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“Are you sure I can’t come in with you?”
Jake barks a laugh when Bradley says the words, less pristine from his tongue than they were in his head.
A breeze blows through Jake’s hair, ungelled and almost unkempt, as his features relax from his sharp grin and laugh. His eyes flick down to where Bradley’s biting on his lip, keeping the betraying hitch in his throat back.
“I’m not,” he says, voice sure, a low valley, “but you know how TSA is.” He shrugs, fingers crawling up the seam on Bradley’s sleeve, and his eyes following. “They’ll throw you to the wolves, poor little Rooster,” he coos. Another static grin finding its way on his lips as his gaze lifts itself back up.
Bradley commits himself to the memory of Jake’s fingertips brushing electricity over his skin despite the thick fabric of his sweatshirt in between them. Thick indulgence crawls up his throat, heavy in his airway and blocking the smart words he had queued.
You’d like that, wouldn’t you? dies before it makes it to his lips. Dies far before his lungs, even. It dies in his heart, he’d think, if he weren’t standing in front of Jake Seresin with his senses dulling, pretending he isn’t a romantic.
Jake blinks and sees it — Bradley’s sure. He’s always seen right through bullshit. Probably because he’s 80% bullshit himself, Bradley used to assume.
Now he just thinks it’s because Jake cares a little too much.
“I wish you could,” Jake admits quietly, because Bradley’s right.
Hangman cares, isn’t that rich? he wants to laugh. Although he knows better these days.
Knows Jake’s god-honest care, knows it’s real with how his voice softens and opens up and admits, knows his mouth on his and his body under — and knows that Hangman isn’t Jake.
Jake’s fingers tap into his shoulder.
A car honks further down the drop-off zone’s block, where slow SUVs and rental cars merge with patience nonexistent. Bradley glances at the flurry of people and suitcases, hugs and kisses, smiles and sobs. Gestures swirl like a hurricane of PDA. It feels slow where he is, though. With Jake. Five feet from the curb. In front of United Economy.
“Fuckin’ hell,” he had grumbled. “They should be lettin’ me fly myself if I’m goin’ halfway around the globe.”
“I’ve heard the taxpayers aren’t into grotesque displays of their jet-funding money,” Bradley had shrugged, breathing in Jake’s sandy cologne as he draped himself over Bradley’s shoulders.
“‘Grotesque,’” he felt Jake repeat, warm breath against his ear, feigned disgust in his tone. “‘S’not my fault that the taxpayers and I have different priorities,” he said, his words mushing into each other as he pressed his cheek into Bradley’s, enough to disrupt.
Bradley laughed.
Bradley doesn’t laugh.
“You’re gonna be late,” Bradley says instead.
Jake flicks his watch up and shrugs again, but his hand clutches into Bradley’s sleeve. “I have three minutes,” he just says, eyebrows scrunching as non-regulation fringe falls over his forehead.
“Three minutes,” Bradley breathes out. Breathes in Jake’s cologne. Considers committing to never washing his sheets again lest the scent disappear in the detergent.
Jake tilts his head with lively eyes, like he can hear the begrudging thought.
“Are we gonna use them?” Bradley asks, gaze flicking to Jake’s mouth as it curls into a winsome grin.
“Well, we’re sure as hell not gonna waste them, Bradshaw.”
00:02:37 remaining
Jake’s mouth slots against his the way it always does, and the tension rips itself out of Bradley’s shoulders, and skin, and bones. He hums into Jake, surrounded by the sandy scent that he’s going to drive out of the airport and buy and wear, and then hide in the back of his closet before Jake comes back.
Before Jake comes back home, he thinks.
Jake’s lips part under the vibration, and the familiar warmth swallows Bradley whole.
He lets his hands roam, fingers threading through the hair that’s going to buzz, and touch loitering over Jake’s t-shirt, mapping the muscles underneath that he’s going to miss. He swipes his tongue over Jake’s bottom lip.
This, Bradley can do. Well and without hesitation; birdlike habits outgrown with Jake on his radar or pressed against his skin. He savors the familiar sensations. Jake’s bite on his mouth. Jake’s fingernails raking dully at his nape.
Bradley’s hands work busy through Jake’s hair, running down his ribs, the comfort overriding the nervous bite in his cheek, his tapping on the wheel in the Bronco.
He hasn’t been to the airport like this, not in years. Hazards on at the curbside, no ticket on his phone, no duffel over his shoulder. He hasn’t been to the airport for someone else, not in years. And with the thought, he presses himself deeper into Jake.
Jake hums at him.
“Stop feelin’ me up,” he mumbles.
There’s a hint of righteousness in his tone — as if he’s pure and all Bradley does is defile him — the ego on him — but his words are all but dulled by the lingering satisfaction in his breath. Bradley casually tucks part of his hand under the hem of Jake’s shirt, gentle fingerprints tracing circles.
“Shut up,” Bradley just says into his mouth, the words in his head too full and too momentous for the mere minutes they’ve got. “You’re wasting time.”
00:01:43 remaining
The annoying thing about Jake Seresin is that he always says what Bradley’s thinking. Granted, never in the way Bradley would usually word it himself, but —
“You’re gonna miss me so fuckin’ bad,” Jake says. He laughs a little at the end, detaching his mouth from Bradley’s. He’s slightly flushed, his lips dusted with a shine and his hair wilder than before.
Bradley is seriously going to miss this grown-out bronde moment, at the very least.
“You’ve always been so elegant with words, Seresin,” Bradley mutters at him.
He flicks the aviators clipped onto the collar of Jake’s shirt, the sunglasses pulling on his neckline, but keeps his other hand resting on Jake’s hip. The lenses clink against his fingernail.
“You’ve always been so whipped for me, Bradshaw,” Jake says back.
Bradley scrunches his nose. Always? he thinks. Always, always?
“You’re an asshole,” he says.
Jake grins, all perfect teeth and a grandiose relationship to mouthwash. “Y’know it goes both ways, don’t you?” he asks. His eyebrow raises with the question. His gaze sharpens.
Bradley rolls his eyes. “What, the asshole tendencies? Yeah, we get it, I’m an asshole too,” he says flatly. “S’why we’re perfect together,” he shrugs.
Jake makes a scoffing sound in the back of his throat. “No, Bradley,” he says like it’s obvious. “We’re perfect together because I’ve always been whipped for you.”
Bradley blinks as Jake flicks at his temple.
Always? he thinks again.
“You’ve always been dense, Rooster.”
00:01:06 remaining
Obviously Bradley kisses him again, after he says that. Jake’s gone through all that trouble to spell it out for him, the bastard. What else is he supposed to do?
“You’re so handsy today, Roo,” Jake nags into him, chastising the greed while happily accepting the affection all the same. What a hypocrite.
“You love it,” Bradley just says.
“Well, no shit,” Jake admits plainly, like it’s something he knows entirely well about himself. Something he uses as a fun fact for icebreakers. “I just didn’t know a time limit was what would finally kick you up a notch from a slow ride,” he drones, wrapping a finger around the drawstring of Bradley’s sweatshirt. “Remind me to implement timers into our sex life.”
I won’t be doing that, Bradley wants to say because, god, who does Jake think he is?
“If it’s about who’s finishing first, then you’ll definitely win that,” Bradley says instead, because he’s a sucker for the glint in Jake’s eye and the rise in his cheeks.
“Aren’t you all charming?” Jake complains, but his dimples threaten through his cheeks and lay him bare. “You’re a tease,” he remarks, Bradley’s hands still ghosting across his body.
“M’not,” Bradley says, leaning in against his lips, the words soft at the edges, but heavy spoken into Jake’s mouth. “I’m taking notes,” he just says.
I’m committing you to memory, he doesn’t say.
“You’re neurologically insane,” Jake just responds, because he knows exactly what Bradley’s doing. “I’m gonna miss you too.”
00:00:37 remaining
“Well,” Jake says, one hand taming his hair and the other holding the duffel on his shoulder. “See you around, Lieutenant,” he shrugs, noncommital.
He dissolves into a laugh when Bradley bristles.
“C’mon, baby,” he says, free hand back on Bradley’s sleeve, brushing up and down the fabric in soothing fashion. “At least pretend that you like how I look walkin’ away,” he says.
Christ, Bradley wants to say. The ego. The decorum, or lack thereof. The jeans he’s wearing, that seem like they’re more for Bradley than for trans-Pacific comfort. Obviously Bradley likes it.
“I like you the most when you’re walking towards me,” Bradley just says. ‘Cause he’s soft these days, he guesses.
“Yeah,” Jake says back, just above a whisper. ‘Cause he’s soft these days too. What a shock.
“I’m expecting letters,” Jake decides, straightening his posture and reviving his voice. “I’m expecting printed nudes. Glossy on photo paper. Shit ordered through CVS,” he says, grinning to himself because he’s always been his own biggest fan.
Bradley snorts. He pictures Jake with the most tasteless photo album known to man. “You’re unbelievable, Hangman.”
“Stop,” Jake complains. He blinks at Bradley through thick lashes, and purses his lips until his dimples cement in his cheeks, unamused. His hand stays clutched on Bradley’s sleeve, again and again.
“If you write me anything that says Hangman and not Jake, I’m taping your nudes up in the bathroom,” he concludes flatly, weirdly gentle, but sure of his actions all the same.
“What, so you can jerk off to them?”
“Shut up, Bradley” Jake huffs all exasperated, dramatic, as if he hasn’t brought it all upon himself.
And then he shrugs with a sharp grin already forming. “Well, on second thought…”
00:00:09 remaining
“I love you,” Jake says then, stuffily following it up with, “I’ll text you when I land,” like he’s trying to cover up the first sentence.
“I know,” Bradley says. He blinks as Jake glances down at his feet, light breeze blowing through his hair for the final time. “Are you crying?”
Jake blinks up at him through thick lashes that… yeah, are damp at the corners, with beads of sunlight reflecting off his waterline.
“Shut up,” Jake says thickly. “You didn’t say it back yet.”
Bradley smiles as Jake wipes a hand under his eye and pulls himself together.
“I love you, Jake,” he says. “And you’re going to be late.”
“Fine. Bye, Bradley,” Jake says quickly, darting into his personal space one last time and pecking a kiss onto his jaw. “Printed. Nudes,” he says when he pulls back.
“Please do not let that be that last thing you say to me, Seresin, swear to god —”
“Love you, baby!” Jake calls as he turns on his heel with his duffel over his shoulder.
And then he unclips his aviators from his collar and slips them over his eyes because he’s the coolest fucking guy to everyone in the airport — except to Bradley, who sees the dampness in his lashes and the sincerity in his teasing tone.
Bradley commits one last thing to his memory: Jake’s boots clicking down the pavement, and his legs in his jeans as he strides through the automatic doors.
‘Cause, god. Bradley actually does really enjoy watching Jake walk away.
Even if he hates the fact he’s going.
+
00:00:00
jake: this is killing me already
jake: i’m not gonna make it to the ship
jake: send nudes right now, i’m dying baby
bradley: You are an incredibly unfocused person at the moment, Lieutenant
jake: stop being sexy over text
bradley: Catch your flight!!!
jake: ugh
jake: i love u
bradley: Stop
…
bradley: I love you too