

Jake smiled, knowing he was getting his way just because of the resignation in Bradley’s tone.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want Bradley out there getting himself established again or anything like that. More the opposite, he wanted him to do it in a way that was going to be healthy and sustainable. Jake knew what Bradley was like though, and could see the evidence stacking up in front of him for how quickly he was trying to rush through setting the world to rights. He was minimising and compartmentalising and, if Jake let him get away with it, he would probably end up trying to pretend like he had never even been to prison. Which Jake wouldn’t stand for when he knew how much that would risk destroying them in the long run.

Jake hated being the responsible one, there was a reason why their dynamic usually worked so well, but this was the exact reason why he had asked Bradley to postpone the proposal, after all. Evidently, it was going to follow through to other aspects of their life too, so Jake couldn’t wait until the day when Bradley was on more stable footing and he could trust him to take charge again.

They lost themselves in each other for long enough that Jake could feel the moment Bradley braced himself to stand and carry him back to bed again. Jake’s phone pinged a few times in quick succession however, interrupting their momentum.

“God dammit,” Jake groaned, dropping his head to Bradley’s shoulder in defeat as he chuckled and reached around him to check the messages. “Who is it?”

“Uh, Phe Phe?”

Jake barked out a loud laugh at the obvious confusion in Bradley’s tone. “Phoenix,” he clarified as he pulled back to meet his eye. “She hates it when people shorten her callsign so-”

“Naturally, you do it all the time.”

“I started calling her Nix on base and she nearly fucking stabbed me when it caught on.”

Bradley breathed out a closed-mouth chuckle, looking strangely proud as he murmured, “attaboy.”

“What does she want?” Jake asked, glancing over his shoulder at where Bradley was still frowning at the screen.

“She’s threatening bodily harm if you think about skipping out on showing off… she knows I’m older than you, right? I don’t know that I can actually be classified as your boytoy?”

“Yeah, good luck arguing that technicality with her.”

Bradley snorted, “anyway, she’s basically demanding we go meet them tonight.”

“Shocker,” Jake muttered to himself. “You up for it?”

“Mm, yeah, Pete was making, well, less plausible, but similar threats, and I’d rather see him for the first time when I’m out on neutral ground than tempting him to come here. Probably best just to get this over with.”

“Awesome,” Jake said, aware that he could have tried to sound much more enthusiastic than he did. “You know,” he added, making a show of checking his arm for the time even though he wasn’t wearing a watch, “we have a couple hours ‘til we have to be anywhere…”

Much to Jake’s delight, that was all the prompting Bradley needed to throw the phone on the table as he hoisted him up and carried him off to have his way with him again.

“Hey,” Bradley began as they were driving to the bar later that evening, “so is the Hard Deck still being run by whatshisface?”

“No, one of Pete’s old flames bought it a couple years back.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Nope.” Jake snorted at the look on Bradley’s face as he fought between concentrating on the road and trying to glance at Jake to see if he was fucking with him. “Penny Benjamin? You know her?”

“Of her, yeah. I bet Pete loves that.”

“She keeps him on his toes that’s for sure. Jimmy’s still there though.”

“No shit?” Bradley shifted in his seat, fidgeting when they paused at a red light. “That’s gonna be a blast from the past.”

“He’s asked after you a couple times.”

Bradley grunted like he had nothing to say in return to that but still wanted to acknowledge that it had been said. Jake left him to stew for the few minutes left of their drive, aware of how difficult this must be for Bradley with no real context for how to relate. He glanced over to watch him out the corner of his eye with a wave of affection for how strong he was. At no point had he complained, or made a fuss, or even thought about shying away from the future. It was a challenge, if anything, for Jake to get him to put himself first. Which wasn’t surprising, Bradley had always veered on the side of selflessness, but it did mean that Jake had to be extra vigilant heading into scenarios like the one they had set themselves up for tonight, to make sure that Bradley wasn’t pushing himself too hard too fast.

Jake grabbed Bradley’s arm to stall him after they had parked, stopping him from jumping out before he had taken a moment to brace himself. He smoothed down to link their fingers together and tugged until he leaned in for a kiss, realising only then, with the way Bradley tensed, that they would need to have a conversation about PDA sooner rather than later. It had never been a problem for them before but he could respect that Bradley’s opinion might have changed in light of their circumstances.

“I love you,” he said, earning himself a fond if tight-lipped smile. “And we can skip out as soon as you’re ready to, okay?”

The fact that Bradley reached for his hand the moment they had both rounded the truck and started heading for the bar was a reassurance for Jake that his affections weren’t entirely unwelcome out in public, but it did also make him conscious of just how uncertain Bradley was feeling with the way his fingers tightened as they walked through the door.

Since he couldn’t see Pete pestering Penny in his usual spot by the bar, Jake led Bradley towards the pool table the squad was gathered around, correctly assuming that they would have had the foresight and consideration to include them in the most recent round which had been ordered. They were expecting them, after all. The way Nat’s attention most of all snapped up to look in Jake’s direction the moment they got close enough for a direct line of sight was telling enough. A grin spread across her face as she straightened up from the shot that she had been in the middle of lining up, predatory and expectant. Jake felt a quick flash of nervousness zing down his spine as the others followed the direction of Nat’s gaze, but he buried it in favour of donning his trademark Hangman smirk.

“What do we have here…” Jake drawled as they got within earshot, his smile growing into something much more genuine as the squad crowed his name in greeting. He tugged Bradley closer to him, trying not to feel too much like he was throwing him to the wolves as he said, “as requested by popular demand, everybody this is Bradley. Bradley, baby,” he added as he glanced his way and took in the fact that he was trying very hard not to look too daunted right now. “Meet the Daggers.”

Chapter Text

Jake was informed about Bradley’s arrest after he woke up alone and confused in the hospital. No one could give him a good explanation for what happened after he passed out and, given the busted up ribs and nasty concussion he was dealing with, it took far too long to convince the doctor on call to discharge him before he could escape to the police station to demand answers. He couldn’t understand how or why Bradley was the one considered to be at fault, aside from the fact that he was the only one of the four of them left conscious by the end of the fight, but his arguments about what had really happened and insistence that Bradley had only gotten violent in the name of self-defence fell on deaf ears.

It seemed the police had already drawn their own conclusions and Jake refuting them was just the desperate act of someone trying to cover for their boyfriend.

No one had seen the men follow them out of the bar, after all.

For all anyone knew, apparently, Bradley was the instigator, not the other way around. It was his word against one guy with a broken nose and pitiful demeanour who was already pleading innocence and another who suffered through a weeklong coma because of his retaliation. Jake was only free from scrutiny himself because of the litany of defensive wounds the hospital had catalogued across his skin and the fact that Bradley unequivocally took responsibility for protecting him. Something Jake might have thought to be grateful for if it hadn’t later resulted in his testimony being dismissed because he was deemed an unreliable witness. It didn’t make sense. Jake couldn’t understand it. He had thought it would be far easier than it actually was to convince everyone that they had in fact been victims of a hate crime.

If they had had a good attorney perhaps they could have gotten the charges dismissed in the end on that basis alone. But they didn’t. They hadn’t been able to afford one back then. The public defender they were assigned was overworked and underfunded. He didn’t even know Bradley’s name until twenty minutes before they were due in court for his arraignment. It was a point of endless frustration for Jake, especially once he could sense Bradley shutting down as he started to come to terms with just how much trouble he was in, because it only made the flaws in the criminal justice system that much clearer to him the longer that he was forced to observe from the sidelines.

Their attackers pled innocent and coma guy’s daddy had a fortune to throw at an attorney who was good enough to sell their lies to the jury. They got away scot-free with nothing more than a slap on the wrist for disturbing the peace whilst Bradley was locked up under felony assault charges like he was some danger to society. His sentence was unfairly harsh because the judge decided to make an example of him. It would be years after the fact that they discovered the biases he harboured against them, not only because he thought they were a gay couple crying the homophobia wolf just because they could but also because he had a close personal relationship with the daddy and hadn’t recused himself from the case in light of the conflict of interest. Those facts would end up exonerating Bradley in the end, but at the time they didn’t know, so he was charged with the maximum ten-years for nothing more than protecting the man he loved.

“We’re gonna fight this,” Jake whispered in the sparse few seconds he had whilst Bradley’s arms were being wrenched behind him and handcuffed in the courtroom.

“Jake-”

“We’ll put in every goddamn appeal we can.”

“Jake, stop.”

“You’re not alon-”

“Stop, Jake, just let it go. Let me go. Just move on.”

“What? No. I love you, Bradley, I’m not gonna do that.”

“You will.”

Those were the last words Bradley said to him for nearly three years.

Jake stood there watching him be led away with a breaking heart, unable to truly fathom how much Bradley’s stonewalling would hurt in the long run. He tried to visit him the first chance he had, driving all the way out to the prison Bradley had been transferred to only to discover that Bradley had neglected to add him to his visitors list.

That he wouldn’t see him.

He didn’t call and never responded to any of Jake’s increasingly desperate, upset, and confused letters.

Evidently, he planned on doing this all by himself, and was breaking every promise he had ever made Jake about it being the two of them against the world for the rest of their lives in the process.

Jake didn’t cope all that well on his own in those early days.

It was a dark time in his life. Struggling to adjust to losing his entire world in an instant wasn’t something many people in the know held against him, but his support system was small, near nonexistent, by proxy of the fact that nearly everyone who did know turned their backs on Bradley the moment the handcuffs clicked shut.

Jake stopped talking about it almost entirely after having heard one too many lectures from his family about how much he would be held back in life if he continued to stay committed to the felon.

It was a unique kind of humiliating, after all, when said felon was the one who had cut off all contact rather than the other way around.

After he started to accept that Bradley truly was committed to icing him out, Jake was at a loss for what to do with himself other than heeding his wishes by trying to get over him. He requested a transfer, rented out their home to a sweet middle-aged couple, since he couldn’t sell it without Bradley’s permission or stomach the thought of leaving it to sit lifeless and empty without them, relocated to the other side of the country, and tried to put some distance between himself and the past.

None of it worked.

Moving on involved pretending like he was single as he joined his new squad and training himself not to think of it as cheating when he flirted back with the people who propositioned him. It was easier with women than men, he had no real interest in them but had no problem acting like he did to pass the time. Eventually, inevitably, however some civilian said the exact right combination of words when Jake was in the exact wrong kind of mood and managed to convince him that he was worth wasting some time with.

Jake followed him home with a growing sense of apprehension he was doing his best to stifle.

If the guy picked up on that fact, he didn’t say anything however, dragging Jake in for a sloppy kiss with far too much tongue to be enjoyable. Jake couldn’t help comparing his every move to Bradley. It took him out of the moment, leaving him feeling like he was watching himself in some out of body experience rather than actively participating.

He stopped the guy the moment he felt the first graze of teeth down his neck, choking out some excuse about the navy’s need for them to look presentable as an excuse for why he didn’t want him leaving any marks.

When the guy pushed his head down too insistently to be ambiguous about his intentions, Jake followed the instruction, in search of the kind of disconnection Bradley’s touch used to give him – the floaty, freeing, mind-numbing headspace only he had ever brought about – needing to switch off and not think for a while. It didn’t work. He felt worse during when the guy pulled his hair with less confidence than Bradley ever had and afterwards when he refused to kiss him until he had cleaned himself up. Jake escaped into the bathroom for a reprieve, gargling and spitting out the mouthwash he located without once looking in the mirror. The self-loathing he felt in that moment was overwhelming enough as it was without him catching sight of his appearance. There was a reason why Jake had never intended on sharing this story with Bradley, after all, and it had absolutely nothing to do with how overprotective he could get.

Jake knew even before he returned to find the guy splayed out on his couch waiting for him so that he could return the favour that he wouldn’t be staying. The fact that he had remained flaccid throughout the entirety of this experience so far didn’t exactly make him feel inclined to drag things out any longer. He waved his phone in apology, reeling off some halfhearted excuse about orders coming through in the hopes of making a clean exit and forced himself not to cringe away when the guy stood to kiss him goodbye. That he offered his number and said something about picking up where they had left off another time went unheeded by Jake until long after he got home and then he could only hope that this guy wasn’t some regular at the navy bar the squad frequented because that was the absolute last thing he wanted.

He missed Bradley like a lost limb and could sense his absence like a phantom haunting him.

All he needed was to hear Bradley’s voice, Jake thought, to be told that everything would be alright. He might be able to cope a little better then. Bradley was still impossible for Jake to access however, even though he knew exactly where he had been for the last few years. Out of sheer desperation and for a lack of any better options, he therefore spent the rest of that night penning down his thoughts in what he had believed would be a futile and pathetic attempt to force Bradley’s hand.

I can’t move on, Bradley, he wrote. I tried, but I don’t want that. I never did. I still love you even though I hate you at the moment, so please just give me something to make losing you a little more bearable.

It had been more than a year since the last letter he sent, but he went through the motions of posting this one by muscle memory, far from expecting a response, hardly even intending to send it, but needing to get everything he had written off his chest regardless.

Maybe it would end up being cathartic somehow and he would eventually get over it?

He wasn’t given chance to find out.

Two weeks later an unknown number called him in the middle of the day.

“This is a collect call,” the automated voice said. “Press three to accept the charges.”

Jake’s heart was in his throat as did just that. Stood in the locker room, half in and half out of his flight suit, surrounded by the comradery of his colleagues, and yet unable to make himself move somewhere more appropriate out of sheer shock that this was finally happening. He knew even before he heard it whose voice was going to come through, after all. There was no way he was ready for this. No time to brace for impact.

“Hey, baby,” Bradley said, sounding infinitely more exhausted than he had the last time they saw each other. “I got your letters.”

Jake wanted to break down right there and then in a diatribe of love and affection but instead he found himself spitting out, “fuck you, Bradshaw.”

Bradley laughed, sounding much lighter all of a sudden like he hadn’t been expecting that reaction but was beyond pleased by it. “You’re mad.”

“I’m goddamn furious.”

“As you should be,” Bradley sighed. “I’m sorry, baby, I thought I was saving you from-”

“You had no right to make that decision for the both of us,” Jake said, stalking out of the locker room in the wake of a stunned silence and confused stares from everyone else present. He made up a good enough cover story after the fact to explain it all away in a satisfactory manner but he did have to put up with a little bit of teasing over how dramatic his side of the conversation had come across to outsiders looking in. “What is this anyway?” He asked as he headed down the hallway towards his office. “Did you just call up to apologise? Are you gonna disappear on me again-”

“No.”

“-is this just you ending things properly-”

“No, baby.”

“-or some stupid fucking attempt at giving me closure?”

“No. I mean, yes, I’m so fucking sorry for everything I put you through, but I- Jesus, baby, I wrote you a million fucking letters, I was just too much of a coward to send them, and then you stopped reaching out and I thought we were over, that that was for the best… and then I got your letter last week and I realised just how badly I had let you down.”

“You sat on it for a whole week before thinking to call?” Jake said, unable to swallow down the bitterness in his tone as he slammed his office door behind him and leaned back against it, grateful that the Lieutenant he shared the space with wasn’t around so that he could spiral in private.

“I spent all that time trying to figure out what to say to you.”

Jake scoffed, “and this is the best you could come up with?”

“Baby, you know I’ve never really been that good with words.” Jake found himself laughing in spite of himself which prompted a mournful sigh out of Bradley. “I missed that.”

“What?”

“Your laugh, baby. Your… god, just everything. I miss you.” Jake couldn’t quite suppress the sob which clawed its way up the back of his throat before Bradley heard it and crossed his free arm against his chest in a defensive manner, wishing it was his other half holding him more so now than ever. “No, baby, don’t- I’m sorry, okay? I’m so fucking sorry. I’m done pushing you away if you- did you mean what you wrote?”

“Which part?” Jake asked, even though he meant to say every word.

“That you don’t want to move on?”

“Of course, I don’t, Bradley. Did you really think I would?”

“You said you tried to.”

“Because you told me to!”

“Yeah, and I’m a fucking idiot. I dunno why you’d listen to me.”

“You can say that again.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t-” Jake shook his head even though he knew Bradley couldn’t see him. “I don’t wanna talk about it right now.”

“Did he hurt you, baby?”

“No, no,” Jake scoffed, thinking about how much he didn’t need Bradley to start repeating past mistakes for the sake of defending his honour. “He just wasn’t you, Bradley. That was the problem.”

“Oh.” Bradley had no right to sound as pleased as he did. “Will you tell me about it another time?” Jake hummed noncommittally and breathed a sigh of relief when Bradley seemed willing to let it go for now. “Where are you?”

“Work.”

“How’s the new squad?”

Jake puffed out a sharp, pained breath as he had it confirmed that Bradley had in fact read all of his letters. He had mentioned the transfer a few times, hoping to prompt the exact kind of response that this latest one had earned him. “Fine,” he said, conscious of how strained his voice sounded as he tried to keep some kind of control over his emotions. “Distracting.”

“I bet.” Bradley paused like he was waiting for Jake to elaborate and, when he didn’t, chuckled to himself. “Will you tell me about that another time?”

“Yeah, I- I’m just feeling a bit-”

“I know, baby.”

“Can I visit? I have some leave saved up, I can come whenever.”

Bradley was quiet for a long, pensive moment, as if he was giving that question serious consideration before he said, “no. I don’t want you seeing me like this.”

“But-”

“I can’t have you in here, baby. I know it’s not fair to ask but can you please just respect that?”

“Bradley-”

“I’ll write you every day and I’ll call as much as I can, but I want you to think of me as I was not how I am in here.”

Jake sighed, making a mental note to push the issue again when everything else about this new dynamic between them felt a little more stable. “Okay,” he said, pretending like it wasn’t killing him to agree. “Fine. But, Bradley, you can’t shut me out again.”

“I won’t, baby. I promise.”

“You must be lonely,” Jake murmured after a beat of silence passed between them, his heart breaking all over again as that thought hit him.

Bradley snorted, “I’m not, baby, don’t worry. I thought about you every day.”

“Oh, great,” Jake tried to inject some levity into his tone to tease Bradley without much success. “So, you’re telling me you’re losing your goddamn mind now?”

“No,” Bradley laughed, “not yet anyway. I also, um, I reached out to Pete.”

Jake breathed out a disbelieving scoff, pleased for Bradley but blown away that it had taken all of this for the two of them to mend fences. Bradley had intended on following his father’s footsteps into the navy until Pete intervened and took the choice away from him. Given how well Jake knew Bradley could hold on to grudges, how good he was at pushing people away when he wanted to, he wasn’t surprised by how badly their relationship had deteriorated in the aftermath. He had tried talking him around before, seeing where Bradley couldn’t that he was desperate to have his family back in his life, but evidently that was something he had had to work out for himself in his own time.

“That can’t have been easy.”

“It wasn’t.” Bradley took a moment, sighing like he was collecting his thoughts. Though Jake had wanted to be with him for the entirety of this conversation, it hit harder now as his hands itched to hold him. “He was so disappointed, baby.” Bradley huffed out a bleak laugh. “Fucking reamed me out for not contacting him sooner so that he could’ve, like, helped with the case and whatever, but he came round eventually, we buried the hatchet, he’s been pretty supportive since.”

“Good. That’s really good. M’proud of you, baby.”

Bradley sighed again but it seemed much more content this time. That soon disappeared however as his voice sounded more exhausted all over again when he confessed, “it’s hard enough seeing him, that’s why I can’t-”

Jake figured out the end of that sentence pretty quickly but he swallowed down his jealousy as best he could before he ended up saying something he might later regret. It hurt being kept at arm’s length, he didn’t think he would be getting over that anytime soon whether he wanted to or not, but at least he could see Bradley’s motivations for what they were that much more clearly now.

“I love you,” Jake said.

“I love you, too.”

Jake recoiled with a full-bodied flinch when someone tried to open the door to the office behind him and slipped across the room to take a seat at his desk, feigning composure. His heart raced from both the resurgence of his affections for Bradley and the suddenness of his office mate’s arrival. Jake smiled an apology at him as he headed for his own desk, ignoring the frown that earned him for how out of character it must seem he was acting in favour of sighing with relief when Bradley said, “I think we’re gonna run outta time soon, but I’ll call you tomorrow, okay, baby?”

It took more than that one conversation, a lot more, for Jake to truly start believing Bradley’s promises again, but once they were through the other side of it, he felt more secure than ever in the knowledge that there wasn’t much in the world that could shake his faith in their relationship.

Chapter Text

Javy was the first one to break the silence the squad were shocked into, slipping off of the barstool he had been sat on and weaving his way around the pool table to haul Bradley into a tight hug. “S’fucking good to see you, man.” They slapped one another on the back a couple times in a manly way before Javy pushed Bradley back like he wanted to take a proper look at him. “How are you?”

“Good, yeah,” Bradley chuckled as he took Javy in in the same manner, reaching up to pat at his cheek and draw attention to the goatee he had been growing of late. “This is new.”

“Like you can talk,” Javy snorted, waving off the rest of the squad’s laughter the same way he had been for a while now with a gesture towards the moustache.

“Hey, I was gonna shave ‘til this one pitched a fit.”

Bradley threw a thumb over his shoulder at Jake, as if it wasn’t already obvious who he was talking about. Jake just grinned in response, pleased to see that either the comradery the two of them had been developing before Bradley was locked up had genuinely lasted or they were both putting in the effort to pretend like it had anyway.

Javy had run through a gamut of emotions when he first heard about Bradley’s incarceration. In a misguided attempt to try and protect Jake from himself, he encouraged Jake to move on afterwards and forget Bradley, saying a bunch of judgemental and ignorant things he didn’t really mean and had later apologised for about the prospect of Jake loving a convict. As the full extent of how badly Bradley had been screwed over by the justice system revealed itself, how wrongful his conviction was, Javy had however become one of their biggest cheerleaders, helping Jake learn far more about criminal law than they ever should have needed to know as they compiled evidence to help secure Bradley’s exoneration.

Though Javy and Bradley had only met a few times before and therefore weren’t actually all that close, Jake could see that the way they were acting like old friends had thrown the rest of the squad and that only would only make the rest of the evening that much more entertaining for him to sit back and watch.

Jake squeezed Bradley’s shoulder before stepping around Javy to greet first Nat and then Callie with the level of affection they had both come to expect from him.

“You good?” Nat asked in a sotto voice as he pressed a kiss to her cheek.

Jake hummed and flashed her a smile, conscious all the while of the small talk going on behind him between Javy and Bradley. Javy had taken charge of handling more individual introductions in Jake’s stead, as if he had sensed the need to keep the conversation light and superficial this evening rather than delving into them properly catching up. Jake could only hope the others followed his lead because the last thing he needed was someone upsetting Bradley with a careless comment or overly invasive question about what he had been through.

“It’s weird seeing you out of uniform,” Nat added as Jake swept Callie up in a fierce bear hug. “You don’t look like a real person in jeans.”

Jake laughed as he released Callie, humming again when she asked if he was okay in the exact same tone as Nat had. Callie rolled her eyes like she had been expecting something more than that, but let it go without an argument. “I always suspected you were checking me out, Trace, but it’s nice to hear it confirmed.”

“Fuck off.”

“Itching to get back in the cockpit yet?” Callie asked.

“It’s been two days,” Jake replied, graciously accepting the bottle Nat thrust his way like she hadn’t almost spilled beer on him. “Of course, I am.”

Nat chuckled tauntingly as a few of the others in earshot offered him sympathetic looks. “I dunno how you’re gonna survive the next month, man, you must really love him.”

“Damn straight,” Jake drawled. “Why else do you think I’ve been saving up all that leave?”

Jake could sense Bradley’s amusement from across the table and glanced over to find him watching them from the corner of his eye as Javy pressed a beer into his hand in a much friendlier manner than Nat had with Jake. He waited for Bradley to make eye contact and winked, ginning to himself when Bradley shook his head with a smile before responding to Mickey and Reuben’s welcome speech.

Getting to this point as a unit had been an uphill battle for the Daggers.

Their debut had left a lot to be desired from the brass about following orders and, given that it had seemed all but guaranteed that they wouldn’t be kept together after the fact anyway, none of them had been all that surprised when they were initially returned to their original postings after they were cleared to fly again. And then another situation cropped up which required their unique level of expertise and they had been rushed back to North Island a second time for last minute training before getting deployed all over again. Then rinse and repeat a third time before someone up high finally listened to Pete’s arguments about how much more effective the squad might be if they actually had time to develop their skills as a unit without the constant pressure of a deadline looming over them.

They had each been given the option of returning to their old squads after that and Jake had been the first to agree to stay, Bradley’s pending release being the biggest factor in his motivation for him wanting to stay in California on a permanent basis. The promotion he had secured as a result of the transfer to be Pete’s second in command was a close second. Working with the Daggers was much more preferable than any other squad in light of the rapport that they had developed over the last couple of years spent working together, after all. There was nowhere else in the world that Jake would have rather been stationed.

The squad knew the rough outline of Jake and Bradley’s relationship, various details having cropped up both organically and out of necessity whilst Jake was handling his part of the appeals process. There had been a mixed reaction at first. Part outright confusion over Jake’s commitment to Bradley when it belied everything that they had thought they knew about him, part sympathetic understanding for the impossible situation they were in, part abject horror over the reality Jake had been suffering through in silence for far longer than any of them could have imagined. It had earned him a begrudging kind of respect from those of the squad who had been taking their time in warming up to him and an unwavering measure of support from those who already considered him a friend.

“You know, you look nothing like what we were expecting,” Billy said, eyeing Bradley from where he had stretched across the pool table to take his shot. He and Nat had resumed the game they were playing when Jake and Bradley had arrived, as if to provide the group with a point of distraction as the two of them settled in. When he missed the shot and stepped aside to let Nat take her turn, he didn’t look bothered, perhaps just because he was more interested in pursuing the conversation that he had started than winning.

Bradley paused with his beer halfway to his mouth and slowly lowered his hand again as he mulled that over. His eyes flickered to Jake and back again as he snorted a laugh like he was seeking reassurance but trying to cover that fact before he asked, “that right?”

“Hangman was being pretty coy about sharing photos-”

“They’re all like a decade old and he barely looks the same anymore,” Jake interjected, knowing his protest was going to fall on deaf ears but feeling the need to defend that decision anyway.

“-and Coyote wouldn’t say shit.”

“Yeah, listening to y’all bet wrong was way more fun.”

“They were betting?” Bradley asked Javy, looking like he didn’t quite believe that.

“Fritzy here put down a frankly offensive amount of money on you being some big hulking black guy which I’m pretty sure was just some kind of cover for his own nasty ass fantasies.”

“Uh,” Bradley breathed out a strained chuckle, clearly unsure what to make of that. Billy spluttered over the accusation. His denials about never having said that only added fuel to the fire as the other guys pounced on that thread to start embellishing the details ruthlessly enough that Jake had to wonder whether Javy had been telling the truth. “Sorry to disappoint?”

“Oh, I promise you ain’t, baby,” Jake called, smirking as he blatantly checked Bradley out just for the sake of dragging some of the spotlight away from him.

“Keep it in your pants, Bagman,” Nat scolded, though it was more than likely that she knew what he was doing, before dedicating herself to clearing the rest of the pool table.

The taunting back and forth continued between them all as the evening progressed, an ebb and flow teased out as the squad slowly adjusted to Bradley’s presence. He fit in better than Jake knew any of them had been expecting. It was painfully clear to Jake just how much effort Bradley was putting in to make a good impression however, he could sense the toll it was taking on him the longer that they stayed. Jake may not have noticed it at first, busy catching up on all the drama he had missed from the last few days at work, but it was quite hard to miss once he was looking for it. There was a loud crash as someone from the group a few tables over from them tripped and fell over a barstool. With the resulting clatter of it hitting the ground and the jeering from the crowd, Jake couldn’t not see the way Bradley flinched. It wasn’t likely anyone else had picked up on his discomfort, the noise had drawn their attention that way, but Jake’s instincts had him looking to Bradley even before he had realised what he was doing, and then he could only curse himself for not being more considerate.

In what he hoped was a subtle manner, Jake slinked around to Bradley’s side, praying it looked more like he just missed being near him than that he was offering him physical reassurance, so that the squad would see it as his problem and not Bradley’s. He pushed him back further onto his seat and settled into the spot between his legs, drawing one of Bradley’s arms around his midriff and linking their fingers together as he felt Bradley’s chin hook over his shoulder.

Bradley didn’t ask what he was up to.

Based on the way he sighed and pressed a kiss to his cheek before tightening his grip, Jake assumed he knew, or could at the very least make an educated guess.

“Just say when you wanna go,” Jake murmured, confident that no one apart from Bradley and Javy (who was standing close enough and knew him far too well to be fooled by his acting) could hear him.

“I’m good, baby.” Jake hummed, not really believing him but trusting his judgement anyway. “Pete’s late.”

“Yeah,” Jake checked his watch with a frown.

“Bets on whether he’s avoiding me?”

Jake snorted, earning himself an arch look from Javy like he thought the two of them were behaving strangely. “I thought he’d be here early with, like, banners out to celebrate.” He felt Bradley shrug around him and, assuming that the matter was being dropped for now, turned his attention to Javy. “You know where Mav is?”

“Nope. He said he’d see us later after our hop this afternoon so I thought he’d be here by now too.”

Jake hummed as he nodded, not really expecting otherwise, and patted Bradley’s hand as he moved to stand again before grabbing a few of their empties to clear up for Penny. He figured if anyone would know where Pete was, it would be her, but he didn’t want Bradley seeing how concerned he actually was about him being late.

“I’ll go grab us another round,” he said, to the delight of the rest of the squad who had long since stopped gawking and refocused on the ongoing game of pool.

“You look happy,” Penny said once they had gotten through their standard greetings and she had started piling beers on a tray for him. “Must be a relief having Bradley back, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

“The last time I saw him he was only yay high,” she murmured, waving her hand against a spot just below her waist. “Send him over in a bit for me, I want to catch up.”

“Mm, will do. Jimmy around? They used to work together,” he added by way of explanation when Penny frowned like she was confused by his question.

“Bradley used to work here?”

“Yeah, that’s how we met. When it was under much more subpar management, of course.”

Penny hummed like that news had pleased her somehow. A speculative gleam flashed in her eye which had Jake feeling a little nervous, but he ignored it for now, aware that he would only find out what that was about when she was good and ready. “He’s off tonight,” she said in answer to Jake’s original question. “But I’ll let him know that Bradley’s about when I see him next, I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see him.”

Jake grunted his thanks and took a breath before asking the million dollar question. “Speaking of… where’s Pete?”

“Ah,” Penny’s expression turned decidedly awkward, prompting Jake to raise his eyebrows as he waited for her to explain. “From what I understand, he froze out in the parking lot. Didn’t have it in him to come inside.”

Jake blinked a few times as he processed that news, struggling to make sense of it. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“I wish I was, Jake. It’s not like him. He didn’t say much in the text he sent me and he’s not answered any of my calls.”

“What the fuck am I gonna tell Bradley?”

“I was hoping he might not notice?” Penny admitted with a grimace. Jake scoffed, unsure where to start in explaining how much she had underestimated Bradley. “I think he just needs some time, Jake. It’s a big adjustment for all of you.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that.” Jake set his jaw as he tried to smother all of the bitterness he was feeling before he returned to the others. “I don’t get it. He fought me over going to pick him up because he was desperate to see him and now he’s just choosing not to be here?”

“He’s only human, Jake, he’s allowed to have his moments of doubt just like the rest of us.”

“Yeah,” Jake exhaled a short, sharp breath as he reminded himself that this was neither Penny’s fault nor her problem to handle. “Thanks, Pen. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, get it sorted.”

“Mhm, go easy on him for me?”

“I’ll think about it,” Jake agreed, reluctant to make any promises he couldn’t keep.

The squad’s enthusiastic reaction to more alcohol was enough of a cover for Jake to school his expression into something resembling neutral. He thought he might have gotten away with fooling them all until he clocked Bradley’s expectant expression and realised that he was waiting for him to explain himself. Jake knew he had never been very good at keeping things from him, especially not in person, but this was as humbling a reminder of that fact as any.

“What’s wrong?” Bradley asked in a quiet voice once Jake had finished handing out the beer, looping an arm around his waist to prevent him from escaping back to the other side of the pool table.

“Later, baby.”

Bradley’s expression hardened and the hold he had on Jake tightened as he showed off just how perceptive he could be. “Pete?”

“Not coming.”

“Right,” Bradley scoffed, “okay.”

Between that blow and the anxious reaction that Bradley tried to hide shortly afterwards when the bar started cheering over the ringing of Penny’s rule bell, it didn’t surprise Jake that he soon murmured something about needing to get some air. Jake was worried, of course, but he also respected Bradley’s desire for space. Sort of. He made a mental note to follow him outside if he didn’t come back within the next few minutes and took a few long, calming breaths.

“So…” Reuben began, looking like he was quite purposefully focusing on the shot he was about to make so that he didn’t have to meet Jake’s gaze. “Bradley’s pretty intense, huh?”

“That a bad thing?” Jake asked, unable to keep the edge out of his tone.

“No, man,” Reuben chuckled, potting the ball he had been aiming for before eyeing the table as he pondered his next move. “He’s just nothing like what I expected.”

Jake huffed out a laugh, “yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. He’s changed a lot actually.”

“You guys okay?” Javy asked, voice low even though it was obvious he wasn’t trying to hide the question from the others.

“Yeah, we’ll be fine. It’s just…”

“Not what you expected?”

“No,” Jake shook his head, “which is bullshit because I didn’t know what to expect in the first place, so there’s no reason for me to feel so weird about it.”

“I mean…” Javy pulled a face like he thought Jake was being purposefully obtuse, which was probably correct if Jake was being honest with himself. “It’s early days, man, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“He’s way less angry than I was expecting him to be.”

If anyone but Javy had said that, Jake might have taken offence, but he knew it came from a place of love because, when he barked out a laugh in spite of himself, Javy grinned like that reaction had been his only goal. He opened his mouth to joke around about how much he enjoyed angry Bradley, but he was beaten to the punch by Billy’s complaining.

“How come when I talk about my expectations I get thrown under the bus, but you guys just laugh like it’s nothing?”

“Because you brought his looks into it, man, and I swear to god, you’d better not be attracted to my boyfriend.”

“I’m not!”

“How?” Callie asked.

“I’m straight?” Billy replied, but his tone sounded far less certain that it was probably intended it to be.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Callie insisted as a bunch of the other equally as straight as Billy guys chimed in, agreeing that they did in fact think Bradley was a pretty attractive man. “Hell, I’m gay the wrong way and I’d probably still climb that man like a tree if I was given the chance.”

“You’re never gonna get one, dickhead,” Jake said.

“Oh, of that I have no doubt.” Callie fixed Jake with a guileless smile as the rest of the squad laughed over Jake’s defensiveness. “It is abundantly clear that he only has eyes for you, man.”

“As it should be.” Jake harrumphed and took a sip of beer before taking a breath to change the subject, curious beyond measure about what the squad thought about Bradley when they weren’t treating him like an exciting new piece of eye candy. “Anyway-”

“Wait,” Billy cut in, “I’d also like to set the record straight on the fact that I have never before in my life said the words ‘big hulking black guy’. Bradley thinks I’m a fucking psycho now thanks to Coyote.”

Jake was laughing before Billy even finished his sentence, like most of the others. The defensiveness in his tone only made things worse. He was almost wheezing as he tried to regain enough control over himself to ask, “were y’all even betting?”

“Nah, I just made that up to get a rise outta Bradley,” Javy admitted. “He didn’t find it anywhere near as funny as I thought he would.”

“Yeah, why would he?”

Javy shrugged like he didn’t believe it needed thinking about all that deeply, his expression staying light and open despite how serious his tone became all of a sudden when he said, “it’s good to see you happy again.” Jake ducked his head, caught between deflecting that measure of attention and leaning into it so that they could go back to laughing. “What? It was touch and go for a minute there, man.”

“I know.” Jake breathed out a relieved chuckle as reality seemed to hit him in a way it hadn’t before. “I got him back though.”

“So, when’s the wedding, Bagman?” Nat asked, looking far happier for him than her tone suggested.

“God, don’t let him hear you say that. I’ve already had to turn down one proposal.” Jake huffed a short laugh and took a sip of beer as the others stared at him with varying degrees of shock. “What?”

“What do you mean, what?” Mickey said.

“What do you mean turn down, I think is the question you mean to ask,” Reuben corrected.

“What the fuck, Jake?” Javy added, talking over the both of them.

“What?” Jake said again, wishing he had had the foresight to keep his mouth shut. “You’re telling me that if I had shown up here two days after he got out flaunting my brand-new engagement, none of you would be questioning my judgement in the slightest?”

There was a long beat of silence as they all mulled over that argument before Nat conceded, “he’s got a point actually.”

“Oh, thank you so much.” Jake’s tone was laced with sarcasm. He knew he had made the right decision, regardless of how much his heart was yearning for him to do the stupid thing, so it hurt a little to have had everyone so unanimously doubt him. “I told him it was too soon and that he should ask again when it felt right.”

“You’re leaving it up to him?” Neil asked, the only squad member who was currently married. There were a few divorces in the mix and others, like Jake, who were in longer term relationships, but the majority suffered from the chronically single military bug and didn’t seem all that inclined to search for a cure.

“I have to.” Jake shrugged at the frowns that earned him, realising in the moment that they didn’t get it, and probably wouldn’t even after he had tried to explain himself. “He needs to learn how to be in charge of his own life again.”

Mickey scoffed, “who knew you could be so fucking considerate.”

“Yeah,” Reuben chimed in, “where’s this Hangman when we’re up in the air?”

“Sorry, boys, Bradley gets special treatment.”

“I guarantee he ends up asking again way sooner than you’re expecting,” Nat said, smirking at him when Jake raised his brows at her and tried to decide if he should take her up on that bet. “Dude looks at you like you hung the fucking moon. He’s probably counting down the seconds ‘til he can get you locked down with a ring.”

Jake scoffed but didn’t otherwise dignify that with a response, feeling strange about how easy Bradley was to read even though he had always known just how blatantly he wore his heart on his sleeve. He finished the last of his beer and set the bottle on a free spot of their communal table before straightening up and heading for the back door. The conversation continued on behind him, the squad content enough to discuss his relationship without him present without feeling the need to ask him where he was going. That much was obvious, after all. Jake didn’t mind them being so gossipy, he could be just as bad as the rest of them when he wasn’t the centre of attention, and given what they were willing to say in front of him, he wasn’t all that concerned about the opinions they were choosing to hide. He had bigger problems to worry about as it was anyway, like tracking Bradley down.

Because he wasn’t on the back porch when Jake finally weaved his way through the crowd to make it out there.

Or in the immediate vicinity.

Jake was seconds away from heading around front to see if he was perhaps waiting in the truck so that they could go home, half cursing him already for not having asked him to come out sooner when he caught sight of something in the corner of his eye further down the beach and stopped with a sigh. An odd, melancholy feeling settled in his chest at the maudlin picture Bradley painted. Perched just short of where the waves were lapping at the wet line they had drawn in the sand. His back was curved in a resigned posture, his neck tensed with thick, corded muscle. After a moment’s hesitation, Jake started forwards, and he became more and more convinced with every step that Bradley was seconds away from breaking down.

“I can’t remember the last time I touched sand,” Bradley said, his tone much more conversational than Jake had primed himself to expect as he eased down to sit next to him. He left some space between them out of respect for whatever headspace Bradley was currently in, but he was still close enough to note the way his breath seemed to hitch before he spoke again. “I lived by the beach my entire life, my mom used to have to drag me outta the water by the ear when she wanted to go home, and now… I- has it always been that big?”

“The ocean?” Jake clarified, just to make sure that Bradley was aware of his surroundings enough to hear him. If he was lost in his head, Jake could sit here silently, he would be happy just to keep him company, but he suspected that Bradley was looking for more support than that. His nod was barely perceptible, but Jake still saw it. “Yeah, baby,” he said, voice softer than it had ever been before. He hooked his arm through Bradley’s as he edged closer and tipped his head to rest against his. “You just have a different perspective now.”

“I don’t know how to do this.”

Jake frowned, straightening up enough to look at him again. “What?”

“I thought I’d just- I don’t know, I promised myself I’d get out and bounce back and be normal again as quickly as I could for you-”

“Bradley, I don’t need you to do that.”

“I’ve wasted so much of your time already, I’m gonna end up holding you back…”

“What are you saying?” Jake asked, pulling away from Bradley as he straightened up to look at him properly. “Bradley?”

He hesitated for long enough that a hauntingly familiar tendril of fear started inching its way into Jake’s gut, gaining power with every second that Bradley didn’t do something to chase it away.

“I-”

“Don’t you fucking dare-”

“What?” Bradley looked genuinely surprised by the vitriol in Jake’s tone, ripping his gaze away from the horizon to frown at him. The confusion in his expression was soon replaced with dismay as he seemed to replay what he had said from Jake’s perspective and realise how his words could be misinterpreted. “No, oh, god, no, baby.” He reached for Jake and breathed out a rueful chuckle against the top of his head once it was tucked under his chin. “Sorry, baby, I didn’t mean-” Jake felt him swallow like he was trying to choose his words with much more care now. He squeezed his eyes shut as he tightened his hold on him and waited, giving him the benefit of the doubt now where he had neglected to before. “I want to be the kind of man you deserve, Jake, and I’m still coming to terms with just how much work that’s gonna take.”

Jake pondered for a long moment, allowing the sound of the waves to fill what might have otherwise been a tense silence between them, before he gave up on trying to make the same mental leaps Bradley had to reach that conclusion.

“Me saying that I want you exactly the way you are isn’t gonna magically make you get over this particular hangup anytime soon, is it?”

Bradley snorted; his tone wry like the change of tact had taken him off guard. “No, probably not.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“I know, baby, but you shouldn’t have to settle.”

Jake guffawed at that, unable to stop the sound from escaping him no matter how unattractive it sounded. He sat up again to look Bradley in the eye as he asked, “what about our relationship exactly gives you the impression I’m settling?” Bradley arched his eyebrows like Jake had asked a stupid question. “Baby, believe me, if I was gonna settle, I would’ve taken up any one of the dozens of guys who’ve hit on me since you got locked up on the offers they were making and forgotten all about you. I know what I want and that’s you. Why the hell else do you think I waited all these years?”

“Because-”

“If the end of that sentence isn’t ‘you love me’ then you can walk home.”

Bradley huffed a laugh, pressing his lips together as if to take a moment to reset before he conceded, “because you love me.”

Jake darted in to kiss Bradley with deadly precision. Having recognised the look in his eye that said he was seconds away from whisking him off to bed (or, more accurately the truck, as it would be in this case), he pulled back too quick for him to have the chance to deepen things and rose to his feet, holding out a hand to both help him up and lead him back to the bar.

“Baby,” Bradley began, angling for them to take the long way around to the front. “Let’s go.”

“You have to talk to Penny first.”

“Wha-” Bradley chuckled, “it’s fine. I’ll catch up with her another time, I-”

“She specifically asked to speak to you tonight, Bradshaw, and unlike you, I know better than to not do as she asks.”

Bradley tugged for them to stop as they reached the back porch, looking frustrated but resigned to doing what he was told. “Fine. But don’t think you’re getting out of telling me more about these ‘dozens of guys’ who’ve been hitting on you.”

“Jesus, Bradley, really?”

“Oh, I want details. And I’m owed a story about-”

“Alright, Christ, we can talk about it when we get home if it means that much to you.”

“It does.” Jake rolled his eyes, refusing to let up even when Bradley kissed him soft enough to soothe the irritation that he felt over having been stupid enough to circle them back to this conversation again. “I wanna know so I can do it better, baby.”

Jake scoffed, “you already have.”

Bradley hummed like that pleased him, but he didn’t otherwise respond as they re-entered the bar. He squeezed Jake’s hand once before they headed in opposite directions, him straight into the hug Penny dragged him around the other side of the bar to receive and Jake to the taunting reception of the squad, who had seen enough of their sappy debating out on the porch to think it was warranted even though they hadn’t heard the content of their conversation.

Jake handled goodbyes for them both, deflecting the concern wafting off of Nat and Callie as he offered them both tighter than usual hugs and clapping a hand on Javy’s shoulder as he spouted off some bullshit about them trying not to miss him too much. He avoided the question about when they should expect to see them next, even as he promised that he fully intended to keep showing Bradley off now that he had him back. Some sixth sense of his told him when exactly to head for the door and he met Bradley there so that they could leave together, hand in hand.

Chapter Text

The first time Jake met Pete Mitchell he didn’t know who he was.

In his defence, Jake had been playing enforcer for Penny’s rules at the time and had been caught up in the whirlwind of anticipation that was being one of a select few handpicked for some top secret, last minute, high stakes mission where he knew, based on the names and faces of who else had made the cut, that he was all but guaranteed to be named team leader before they had even started training, and he hadn’t ever been told what he looked like, so he hadn’t known what to expect.

Jake knew his name and that he was also a fighter pilot, but that was it.

He had heard murmurs about Pete’s reputation, of course, it would have been impossible for him not to, especially when he was compared to him sometimes by some of the older instructors from that generation, but he avoided the details as much as possible out of respect for Bradley’s wishes.

Jake used to daydream sometimes, before he was locked up, about Bradley pulling his head out of his ass and reconciling with his remaining family so that he could then bring him home to meet them. That was all it had ever been though. A fantasy. Bradley had still been far too hurt and angry over the ways he had been betrayed back when they first started dating to even reference Pete in random anecdotes let alone mend fences and, unlike his actual parents, he hadn’t displayed any photos of him around the house for Jake to stumble across. Even when Jake had packed up their things into storage to make way for their renters, he hadn’t found anything to help fill in the gaps of that particular mystery. Then again, at that time, Pete was one of the last things on his mind. And the same went in all of the intervening years between then and when he made his grand entrance in their very first morning briefing for The Mission.

It was like Jake had been struck by a live wire the moment Warlock said Pete’s name. He sensed the odd look Javy threw his way when he must have felt him stiffen in his seat, but couldn’t react to it when he was channelling every single bit of focus that he had into keeping the emotions rioting in the back of his mind out of his expression. Aside from Javy, who started grilling him about what was wrong the moment they were dismissed, all anyone looking at him would have seen was the sudden straightening of his shoulders, and that was hardly out of character when it was in response to an introduction to their new commanding officer.

Rationally, he had always known that this moment was coming.

Bradley had kept him updated in a roundabout way about his reconciliation with Pete, seeming to sense that, whilst Jake was pleased for him with all the progress they had made over the years, he didn’t really want to hear about Pete visiting when he was still banned from going to the prison himself. It wasn’t quite jealousy. Nor resentment. Jake respected Bradley’s decision and had come to terms with it as best he could over the years, but that didn’t make it easy to stomach the fact that Bradley was willing to let other people visit and yet still refused to see him. Especially when they were still working their way through the sixth year of Bradley’s incarceration by that point and Jake had been yoyoing back and forth between despairing over how long they still had to wait and celebrating the fact that they were over halfway through his sentence for months now.

Knowing that he was going to have to face Pete at some point, that it was all but guaranteed that he already knew who he was, didn’t stop Jake from showing off however, from trying his absolute best to destroy him in the air, from being himself and leaning on the safety net that was the general assholery which came hand in hand with his reputation. The rest of the squad seemed content to worship at Pete’s feet like he was some invincible god whose presence they should feel grateful to be in. Jake knew too much to even pretend. Pete was human just like the rest of them. He had made enough mistakes with Bradley that that had to be the case.

“Hangman, stay put, the rest of you are dismissed,” Pete said after cutting off yet another heated debate in the debriefing room, acting as if he hadn’t instigated the fight between Jake and Natasha at all with his bullshit why is your wingman dead game.

There were a few oohs, taunting laughs, and one muttered you’re in trouble from the others as they filed out, but Jake was too busy maintaining his poker face as he stared Pete down to pick out particular voices and assign them names.

He remained in his seat, as per his orders, and watched as Pete quite visibly debated whether to stay standing behind the podium or sit with him before he started whatever lecture this was supposed to be. In another context he might have found it amusing, but Jake was too busy now trying to ignore the countdown in the back of his mind guessing at how long it would take before Bradley was mentioned.

They were at the tail end of their first week of training and things were already far too tense for anyone’s liking.

How the squad was supposed to survive the rest of this detachment, let alone the mission itself, was beyond Jake, but then again, that wasn’t his problem to manage. It was Pete’s. Jake was already doing everything that was expected of him, and then some, and he suspected that, if not for the awkward personal tension between him and Pete which they had yet to even acknowledge, he wouldn’t have been getting singled out anywhere near as much as he had been so far.

It also didn’t help his general peace of mind that it had been a few too many days now since he had spoken to Bradley. There had been a riot in the prison. Bradley was fine, so far as Jake could tell, but the inmates were still on lockdown and there was no way of knowing when that would be lifted. It had Jake on edge. As did him being back in California in the first place. He didn’t visit often, only returning if he had to when duty called or to assist in the general management and upkeep of his and Bradley’s home, and even then he only stayed for a day or two at a time. It didn’t feel right being so close to Bradley and yet further from him than he had been in years. Especially when Bradley didn’t even know that he was back yet.

“Bradley’s only mentioned you a handful of times over the years, but I’m disappointed to say, you fall short of the expectations he set.”

Evidently, they weren’t even thinking about beating around the bush before diving into the heavy stuff.

Jake breathed out a disbelieving scoff, easing back in his seat as Pete stared down at him. Judged him, it seemed, based on whatever conclusions he had drawn for himself. Hearing Bradley’s name set Jake down the wrong path of defensiveness however, too on edge as he was from the lack of contact to act rationally about their relationship being thrown in his face by someone who didn’t know him.

“Guess I shouldn’t ask whether he said good things or not then?” He asked, tone lighter than he assumed Pete was expecting.

“Far as I can tell, he worships the ground you walk on.” Jake wanted to be flattered, he usually would be hearing offhand how much Bradley loved him, but Pete’s lip curled like the thought displeased him. “With everything I’ve seen so far, I can’t for the life of me figure out why.”

Jake sucked on his teeth as he swallowed down his disappointment over the lack of approval he was receiving and shook his head. “What can I say, Maverick, I’m an acquired taste.”

“You’re a threat to everyone who goes up in the air with you.”

“Hell,” Jake wished it wasn’t instinct for him to start smirking when he was insulted, but there he was, looking like he was seconds from laughing at Pete for what he had said. “Coming from you, that’s almost a compliment.”

Pete sighed, looking like a disappointed father as he rested his hands on his waist. “You’re part of a team, Hangman, or you’re supposed to be. If you keep on the way you are, you’re going to end up getting one of your team killed long before you succeed at this mission. Is that really what you want?”

Other than the perfected arch of his eyebrows, Jake didn’t dignify that with a response. He couldn’t quite tell what Pete interpreted his silence as, but he sighed again like Jake had let him down, so it couldn’t have been good.

“You know, I had hoped that the finer details of your reputation had been at least somewhat exaggerated, especially with how much it seems to overflow into your personal life, but-”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Jake said, temper flaring before he could rein it in. He stood, deciding there and then that he would handle whatever insubordination charges Pete wanted to file against him so long as it meant that he didn’t need to sit here and listen to this bullshit any longer. “You don’t know shit about me. Even with whatever Bradley has told you, I’d wager you don’t know shit about my personal life either.” Jake took a long, fortifying breath as their eyes met, to make sure his voice stayed steady. “It is your job to pull this team together, not mine, and we both know that the only way we have a hope in hell of succeeding is if the others pull their heads outta their asses and speed up, so you continuing to pretend like I’m the problem ain’t gonna win you any prizes.” Jake scoffed as he swallowed down the dozens of other things that he might have liked to say about Pete’s leadership skills, stepping closer to the podium to lower his voice as he concluded on the off chance anyone was listening in. “And, so we’re clear, sir, throw Bradley’s name in my face again and you won’t have to worry about either of us making it through this mission.”

Jake turned and left the room without waiting for a response, hands shaking for his entire drive back to the base housing he had been assigned for the duration of the mission, frustrated and disappointed in himself for losing his temper. For making a bad first, second, third, whatever it was now, impression with Bradley’s family. For the reality of their relationship and the limitations of it when he knew all he needed to steady himself right now was the sound of Bradley’s voice.

Later, when he had calmed himself down with the tried and tested method of rereading Bradley’s letters over and over again like he didn’t already have the words memorised, Jake would wonder over the words Pete had said, the assumptions he had made, and the conclusions he had drawn, and try to make sense of the resentment he seemed to feel towards him without success, but it took him a long time to recentre enough to act so rational when he was going through it all on his own.

Jake hadn’t known what to expect when he showed up for training the next morning, early and looking like he was raring to go as usual. He fumbled is way through reassuring Javy he was fine and deflecting the curiosity of the rest of the squad, leaving them all sat in an awkward silence in their briefing room before Pete arrived to set out their goals for the day ahead. When he announced his plans to take them to the beach for team bonding, Jake had to fight hard to stifle the laugh he could feel building in his gut. It felt surreal to hear him suggest it and no one had truly believed he was serious until he sent them all back to the locker rooms to change from their flight suits into more appropriate attire. Even after they arrived, it seemed no one really knew what to make of this development until after Pete laid out the rules of the game that he had made up to get them to learn how to work together. The threat of competition had the entire squad loosening their shoulders as they relished in the opportunity to show each other up.

Somehow, Pete’s plan worked.

Jake could feel himself warming up to the others in spite of himself.

It wasn’t that he was against working with them, or that he didn’t trust them, there was just something about the suicide part of this mission that had him more nervous than he had ever been before going into combat. Jake had something he needed to come home for, after all. He had another four years he had to guarantee he would make it through before he saw Bradley again and putting his life in the hands of a group of people who hadn’t yet seemed to grasp how much danger they were heading into wasn’t exactly an appealing prospect. Jake would rather fly the mission alone and rely only upon his own skills to bring himself home than put faith in anyone else when the stakes were that high.

Embracing the team throughout the many games of dogfight football they played that morning was making him start to think that maybe he had had it wrong however, and Jake was so relieved by that prospect that he almost didn’t notice his phone was ringing at first.

He ducked out of the celebration huddle going on to check the caller ID on his screen and answered without even a second’s hesitation, throwing up a middle finger in response to the booing from the squad behind him over his sudden departure as he put some distance between them whilst he waited for the call to connect.

“Hey, baby.” Jake almost choked on the relieved sob which punched out of him at the sound of Bradley’s voice. He had to take a moment to catch his breath. Bradley seemed to sense his need for comfort in an instant. “I know, I’m sorry I missed a few of our calls, baby, I thought they’d never lift the goddamn lockdown.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, baby, it’s just the usual bullshit, you know I’m not involved in any of it.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t get hurt, Bradley.”

“I’m fine, I promise.”

Jake sucked in a deep breath as he sank down to sit on the sand and willed himself to believe that was the truth. He could see where the squad had started a new game further down the beach and where Pete was currently talking to Cyclone about something, the latter looking painfully out of place as he stood there watching his subordinates play football whilst in his uniform, and tried to project a calm demeanour with his posture as he rested his elbows on his knees in spite of the maelstrom of emotions working their way through the back of his mind.

“How’re you doing, baby?”

Jake barely stopped to consider the wisdom of asking, before the question he needed to know the answer to burst out of him. “What have you told Pete about me?”

“What?”

“I got recalled for training-”

“Wait, you’re home?”

“-and Pete’s here and he fucking hates me, Bradley-”

“There’s no way he could hate you, baby. What’re you talking about?”

Jake scoffed, realising in an instant that he couldn’t repeat any of the things Pete had said to him without risking destroying his relationship with Bradley. He took a breath, setting aside his own personal feelings, and asked again, “what have you told him?”

Bradley paused for a long moment before he said, “not that much really.” The tightness of his tone indicated both his discomfort and suspicion. “He knows who you are, how much I care about you, the details of the case… but I don’t like talking about you in here, it’s just-” Bradley swallowed audibly as he seemed to struggle over finding the right words. “It’s like I tried to explain before, I-”

“I know, Bradley. I get it.”

That much was the truth. Bradley had written it down, giving himself the time to think it over and figure out the right words where he struggled to explain himself over the phone. It was a side-effect of that overprotectiveness that was both a cornerstone of and problem in their relationship. Part of it was self-preservation with not wanting to advertise the fact that he was gay in prison too, and with not wanting to give the people around him any ammunition to use against him. He wasn’t hiding the fact that he was in a relationship, Jake didn’t think that much was possible at this point, but there was a reason why he never said Jake’s name when they talked over the phone. It was another one of those things that Jake had had to accept as part of their reality, and had long since done the work to come to terms with.

“I’m not mad, I’m just trying to figure out what his problem is.”

“I honestly don’t know, baby. Anytime you do come up it’s basically just an opportunity for me to talk about how amazing you are.”

Jake scoffed, feeling every inch of the blush creeping up the back of his neck, “stop.”

“Not possible, I love you too much.” Jake could hear the smile in Bradley’s voice as he chuckled and returned the affections. “But my point is, it’s not like I’m here bitching when you do come up, he’d have no reason to think badly of you.”

“I don’t know what the fuck his problem is then.”

"What’s going on, baby?”

Jake sighed, “I can’t say much.”

“I know.”

“Something big’s coming up.”

“And you’re working together?”

“Trying to.”

Bradley scoffed, “Jesus, I should’ve seen this coming.”

“What, are you adding being psychic to your list of skills now?”

“No,” Bradley scoffed a laugh, “I just- it’s just our luck that this is how you guys meet, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Do I need to be worried?” Jake sighed. He wasn’t one for sugar coating things, Bradley would hate him for that, but it wasn’t like he could share any real details, especially not on a recorded call like this one. His lack of an answer seemed to be enough to tell Bradley what he needed to know however, because he just sighed as well. “You’ll fly like hell, won’t you, baby?”

“Always.”

There wasn’t much left for them to say about the mission after that. There never was. Bradley disliked the reality of Jake’s life just as much as vice versa but it was yet another one of those things which neither of them could change. He respected how much Jake loved his job, that would never be a problem between them, but Jake knew Bradley resented the fact that he wasn’t around to see him off before his deployments, that he couldn’t be there to welcome him home, and that he was one of the last people who would find out if something went wrong.

It hit a little harder than it usually did with this mission.

They spent the rest of the call catching up as best they could when so much went unsaid between them. Bradley was intrigued by the concept of dogfight football and enjoyed the commentary Jake provided on the game the rest of the squad was in the middle of at that point in their conversation. Much too soon however, like usual, they were forced to wrap up. Bradley told Jake that he loved him, that he wanted him to stay safe and come back home in one piece, just like he always did, and yet there was an added weight to it this time which pained Jake to hear. It was all he could do to breathe through his fears as he said the same in return. Twice over, just in case that was the last time Bradley ever heard it. Bradley asked how long they had and promised to try and call every day that he could until Jake shipped out as a point of principle, and then the line disconnected as their time ran out.

The rules they had to adhere to were frustrating as hell on a normal day, but adding them on top of everything else he was dealing with now made Jake want to scream until he lost his voice like that might somehow help him feel better.

Not that he was given much time to wallow.

Jake hung his head between his knees as he tried to calm himself for only a few seconds before he heard the squad’s calls for him to hurry up and rejoin the game. As if they had been keeping an eye on him and were eager to bring him back into the fold again. Drawing on something deep inside him for the kind of strength he hadn’t even thought he was capable of summoning, Jake stood and sauntered back towards them like absolutely nothing was wrong. He dropped his phone on his shirt as he passed by the spot where he had abandoned it earlier, no longer feeling the need to keep it close now that he had spoken to Bradley today, and fixed a grin in place whilst he ignored the prickle on the back of his neck from how closely he could sense Pete watching him.

“That better’ve been an important call, Bagman,” Natasha said as he fell in beside her for the next play. “If they just won a few touchdowns because you had to waste time talking to mommy dearest, I’m gonna-”

“You don’t think talking to your mom is important, Phe?”

She backhanded his arm without even looking up. “I told you to stop calling me that, dickhead.”

Jake tutted disapprovingly and shook his head, ducking to hide the much more genuine smile he was now sporting as he ignored the rest of the taunts about what he had been up to and the game restarted in earnest. They managed to while away a few more hours before Pete finally called for them to wrap up, leading them up to the Hard Deck with a promise about how the first few rounds were on him whilst he beelined for Penny’s side. Javy caught Jake’s eye as they donned their shirts again, knowing without having to be told that Penny would never let them get away with not being properly dressed in her bar.

“Hey, was it-”

“Yeah,” Jake cut him off before he could say Bradley’s name, far too conscious of the prying ears around them. After everything, he wasn’t really in the mood for getting into his personal life tonight if he could help it.

“He okay?”

“Mm,” Jake nodded, grateful that Javy had enough insight not to push him for details but the consideration to check-in regardless. He had shared the barebones details with Javy a few days earlier when they had a moment alone in the locker room, venting his frustration over not being able to talk to Bradley desperately enough that Javy had been watching him with an element of concern ever since. “You know how it is.”

“He-”

“So, who were you talking to, Bagman?” Mickey asked, loud enough to draw everyone’s attention as they went about brushing off the worst of the sand.

Jake left a long enough pause before answering to annoy the others out of pettiness, sliding his sunglasses down his nose to meet Mickey’s eye when he eventually said, “mommy dearest.”

He and Javy started walking up towards the bar as one, leaving the rest of them to their confusion over that blatant lie. Javy snorted the moment they were out of earshot, making Jake chuckle and soon the both of them were outright laughing as they stumbled through the back door of the Hard Deck.

“They’re never gonna let that one go,” Javy warned as they regained control over themselves enough to put in the first order of the night.

Jake shrugged when the rest of the squad came up behind them, letting the matter drop for as long as he could. He wasn’t hiding Bradley; he just knew the kind of interrogation he would be subjected to for the sake of their nosiness and he wasn’t anywhere near the right kind of mindset to withstand that tonight. Not that anyone cared. It was as if he was being set up by some divine intervention to talk about everything that he hadn’t wanted to, but the realisation that that was the case came far too late for him to make a successful escape.

Where the squad would usually devolve into bar games and meaningless competition, the all-day football game seemed to have wiped them out from playing against one another for the rest of the evening. They descended upon one of the corner booths and made themselves comfortable as a unit. Jake didn’t know who exactly – he was a few beers deep by that point and lost in the same debate he and Javy had been having for years now about the merits of hockey verses football – but eventually someone suggested the first drinking game of the night. Shots were bought, inhibitions were lowered, and they were a group of overgrown children, so no one batted an eye when ‘drinking game’ became nothing more than code for them to talk about their sex lives. Jake stayed out of it for the most part out of long ingrained habit, preferring to sit back and watch rather than chime in with details about his own relationship status, but eventually Logan brought down the tone by demanding to know everyone’s body count.

Jake supposed most of his motivation was just in wanting to brag about his number, but then the others started chiming in with enough relish to tell Jake that this was going to be a thing whether he liked it or not. Brigham followed up with an equally respectable figure, seeming proud of the fact that he had upped it the most recently out of all of them thanks to some pretty redhead he had been flirting with the other night. Mickey and Reuben looked thrilled when they announced, in unison, that they were both able to match him, offering high-fives around like they were trying to bring him into the fold on some pact they had made where they had done that on purpose. The whole interaction felt wrong on so many levels. Jake had to fight back a laugh when he met Javy’s eye and clocked that he was thinking the same thing.

Callie shocked most of the guys when she revealed that, much to their surprise, she was just as prolific at picking up women as them. Jake couldn’t help himself for cheersing her out of respect as the conversation moved on, earning himself a knowing look that said she understood exactly where the solidarity was coming from.

Javy chimed in himself with a number Jake questioned against his better judgement, discovering then that his friend had been holding out on him with a few of his more recent conquests. He set himself up for the tangent they all took as he demanded he share the details later as the rest of the squad didn’t appreciate the thought of being left out of the loop. Javy’s insistence over not kissing and telling didn’t hold half as much water as it should have when he had already showed his hand on how much he shared with Jake.

Bob, Billy, and Natasha, all avoided scrutiny with lessening degrees of rowdiness, each of them managing to sidestep any further interrogation with offhand comments. Bob looked put out by the other guys’ shaking him with excitement and Jake turned his laugh into a cough as he watched him place the celebratory shot that he had been handed back on the table with obvious confusion over why they were so proud of him. Billy seemed almost insulted by the fact that his number was higher, but he wasn’t given chance to act pig-headed about it because Neil was dragged into the spotlight in time to finally bring a degree of romance into the equation with the way he proudly announced he had married his high school sweetheart. Between the way the squad was aww-ing over that revelation and their nonplussed reaction to Natasha shrugging off any inquisition about her number with the casual explanation that she had been dating her current boyfriend for years now, Jake had hope that he might get through this unscathed.

And then the squad turned on him and he had to hide his nerves with a long pull of beer.

There was a reason why he kept this shit private and it had nothing to do with his own personal hangups.

“I’m honestly not sure I even wanna know,” Logan began. Jake resented him for being the instigator of this whole conversation. “It’s gonna be fucking inhuman.”

Javy’s laughter didn’t help the situation.

“I’d like to qualify something first…” Jake hedged.

“Penetrative sex only, Bagman,” Natasha clarified, pre-empting his line of thought.

“You needed to check?” Billy asked, sounding so naïve that Jake knew that was a genuine question.

Jake snorted as Javy covered for him, “gay guys can get pretty imaginative, man, you don’t wanna know.”

“Wait, you’re gay?” Billy leaned around Javy to stare at Jake like he had never seen him before, the question so wholeheartedly earnest again that Jake almost didn’t have the heart to give him shit for being so dense. “Since when?”

“Oh, since I woke up one day and just decided, man. What do you think?” Jake met Callie’s eye as she huffed a quiet laugh and then looked upwards to school his expression into something less amused as he put the squad out of their misery before Logan’s curiosity killed him. “Well, if we’re talking penetrative only,” he drawled as if that was significant somehow, “then I only have Omaha beat.”

Jake took another sip of beer as the others processed, refusing to look Javy’s way as he waited for the fallout, worried he might laugh at the outright shock in some of the more ignorant guys’ faces if he met his gaze.

Brigham broke the silence with an arch, “you’re fucking with us?”

“If I was gonna lie, don’t you think I’d’ve picked a bigger number?”

Natasha was watching him with narrowed eyes, “do we wanna know what it is without that qualifier?”

“Never kept track,” Jake deflected with a shrug, refraining the urge to elbow Javy when he snorted beside him when he was aware of what that would give away to anyone watching him as closely as Natasha still was.

“There’s gotta be a story behind this?” Callie said, looking like she regretted doing so the moment the words left his mouth as if she thought she had broken some sort of unspoken gay code by inciting intrigue in the others that Jake quite clearly hadn’t been planning on indulging.

“Not really,” Jake muttered, resigning himself to laying out the facts with feigned indifference. “I figured out I was gay pretty quick after sleeping with my high school girlfriend. Grew up in the Bible belt and then joined the navy, so there weren’t all that many guys around worth trusting enough to hop outta the closet for. And I met my boyfriend when I was twenty-one, and shocker I know, but I’m no cheater. So, to quote our dear Phoenix here, ‘when exactly would I have had the chance’?”

Jake hadn’t quite been sure what reaction to expect, but the silence the squad was left in after he finished speaking was almost deafening. He forced himself to not react, refraining from even straightening his shoulders like his instincts were telling him to when he was unsure how that action might be interpreted.

“That’s, what, seven years together?” Natasha said, something far too calculating still present in her expression.

“Eight in October.”

She whistled like she was impressed, “never would’ve pegged you for that kind of commitment.”

Jake snorted, “me either. Then I met Bradley.”

“This is a side of you I don’t think I’ve seen before…”

“What can I say, Phe, I contain multitudes.”

She kicked him under the table, glowering as he laughed and rubbed at the spot on his shin. “Stop calling me that.” Jake grinned and took another sip of beer; confident it was clear by now that he wasn’t planning on doing that anytime soon. “So…” Jake waited for her to finish her sentence, guessing where it was leading with a sinking sense of resignation. “Why so tight-lipped?”

“Hm?”

“We’ve known each other for a good majority of those eight years, Bagman, and you’ve never mentioned him before?”

A few of the others chimed in agreeing with her, looking varying degrees of confused and put out by the supposed secrecy, but Jake was grateful when Javy cut all of the complaining off with a pointed, “it’s not like he’s some secret. Dude’s fucking obsessed with him.”

“For good reason.”

“Yeah, yeah, you guys are in love,” Javy’s tone turned mocking enough that Jake couldn’t help but laugh at it, “and you’re disgustingly happy together, and you basically invented the concept of soulmates.”

“Okay, I never said that last part.”

“No, but I bet Bradley has at one point or other.”

“Wait, have you met him?” Callie seemed so excited by the prospect that Jake couldn’t hold that interjection against her.

“Yeah, couple times. He’s a real good dude, crazy smart, head-over-heels for this guy,” he concluded, clapping a hand on Jake’s shoulder.

That seemed enough for almost everyone to draw a line under the conversation, having lost interest at different points along the way as they accepted the fact that Jake’s sex life was far less interesting than his reputation was designed to imply.

Natasha however, seemed incapable of letting it go.

“Kinda feels like you’ve been hiding him,” she insisted as Billy headed off to order another round of shots and the rest of the guys started comparing notes on favourite positions for whatever reason they deemed necessary. Callie pulled a face at the level of detail they were going into, edging closer to Natasha and propping her head on her hands to watch Jake squirm. “Are you guys long-distance or something?”

Jake snorted and finished off the last of his beer as a stalling tactic before muttering, “something, yeah.”

“So, where is he?”

Jake debated lying for the dozenth time that evening, but then Javy shifted next to him, as if he was bracing himself for impact, and Jake felt a distinct curl of self-loathing lick its way through his gut for even stopping to consider that option. He had never shied away from reality before, he wasn’t about to start now when he had nothing to be ashamed of. Jake took a breath nonetheless, because he knew this was going to be worse than anything else that had happened so far, and finally squared his shoulders, treating good posture like a safety blanket from the judgement of his squad.

“Prison.”

Jake couldn’t quite suppress his wince as Natasha’s jaw dropped. Javy shifted in his seat again, his arm pressing against Jake’s in unspoken support. Mickey’s head had snapped around after Jake spoke but the rest of the guys had yet to notice. Jake supposed that it was probably only a matter of seconds before the news spread and they realised they had missed the most important part of the story.

“Jesus,” Callie’s expression filled with wonder as she stared him down like she was looking for the moment where he cracked and revealed the joke none of them yet understood. “You’re serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

“What the hell, Jake?” Natasha finally unfroze, sounding like she was concerned for his wellbeing. “Why the fuck are you- how long has he been locked up?”

“Six years.”

She scoffed like she didn’t have the first clue where to start in unpacking that. Mickey had managed to cut short the guys’ debate by that point and redirect their priorities, but Jake refused to wilt under the weight of their combined stares. This was his life, after all. He didn’t have to justify jack shit to them if he didn’t want to.

“That’s a long time, Jake,” Natasha seemed hellbent on trying to open Jake’s eyes as if he was somehow delusional about the situation that he had found himself in. “What did he do, murder someone?”

“No. But he damn sure gave it his best shot.”

Jake left that comment there in the silence in garnered for a few moments before he thought to give them some kind of explanation.

“These guys jumped us on date night. Turns out they didn’t much like the fact that someone could be out and proud and also in the navy.” There was enough awkward shifting around their table at that news that Jake knew near enough everyone had gotten the point loud and clear. He didn’t waste time elaborating on the specifics of what they had said. The laugh he breathed out was far from amused as he continued, “they kicked the shit outta me.”

“I remember you being grounded for a couple weeks,” Natasha said, having clearly done the maths on that one and looking horrified to learn the real context behind it.

People had celebrated the news at the time.

The thought of the oh so mighty Hangman being banned from the air had been amusing for them.

Jake hadn’t bothered remembering the lie he had told to justify the injury for the rumour mill, but evidently it had been convincing enough to fool at least the rest of the pilots sitting at this table.

“Yeah.” Jake felt the same burning in the corners of his eyes that he always did when he thought back on this story and had to blink a few times to clear them. “Bradley saved my life, and then he got fucked over by the system and lost ten years of his own.”

“He still has another four to serve?” Callie asked in a low voice.

“Mhm.” Jake blew out a long sigh, dropping his head back against the bench behind him, conscious of how defeated he seemed now but unable to help himself. He hadn’t talked about this with anyone but Bradley and their lawyer for a while now and he had forgotten how exhausting it was. “We’re working on appealing it but it’s not a quick process.” A ripple of what felt like pity rang around the table which Jake was decidedly not a fan of. “Monica, our lawyer, she’s got her shit together though, so she’s pretty confident she’s gonna get him out before the end of his sentence. We’ve just gotta, you know, hope for the best…”

“This is who you were talking to earlier, isn’t it?” Ruben asked, seeming uncertain for some reason, even after Jake nodded. “Shit, so it really was an important conversation, huh?”

“They’ve been on lockdown; this afternoon was the first time we’ve talked all week.” This was perhaps the best opportunity to explain his attitude, Jake realised, to earn himself a little bit of leeway for the bitchiness that was all but guaranteed to come out the further they progressed through their training, and yet he still didn’t quite have the right words to explain himself. “This mission… I have to make it back for him.”

“Jesus, Jake.” There was a waver in Natasha’s tone that Jake had never heard before. She stared at him for a long, pensive moment once he met her eye, looking as if she was seeing him for the first time. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Yeah,” Jake barked out a scornful laugh and scrubbed a hand over his face in an attempt to reset, like the entire squad couldn’t see the cracks in the armour for what they were now. “And you wondered why you hadn’t heard about him before…”

What Jake didn’t know at the time of that confession, what he didn’t find out about until after the hellish ending to their training regime, and their entire trip out on the carrier, and him being selected as Pete’s wingman, and flying the mission, and getting shot down in a reciprocal saving each other’s lives firestorm, was that Pete had been there at the end of the table that night listening in. As he would later discover, Pete had stopped by to say goodbye to the squad just in time for Jake to start telling them the truth. He had been distracting the other guys until Mickey interrupted their conversation.

Part of Jake wanted to resent Mickey for the intervention when he found out about it, the other part was grateful.

Because it saved them in the end.

“I think I put a little too much stock in your reputation,” Pete confessed when they were laid out in the snow, scouting out a base with one working plane left in it, the outlines of a stupid plan to get home percolating in the backs of their minds. It was a non-sequitur. Neither of them had spoken for at least half an hour by that point. Jake thought he could be forgiven for not having the slightest clue what Mav was talking about until, a few minutes later, when he was magnanimous enough to elaborate. “I looked you up after the first time he mentioned you, found out you were stationed in Oceana, that you’d transferred after he went away. Drove by his place and found some couple I didn’t recognise living there even though he’d said he asked you to move in. Checked with the prison and knew you’d never visited. Heard all these whispers about how you’re known for leaving people behind…”

Jake scoffed, loud and harsh and bitter as he realised the magnitude of that misunderstanding, offended beyond belief even if though it was painfully clear to see how it had happened.

“I put two and two together and thought I’d gotten four.” Jake had to wonder how much thought Pete had put into that line. From his tone he would wager most, if not all, of the time they had been freezing their asses off. “I thought you were leading him on, that you weren’t planning on sticking around for long enough to still care about him when he got out. I thought you were going to end up breaking his heart.”

Jake scoffed again, quieter this time as he thought of his and Bradley’s history and how, if anything, it had only ever been the other way around. “All I’ve ever done is love him,” he said, too exhausted from everything else which had happened today to worry about how visible his weaknesses currently were. “I don’t know how to do anything else.”

“Yeah, I’m catching up to that fact now.”

“What gave it away?” Jake was almost scared to ask, but he figured he might need to know for self-preservation in the future.

“You said ‘our lawyer’,” Pete explained after confessing to his eavesdropping. It had been obvious, apparently. Jake’s heart had been written on his sleeve just like Bradley. “We’re doing this, we’re doing that, everything’s for him… it’s the same way Bradley talks.”

Jake explained away every single one of Pete’s misassumptions after they got home. They had the time to go through it whilst they were side by side in their hospital beds, after all. In a roundabout turn of events, Pete burned with indignant fury on Jake’s behalf for all the bullshit Bradley had put him through in the early years of his incarceration, doubly so because Bradley had done a piss poor job of ever explaining any of it to him. All Bradley had done was wax poetic, it seemed, he had had a harder time with sharing the gory details, especially when he was talking to someone like Pete who he had struggled over learning how to trust again.

In the end, Pete became someone who was important to Jake in his own right rather than by proxy of his relationship with Bradley. The work they put into cementing their relationship whilst they were left on the outside fighting Bradley’s corner together was what Jake leaned heavily upon when he had to call Pete to demand an explanation for why he, of all people, couldn’t step up and be there for his family when they needed him the most.

Chapter Text

“Answer your fucking phone, you goddamn coward,” Jake hissed as he stood in the kitchen, barefoot in his boxers, his voice low both in an attempt to mellow his anger and to reduce the chances of him waking Bradley up after the terrible night’s sleep he had had.

It was the first voicemail he was forced to leave.

The second, dropped later that same day, was equally as short: “what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You’d better not be dead because, I swear to god, if your guardian angel decided to take a day off when he needs you the most, I will figure out a way to revive you just so that I can then go ahead and kill you myself,” was the third, left a few days later because Bradley had unknowingly become very distracting in the intervening time and Pete had been the last thing on either of their minds.

“Pete, I’m actually getting worried now,” Jake said, concern bleeding through his tone in the fourth, which he recorded a week after that fateful trip to the Hard Deck. “Call me back? I-”

“Baby, you can stop doing that,” Bradley said from behind him, startling Jake enough that he almost dropped his phone. He whirled around to face him with a guilty expression etched across his face. The lack of surprise he was met with only made him feel worse. Bradley slinked forwards from where he had been leaning against their kitchen’s doorjamb to take the phone from Jake’s hand and ended the call himself before placing it on the counter and winding his arms around Jake’s waist. “There’s no use trying to make sense of it, he’s gonna do what he wants in his own time.”

Jake huffed a laugh, still a little flustered over having been caught. He toyed with the short hairs at the nape of Bradley’s neck as he murmured, “I thought you’d be more angry than this.”

“Yeah, well.” Bradley shrugged, far from taking offence when he knew that Jake knew him better than anyone. “I’m tired of being angry, baby. And Pete kinda peaked with letting me down already.” Jake couldn’t tell which of them the dismissiveness was supposed to be more reassuring for when all it did was break his heart. The acceptance in Bradley’s tone twisted the knife in with an added dose of bitterness. “Whatever this is… it’ll be harmless in the long run.”

“He should be here.”

“Yeah, but he’s not.” Bradley’s hands smoothed down to grip the back of Jake’s thighs, prompting Jake to jump as he hefted him up onto the counter. He leaned in as he made himself comfortable in the space between his legs to kiss Jake like it was the first time in years not just the first time that morning. His thumbs were brushing against the hem of his t-shirt as he pulled away to murmur, “I think we’ve got bigger priorities than Pete goddamn Mitchell.”

Jake stopped calling after that conversation.

The rest of the Daggers confirmed he was still showing up for work when Jake checked, so he supposed that was all the proof of life he was going to get until Pete was good and ready to pull his head out of his ass.

“Like what?” He asked instead, playing coy even as he rucked up the t-shirt Bradley must have only just put on after crawling out of bed.

“Oh, I don’t know…” Bradley sounded far too smug as his hands started wandering. “I have a few ideas…” Jake hummed, tipping his chin back to give Bradley more space to work with as his teeth grazed along the underside of his jaw. “How’re you feeling after last night, baby?”

Jake grunted at the question, squirming in place as Bradley’s fingers drifted along the band of his boxers. “Good,” he replied, ignoring the slight twinge in his lower back and hoping Bradley wouldn’t call him out on it. “Ready.”

“You think you’re still open for me, baby?” Jake nodded, uncaring of how eager that made him seem. “You think I could just slide on home again without taking the time to prep you?”

Jake had no idea if he was being honest – Bradley had spent what felt like forever doing that last night, leaving him loose and sloppy and feeling downright whorish before fucking him harder than ever before, like he was trying to leave something of himself deep inside of Jake for safe keeping, and finally unleashing the way Jake had been trying to encourage him to all week with repeated assurances about how confident he was that Bradley would never hurt him – but he was damn sure on board with testing the theory. The two of them had been working hard to put a dent in the amount of lost time they had to make up for in the last week. Jake had to wonder when one or both of them would run out of stamina and plead mercy, but it seemed like their desire for one another was only growing with each passing day.

That first week had been spent at home for the most part with them reconnecting.

Bradley shared some of the harder parts about what he had been through, hidden under the covers together as early morning light filtered through their bedroom window, whispering the details like that might make them seem less real. How terrifying it could be trying to keep his head down and survive in such a dangerous environment. The realities of minding his own business when gang fights and riots and other interpersonal dramas were working themselves out around him. His reluctance to get drawn into any of the traps set up to further his criminal career just for the sake of earning himself protection and how he had managed to circumvent that problem in the end by being himself. What happened when that plan seemed to backfire and then righted itself again… Some of it, Jake had known in bits and pieces already, the rest filled in the context he had been missing before.

In return, Jake answered all the questions Bradley had about the years when they hadn’t been speaking, about the man he had used to try and get over him, about how much he had struggled on his own.

Neither half of the conversation had been easy to handle. They surfaced later that morning, seeking out comfort food and reconvening on the couch for a few hours before retreating back to bed to end the day. It was whilst they were wrapped around one another in a tight embrace as they drifted off to sleep that they both promised they weren’t going to hold on to any of the hurt their words had caused.

Jake’s half of that agreement wasn’t made in vain, but processing the reality of what Bradley had been through because of him was a lot harder to do in practice than he had anticipated. He still woke up some mornings convinced he had dreamed him coming home, panicking if Bradley was out of bed before him because it only contributed to the irrational nature of his fears. Whenever his searching hands came up empty, he knew now to start with the back yard. He had checked every room in the house before thinking to look outside the first time, realising the moment he saw Bradley – bare feet planted firmly on the grass whilst his head was tipped back drinking in the endless expanse of the slowly brightening sky – that this was his way of grounding himself in reality as he clawed himself back from whatever brink his dreams had sent him to during the night.

It would take Bradley a long time to come out of his shell those mornings, but the silence didn’t bother Jake. Not when they were also the days where he would cling to him like he was the one at risk of disappearing.

The Daggers demanded a lot less attention after that first meetup at the Hard Deck, seeming to grasp without needing to be told now why Jake wasn’t feeling all that inclined to socialise at the moment. They were still checking in all the time, the usual crap on their group chat interspersed with carefully worded questions, well-intentioned offers for help if it was ever needed, and threats that they would all descend upon him to make sure he was okay whenever he didn’t respond in a timely enough manner to keep them updated. Jake appreciated their overall support too much to be bothered by how overbearing they could get.

Just like he appreciated Penny for her generosity and insight when he found out about the offer that she had made Bradley.

“It’s just a couple nights a week since Jimmy’s looking to cut his hours back, but it’s a pretty good starting point, right?” Bradley explained when he told Jake about it after he ended the impromptu phone interview Penny had subjected him to without warning. He said it like he was worried Jake might not approve, which made sense given how well the last conversation they had had about him thinking he needed to get a job had gone.

“Yeah,” Jake replied, “if it’s what you want?” Bradley nodded, gaining confidence. “She say when she wanted you to start?”

“Left it up to me… maybe week after next? That way I could get used to the routine before your leave ends?”

Jake pressed his lips together to hide his smile as he got the distinct impression that Bradley was quoting Penny there rather than making his own suggestion. “Sounds good, baby.”

“Shit,” Bradley chuckled, scrubbing both hands over his face as he eased back in his chair. They had been in the middle of breakfast at the time, cereal bowls now abandoned between them as they took stock of this new development. “This feels too easy.”

“What does?”

“Getting my life back together.”

Jake snorted, “mm, yeah, s’taken no work at all to get here.” Bradley rolled his eyes like he had gotten the point but Jake doubled down on the sarcasm just for the sake of it. “Must be real hard to believe you’ve circled all the way back to where you were when you were twenty-five.”

“Not quite,” Bradley scoffed, “I’ve got nothing to study for this time round.”

“That’s just semantics.” Jake eyed Bradley as he shrugged, taking in the tension in his posture with a measure of understanding he couldn’t yet make sense of. He knew something was off, he just didn’t know what. “You could get back into all of that if you wanted to…”

The smile Bradley offered him was too tight to be genuine. “It’s not quite that simple, baby.”

“Don’t tell me you’re gonna let that stop you?”

Bradley’s grin widened, “let me figure out a diplomatic way of explaining the last eight years for applications before you get too carried away with your expectations, okay?” Jake hummed out a laugh as he nodded, collecting their bowls as he stood to tidy up. “I’ll have a shit-ton of reading to catch up on anyway before I can even start to think about my own research again.”

“Was there not much taste for academic journals in prison?”

“You don’t even wanna know the state of the library, baby.” Jake could imagine, he had listened to enough complaints from Bradley over the years about how he had resorted to reading ancient legal texts when he had to just for something to keep his mind busy. “I can’t fucking wait to get stuck back in it.” Bradley got up to lean against the counter by Jake as he finished loading the dishwasher, tugging him in for a kiss by the collar of his tank top when he straightened up just because he could, it seemed. There was a look in his eye Jake couldn’t quite read when he pulled back which gave him pause. Bradley visibly grappled with his words for a moment before he said in a low voice, “I think I’ll just focus on bartending for a while. That shit’s easy, right? Can’t really fuck it up.”

“Bradley-”

“It’s fine. I’m fine, baby. Just don’t wanna get too carried away too quick, you know?” Jake wanted to believe that that was all it was but there was something telling him there was more here to do with how badly Bradley’s confidence had been knocked than anything else. “I’ve got enough student loans as it is already anyway,” Bradley added, tone lighter as it turned more teasing. “I mean, I don’t even wanna think about what’s happened to the interest while I’ve been gone…”

“Right,” Jake forced himself to laugh, “yeah.”

He turned away to set the dishwasher running more for a cover to avoid eye contact than because he really thought it needed doing right there and then.

“Jake…”

“Mhm?”

“Is there something you need to tell me?”

Jake knew he hadn’t been acting his most subtle right then, but he still thought he might have been given a little more reprieve than that to think of an adequate cover. He sighed, fixing what he hoped was a reassuring smile on his face as he met Bradley’s eye. “You can’t get mad,” he began, as he realised there was no point in lying when the truth would out eventually anyway. Bradley pursed his lips, like just Jake saying that had set him on edge, and crossed his arms like he was expecting something awful. “I, um, I may have paid them off already?”

Bradley blinked as he cocked his head, tone flat and quiet like he was convinced he must have misheard Jake when he said, “what?”

“I cleared your loans. I didn’t think we needed that debt looming over us forever.”

“Jake, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“I-”

“How the hell could you even afford that?”

Bradley seemed too stunned to be angry but it was painfully obvious he wasn’t happy with this news. Which Jake had expected. He shrugged, turning to start wiping down the counters as he continued tidying just so that he didn’t have to witness Bradley’s mounting frustration.

“I got it sorted after my inheritance came through.” The silence after that statement was palpable enough that Jake looked up in spite of himself. He bit back a laugh at the way Bradley’s mouth was gaping open as he stared at him. “It’s not that big a deal, Bradl-”

He cut off into a muffled grunt as Bradley hauled him in by the collar again for a rough kiss with far too much teeth and tongue all at once. Bradley had them twisted around, hitching Jake up onto the counter with what had quickly become practiced movements for them before he had even registered the fact that he was being manhandled into position.

“One day,” Bradley said between heaving breaths once he finally pulled back, capturing Jake’s face in both hands, eyes darting across his face like he was feeling too agitated right now to fix them on any single point. “I will figure you out, Jake Seresin, and then you won’t be able to surprise me anymore.”

Jake snorted, tears welling up in his eyes much too quickly for him to blink them away, “you mean you haven’t done that already?”

“I keep thinking I have, and then you go and do something like this and act like it’s nothing, and I-” Bradley shook his head with wonder as he pulled back even further, examining Jake like he was some mysterious specimen he couldn’t make sense of. “I don’t deserve you.” Jake rolled his eyes but before he could open his mouth Bradley added, “and don’t fight me on that right now because this is something else, Jake, I can’t even…” Bradley shook his head again, his expression clouding over as the wheels visibly turned in the back of his mind. “Baby, your inheritance?”

Jake swallowed, feigning a smile as he shook off Bradley’s hold whilst a rush of complicated emotions rippled through him. “What else was I gonna do with it?” Bradley’s eyes fluttered shut. His hands dropped to brace against the counter on either side of Jake, fisted tightly as he grimaced like something he didn’t like had just occurred to him. “At least this way it was useful rather than just gathering dust in some savings account… Bradley, it’s really not-”

“I haven’t even thought to mention them,” Bradley said, his tone bitter and self-recriminating.

“You’ve had a fair few bigger things to focus on.”

“That’s not the point, baby.” Bradley’s eyes were still shut, but his expression was pinched like he was going to end up beating himself up over this for a while whether Jake liked it or not. “I should’ve said something, I’ve had more than enough opportunity to.”

“Bradley.” Jake wound his arms around his neck, trying to tug him forwards in vain because of the stiffness in his spine. “Baby, look at me.” He tugged again, huffing out a quiet laugh when Bradley squinted at him with much more petulance than he thought he deserved. Bradley did melt into him eventually however, so Jake rewarded him with a light kiss. “We have eight years of shit to catch up on, did you really think we were gonna cover it all in the first week?”

“This should’ve been one of the first things,” Bradley insisted. “Baby, they were your parents. And I couldn’t be there at the time, the very least I should’ve done was check in now.”

Jake bit his tongue rather than going back and forth on this again, feeling a strange measure of irritation rise at Bradley’s insistence that he had handled this wrong which mixed with the time softened grief he harboured over the sudden loss of his parents. Even years after the fact he still struggled to believe that it was real more often than not. Accidents happened all the time, yes, but getting the call from his sister to say that they were both gone because of some asshole who ran a stop sign had been far too blindsiding for Jake to truly make sense of in the moment. He had just talked to his mother the day before, making arrangements for his plans to visit home over the holidays. It had been months since they last saw each other. And then, much too soon, Jake and his sister were reeling from the tragedy and struggling over the logistics of planning a double funeral together.

Bradley had been his rock during that time, whether he believed that to be true or not.

Jake hadn’t been able to say it out loud at first, writing it down to send to Bradley in a letter instead because it had still been too colossal to fathom. He knew that Bradley knew when he called and did nothing more than apologise and listen on in comforting silence whilst Jake finally broke down.

One of the hardest parts, something which didn’t even occur to Jake until far enough down the line that it reopened all of the wounds that had just about started healing over, was the fact that they had gone to their graves thinking the worst of the man he loved.

They had disapproved of Jake staying committed to Bradley, had convinced themselves that he was the devil incarnate, that he was a danger beyond belief, and refused to listen to any of Jake’s arguments about what actually happened. Jake’s mother especially had tried over and over again to get him to ‘see reason’ and cut off all contact. Many of their conversations over the years had devolved into bitter fights as she tried to set him up with friends’ sons and impress upon him her (incorrect and sometimes offensive) assumptions about what it would be like to live the rest of his life with a felon. Jake regretted the fact that they had spent so much time at odds, but he didn’t think he was wrong for choosing that hill to die on. What he hated the most was that they passed away before Monica obtained any of the actual evidence which had led to Bradley’s exoneration. He liked to think seeing it all laid out might have started to repair the fractures in their relationship, to get them to realise that they were wrong, but he would never know for sure now.

“How’s Steph?” Bradley asked after a long moment of silence where the two of them had just watched each other, both of them tense because it was clear that they disagreed about this, and probably always would, but were equally reluctant to let it turn into an argument.

Jake breathed out a bitter chuckle and tipped his head back, blinking quickly against the tears which had started falling. Bradley thumbed them away without forcing Jake to look at him, cupping his jaw afterwards like he was happy to wait as long as Jake needed to get an answer to his question.

“We’re getting there,” Jake murmured once he thought he had wrestled control over his voice enough to say so. “She texted the other day, actually, to say she hoped you were doing okay, so she is trying. I’m working to get her on board with us visiting for a couple days towards the end of my leave once they’ve gotten more settled in with Addy.”

“They picked a name?”

“Mm, Addison. Addy, for short.”

“How’s Ellie liking being a big sister?”

“Apparently she asked Garrett when they were taking her back to the hospital.” Bradley looked incredibly fond as a wet sounding chuckle punched out of him. “All reports say our youngest niece has a damn strong set of lungs.”

Bradley sucked in a careful breath, tearing up himself as he murmured, “I can’t wait to meet them.”

Stephanie had married her college boyfriend, Garrett, five years ago in a shotgun wedding just after their graduation. The arrival of their first daughter, Eloise, was the saving grace for the Seresins’ otherwise fractured relationship, forcing them all to set aside a lot of their pride for the sake of the youngest member of their family. That and Garrett’s unwavering support. He was the only one who had taken the time to sit down with Jake and listen to the details of his and Bradley’s story, and that had won Steph over in the end, to an extent. She harboured her own personal reservations which Jake suspected at this point was more on principle of loyalty to their parents than anything else. Logically, she understood that Bradley was harmless, but she still had some doubts about Jake bringing him around her children which had ended up setting back a lot of the work they had done to repair their relationship, primarily because of the tactless way she had broached the subject.

Addison was three weeks old now and, though Steph had made an effort to keep Jake updated in terms of how she and her new baby were getting on, it was obvious she was only doing so because she felt like she had to. Addy’s birth coinciding with Bradley’s release was clearly a godsend so far as Steph was concerned because it came with a built in excuse for why they were both too busy to stay in regular contact at the moment. Jake and Steph operated on the basis that no matter what happened they would always be there for each other, especially now that they had lost their parents, but that didn’t mean that they were always happy about that arrangement.

All of which Bradley understood and respected, in what Jake assumed was an abstract manner given that, aside from Jake’s family, all he had left was Pete Mitchell. Jake had been training him not to argue the point about technicalities when he said things like ‘our niece’ for years now.

“We should visit your parents when we’re down that way,” Bradley suggested as he tipped their foreheads together. “I’d like to apologise to them for all the stress I caused at some point.”

“You’ll have dad rolling in his grave.”

“Yeah, well, I never could please him. It’s your mom I was always more bothered about. I still can’t believe she called me a degenerate.” Jake choked out a laugh which sounded much closer to a sob than he would have liked. “I am sorry, Jake, I know I kind of fucked up your relationship with them.”

“No.” Jake shook his head, trapping Bradley’s between his hands as he tried to impress upon him how serious he was about this. “That’s not your fault.”

“It-”

“You are not responsible for their ignorance, baby.” Neither of them really seemed to move but Jake felt all that much closer to Bradley all of a sudden as he admitted, “I think they figured out somewhere along the way that they were wrong about you, but you know what they were like. They would’ve been too proud to ever admit that.”

“Still. I wish your last few years with them had been easier.”

“Me too.” Jake tilted his head at the same time that Bradley did so their lips slotted together like puzzle pieces in a much gentler kiss than anything else they had shared so far that morning. “Anyway,” Jake made the decision to refocus them both on what had originally triggered this tangent of their conversation, setting aside the rest of it for them to circle back to in due course. “I think I mentioned they left me the house, right?”

“Yeah, and Steph got your dad’s cars?”

“Mm, she freaked out when we read the will. It’s like heaven for her.”

Bradley snorted, smiling at the thought. Jake knew he was not-so-secretly looking forward to being able to bond over that mutual interest of theirs again like that might repair all the damage his incarceration had ever done to their relationship. The two of them understood mechanics and thrived over taking things apart just to put them back together in a way Jake never would. He had no real interest in cars himself, so he didn’t even feel left out over the dividing lines that put in all their relationships. Pretty as the classics were to look at, none of them went fast enough for his tastes, after all.

“And we have this place,” Jake continued, “so it’s not like we needed the hassle of owning another property…” Bradley’s expression shifted through a series of complex emotions as he presumably connected the dots, but that didn’t stop Jake from feeling the need to expand a little further. “Managed to get it on the market at the right time, I think. I had enough to cover your loans and contribute to the college fund Steph started for the girls and-”

“Did you save anything for yourself?”

Jake snorted, batting at Bradley’s shoulder as he laughed, “let me finish!” Bradley rolled his eyes and pressed his lips together. “The rest went into what I’m thinking of as our vacation slash retirement fund.”

“Oh, okay,” Bradley chuckled. “That’s still not just for you, but I like the sound of that.”

“Well, spoiling me is your job, not mine.”

“Damn straight,” Bradley muttered, adding in a tone that seemed vaguely threatening. “Just wait ‘til Mon gets her teeth stuck into that compensation shit she was talking about…” Jake snorted, both because Bradley said that like just having Monica look at something was enough of a guarantee that things would work out for them even though, from what Jake had seen and heard about it, the system seemed a little rigged against paying out for wrongful convictions, and because Bradley looked like he was just waiting for Jake to argue back about the prospect of any of that potential windfall being spent on him. “So,” Bradley took a breath like he was physically forcing himself to set all that aside so that he could get back to focusing on Jake. “What kind of vacation are you looking for, baby?”

“Oh, a few,” Jake grinned. “You’re gonna have your work cut out for you.” Bradley huffed a laugh just the way Jake had been hoping he would. “First and foremost, I’m expecting some kind of all-inclusive, stupidly perfect, artificial as hell resort that’s gonna bore us to tears after the first day.”

“Sandy white beaches and endless blue sky?”

“Exactly. I think we deserve some pampering, baby.”

“You definitely do.” Bradley shifted closer and capturing Jake in a fierce kiss. “In fact, I think we should get started on that right now.”

That had been enough for Bradley to let loose in their bedroom the way Jake had been trying to encourage him to do all week – lavishing him with the kind of single-minded devotion which had left Jake floating in subspace for hours, his body shaking and his knees weak whilst Bradley cared for him afterwards – and had subsequently led into him being concerned about how sore Jake might be the next morning.

It was obvious he was of the opinion that Jake’s every whim needed accommodating after everything he had found out during the conversation about Jake’s parents. He took to looking after Jake like that was the only responsibility he had to worry about, so perhaps that was why he had been so dismissive about Pete, trying to ease Jake’s worries about fixing that for him like they weren’t supposed to be equals in their relationship. Jake suspected that they would be spending the rest of their lives in a constant game of one-upmanship where they attempted to smother one another with the love they thought they deserved (which if he was being honest, he failed to see as a problem), so neither of their actions were all that out of character. That didn’t mean Jake was going to let it go however. Pete was going to have to face them eventually and he would be sorely mistaken if he thought forgiveness was just handed out for free.

“We should probably go grab some groceries today,” Jake said as they were catching their breaths afterwards, head pillowed on Bradley’s abdomen as he played with one of his hands. Bradley had a leg crooked and his other arm was thrown behind his head. He had in fact deemed it irresponsible for Jake to get fucked again that morning and had made it up to him by pinning him to the bed whilst he opened himself up and rode him to what felt like the brink of insanity. “Get outta the house for a bit?”

“Feeling a little cooped up are we, baby?”

“You’re telling me you’re not?” The silence after Jake asked that seemed suspicious enough that he tilted his head to check and found Bradley staring upwards with his lips pressed together like he was trying to stop himself from saying something. Jake thought it might be bad until he saw the upturn to the corners of his mouth. Then the joke clicked and he reached up to backhand his shoulder. “That’s not funny.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.” Jake scoffed as he sat up, shoving Bradley off as he laughed and tried to make a grab for him to stay. “I can’t believe you’d compare our home to prison.”

“I didn’t!”

“Yeah, but you thought about it.”

Jake started getting dressed, playing up how annoyed he was and counting down the seconds until Bradley inevitably swept him up into a hug from behind, pressing light kisses behind his ear as he murmured, “you have to admit, you kinda set that one up perfectly, baby.”

“You’re blaming me?” Bradley’s chuckle was low, rumbling through him where he was pressed against Jake. “What?”

“Just debating how much more trouble I want to get myself in right now…”

Jake scoff was much too amused for his own liking as he shoved Bradley away a second time. “Get dressed, asshole. You’re driving.”

The mundanity of pulling into the parking lot and grabbing a cart and walking into the store together felt surreal to Jake but he powered through it, figuring that it was another one of those things that would stop feeling like a novelty again soon enough. Bradley looked a little like a kid walking into a candy shop, eyes lit up with excitement, stunned smile gracing his mouth. It was a big store, so Jake could understand him feeling overwhelmed by the onslaught on the senses that was walking through the front door.

“You got any particular cravings at the moment?” Jake asked as they started down the produce aisle.

Bradley was staring around himself, seeming dazed by the sheer amount of options there were for them to choose from. It was endearing as hell to watch and Jake wished they could spend as long as he needed just wandering around exploring, but they had arrived in the sweet spot between the midday and evening rushes and he would rather they escaped before things got too busy again.

Food had been a bit of a touchy subject for Bradley so far.

Jake was aware of the cliché about ex-cons eating like animals hunched over their plates, but his experience with Bradley had been much more civilised. He never acted like he was worried his food was about to be stolen from him, no, Jake’s concerns lay with how bland everything he had been opting to eat so far was. Bradley used to be the more experimental one when it came to their tastebuds. He had loved spicy foods like a goddamn sadist, had constantly been pushing Jake to try new things at least once because he was convinced that he would love whatever it was he had found on any given day (and he was usually right), had always scouted out different restaurants for them to visit on date nights with cuisines from all over the world, to the point that it was obvious food had factored into his love language in a significant way. To see him barely show interest in whatever was on his plate over the last week had been disorientating to say the least therefore, and Jake had taken it as a personal challenge to coax that love for eating out of him again.

“Do you remember that risotto your mom spent like the whole afternoon making one time?” Bradley replied, reaching for Jake’s hand without looking his way so that he could press a kiss to the back of it as soon as their fingers were linked together.

“My nonna’s recipe?”

“Mm, could we make something like that tonight?”

“We can make exactly that if you want it,” Jake said, already trying to picture the list of ingredients his nonna had painstakingly written out before she passed away as an heirloom for the family. “I have her cookbook at home. You should take a look through it at some point, see if there’s anything else you think looks good?”

Bradley hummed like that suggestion appealed to him but there was still something a little too reserved in his eyes for Jake’s liking. He handed out instructions for Bradley, primarily to get them both on task before he got too caught up in worrying, splitting the list of basic essentials they needed to stock up on and additional items they would need for specific recipes aisle by aisle as they worked their way through the store. The entire process was so much more enjoyable for Jake than shopping alone ever was, but he did notice Bradley’s mood shift about halfway thorough. He attributed that more to the store getting busier than anything else and hurried them through checking out so that they could escape. Bradley, ever the gentleman, was the one who headed off to return the cart after they had unloaded it, so Jake was left waiting in the passenger seat for him to get back.

Even checking his phone and getting sidetracked by responding to a few messages he had received didn’t distract Jake from the fact that that task was taking far longer to complete than it should have.

He glanced in the mirrors to see if he could catch sight of Bradley and, when he couldn’t, ended up getting out of the truck again, using the bottom of the doorframe to stand on for additional height to scan around the parking lot. There wasn’t much reason for Bradley to have gone back inside without letting him know, after all. It took longer than it should have to locate him. Confused concern spiralled into a flash of outright fear before Jake finally picked out the familiar head of curls on the other side of the lot from where the carts were stored. Jake frowned as he watched Bradley clap a hand on the shoulder of the guy he had been speaking to in an overfamiliar manner, wave to the other guy sat on the passenger seat window frame, laugh over something else they said, and then start walking away shaking his head to himself. Jake frowned as he eyed the guys – taking in their reams of tattoos, the blatant day drinking as the guy on the passenger side crushed the can he was holding and threw it on the backseat of the car, the joint the driver lit up, and a myriad of other borderline offensive clichés which led Jake to an assumption about the likelihood of their gang affiliations – doubly so when he noticed the driver see him, smirk, and waggle his fingers in his direction like he was mocking him before he got into the car.

They drove away with the loud vroom of a modified engine.

Judgemental as it was to think, they weren’t the type of people Jake would have expected Bradley to interact with, let alone be friendly towards prior to his stint in prison. Something about witnessing that left Jake feeling uneasy for reasons he couldn’t quite understand. He slithered back into the passenger seat before Bradley caught him watching and set to aimlessly checking his phone again as he tried to figure out how he was supposed to handle this.

“Sorry, that took so long, baby,” Bradley said as he was getting into the truck. “I was helping these guys with directions.”

Jake frowned again, his instincts telling him that there was something off about Bradley’s tone. He didn’t put voice to any of his concerns however, unsure why he even felt the need to doubt him in the first place.

“You’re such a good Samaritan.”

“Fuck off.”

Jake burst into laughter, grabbing on to his amusement with both hands as he stamped down all the more negative emotions demanding his attention. Bradley chuckled too, reaching for Jake as he pulled out of their parking space so that he could link their fingers together again as they headed home. It was a nice moment. Normal. Something mundane and easy that didn’t warrant overthinking about. Or, that was what Jake told himself anyway, using the reassuring feeling of Bradley’s hand in his to convince himself that absolutely nothing was wrong.

Chapter Text

Jake knew something was off the second he answered the phone. Bradley’s, “hey, baby,” lacked its usual measure of enthusiasm.

“What’s wrong?”

“Jesus,” Bradley snorted. The noise sounded pained, as if even laughing just that little bit hurt at the moment. “Can’t keep anything from you, can I?”

“What happened?”

“Nothing, I’m fine.”

“Bradley-”

“Honestly, baby, it really is nothing.”

“Bradley.”

“My new cellmate thought he’d throw his weight around when he was settling in yesterday. Guess he’d fucking googled Prison 101, or whatever, and didn’t want to look weak in front of anyone. Picked a fight on his first day like he thought that’d earn him some respect out on the yard, you know?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Bradley sighed, “yeah, I got the all clear from the infirmary, I promise. I’m just feeling a little sore this morning. You know how it is.”

“Where is he? You’re not still-”

“No, no, he’s…” Bradley cleared his throat like he was feeling awkward. “He learned his lesson.”

Jake paused, registering the monotone way Bradley had spoken without really understanding what his instincts were trying to tell him. “What does that mean?”

“Don’t worry about it, baby.”

Bradley had changed the subject at the time, redirecting Jake’s concerns with practiced ease because, much as Jake might hate this was the case, he knew exactly how to manage him when he wanted to.

It took months to tease the rest of the details out of him but eventually Jake had a better picture of what was going on.

Once they started speaking again, it was like a dam opened in Bradley which resulted in him almost constantly sending Jake letters. Jake didn’t mind the continual stream of mail he was on the receiving end of in the slightest. He was impressed, if anything, at how Bradley never seemed to run out of things to write. That habit of his garnered him a lot of attention as it turned out however, from those who mocked him for acting like some lovelorn soldier waiting for the chance to return home to those who were intrigued by his ability to wax poetic on the regular for his other half.

Paco was one of the latter.

He was also one of the more notorious gang leaders within the prison.

The, presumably accurate, impression Jake was given over the years was that the fraud Paco had eventually been caught and charged with was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the actual crimes he was responsible for. His sentence was lengthy enough nonetheless that he had been there before Bradley arrived and would be staying long after he left, even if he had finished the entirety of his sentence.

Bradley’s relationship with Paco was something Jake had never really been able to make sense of, but he felt oddly responsible considering that it blossomed as a result of his letters. It often left him grappling with a strange mix of gratitude for the fact that Bradley seemed to have found some measure of safety on the inside to rely upon and concern over what exactly Bradley was doing in return for the favour of Paco’s protection.

According to Bradley, Paco’s childhood was a complicated mess which made the trajectory that his life had taken understandable. He was largely uneducated, Bradley said, borderline illiterate if they were being honest, because no one had ever taken the time to encourage him to focus on his studies with any real dedication when he was young. He found Bradley’s academic pursuits fascinating as a result. The first time Jake had heard about him it was in a fond anecdote Bradley had shared about how he helped him to write a letter of his own to his latest baby mama with the hopes of repairing their relationship enough to maintain some kind of contact with his youngest offspring.

Bradley didn’t mention him often, but when he did, there was always the sound of a smile in his tone.

Jake lost track of how many of Paco’s people Bradley said he had helped to earn their GEDs, or with writing letters like he did for Paco, or with learning how to read, or various other things that helped keep him busy and entertained whilst also, as he promised, staying away from any sort of illegal endeavours. He had concerns which Bradley had done his best to assuage over the years. There was only so far Jake thought he should be trusting these people, after all. How many favours would Paco extend before Bradley was in too deep to say no, he had asked at one point, only to be shut down by Bradley’s insistence that Paco had his best interests at heart. He had been equally as outraged as they were about how badly the system had screwed him over, Bradley said, and he respected the fact that Bradley had no interest in furthering his criminal career when he had Jake to get home for.

In the end, this was yet another one of those things Jake had been forced to come to terms with for lack of any better options.

Bradley never elaborated on the darker side of that relationship and Jake never asked.

It took him a long time to realise that perhaps he should have.

Chapter Text

Jake arrived at the Hard Deck a few hours into Bradley’s first shift, as per the instructions he had been given, and found him in his element, laughing at something one of the women he was serving had said. He might have thought to get jealous if Bradley’s gaze hadn’t snapped to his the moment that he leaned on the bar. Bradley winked at him, stalling it seemed, as he diverted his attention back to finishing the last of the women’s order.

The Daggers were in their usual spot by the pool tables. Jake would go and join them in a moment, but for now he was enjoying just watching the man he loved dazzle in the spotlight. He was beautiful like this. Relaxed and in control. It clearly hadn’t taken long for him to settle in. Penny and Jimmy, both of whom were supposed to be working this evening to offer support should it be needed, weren’t anywhere in sight, and Jake could only assume that that was because Bradley had shooed them away as he made himself comfortable behind the bar again.

“What can I get you?” Bradley asked as he sidled over to lean opposite him.

Jake licked his lips and grinned, feeling like they had set themselves up with some sort of elaborate roleplay now rather than the much more innocent reality of him checking in as Bradley adjusted to his new-old job. This felt so reminiscent of how they had met that it was like they had done it on purpose. The spark of amusement in Bradley’s eye told Jake he was thinking the exact same thing.

“That depends how shitty your IPAs are,” Jake replied, earning himself a laugh he was proud of.

It was what he had said the first time, albeit with a much more genuine dose of confidence, after all.

Bradley continued chuckling to himself as he turned to select a drink. “On the house,” he said when he placed the bottle in front of Jake, which really just meant that it would be coming out of his paycheck later. He then leaned across the counter for a quick kiss before finally murmuring what had become a requisite, “hi, baby.”

“How’s it going?”

“Like riding a bike.”

“You want me to hang out?”

“No, you’re good, go see the squad. They must be feeling deprived of your attention, they’ve been looking over often enough that it’s getting a little desperate.”

Jake snorted and crooked a finger to coax Bradley in for another chaste kiss across the counter, just to make his claim on his man clear for anyone watching. “Try not to flirt too much,” he warned afterwards. “You know I’m not nice when I’m jealous.”

The squad’s uproarious welcome was equal parts teasing and sincere. Jokes about him being whipped for checking in with Bradley before doing anything else were bandied about in between genuine questions about how they were getting on.

Jake was relieved enough to see everything was going well for both Bradley and the squad respectively that he let his guard down and gave himself over to the evening. He and Bradley weren’t so codependent that they needed to stick by one another’s side even when they were in the same room, so Jake didn’t feel guilty for only sporadically stopping by to chat. Bradley would have hated him getting too overbearing, after all. And it wasn’t like it was necessary. Bradley was kept busy by a constant stream of customers, in his element, working hard to prove that he deserved this opportunity he had been given to rebuild his life from the ground up. Jake found himself glancing over to the bar less and less as the evening wore on, so he couldn't say for certain when exactly he had arrived, but it felt like he had been doused with an ice water style reality check when he finally noticed that Bradley was caught up in yet another conversation with one of those guys from the parking lot.

This marked the third time that Jake had seen them hanging around in as many weeks.

After the confusing end to their shopping trip, Jake had chalked his worries up to latent paranoia and resolved to get over himself. But then, on a day they had set aside to spend lazing around at the beach, Bradley wandered off to source them some more water in the late afternoon, and he took that much longer than necessary to complete such a mundane task again that Jake got suspicious. It was like a repeat of the last time. Jake struggled to spot Bradley at first and panic lanced through his chest until he finally located him in the opposite place to where he had been expecting him to be. Leaning up against the hood of the car this time, bottles of water at his feet, he laughed over something which had been said to him and shoved the driver, who had slung an arm around his neck in an overfamiliar gesture, off to stand. The passenger, sat in the exact same spot as before, shouted something after Bradley when he started to walk in Jake’s direction. He earned himself a middle finger for his efforts without Bradley looking back to check his reaction. That seemed to amuse him because he was laughing as he slithered through the window to settle inside the car. The driver waited until Bradley was nearly back with Jake to turn away himself, posture relaxed but vigilant. His gaze flickered to Jake as he straightened up and he waved just like he had the first time before hopping inside the car to drive away.

Jake felt a flash of resentment he didn’t understand fizzle down his spine, but he wasn’t given enough time to consider it. Bradley had flopped down on his towel then and started chattering away about how long the queue had been without making any mention of his diversion or the guys he had been speaking to. It was wrong, Jake knew that without a doubt now, and yet Bradley didn’t give him any chance to voice his concerns because he was already encouraging Jake to drink up and challenging him to a race towards the ocean. Them swimming together had gotten him over his perceived fears about the water quick enough. He was already back to being part dolphin as he dragged Jake far enough away from the shoreline that they could safely skirt the line of public indecency as their hands wandered.

Bradley could be very distracting without any effort.

It was becoming a bit of a problem in this respect.

One which Jake hadn’t yet worked out how to resolve.

The driver was alone this time around. He had a bottle of beer in front of him which he was in the process of peeling the label off of, and he and Bradley looked to be deep in the kind of conversation which was easily lasting through the repeated interruptions that came from Bradley doing his job. Jake swallowed down the instinct to go and muscle his way in between them and demand himself an explanation. There had to be a good reason for why Bradley was keeping secrets, after all.

Which it was obvious he was doing at this point.

Why, Jake had no clue, but he suspected that was the kind of fight he wouldn’t want to pick in front of witnesses, so he was going to have to wait until they got home.

That didn’t mean he was going to do nothing however, his innate curiosity wouldn’t allow him to sit still a third time in a row when there were a million different ways that he could be proactive without letting Bradley know that he was on to him.

“Jay,” Jake said, catching Javy’s attention from across the pool table and setting off his internal warning system with their unwritten code. Play along, that nickname said, follow my lead. It worked the same way for the both of them. “You feel up to losing some money tonight?”

“Bitch, please,” Javy replied, already handing off his pool cue without question. “One of these days your game’s gonna be off enough for me to beat you.” Jake laughed as he started heading the long way around the bar towards the darts boards, confident that Bradley wouldn’t notice them approaching from this angle with how distracted he currently was by his mysterious friend. Javy waited until they were out of the squad’s earshot before asking, “what’s wrong?”

“Not sure yet.”

“Should we get Bradley?”

“He’s part of the problem.”

Javy hummed like he was processing a lot of information in the quickest timeframe possible. “What do you need?”

“I’m just gonna… wait here,” Jake murmured as he planted himself at the bar facing away from Bradley, close enough that, if he focused properly, he might be able to glean some insight on the true nature of his relationship with this guy. “Whilst you commandeer us a board.”

Javy nodded, eyes flickering to where Jake assumed Bradley was still talking to the guy with obvious tension in his expression, before he turned to do as he had been told. He would take his time, Jake knew, so as to give Jake a semi-plausible cover story if anyone questioned what he was up to at the moment.

“…my brother but he only ever asks after you now when he calls.” The guy was in the middle of saying as Jake concentrated on trying to pick his voice out through the crowd. The bar wasn’t quiet, especially over this side with the constant thunk of darts landing and cheers or lamentations over the players’ scores, but Jake congratulated himself for his opportune timing given that there didn’t seem to be any new customers demanding Bradley’s attention yet. “S’a fuckin’ insult.” Bradley barked out a loud laugh in response, but then Jake lost the threads of the conversation for a few moments as someone loudly celebrated the bullseye they had just scored. “You know he’s still pissed you never told him.”

“Yeah, I dunno why. I never told anyone; he shouldn’t take it personally.”

“‘Cause you’re family, Bradshaw. He woulda gutted anyone who tried to start shit over it, you know that.”

“I also know it would’ve been like an open-door invitation for everyone on our block to come get their dick wet just because. I’m not a fucking idiot, Jav, it was safer this way.”

Jake thought he might have missed something else as they both fell silent again, but he realised after a second’s delay that they were just taking a moment to sit in acknowledgement of that statement.

“Manny told Pac he looks like a ken doll, you know,” Jav eventually added, his tone over-familiar and teasing. Jake resented the way his self-consciousness reared its head the moment Bradley started laughing in response to that, but he couldn’t help it. “And he came back saying ‘that plus the navy thing tells us a lot more than we ever needed to know about our little Bradshaw’…” Bradley laughed again, but his amusement seemed cut short when Jav added, “he asked for pictures.”

“You better fucking not have-”

“We haven’t,” Jav laughed, not unkindly. “We won’t, pendejo, take a breath. We all know better than to get on your bad side when it comes to him.” Jake locked eyes with Javy as he rejoined him at the bar, motioning for him not to speak yet. The severe line of his mouth told Jake enough about what his face was doing against his will as he continued to listen, but he couldn’t concentrate and school his expression into something neutral right now. “He wants to know when the wedding’s planned for?”

“Ah, about that…” Bradley breathed out what sounded like a mirthless chuckle and Jake could only imagine the kind of awkward smile he was trying to hide behind with that tone. “I haven’t asked yet.”

Jake frowned at Javy and guessed from the way he cocked his head that he had heard the lie too.

“You better be fuckin’ joking.”

“No. I, uh, haven’t found the right time yet…”

“Five fuckin’ years of listening to your bullshit ‘I’m gonna ask the second I get out, it don’t matter that I ain’t got a ring’, and now this? The fuck is wrong with you?”

“I’m working on it!” Bradley’s laugh was much more genuine this time. “I just- god, I don’t know, I’m still trying to work out what he’s doing wasting his time on me, man, he could do so much better.”

Jav chuckled like he agreed with that assessment. “Maybe you should introduce us,” he said, tone weighted like it was something he had asked and been shut down on before. “I’ll help you figure out what’s wrong with him.”

“Nothing’s wrong with him, he’s-”

“The most perfectest man in the world, yeah, tell me something I ain’t already heard a billion times. You should still introduce us.”

“It’s not happening, man. Jake’s staying as far away from all your bullshit as possible…”

Jake nodded for Javy to move, having heard more than enough by that point to make his stomach churn with a mixture of frustration and disappointment. Having a sixth sense for when he was done with keeping the front up, Javy dragged him outside by the arm so that they could regroup in private.

“Wanna clue me in?” Javy asked as they stepped off the Hard Deck’s back porch. “Who is that?”

“Someone he was locked up with, I guess? I don’t know.” Jake could feel Javy side eyeing him as they slumped down onto the sand as one and left him musing for a long minute or so before his patience snapped. “What?”

“Now, don’t bite my head off, man, but have you thought about asking him?”

“It’s bad enough him lying to me when he thinks he’s getting away with it,” Jake sighed. “I don’t-” his jaw clenched involuntarily as he tried to make sense of it. “He has this stupid fucking hangup about keeping me away from anything to do with the prison because he thinks he’s protecting me, and I know when I ask, he’s just gonna lie about it again because apparently now me knowing that he made friends on the inside is dangerous somehow? Where do I even start with that, Jay?”

“Beats me, man. You know your relationship problems aren’t exactly relatable.”

Jake scoffed, “you can say that again.”

“Yeah, which is why you can’t just ignore this, right? You guys worked so fucking hard to get here, don’t let something stupid ruin it now.” Jake groaned as he buried his head in his hands, resenting Javy for the way he just laughed and jostled their shoulders together just as much as he appreciated his support. “You know, every time I think he can’t get any worse with the overprotectiveness, he goes and outdoes himself. I dunno how you put up with it sometimes, man.”

Jake didn’t have an answer for that, but based on the way Javy gave him a few minutes reprieve before launching into a story about how training had been going over the last few weeks without him, he wasn’t expecting one. No one had acknowledged it outright yet, he said, but the squad’s dynamic was different without Jake around and they were all looking forward to getting things back to normal. Jake was as well. He knew a lot of the uneasiness he was feeling at the moment also had to do with his desperation to get back to work. It wasn’t that he regretted taking so much time off for Bradley, he never would, they had needed this time to reconnect and adjust to living together again, he just felt the loss of flying like a phantom limb and was looking forward to getting back up in the air sooner rather than later.

Bradley was looking for him the moment they walked back inside, a gesture which went a long way towards assuaging the hurt Jake was trying his best to ignore for now. He nodded for Jake to come over before his suspicion revealed itself as his gaze flickered to Javy and back again. Jake glanced to Javy to murmur where he was going and rolled his eyes when that earned him a pat on the shoulder and the reminder that he should just talk to his boyfriend about his concerns. Jav wasn’t in sight, which had Jake wondering, as he walked towards Bradley, if perhaps he should have just tried waiting in the parking lot to confront him when he left. His problem wasn’t with Jav however, he didn’t really care about him, it was with Bradley using that age old excuse about protecting him in such an overzealous manner.

“You okay, baby?” Bradley asked as Jake eased himself onto a bar stool. He frowned when Jake sighed, leaning across the counter to snag his hand and smooth his thumb over the back of his knuckles. “I didn’t notice you guys leave?”

“I didn’t expect you to,” Jake replied with a quiet scoff, hoping he might not get called out on ignoring that first question. “You’ve been working hard entertaining all your customers.”

Something tightened in Bradley’s expression at that which either had to do with the sharpness Jake couldn’t quite keep out of his tone or whatever conclusions he was drawing from his choice of wording. He opened his mouth to respond but his attention was stolen by someone else putting in an order. Jake stayed in his seat, waiting patiently for him to handle that with the expectation that he would be back again the literal second that he was done. There was something petty unleashing in him that wanted to make Bradley suffer a little, especially now that he could tell that he suspected something was wrong. Unfair as he knew it was to do, he couldn’t quite stifle the inclination to be an asshole before Bradley returned.

“So, you wanna tell me what’s up?”

“I dunno,” Jake drawled, pulling away when Bradley reached for his hand again. He laced his fingers where they were resting on the bar to resist the temptation to touch whilst Bradley cocked his head over that reaction. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Is this…” Bradley frowned and leaned a little closer to Jake, stroking a tentative finger along the back of one of Jake’s hands where they were still clenched together. “Baby, I know you were joking when you said about getting jealous earlier, but-”

Jake breathed out a bitter laugh before he cut Bradley off, “no.” He shook his head. “No, it’s not that.”

“Then what?”

Jake sucked on his teeth when Bradley’s attention was called away again for another order, but he did feel a little burst of affection for the fact that Bradley didn’t even look away from him as he held up a finger for the customer to wait.

“We’ll talk about it when we get home,” Jake muttered, dismissing him to go do his job.

Bradley didn’t look happy about it but he did as he was told. Jake considered staying put for longer, but he knew Bradley would just keep pushing for an explanation before he was ready to give it and that attitude wasn’t going to help when they were already toeing the line of it turning into an argument as it was. He sighed as he turned and headed back towards the squad, checking his watch as he went with a measure of relief for the fact that they were only an hour or so from last call now.

It was obvious Javy had said something to ban the squad from asking questions because the conversation didn’t falter upon his return. The only acknowledgement his low mood earned him was Callie sidling over to loop an arm around his neck as she joked about how he was the best hugger out of all of the boys. Jake wound an arm around her waist and tipped their heads together with a deep sigh. He knew she wanted to ask, the way her hand tightened against his shoulder momentarily said as much, but she stayed quiet regardless.

Times like these made him appreciate all over again just how close the squad had become in the two years since their inception. It was a typical side effect of military life, and yet Jake had never made such strong bonds with any of his previous squads. He had always kept himself that little bit apart before. Something about the combination of suicide mission, previously established relationships, and them all being so supportive in the midst of his personal drama playing out had lowered Jake’s defences too much for him to stop the Daggers from all worming their way into his heart however, and he had no regrets about that now.

“So-”

“This ain’t home, Bradshaw,” Jake drawled as he climbed into Bradley’s truck, stifling the urge to vent his frustration by jigging his leg because he knew Bradley could read too much into that gesture.

He was staring out the passenger window so he didn’t see Bradley get in, but he could feel his discomfort like it was a physical thing sitting right there in the truck with them.

“It’s bad enough that you’re being overly literal then,” he muttered to himself with a hint of sarcasm in his tone. His hands were at ten and two on the steering wheel as he started driving in a way that Jake knew fought against his instincts. Jake rolled his eyes, a flash of stubbornness rushing through him which said just to leave things there if he was going to be like that, but he knew better. He dropped his hand on the seat between them with his palm upturned and sighed when Bradley huffed a laugh to himself. Bradley’s relief was palpable as he linked their fingers together and brought Jake’s hand to his mouth to press a kiss to. “But not so bad that you’re not touching…”

Jake sighed again, his leg moving of its own accord now whether he liked it or not.

Bradley stayed quiet for the rest of the drive. His hold on Jake was tight enough to show off his anxiety even though he stopped passive aggressively pushing for an explanation. It was late. Penny, as it turned out, had sent Jimmy home long before Jake had even arrived, his presence no longer having been deemed necessary once she had vetted Bradley’s competence behind the bar. She herself had stayed to guide Bradley through her expectations for locking up, offering a litany of compliments to him throughout about how he had exceeded all expectations. Jake knew his stoic presence in the background had stopped Bradley from getting into a proper back and forth with her, which he might have thought to feel guilty over if he hadn’t been working overtime to keep a tight lid on his emotions by that point. Penny seemed to catch on to the tension between them pretty quickly because she matched their energy without comment, pressing a set of keys into Bradley’s hand after she had shown him how to properly jiggle the lock when closing up and leaving with nothing more than a quiet goodbye for the both of them.

After all the time he had spent stewing, Jake had thought he might know what to say the moment their front door was shut behind them, but he was even more lost about where to start now than before. Bradley took the initiative, pushing Jake down the hall to the kitchen. He didn’t speak as he went through the motions of making them both a drink like he hadn’t just spent all evening doing that for an endless stream strangers. Jake remained frozen with frustration over his inability to express himself in the middle of the room whilst he watched Bradley’s meticulous preparations. A steaming mug was placed in front of Jake’s spot at the kitchen table alongside their sugar jar, the creamer from the fridge, and a spoon. Bradley took his seat opposite and finally looked to Jake with his eyebrows raised expectantly.

“Did you want me to sit down?” Jake snarked as he eased himself into the chair. He snorted when he saw Bradley had opted for coffee, given the fact that it was stupid o’clock in the morning and they really should have been headed for bed now, but he would have bet any money it was decaf. On principle, he took his time in doctoring his mug and took a sip before he finally sighed and met Bradley’s eye. Beating around the bush hadn’t won him any prizes so far, so Jake gave up on that tactic in favour of frank honesty. “There’s a couple guys I’ve noticed following you around since you got out, and I wanted to believe the obvious lies you were telling about them ‘til I saw one paid a visit earlier tonight. You two seemed awful friendly for someone you were just giving directions to a couple weeks ago…”

Bradley’s spine had stiffened as Jake first started speaking, but something thawed him out again before he fell silent. He chuckled to himself as he set his own mug aside and propped his elbows on the table to bury his head in his hands. “You know, I was literally bitching when he first showed up about how you were gonna notice them coming round if they kept it up for much longer and he just laughed. I didn’t get why then, but I guess I do now.”

Jake took another sip of his drink as he waited for an actual explanation. He had no intention of confessing to his eavesdropping yet if he didn’t have to. Not when Bradley had just admitted to purposefully keeping this from him for reasons he still had yet to explain. He would circle back to it later when he feeling more inclined to give up the moral high ground.

“What do you wanna know?” Bradley asked, raising his head when Jake didn’t answer and cringing at whatever expression he saw on his face. “Right, everything, of course. Um,” he smoothed his hands over his face and grabbed his mug to take a large gulp from before continuing, “so Jav, you saw tonight, and Manny, the other guy, they’re Paco’s brothers. We were all on the same block. They both got out a couple years back. Pac asked them to check up on me and make sure I’m transitioning okay, to see if I needed, like, help with a job or cash or a place to stay or whatever… you know, all the stuff you’ve been doing.”

“Why hide it?”

Bradley took a breath and sighed, “I didn’t want to have to say no to you when you asked to meet them.”

“So, you chose to lie to me instead?”

“Because I-” Bradley cut himself off and blinked a few times before cocking his head like he was confused. “Wait, that’s what you’re mad about?”

“What else is there?”

Bradley stared at Jake like he had surprised him for a long moment before he stood and rounded the table with decisive movements. Jake pushed his chair back to allow Bradley space to take a seat on his lap like he was so clearly angling to, his jaw clenched because he was still holding onto a little bit of the hurt even as Bradley cupped his face in both hands and dropped a handful of kisses to his lips.

“I’m sorry, baby.”

“Why?”

Bradley bit back a smile, “for lying when I know you hate me keeping things from you.”

“Why would you-”

“Because I’m an idiot, Jake. And, apparently, I just, I dunno, fucking enjoy upsetting you since I can’t seem to go even a couple days without putting my foot in it at the moment.” Jake rolled his eyes and swallowed down a snappy response about him stating the obvious. Bradley sighed, a more serious note threading into his tone as he added, “I told them I was good the first time, that I’m just focusing on you and that between us we’ve got everything they were worried about covered, and I didn’t expect to see them again after that, but I dunno, either they didn’t believe me or they’re just bored at the moment or they’re enjoying fucking with me a little bit, because they keep showing up.” Jake frowned as he picked up on the frustration Bradley was feeling and smoothed his arms around Bradley’s lower back, thumbs brushing under the hem of his shirt. “You know, I’m grateful for everything they did for me, they really did have my back on the inside, but I’m trying to leave that part of my life behind me, so staying in contact really wasn’t something I had planned on… they’re just not the type of guys I can say fuck off to and cut contact with cold turkey. Which I know I should’ve told you,” he concluded, pre-empting the question Jake had been about to ask. “I just didn’t want you to worry.”

Jake scoffed, “why does it feel like every problem we have comes back to that?”

“Because we’re on exactly the same page about some things and in completely different fucking books on others?”

Jake hummed and tipped his head up for a kiss that Bradley was quick to deliver on. He leaned into it for a long moment, feeling content to keep things above board for now as he sought reassurance from the physical intimacy rather than making it lead into something more. Bradley seemed of the same inclination, his hands staying up where they were cradling Jake’s jaw instead of wandering further.

“For the record,” Jake murmured after they had taken the time to retire to bed with the resolve of putting that episode behind them. Bradley was wrapped around him like usual, his nose pressed against the back of his neck, so Jake felt him tense for the briefest of moments before he heard the end of his threat and relaxed again. “The next time I find out you’ve lied to me; you’re sleeping on the couch for at least a week.”

Jake tried to let it go after that, forcing himself to stay indifferent about the matter even when he clocked Manny doing a drive by of the Hard Deck a few days later as he arrived to check in on Bradley at work and the two of them again at the end of that week whilst Bradley was refuelling his truck before they headed out on a day trip they had planned. He told Bradley as soon as he could on both occasions and received a grim look in return which revealed just how concerned he truly was about the fact that they seemed intent on keeping tabs on him.

For what reason, they didn’t know.

Bradley promised over and over again that he hadn’t expected any of this. That there were no outstanding debts to be paid. That his only relationship with their entire family had ever been in relation to what he had already told Jake about helping them with letters and reading and other boring and mundane and, most importantly, legal things. That he had never, would never, risk having to leave Jake again for something so simple as the return favour of protection. He had been looking after himself well enough for the most part, after all. His interest in helping Paco had stemmed entirely from sheer desperation for entertainment not because he had been worried about having someone around to watch his back.

Jake wondered how naïve he must be for continuing to trust Bradley without question and taking him at his word, but the reality was that he had no reason not to believe him. And then, about halfway through the final week of his leave, right when Jake started thinking that nothing else would go wrong, there was a knock on their front door in the early evening and his faith in Bradley was put to the test all over again when he opened the door to the unsmiling faces of two detectives who asked if Bradley was home with very little explanation of what they wanted.

You have the right to remain silent.

One of the detectives drew Bradley’s arms behind him to be handcuffed in the middle of their kitchen whilst the other eyed Jake like she wasn’t quite sure what to make of the fact that he had just frozen in place once his gaze locked with Bradley’s.

Anything you do say can and will be used against you in a court of law.

It was as if there was cotton in Jake’s ears, like all of the words being said were coming from an unfathomable distance, like he was going numb from the shock and his hearing was the first sense he had lost. Jake could see the devastation written across Bradley’s expression as he watched him, but Jake was struggling to even breathe right now, let alone offer him some sort of reassurance in return.

You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.

Jake didn’t move again until the three of them were already halfway out of the door. “Wait, where the fuck are you taking him?” He asked as he rushed down the hallway. “What the hell is going on?”

“Mr Seresin, right?” The same detective who had been eyeing him before turned to stall him as her partner helped Bradley into the back of their car. When he didn’t respond, she offered him a thin-lipped smile and paused for a moment as if to take him in again like he wasn’t meeting her expectations. Her partner slid into the driver’s seat of the car as she fished in her pocket for a business card which she handed to Jake. It identified her as Detective Jatri, something Jake wasn’t all that grateful for because now he had a name to resent as well as a face. “We have some questions for you, so it’d be great if you could make your own way down to the station. At your convenience, of course.”

“What is this? He hasn’t done anyth-”

“We’ll explain everything at the station, Mr Seresin. I assume we’ll be seeing you shortly.”

The last time Bradley was arrested Jake had been unconscious. Witnessing it, he realised as he watched them drive away with a sinking feeling in his gut, was infinitely worse than finding out about it after the fact. He couldn’t remember ever having felt more powerless, and that included the time that he had been stuck in the back seat on that goddamn suicide mission the Daggers had first worked together.

Jake struggled to put together any one single coherent thought as he made his way back into the house to grab the important things, like keys and his phone and the shoes he had neglected to put on before. He dialled Monica’s number as he started the truck’s engine, hardly aware that the reason it took longer than it usually did was because of how much his hands were shaking. Monica promised to meet him at the station as soon as he stammered out an explanation for why he was interrupting her evening and the confidence in her tone went a long way towards comforting him, the same way that it always had. As soon as he hung up, he was making another call without even stopping to second guess whether it was the right thing to do.

“Pete,” he breathed into the voicemail he was forced to leave again, fighting against the urge to squeeze his eyes shut out of frustration as he concentrated on his driving. “I need you to get over whatever bullshit you’ve been going through the last few weeks. Now. Bradley’s been arrested again.”

Chapter Text

The first time Jake met Monica Bennett he had just returned home from a six-month deployment.

Dog-tired, daydreaming of all his creature comforts at home, tetchy and frustrated because it had been weeks since he had last had a chance to speak to Bradley, and feeling awkward and out of place in the clinical, corporate waiting room he was left to stew in prior to his appointment, Jake tried not to think too hard about the woman he was praying would be their salvation. He didn’t particularly want to be there that day, if he had had the choice he would have waited until he was a bit more switched on for this showdown, but it was now or unnecessarily dragging things out a few months longer for another opportunity when Monica was taking on new clients. Between his discomfort and Bradley’s Jake knew which he would choose every single time. He hadn’t even stopped at home first after his squad’s transport docked, hopping on a plane right there and then to fly across country and using that time to snatch a few hours sleep and change out of his uniform before catching a taxi from the airport straight to this office building.

Monica was a formidable woman who looked nothing at all like what her reputation had primed Jake to expect. Five foot nothing, even in heels that made Jake’s ankles ache just to look at, with long, pin straight black hair, flawless olive tone skin, and a sharklike smile which rivalled Jake’s own in terms of its ability to throw people off balance. If Jake had been a fraction more awake during that meeting, he might have mustered up the requisite energy to feel intimidated, but as it was, he just blinked at her when she finally deigned to come and greet him with the false enthusiasm of someone who was expecting to be disappointed.

“Tell me why you’re worth my time,” Monica opened with once they were secluded in her office, having settled in the chair behind her desk like it was a throne. The entire space was flashy and expensively decorated, which Jake assumed he was supposed to have been impressed by should he have stopped to smell the roses.

Jake scoffed at the way her question was worded and took a moment to rein in his frustration over how much it felt like she had already dismissed him outright before proffering the casefile he and Bradley had compiled together, stuffed full of evidence to support the appeals which had been filed in the past by far less capable but much more affordable attorneys. Monica was a last-ditch effort Jake was pinning all of his hopes and most of their savings on.

“Strong, silent type, I like it,” Monica murmured with the glimmer of a much more genuine smile as she took the file from him. She opened it like she didn’t expect much but Jake was pleased to see her expression morph with each page turn into something more intrigued and speculative. “That’s a pretty hefty sentence for what seems a lot like a case of self-defence?”

“The judge said he was using him as an example,” Jake said, clearing his throat afterwards as he heard for himself just how exhausted he sounded.

“Who was-” Monica began as she turned another page before seeming to answer her own question with whatever she read, a curious hum sticking in the back on her throat as she processed more of the details. “Well, that’s certainly a starting point,” she said to herself, taking a moment to make a few notes on the blotter to her left. “I’m amazed this even made it to court in the first place, your public defender should’ve been able to get the charges dropped without breaking a sweat.” Jake scoffed in spite of himself, the scornful sound bursting out of his mouth before he could think to swallow it. Monica glanced up, doing a double take at whatever look he couldn’t quite cover before he schooled his expression into something neutral. “Which is exactly why you’re here…”

“Can you help?”

Monica sighed, closing the file again without looking down like she had either seen enough of it for now or found their staring contest that much more interesting to pay attention to. “Doing the math, he’s just over four years in now?”

“Near enough four and a half, but yeah.”

“You understand, at this point, that succeeding with an appeal would be nothing short of a miracle, especially given what you’ve filed already?”

“He cut off contact for the first few years,” Jake said, realising after the fact that his exhaustion had tricked him into being far more candid than he usually was. “Shut me out, tried doing it all himself… you can see for yourself how useless the attorney he was relying on was. It’s taken me this long to get a handle on it all.”

“Why me?”

“All reports say you’re the best in the state at doing what you do.” Jake offered her his most sanguine grin with the hopes of appealing to her ego. “We need that.” When Monica cocked her head like she was expecting something more from him, Jake exhaled a short breath before giving her a real answer. “I only got back in the country yesterday after six months away and I have three weeks before I’m being sent off on another deployment for god knows how long. I refuse to accept that he’s gonna be locked up for another six years when he didn’t even do anything to warrant being put in there in the first place, but I don’t have the time and I don’t have the legal expertise to do any of the things he needs me to to get him outta there on my own. I need someone who has their shit together enough to fight this as hard as he deserves. I need someone I can trust. If that’s not you then say so now and I’ll stop wasting our time because I mean it in the most literal sense when I say, at the moment, every second counts.”

Monica nodded once Jake finished speaking, steepling her fingers together as she leaned forwards to rest her elbows on the edge of her desk. The gesture made her look that much more human than anything else she had done and eased something in Jake’s chest as he realised that she was finally getting real with him.

“Deployments?”

“Navy.”

“Which specialty?”

“Aviation.”

Monica smiled, “my uncle served too. He always spoke highly of the fighter pilots he referenced in his stories.”

Jake allowed that to sit for a moment, nodding himself to acknowledge the common thread they shared, before he went to repeat his question, “so-”

“Mr Seresin, I am the best at what I do. Full stop.” Jake huffed a laugh, as he knew he was expected to, over the correction. “But even I cannot conjure miracles out of thin air. There is every chance that we could do everything right, and have all the evidence in the world to support his case, and still not succeed in the end.”

“I understand that.”

“More than that, the wheels of justice spin slowly, especially once you’re in the system.”

“I’m aware.”

“I’d just like to make sure your expectations are clear from the outset.”

“Crystal.”

“Then, yes, Mr Seresin-”

“Jake, please.”

Monica smiled again, “yes, Jake, I believe I can help you.”

“Really?”

“I will need to take a look at this in more detail,” Monica placed a hand on the file as she spoke, “and I’ll need to meet with, Bradley, is it?” She opened the file as she questioned that as if something about Bradley’s name had thrown her and frowned. “Bradley Bradshaw?”

Jake snorted, “apparently his dad couldn’t resist the opportunity.”

“Right.” Monica chuckled to herself as she made a few more notes on her blotter. “Anyway, I’ll need to meet with him before anything can be made official since he is the one I’ll be representing.”

“Got it.” Jake cleared his throat. “For the record though, anything about your fees goes through me.”

“Of course.” Monica pursed her lips like she was debating whether to speak before she added, “I’m not cheap, Jake.”

“The best things never are.”

“I think you and I are going to get along just fine,” Monica said to herself with a small smile. She noted a few other things on her blotter before she dropped her pen again and fixed Jake with an expectant look as she squared her shoulders. “So, you have three weeks until you’re next being deployed?” Jake nodded. “We have no time to lose then. Tell me everything there is to know about Bradley.”

Chapter Text

Jake was abandoned in an interrogation room for much too long after he arrived at the station. Some sort of scare tactic to throw him off balance, he supposed. One which might have been more effective on his strained state of mind if not for the fact that he and Monica were in constant contact. He’s fine, she texted first. Stressed, obviously, and confused, she clarified when Jake asked how Bradley really was. He’s insisting I tell you he’s sorry even though we all know you won’t want to hear that, she added before Jake’s phone went silent for a long while whilst he assumed she was working on figuring out what Bradley had been arrested for. I’m on my way to you. Jake stood when the door opened, smiling with relief at the sight of her in spite of everything else he was feeling as Monica took all of two steps to cross the room and haul him in for a fierce hug.

“Have you talked to anyone?” She asked the moment she released him, all business as they both took a seat.

Later Jake would marvel over how immaculate Monica could look even under the station’s harsh fluorescent lights, but in the moment the only thing he could concentrate on was the tension in her posture as she settled next to him. There was a quiet fury in her expression, a severeness to the flat line of her lips as she pressed them together when she wasn’t speaking, a flint in her eye which said she would make heads roll for this the moment she got the chance. Some of her composure, Jake had to assume, was for his and Bradley’s benefit (one of them had to make sure to stay calm, after all), but the majority was because she was a professional through and through and knew exactly how to use that to her advantage.

“No. The detective, Jatri?” Monica nodded. “She started asking questions, but I said I wouldn’t speak to her ‘til you were here.”

“Okay, good. At least you remembered the basics.”

Jake squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Bradley?”

“I don’t blame him for being rattled, Jake, but he didn’t invoke himself so they were already pressing him for information when I got here and I don’t think that’s done anything to help the situation.”

“What do they think he-”

Jake cut himself off as the door opened a second time to admit both of the detectives who had picked Bradley up from their house. Jatri took a seat across from Jake, placing a thin file on the table in front of her, whilst her partner, who had earlier been introduced as Detective Garcia, leaned against the wall with his arms crossed and an unimpressed frown marring his otherwise delicate features. He had yet to say a word in front of Jake, as if staying silent and acting like Jatri’s henchman was somehow going to make him seem intimidating. Jake didn’t feel inclined to let him know he had faced down much worse in his life without flinching, he could figure that out on his own by making a fool of himself for all he cared.

“Mr Seresin,” Jatri began, “we-”

“It’s Lieutenant Commander Seresin actually,” Monica corrected on Jake’s behalf. “My client is a highly decorated naval officer; I expect you to do him the basic courtesy of using the correct title when you address him.” She cocked her head with one of those predatory smiles Jake knew she had mastered. “Feel free to shorten it to Commander if you feel like saving time.”

“Can I call you Jake?” Jatri asked.

“No.”

Jatri scoffed, as if that was the exact response she had been expecting from Jake, and eased back in her chair. She drummed her fingers against the table in a manner that made her seem more agitated than Jake suspected she truly was. The mind games, both whatever this was and Garcia’s pathetic statue impression, were getting more and more on his nerves the longer they went on, but they would be waiting a long time before they got to experience the satisfaction of Jake admitting that they were working.

“I’d like to thank you for coming in to speak with us,” Jatri began, grinning when Jake rolled his eyes in spite of himself. “But I’d be lying if I didn’t point out that I've noticed the animosity.”

“Yeah, well, this department seems to be developing something of a habit for arresting my boyfriend. Kind of hard not to hold a grudge.”

“I-”

“Could you get to the point, detective?” Monica interjected.

Jatri hummed out a laugh and paused for a moment longer like she was still surveying Jake before asking, “how much do you know about your partner’s stint in prison?”

“More than I’d like to.”

“Are you aware of his affiliation with the Martinez brothers?”

“Bradley’s not affiliated with anyone.”

Jatri’s lips pursed like Jake’s retort had both been expected and amused her. She leaned forwards to flip open the file in front of her and span it around on the table so that the photos she spread out for Jake to look at were facing him the right way around. Jake thought he had known fear with any one single moment of this experience so far, but the hollow feeling which settled in his gut as he scanned over the various surveillance style shots of Bradley’s interactions with Manny and Jav over the last few weeks beat it all hands down. There was one where the three of them were all laughing. Another where Jav had his arm slung around Bradley’s shoulders. A few others he couldn’t stomach examining in all that much detail as he took stock of the different outfits Bradley was wearing and the fact that that meant they had been around many more times than he had been aware of.

“That’s what this is about?” Jake asked, threading a hint of incredulity into his tone to help lend weight to the composed façade he was struggling to maintain. “They’re-”

“Jake,” Monica warned in a low tone, hinting that he was already toeing the line of what she deemed an acceptable amount of information sharing.

Jatri smirked as she pulled the one of them laughing together off of the table to inspect before holding it up to show Jake again. “I don’t know about you, but they look much too close for there not to be something more to their relationship…”

“Is there a question in there somewhere, detective?” Monica asked.

“Could you clarify your understanding of the nature of your partner’s relationship with the men in these photos, Commander?”

“My clients have both already answered that question.”

“For the sake of thoroughness, would you mind elaborating?”

Jake ran his tongue along the inside of his teeth as he fought against outwardly showing his frustration. “Bradley helped most of the people on his block to work on their literacy skills. It kept him busy.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

Jatri hummed like she didn’t believe Jake and leaned forwards as she placed the photo down on the table in front of Jake again. “It is a convincing story, I’ll give you that, but-”

“It’s not a story, it’s the truth. Jesus Christ, what exactly are you hoping to accomplish here?” Jake took a breath and forced himself to calm down the moment he felt Monica lay her hand on his forearm, squeezing once as a warning before pulling away again. It was a tiny gesture in the grand scheme of things but it was enough to remind him both that he wasn’t alone and that he had to be careful with what he said here. “Bradley kept his head down,” he added in a pointedly measured tone. “He helped people when he could, because that’s the kind of person he is, and he got out. That’s all there is to it.”

“So far as he told you.”

“What?”

“Well, it is pretty easy to sell a lie over the phone.”

Jake scoffed, “Bradley doesn’t lie to me.”

“Never?”

“No.”

Garcia huffed a laugh at that, the first outward reaction Jake had seen from him. He narrowed his eyes, gaze flickering between both detectives as he wondered what sort of trap he might have just walked himself into with his fudging of the truth.

“Does the name Daniel Sholtz mean anything to you?”

“Should it?” Jake countered, keeping his gaze fixed on Jatri and the smugness in her expression even though he couldn’t help but notice the way Monica had stiffened the moment that name was mentioned.

“Daniel was cellmates with your partner for, what was it, Garcia, less than five hours in the end?” Jatri had glanced over to Garcia as if to lend weight to her checking details with him even though it was obvious that she already knew it all like the back of her hand. “He was a real skinny dude. Weak. Scrappy. The-”

“Is this necessary, detective?” Monica asked. “This incident has no relevance to the charges you’re levelling against my client this evening and he was cleared of any wrongdoing at the time.”

“It’s the entire basis for your client’s relationship with the Martinez family, Ms Bennett,” Jatri drawled, biting back a smile when Monica sighed like she couldn’t argue back against that. “I consider that pretty relevant.” She smirked as she added, “I’d also like to get a better view on the level of honesty in your clients’ relationship, to verify the Commander’s credibility…”

“I would remind you Commander Seresin is here on a voluntary basis and you have yet to ask him even one single question pertaining to why you dragged him and Mr Bradshaw down here in the middle of the night.” Monica leaned forwards a little as she placed a palm on the table like she was bracing herself and enunciated clearly when she repeated, “get to the point, detective.”

“Of course, of course” Jatri insisted, dripping with smugness as she looked back to Jake. “As I was saying… the consensus was that Daniel got some real bad advice from somewhere and picked a fight with the toughest dude he could find as quickly as possible to try and earn himself some respect.”

Jake waited for Jatri to continue, figuring there must be more to this if she had brought it up now, or for Monica to interject again and get them back on topic, and rolled his eyes when they both just allowed the silence to lengthen like they were waiting for him to make the next move.

“So?”

“You don’t seem surprised?”

“Because I’m not? I never knew his name but I have heard this story before.”

“Oh, so then you also know that Francisco Martinez took control of the situation before the guards could and proceeded to ‘teach him a lesson’, as he likes to call it? That Daniel died from his injuries because Francisco wanted to make it clear your partner was under his protection?”

Jake hadn’t known that, and yet he realised as he heard it said out loud for the first time that he had pieced it all together a long time ago and had then buried the lede from himself because he hadn’t been sure what to make of it. He still didn’t, he probably never would, but at least it was easy to swallow any kind of reaction to Jatri’s goading.

“Yeah,” Jake felt proud of himself for managing to sound a little bored, “and?”

“Given those circumstances, you don’t think it’s possible that there’s something more to their relationship?”

“No, I don’t.” Jake shrugged when Jatri raised her eyebrows with blatant scepticism. “Bradley would’ve told me if there was and you’d probably already have the evidence you’re clearly lacking to prove that fact without having to stoop to whatever this bullshit is.” Jatri hummed a laugh which Jake assumed was her way of conceding the point without having to put voice to it. “Did you know that Paco, that’s Francisco, right?” Jatri nodded. “Yeah, you know he could barely read before he met Bradley? I didn’t believe it when I first found out.” Jake scoffed over that memory, feeling himself lose a little control but trusting that Monica would step in if she felt like he was ever saying too much. “I had more faith in our good country’s education system, but I suppose when you spend your entire life being groomed to take over the ‘family business’ certain priorities fall through the cracks… and Paco has a lot of kids. I don’t know the exact number, I’m not sure I want to, but I can imagine it’s probably quite hard to keep on top of calling them all when you’re busy trying to run an empire from behind bars. Bradley helped him with writing to them. That really is all there is to it.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because Bradley wouldn’t do that to me.”

Garcia laughed, seemingly in spite of himself, the sound bursting out of him once his façade broke too much for him to keep it up any longer. “I’m sorry,” he said, waving a hand in front of him like he was trying to dismiss his own words. “You’re just nothing like the type of person we usually get touting that crap around.”

“Say again?”

“Oh, it’s usually some spaced out baby mamma with far less intelligence wailing around about how their criminal of a boyfriend could never have broken the law because they promised they’d gone straight for them.”

“Right.” Jake rolled his eyes again. “Except Bradley ain’t a criminal.”

“He literally just got outta prison.”

“My client was exonerated,” Monica retorted.

“His record’s clean,” Jake said at the same time. “He was never supposed to have been there in the first place and he sure as shit wouldn’t ever risk going back again.”

“For you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the conviction’s certainly admirable…” Garcia stepped forwards to take a seat next to Jatri, leaving Jake feeling suspicious over what this change in tactics actually meant when it was obvious that the two detectives hadn’t planned to switch roles like this. “Javier and Manuel Martinez aren’t quite so good at covering their tracks as their older brother,” he mused, fishing under the photos to drag the file out so that he could pretend to read the report which had also been hiding at the bottom of the stack. “We picked Javier up yesterday after a shootout they had been involved in which left two people dead and three critically injured. Some turf dispute you don’t need to know the details of,” he waved his hand dismissively again, “but what is interesting is that forensic evidence suggests the presence of a third, as yet unidentified, shooter assisting them.”

Jake hadn’t needed the warning kick Monica nudged him surreptitiously under the table with to know he should tread carefully here, but he appreciated the vigilance nonetheless.

“Can you account for the whereabouts of your partner between the hours of midnight and six AM yesterday morning?”

Jake took a breath to steady himself before replying, “he was working at the Hard Deck, the navy bar downtown, until two. We locked up together, took the long way home because I was craving milkshakes, and went to bed.”

“So, you were with him the entire time?”

“Yes.”

“You’re confident he wouldn’t have snuck out after you fell asleep or anything like that?”

“Yeah,” Jake snorted to himself, opting for a tame answer to that question rather than lowering the tone by bragging about how long they had spent wearing one another out after they had gotten home. “I would’ve noticed if he’d left.”

“Can you explain these photos?”

“Bradley wants to cut off contact, but it’s a slow process because of… who they are.”

“Our surveillance, on Javier and Manuel, not your partner, of course,” Garcia clarified with a placatory look at Monica, as if she had already picked a fight about Bradley been caught up in any monitoring his friends were being subjected to which he didn’t want repeating now, “documented roughly half a dozen encounters between the three of them over the last few weeks, always in public places. Do you know of any meetings which might have taken place in private that we aren’t aware of?”

“Bradley’s either been with me or at work since the second he got out so, no, he hasn’t had the time for any clandestine meetings you need to worry about.”

Garcia’s eyebrows rose with apparent surprise at that answer, “that’s a little codependent, isn’t it?”

Jake scoffed and took a moment to breathe before he said, “you’re married, right? I see the ring.” Garcia nodded, his scepticism fading into something akin to curiosity as Jake finished the point he was making. “Do you love them?”

“Of course.”

“Would you not be feeling a little codependent then just after you had lived through an eight-year stint of them being locked up for a crime they didn’t commit?”

Garcia didn’t explicitly respond to that but the way he pursed his lips before taking a breath and asking his next question was close enough to a crack in the armour that Jake knew he had made a direct hit on his conscience there just like he had intended.

“Do you have any information which might help us with locating Manuel Martinez? Even the smallest offhand detail you might have been told could help.”

“I don’t know anything about him. Bradley kept me far away from anything to do with them.”

Garcia hummed and began collecting up the photos to put back in the file as he shrugged, “okay.”

Jake frowned, glancing to Monica for reassurance that he didn’t get from the neutral expression fixed on her face whilst she watched both detectives. After all of the antagonism, that felt like such an anticlimax to end on. It was all he was given however, as Jatri stood just seconds before Garcia did.

“Thank you for your time, Commander,” she said, holding open the door for her partner and shutting it behind them without another word.

“What the fuck was that?” Jake asked Monica the second that they were alone, terrified that he had messed this up somehow and let Bradley down.

“I had hoped to have a chance to explain this to you before they came in,” she replied, patting his arm comfortingly before taking out her phone to start tapping away, her expression pinched and her jaw set in the way that said she was about to make someone regret having gotten on her bad side. “They’re grasping at straws and I get the impression that they’re hauling in anyone even tangentially associated with Javier at the moment to try and track down his brother and whoever the hell this third shooter is.”

“What does that mean for Bradley?”

“Technically they can hold him for the rest of the day before they either have to charge or release him. Not that they can charge him with anything,” Monica hastened to add when she glanced up at the stricken sound Jake choked out. “He has a solid alibi which you’ve just verified word for word and we both know there’s no evidence for them to find to the contrary. We just have to wait for them to stop dicking around and then you can take him home.”

“So, this is all just some big misunderstanding?”

“Yes, that’s what it looks like.”

Jake exhaled a short breath and scraped his hands through his hair, relief warring with outright anger and frustration. “Can I see him?”

“Not yet.” Monica offered him a sympathetic smile, gesturing for him to follow as she stood before refocusing on her phone again. “I’m gonna need you to keep your head down and sit tight whilst I go see what I can do to speed this along.”

“Mon-”

“Just let me do my job, okay? Trust me, Jake, this is what I’m here for.”

Jake clenched his jaw at the realisation of how much he was being managed right now and muttered a short, “okay.” He forced out a sigh as he tried to let it all go for the sake of not taking his feelings out on the one person who had always been in their corner. “Yeah, just… tell him I’m not mad.”

Monica huffed out a short laugh, eyeing Jake like he had surprised her as she shoved him into a chair in the corner of the station’s waiting area. “For how obsessed you guys are with each other, I’m amazed neither of you seem inclined to pass on any sappy ass love declarations…”

“We don’t need to worry about that.”

Monica frowned like she wasn’t quite sure what to make of his logic, but disappeared off towards the interview rooms with nothing more than a promise about getting this sorted as soon as she could. Jake was left alone to bury his head in his hands and try to make sense of why this was happening to them again. The world that existed within the confines of the station carried on around him as he spiralled in despair. Time meant nothing here. Eventually however the soft sound of someone clearing their throat caught in the periphery of his awareness. When he raised his head, Jake found Pete stood a safe distance away, watching him with an unreadable look in his eye.

“Hey, pops,” Jake murmured, his voice breaking from disuse despite how low his tone was.

It was only when Pete’s shoulders sagged with relief that Jake realised that he had been expecting a much more hostile welcome. He moved to take a seat next to Jake as he explained, “I only picked up your message when I woke up this morning, I would’ve been here sooner otherwise.”

“I know.” Jake scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling that much more exhausted than before. He sat back further in his chair, resting his head against the wall as he spoke through a yawn to ask, “what time is it?”

“A little after six AM. Have you been here all night?”

“Yeah. They had me in alibiing him earlier but I’ve just been waiting since then. I don’t, um, Monica’s handling it. She said I’d be able to take him home, but I- it’s been hours now and-”

“Hey, relax, kid,” Pete said, clapping a hand on his knee to stop where he had been trying to wear a hole through the carpet with the shaking of his leg. “Whatever this is we’ll get it sorted.”

Jake scoffed in spite of himself. “We. That’s fucking rich.”

His eyes slipped shut as his strength seemed to give out now that he had someone sat here watching his back, but he felt Pete sigh and did start to feel a little guilty for being petty at a time like this.

“Yeah, I deserve that.”

“You deserve a lot worse than that.”

Pete snorted, “for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not the one you need to apologise to.”

“Yeah, you are. I let you both down, I know that, but we’ll duke it all out later.” Pete patted his leg a couple of times before letting go of him and easing back in his own chair like he was making himself comfortable. “Get some rest, kid, I’ll wake you up when something happens.”

Chapter Text

The first time Jake met Bradley Bradshaw he fell in love. It took much longer than it should have for him to realise that that was the case.

“I never asked you to do that!”

“You don’t have to ask me to do the right thing, Jake,” Bradley scoffed, stalking even closer to him. “I’m not gonna just stand by and do nothing while some asshole tries to take advantage of you.”

They had been going back and forth over this for a while now, Jake having dragged Bradley out to the back porch of the Hard Deck by the ear once the guy who had been aggressively hitting on him was manhandled away before the fight Bradley had inadvertently tried to start amounted to anything. Bradley had been indignant and self-righteous at first, maintaining that whilst he knew he had crossed a line, he had had good reason, saying a lot of the same things as Jake about how it could have been handled better just with different words. Some sort of switch had flipped for him not that long ago however and he had only doubled down on his arrogance since then. Jake wasn’t in the right frame of mind to calm down as much as him. He wanted to keep arguing the point. Especially since the alternatives, like forgiving him or encouraging this behaviour, seemed much too dangerous to consider.

“I had it handled.” Jake shoved at Bradley, trying to ignore the flutter in his chest as he was boxed in against the wall. “I don’t need you waltzing in defending my honour, I can take care of myself.”

Bradley smirked as he rolled with the motion and inched another step closer. “I know you can.”

“What the fuck is your problem then?”

“Jake-”

“No, don’t try and talk your way outta this, dickhead.” Jake shoved Bradley again, ignoring the small part of him which noted that it had a hell of a lot less force behind it than the first. “You don’t get to knock a guy out in front of my squad just because he was getting a little too handsy and then flash your pearly whites and bat your stupid eyes and think I’m gonna fall for whatever macho bullshit grandstanding this is supposed to be.”

“I didn’t knock him out, Jake. I barely even touched him.”

“Well, he sure hit the ground pretty fucking hard!”

“He tripped,” Bradley shrugged like he wasn’t bothered in the slightest by any injuries he may or may not have caused. “And he deserved it.”

“I can take care of myself,” Jake said again, feeling like he was losing this argument even though he couldn’t quite figure out how.

Bradley nodded, repeating himself as well when he replied, “I know you can.”

Jake took a careful, shuddering breath and made a point of trying to collect his thoughts before he took stock of the fact that Bradley was all but plastered up against him where he had trapped him against the wall. Bradley had one palm pressed flat next to Jake’s head, the other clenched into a fist which was down by his hip. His stare was the most intense thing Jake had ever been subjected to. He felt like a curious specimen pinned down for close scrutiny under the weight of it. Jake had never been more hyperaware of their proximity before. He was as desperate to run far away from this situation as he was to reel Bradley in.

“I’m sorry, Jake,” Bradley said before Jake could make sense of how he felt. “He put his hands on you and I saw red.”

“You’re the last person in the world I thought I’d have to worry about impulse control with.”

“Yeah,” Bradley scoffed, “well, you’ve never seen me angry before.”

“I’ve seen you angry plenty.”

Bradley chuckled, the sound low and dangerous enough to sneak up under Jake’s ribcage and curl its way around his heart. “No,” he insisted, “you haven’t.” Jake flinched as Bradley’s hand smoothed around his waist. He was wound much too tight to have a casual reaction to his touch. “I know I was wrong,” Bradley added. “But I’d do it again in a heartbeat if I had to.”

Jake wasn’t sure how but he knew without a doubt that Bradley was talking more about protecting him there than he was starting fights for his benefit.

“I’m still pissed at you,” Jake said, feeling like he had every right to be.

“Yeah,” Bradley grinned like that prospect appealed to him, “course you are.”

Their lips were locked together before Jake even registered moving. He had each half of Bradley’s shirt clenched in his fists, drawing him close as much as he was trying to keep some sort of grip on his sanity. The hold Bradley had on his waist only tightened as his other hand moved to cup Jake’s jaw and tilt his head to a better angle so that he could take control of their first kiss and thoroughly eradicate any delusions Jake had been under about not having feelings for him.

The last thing Jake remembered from the worst night of his life was the terror in Bradley’s expression when he landed beside him and started begging him to stay awake.

“Here,” Garrett murmured, tapping a beer bottle against Jake’s knee for him to take as he eased into the chair next to him and took a sip of his own drink.

“Thought you were off this stuff while Steph’s pregnant?”

Garrett chuckled, “don’t rat me out, man. You looked like you could use one and personally I hate drinking alone.” Jake grunted his thanks as he took a sip himself. They were settled at the far end of Jake’s parents’ back yard, enjoying a moment’s peace in the otherwise hectic week which had led up to the wedding taking place the following day. Jake was allowed to work through the first half of his beer in companionable silence before Garrett tentatively revealed his motivations for cornering him like this. “So, um, tell me to fuck off if I’m overstepping, but I was hoping I could ask you a personal question?”

“If this is about Steph then it’s probably something you should be asking her,” Jake replied, tipping his head back against his chair as his eyes slipped shut.

“No, no,” Garrett huffed out an awkward laugh, “well, tangentially it is, I guess, but, um, I couldn’t help but notice you didn’t bring a plus one for the wedding.” Jake stiffened as he made a few assumptions about what he was going to be subjected to here, groaning inwardly over how easily his plan to just point blank avoid this conversation with everyone had been scuppered by his brother-in-law’s nosiness. “Steph always got super cagy whenever I asked about it while we were planning, like, the seating charts and all that,” Garrett continued when Jake didn’t answer him. “And, uh, and your mom’s not exactly been subtle about how hard she’s been trying to introduce you to people the last couple days, so I assumed it was just that you didn’t have anyone you wanted to bring, but then I accidently overheard you on the phone earlier and I got the impression whoever you were speaking to is pretty damn important…”

“You know none of that actually qualifies as a question, right?”

“Well, I’m just wondering if there’s any particular reason why you felt like you couldn’t bring your boyfriend to the wedding?” Jake snorted, realising all at once what kind of misconceptions Garrett was under. Before he could rectify that however, Garrett doubled down on what he likely thought would end up being some kind of intervention. “Because it’s obvious your family don’t care about you dating guys and I know it’s my family who made us speed running the ceremony before the baby comes necessary but they’d never-”

“Garrett,” Jake interrupted, raising his head again to meet his gaze as he explained, “my boyfriend’s in prison.”

It was the sadistic streak in Jake which meant that the look on Garrett’s face as he sat visibly shaken by that revelation fuelled a lot of the strength he needed to suffer through the rest of this weekend.

“Believe me, he’d be here if he could, my family’s already met him and I don’t really give a shit what yours think of me either way but, you know, we don’t really have a lot of choice in the matter,” Jake continued with a sardonic tone, dropping his head back against his chair again in defeat. “I’m amazed Steph never told you, to be honest, she’s said some pretty bitchy things about Bradley in the past.”

“She acts like you’re single?”

Jake breathed out a bitter chuckle, “yeah, they wish I was.”

“Um,” Garrett cleared his throat and took a long pull from his beer before he summoned the courage to ask, “what did he do?”

“He put one guy in a coma and broke another guy’s nose.”

Garrett’s brows rose with evident shock, confirming for Jake that absolutely no part of this conversation had gone how he expected it to. Jake might have done him the favour of providing more context or trying to justify things a little better, but he didn’t see why anyone deserved that from him when his family had spent the last few years eroding every last bit of faith he had had that he would ever get the support he needed from them. There was no reason for him to think Garrett would be any different once he had the truth laid out in front of him.

“Did they deserve it?”

“Hm?”

“The guys…” Garrett swallowed like he was feeling uncomfortable but powering through it nonetheless as he repeated his question. “Did they deserve it?”

“That’s a subjective question right there, buddy.”

“Will you tell me about him?”

Jake’s gaze snapped over to meet Garrett’s again with an inordinate amount of surprise. “What?”

“Well,” Garrett chuckled nervously, “I’m joining the family, Jake, I’d like to know what I’m signing up for here… not in,” he puffed out a breath before clarifying, “not in a bad way. I just- there’s obviously a lot to this and I can’t figure out why Steph would’ve kept it from me?”

“Because my parents like to think that if they just pretend he doesn’t exist then I’ll eventually get over this ‘phase’ and they won’t ever have to acknowledge that one of their sons-in-law is behind bars, and Steph’s a good little sheep who’d rather follow their lead than talk to me about it and form her own opinion.”

“Will you tell me what happened?”

Jake stared at Garrett for a long moment trying to figure out what his angle was here. “Steph won’t like that.”

“Steph doesn’t control me any more than I do her,” Garrett retorted. “And I like being able to think for myself.” Jake scoffed, still not quite convinced he could believe him. “I meant it when I said you can tell me to fuck off if I’m overstepping, but I would like to know… you know, when you’re ready to talk about it.”

In spite of his instincts to keep his mouth shut, Jake found himself opening up, not just about the arrest and the first few years of Bradley’s incarceration, but also about their relationship in general, how they had met, fond anecdotes, plans they had made for what life would be like once Bradley got out, how much Jake cared about him and what a struggle it had been dealing with this all on his own. Garrett was a good listener. Attentive and caring and unafraid of asking the kind of probing questions which dredged far more information out of Jake than he had originally intended to share. More than an hour passed before Jake started running out of steam, but even then, he found himself continuing to ramble through different stories just because of how long it had been since someone other than Bradley had encouraged him like this.

If they had had a good attorney, perhaps they could have gotten the charges dropped. But they didn’t. They hadn’t been able to afford one.

“How do you know this woman’s legit?” Pete asked.

“‘This woman’,” Jake scoffed. “Jesus, Pete. You know her name’s Monica.”

“Yeah,” Pete waved a hand like common courtesy wasn’t a huge concern of his. “She’s been working for you for how long now and you have nothing to show for it.”

“That’s not true.” Jake gestured at the paperwork scattered across the table between them, some of which Monica had sent over for them to review and the rest which they had been compiling themselves with the help of Javy to make sense of the precedents she had referenced and why they were relevant to Bradley’s case with their limited combined understanding of criminal law. “She can’t just snap her fingers and get him out, it doesn’t work like that.”

“No, I know, but three years she’s been at this, Jake, don’t you think maybe we should at least consider finding someone else?”

“Hell no.

“Jake-”

“No, it’s not just-” Jake sighed and scraped his hands through his hair, wishing Javy would come back with their lunch already so that they could put this conversation behind them. “I trust her, Pete. She hasn’t steered us wrong yet. And she’s the one who found out about how shady that judge was. That’s our best bet on not just getting him outta there but clearing his name. Can you just trust the process, please?”

Pete sucked on his teeth like he wasn’t all that pleased by that request but was trying to accept it nonetheless. “Alright,” he sighed. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be such a downer.”

“I know.”

Pete seemed to do a double take at that and frowned a little harder at Jake the second time. “How’re you doing, kid?”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay. Now, how are you really?”

“How do you think I am, Pete?”

“I think you’re holding on by a thread-”

“I’m fine.”

“-and I wish you’d stop feeling like you need to hide that from everyone.”

“Pete, I can’t talk about it like this, okay, can you just drop it?”

“I-”

“Don’t,” Jake snapped. “Please don’t.” He took a breath and let it go again in a short exhale, wishing that was enough for him to keep it together. “I just need to get him back. I don’t have the time to worry about my own feelings.”

“You are allowed to treat yourself like a priority, Jake.”

“That’s his job.”

Pete chuckled, “yeah, I know, kid.” There was something about his tone which set Jake’s nerves even more on edge than usual. He started jigging his leg as an outlet for his anxiety, wishing this conversation didn’t skirt them quite so close to the limits of his control. “I’m just worried you’re not gonna make it through the next two and a half years if you keep things up at this rate.”

“I won’t have to.”

“Jake-”

“Just have a little faith, Pete. This appeal Monica’s filing, it’s gonna fix everything.”

Jake loved him for it, but Bradley’s tendency for overprotectiveness could get stifling in the wrong context.

“Happy birthday, baby,” Bradley murmured after their call connected, earning himself a laugh from Jake as he stretched and made himself comfortable in bed again. He didn’t usually call this early, having explained before what a battle it was to get to the phones first thing in the morning. Evidently, he had deemed it worth the effort today, which made Jake feel special in the kind of way that meant he shouldn’t analyse his standards too closely.

“You remembered.”

“Course I did,” Bradley’s smile was evident in his tone. “It’s the most important day of the year.”

Jake chuckled, “I think most people would disagree.”

“Well, most people are idiots.” Jake huffed another laugh and then sighed out a pleased hum when Bradley asked, “how was last night? You don’t sound all that hungover?”

“Nah, me and Javy cut out early. I’m hoping he’s still passed out on the couch, he said he’d buy me breakfast.”

Bradley snorted, “going all out for the big three-oh, huh?”

“It’s like the only thing I asked him for, baby, I think I deserve some waffles.”

“Yeah, you do,” Bradley sighed, but it seemed like he was making a point keeping his tone upbeat when he spoke again rather than letting himself wallow in whatever guilt he was feeling for not being here with him. “So, what’s with the early exit? I thought the squad were planning some big party for you?”

“‘Party’s a little generous,” Jake snorted. “We just went to a different bar than usual, nothing too special.”

“God, baby,” Bradley sighed, “just wait ‘til I get out. I’m gonna spoil you fucking rotten.” Jake breathed out another pleased hum, beyond excited by that prospect. “C’mon, why did you and Javy leave early?”

“Just wasn’t feeling it,” Jake lied.

“Why’d you and Javy leave early?” Bradley asked again with more emphasis on the question.

“Javy had too much to drink.”

“Baby, you know I can tell when you’re lying, right?”

Jake scoffed, “yeah, it’s a really shitty superpower, you should pick a better one.”

“Baby.”

“There was a guy…” Jake admitted with a groan as he scrubbed a hand over his face.

“A guy, huh?”

“Yeah, he wanted to buy me a drink. Wasn’t all that pleased when I turned him down.” Bradley harrumphed at that, but refrained from interrupting as if he could sense there was more to this and didn’t want to let Jake off the hook too soon. “I told him I had a boyfriend and he did the whole ‘well, he’s not here so he can’t be treating you right’ bit, and, uh,” Jake cleared his throat, “he didn’t believe me when I told him you were in prison… Javy made the executive decision to cut me off after that.”

“You actually told him I was in prison?”

“Yeah, I’d already had a few by that point…”

Bradley barked out a laugh, “I bet.”

“It’s genuinely the first time I’ve ever been honest with that kind of thing before and it did not go at all the way I expected it to.”

“Really?”

“I may or may not have, uh, threatened him on your behalf when he got a little too persistent…”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mm, you have to kick his ass if we ever run into him again.”

“You know I will, baby.”

Jake breathed out an overly dramatic sigh, “if only he had believed me.”

“I don’t get why he wouldn’t believe you, it’s too specific to be a lie.”

Jake shrugged even though Bradley couldn’t see him, “he was drunk, baby. And he was really into me.”

“He’d better have kept his fucking hands to himself.”

Jake hummed tauntingly, keeping the fact that he hadn’t to himself since there was a very fine line between teasing Bradley about this kind of thing and actually setting him off. “And why’s that?”

“You know why, baby.”

“Yeah, I do,” Jake grinned, committing the cadence of Bradley’s tone when he had said that to memory for when he needed it later. “I miss you.”

“I know, baby, me too. I’m sorry I can’t be there.”

“You’ll make it up to me.”

“Damn straight I will.”

Jake smiled at the promise in Bradley’s tone and settled in to make the most of the few minutes they had left on this call. Between that, the letter he received later that day detailing all of the plans Bradley had been thinking about treating him with when he got out, and the flowers which he had arranged to have delivered (something he had made a habit of doing periodically by employing Pete’s assistance to make sure it was a surprise every time), Jake felt like he had had a pretty successful birthday. It wasn’t much, but Bradley was giving him everything he could at the moment, and that was enough for Jake.

The first time Bradley was arrested Jake had been unconscious. Witnessing it the second time around was infinitely worse than finding out about it after the fact.

“I cannot believe you’d do that,” Jake snapped, fighting the urge to slam the door behind him just because he knew his mother was hot on his heels and, despite his frustration, he would never want to inadvertently hurt her. “Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was?”

“Jakey, be reasonable.”

“Reasonable? Are you fucking serious?”

“Don’t speak to your mother like that, Jacob,” his father chimed in from the rear of their group, taking his time in closing the front door whilst Jake stalked ahead to the kitchen, rounding the breakfast bar to put some physical barriers between himself and his parents in an attempt at restraint. His mother squared off opposite him, far from backing down like Jake himself. If anything, the two of them were only just getting started whilst his father stayed back under the guise of playing mediator. “She was only trying to help.”

“By telling all your friends I’m single when I’m not and parading me around at parties like I’m on the goddamn Bachelor? Who exactly is that supposed to be helping?”

“You, Jakey. I want you to live your life, love, not stay stuck in the past beholden to that man forever out of some misguided sense of loyalty.”

“That man is my boyfriend,” Jake said. He took a deep, fortifying breath in a gesture towards staying calm before adding, “and you know his name, mom.”

“I will not keep entertaining this charade-”

“Well, too bad! That’s not your choice to make, mom. He’s not some whim I’m gonna give up on just because you don’t approve. We’ve been together seven years-”

“Hardly,” she scoffed, “you haven’t seen him for more than five of them.”

“So?”

“It’s not a relationship, Jake, it’s a delusion.”

“We love each other.”

“He nearly killed a man!”

“For me.”

“Jake-”

“No, I know you like to pretend it didn’t happen like that, but that’s a fact. He gave up his entire life to keep me safe! How many times do we have to go through this?”

“However many times it takes for you to see reason.” Jake scoffed and whirled around as he carded his fingers through his hair in an attempt to stem his frustration and despair as he butted up against the brick wall that was his mother’s stubbornness. “Jakey, please,” she added in a softer tone, making him jump as she came up behind him and smoothed her hand over the backs of his shoulders in what was likely supposed to be a comforting manner. “You have so much going for you, love, I can’t understand why you’re so hellbent on wasting your time with someone who doesn’t deserve you.”

“Mom-”

“It’s not fair on you, Jake,” she continued, coaxing him into turning around to face her. “It’s absurd. You get a handful of phone calls and letters every so often and you think that’s enough?”

“It is.”

“Jakey-”

“No, mom, just stop. Please. I don’t expect you to get it.” Jake heard his voice break and felt his eyes well up with tears but there was only so much of this he could put up with at any one time. “You and dad, you get, what, forty odd years of wedded bliss right by each other’s sides and you think you have any idea what this is like? I haven’t been able to breathe properly in five years. I’m losing my goddamn mind. I’ve given everything I have to get him back and I’ve done it all on my own because the people who’re supposed to have my back would rather lecture me about how I should move on instead of helping. I’m fucking terrified that he’s never actually gonna get outta that hellhole but I’d still take just phone calls and letters for the rest of our lives if I had to because I already know what it’s like to lose him and I won’t go through that again. I love him. I’m not gonna give up just because things got complicated. I-”

“Jake, sweetie, come on, calm down,” his mother had been saying over and over throughout his rant, grabbing his arm and then wrapping him up in a hug afterwards all in an attempt to comfort him while so plainly out of her depth and at a loss for what he needed right now. Bradley would have known, was the insidious thought which registered in the back of his mind as Jake ran out of words and started breaking down. “I’m sorry, love,” she murmured as she held him tighter. “I don’t mean to upset you, but this isn’t healthy. One day you’ll thank me for this.”

In the moment, Jake tried not to think too hard about the woman he was praying would be their salvation. Afterwards, he had to wonder why there had ever been a moment in his life where he doubted if she could help them.

“So, I have good news and bad news,” Monica drawled the moment their call connected.

Jake was stood in the locker room when it happened, perhaps one of the least appropriate settings for him to discover his entire world was finally coming back to him. In a few minutes he was supposed to be going up into the air on a routine hop to run some practice drills with Callie, Neil, and Billy. He knew the minute he heard that tone however that every single part of today’s plans was now headed out the window.

“Jake?” Monica added when he didn’t immediately respond.

“I’m here,” Jake replied, breathless in spite of the fact that he didn’t technically know anything yet. “Hit me with it.”

“He’s coming home, Jake.”

Bending forwards with a low, guttural groan, Jake ducked his head between his knees as he fell into a crouch almost instinctively. He realised that he might be going into shock with this news. Someone brushed a hand over the backs of his shoulders, but he couldn’t focus on much more than keeping his phone pressed against his ear right now, so he had no idea who. He hadn’t truly dared allow himself to hope for a miracle before that moment, and yet now it seemed to be real whether he had been ready to hear it or not.

“When?” Jake asked in a breathless voice.

“Well, that’s the bad news. They spouted some bullshit about timing with releases or whatever. Apparently, we just missed the deadline for tomorrow. I think it’s total crap but I don’t have anything to prove that so it’s not technically worth rocking the boat on-”

“Mon, when?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“Can I pick him up?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course you can. Let me make some calls, I’ll double check the timing for you, and I’ll see in the meantime if I can’t get that pushed up to tomorrow anyway. They have no reason to keep him now, it’s just bullshit with the paperwork taking time to get processed.”

“Don’t tell him I’ll be there,” Jake murmured, a sudden wave of calm washing over him. This is what he had been waiting for all along. He could panic and spiral and grapple with all his emotions later when Bradley was home and there was nothing keeping them apart any longer. That was what Bradley would need from him, after all. Jake barely registered the tense looks circling around him as the other Daggers present seemed to catch up with the fact that something significant was going on when he straightened up again, his eyes fixed sightlessly on the door. “I want it to be a surprise,” he added, “just me and him.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s been eight years, Mon. I need that.”

“You got it.” Monica sighed, proving just how well she had come to know him in the years they had been working together as she added, “I know your head’s going to start playing tricks on you the minute we end this call, but I promise you this is real, Jake. We cleared his name. His record’s clean. He’s coming home.”

“He’s coming home,” Jake repeated, escaping out of the room in the wake of a series of shocked exclamations and demands for information from the squad.

His priority now was hunting down Pete and enacting the plan that they had put in place to guarantee Jake would get the leave he needed for if this exact scenario ended up happening last minute and at short notice. He didn’t have the time to stop and explain himself to the others. They’d piece it all together in their own time, he figured after the fact, there wasn’t much about his behaviour which didn’t explain itself. He’s coming home. The words replayed in his head over and over again like a mantra, repeating itself a million times for every hour which passed between when he received that call and the anticlimax that was Bradley passing through that final gate and taking his first few steps of freedom like he was terrified he didn’t deserve them. It didn’t truly seem real until Bradley was stood there stopped just a few short paces away from Jake, telling him he looked good the same way he always did. As if not one single thing had changed between them and they were still the same people that they had been at the beginning of this ordeal.

There wasn’t much else Jake could do to help Bradley at the police station. Much to his frustration, his hands were tied. Nothing in the world could have convinced him to leave or take a break however – he was in too deep, too in love for his own good, head over heels and unrepentantly committed to seeing this through to the end – so he stayed there, dozing on the verges of consciousness, sat next to a man he admired and resented in equal parts, and he waited.

Chapter Text

Jake flinched awake as Pete backhanded his chest and jolted upright to the sight of Bradley striding across the waiting area towards him. The gasp he choked on was some sort of strangled sob sound he would have sworn he had never made before, but he was out of his chair before he could think to feel embarrassed by it. There was perhaps a step or two that he had to take before he slammed into Bradley. It felt like a distance the size of the goddamn Grand Canyon for how long it took to stumble across. Once he was in his arms, Bradley’s hold on Jake tightened with the kind of ferocity that said, logistics be damned, he wasn’t planning on letting go again for a hell of a long time.

“I’m so fucking sorry, baby,” he whispered as he pressed a quick trail of kisses down the side of Jake’s face, the angle awkward because his nose was buried in the crook of Bradley’s neck. Jake bunched his fists into the back of Bradley’s t-shirt tight enough that his fingers started hurting, something which only helped to make this all feel more real. He tried to breathe around the lump in his throat enough to respond to him but only succeeded in letting out a more mournful sound than the last as he fought with all his strength not to break down in the middle of the station. “It’s okay,” Bradley promised, his hands flexing as he moved them closer together even though there was already next to no space left between them. “It’s okay. I promise I’m not going anywhere.”

“Hey, kiddo.” Jake felt Bradley tense around him at the sound of Pete’s voice. He tried to unclench enough to offer him some kind of comfort in return but realised in that moment that he had very little control over himself as his relief became all-consuming. “You good?”

It took a beat for Bradley to raise his head to presumably meet Pete’s eye. Jake could sense the barely concealed fury in his expression without needing to see it for himself, and yet when he spoke, his voice sounded strangely calm.

“Yeah.”

“I-”

“Pete, I can’t do this with you right now.”

“Right, of course. Let’s get you guys home.”

Bradley’s hand ran down Jake’s spine, an unspoken instruction for him to straighten up so that they could leave. He stepped back only a fraction, running that same hand around to link their fingers together instead. Jake scrubbed his free hand over his face, still half-asleep from the nap he had inadvertently taken and half convinced that this must be a dream. He squinted at the harshness of the lights above them when he blinked his eyes open afterwards but was more focused on following Bradley than properly taking stock of his surroundings. Monica was mid-conversation with detective Jatri by the exit, neither woman seeming even the slightest bit interested in what anyone else was doing. They wrapped up as Bradley started leading Jake forwards with a handshake that seemed fuelled by feigned respect on both sides.

Jatri offered what felt like an insincere smile when they neared them. “Apologies again for the inconvenience, Mr Bradshaw. We’ll be in touch if we have any further questions.”

Bradley barely looked her way as he grunted in acknowledgement, having guided Jake into swapping sides with a slight pressure on his waist before they passed her, that instinctual overprotectiveness of his responding to perceiving the detective as the biggest threat present by placing himself between her and Jake.

“I expect any future contact to go through me, detective, you have my details,” Monica said as Bradley held the door open for Jake to leave the station first, the two of them eager to put this place and all of the bad memories associated with it far behind them. “If I find out you’ve been monitoring my clients again without probable cause, our lawsuit will bury your career.”

“Keys, baby,” Bradley prompted as they crossed the parking lot, pressing a kiss to the back of Jake’s hand after he had fished in his pocket and held them out for him to take. He opened the passenger door for Jake, seeming to sense just how disconnected he had become now that the danger had passed, and helped him inside before saying, “I’ll just be a second.”

Jake watched his every move as Bradley was prevented from rounding the truck to the driver’s side by both Pete and Monica, his breath shortening the longer he was left without any physical reassurance from him. For Monica’s part, she said something short and snappish which left Bradley looking suitably cowed before heading over to where her sportscar was parked and speeding off without a backwards glance. Pete however said something that evidently hit a nerve the moment it was just the two of them, stepping forwards as if to reach out before Bradley shouldered his way past him.

“Fuck you, Pete,” Jake heard Bradley hiss, the words clear despite the way they were muffled by the barrier the truck represented. The vitriol in his tone seemed to stop Pete short, but not for long enough to discourage him from proffering a counterargument. They went back and forth a few times more, the words too quiet for Jake to decipher, before Bradley raised his voice again as he concluded, “we both know you’re gonna do whatever you want anyway.”

Much as he wanted to keep it together, the concern over that interaction and residual fear from last night brought Jake to the verge of hyperventilating by the time Bradley got in the truck.

“Baby, breathe.” Bradley spoke with a low, soothing tone, his voice breaking through the fog as his hand landed on Jake’s cheek and coaxed him into looking his way. He guided him through regulating his breathing until he was satisfied it was near enough under control again. “We’re going home, okay?” Jake nodded even though he knew Bradley had said that more to reassure him than because he was looking for an answer, the movement stilted and awkward with how out of it he was feeling. “You know, I could’ve started a fucking bingo card with all the things I thought I’d have to make up to you after getting out, but I never would’ve put ‘get arrested again’ on there…”

A loud cackle burst out of Jake, catching him off guard, mostly because of how much he hadn’t been expecting either of them to joke about this for a long while yet. He realised, when Bradley flashed a grin over at him as he got them on the road, that that was exactly the reaction he had been hoping for. It lightened the mood a little, making things feel more real and permanent than they had before.

“That’s not funny,” he said however, dedicated to his job of dissuading Bradley from the illusion that he was a comedian.

“Course it’s not.”

“I’m sorry I called Pete,” Jake blurted out instead of continuing the joke like he had intended, the apology taking them both by surprise as Jake frowned at himself and Bradley’s expression hardened enough for him to start glaring at the road ahead. “l didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t-”

“Baby, you don’t apologise to me,” Bradley replied, his eyes softening when he glanced to Jake, even where the rest of him was still a little too tense for Jake’s liking. “Not ever. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Jake took a breath and swallowed down his guilt as he received the kind of absolution he didn’t think he deserved. “Never?” Bradley tilted his head towards him again with a frown this time, as if he couldn’t quite understand the need for clarification. “You shouldn’t give me an out like that, Bradshaw,” Jake murmured, his tone more teasing now in an effort to restore that lighter mood his unplanned apology had ruined. “You know I’m gonna take advantage.”

Bradley barked out a laugh and shook his head to himself, seeming to slough off whatever had been bothering him at being reminded of Pete as he promised, “the day you do something to me that actually warrants an apology is gonna be a dark fucking day, Jake. Take all the advantage you’d like.”

Jake snorted at the way Bradley bit his lip to hide his smile now and stretched his hand out in time for Bradley to meet him halfway. Bradley tugged him closer after having pressed a kiss to the back of his knuckles, settling in, it seemed, as he encouraged Jake to latch onto his arm and lay his head on his shoulder. The rest of the drive passed by in silence, but a content, at peace, and enjoying one another’s company kind rather than the tense, fractured, and fraying at the edges one it might have been if they had allowed last night’s events to have any power over them.

It was late morning by the time they arrived at home. Neither of them were particularly dedicated sleepers, prison and the navy similar enough in respect of training that habit out of them by necessity, but the unexpected all-nighter (Jake’s short nap aside) lent a lot of lethargy to their actions as they went through the process of unlocking the front door and heading for the kitchen. Bradley was crowding up behind Jake with wandering hands as they walked, so he grunted in confusion when Jake stopped short in the middle of the room. The plates lined up on the counter and pots of now long congealed chilli and rice they had been seconds from serving before the detectives’ arrival broke him. Jake doubled over as he struggled to rein control over his laughter, his sides aching from how hard his amusement had hit. At least the stove had already been turned off by that point, he supposed, the thought only making him laugh harder as he fell into a crouch, he had been much too stressed at the time to think so far ahead as to not let the house burn down in their absence.

“Jesus,” Bradley chuckled in a much more reserved manner as he passed Jake by, taking the initiative to see what, if anything, could be salvaged before giving it up as a bad job and throwing all of the food out. “I know it’s a waste but I’m too tired to care at the moment,” he justified before moving on to stacking everything, including the clean crockery, into the dishwasher, as if he was fixed on the mindset of just clearing the counters in the fastest time possible. “I’m not even sure it’s worth going to bed at this point.”

“Probably not,” Jake had straightened up by that point as his amusement subsided and was waiting for the opportunity to slip back into Bradley’s personal space the moment that both of his hands were free. “I could do with a shower though.”

Bradley hummed like that suggestion appealed to him, his arms winding around Jake of their own accord to slip beneath the hem of his sweatshirt. “Want some company?”

“You bet your ass I wou-” Jake cut himself off at the sound of the front door opening again, throwing a frown over one shoulder whilst Bradley’s head slumped down with a groan to rest against the other. “Who the hell- oh. Hey, pops?”

“Coffee?” Pete said in lieu of a greeting, crossing the room without even glancing Bradley’s way to dump the paper bag and cup holder he had been carrying on the counter beside them. That provided most of the explanation Jake needed for why Pete was in their house right now. Bradley’s stoic reaction filled in the rest of the gaps. “I spoke to Penny,” he added, powering through the lack of response from them both. “She’s not expecting you in again ‘til next week at the earliest. And I’ll get your leave extended too, Jake. Figure you’ll both need some breathing room after last night.”

“Thanks,” Jake murmured after a short delay, taking point on dealing with him for now where Bradley was clearly reluctant to even acknowledge his presence.

Pete grunted, slinging a thumb over his shoulder as instruction for them to take a seat whilst he dealt with unpacking the breakfast he had bought. They ate in silence. Bradley wolfed his down and then immediately looked like he was hungry for more, eyeing Jake with a concerned frown when he only picked at about a quarter of his before pushing it across the table for him to finish.

“I’m gonna shower,” Jake announced, nudging his still half full coffee cup in the same direction as he realised he couldn’t stomach the oppressive weight of unresolved tension between Pete and Bradley any longer. “Back in a sec.”

Bradley stood with him, grabbing his hand before he could make an escape to draw him in for a quick kiss which acted as an unspoken promise that he would join him in a minute. Jake started the water, leaving it to heat up as he stared in the mirror and took stock of how sunken and withdrawn his expression seemed. The best cure would just be a lazy day spent with Bradley and an early night where they could pretend like the massive setback this arrest was had never happened. With Pete around, it was looking less and less likely that that was what Jake would be getting today however, and he had no idea how to feel about it. He did everything at a slow and measured pace, drawing the process of cleaning himself out much longer than necessary and then some because of the implicit expectation for company which never arrived. When the warm water started to run cold, Jake stepped out of the bath again, trying not to let his agitation show through his movements. He knew Bradley would have had a good reason for this, but that didn’t make the irrational side of his brain any easier to deal with.

The rapid back and forth of voices which weren’t even trying to be discrete told him what he had already known as Jake opened the bathroom door and stepped across the hall to get changed. He picked out an old, university-branded sweater of Bradley’s which he had long since appropriated into his own wardrobe and a pair of running shorts he preferred to lounge around the house in over using for their actual purpose, taking his time again for a much different reason now. Though the choice of whether or not to listen in on Bradley and Pete’s argument taken from him with the way sound carried through the house, Jake could still sequester himself away for a little while longer to give them the semblance of privacy.

“-saw each other before you went away you told me to drop dead, Bradley,” Pete had been saying as Jake left the bathroom. “And then I didn’t hear from you for-”

“But we already fixed that!”

“When you were in prison, yes. Can you blame me for having doubts you’d feel the same once you-”

“Yeah, I can actually. I thought we’d spent the last eight years learning how to talk, I feel like a fucking idiot now finding out how wrong I was about that.”

“You’re not.”

“Well, clearly, I fucking am, Pete! You didn’t even call. After that first day, after going through all that bullshit demanding that we come to the Hard Deck so that you could see us, you couldn’t even send a text to check in on how we were doing?”

“I-”

“And don’t say you knew we were fine because everyone else was keeping you updated because that just makes it worse.”

“Okay.” Jake scoffed to himself as he pictured the exact look on both their faces in the brief moment of silence that passed between them. He towelled off his hair and slumped backwards on the bed to continue waiting before Pete made the mistake of adding, “I did though.”

“Oh, fuck off, Pete. It’s not the same and you know it. I deserve better than that. Jake deserves better than that. We don’t have anyone else, Pete. None of my old friends want to be caught dead spending time with the ex-con, his sister’s convinced I’m gonna end up teaching her kids how to make shivs if she ever thaws out enough to actually let me be around them, Penny’s my boss now, the Daggers all try their best to be welcoming but half of ‘em act like they don’t have the first clue what to say to me on any given day and the other half look at me like I’m some sort of pet project that needs fixing up, and that’s it. We don’t have a support system outside of each other. If he hadn’t stuck by my side, I’d be completely on my own, and I’m still working through all the shit in my head that’s telling me he’d be better off just cutting his losses now before I put him through hell again. We were supposed to be able to rely on you, you promised that you would be there, but you couldn’t be bothered to pull your head out of your ass for long enough to follow through! What do you expect me to do with that now?”

Jake blew out a long sigh after Bradley finished speaking, blinking away the tears pricking in the corners of his eyes. Nothing he had said was a surprise, Jake had been living through all of this with him, so he was more than familiar with it, but hearing him list it all like facts he was reading off of a checklist hit differently to how it ever had before. Jake sat up. The urge to be with Bradley was overwhelming enough that it was starting to eclipse the reservations he had had about inserting himself into this conversation.

“Did you even show up?” Bradley asked, his voice pitched lower now like he thought that might disguise the hurt threaded through it.

“I got all the way to the door, kiddo. And I saw how relaxed you looked, and I just froze.” There was enough recrimination in Pete’s tone to reveal how frustrated he was by his own actions. “I didn’t see you even think about smiling for eight years’ worth of visits, Bradley, and before that you were so angry at me, and I just… didn’t want to ruin the night for you.” Pete paused and puffed out a sharp breath before adding, “I told myself I’d come round and see you guys the next morning and, well,” he scoffed, “Jake was right to call me a coward, because I managed to talk myself out of doing that as well, and then it was just excuse after excuse and… here we are now.”

“Of all the times to start overthinking.” Bradley sounded bitter and heartbroken enough that Jake took that as his cue to intervene. “You sure know how to pick your moments.”

“I am sorry, Bradley. It’s not that I didn’t care.”

“I know.”

Though neither Pete nor Bradley looked surprised or put out by Jake’s arrival, there was a palpable shift in the atmosphere once they noticed his presence. As if they were both making a conscious effort to set aside the drama for his benefit. They were stood either side of the kitchen. Pete had his hands clenched by his sides; Bradley’s were wound around his chest like he was self-soothing whilst they argued.

“Don’t stop on my account,” he drawled, walking between them to hop up on the counter in his usual spot. Bradley drifted to his side without seeming to notice he was moving until he bumped against Jake’s knee. “Half of the Daggers are still low-key intimidated by you,” Jake added, more as a subtle nod to tell Bradley how much he had heard than because he thought chipping in his opinion was necessary. He scratched a hand through Bradley’s hair before settling it at the back of his neck and attempting to massage some of the tension away. “And they’re all dumbasses anyway, so I don’t think we’re missing much on that front.”

Bradley huffed a laugh, “they’re trying their best, baby.”

“They definitely don’t need you defending them.” Jake grinned as Bradley thawed out even more for him, spreading his knees when Bradley shifted to kiss him before he twisted back to face Pete. He stayed bracketed between them, leaning back against Jake's chest when he threw his arm over his shoulder with a tired sounding sigh. Jake pressed a kiss to the crown of his head, his heart breaking a little for how inadequate this attempt at comforting him felt. “Anyway,” he added, trying to keep his tone light and upbeat. “You refused to teach me how to make a shiv, so you’d better not go and use that to win points with the girls.”

“We’ve already had this argument, Jake, I don’t know how to make a shiv.”

These were the only kind of lies Jake would be accepting going forwards. The ones where they were so blatant Bradley wasn’t expending any effort trying to hide them. Where it was clear that he was the only one in on the joke when Bradley told them.

“Yeah, I still call bullshit. It can’t be that difficult.”

“Well, let me know when you figure it out then.” Jake scoffed, keeping his attention fixed on Bradley even as he clocked Pete moving to take a seat at the table with a measure of resignation in the corner of his eye. Bradley tilted his head back as best he could to meet his gaze and asked, “feel better now?”

“Mm, I left you a little hot water.” Jake ran a hand over Bradley’s shoulder, plucking at his collar as he added, “you should go freshen up, baby, you’re looking a little rumpled.”

Bradley flashed him a withering look, seeing right through the shadow of subtlety Jake had used there to hide that he wanted him to take a break so that he could have his own private fight with Pete, but simply pressed another kiss to Jake’s cheek before stalking away without comment. Jake stared after him until he heard the water start, smiled, and turned to meet Pete’s gaze where he was already watching him expectantly.

“Alright, kid, let me have it.”

Jake chuckled scornfully, “I don’t need some sad attempt at an apology, Pete, I just wanna know what you’re gonna do to make it up to him.”

“I’m not sure he’s gonna give me chance to.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jake scoffed, “you really think he’d be bitching that much if he was gonna cut you out of his life again?” He raised his eyebrows when Pete just sat with that question for a moment like he wasn’t sure what to make of it. “The first time you guys fell out, he probably came out with a few snappy one liners but he was pretty quiet overall, right?”

“Yeah,” Pete frowned, “did he tell you-”

“Didn’t have to. His anger’s got layers, Pete, I’m surprised you haven’t worked that out for yourself by now.”

“How long did it take you to figure that one out?”

“Oh, not long at all, I have a special talent for pushing his buttons though.” Jake shrugged, feeling calmer than he had all day so far as he added, “if it were up to me, you wouldn’t have even made it through the front door this morning. He seems dead set on giving you a third chance though, so what are you gonna do to earn it?”

“Whatever’s needed.”

Jake sucked on his teeth as he tried to telegraph every bit of scepticism that he could muster through his body language. “That’s a tall order, Pete. All he ever needed before was for you to show up.”

“Ouch, baby, tell us how you really feel,” Bradley said as he re-entered the kitchen.

Jake had been tracking his progress through the sounds echoing through the house, the water shutting off, the snap of drawers in their bedroom, his feet padding down the hall. He didn’t think he could have timed that better if he had tried. Pete however flinched at the suddenness of his voice interjecting into the conversation. Bradley was quick to cross the room and slip between Jake’s knees again, now dressed in sweats and a well-worn tank top. He breathed out a satisfied hum when Jake bumped their noses together before kissing him, seeming to savour the moment. His reluctance to turn around and face Pete again was blatant, and much as Jake wanted to be the bigger person and help facilitate a reconciliation between them, Bradley’s peace of mind was more important than anything else. If he wanted to be petty and subject Pete to the silent treatment until awkwardness chased him out of the house then that was what they were doing. Jake didn’t feel the need to question his judgement right now.

“Better?” He asked when Bradley pulled back to meet his gaze, starting to fix his hair out of habit where it was a mess from having been towelled dry.

“Did you lie about leaving hot water for me on purpose or did you just not realise how long you’d been in there for?”

“Oh, my bad.”

Bradley snorted, “you’re lucky I love you.”

“I’ll make it up to you later.” Bradley tipped his head back for another kiss, sighing into it this time. Jake wanted to keep following his lead in ignoring Pete’s presence but he couldn’t not notice the way he was staring. There was only so long he could indulge Bradley before he had to ask, “what?”

“I-” Pete shook his head, fondness seeping into his expression. “You two look good together.”

It only then occurred to Jake that this was the first time Pete had ever really seen the two of them interact as a couple before. He had known they were together this entire time, of course, but in an abstract sense. Jake could imagine how strange this might be for him, especially when he took into account the separate relationships that Pete had with them both. Neither he nor Bradley responded to that observation though, so it sat there hanging around whilst Pete continued to stare like he was taking a long moment to reflect on his actions.

“Look,” Pete eventually added, “I’ll get out of your hair if you’d like. I can wait for you guys to reach out when you feel ready to, whatever you want, but I don’t want to lose contact, so you tell me what you need right now and we’ll do that.”

Jake stayed quiet, leaving it for Bradley to decide, so he was surprised therefore when Bradley simply sucked in a deep breath and straightened up properly to cup a hand against his jaw as he asked, “any preferences on what we do today?” Jake shook his head, wondering where Bradley was going with this. “We’re gonna be slobs and watch movies then,” Bradley announced in a louder voice without looking away from Jake. “You’re welcome to stay if you want, Pete, but we’re not going out of our way to entertain you.”

“Do we have any M&M’s left?” Jake asked.

“Uh,” Bradley moved to open a few different cupboards and hummed when his quest wasn’t successful. “No, we-”

“I can go get some,” Pete offered, waving off Jake’s insistence that they would be fine without as he stood and headed for the door. “Any other requests?”

“Jake likes anything with peanuts in,” Bradley replied, tugging Jake to his feet and pushing him on ahead to walk in front of him as they made their way into the living room. “I’m happy with whatever.”

Jake made a mental note to double down on his efforts to get Bradley enjoying snacking again since he was still warming up to the idea of experimenting with his food, but otherwise stayed quiet on the matter, following Bradley’s prompting when he flopped onto the couch so that he ended up laid on top of him with his chin pillowed on his chest, watching with a fond smile whilst he scratched his fingers through his hair. The gesture had a bigger meditative effect upon Jake than he had anticipated, so it took him longer than it should have to notice the tremors in Bradley’s hands. When he did however, he blinked his eyes open to find Bradley staring up at the ceiling looking like he was grappling with a lot of difficult emotions all at once.

“Bradley,” Jake murmured, keeping his voice low so as not to startle him. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t-” Bradley squeezed his eyes shut as he blew out a shaky breath. “I want to, I just- I don’t know where to start and I don’t really wanna have a breakdown in front of Pete today.”

Jake sighed as it occurred to him just how much of Bradley’s composure this morning had been a front. He had suspected that was the case, of course, but having it confirmed and seeing it start to fracture now that they were truly alone for the first time all day was worse than when he had just been working with his assumptions. Jake tipped his head forwards to press a kiss to Bradley’s sternum and then slowly inched upwards so that their heads were level and pressed one to his mouth as well.

“Okay,” he murmured against his lips. “Later?” Bradley’s expression tightened, an approximation of a frown without him moving all that many muscles. “Don’t shut me out, baby. Not about this.”

“Not about anything,” Bradley corrected. “No, I will tell you all about it, I just need some more time to process.” Jake nodded to show he accepted that and tucked his head under Bradley’s chin, smiling when he felt a kiss press against his hairline. “We’re gonna have to swap notes at some point anyway. I wanna know what you said to that Detective Garcia.”

“Hm?”

“The first time he came to talk to me he was just acting like an asshole, but then after they’d been in with you it was like he was a complete different person. He actually, like, listened to what I was saying, and he made this comment about your loyalty being admirable just before they released me. And Mon said she was amazed that you were able to stay so calm with how much they were trying to bait you.”

Jake scoffed, “yeah, like half our conversation was just them saying shit about you. They only asked me a couple of actual questions about, like, where you had been during the shooting and that. Came so close to telling them how long we’d fucked the other morning just to see the look on their faces.”

“Jesus,” Bradley chuckled, “I kinda wish you had now.”

“I don’t think Mon would’ve approved.”

Bradley laughed even harder at that. “Yes, she would have.” Jake snorted; glad they were on the same page with joking about it. “You know the first thing she said to me when we were alone was about that thank you bottle of wine we sent her? Like I’m halfway towards a panic attack because it’s my worst fucking nightmare come true and she just goes ‘I’m more a merlot kind of girl than cab sav, for future reference’.”

Jake had stiffened at the unsurprising revelation of just how badly Bradley had reacted to being arrested, but he forced himself to let it go for now, trusting that Bradley would open up more about that when he felt ready to. “I hate that we can actually make use of that feedback.”

“Mm. I forgot how scary she can be. She said she’d fucking gut me if she ever sees me in handcuffs again.”

“She can get in line,” Jake muttered.

Bradley snorted, but his tone was low and haunted when he said, “baby, I’m sorry I-”

“No. Don’t.” Jake pressed another kiss to the hollow in Bradley’s throat, melting into him a little more like they hadn’t already eradicated every bit of space between them. “You couldn’t’ve known this was gonna happen, Bradley, you can’t take that on.”

“But I should’ve-”

“What, learned how to predict the future?”

“Baby-”

“No, really, I mean, this whole time I thought you were just trying to make the best of the situation with what you knew, but maybe I’m wrong and you did this all on purpose because you secretly like being locked up?”

“Jake-”

“Well, which is it?” Jake rose up enough to meet Bradley’s eye, fixing him with the most disdainful look he could muster in order to get his point across. “Either you meant for this to happen.” He raised his brows to punctuate the point, fighting the instinct to smirk when Bradley huffed and rolled his eyes. “Or you just have the shittiest luck in the world and we have to learn how to account for that a little better.”

“Account for it?” Bradley said, his voice low and hoarse but amused enough to show that he was listening in spite of all the self-recrimination going on in his head. “How’re you gonna manage that?”

“Well, I think us spending every waking moment together is a good start…”

“Oh,” Bradley chuckled, “is that right?”

Jake hummed, ducking in for a deeper kiss than anything else they had shared so far this morning which Bradley readily reciprocated. Despite how easy it was to lose himself in that feeling however, Jake managed not to lose the threads of their conversation when they broke apart for air again.

“Yeah,” he said as he panted for breath and then dropped another kiss on the corner of Bradley’s mouth just because. “How am I supposed to be your alibi if I don’t know where you are all the time?”

“Best alibi I could ever ask for,” Bradley murmured.

“And to think,” Jake bumped their noses together, teasing now. “You were bitching about stopping off for milkshakes…”

“Jesus Christ,” Bradley’s laughter bubbled out of him, “you know that’s why they released me in the end? Mon called the diner and turns out they have this, like, pinhole camera hidden behind the register because the owners are paranoid about their staff skimming cash, or whatever, and it shows us arriving and leaving. It’s obvious they were pissed about it because I guess my being involved would’ve been the easy answer, but I mean, they had no reason to keep me after that.”

“So, next time I have a craving-”

“Baby, you’re getting every single thing you want for the rest of our lives… but that doesn’t mean I necessarily want to stop off at all-night diners after an eight hour shift all the time, you know?”

“Only some of the time?”

“Yeah,” Bradley nodded, pressing his lips against Jake’s forehead once he had settled down again. “Whatever you want, baby.”

Jake buried his nose in the crook of Bradley’s neck and breathed in deeply, feeling like a weight he hadn’t even known he was holding onto had lifted from his chest for the first time since Bradley had been taken from him all those years ago. It was a liberating feeling. One Jake hoped would last for long enough that this kind of freedom became normal for them.

Pete returned a short while later, unbeknownst to them both at first because of the light slumber they had drifted off into together. Bradley was awake before Jake however, the soothing motion of his hand running through his hair being the first thing Jake noticed when he blinked himself back to consciousness again. The second thing was the relief that Bradley’s hands seemed that much steadier now than they had before. Less shaky. More certain in his movements. The third, that Bradley and Pete were talking over him in muted tones, hashing out the hurt they were still navigating in their relationship with much more success now that Bradley’s initial fury had burnt itself out.

Later, they would get to their movies and snacks and spend much too long lazing about for their own good, and much later than that they would get takeout for dinner and crawl into bed for a much-deserved early night with Pete relegating himself to the couch because he found he couldn’t quite bear leaving them again just yet, but for now, Jake knew that that conversation was more important than their communal need for distraction, so he just snuggled further into Bradley and allowed his eyes to slip shut again whilst the comforting rhythm of their voices washed over him.

Chapter Text

“Hey, baby?" Bradley said, catching Jake’s attention from where he had been staring out the passenger side window whilst they waited for the light they were stopped at to turn green. He sounded smug, like he already knew the answer to the question he was about to ask. Jake hummed to show he was listening, lolling his head in Bradley’s direction to find him already looking his way with a wide, shit-eating grin. “Don't you think it's about time you married me?"

Jake froze, unable to hide his shock for a fraction of a second, and then a chuckle bubbled out of him followed by the kind of full-bellied laughter which always seemed to please Bradley. Eventually the laughter subsided into a content sigh as Jake wiped at his eyes, the tears having welled up unbidden as the full weight of his emotions caught like a lump in his throat. He leaned in, just as Bradley must have been expecting, to lay a quick but fierce kiss on him. A horn sounded from the people in the car behind them who must have been getting impatient waiting for them to move when the lights changed, but that wasn’t as strong a motivator for Jake to let Bradley focus on his driving as he imagined they would have liked it to be.

“We’ve really gotta work on your proposals, baby,” Jake murmured before kissing Bradley again. “You can do better than that.”

“Well, to be honest, I was kinda hoping this is the last time I have to ask…”

“Oh, hell no, you’re doing it at least one more time.”

“Is that right?” Bradley asked, sounding much too amused for his own good. The car’s horn sounded again as he bumped his nose against Jake’s and, much to their delight, Jake assumed, finally got the truck moving again. Jake hummed in the affirmative as he edged closer to Bradley, latching onto his arm whilst his fingers smoothed over his thigh and started drawing nonsensical patterns against the skin just below the edge of his shorts. “If I ask again, am I gonna get an actual answer outta you?”

“When you ask again, and if you do it properly, yeah.”

Bradley scoffed, “and what exactly counts as properly in your book?”

“Mm, down on one knee,” Jake began listing, holding a finger up to punctuate his point. “With a ring.” Bradley barked out a laugh as Jake’s second finger went up. “And a nice, long speech about how much you love me sure wouldn’t hurt your chances.”

“Christ,” Bradley shook his head to himself, quite clearly fighting back a smile as Jake saw in the corner of his eye. “You sure know how to make a guy work for it.”

Jake chuckled as he edged even closer to Bradley. Leaning in slowly to ensure he wouldn’t distract his driving, he pressed a kiss to his cheek and then bumped his nose against the bolt of his jaw as he teased, “I thought your whole thing now was giving me anything I asked for?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, your highness, that my meagre efforts aren’t yet living up to your standards.”

“You should be, you’re the one who raised them in the first place.”

“Yeah, fucking shot myself in the foot with that one.”

“I’m sure you’ll survive.” Jake smiled to himself when Bradley squeezed his thigh as if in agreement and dropped his head to lean on Bradley's shoulder for the rest of the drive. After a few minutes of them simply listening to the quiet song playing on the radio he added in a low murmur, “I love you, Bradley.”

“I love you too, Jake.”

The soft smile upturning the corners of Bradley’s mouth when Jake sat up to look at him again was enough to prove he didn’t mind this turn of events in the slightest. That he didn’t see it as a setback. Jake couldn’t be sure, of course, but he suspected, if he was being honest about it, that that was the exact kind of reaction Bradley would have been expecting from him. They had discussed this in a roundabout manner already, after all. Bradley had promised Jake a ring the first time he proposed so it wasn’t all that unreasonable for him to be expecting one. Jake hoped he was right in making these assumptions, at least, because the grocery store parking lot that they pulled into shortly after him popping the question wasn’t exactly the most romantic of settings for them to go about celebrating their sudden and unexpected engagement. It said a lot about how secure they each felt in their feelings for one another that they could joke around about it, but then again, this last month since Bradley had been released from prison had been all about proving that.

They were both back at work finally. Both much more settled in and of themselves. Jake didn’t know it yet, but it would take at least a few more weeks of their lives returning to normal for him to get past his fears that Bradley’s legal troubles weren’t truly over. Another month or so after that for Bradley to agree that he would give therapy a go to see if talking about his experiences with someone who wasn’t Jake might help him to process it better. More than a year for Steph to get over herself and let the two of them visit her family, reconnect, meet their nieces, and prove that Bradley wasn’t anywhere near as much of a threat as she had deluded herself into thinking so far. And at least to the end of the next decade before they fully shook off the feeling that they were making up for lost time with every single aspect of their relationship… Getting engaged would be a good next step, but after everything they had already been through, Jake would be damned if they settled for anything less than perfect moving forwards.

It would be nice if the rest of the universe could find a way to get on board with that.

It was reminiscent of the first time Jake had seen him, the way that Manny was waiting to ambush Bradley when he returned their shopping cart to the collection point. The biggest difference this time however was that, when Jake caught sight of him, he didn’t stay back and mind his business under the guise of uncertainty. Bradley was gripping tight to the handle of the cart, having almost frozen in place as one of the men he had once called friend stopped a few paces away from him. Jake missed his opening line, but it was plain to see even from across the parking low how much Bradley had taken offence to it.

“-some fucking nerve,” he spat at Manny as Jake came up behind him, angry enough that he almost didn’t react to his presence. There was a split second where he stayed too tense when Jake pressed a hand against his lower back in an attempt to reassure him before he relaxed into his touch the way that he was supposed to. “Manny, I’m gonna say this once, and you better pass the message on to your fucking brothers, because if any one of you ever come near us again, I will make you pay.”

“Bradshaw-”

“No.” Bradley shook his head, his grip on the cart tightening to near unbearable levels even for Jake when it wasn’t his hands. “I don’t give a shit what you have to say, Manny, I’m not going back. Not for you, not for Jav, and definitely not for fucking Pac. You know that. Don’t put me in a position where I have to do something to guarantee it.”

Manny’s jaw visibly clenched as he processed that threat. His gaze briefly flickered to Jake, but even that flash of a look was long enough to compel Bradley to square his shoulders and position himself more in front of him as if to block Manny’s view. Jake bristled at the overprotectiveness as usual but he couldn’t worry too much in the moment when that posturing made him take better stock of their surroundings.

“Baby, there’s people watching,” he murmured, pressing in closer to Bradley with the hope of shielding him from the prying eyes around them in much the same way that he currently was with Manny.

Bradley grunted to acknowledge that he had spoken and shoved the cart away from him, reaching back to grab Jake’s hand to hold onto in its place. “We’re done here,” he said, giving Manny one last long look before he turned away.

“Have a nice life, Bradshaw,” Manny called after them, his tone making it sound more like a taunt than a sincere wish.

“What did he want?” Jake asked the moment they were secluded in the truck again. He tried not to wince at the way Bradley sped out of their parking space or the too-tight grip he still had on his hand where their fingers were linked together.

“To make sure I’d kept my mouth shut.”

“Jesus.”

“I’d like to think we won’t see them again but I can’t promise you that,” Bradley sighed. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“Hey,” Jake tugged on Bradley’s arm until he glanced over at him, “stop apologising for shit you can’t control.” He pressed a kiss to Bradley’s shoulder as he refocused on the road ahead again with a scoff and mulled over the fact that it had been weeks since Bradley’s arrest. Weeks of supposed peace before the Martinez family was crawling out of the woodwork to make life difficult for them again. “They’ve got a long memory, huh?”

“You have no idea,” Bradley murmured with that haunted tone of his which only came out when he was thinking back on the darker elements of his past. He was quiet for a long moment before he scoffed a second time and chuckled to himself. “Christ, between this shit and you ragging on my proposal skills, today is really not my fucking day.”

Jake hummed like he was agreeing with him, but he was actually just biding his time until he didn’t have the fact that Bradley was driving to contend with in terms of sharing his attention. He waited, happily, until they had pulled into their driveway, home safe and sound again, and then shoved the seat back as far as he could to create a space for himself and crawled onto Bradley’s lap. Bradley breathed out a delighted laugh as he did so, the sound of which Jake swallowed down with all the passion he could muster as he kissed the life out of him.

“Ask me again,” Jake whispered against Bradley’s lips after they had come up for air, hands clasping both sides of his face as he tucked some errant curls behind his ears. Bradley frowned like he didn’t understand the request so Jake bumped their noses together in a cajoling manner as he repeated himself, “ask, baby.”

“I thought you wanted-”

“I want you to remember today as a good day.”

Bradley’s smile grew impossibly wide just before he tipped his chin up to capture Jake in another kiss. “It’s always a good day when I’m with you, baby,” he promised in a breathless voice. Jake snorted, pleased beyond measure to hear that even when it couldn’t possibly be true given all the terrible ones they had endured together. “No, I do want to do it properly, Jake, just like you said.”

“Okay,” Jake pressed their lips together at least half a dozen more times before he thought to make his point clear. “Well, not to spoil the ending,” he grinned as Bradley huffed out a laugh and hummed encouragingly, “but my answer’s gonna be yes.”

When the actual moment came, a few weeks further down the line, Bradley slipped off of the couch during a quiet moment of their evening together, produced a ring which he later revealed had once belonged to his father (something Pete had helped him to locate after he had been lamenting a little too hard over the tough decision making process involved in buying one), and promised Jake the world before asking him to be his husband. Despite his tenacity with proposing however, Bradley dragged his feet an awful lot more than Jake had been expecting at first with the actual wedding planning process. It took much longer than it really should have for him to piece together why that was. Bradley had his reservations over them thinking about any kind of ceremony when his relationship with Jake’s family was still so fractured, after all. If he had had any control over the situation, Jake would have clicked his fingers and magically made his sister see reason, but they had to allow her to process in her own time. The complex mix of surprise, delight, nervousness, and frustration that flashed across Bradley’s face in the instant before he schooled his expression into something neutral when Jake finally announced that Steph had asked about them visiting therefore made Jake wonder if he might just be setting them up for disappointment in the long run. They had been through far worse things than whatever she might try to throw at them however so he powered through his unease until the time came that he realised there had been no reason for it.

“You hold your pinkie out when you drink, Bradley,” Ellie said, leaning across the low, plastic table they were sat at to tug at his fingers until they were positioned how she wanted them. “We have to mind our manners.”

Bradley nodded sagely and took a pretend sip from the cup he was holding before placing it back on the table again. “Got it.” Jake chuckled to himself as he watched Ellie order Bradley to take a cupcake from the plate Addy was holding out, unsurprised by how fast he had been taken under the girls’ wing or how quickly he had assimilated into their play pretend in the end. “Does Mr Pudge need any help there,” Bradley added, pointing at the overly large teddy bear seated to his right. Garrett had won the thing for the girls at the county fair a few years ago and apparently he was a frequent guest for tea. “Or is he good?”

“It’s Mr Pudgely,” Ellie corrected.

At the same time, Addy announced, “he’s upset we don’t have cookies.”

“Oh no,” Bradley exaggerated a frown as he eyed the toy.

“We had cookies last week,” Ellie explained. “And mom said we had to make cupcakes yesterday while we were waiting for you and uncle Jake to get here.”

“Well, that’s lucky for me, I love cupcakes,” Bradley took a bite from the thing, even though he knew from Steph’s prior warnings that it wasn't the girls’ best work, as if to prove his point.

“Me too!” Addy beamed at Bradley and grabbed his cup to hand to him again so that she could clink hers against it. “I put sprinkles on mine,” she added, miming the action before taking a large bite of her own cupcake. She ended up with frosting on her nose, which Bradley wiped away with a fond smile, and spoke with her mouth full when she asked, “do you like sprinkles?”

“I sure do. What about you El?”

“You’re staring again,” Steph murmured to Jake making him miss Ellie’s answer. She hip bumped him where he had slowed to a stop in the middle of drying off the plate that she had handed him. They were looking out over the patio in the back yard, listening to Bradley and the girls play through the window Steph had opened as the two of them tidied up after lunch. Garrett was out at work so it was just the five of them getting used to spending time together again as Bradley took every opportunity he could to bond with his nieces.

“Can you blame me?” Jake asked, unashamed that he had been caught.

Steph scoffed and shook her head, fighting back a smile like she didn’t want to give Jake the satisfaction of seeing how pleased she actually was by how much of a natural Bradley was with the girls. It seemed to have surprised pretty much everyone involved except for Jake.

“I’m sorry.”

Jake grimaced, figuring that heralded the beginning of the conversation that they had been avoiding since he and Bradley had arrived last yesterday afternoon. They had taken the scenic route, meandering across the few states in between the two houses for the sake of enjoying the downtime they had to spend together. Call it a remnant of that codependency they had been working their way through in the first few months after Bradley came home, or the fact that they were still ridiculously in love with one another, or that age old habit of feeling like they had to make up for lost time with every new-old thing they were able to do together, whatever it was, nowadays being able to indulge in going on a road trip together was something they did for the simple pleasure of it and nothing more. Arriving at their destination might therefore have ended up being superfluous to the journey if not for how significant this weekend truly was in terms of progress.

“We don’t need to do this right now…” Jake murmured, offering Steph an out more for his own peace of mind than any more altruistic motivations.

“Yeah, we do.” Steph sighed, pulling the plug now that she had finished washing up. She turned to face Jake and tugged the plate and towel away from him, drying off her hands before crossing her arms across her chest. “I was wrong about him.”

“Steph-”

“I-” She sighed again. “I was awful to you. I should’ve been there to help and I wasn’t.”

“You had your reasons.”

“Jake, I’m trying to apologise here.”

“Yeah, I know, but…” Jake scoffed, “I don’t need that.”

“Jake-”

“I don’t know what you want from me here, Steph,” Jake said, keeping his voice low in spite of the surge of exasperation he felt because he didn’t want the girls to catch wind of what was quickly ramping up into an argument but couldn’t bear to shut the window when that would cut off the sound of their laughter. “I already forgave you. You thought you were protecting your kids,” he shrugged, “I can’t hold that against you.”

“I want you to get mad,” she snapped, glancing to the window herself afterwards like the risk of them being overheard had only just occurred to her. She took a few steps away from the counter carding her hands through her hair as she seemed to collect her thoughts before adding in a lower tone, “I want you to act like yourself! You used to hold the worst goddamn grudges and now I can barely even get you to acknowledge that I did you wrong.” Jake rolled his eyes as Steph fixed a beseeching look on him like she was desperate for the kind of absolution he wasn’t capable of giving her. “You should hate me. You should hate all of us. We’re your family and we abandoned you in the worst fight of your life! Mom and dad nearly disowned you over him and you act like that never even happened.”

“Because I wish it hadn’t,” Jake said, staring his sister down with a dispassionate look which in no way did justice to the way he truly felt. “I’d give anything in the world to have them here now so that they could take it back but I’m not ever gonna get that. I can’t-” he swallowed as his voice broke and took a few breaths before trying again. “I don’t want to hate you, Steph. What good is that gonna do me now?”

“I’m so sorry, Jake,” Steph said again, teary eyed and heartbroken on his behalf. Jake reached out without thinking to draw her into a fierce hug, burying his nose in her hair as he took a deep breath and willed himself to keep it together. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

Steph sniffled against his chest and wiped one hand under her eyes before holding onto him even tighter than before. In the quiet that came from them both momentarily dropping the subject, they heard Bradley burst out laughing at something. Jake inched them closer to the window to check and smiled at the scene playing out in front of them.

“They’re putting flowers in his hair,” Steph murmured.

Jake almost choked on the breath he tried to sigh out, overwhelmed by affection for the man he loved as he watched him duck his head even further so that Addy could tuck the daisy that she had had clutched in her little fingers whilst she waited for Ellie to finish with him behind his ear.

“Thank you,” Bradley said with a reverent tone, as if he had just been bestowed with the greatest honour in the world.

“You’re welcome,” Addy replied in a singsong voice, patting his hand before she jumped up from her chair to run over to the grass again like she was planning on getting more flowers to adorn him with.

“How long have you known my uncle Jake?” Ellie asked the moment her sister was out of earshot, sounding much too serious for her own good all of a sudden.

Bradley glanced over to her from where he had been watching Addy, smile fixed in place but expression tinted with a larger degree of wariness than any of his interactions with the girls so far. “Just over twelve years now.”

“Woah,” Ellie looked up from where she had been fiddling with some of the flowers Bradley wasn’t yet wearing to stare at him with wide, unblinking eyes. “That’s older than me.”

“Yeah,” Bradley chuckled, “little bit.”

“How come you’ve never come to see us before?”

“Uh,” Bradley cleared his throat as he straightened up a little in his chair, glancing in the direction of the house instinctively even though he was at the wrong angle to see that Jake and Steph were watching. “I made a big mistake when I was younger,” he eventually explained, his inexperience in dealing with children allowing him to level with Ellie in a way she likely didn’t experience all that often, “so I had to go away and live somewhere else for a while.”

“What kind of mistake?”

“I got really angry because someone I love was getting hurt and I did something I shouldn’t have to protect him.”

Ellie nodded like that had been a full fledged confession and not just a coded reference to the past. “Ms Sargent says everybody gets angry sometimes but the important thing is to think carefully about why we feel that way.”

“Who’s Ms Sargent?”

“My teacher.”

“Oh,” Bradley nodded without really giving away how he felt about that particular piece of wisdom.

“Where did you live?”

“Um,” Bradley huffed out a short laugh, “ask me when you’re older.”

Ellie hummed and reached out to fix one of the flowers when it fell down across Bradley’s forehead, caught in the end of one of his curls until she pushed it back in place. “Mom says we should always try to fix our mistakes.”

“Your mom’s a smart woman.”

“Did you fix it?”

“Yeah, eventually,” Bradley offered her a broken smile. “I had a lot of help.”

“From who?”

“Your uncle mostly.”

Jake rubbed a hand up and down Steph’s back as she sighed out a pained breath at that, squeezing his eyes shut himself as he considered just how raw he still felt sometimes over the past.

“Uncle Jake told me he’d always be there for us when we needed him.”

“He will be, Ellie, you don’t ever have to doubt that,” Bradley promised.

“Lacey K says she has the best uncle ever because her uncle Max got her a pony for her birthday last year and he takes her on rides every weekend she spends at her dad’s, but she only thinks that because she’s never met uncle Jake.”

“You don’t know how right you are, kid.” Bradley looked around himself and then leaned in and pitched his voice lower as if he was about to share some big secret. “Don’t tell him I said this, but he’s my favourite person in the whole wide world.”

Ellie giggled, making Jake think Bradley must made some sort of face at her to try and lighten the mood between them. When he opened his eyes again, Jake saw that Addy had returned with a collection of leaves for Bradley to look through. His heart couldn’t get any fuller. Sat there on a cheap plastic chair with the girls, Bradley looked more at peace than he had in all the years that Jake had known him. Even with all of Steph’s self-recrimination lingering around to dampen the moment, Jake didn’t think he had ever felt more content.

“He’s a good man,” Steph murmured.

“Yeah, you can say that again.”

“What can I do to make it up to you both?”

“Steph-”

“I mean it,” Steph insisted, pulling back enough to meet Jake’s eye. “Tell me what I can do.”

Jake shook his head and sighed, glancing back out the window in time to hear Bradley agree that, yes, Addy likely had found the biggest leaf ever to gift him with. “Just… let him have this,” he murmured. “You have no idea how much he needs it.”

“I can imagine.”

“No, Steph,” Jake breathed out a bleak chuckle, “you can’t. It’s-” He sighed, pulling away from her to scrub his hands over his face in an attempt to hide how he was tearing up. “There ain’t half as many people in his corner as there should be.”

“But it's not actually just you, is it? I thought he had, like, an uncle or something at the very least?”

“Yeah…” Jake scoffed, unsure how to neatly summarise the awkward, forced, overly attentive way that Pete still sometimes acted around Bradley for Steph’s benefit. “You’re not the only one who still feels like they need to be in the dog house.”

“Oh.”

“It’s fine, they’re getting there. Pete’s just let him down one too many times to make things easy for them, you know?”

“Jesus,” Steph breathed out an awkward chuckle. “Maybe he and I should swap notes on earning forgiveness.” Jake hummed indifferently, uninterested in continuing to argue back and forth on that when she still seemed dead set on beating herself up over it. “I, um, do you think you’ll be able to come out again for the holidays? The girls obviously love having you both here.”

Jake smiled as that observation was punctuated by another peal of laughter from Addy, who had cajoled Bradley into playing a game of catch in the time that he and Steph hadn’t been watching whilst Ellie played spectator with the teddy bear. “Yeah, I’d like to. We might have to, you know, play it by ear though. Pete’s still trying to make up for lost time with that kind of thing. And then there’s work, of course.”

“Yeah, yeah, Mr Bigshot Pilot.”

Jake snorted, “Bradley’ll have to figure out his shifts at the bar too, it’s not just me.”

“Is he planning on staying there still? You’d said before he was thinking about picking up some of his research stuff again?”

“Yeah, no, I think that’s more of a hobby now than anything. Since Jimmy retired, he’s really stepped up.” Steph smiled like that prospect pleased her. “Penny even floated the idea of him buying out his stake in the place and becoming a partner. I feel like she’s started grooming him to take over one day without any of us even noticing.”

“That’s great though, Jake, good for him.”

“Yeah, it’s the closest we’ve felt to normal in forever.”

“I’m happy for you,” Steph said, grinning slyly all of a sudden as she added, “just gotta get the wedding out the way now, huh?”

“Mhm, when we finally set a date for it.”

Steph snorted and moved to stare out of the window again, “you know you’re gonna have to have two flower girls, right?”

“Yeah, well, that’s why we’ve been dragging our feet with planning… Bradley wanted to get things fixed with you first.”

“There’s nothing for him to fix, Jake.”

“Tell him that.”

Steph’s face fell a little as it seemed to occur to her that, for all her guilt, she hadn’t yet thought to apologise to Bradley directly. That wasn’t something Jake felt inclined to make easier for her. His own pride he could swallow for the sake of maintaining his relationship with his family, but he would never expect Bradley to extend the same courtesy.

Jake took a deep breath and counted to ten before moving to join Steph in watching over the people he loved most in the world. He smiled when she bumped their shoulders together as he caught up with the fact that Ellie had now conspired with Addy to team up against Bradley in their game of catch, both of them throwing balls at him at the same time and finding great delight in the fact that he had fast enough reflexes to still beat them. Eventually, Ellie paused the game to whisper something in Addy’s ear. The two of them had matching grins plastered over their faces as they made a run at Bradley, taking him by enough surprise to tackle him. He looked happier than Jake had ever seen him in the moment where he landed on the ground. There was a lot in their lives which still needed fixing, a lot which Jake still considered unresolved, but that laugh, the booming one which rumbled through Bradley as the girls dogpiled on top of him and made themselves comfortable to start chatting again, was one Jake hadn’t heard in long enough that it felt like coming home when the sound floated through the window, and that was enough for now.