Chapter Text
Three years since the first time; two and a half since the last. And then once, amid the post-mission celebrations at Top Gun, Bradley had caught Jake’s eyes across the other side of the Hard Deck, and history felt like the future, but by the time he’d finally made it across the room, two beers in hand, Jake had already left. That night Bradley had gone home with someone else, and Jake Seresin became nothing but a memory.
Until now, on the deck of the Roosevelt.
Captain Vogel introduces them with the same brisk formality as he has the other senior officers, and the light breeze that’s blowing through the port stirs the strands of Jake’s hair as he raises his hand in a languid salute.
“Good to see you again, Rooster.”
“Hangman,” Bradley responds, saluting the newly appointed Commanding Officer of the Blue Blasters.
“Of course,” Vogel says, glancing between them, “You two have crossed paths before.”
“Many times, sir.” The way Jake’s squinting into the sun makes it hard for anyone other than Rooster to tell what he’s thinking. “Looking forward to having them cross again.”
Little has changed in the year or so since the uranium mission. Jake wears more medals and carries himself with less swagger, more gravitas but he still looks the same. Golden, gorgeous, the lines of his smile and the curve of his eyes a hint to the mirth that lies beneath.
Still utterly insufferable.
As COs of two different squadrons within the same Air Wing, the two of them have to work together coordinating training sessions and scheduling duties, Jake forever pushing to take more than his fair share of anything, from time in the air or the attention of the flight crew to office supplies. Even at the officers’ table, Jake insists on taking up more space than necessary, thighs spreading wide, listing a little, leaning his weight into Bradley’s side as if to push him off the end of the bench seating. If the other officers get the same treatment, they handle it with better grace than Bradley, who kicks back under the table and elbows Jake in the ribs and fights him for the last bread roll and the lion’s share of the butter.
After two weeks at sea Bradley’s glad when the Roosevelt docks on the south coast of England, if not for any other reason than to dilute the Jake effect with an influx of British dignitaries. After that, there’s a few meetings, sharing of intelligence and advisory briefings, and then there is freedom. One night of it, to be precise, but Bradley has every intention of making that count. The accommodation that the Royal Navy has offered them is perfectly serviceable – the shower is hot, the bed generous – and once he’s divested himself of one, he sets out to find someone to take advantage of the other, slinging his hook further afield than the bars the other officers are likely to frequent. He wants civilian, not military. Someone with a competence kink who’ll get so turned on by the fact he can land a jet plane on a boat that they’ll let him fuck them without needing to know more than his first name and how far his dick’ll fit down their throat.
The bar is bustling, but Bradley holes up at one end of it, nursing a beer and studying the people who pass. By the time he nears the bottom of his bottle, he’s identified his target. A guy with short dark hair and a pleasant amount of scruff around the jaw, whose clothes hug his figure well enough to indicate the muscles beneath.
“Hi,” Bradley says, slipping between a gap in the crowd to stand next to him.
“Hi.” There’s a slight quirk in his brows and a little confusion in his smile. “Do I know you?”
“Nope.” Bradley finishes the last of his beer. “Do you want to?”
The guy laughs, shaking his head and murmuring, “Smooth…” beneath his breath. Then, “Sure, why not? I’m Damian.”
“Bradley. What are you drinking?”
“Actually I’m buying a round, let me get this one.”
So Bradley does, surreptitiously getting a closer look at the guy buying them, and offering to help carry the drinks over to a table of men and women having an amicably heated debate about soccer.
“Who’s this?” One of the women looks up when they arrive, her eyes raking over Bradley.
“This is Bradley,” Damian says as he sets the drinks down, then nods to his friends. “That’s Jessica.”
“Nice to meet you, Jessica,” Bradley says.
“Ooh, another American!” Jessica looks delighted as Bradley frowns.
Another?
“Tell me, Bradley,” Jessica squashes up to the woman next to her as if to make room for him to sit. “Do you also fly planes for the US Navy?”
“I—” Bradley stares at the group of people all looking up at him with wide eyes. This is surreal. “Yeah?”
The table erupts in whoops and cheers, and Bradley’s left wondering what parallel universe he’s walked into when…
“Well, well, if it isn’t Bradley Bradshaw.”
A chill crawls up his spine as he turns to look at Jake, whose smile oozes across his face as he takes his drink from Damian with a casual, “Thanks, darlin’,” his southern drawl so thick Bradley’s surprise he doesn’t choke on it. When Jake brings the glass to his lips, there’s a flash of a wink.
Game on.
First there’s the inevitable quizzing that each of them answer with minimum information and maximum evasion. Yes, they’re both with the US carrier that came in four days ago. No, they don’t work together all that closely. No, they can’t say where they’re headed. (Jake’s “That’s classified, ma’am” gets a swoon from the woman who asked, the fucker).
Neither of them mention their past and when Damian asks if they’re ‘mates’ Bradley laughs and says, “Barely,” in a way that the Brits think is a joke.
From that point on, the pair of them are shameless in their attempts to get Damian’s attention. Jake magics a toothpick out of nowhere that he jams between his teeth to draw attention to his mouth, laying on the charm as thick as he does the accent, all dimpled smiles and wicked eyes. A strategy that works a little too well, with half the table clamoring for his attention, getting him to say ‘football’ and asking about the Lone Star State, as if one man can vouch for all of it.
Bradley’s method is more subtle. It’s watching and waiting, accidentally knocking up against Damian’s leg and not bothering to move away. He executes a perfect coup when he tempts him back to the bar, declaring he’ll buy the next round if someone gives him a little help getting the drinks.
But.
Bradley knows a lost cause when he sees one. Damian might be flattered by the attention, but Bradley’s not the one he’s into – nor is Jake. After another round of drinks, Damian and Jessica disappear from the table and don’t come back, and when everyone else gets their phone out and starts calling time on the bets they placed after the office Christmas party, Bradley meets Jake’s gaze and shrugs, darting a glance to the bar. No one notices when they duck out.
“I’ll get these,” Jake says.
“You don’t have—”
“You got the last and I don’t want to owe you.” He nods to the bartender. “The Patron for me, and…” Jake peers at the bottles behind the bar “… the Bowmore. One ice cube, because he’s a heathen.”
When Jake pushes the glass across, Bradley murmurs a quiet thanks before raising his glass. “To going after the straightest guy in the bar.”
“And the best looking,” Jake mutters, taking a sip of his drink.
“The best, huh?”
He isn’t quite sure what he means by that, and Jake’s hand pauses before he sets his glass back on the bar as if he isn’t either. He half turns, resting his elbow on the bar and looking at Bradley straight on.
“That you courtin’ a compliment?”
“I know better than to look for one from you.”
“In which case,” Jake says, “I’ll assume it was meant for me.”
Same old Jake, forever pushing for someone to stroke his ego.
"You don't change, do you?"
"Why would I?” Jake reaches for his drink. “Can't improve on perfection."
Bradley’s gaze travels down from Jake’s face to the tank he’s wearing beneath a denim overshirt, a thick gold chain hanging in a pleasant swoop below his collarbones. Bradley wonders where he got it from.
“If you say so,” he murmurs into his own drink before twisting his wrist around to check the time. The bar’ll close soon and he doesn’t feel like trying to find a club. Better to cut his losses and get a good night’s sleep in a decent bed.
“You gonna call us an Uber?”
“’Us’?” Bradley asks.
Holding his drink up, Jake watches the light behind the bar ripple through the liquid as he swirls it around the glass. “Both going the same place, ain’t we?”
Bradley studies him a moment longer, trying to decipher whether he means the same barracks or… something else.
He still isn’t sure even as he’s tapping the code into the door to his stairwell, Jake leaning up against the wall and watching him, saying all the wrong numbers just to confuse him.
“Stop that, or we’ll never get inside…” Bradley grumbles a moment before Jake’s elbowing him out the way.
“Won’t we?” He taps in the right combination and flicks the lock, not bothering to hold the door, just pushing on through and expecting Bradley to keep up.
“Asshole,” Bradley mutters as he matches Jake step for step, up the stairs. His room’s on the third floor. “Are you gonna be this impossible the whole time we’re at sea?”
Jake doesn’t even look up. “Almost certainly.”
When they reach Bradley’s floor, Jake follows him along the corridor, past rooms 330 to 336, until they get to room 337, where Bradley stops to get the key out of his pocket.
“This is me.” Bradley unlocks the door and pushes it open. He doesn’t go in.
Jake stands with his hands tucked into the back pockets of his jeans, everything about him entirely at ease. A knowing little smirk emerges in the corner of his mouth as Bradley’s attention snags on his lips.
“Waitin’ for something, Bradshaw?”
He didn’t come out tonight with the intention of bringing anyone other than a stranger back to his bed. Jake is the opposite of that. Inviting him inside isn’t just a bad idea – it’s catastrophic.
“We broke up for a reason,” Bradley says, as if hearing it out loud will help.
Shifting forward a touch, Jake lifts one arm to rest against the doorframe, hips cocked, the other hand still stuffed safely in his back pocket. He smells like expensive cologne and bad decisions.
“As I recall, we broke up for many reasons,” Jake murmurs, the green of his gaze near hypnotic. “But sex wasn’t one of ‘em.”
*
They kiss like it's a battle, open-mouthed and fierce, with a hunger that Bradley feels from the tip of his tongue to the marrow of his bones. He can taste the tequila in the heat of Jake’s breath, feel the cruel glee of his grin, and his own pulse thrums in response.
A hum buzzes his lips as he runs a hand up Jake’s neck to comb his nails through the short hair at the back of his head, before Jake shoves him back a little to strip him of his shirt.
“Did you really think you’d get laid going out in this?”
“Worked didn’t it?”
“Don’t get cute. I’m not fucking you because I like the way you dress.”
As they cross the short distance from door to bed, long dormant instincts kick in, Bradley tugging Jake's head roughly to the side to rake his teeth up his neck, hand fixed over his belt, holding Jake’s hips tight against his own so he can feel him buck against him. They part long enough to get rid of the rest of their clothes, each snatching greedy glances of the other's body.
Locker room sightings are a distant memory, and Bradley gets a gut punch of lust at seeing Jake naked.
It seems he no longer bothers with waxing, chest hair long enough to reach out and tug. There’s a recent surgical scar running parallel to his iliac crest and a tattoo of a compass rose over his heart. When Bradley runs his hands up Jake’s body he can feel a fractional amount of softness around his waist.
He resists the urge to press his face into it and bite – tomorrow neither one of them will want any evidence of tonight.
Yet for all differences, some things remain the same.
The noises he makes as Bradley pushes him back on the bed, a melody of low hums and groans that never make it further than the base of Jake's throat. The shit talking.
“I don’t remember there being this much staring and this little action,” Jake mutters, grabbing at Bradley’s hair and steering his mouth down to Jake’s chest. When Bradley pulls a nipple between his teeth and flicks across with his tongue, Jake sighs on a barely audible, “Always were good with your mouth…”
“Good with everything,” Bradley reprimands with a pinch to that delicious curve of his waist.
“Yeah?” He snatches hold of Bradley's wrist to lick wetly across his finger and pushes his hand down between his legs. "Remind me."
So he does, a spit-slick finger moving swiftly inside the man beneath him, muscle memory kicking in as he shifts and curls and presses just-so, knowing what response he’ll get for it… the sweet litany of noises that spill from Jake’s lips, the way his right thigh comes up as he digs a heel into the mattress to give himself a little leverage…
Fuck.
A distraught kind of panic heats Bradley’s chest even as he’s delighting in the sight of Jake writhing beneath him because what the fuck is he doing? This is Jake.
He’s too far in to stop and he reassures himself that isn't anything more than a mutually beneficial fuck because there's no one else around the night before they sail. It’s not like this was anyone’s first choice. It’s fine. Fine. And if Bradley focuses that little bit harder, licking his lips at the sight of the precome beading on Jake’s dick and reaching forward to smear it across his slit all to get Jake to cry out, then so what? He’d sooner fire himself into the sun than have Jake walk out this room thinking Bradley’s lost his touch.
“Over.” Bradley slaps Jake’s thigh with one hand as he reaches for lube and condoms with the other. “Hands and knees.”
The sight is dizzying. Jake arches his spine perfectly, knees spread, shoulders tensed, and Bradley reaches out to part his cheeks and spit directly over his hole, swirling his finger around the rim. The sound Jake makes is inhuman and his hips fuck forward into thin air.
“Easy there,” Bradley murmurs, free hand lubing up his cock.
“Fuck off,” Jake mutters as Bradley laughs, tapping the head of his dick to Jake’s hole and enjoying the desperate and breathy little, ah that he gets for it. But he doesn’t have the patience to tease, can feel that panic nipping at his heels and knows the only way to escape is to outrun it.
So he fucks Jake like he would if it was a stranger in his bed, hard and fast, as if the goal is to get him to finish as quickly as possible. He pretends not to notice the way his thumbs notch perfectly into the divots above Jake's ass, and ignores the ease with which he finds the right angle because their bodies have always known how best to fit together. And he doesn’t mean for one hand to slide up Jake’s back, thumb following the channel of his spine, reaching for his hair because he knows that's what Jake likes, but how can he stop? Jake's canting his hips, that arch curling deeper, grunting with every thrust, taking Bradley so sweetly...
And dear god, does it feel better than it should when Jake growls out that he’s gonna come, weight resting on one arm as he fists his cock until the moment arrives and Bradley can feel it, can practically count down the seconds before his own follows.
Afterwards an awkward kind of silence settles over the room, one that Bradley tries to break with the pragmatic tying off of the condom, the cloth that he hands to Jake for clean up. It doesn't work. Things are still awkward when Jake swings his legs out the bed and pulls his clothes back on, he's at the door, about to open it when he pauses.
"One and done?"
"One and done," Bradley confirms with relief.