#bradley thinks very lowly of himself

[nixie-deangel]

For @phisworld14 who asked for:

🦇 vampire jake/human bradley - hangster x2

He doesn’t get much done that night, or even the next few. But eventually he figures out what Ice had meant by Viper not being able to help. He was one of the few ties to the supernatural community that they knew. Which meant he couldn’t use any of his connections or pull to get someone to help his mom. Either by magical means or by vampiric bite. The only two feasible options for humans to get help if modern medicine couldn't.

🍷 Jake's family causes the hangster break up

He probably sounds like such an idiot to Jake, he thinks disparagingly to himself. Not like he had ever sounded smart or smooth to the younger man. No matter how hard he’d tried to come off better than he was. He tries to twitch his face into a smile, though it feels more like a grimace to himself as he clears his throat.  “Anyway, I just. Wanted to apologize. I’ll. I’m gonna try not to be too much of an asshole to you for no reason. Promise.” He says haltingly. And before Jake can respond, he spins on his heel, shoulders hunching as he berates himself for being a dumbass as he speed walks away from the other man.

Make Nixie Write!

[afictionalwhor3]

Speechless

A/N: I fear I may be back in my top gun maverick era. I wanna work on being more consistent but no promises. I'm pretty sure this would be considered smut with plot so enjoy sexies :).

Bradley Bradshaw x Reader

Warnings: Smut (18+ minors do not interact), oral m!receiving, unprotected pinv, praise/degradation, dirty talk

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"Y/N!" Bradley yells up the stairs for you checking his watch for the thousandth time. You had so many qualities he admired. How loving you were, your intelligence, your ability to reassure him when he didn't even know he needed it. However, timeliness was not on your tool belts of assets. A trait that drove perfectionist always on time Bradley insane to no extent. And if you took any longer the two of you would officially be late to Coyote's wedding. "If you aren't down here in the next two minutes I am leaving without you!" He yells up the stairs.

"Oh stop it no you're not. Don't get your panties in a bunch it takes a lady a while to look good" You say walking downstairs. At the sound of your heels clicking down the stairs, Bradley looks up to say something smart in reply but the words get lodged in his throat. You looked absolutely enchanting. The color of the dress not only complimented your skin, but it hugged you in all the perfect places like it was made just for you. The slit showed off your perfect legs while the neckline left plenty to the imagination. You walked over to him fixing his tie and brushing off the shoulders of his suit "Cat got your tongue?" You ask with a smirk wrapping your arms around his neck. Finally getting some sense about himself Rooster places his hands on your hips looking at you.

"No sorry I just was not expecting all of this," He says making you smile and kiss his still-shocked face.

"When my date looks this good it's only right I match it." You reply and it's Rooster's turn to smirk. He takes one of your hands in his and makes you do a spin as you laugh softly. He whistles lowly before pulling you in close to his body.

"I say wedding be damned, we stay here tonight and I ravage you." Bradley whispers and you smirk placing a hand on his chest.

"Hold your horses there lieutenant. Weren't you the one just yelling about us being late and leaving me? And if you think I just spent hours getting myself together so we could not go out? You are very very sadly mistaken. Maybe if you play your cards the right way you can get lucky tonight," You wink giving him another kiss before walking away to grab your purse and the gift. "Well come on Bradshaw we are going to be late," You say with a smirk as you start walking outside to the car. Bradley can't do anything besides shake his head before quickly locking the house up and following you.

~ Coyote's wedding ceremony was beautiful. Weddings always made you cry and Rooster wouldn't admit it but seeing some of his closest friends get married invoked some sensitive emotions in himself as well. He spent a large part of the ceremony fidgeting with the ring on your finger waiting, rather impatiently, for the day it's the two of you up there promising your souls to each other for the rest of your lives. Now the two of you resided at the wedding reception which lasted late into the night. Both you and Rooster, as well as the other Top Gun crew, were more than a few drinks in. After Bradley had to help Bob get into an Uber with Phoenix you both decided to call it a night getting an Uber back to your respective hotel suite.

Getting back to your room you open the door heading right for the king-size bed so you could collapse onto it. "Roos can you take my shoes off please? I'm pretty sure I'm going to have bunions after all the dancing I did tonight" You say as Rooster smiles and takes his suit jacket off throwing it on the back of a nearby chair. He gets on his knees in front of you kissing the inside of both your legs before he gets to work on your heels.

"I told you that you should've taken these off a lot sooner than you did. And I offered to carry you multiple times, you know I don't care" He says gently massaging your foot after he manages to get the shoe off. You moan softly at how good it feels.

"Yeah I know but I hate giving you the benefit of being right," You say stubbornly making Bradley smile. After your second foot is taken care of Bradley begins to kiss up your body slowly. When he gets to the beginning of your slit he looks into your eyes his pupils blown from lust. Despite what your head, and pussy, are telling you you push his head away. "I have to go the bathroom," You announce, and before Rooster can say anything else you run into the bathroom. Somewhat stunned Rooster stays there for a few seconds before sighing and standing up assuming you just aren't up for it tonight. He sits on the bed taking his shoes and socks off before he stands up to take off his cuff links and tie. In the process of unbuttoning his shirt, he hears the bathroom door open and turns to look at you and once again he is left speechless.

Before him you stand in a lingerie set he has never seen before. The sheer material of most of it does little to conceal Rooster's favorite parts of you. You walk over to him slowly making sure to sway your hips a little extra. When you finally reach him you take his shirt out of his hands and begin undoing the rest of the buttons. You look at him with a smirk on your face,

"Lieutenant, to have you speechless not once but twice tonight. That has to be a new record for me" You say. When you're done with his shirt you grab him by his belt and guide him until he falls on the bed. Once again trying to gather his bearings Bradley says,

"When you'd g-get this set?" He asks and you can't help but chuckle as you sink to your knees before him.

"Real smooth Bradshaw. Real smooth" You say smiling as you can see Rooster's face start to turn red. You continue your previous actions unbuckling his belt and with his help getting his pants off. Next is rubbing your hand gently over his bulge gauging his reactions. After a while you start to apply more pressure and move a little bit faster before Rooster grabs your wrist, "If you keep going I'm going to bust in my pants like some horny teenager" He says making you smirk.

"So what would you like from me Bradley? My mouth?" You ask kissing over his bulge as Bradley whimpers and nods his head.

"Fuck yes baby please," He says making you smirk. It wasn't often you got Bradley to submit to you like this, always having an incessant need to be in control. So, when you could get him like this it felt awfully good. You take his boxers off exposing his hard and angry length. You kiss his tip making him whimper again,

"Awe it's okay baby. I'm gonna take care of it." You promise before slowly taking his length in your mouth. Rooster throws his head back moaning out for you. You watch as his fists grip the sheets tightly the deeper you go onto his cock. After spending a few minutes bobbing up and down on his cock, you come up for air spitting on his cock and using one hand to stroke it. The other only teased his balls.

"Y/n fuck yes. Fuck you're taking care of my cock baby." He says making you smirk. He sits up on his elbows so he can admire your work and your own mouth waters at his chiseled physique. The man had to have been chiseled by the gods the way you could count each muscle on his body. Bradley noticed you staring and began flexing subtly for you. There was a moment when you were pretty sure you were dripping onto the sheets. You take his cock back into your mouth and at the feeling of how wet your pussy is you sneak a hand down to touch yourself over your panties. "Fuck you look so hot playing with yourself right now. How'd I get so fucking lucky?" He asks in between moans making you smile.

Relaxing your throat to go deep on his cock as your hand takes a more firm grip on his balls massaging them. After only a few seconds Rooster pulls you off him and pulls you up to meet him. "If you kept going with that I would've busted everywhere and I need to cum in your pussy" Rooster says making you smirk. You press your lips to his letting your hands wander over his body while Rooster sits up to take the rest of his shirt off and let his hands roam the familiar planes of your body.

He pulls away from the kiss to lay kisses on your neck and expertly takes your bra off tossing it somewhere in the room. He brings your boob into his mouth swirling his tongue around your nipple and using his free hand to play with the other one before he switches sides. You push him onto his back after a few moments "Let's make tonight about you baby" You say taking your panties off and straddling his length. You give him a few courtesy pumps before lining yourself up and slowly sliding on. Rooster's hands fly to your waist and guide you down. You fall forward bracing yourself against his chest. You bite your lip willing yourself to get adjusted to him. No matter how many times the two of you had sex, every time he entered you it was like the first time all over again. When you were ready Rooster began to guide you up and down on his cock, both your moans mixing with each other. Willing yourself to go faster you whined as it wasn't enough and before you even had to say anything Rooster pulled you into himself and began to fuck up into you.

"Bradley! Oh my god! That's my fucking g-spot. Shit you're fucking pounding it!" You moan loudly while Rooster applies a few slaps to your ass making you moan even louder.

"You're so fucking sexy. Wearing that slutty fucking lingerie for me. Had that on all night knowing we'd come back here and I'd fuck you. Such a perfect slut for me" Rooster says turning your face to kiss his passionately all teeth and tongue.

Before you can process what's happening Rooster is pulling out of you to flip you on your stomach helping you to all fours. Lining himself up once again he pounds right into you this time making you arch over. "Fuck!" You moan loudly. Looking down at you Rooster swears itself enough to make him bust right there. He leans over to kiss your shoulder and snake his hand around your body to play with your clit.

"I need you to cum for me baby cause I'm about to blow a loud so deep in your pussy. Come on be a good girl for me cum on my cock. My good little whore there you go baby" He says and every word that comes out his mouth has your pussy spasming until your basically yelling while you cum harder than you think you ever have. Fucking you through your high the spasms of your pussy finally push Rooster over the edge as he fills your pussy up. His body lays on tops of yours while you try to catch your breath and make sense of what just happened.

After a few minutes pass Rooster slowly and gently pulls out of you making you whine. He goes to get a washcloth out the bathroom running it under warm water before he comes back and cleans you up gently while you whimper at how sensitive your pussy feels. Rooster goes back into the bathroom to clean himself up before he comes back to you helping you onto your back and getting into bed. You immediately snuggle into him while he wraps his strong arms around you. You bury your head in his neck taking in his scent. Rooster traces aimless shapes along your back and hip "I didn't go too hard at the end there right?" He asks while you shake your head and press a kiss to his jaw.

"No it was just right." You say already feeling your body becoming heavy with sleep.

"That's alright baby get your sleep because after I feed you tomorrow morning I have a few things to get you back for. You left me speechless twice tonight which warrants at least four orgasms. At least" He says as your mouth hangs open and he presses a sweet kiss to your forehead as if the filthiest words didn't just come out of his mouth.

"I love you baby. Get some sleep you're definitely going to need it"

[waklman]

Hurt/comfort with Bradley and babybear? I’m thinking babybear has migraines or something like that and calls Bradley for help. Really soft!

(note: i dont see babybear calling him for help but i'll have him walking in on her instead, hope thats alright with you nonny!!)

warnings: none, fluff, 18+ blog in general.

something 'bout you masterlist

“Holy fuck!”

In his doorway, Bradley fumbles the tablet falling out his hands—juggling it in the air before finally catching it. “Christ...” he lowly mutters to himself, carefully inspecting the ipad for any signs of damage with narrowed eyes. 

As he checks the back, Bradley nearly flinches at the smiley cartoon bear printed onto the protective case. It looked significantly less frightening when you picked it out from that flashy mall kiosk. But now that it’s staring back at him in the dark, the bear looks like it’s giving him a sinister smile.

With an awkward clearing of his throat, Bradley decides to shift his attention back to what almost knocked the device out of his hands in the first place. 

At first, Bradley was too preoccupied with dipping his head to fit through the doorway—that he didn’t even notice the conspicuous bump underneath his covers. But as soon as he looked up, his soul nearly left his own body.

Bradley was very certain that he made his bed before he left this morning. Yet now, he finds that most of his pillows are scattered across the floor, while one sole surviving pillow precariously hangs off the edge, right by the massive bump in his comforter. 

But Bradley’s shock towards the state of his bedroom quickly fades as he recognizes that lumpy silhouette under his padded sheet. It’s shaped like his unpredictable girlfriend who has the keys to his apartment. 

Letting out a calm breath, Bradley turns to set down his tablet onto the nearby dresser before taking careful steps towards the foot of his bed. 

You rarely showed up unannounced to his place, not unless there was a problem.

The last time you did let yourself in, Bradley walked in on you digging through his fridge for ice cream to satisfy your period cravings. After catching you waist deep in his produce, Bradley had to pull you out and sweetly kiss your tears away—with his fridge door still slung open. It had taken him an hour to calm you down from your emotional outburst, that day.

So seeing that you’ve decided to pop in again, Bradley finds himself a tad bit worried.

Standing stiff at the foot of bed, Bradley stares down at you with furrowed brows. “Babybear…what are you doin’ under there?” He raises his question, voice barely above a whisper. 

Instead of answering him, you blindly shuffle closer to the bedframe to make room for him. It’s all the confirmation he needs to know that it’s you under there. Bradley softly smiles, watching the mountain under his covers shift from one spot to another. 

As gently as he can, Bradley joins you on the bed, sitting cross-legged in front of you. With one hand, he strokes what he believes to be your head. 

After a few seconds of silence, there’s a voice coming from underneath the bump he’s petting. “…It hurts.” The loud voice he’s used to hearing sounds weak and exhausted—and it’s not because you’re being muffled by the layer of stitched cotton. 

Dropping his hand, Bradley reaches for the hem of his comforter, lifting it over his own head to join you under there. Despite how dim it is under the stuffy sheets, Bradley catches the shine of your eyes as they widen in surprise. 

Bradley sighs as the sheet settles down on both your figures. The puffiness of your eyes and the fresh tears slick in your lashes means that you’ve been crying, and he wasn’t home to wipe away those tears. 

“C’mere baby.” 

At his gentle command, you immediately climb into his lap, legs encircling his waist, and head hung low, staring at his sweatpants with a pout. “What’s hurtin?” He asks worriedly, cradling your face between his hands, prompting you to look at him.

You blink slowly at him, cheeks squished between his palms, “...My head.”  

Bradley pauses to think, chewing on his bottom lip as he does so.

Bradley knew you well—well enough to know that you were more of a stomach ache kind of girl. He noted that when he learned you ate anything—and—everything, despite your sensitive digestive system.

And Bradley could only recall one time where your head was hurting—you had stayed up late and got a migraine from lack of sleep. 

“You stayed up last night?”

Bradley’s hands travel up to your forehead, thumbs beginning to draw small, circular motions into your temple, hoping to soothe the pain.

Closing your eyes, you answer him, a bit ashamed. 

“....Was patching up the holes in your socks.” 

Bradley sputters out a loud burst of laughter, but then he stifles it, reducing it down to a softer, controlled chuckle. 

“You stole my socks to fix ‘em up?” He whispers, slightly shocked.

Embarrassed, you slowly nod in his hands, with him still massaging your temple. With your eyes still closed, reeling in comfort Bradley's providing you—you miss the small smile on his face. 

Leaning forward, Bradley presses a soft kiss to each of your eyelids. “You’re silly.”

Thinking he’s scolding you, your lips flip into a frown. “M’ sorry. I know,” you answer, voice growing smaller. 

Bradley begins to panic, seeing your bottom lip start to quiver. “No–Shit,” he pauses, lowering his frantic voice. “No. I wasn’t yelling,” he lets out a tight breath. It was a mistake to joke with you when you’re sensitive, Bradley makes note of that for the future. 

“Can never be mad at you. Not when you’re sittin’ pretty like this,” he assures you, dropping his hands to your waist. Bradley felt guilty for thinking so, but you were really cute when you got like this. It wasn’t often that you let him take the reins, so he’s soaking this in—just a bit. 

At the movement, your eyes flutter open, blinking as you adjust your vision. It only hits you now that you’re sitting in his lap, while he’s being a saint with you. 

It’s like he can read your mind, because Bradley leans forward in a matter of seconds, meeting you in a slow, steady kiss. Lifting a hand to your cheek, he pulls back—but not before pecking you once more. His chest buzzes with warmth, watching a small smile grow on your lips—he’s lifted your mood. 

“Now that you’re done stealin’ my socks,” he whispers jokingly, drawing a giggle from you. “Let’s nap this off, yeah?”

Feeling another dull throb come on, your laugh simmers. “Yes please. Still hurts.”

Bradley hums, acknowledging your slight wince.  

As you both lay back with you in his lap, the sheet covering you both slips off, and fresh air fills your nostrils. You two spend the next few seconds adjusting in bed, stretching out your legs, as Bradley starts to massage your temple with both hands again.

“No more sewing my socks in the middle of the night,” he murmurs, tucking his chin to kiss the top of your head, hoping you’d agree in your drowsy state.

“No more ripping your socks,” you weakly argue, words slurred from sleep. 

“Yeah, yeah. Sleep silly girl.”

feel free to follow @waklman-library and turn on notifs to be notified when i post!

tags: @s0uz4s @bradswolfe @swiftsgirlfriend @djs8891 @mannsachds @strokesofstokes @coconut152 @angelbabyange @shanimallina87 @ohgodnotagainn @atarmychick007 @Olivia21blunt @s-u-t @hangmanscoming @geraltsaxii @wkndwlff @sammyrenae68 @bradshawed @roosterbruiser @gracelyn-writes @bubblegumbeautyqueen @angeliccks @zombiedeathsworld @blueoorchid @averyhotchner

[redfurrycat]

🤠🐓5+1 Hangster Fic Recs🐓🤠

(* also includes any other similar x + 1 fics)

Check the Top Gun Masterlist post for the latest updated version. 💕

Ao3 Authors: 47cityordinances, Alecjbi, AnadoraBlack, Anonymous, Attolians, B_blh, Boobooblue, Bottledyarn, Charlie_mou, Coconutcordiale, Conny_the_destroyer, Contech00, Cryinginthebronco, Dalearden, Davidbyrne, Discosleaze, Dracculaura, Drh0rrible, Earthangel_44, Elwenyere, Emilyandthecat, Emseebeans, FabuMazX, Flyingfightingfishy, Gentlehours, Ginnydear, Glitterfayy, Greatea, Grimjobs, Hangmanbradshaw, Icezansky, Ilarina, Imafriendlyalek, Indybob, JPB_128, K0ralik, Lawsarethreats, Lawrussoauto, Lemqnie, Levivi, Liadan14, Lovelybattle, LoveMadeThemDoIt, Luciferinasundaysuit, MadeItUp, Magdarko, MayWilder, Miraculousmultifan, Nickies_Nonsense, Nightfuryy, Nighttimedawn, Nightwrite24, Ofguttersandstars, Perishablealex, Playingwiththeboysisagayanthem, ProtectingH_ngm_n, Pocketsizedsatan, Quietconversation, Ravens_Words, ReformedTsundere, Resacon1990, Rorschachs, SaintClaire, Saturn, Slyther_ing, SunMonTue, Susiecarter, Tearsricochets, Tellxmebby, Umbrella_enthusiast, Violation_of_faith_and_devotion, WaffleToaster, Xo_em.

(5+1 Icemav)

The mandatory 5+1 fic by AnadoraBlack {M}

5 times Rooster thinks there might be something between him and Hangman; and 1 time he knows for sure. (+ Podfic by ReformedTsunderePodfics)

playing for keeps by ginnydear {_}

“He’s uh,” he starts, trying to pull himself together. Phoenix has wandered over now, mouth open as she looks at the scene in front of her. “He’s cuddly, when he’s sleepy.” “Javy,” Hangman hisses, though it’s not nearly as biting as it could be. “To the grave, dude.”

watching from afar by quietconversation {T}

“I am good, Rooster. I am very good.” The cocky grin on his face doesn’t faze the aforementioned Lieutenant, who nods at Bob and rolls his eyes at Hangman, who continues after a pause. “In fact, I am too good to be true.” “Shut up, Seresin. No one wants to listen to your whining on a Friday night. It’s just stressing everyone out more.” — The 5 times everyone thought Hangman and Rooster might have something going on, and the one time their suspicions were confirmed

ring the alarm by levivi {T}

Hangman’s grinning at Rooster with a toothpick between his teeth, white against the tan of his skin. Rooster leans back against the counter, tilting his head back with a barely-there smirk. “Not always,” he says lowly. Phoenix frowns. “Well, you know me,” Hangman purrs. “I like making you work for it.” Or four times no one realized hangman and rooster were dating and one time they did

feels like the first time by ginnydear {E}

“Like what you see?” Jake teases, ignoring the part of his brain that needs Bradley to say yes. Desperately wants to know that Bradley is as into this as he is. When Bradley looks up at him, hand sliding up Jake's chest, across his collarbone to cup his jaw, Jake nearly whines. working title - four firsts for bradley and one first for jake.

more than just a friend by dracculaura {T}

Everyone knows that Bradley and Jake are dating. Except a very oblivious Maverick.

i'm just gonna call you mine by ginnydear {T}

“Oh, you better watch it there, sugar, because I feel an unnecessary roughness penalty in my future,” Rooster replies, watching as Hangman’s dimples appear. He salutes Rooster. “You’re on, sweetcheeks.” it starts with a sarcastic sweetcheeks. (or, five moments from within canon and one from shortly thereafter)

T-shirt by violation_of_faith_and_devotion {E}

He inadvertently takes a breath and before he realizes what’s happened, Jake is already away, making his way towards the bar. He’d like to blame it on the alcohol, but he’d need to lie to himself. * Or, three times when Rooster smelled Hangman. And kinda liked it.

Mav? by nightfuryy {_}

Five times Bradley got to be part of a loving family and one time he got to show someone else what that was like.

softest hands to hold you by ginnydear {M}

“You aren’t the first person to think I’m pathetic and weak, something to be used and not loved.” or - jake's had some bad past boyfriends.

I Hate The Way I Sleep Better With You by FabuMazX {T}

5 Times Rooster and Hangman help each other through nightmares +1 time they help somebody else.

An Obligatory 5+1 Fic by tellxmebby {T}

Or, 5 times Jake Seresin "mother henned" (nagged) Bradley Bradshaw, and one time Bradley mother hens him back.

Too Good To Be True by drh0rrible {M}

5 Times Someone Finds Out Rooster and Hangman are Together + 1 Time Jake Needs Reminding

5 Times Hangman Took Care of His Team + 1 Time Someone Took Care Of Him by dalearden {T}

The Daggers and the rest of the Team stay together for the long leave post mission. That includes Hangman although he is still treated a bit as an outsider. They get into all kind of crazy shit and Rooster starts to notice things. That Jake is the one who starts cleaning after drunk Payback threw up all over the bathroom and knows exactly what cleaning products will do the trick. That when Fritz is arrested for disturbance, he knows how to talk to the cops to get him released. That he can patch Fanboy like a professional medic after the guy got into a fight. That he can cook a meal from nothing, mend clothes and knows everything about meds. Turns out Jake had to take care for his family as the only responsible person since he was 5 years old. First his alcoholic parents and then his dying grandmother. Jake won’t let anyone in, but he will take care of them as much as he can. Rooster wants to change it.

big brother duties by ginnydear {G}

“But what I’m trying to say,” Bradley says after a moment, handing Jake a clip and touching Amelia’s shoulder, “is that… well, you have me now.” “Ew, are you offering to be my brother?” five times jake helps bradley with amelia and the one time amelia helps bradley with jake.

all of these games we play (i can't even keep 'em all straight) by tearsricochets {T}

He knows, theoretically, Jake wants some kind of reaction out of him. He’d seen it in the look he’d given Bradley right before accepting the man's invitation, but he also knows that he’s sick of the one having to make all the big emotional moves. He opens his mouth to tell Tasha as much, but stops when he sees a girl at the bar looking at him. She’s a curvy blonde, someone who looks like she was in a sorority in college. Her hair is perfectly curled, and her lips are a dark red color. She’s giving him a very long once-over, and when she meets his eyes again she smiles coyly. (Look, you don’t need to tell him it’s a bad plan, okay? He knows.) (Natasha does not care.) Because she knows the second she follows his eyeline what he’s going to do, and immediately opens her mouth to protest. “Do not do what I think you are about to Bradshaw.” He turns to look at her, the new gaze burning his skin. “Why not? He can play games but I can’t? Please, Tasha, give me a reason not to and I’ll leave it alone. Jesus, tell me what we are doing, at this point that would be just as great.” OR: the one in which they play many games, and then the one time they don’t.

my picture in your pocket by ginnydear {G}

Staring back at him from Rooster's phone is Hangman, eyes bugged out of his head and tongue sticking out. It’s obviously a selfie and Bob thinks it’s gotta be one Hangman took himself, based on the angle. It looks like Hangman isn’t wearing a shirt either, which only adds to Bob’s confusion. five times someone picked up roosters phone and saw a selfie of hangman.

everyone knows something I don't by greatea {E}

Rooster interrupts him, and damn it, that smirk is back from the bar. "Ah, so you paid attention to who was in the same year as me, Hangman? My my my darlin', I didn't know I left that much of an impression on you." With a scowl, Jake just shrugs his shoulders. "Gotta pay attention to the competition, right? Not that you turned out to be much competition after all, a bit too slow for me." "Ah, well, that might be true for my flying, but it certainly doesn't carry over into other aspects of my life, darlin' ," Rooster says, smirk almost painted onto his face, looking him up and down. - or the 5+1 fic where Jake doesn't realize Bradley is flirting with him, and the one time he does.

on the other side by bottledyarn {T}

only just getting started

Five times the dagger squad thought they knew what the deal was with hangman and rooster + the one time they got answers

wanting

Six times Jake Seresin assumes Bradley Bradshaw is something he can want but can't have, and how he learns the truth. -- Jake Seresin is very good at a few things. Flying, obviously. Pissing people off. Wanting things he can't have. But he's never been very good at dealing with Bradley Bradshaw. During the mission, Jake is just trying his best to be better.

Oblivious by umbrella_enthusiast {T}

Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and Tom “Iceman” Kazansky have been around Bradley Bradshaw for long enough that they know how he interacts with his friends. Hell, they practically raised the kid. But the one thing that Mav and Ice can’t wrap their heads around is Hangman.

I Want You All To Myself by perishablealex {E}

Five times Jake plays with Bradley's come. And the one time Bradley tries something new.

I hate (the way i don't hate) you by susiecarter {T}

Five times Rooster and Hangman hated each other over something stupid, plus the time it turned out that wasn't ever what it had really been about. (+ Podfic by Silverkat1620)

you got me wishing we're more than friends by nighttimedawn {T}

or five times that Jake gets back with his ex, and the one time that he doesn't

This is Getting Ridiculous by lovelybattle {E}

The first time it happened Rooster had tugged Hangman into a closet, kissing him until they were both breathless and red in the face. This was new, they hadn’t done this before, but they didn’t talk about it. Just another step in this long dance they’ve been doing. Or: 5 times Rooster and Hangman get caught and 1 time they don't.

you know that i'm falling and i don't know what to say by alecjbi, attolians, boobooblue, Earthangel_44, ginnydear, miraculousmultifan, perishablealex, ReformedTsundere, xo_em {E}

Jake, I…” He stops, his eyebrows pinched as he shakes his head. Jake’s eyes snap open, his gaze caressing Bradley’s face. “Yeah?” Smoothing out the tension between Bradley’s eyebrows, Jake cups his face in his hands. “I’m listening.” Averting his eyes, Bradley whispers, “I’m really glad it was you.” or - the eight times they almost say I love you during sex, and the one time they do.

I come from where the rivers meet the sea by luciferinasundaysuit {T}

Phoenix pinches the bridge of her nose. “One night. One night without whatever all this is. My kingdom for one night.” “There’s no all this!” Rooster protests. Like a liar. Hangman takes his arm back, slides off his chair and goes back to the dart board. Rooster tries not to feel cold. “Of course not, Rooster,” Hangman says, just short of condescendingly. “I could never bring a yankee home, and I respect you too much to hit it and quit it.” Or 5 times Rooster didn’t tell Hangman where he was from + 1 time he did

why don't you speak by lawrussoauto {T}

He wants to ask Rooster what’s wrong, why he looks so tired. Why he’s barely said a word to anyone since he got here an hour and a half ago. Does he even want to be here? - Or, 5 times Jake inwardly worries and 1 time he voices them.

no stressing, just obsessing (with sealing the deal) by Resacon1990 {T}

“Too much love drives a man insane!” “Tell me about it,” Jake mutters under his breath, and Penny raises an eyebrow where she’s wiping the bar in front of him. Or, five times Jake tries to tell Bradley he's in love with him, and the one time he actually does.

(is it too soon to do this yet?) 'cause i know that it's delicate by cryinginthebronco {E}

5 times Bradley helps Jake fall asleep + 1 time he gets to wake him up

5 Times Bradley Calls Jake Sweetheart + 1 Time Jake Returns the Endearment by dalearden {M}

But there’s one thing above all Jake has really latched onto, that makes him literally swoon inside in such a way that he momentarily becomes a stranger to himself. It’s just a word and would mean nothing coming from anyone else but there’s something about the way Bradley says it, how it makes Jake feel to hear it coming from the older pilot. It makes Jake wish he could show his feelings so easily in return, makes him hate himself a little bit that he can’t.

The Colour Of An Avocado by SaintClaire {M}

Four times Jake got jealous and one time Bradley did. --- The thing about Tim is that he’s probably a decent guy. Jake would know this if he was willing to spend more than twenty seconds talking to him, but alas, he’s not. He’s Bradley’s ex, and that’s three strikes out and a fourth for good measure, as far as Jake’s concerned.

been you all along by Ravens_Words {T}

Somehow, in a truly horrifying twist of fate, Bradley's mortal enemy became his daughter's favorite person. Or Five times Jake was his daughter's favorite person, and the one time he was Bradley's too.

I'm a star and I'm burnin' through you by glitterfayy {M}

Jake isn’t stupid, if he cares to profess, he knows it's more than a crush. It’s been several years now and he hasn’t been able to shake Rooster off his tail since they first met. Or Five times they thought it might be love, and one time they knew.

Happy Birthday, dear Jake by Conny_the_destroyer {T}

Five times Jake sings Happy Birthday to someone and one time others sing for him.

holding patterns by gentlehours {M}

Always thinking, a mocking voice that sounds eerily like Hangman tells him, never doing. Always waiting, for that perfect moment that never comes. That always was his problem, and it’s never easier to see than when he’s with Hangman. — Five times Bradley waits for a moment that never comes, and one time he takes a chance.

ignition by charlie_mou {_}

In a reality where Mav had an adult, honest conversation with his kid instead of going behind his back, said kid didn’t run off and cut contact -- no, he decided to figure out if there was something he wanted to do aside from being a naval aviator. And thus, Fire Lieutenant Bradley Bradshaw has been working at San Diego Fire Department for close to fourteen years when the Dagger Squad is assembled for a special detachment. Or, 5 times Jake crossed paths with Fire Lieutenant Bradshaw and 1 time he met Maverick's son

You make me think of olive oil (4+1) by b_blh {G}

The 4 times Jake used olive oil and the 1 time Bradley and Jake used it together.

a window breaks down a long dark street by MayWilder {M}

“I’m gonna go inside,” Jake murmurs against his lips, despite how they’re flush against one another and he isn’t pulling away. “I am.” He bites at Bradley’s lower lip, prompting the other man to tighten his grip on his hips. “Remind me again why?” “Cause we’re taking it slow and proper,” Jake reminds him. He lets his hands fall down the slope of Bradley’s shoulders and squeezes his biceps. “Dates. Holding hands. Maybe even a date where we hold hands.” Bradley chuckles and ducks his face down into Jake’s neck. “Right. Romance.” *** alternatively titled: Four Times Jake Romances Bradley + 1 Time Bradley Romances Him Back

If No One Else Sees (We Can Pretend It Isn't Real) by Contech00 {T}

In the lead up, and aftermath, of the mission Rooster and Hangman find comfort in one another as they steal private moments of each other's company. Rooster tries to work through his personal struggles as seen through Hangman's point of view. or, 5 times where Bradley and Jake open up to one another thinking they're alone. And one time they're not.

5 Times Rooster Fell Asleep On His Teammates And 1 Time He Did It To Maverick by Nickies_Nonsense {G}

When Bradley was kid he was all over people. You couldn’t get the boy to leave you alone if he wanted to be near you whether it was holding Mav’s hand as they walked, being picked up, or nuzzling into his shoulder in the evenings he simply insisted on being held. - Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw has a habit of cuddling up to people when he’s sleepy which the daggers discover during training before the suicide mission.

Extra Credit by ReformedTsundere {T}

"I'm going to kill him," Bradley seethes, stomping into the teacher's lounge and briskly cutting across the room to get to the fridge where his lunch is waiting. Or 5 times Jake and Bradley's teaching forces them together, and 1 time there's no force at all

get it right (for you, honey) by liadan14 {T}

“Wait, there was an actual proposal?” Javy asks. “Wow, I didn’t think…” Bradley glares at him. “Seriously? Did you people imagine we just tripped and fell through the wrong door in city hall?” “I thought maybe you went to Vegas,” Fritz pipes up. “I’m still not convinced it’s not a tax scam,” Bob adds. “Now that you bring it up,” Jake says thoughtfully, “he did mention the tax breaks when he proposed.” Or, X times someone else observed Jake and Bradley as a married couple and tried to understand how exactly that happened.

I always fall (a little short in front of you) by rorschachs {E}

Rooster loses quite a few bets. He arguably wins even more.

Flying Conditions by elwenyere

Holding Pattern {E}

The thing about having a dead father everybody liked is that everybody’s got a bigger piece of him than Bradley does. ----- 5 times Bradley wasn't ready + 1 time he was

Punching Out {M}

Jake’s always been sharp and soft, but not in the right configuration. ----- Or, 5 times Jake can't always get what he wants + 1 time he gets what he needs

When the Time Comes by elwenyere {T}

Bradley remembers it the way his fingers remember a chord: by ear, like he’s an echo of someone else’s sound. ----- Or, 5 times someone held Bradley + 1 time he held someone else

august sipped away (like a bottle of wine) by k0ralik {E}

Jake isn’t sure when he and Bradley started seeing eye to eye. Maybe it was when Rooster was chosen to fly the mission instead of him and he had to step down, following orders, forced to give up competitiveness. Maybe it was the countless games of poker and many, many bottles of beer later. or: 5 times Jake and Bradley go for it in not-so-private places + 1 time they actually find a bed

Some Unspoken Thing by indybob {M}

With paths that have crossed for the better part of a decade, Jake and Bradley have a history unlike any other. A history that sees their relationship develop from best friends, to bitter rivals, to eventual lovers. The five times that Jake felt there was some unspoken thing between himself and Bradley, and the one time he decided to do something about it.

here is that rainbow by magdarko {M}

Five times Jake did something Bradley didn't expect and one time Bradley returned the favor.

5 times Rooster lost a bet to Hangman + 1 time they both won. by Pocketsizedsatan {_}

5 times Rooster lost a bet to Hangman + 1 time they both won. Fraternity AU

In the mood for love by WaffleToaster {_}

A light-hearted 5+1'ish story of the many interrupted attempts of two knuckleheads written from their friends' prespectives. Also known as: 5 times Jake and Bradley try to get it on, emphasis on try here, and one time they might have had a chance.

Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds by Contech00 {T}

He has to say something. “Did you know that after the USS Forestal was decommissioned it was turned into razorblades?” He says squeezing his eyes shut. “What?” Bradley says in a serious tone, an eyebrow quirked in confusion. -or- Jake accidentally woos Bradley with poetry.

so it's your birthday by 47cityordinances {T}

It takes two months for Bradley’s resolve to break. Two months without Jake. Two months of no calls, no texts, no emails. Two months of knowing Jake is out there somewhere, yet so far out of reach. His absence is everywhere, suffocating. --- 5 birthdays with distance between bradley and jake and 1 birthday together

miles to go before I sleep by lemqnie {E}

Five cold winters between Jake and Bradley and one warm Christmas. or Jake and Bradley's relationship through the years.

caught me by surprise by emseebeans {M}

Bradley and Jake hook-up after the mission. It's a one-time, casual thing. Until it's not. (or, five times Jake says Bradley isn’t his boyfriend, and the one time he realizes that might not be true.)

you next to me by coconutcordiale {T}

“We can play for it,” Bradley offers, twisting to reach across Jake and pull a deck of cards he’s tucked into the rack supporting Jake’s mattress. “Loser has to trek across the ship and sleep with Zing.” “He’s not my type,” Jake says, mischief glinting in his eyes when he peers up at Bradley. “Too skinny.” + aka three times there was only one bed and one time there were too many

let's make christmas merry, baby by davidbyrne {T}

Bradley stares at it for so long that the man in front of the counter clears his throat in annoyance. He blinks back to himself, looking up at the man dressed in business casual and sporting an annoyed look. “Sorry, you want me to wrap this?” “Yes,” the man says, exasperated. “That’s why I’m at the gift-wrapping station.” Or 4 times jake brings something ridiculous for bradley to wrap and one time he brings himself

love thorns all over this rose by hangmanbradshaw {_}

Bradley's friends watch him lose himself, find himself, and then find something even better. Or Bradley doesn’t really do dating, until he does. Aka Bradley pre-IWTBY, and a little during, according to Reuben, Callie, and Jonathan.

Oh, but it just may be a lunatic you're looking for by nightwrite24 {G}

Five times Bradley and Jake encountered each other under decidedly unusual circumstances, and the one time one of them decided to finally do something about it.

what's it take to get your number? what's it take to bring you home? (you can take me hot to go) by davidbyrne {M}

Dr. Bradshaw scans Jake’s file, no doubt seeing the long list of previous visits, ranging from a fishing hook in his hand (an unfortunate accident) to when he collapsed from dehydration (he had an undiagnosed bout of bronchitis). He glances back at Jake, keeping his face tilted down. The whole thing shows Jake just how long the doctor’s eyelashes are. “Yes, I can see you have more tenure here than I do. Rest assured, Mr. Seresin. You’re in good hands.” Or 5 times jake asks his hot er doc out and 1 time he says yes

sit down next to me by MadeItUp {M}

Five times Jake and Bradley are forced to sit together for an event, plus one where they choose to do so. “I assume you were saving this for someone special.” The man flashes a smile designed to dazzle, an aviator’s arrogance amplified by the self-confidence of someone who’s never been anything less than the best looking guy in the room. As he sits, Bradley eyes dip down to check his patches: Hangman.

What You Need to Know About Cupids by icezansky {G}

According to the Fates, one “Jake Seresin” and one “Bradley Bradshaw” are destined to love one another. They just need a little intervention in the form of a Cupid to seal the bond.

can't you see (all I really want to be) by Anonymous {E}

Five times Rooster and Hangman got each other off, plus the time Hangman finally admitted that wasn't all it was.

Five Times a Dagger Learns About Hangman & Rooster (And One Time Maverick Does) by LoveMadeThemDoIt {G}

can't you see (all i really want to be) by susiecarter {E} 

Five times Rooster and Hangman got each other off, plus the time Hangman finally admitted that wasn't all it was.

honey I'm still free (take a chance on me) by davidbyrne {E} 

“This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.” “Training?” “Sure, but I meant more this. Us.” Or 5 times jake decides it's too difficult and one time he wants to try

Requesting clearance (to fall in love) by ProtectingH_ngm_n {G}

The first time was an accident. The second time was a coincidence. The third time was luck and the fourth time was planned. A fic with Captain Bradley Bradshaw and First Officer Jake Seresin

anticipation has the habit to set you up by discosleaze, Emilyandthecat, flyingfightingfishy, imafriendlydalek, JPB_128, Saturn {E}

the 5 times Jake and Bradley's more public exploits were interrupted, and the 1 time they managed. a fightertown shared writing project.

Hold me closer, tiny dancer by Ilarina {E}

Bradley loved Jake, and it had been such a quick and ordinary process that he didn’t even feel the panic that perhaps he should have felt at that realization. It was insane how the boundaries between them had been torn down, how what was once thought to be hate or aversion was simply a safe way to be close to each other without putting themselves on the line all the way – insane for two pilots who risked their lives in the sky every day. In the following six weeks since the Mission, Bradley had learned to accept the love he had never thought he deserved in his life. And the source of this solid love was the man who at that moment was arranging pots and dishes in his kitchen. His boyfriend. [five times Bradley wants Jake to live with him and one time he finally manages to ask him]

but what a thrill by dracculaura {T}

jake breaks his leg, the daggers try to figure out how it happened

Fraternization Rules by imafriendlydalek {M}

“Y’all should be a bit more careful,” Doe says between bites, like it’s absolutely nothing. “They won’t let you be on the same squadron if they know that y’all’re dating.” “What?” Jake musters the ability to ask, overwhelmed by the absurdity of the statement. There’s no fucking way— Sure, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed not very long ago so he could actually be in a relationship with a dude and tell people these days, but— With Rooster? No fucking way. “They don’t let couples serve together,” Joker chimes in. “Fraternization, I guess.” *** Or: five times Jake and Bradley pretended to be in a relationship so they wouldn't be assigned together, and one time they pulled their heads out of their asses and stopped pretending.

when it's done, I can smile (it's on someone else's plate for a while) by playingwiththeboysisagayanthem {T}

"So fun fact about Bradley Bradshaw. Most people wouldn’t guess it looking at him, he presents as a stereotype of the hyper-masculine men of the 1980s. But when he’s stressed beyond belief, he bakes. It’s a coping mechanism that he picked up from his mother as a child, something that started as a way to bond with her and then when she got sick, turned into a way for him to find something he could control. And having something to put a smile on her face, even through the worst of her treatments, at the end of it was definitely worth all of the effort. So for as long as most of the people in his life have known him, Bradley Bradshaw has turned to a hot oven and a mixing bowl when nothing in life quite makes sense. And, well…that leads to quite a few things. " -------------- aka, Bradley stress-bakes. Here are five times that was cause for alarm for someone in his life plus the one time it shouldn't have been.

Five Times Jake and Bradley Celebrated Their Anniversary on the Wrong Day, and the One Time They Didn't by lawsarethreats {T}

Due to circumstances far beyond their control, Bradley and Jake are unable to celebrate their first five wedding anniversaries on their actual anniversary.

hell’s comin’ with me by ofguttersandstars {M}

“You don’t want kids?” Jake repeats, a broken record at this point, as he sags down further in his seat. It’s a slight motion really, but he does it; he can't help it. In the same way he can't help the burn of rejection in the back of his throat. They're done. They have nowhere else to go from here, and the thing is — Bradshaw doesn't even know it. (Or, five times Jake put his kids before himself and one time he didn't have to).

Peer reviewed by SunMonTue {M}

Secretly married Hangster in an academic environment.

all your great loves by slyther_ing {T}

Contrary to popular belief, Jake Seresin loves hard and he loves easy. There are a handful of exes who he’s on amicable terms with, who speak nothing but praise even with the realities of the Navy. His friends – non-military for the most part – are constant in his stories, and his leaves are filled with catching up from state to state. Amongst all of that, Bradley learns, there are five distinct people who take up the significant pieces of Jake’s heart.

Please Don't Engage by slyther_ing {T}

“I’m trying out a new tactic: if I don’t see it, I can pretend it’s not happening.” Natasha demonstrates by closing her eyes as the two men wander off, shoulders bumping while they bicker about where to go for lunch. Bob’s pretty sure that’s what ostriches do but when Rooster’s hand skims too low to be friendly, he tries it out himself. –– Everyone who has eyes and ears has been on the unfortunate end of Hangman and Rooster's incessant innuendos.

all you're giving me is friction by grimjobs {E}

Come on, daddy long legs, move your feet so I can sit down,” Hangman said, it was innocuous enough, but Bradley felt his blood heat all the same; he was grateful for the sun beating down on his skin, hoping that it hid the flush he could feel blooming across his neck and chest. or, 5 times Jake called Bradley 'daddy', and one time, he called Bradley 'daddy'.

Revolution Yields by slyther_ing {T}

3 times Bradley tries to win Jake back + the 1 time he does. Or: Jake makes Bradley work for it. They both like it, somehow.

[notroosterbradshaw]

Honestly my favourite part is the fact that he’s the perfect fake date but the gif has his bow tie slightly skewed and I feel like that would be so Rooster. And he looks like a puppy - honestly this is so well written and I cannot wait for part 2 where they hopefully realise that they’re PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER

I love you, and here’s why. I do love everything about the gif… and I was going to write about a wonky tie but FORGOT TO ADD IT. So here’s to you, this is your little part, friend!

“Are you sure he’s still coming?” one of the bridesmaids asked as you had just been seated at the reception table. You traced the nameplate reading ‘Bradley’ and kind of wanted the earth to swallow you whole. It was a little after seven and entrees were starting to be served. It was a fair question, Rooster didn’t owe you anything and he could ditch you at any time.

“Excuse me, gentleman, I caught the eye of a really cute bridesmaid before - ” you heard a familiar rasp say behind you and you stiffened. He’d finally made it. Turning to that voice you’d know anywhere, you gave him a gentle smile. “Think I’ve found her,” he added, patting the chest of some random dude and striding towards you, walking like he was on a runway. He looked incredible, so different from his usual jeans and shirt, so different from any flight suit. He moved towards you in a dark blue crushed velvet suit jacket, a darker shade of slim leg slacks, a black bow tie and dress shoes. His hair was slicked back, neater than usual, maybe even shorter. “Well, you look beautiful,” he smiled fondly and leaned down to kiss you lightly on the corner of your mouth, surprising you. He murmured against your ear and only quiet enough for you to hear, “I know that was a lot, I’m sorry if I took it too far. I’m late, but I’m here now,” he paused. “I’m not gonna let you down, okay?”

He gently cupped your chin, his thumb grazing your cheek. That kiss, you were finding it hard to shake off… “You look like a Disney prince,” you said before you realised it was supposed to be a thought. His eyes shone with humour as he took his seat beside you, resting an arm on the back of your chair.

He creased into an easy laugh. “Not the look I was going for, not with this god awful mug, but I’ll happily take it. Do I have to catch up, have you had a few drinks?” he teased.

“A champagne before the ceremony. Just foot in mouth right now,” you touched the material on his lapel and smiled. Soft, so unlike Rooster. If he was anyone else’s date tonight, you’d hardly have recognised him. “You look very handsome, Rooster.”

“Thank you,” he shrugged, a little anxious himself.

“Come here,” you said quietly as he sat up and moved towards you. You shook your head, hiding your grin as you looked at his wonky bow tie - now, not too uneven, but enough to help him consider correcting. 

“Oh,” he said, a little red hitting the apples of his cheeks. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” you said, trying to adjust the alignment just right. “I’m gonna obsess over this if I don’t get it right after starting this.”

Rooster laughed lowly, his Adam’s apple bopping under your graze. “My undoing, a fucking bow tie!”

“There,” you smiled widely, tie affixed. “All better now.”

“Should I trust you? You didn’t go and make it worse?” he teased.

“No, it’s perfect,” you told him. 

“And that shall be our theme of the night, sweetheart,” he winked, petting your cheek. 

The Boyfriend Experience

[almightyellie]

just like a movie

in which rooster bradshaw has it bad, and there are a few tell-tale signs. or five ways that bradley bradshaw shows that he loves you.

author says friends......im in my tgm era. this is all just sweet n soft and daydreamy. loose inspo here and also here

word count: 2.8k

title song: just like a movie // wallows

01.

rooster bradshaw is the kind of man they write romance novels about.

maybe not the adventurous, hit-the-ground-running kind of romance hero you were so used to. no, your rooster is the strong and steady. he’s careful and kind, sweet and hardworking and dependable. he’s doting, maybe slightly desperately so. his adoration for you is entirely unabashed and every new text, bouquet of flowers, and compliment has you a little more obsessed with him. it’s only been a few weeks since you met through a friend of a friend; your friends had failed you on the blind date front more than a few times. your hopes are low by default. that was, until rooster came in and swept you off your feet so quickly that you felt a headrush.

rooster bradshaw hasn’t been so infatuated with a girl since he was in high school. it should be annoying. it should be frustrating that you’re all he can think of—he's an adult, for god’s sake, but he gets a rush from it all. something about you so perfectly compliments him. as far as he knows, you two are the perfect pair, and every interaction the two of you have only cements the idea in his mind.

you mentioned the book on your second date—maybe your third, he can’t remember. no, it isn’t anything he would read on his own, but he has to admit that it is fascinating. he keeps it on his bedside table, though he finished it only days after he received it in the mail. he keeps meaning to talk to you about it, but something keeps the information inside. maybe it’s that he’s forgetful. more likely, maybe it’s how bashful he feels. rooster’s not one to be embarrassed; no, he was raised to say what he meant and look confident while he did it, but it’s a little pathetic that an off-handed comment from you convinced rooster to spend fifteen dollars and a couple days off reading a book that he would normally have little interest in.

so sure, rooster will bring it up to you one day, probably. but for now he enjoys that he knows you a little better, that he’s unearthed another piece of the puzzle that makes you who you are. it’s enough for him.

on a rainy day in which the two of you were supposed to go to the beach, you instead end up curled up on his couch. it’s much more common that you two spend time at your place, but you love spending time in rooster’s home. it’s so perfectly him; clean but still lived in, warm with pictures covering the walls.

when rooster jumps up to open the door for takeout, you glance at your phone and frown. “hey, can i use your charger?”

he throws a look over his shoulder, and the sight of him makes you smile smally. his sweatpants are paper-thin, so clearly loved over many years, and the t-shirt stretched across his shoulders makes him look so…domestic. “of course,” he answers easily, pointing at the door off the kitchen. “s’in the bedroom.”

you listen as he genially greets the delivery person, taken by just how perfect he seems. taken by how easily you can picture yourself living this day over and over and over again. 

just when you think the day is too idealistic, you reach for the phone charger plugged in next to his bed and habitually read the title of the book on his nightstand. surprised, your brows pinch. when you pick up the book and run a finger across the blurb on the back, you hear the front door close. had he gotten this because of you? 

the very idea makes you a little giddy.

you pad back into the living room, phone charger in one hand and book in the other. the plastic bag the food was delivered in rustles as rooster begins pulling everything out, humming lowly to himself. “roos, when did you get this?” you ask, and he looks up at you, hands not stilling. they do, however, slow slightly when he catches sight of the book you hold up.

casually, he shrugs, but the flush that grazes the tips of his ears tells you everything you need to know. “a few weeks ago.” his heart begins to quicken when you don’t answer, so he straightens up to look you in the eye. “you said you liked it.”

“yeah,” you murmur. “i do.”

wiping his hands on his sweatpants, he makes his way over to you and wraps an arm around your waist. “i thought it was pretty good. a little out of my wheelhouse maybe, but…”

adoration shoots up through your body so quickly that it knocks every other emotion out of its way. he sees it in the way your eyes soften and the corners of your mouth turn down. he leans to press a kiss to the corner of your lips, but you turn just in time to give him a real kiss. one of your arms wraps around his neck, keeping him close to you while you fawn over him; rooster wonders how he ever could have been so silly, trying to hide such a thing from you. he should have known this would be your reaction. he should have known it would only make things better. 

pulling away, you press a kiss to the scars on his chin. “you are so whipped for me.”

with a roll of his eyes, he backs you up onto the couch. both the charger and the book fall from your hands when you giggle. “oh, is that what you think?” he asks, eyes glinting with mischief. you both know the answer is a resounding yes, but then his fingertips are slipping under the waistband of your own sweatpants and you fail to answer.

02. 

rooster is one for details. it shouldn’t surprise you so much; he’s a military man, after all. his entire life is dedicated to paying attention to such small details, to ensuring that he has every little bit of information he can get. 

you just say things. you always had; none of your past partners had taken such an interest in little things like that, like your favorite book or your order at the cafe down the street or what color you liked them in. you never expect for any of these escaped thoughts to take root in bradley’s mind. he takes your every word as gospel. 

it’s impossible to you that he keeps all these details straight; that you like him in blue or you hate radicchio in your salads or which of your coworkers you’re pissed off at. he does, though, whether you expect him to or not.

he’s turning into a walking rolodex of your likes and dislikes, of your preferences and your pet peeves, of your hopes and fears. faster than anyone ever has, it seems, rooster is growing to know you. every single bit of you, good and bad.

“i like you in blue,” you said softly, brushing the collar of his shirt gently. it’s tucked away in his mind, another little tidbit. he swears he won’t forget it. he knows he won’t, really, because you look at him with the sweetest smile right after you say it, like you’re cataloging this moment the same way he is.

it’s why, when he knows you’ve had a bad day, he wears blue when he shows up at your door. your lips turn down when you see him, eyes puffy from tears. you’re thrilled to see him, even though you told him not to waste his night on watching you cry. the tears welling in your eyes and the noticeable frown growing on your lips is due entirely to relief. you had thought you wanted to be alone. you thought you wanted to wallow in your misery without subjecting rooster to your ranting and your sobbing and your frustrations. you had thought these things before rooster showed up, and you realized that all you wanted was him.

he knew you better. he always did.

03..

“i’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day!” he belts heartily, and you giggle, leaning into the passenger side door to escape him when he grabs for you. it’s a futile effort, of course, half because he’s so big that he could grab you from the backseat if he needed to, but also because you don’t actually want to get away from him. “when it’s cold outside, i’ve got the month of may.” he turns to you, grabbing for you once more and successfully catching your hand in his. “c’mon, baby, sing with me.”

you don’t think you’ll ever get used to him. with a roll of your eyes and a flutter of your stomach, you give in. “i guess you’d say, what can make me feel this way?”

“my girl!”

“my god,” you laugh only half as loudly as he sings, and he grins at you, kissing your knuckles. 

he’s a serenader, which you actually should have expected. rooster bradshaw is not a man of many words. 

rather, rooster has a lot to say, though whether or not the words are right is impossible to say. vulnerability is a rarity and you can tell that it’s frustrating for him, because fuck, bradley loves you. and all he wants in the world is to figure out a way to tell you just how much; he wants you to know that every time you look at him it feels like he’s been punched in the chest, and every time you laugh he feels like this, you are what he’s been waiting for his entire life. you’re the girl he yearned for when he got his heart broken for the first time, and the woman his mother told him would find him. there’s no eloquent way for him to tell you that it feels like every step he’s ever taken has led him directly to you. every half-smile you afford him makes him feel a little more whole. 

he just can’t find the words, and until he does, he’ll use someone else’s.

if he was a more worldly man, he might use poetry. maybe something from one of those classic novels of his mother’s that have been sitting untouched on his shelf since she passed. it’s not true to him, though, to give you words from brontë or wilde or austen. he doesn’t know much when it comes to classic literature, but music? rooster knows music.

the beach boys, michael bolton, maybe a little too much peter cetera, and you’ve never met someone with so much taylor swift in their repertoire (“babe, it’s not my fault she knows the perfect formula for a love song”). it used to make you bashful, which he adored, but he likes it better now that you sing along with him, basking in his attention. his mother, ever a hopeless romantic, had adored every love song ever written, which means that rooster is well-versed. you don’t know that you’ve gone a day since meeting rooster without hearing a love song in some capacity, whether he’s screaming in the car or murmuring lyrics in the kitchen, sending you spotify links or humming in your ear. 

leaning his elbow on the console, he presses your knuckles to his cheekbone and you ignore the violent flutter that rages inside of you. how many months, you wonder, will you be together before he stops leaving you speechless? how long until you stop feeling a rush of adrenaline every time you see him? how long until he looks at you with those pretty brown eyes and you aren’t speechless?

the temptations fade out and “first day of my life” starts. bradley grins and begins tapping the rhythm against your hand with his thumb. the two of you listen in silence for a moment, and bradley almost makes it to the end of the song before he starts singing along. you look over at him, admiring the way the sun hits him just so, shining through his sunglasses and glinting off his watch. 

he glances over at you, the bronco rolling to a stop. “i mean i really think you like me,” he sings along, and it’s your turn to kiss his knuckles. 

“i love you, bradley,” you assure him quietly.

he beams.

04. 

you’re on the couch when bradley trudges into your apartment with nothing but an unhappy little groan, and you close your book softly. “hey, how was work?” the question is more of a formality, really, because just the way he carries himself is enough to let you know that it hasn’t been a good day.

he grunts in response, kicking off his boots and shrugging off his jacket. you frown, moving to stand, but he shakes his head. “no, stay there.”

he’s not prone to bad days. sure, he’s a little angsty sometimes, but who isn't? he isn’t one to let a bad moment ruin his entire day; it must have been one thing after another for him to be so visibly upset. “do you want to talk about it?”

“no,” he responds softly. “i just want to be with you.”

you feel yourself melt a little, and you nod. bradley forces your body right to the arm of the couch, his body overtaking the rest of the cushions when he puts his head in your lap. the idea of him having a bad day kills you, but you love it when he’s needy like this. when he grabs onto you and won’t let go, keeping you tucked into his side until he feels better.

his cheek is warm against your thigh and he reaches up to grab your hand, placing it in his hair himself. “clingy,” you murmur, beginning to scratch his scalp softly.

“you’re clingy,” he returns lazily.

“okay, buddy.”

he tells you stories, sometimes, about his childhood, about his mother. they were inseparable. after his father passed, bradley had no choice but to be his mother’s boy, and he had adored her. on bad days, he had done exactly this. had laid his head in her lap and listened to her sing or talk about her day or watched her soaps.

and you’re sure he doesn’t remember telling you those stories, but you do. how could you ever forget? how could you forget that this vulnerability, this closeness, is something that he’s only shared with a woman he holds in such high esteem—a woman he spoke about constantly, one who he so clearly loved—and you? 

in the years since his mother had passed, bradley had endured a great deal of bad days on his own. he had ignored the pleas of previous partners to let them lighten his load. you’re the only one since her that he had trusted enough to comfort him. your bradley, as emotionally intelligent as he might be, might never understand how much it means to you. you don’t need him to. it’s enough for you that he wants you, too.

05. 

rooster slips from the bed, the sun only just breaking over the horizon, and he watches the minute pinch of your brows when the bed shifts. in the few months since you two have been living together, you’ve grown used to him waking so early. it’s rare that he wakes you anymore. 

he raises his palms to the sky in a long stretch as he rounds the bed. it’s habitual, now, to straighten everything up when he wakes. “b?” you ask, voice raspy, and his head lifts, searching for your eyes in the dusky morning light. 

“go back to sleep, baby,” he murmurs quietly. he grabs the blankets that you’ve kicked off throughout the night, pulling them back over your legs and tucking you in.

sleepily, you reach for him, and your drowsy fingers grasp his wrist. “love you.”

his heart trips over itself at your half-conscious reassurance. he leans to kiss your temple tenderly, pulling the blankets up to your shoulders. “i love you more.”

you grunt disapprovingly, already pulled back under consciousness, and he chuckles quietly. bradley is truly defenseless against the violent waves of adoration that crash against him. you’re a little competitive even when you’re asleep—unrelentingly adoring and affectionate as ever. you are, as much as ever, his sweetheart. soft even when you’re fighting, kind even when you’re unhappy. he loves you more than ever, the other half of his perfect pair. 

as for you…you love him for different reasons each night. sometimes because he’s sweet and sometimes because he’s strong. sometimes because he cooks dinner and does the dishes. you love him in the mornings when he gets ready quietly so as not to disturb you, and you love him in the afternoons when he sends you texts during his lunch. you love when he kisses your forehead and presses his palm to the nape of your neck to remind you that he’s there. you love him when he smiles and when he frowns and when he laughs.

every single day, you love him because he’s bradley, and that’s plenty good enough for you.

[roosterbruiser]

𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞 ☾☽ 𝐕𝐈𝐈𝐈

☾☽ 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐲 "𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫" 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐰 𝐱 𝐅𝐚𝐲𝐞 "𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫" 𝐋𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐫

☾☽ 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: It’s been almost three years since the accident that took half of her, and Faye “Clover” Ledger seems fine, really. She loves her old house, she has a perpetually expanding vinyl collection, she’s got a job she likes on base, and she is only a short drive from the beach. She’s grounded--literally. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw feels like he’s been homesick his entire life. He’s always on the move;  jumping from one squadron to another, living one mission to the next. Somewhere in between losing both his parents and carving a successful career as a Naval aviator, he’s never found himself a home. When a call to serve on a high-priority mission with an elite squadron brings Rooster back to Miramar, he finds that home. Except it’s not a house that he finds--it’s the former backseater that observes and records the mission for the Official Navy Record. 

☾☽ 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

☾☽ 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

☾☽ 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟐𝟒𝐭𝐡, 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟗

There is an obsessiveness about Rooster, but it is not an unwelcome obsessiveness, nothing devient about it. When I sit in the lounge with the other aviators--some of them talking lowly and waiting with unshielded impatience and others trying to get some shut-eye on the brown couches--and listen to the radio during dogfights, his obsession for preservation is wildly apparent. The way he preserves his speed, preserves the safety of himself and others. He is a natural-born leader when he’s in the air and falls into the position easily, as easily as falling into bed at the end of a long day. 

I think this stems from the loss of his father, a freak accident that was never on anyone’s radar--the kind of accident that people don’t even think of happening because it was truly perfect conditions when it occurred. Maybe he’s obsessed with the preservation of his team because he remembers what it was like when his father died and his mother was left by herself to not only pick up the pieces but to raise Rooster all by herself, something she never agreed to. What a lonely life she must’ve had, when a piece of herself was missing, gone forever, with no goodbye. A wound that never healed. And when I think this, my throat aches because it is how I feel about myself, my life--Maggie gone, my life emptier than it was supposed to be.

Sometimes, when I catch him looking down at the watch that I know was his father’s or when I pass Memorial Hall and Rooster is standing before Goose’s portrait with a deep want pulsing in his body, I want to tell him that I know what his mother must have felt like. I want to tell him that I lost a part of myself, too, and I never got to say goodbye. Maggie and Goose died similarly--in front of the person that loved them most, their life forever stalled right there in that horrifying moment. I want to tell him that I wish there was a part of Maggie, even if it was only half of her, that I could hold close and watch breathe and sneeze and hiccup and cry and laugh and grow. I want to tell Rooster that he probably saved his mother, unknowingly, his entire life. 

I don’t tell him this, though. I don’t tell him because even if there is an invisible string connecting us, even if things have been far too perfect, even if things have been frightfully easy for us, even if our time together has felt like a dream--I don’t know him the way I wish I did. 

“I feel like you know a part of myself that I don’t even know yet,” he had told me that very first night he came to my house, when Stevie was on his lap and the tequila was fading and he was creeping into my body. 

And I feel like he’s obsessed with me--with my home, with my cat, with my opinion. 

“I just--I want Admiral Simpson to respect me,” I’d told Bob, the styrofoam of my empty coffee cup partially destroyed beneath the wrath of my freezing fingers, “his approval means a lot to me. And, like, he was the one that picked me up by the bootstraps and I don’t want anyone to think that I’m just like--that I’m just like fucking a random pilot in the dorms or that I’m fucking--fuck, like multiple pilots or--!” 

Bob’s laughter, a dry and quiet kind of laughter, interrupted me. I blushed bright baby pink--I had a tendency to ramble when upset, especially when it was with someone I was comfortable with, and honestly--especially if it was Bob. 

He was reclined on the ugly brown couch in the lounge, which was both remarkably empty and remarkably bright, sunshine glimmering off every surface brightly. Bob had his own cup of coffee, half-full, which he sipped as I spoke. 

“Faye, you should give yourself more credit. Sure, you had some help when you were down, but ultimately you made the decision to get back up. Right?” 

I looked at his eyes, his earnest blue eyes that had never been anything but. His glasses were pristine, which I knew was because of the piece of velvet he kept in his pockets at all times to cleanse them, and his hair was brushed and neatly gelled. And his mouth, which was smiling softly, had never said anything even resembling unkind. 

He had played this part before many times, either talking Maggie out of fucking an army boy with a dirty mouth or trying to ease my worries about an upcoming assignment. And he had played the part of listener more than anything, nodding and smiling or frowning, reaching a consoling hand at the right moment. He was just plain good at being there, just plain good at listening. 

“Right,” I mumbled, but then I thought of my underwear in the pocket of Rooster’s flightsuit and then I was blushing all over again, “maybe I just shouldn’t mess around on base anymore.” 

He nodded, smiling with his nose crinkled. 

“That might be a good idea,” he said, “and maybe you shouldn’t tell anyone about it except for me. You know, just until you know what’s happening for sure, right?” 

I nodded rapidly. 

“You’re right, you’re so right. Bob…do you know why they call him Rooster?”

Bob had genuinely cocked his head then, leaning forward slightly with a question written all over his face. He was earnestly wondering, waiting for me to tell him why. 

He paused there for a long moment, looking up at me as I smiled guiltily, swallowing my laughter. And I watched his face fall then contort to a look of childlife embarrassment. His mouth opened and closed and then his eyes fluttered to his coffee cup, his cheeks blushed deeply. 

“I had to, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Maggie just possessed me.” 

Bob took a drink from his cup, shaking his head, smiling now. He was still very red. 

“Evidently so.” 

Ever since our encounter in his dorm, ever since Bob saved us from being caught by anyone else in the squadron, we have not so much as kissed each other on the job. I had told Rooster some of my conversation with Bob that evening, about my concerns with professionalism, my desire to keep work at work and home at home.

And he listened, nodded, then smiled. 

“Whatever you want,” he told me, “you call the shots, Lieutenant Ledger.”

But now that we are measuring our glances on base and only ghosting our fingers over each other when no one else is around to see, he is on my doorstep every single night, the Bronco parked right beside my car. I welcome him into my home each evening, never stopping to pause my record or the dinner on the stove. 

And then I’ll hurry back to the kitchen, my body flushed already, and he will put his bag in its unofficial-official location in my closet right beside my empty suitcases. Then he’ll make a pit-stop by the ottoman to pet Stevie for a few minutes, inhaling my home and dinner on the stove or in the oven. Then he comes through my kitchen doors-- with that fucking smile under his mustache and he’s wearing a t-shirt that hugs his body and his eyes are soft with sleep and his shoulders are practically glued to his ears with the stress of the mission--and sees me in my slippers and with my hair in a clip and my hands messy with flour or meat. And we just look at each other, drinking each other in for the first time, pretending like our stolen glances at work never happened at all. 

Then he’ll kiss me, wrap his arms around my waist and watch me whisk parmesan into an alfredo sauce or take steamed broccoli off a burner. And his body is so perfectly molded to mine that I want to let everything burn, want to just sink into his body and live in his arms forever. I want to just give up and let him carry me through life. 

But instead, I’ll kiss his shoulder and ask him if he wants a glass of wine at dinner. 

He kisses the top of my head before he grabs the wine glasses, which he found one evening while searching my cabinets and drawers out of an untamable wave of curiosity. And when I’m busy grabbing a loaf of bread from the stove or my hands are massaging kale, he will flip the record or pick a new one when the static at the end of a record curses through the speakers. 

And then when we eat dinner at the table and I’ve lit taper candles and finally turned the music down, he pulls my chair out for me and never starts eating until I’ve taken the first bite. He will ask me a million questions, internalizing every bit of our workday just for that moment--asking me what I thought when Hangman said this or when Maverick did that.

He has sunk comfortably into this repetition and I think that as much as he does this because he wants to, it is also maybe because I told him about my deep love for rigid routines. 

Right now it is a Wednesday and the sun is thinking about setting, falling deeper into the sky as it fades to an orange-gold. The clouds dotting the sky are beginning to pinken around the edges and the breeze is sweet and cool. It is maybe the coolest it has been all summer--all the windows in my house are open and the curtains are billowing softly. I have even lit incense so my house smells like patchouli and lavender. 

It is heading towards six in the evening and there is a sheet of carrots roasting in the oven, two chicken breasts sizzling in rosemary and olive oil on the stove, and raw cookie dough wrapped in the fridge to chill. 

I am leaning against the kitchen counter, biting my lip, straining to remember if the dough needs to be chilled overnight when my phone buzzes on the counter. 

Tramp: Grabbing a few bottles of that wine you like. Need anything else for dinner? Dessert? 

Me: Got it all covered here. Brown butter chocolate chip cookie dough is chilling now :) 

Me: Thanks for the wine, too. Trying to get into my pants or something? 

Tramp: Says the one with cookies baking…

Tramp: ;)

I can’t help the grin that is fighting its way to my lips, the blood that rushes straight to my head whenever I see his stupid nickname appear on my lockscreen. Fucking Rooster. 

I cross the kitchen and step into the living room, which smells like outside. The trees, the grass, the mud, the crisp evening air. Stevie is blinking at me from her usual spot, perched very still and silently. I only have to look at my collection for a moment before I know what I want to play. 

ABBA’s Voulez-Vous album starts as I walk back through the kitchen door. It smells like rosemary and garlic in here and the chicken is beginning to brown when I peer over the pan. It smells like Sunday nights when Maggie was alive--when I would make anyone in our squadron dinner in my old apartment, squeezing everyone into my living room and shooing everyone out of my galley kitchen when they attempted to help me. It reminds me of the four or five bottles of wine--all my favorite brand of prosecco--that would end up in my fridge because no one dared to show up empty-handed. 

I used to keep my records in wooden crates back then, stacked on top of each other under my thrifted record player. And everyone would take a crate and sift through, pulling records they wanted to listen to. And inevitably, Maggie would pick a Fleetwood Mac album and get everyone up and dancing while I minced garlic and mashed potatoes. I never felt left out--I used to live for those moments. Moments where everyone danced around my old coffee table and Bob warned everyone that they were being too loud and Maggie pretended like she knew how to read palms. When we would eat on the floor, sitting on couch cushions and balancing our plates on our knees. When we were all very young and nothing felt permanent.

And right now the music is so loud, loud like it was in my apartment all those years ago--the song Angeleyes is playing--that I almost don’t hear the front door open and close. I almost don’t hear Rooster mockingly crooning, “Honey, I’m home!” when he steps into the foyer. I almost don’t hear the brown paper bag in his arms rustle as he tries to take his boots off with no hands. I almost don’t hear it all, but I do. 

So when he’s standing in my entryway with my big wooden door locked behind him, dressed in jean shorts and an old UVA sweatshirt with his aviators pushing back into his curls and he’s singing along to ABBA under his breath, I am standing at the top of the stairs, smiling. 

It isn’t until he starts for the stairs that he notices me. He pauses, his feet scissored on different steps, and his eyes fall to my slippered feet and climb up, up my body until they’re resting on mine. The fist, the one that lives deep inside me, is clenching every muscle in my chest. This is how it goes when he sees me--his lips part before they break into a grin, his eyes glaze over with that look of devotion and affection, his body tenses and relaxes at the same time but in vastly different ways. 

When I see him for the first time in my home and not on base, my entire body feels like a San Diego summer: like golden sunshine and endless blue skies, like melted ice cream and scorching asphalt. I am blushing when I think about his mustache and how wet I want it to be, how soon I want his head between my legs again, how badly I want his body against mine. 

“You really are stupid pretty, Faye,” Rooster sighs, shaking his head thoughtfully, “I mean--just look at you, baby.” 

I have to roll my eyes to pretend like my stomach isn’t sitting in my chest. Fuck. 

“Give me my wine,” I smile, then add lowly, “tramp.”

He tsks softly and ascends the stairs expeditiously, hand coming to rest on my lower back. The paper bag rustles between us as he presses his chest against mine, grinning down at me so sweetly that I make a mental note to schedule a teeth cleaning. 

“Gimme some sugar,” he says. 

And if any other man on the planet had said that to me, me right now at my big age of twenty-six-years-old, I would have laughed them right out the door. But when he says it with his dark-colored eyes and his glimmering lips and his mustache and his sultry body pressed against me, I can do nothing but press my mouth against his. And I am not sure if I will ever get used to kissing him--his mustache tingling the space between my mouth and nose, his tongue faintly running across my bottom lip, his nose pressed against the side of my own. 

If he pressed his lips to one of my pulse-points and felt just how badly he makes my heart race, I would be done for. 

When he pulls away from my mouth, his scorching breath fans over my skin that’s already growing damp at the thought of his mouth on me. He sprinkles kisses to my chin and jaw and my cheeks and my neck and I am already gasping for air, pulling him closer. 

“Wait,” I say breathlessly, smiling with my chest flushed, “chicken! Gonna burn!” 

And he lets me go and I fall back, empty, wishing he could just hold me all the time and I would never feel alone. He’s grinning at me, looking around the house at the open windows and incense and Stevie on her ottoman. And just as I am about to step into the kitchen, he gently holds my hair in his hands and tugs one time so I’m turning to him again. Then he holds both my cheeks in his hands, thumbs rubbing those familiar soft circles, and looks down at me. 

“This is the best part of my day,” he says and even though his voice is teasing, his face is not. His eyes are serious and his mouth is smiling but honest. 

And maybe he means that the best part of his day is coming home to my house, which feels like his now, and eating my dinner and buying me wine and washing our dishes and listening to records and making me cum. But maybe because of who I am or who he is, or because he’s 35 and I’m 26, I know that he means holding me, seeing me is the best part of his day.

I hold his wrists and they’re very solid and warm beneath my palms. I think I could hold them forever. And then I move his left palm to my lips, guiding it with my grip. I kiss him one time there, in the middle of his open hand, batting my eyelashes at him. His lips part and I watch his breath get caught in his throat.

“Hold that for me, will you?” I whisper to him. 

I close my fingers around his left hand and curl his fingers into a fist. Then I kiss his middle knuckle before turning away and going through the kitchen door. Without turning around, I know he watches my moving figure--his mouth still open slightly--until the door closes on me. 

It’s something my mother used to do with me and Maggie. I don’t know why I did it, why it has made my chest ache so badly--but I know that a certain nostalgic glee is climbing all the way up, up, up my throat. I had forgotten all about that and remembered so suddenly when I brought his palm to my mouth. 

Everything is so easy in our evenings. Once his bag is put away and he has greeted Stevie, he stands behind me, kissing my throat and holding my hips against his. 

“Smells incredible,” he mumbles against my skin. 

His jaw fits perfectly in the slope of my body where my neck gives into my shoulder. The weight of his head feels very normal, very safe--like wearing an apron when I cook, like putting gloves on in the winter, like taking a warm shower on cold mornings. 

“Thank you,” I say softly, “set the table, yeah?” 

“Aye-aye, Lieutenant.” 

Even all this is easy--he somehow has memorized where everything is in my kitchen. He knows which wine glasses I prefer and which plates are for everyday use and which ones are saved for special occasions. He knows where I keep linen napkins and silverware and trivets. He whistles the entire time he sets my sweet dining room table, smiling like it’s the only thing in the world he wants to do. 

“Let me get that,” he says, slipping a spare pair of oven mitts on before he opens the oven and retrieves the roasted carrots. 

He grins at me as he sets them on a trivet on the island. I want to faint. I want to cry. 

When we sit down to eat, each plated with a chicken breast and a heaping of roasted carrots and pieces of buttery sourdough, the song Lovers (Live A Little Longer) is playing. Just like always, he waits until I take a bite of chicken before he starts in on his food. It is an unspoken thing, something I’ve noticed because I watch him through my lashes. 

“You missed your calling,” Rooster says, nodding at his plate, “I don’t even like carrots.” 

This is what he does everytime I make him dinner and I know that it’s because his mother raised him with manners. He always opens the door for women, always acknowledges a new presence in the room, always makes sure I finish first. But his eyes are gleaming so prettily, so honestly that I know beneath those manners that he was raised with--he is just being painfully honest. 

“Heard Maverick talked to the Big Guy,” I say, meaning Ice. 

Rooster nods, exhaling from his nose. He shovels a bite into his mouth and sits back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. We are sitting across from each other, his back to one of the doors to the living room and my back against a warm window. 

“Hope he ripped him a new one,” Rooster says confidently. 

I take a sip of prosecco and it’s bubbly and dry on my tongue. He’s watching me and I set my elbows on the table before giving him a very small shrug. 

“You’re hard on him,” I say slowly, metering my tone and phrasing, “I’m sure it’s warranted. Is it?” 

Rooster is looking past me now. He is nodding slowly, biting his lips, thinking of what to say to me next. I take another bite. 

He answers while I’m chewing, “We have a history.” 

Another sip of prosecco and his eyes find mine. I’m smiling teasingly, cutting another bite for myself. He’s watching me with his hands on either side of his plate. 

“Mysterious,” I whisper, but don’t press. 

He chuckles. 

“Hangman’s got a thing for you,” Rooster says, adopting my teasing smile, “making goo-goo eyes at you all day today. Puffing up his chest, practicing his cock-walk.” 

“I thought only rooster’s did that?” 

I bite my lip when he narrows his eyes into mine. 

“I think I even heard him ask Bob about you,” he teases, nonchalantly shrugging. 

“And what did he ask Bob?” 

A beat passes. Rooster is teasing me. It makes me giddy. I remain composed, though--lips on the surface of my wine glass, fork resting softly in my left hand. 

“If you were looking for a new pilot,” he answers finally. 

Then a stone sinks in my belly. And I don’t mean for it to happen but my face drops, drops like my heart in my chest, like my eyes dropping from Rooster’s to the taper candle instead. I can feel it--the gloss over my eyes, the slack in my brow, the frown pulling my lips, the blush creeping out of my cheeks and into my hands--and I can feel Rooster stiffen across from me. 

I can’t help it and I don’t want it to happen and I don’t mean for it to happen, but I think about the day Maggie died. I think about trekking through the snow and the gnarly tree roots and mud until I found her on the forest floor, lying on her back in the tuft of her parachute. And from far away, I wondered if she was just sleeping, just hit her head and lost consciousness on the way down. But when I came closer, stood above her and saw her unmoving eyes and her bloody scalp and her contorted limbs--I knew that she was dead. I think about our jet that exploded in the air and the twenty-mile radius our shrapnel covered. I think about how I laid beside her, somewhere between awake and asleep, somewhere between alive and dead for eleven hours before my ESAT turned on. I don’t remember moving my fingers to it, don’t remember turning it. It was off and then it was on and Search and Rescue was hovering above me. 

I look up at Rooster and smile again, pretending like there are no tears dotting the corners of my eyes, pretending like I’m not choking back a lump in my throat. Pretending like I’m not thinking about Maggie’s body.

He’s across from me, his plate abandoned, hands holding either side of the table like he’s getting ready to push himself up and come to me. He doesn’t soften when I smile--his eyes search mine like he’s looking for some kind of injury, like he thinks my wounds are visible. External. 

“Already found myself a pilot,” I say, but my voice cracks. 

I take another drink and start cutting my chicken again. 

“What happened just now?” 

His confidence never ceases to amaze me, to knock the breath out of my mouth. He will bring to light any part of a conversation, mention any look or expression and press about it. And lying to him, skirting around something he’s curious about--it’s futile.

“You know I’m never going to fly again, right?” 

I say this without looking up. 

He breathes. His hands are still framing his plate, curled into soft fists. 

“I guess I didn’t know that,” he says, “I thought eventually you would get back up there.” 

This isn't like falling off a horse. You don’t just pull yourself up by the bootstraps and hop back on. Maybe it would be like that if a horse stomped my sister to death and dragged her around a loose-dirt arena for hours. 

“Nope,” I say, trying to sound casual, trying so hard to blink my tears away, “I’m fine where I am.” 

And usually when I tell people this, they shift uncomfortably, but nod. Usually when I tell people this, they aren’t Naval Aviators and they don’t really understand the brevity of what I’ve said. Usually people just assume I won’t get back up there. 

But not Rooster. 

“Doesn’t that feel kind of like a waste?” 

When he asks this, his voice is even and steady. He is not being malicious, never is. He is just asking me a question over the dinner I made for us, at the table he set. 

I cross my arms before my plate and meet his eyes. The taper candles are burning lower and lower, wax melting onto the clay holders. I search his face--his open eyes, his neutral mouth. 

“A waste of what? Naval resources? Training?” 

I wish I didn't sound bitter, but I do. 

He doesn’t flinch. 

“Talent,” he answers. 

Just like that, he’s knocked me off my feet again. Sometimes I am ready for a fight--my tone dripping in bitterness, the stone in my belly growing steadily until it’s a fucking boulder and compressing my lungs. Sometimes I am already putting up the defense, balling my fists, narrowing my eyes. Maybe I’m protecting my peace--maybe I’m protecting my open wounds. 

I square my jaw. He’s still watching me softly. The record has finished and turns emptily. I cannot stand the silence. 

“I’m gonna pick a new record,” I whisper, balling my linen and putting it on the table. 

He doesn’t move from his spot, but his eyes follow me all the way past the table and out to the living room. When the door shuts behind me, shields me from Rooster, I have to hold my knees and take a deep, deep breath. 

Somehow he is the first person that has ever challenged me that way--somehow he is the first person who has argued with me without actually arguing with me.

“Fuck,” I whisper, searching the shelf for a new record, hastily wiping the bitter tears from my cheeks. 

The windows are still open and the sun is setting finally and the room glows orange. I graze my fingers over the records, shaking a little bit. I hastily turn on Seasons of Your Day by Mazzy Star and let a few seconds of In the Kingdom play while I wipe my cheeks hastily. I think of Bob’s teasing words; no crying in the Navy.

I walk back into the kitchen and Rooster hasn’t resumed eating. It makes me ache. I want to touch him, his shoulder, but I feel too fucked up suddenly. Like I have witnessed things people shouldn’t and it has permanently damaged me--damaged my heart and the way I feel things. 

Like he knows this, he reaches out and holds my wrist as I am passing him to my own plate. His fingers hold my wrist securely, but not tightly. He is begging me, silently, to look at him. That’s all it takes to make my head turn. His face looks like the word please. He’s begging me, begging me. 

“The wound is still fresh,” I say, sounding less bitter and more sad, “and you didn’t say anything wrong, but I just--I just won’t fly again. There’s not even a question. I just…can’t. I can’t, Bradley. I won’t.” 

He is nodding and shaking his head almost at the same time, lips parted. He pulls me closer to him by the wrist until I’m sitting on his knee. He wraps his arms around my torso--my arms, my waist--and secures his hands in my lap as he kisses my hair and neck. 

“I didn’t mean to fight you,” he tells me, “you don’t have to explain yourself, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, baby.” 

“You didn’t know,” I whisper, “I’m not mad at you. It just…hurts still.” 

A beat passes and he rests his nose on my neck, pushing through my hair. 

“Where does it hurt, honey?” 

For a moment, all I can hear is the flickering candle, Mazzy Star, and Rooster’s breath mirroring my own. He tightens his arms around me and I lean back just enough to straighten my back, giving him more of my weight. His legs, his glorious thighs, split so I sit lower on him. I rest my cheek against his forehead, heart steady. 

“Here,” I say, pointing to my chest. 

Like I’m nothing, like the laws of gravity are not applicable to me, he scoops me up in his arms tightly. I stiffen, but then he’s kissing the side of my neck and standing, carrying me to the living room. It’s almost completely dark now. 

He lays me down on the rug, hovering over me as I lay very still, very compliant. 

“Here?” he asks, pointing to the same spot I had pointed to. 

I bite my lip and nod and his head comes down slowly. He presses his lips to the middle of my chest, over my heart, and lingers there just breathing into my knit sweater. His hands are on either side of my arms and he keeps his face there a moment longer, pressing another quick kiss before he comes up to look at me. 

I’m trying very hard not to cry. 

“Where else?” He asks and he means it and I know he’s really asking me what happened to me? What happened to me when my sister died? Why won’t I fly again? 

With shaking fingers, I point to the scar on my jaw. The tree branch. 

He wastes no time, moving up to press slow, sensual kisses along the entire scar. It is a jagged one, white now, but used to be bright pink on my face. It starts almost at my ear and runs all along my jawline, stopping at the point of my chin. My face is hot.

“Where else?” He mumbles against my skin. 

His mustache prickles me, feels so good.

“My vocal cords,” I whisper, “they were bruised. From…” 

I can’t make myself say it. Bruised from screaming, screaming my sister’s name, wailing like a banshee when I saw her dead body on the parachute. 

He doesn’t ask. He kisses all along my throat, his right hand holding my waist. 

“The pressure--it burst my eardrum on my right side.” 

 He moves up slowly, sprinkling an abundance of warm kisses on my ear.

I point to my forehead. My concussion. 

“I hit my head coming down, too.” 

His lips are there again and he’s still holding me tight under him. 

“I was so confused,” I whisper to him, “I would get lost driving around my hometown. I would get lost on base.” 

He nods, still kissing my head. 

“Tell me everywhere it hurt, baby,” he whispers. 

“Here,” I say pointing to my right shoulder, “dislocated when I punched out.” 

His hair tickles me when his lips come down on my shoulder. 

“And I had frostbite on both my hands. Moderate. All my fingers.” 

He sits up and moves so he is straddling me. I love his weight on top of me. It makes me want to close my eyes, put up my hands, and fall asleep. He’s looking down at me with very soft, very serious eyes. He takes my right hand, never breaking his eyes away from mine, and kisses the tips of each of my fingers. I am the one that has to close my eyes--I feel like I”m burning up, I feel like I’m on fire. 

Common Burn is playing. 

“Look at me, honey,” he whispers, picking my left hand up, “wanna see your pretty eyes. Pretty, brown eyes.” 

When I open my eyes, he’s kissing my left fingers--starting at my thumb and ending on my pinkie. My chest is almost heaving now. 

“Here,” I point to my left wrist, “sprained.” 

He pulls my left wrist to his mouth and kisses all the way around it, holding my open hand against his face so he can kiss my palm. And he doesn’t say it, doesn’t say anything, but closes my fingers softly so I am holding his kiss. Here, hold this for me, would you?

“Four ribs on my left side,” I tell him, “the tree.” 

So he finally lowers himself, his fingers pulling at the hem of my sweater, nudging it up and up until my skin gooses in the crisp air conditioning. I almost squirm at the feeling of his lips there, but instead I just close my eyes. Wasn’t it enough that I’d lost my sister? Wasn’t it enough that I’d watched her die? I was in so much genuine pain after she died, physically and emotionally and mentally. That’s how the vicodin had started--very seriously, very truthfully. I needed to not feel the ache in my ribs and the throb in my head and the scabs on my fingers. 

He lays his cheek on my naked belly and my fingers find his hair almost entirely on instinct. He relaxes into me and I hold him there against me. 

“Can I tell you something without you looking at me differently?” 

“Differently?” he asks softly. 

I screw my eyes shut. 

“Pitying me.” 

He nods, kissing the space between my ribs. I stare at the ceiling again. 

“When you have a twin…sometimes you can feel what they do,” I start and he stiffens against me, bringing his eyes to the underside of my jaw, “and I felt everything Maggie did. All the good parts--when she was happy, when she was in love. I knew what she was thinking and she knew what I was thinking, too. But I felt the bad parts, too--I knew when she was blushing and when she had a pimple coming on.” 

I take a deep breath and Rooster holds me tighter, like he knows what I’m going to say. 

“And so I felt it when she died,” I say calmly, breathing through my nose. 

And I’m going to say more, can feel the words dribbling up my throat, but I don’t. Nobody in the world needs to know what I felt that day. When her bladder released. When she screamed my name. When she cried all the way down. When she thrashed as her cords snapped. When she hit the ground. 

“Oh, Faye,” Rooster coos. 

He thinks about what to say and I know it’s because he wants to say, you poor baby.

“I’m so glad you’re alive.” 

I feel like he’s just pushed me off a skyscraper. Like I’m falling through the air, really free-falling, flailing. Like the wind has been knocked out of me. Because doesn’t he know that I wanted to be dead for a long time after she died? That I was barely keeping myself alive? That I never thought I would feel as happy as I do right now with him on top of me in my living room, on my rug, dinner forgotten and taper candles melting? Doesn’t he know that?

My mouth is dry. 

“You know, if I ever got into a jet again,” I started, sighing, “I would never fly with Hangman.” 

And then we are laughing, his chest rumbling against the flat part of my hips and my legs. His breath is hot on my bare skin and I want to stay here always. 

“Who would you fly with?” 

I pretend to think, feeling the blush evading my cheeks and chest. 

“Phoenix, probably,” I whisper. 

He groans against me while I laugh. 

“You’re breaking my heart over here, honey!”

Then we just lay there, on the floor. The wind blows gently into the room, tickling the exposed skin of my belly that Rooster’s hand is splayed over. He’s stroking me, just like he always does, and letting his head rest on my breasts. I’m playing with his hair, looking up at the ceiling with dry eyes. There is an uncertain weight rendering from my body and seeping into the rugs below me. My heart feels bigger than before. 

“Remember our first date?” He asks. 

I stifle a laugh. 

“What do you consider our first date?” 

He sighs into my skin, holding me tighter. 

“Flat Rock Beach,” he says softly, “cherry wine, figs.”

My throat feels tight. I nod, keep his hair between my fingers, keep holding him to me. 

“‘Course I do,” I whisper, “it was eight days ago.” 

He pinches my skin softly and I bite my lip. He moves so his chin is resting on my breast now, digging slightly into the soft tissue there. It’s so close to hurting me, but not close enough for me to tell him to move. I think even if he was hurting me, I would never push him away from me. 

“And remember when you told me to be angry?” 

I pull my brow together, biting a smile. 

“Yes,” I whisper. 

“Can I tell you what makes me angry--you know, give a little part of it away.” 

I am a puddle again, here on the floor. The lines on his forehead are faintly pressed into his skin when he brings his eyebrows together very slightly, just pinches them together as his eyes narrow. 

“Always.” 

He sighs before he says it and I can feel his pulse start to race on my thigh. 

“Maverick pulled my papers from the Naval Academy.” 

And I can see it with my own eyes--see the uncertain weight rendering and leaking onto my body from his. I want to take it in my hands and keep it safe, keep it with me. He doesn’t have to carry it anymore. 

My chest is tight. 

“Why would he do that?” I ask softly, raking my hands through his curls. 

Despite himself, his eyes slip shut and he sighs, leaning into my touch. It’s like whenever I touch him, he has no choice but to relax. It makes me want to kiss him all over. 

“I don’t know,” he whispers, “it was all I had left and he took it away from me. It took four years off my career, Faye. Four years.” 

I frown. Poor baby. I want to pity him. Instead, I sigh, keeping my fingers in his hair, keeping his chin on my breast. 

“He was close with your father,” I say and his eyes find mine, “wasn’t he?” 

He knows that I heard everything Hangman had said in the training room. Maverick was flying when Goose died.

“They were best friends,” Rooster whispers, his voice breaking very softly. 

I nod. 

“Maybe he didn’t want to lose you, Bradley.” 

☾☽ 𝐚/𝐧: listen...................I am a puddle of mush at this point. and so, so mentally ill. kisses!!

☾☽ 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫

[jarofstyles]

more gang/mafia harry. literally anything ur heart desires I just want gang/mafia!harry

Ok…. So maybe went overboard with this, but dark Harry feeds the soul (or takes it lmao)

But this is what I imagine he’s like when someone threatens or attempts to hurt Y/N.

TW/ guns, violence, blood, bad language and just altogether dark oops

—————

Harry wasn’t a man to cross.

It was known by almost all. And when you say almost, it’s because a select portion of the population doesn’t seem to care much about their lives. At all.

It was widely known that he was brutal. Harry didn’t give second chances, sometimes he barely gave a first. You simply didn’t fuck with him. Period. He was protective of his own and the consequences of messing with them were showing to be quite deadly.

There weren’t many things that he held dear in his life. His mum and sister, yes. His core group of inner men, though even to them they may not know it. But Y/N was at the very top of that list, and that unfortunately made her a target. A large one.

Harry had people watching for her whenever she left. Perhaps that was excessive to some, but he would damned if he let anything happen to the one beam of sunshine in his life. She was his joy, his love, his breath. And no one fucked with her.

When they did, though? It wasn’t pretty.

He had gotten the call that a man had been tailing Y/N as she did her day to day. Sitting outside her apartment, waiting for her to leave. When she felt someone following, she called Harry and immediately he had his men on it. Surrounding the car before he even knew what happened. And while Harry usually didn’t do dirty work himself…. This was a very special occasion.

“I suggest shutting the fuck up.” He rolled his eyes as the guy tried to babble out excuses, Harry rolling up his sleeves as he walked into the room. His demeanor was dark and heavy. Angry. Livid. Because the man tied in front of him had nefarious intentions with his angel of a woman, and he wouldn’t be unpunished.

“You’re going to nod yes or no.” Harry took the gun from his waistband and cocked it, flicking off the safety. The man trembled in the seat, nodding yes frantically. God. Pathetic.

“You had rope in the trunk of your car. Rope. Chains. A few knives. Plastic bags. Weapons. Light fluid. Correct?” He listed off, internally roaring with rage while on the outside still remaining cool. “Don’t just sit there like a fucking idiot. Yes or no?” He clenched his jaw as the man nodded his head.

“You did. I saw it. And you were following my angel around. Yes or no?” He stepped closer, fist clenched against his side. Again, he nodded. This man was done for. “That was a mistake. You’ve got the be the stupidest person in the world. Did you think it was going to be that easy?” He took the gun and pressed it under the coward’s chin to lift it up. “Did you?”

The venom in his tone was felt in the room. It was known then that this man wasn’t going to be okay. “What were you going to do, Bradley? Hm? Were you going to hurt my angel?” His breathing picked up, waiting for a nod or a shake of the head. When he didn’t get one, his hand drew back and slammed right into the man’s face with a sickening crunch.

The man’s howl of pain only angered Harry more. How dare he think he had the right to make any noise when he was going to hurt his girl?

“Yes or no, you fucking piece of shit.” His growl was deep and he sounded truly evil. At the moment? Harry felt it. He had done a lot of fucked up things in his day, but the things he was envisioning doing to this man who threatened someone so pure and genuine? They were sick. He probably needed therapy.

“Yes! Yes, I’m sorry!” He sobbed when again Harry’s hand came up and hit him with force that nearly knocked his bound body and chair over. Blood poured from his nose and his lip was split. There was no remorse from Harry.

“You’re sorry?” He snickered, shaking his head. “You’re going to be. You’re going to tell me who hired you, you sick fuck. And then I’m going to make you regret everything. Taking this job, scaring my girl, the day you were fucking born. The girl you were going to harm has no play in this. She’s mine. That’s it. And you’d think that you’d do a bit of research into just who you’re going to hit.” His green eyes were black with rage.

“Boss? Y/N’s in your office. She’s shaken up, you should probably go see her before you get too dirty.” A voice behind him let him in, making his spine straighten up again. Y/N was always the priority, regardless of how bloodthirsty he felt right now. He needed to make sure she was okay.

“I’ll be right there.” He spoke lowly, stepping back from the man who had just signed over his life. “You sit tight. I’ll be right back after I make sure my fiancé is doing okay. Your life has been extended a few minutes due to her. Thank whatever god you believe in because when I come back, it isn’t going to be a fun ride to meet them.”

Before leaving the room, he lifted the gun and pointed it at the man’s knee, pulling the trigger. The loud bang filled the room, along with the screams of the man as the door shut behind him. It was fine to comfort his girl.

When he had her shaking form in his arms, her tears soaking his shirt, gently soothing her terrified soul, he felt that rage raise again. No one got away with hurting her.

[toomanystoriessolittletime]

Nirvana 4/7

Summary: John had no idea what to do. Burying his wife  after only 5 years of knowing, loving her almost broke him. But he  wasn’t allowed to break. Not when he had Mia, their 4 year old daughter,  to take care of. But what happens when John got robbed of his car in  the middle of the night by no other then Iosef Tarasov, who also killed  his daughters dog? Stuck between a raging feeling of revenge and the  overwhelming urge to protect his daughter, John tries to make a  decision.

Warnings: none really

A/N: It was only a matter of time before Santino showed up...

Masterlist

Taglist:

@ladyreapermc / @meetmeinthematinee / @hisdeadwife / @fanficsrusz / @theolsdalova / @ficsnroses​ / @a-really-bi-girl​

“Daddy.” John heard a whisper next to him.

“Hm?” He asked low.

“Can we go to the playground?” Mia asked. John hadn't even opened his eyes yet. Slowly he opened one eye, looking in his daughter's excited face.

“What about you sleep a little bit more and then we go to the playground?” John suggested, looking at the clock on his nightstand. 6:23 am.

“But I don't want to sleep more...” Mia pouted. John sighed. It had been the first night Mia had been sleeping in her own bed since Helen died. And surprisingly she hadn't been crying. John and Mia had been back from New York for 4 days now.

“Where is she?” John asked as soon as he stepped inside of the Continental Hotel.

“She's upstairs with Marcus, Jonathan.” Winston informed him. John breathed in deep, closing his eyes.

“Can you take care of that for me?” John pointed outside.

“Already on it, Sir.” Charon answered instead. Thankful John nodded at him, before he made his way towards the elevator, followed by Winston and his dog.

“I didn't take you for a dog person.” John joked.

“I didn't take you for a father.” Winston shot back, making John chuckle.

“You might wanna change, before you go in there.” Winston suggested. John looked down at his bloodied knuckles.

“You might be right.”

“I thought Daddy was gonna wait for us here?” John heard Mia ask, as he walked into the room in fresh clothes.

“He's gonna be here any minute, Sweetheart.” Marcus whispered. John quickly walked to them and saw Marcus whispering something to Mia, before her head snapped in his direction. Climbing of Marcus lap she ran towards John, who picked her up and closely hugged her.

“There was a really really mean man outside today.” Mia said, making John swallow.

“Uncle Marcus and Mister Charon made him go away.” Mia continued.

“They did.” John said lowly, nodding towards Marcus who was ready to leave anyway. Slowly John carried his daughter from the living room to the big master bedroom that was overlooking the skyline of New York. Comforting he rubbed Mia's back, as he sat down on the bed.

“I thought you were gone too, Daddy.” Mia whispered against his neck. John's heart broke into a thousand pieces as he heard these words.

“I am never going to leave you alone, Munchkin. Never.” John had promised, as he kissed the top of the head of his daughter.

John closed his eye again, pretending to sleep, as he felt Mia crawling closer to him. He felt her little fingers poke his side above the covers.

“Daaaadddyyyy.....” She whispered again. John tried very hard to not smile. Mia was now crawling on top of him. He felt her weight on his chest, as she propped her head up on her elbows. Opening one eye again, he slowly got his arms from under the covers.

“Please Daddy.” Mia pouted. All she wanted was to go on the slide down the street. Why was her Daddy not getting out of bed? Finally opening both of his eyes John looked at his daughter, that seemed to look more like her mother everyday. Sighing he blinked a couple of times, before one of his arm caged her in, as his other hand began to tickle her side. Shrieking and giggling she tried to get off her father, but John wasn't having any of that. When he saw her crying because she was laughing so hard he finally let go of her. There was nothing better in this world, than hearing the laughter of his child these days. Mia immediately hid under the covers, pulling them over her head.

“Munchkin?” John asked, now a little concerned.

“Mia?” He gently pulled the covers from her, revealing her blushed face.

“Can we go to the playground, now?” She asked out of breath. John laughed, as he got out of bed, to get dressed and take his daughter to the playground. Before 7 am.

The next days continued like that. Well not exactly like that. John was supposed to take Mia to the kindergarden starting monday again, and he dreaded the thought of it. He knew it was good for her to see her friends again. But what would he do in the meantime? There were a couple of things he still needed to take care of. And he also wanted to get back to his book binding. In the last weeks there had been a couple of books he had put on hold and was due to finish.

“Daddy?” Mia called out on the following Sunday.

“Yeah?” John called back from the kitchen. Daisy came excitedly running towards him, followed from Mia.

“Can we eat pizza today?” Mia asked. John smiled.

“I thought you wanted to eat Chicken Fingers?”

“Hmmmm....” Mia tilted her head to the side, as if she was thinking very hard. John bit his tongue.

“Can we have both?” Mia asked after a while.

“What about Chicken Fingers today, and Pizza tomorrow after ballet?” John asked.

“Uh. Yes.” Mia nodded excited.

“Wanna help me make them?”

“Uhmmmm..... No.” Mia giggled and ran away. John shook his head chuckling as he put the flour and spices together. In the last years he became quiet the cook. Thanks to the internet. And his wife of course.

When they met he wasn't even able to boil an egg. He quickly got a hold of it, even participating in some courses together with Helen. Sadly he smiled as he put the chicken through the flour. It had now been almost 4 weeks since she died. He still put out two cups when he made himself a coffee in the morning. He had talked to Helen's sister Lauren the other day.

She had lost her first husband in a car accident. She told him about the good and the bad days. It took her forever to move on and find love again. Not that John could even bare the thought of replacing Helen. No. He would live his life for his daughter.

“I'm so sorry Mr. Wick. I can't believe what you've been through the last weeks.” Miss Bradley said, as John brought Mia to her ballet practice.

“Thank you.” He said quietly.

“You might if I stay? I knew Helen always did...”

“Absolutely. Just sit down in the back.” Miss Bradley smiled before she turned around and gathered the kids. John smiled at Mia who was waving at him in her little pink tutu. How on earth could someone be that adorable? Turning around he sat down on the only empty seat at the back of the room between two women as he watched the practice.

“They are adorable, aren't they?” He heard the woman to his left ask after a while. He turned his head to look at her and nodded.

“I am so sorry for your loss. We all are. Helen was a good friend.”

“Thank you. We are still trying to get used to her not being here.” John said.

“If you need any help, please don't hesitate. We're all stay at home mom's. Just reach out to us. We're happy to help.” The women on his right said. John turned his head to look at her.

“With anything. Just call.” She smiled a little, before she handed him a piece of paper with her number. Confused he took the piece of paper. The woman whose name apparently was Julianne nodded at him, before he could see her clearly straightening her back to push her chest forward, which gave him an unexpectedly clear view of her cleavage. Nodding at her, he smiled awkwardly little, before he let his gaze wander through the room. All the woman were starring at him. Internally sighing he ignored them and watched his daughter doing a pirouette. That was what he was here for.

They were finished with making their pizza later when they got home, which gave John just enough time to bathe his daughter. Which she absolutely hated.

“But I don't want to...” She whined as John helped her pull her shirt off.

“Only clean little Ladies are allowed to have pizza, munchkin.”

“Then I don't want pizza.” Mia crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“You don't want to have pizza? Not even with all the cheese you put on it by yourself? You want to make Daddy eat it all by himself?” John asked.

“I forgot about the cheese.” Mia sighed, making John chuckle.

“Let's shower quickly. Then Pizza. And then we watch a movie.” John suggested.

“Can we watch the movie, while we eat pizza?”

“That we can do, Munchkin.” John agreed.

It was close to 11 pm when someone rang the doorbell. Thankfully John was sitting in the basement, in the middle of restoring a book, and had the bell set to silent. He looked at the monitor hanging next to the door and saw the face of Santino D'Antonio looking up at him.

“I know you're home John.” He heard him through the speaker. Sighing John got up from his seat and walked upstairs. He breathed in deep, before he opened the door.

“John.” Santino said in greeting, a small smile on his face. John looked the Italian in front of him from head to toe.

“Santino.” He said lowly.

“Aren't you going to invite me in?”

“I'd rather not.”

“But there's business we have to...”

“We don't have any business together. I'm out.” John interrupted him, making Santino sigh.

“See this is where you are wrong. It was you who killed Viggo, wasn't it?” John breathed in deep. Slightly he stepped aside to let Santino in, stepping in front of his guards with a glare, before he closed the door in front of them.

“You have a beautiful home.” Santino said as he walked further inside the house.

“Thanks.” John said gesturing towards the dining table.

“I'm sorry for your loss. I can't imagine what you are going through. After giving up so much for her.” Santino said, looking at a picture of him and Helen hanging on the wall.

“I didn't give up anything for her. Nobody is supposed to live like this.” John said. They sat in silence for a while, just looking at each other.

“I need you to do a job for me.” Santino said after a while.

“No. I'm out.” “With you killing the first of the little lambs from Viggo, you were back. Even if you don't think so, this is how it works.” John sighed, as Santino slid the marker over the table.

“Don't make me do this.” John said quietly.

“I'm not making you do this. You did this by yourself, John.” Santino said. John clenched his jaw as he looked up at him.

“I need you to kill Gianna.” Santino explained.

“Your sister?” John asked.

“She's the last thing that stands between me and my seat at the high table.”

“So you want me to kill your own sister?”

“Yes.” Santino simply said. John was about to tell him to go fuck himself, when he heard a whimper from upstairs. Santino looked up in the direction the stairs led.

“Ah. Yes. I heard about you having a daughter. Please. Go to her. I will be waiting right here for you.” Santino smiled. John swallowed and got up from his seat, before he turned around and took the stairs.

Mia was fully sobbing in her bed when he opened the door.

“Hey munchkin.” John said softly, getting into her bed, putting her arms around her. Her tiny hands came around his neck, as she breathed harshly.

“What's going on? Did you have a nightmare?” John asked. He could feel her shake his head.

“What was it then?”

“I... miss Mommy....” She sobbed quietly.

“Oh Munchkin. I miss her too.” John said soothing.

“Why did she have to go?” Mia asked. Yes why? That was a question John had been asking himself, ever since Helen got sick. And he didn't have an answer to that.

“I don't know. But you know what? She can hear and see us. Wherever we are. You just can't see her.”

“Really?” Mia asked and yawned. She had stopped crying.

“Yeah. When you miss her very much, just tell her.”

“I miss you Mommy.” Mia said after a while.

“I miss you too, Love.” John said, as he closed his eyes, kissing the top of his daughters head. Carefully he looked down, to find her asleep in his arms. All he wanted to do is sleep with her here, but there was an Italian Mob Boss downstairs, who needed an answer from him. John knew there was no way of getting out of this. He had to kill Gianna. And Santino would probably contract him afterwards like the little shit he was. He needed a plan. A plan that secured him being alive at the end of all of this.

He saw Santino standing at the window in his living room, that overlooked the lake.

“I need a week to sort out some things.” John began, catching his attention.

“I figured. And you get it.”

“After that the marker is fulfilled an I never want to see you again.” John clarified.

“You won't.” Santino promised.

“I guess I don't have to say that should come any harm to my daughter...” John said, letting the sentence end, as he looked at Santino.

“Even I wouldn't be so stupid as to threaten your child. Or any child. What do you think I am? Heartless?” Santino smirked. Yes. That was exactly what John thought.

“I give you two weeks. Then you have to be in rome. Sort your stuff out till then.” John nodded at Santino.

“Don't do anything stupid, Jonathan.” Santino said, as he walked by John towards the door.

“Same goes to you.” John followed him. That made Santino laugh.

“I wouldn't dare.” He smirked before he nodded at him and closed the door behind him. John didn't know how long he stood there, watching after him. He was fucked.

[aion-rsa]

Willem Dafoe on Noir, Fate and Geeks in Nightmare Alley

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Willem Dafoe is having a moment. Four of them, actually. With this weekend marking the release of both Guillermo del Toro’s cynically bleak noir, Nightmare Alley, as well as the high-flying adventures of Spider-Man: No Way Home, the four-time Oscar nominated actor is at polar ends of the cinematic landscape: a chilly and cerebral awards-bound prestige drama with an Oscar winning auteur, and a superhero movie thrill ride that sees him reprise his arguably most popular role after nearly 20 years—the Green Goblin.

And that’s just two of the four electric flavors he’s offering this fall when one considers his recent supporting, and memorable, work in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch and Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter. Yet when we sit down to discuss things with the thespian, he reflects that his variety of roles is everything acting is about.

“Part of it is about live invention and part of it is about not getting stuck in a certain methodology,” Dafoe tells us over Zoom. “Because I think when you do that, you start to create a sense of who you are that’s inflexible and then that limits you. If you keep on going from different situations like small films and big films, very presentational films, very naturalistic films, very theatrical films, it always tosses you about and forces you to go back to what is the baseline. You don’t harden into a methodology or a self-image that you’re trapped by.”

Take for instance his role in del Toro’s Nightmare Alley. In the grim as a tombstone thriller, Dafoe plays our guide into the grisly underbelly of early 20th century carnival life. With the film set during the 1930s and ‘40s, the picture follows a hustler with a past named Stan (Bradley Cooper). After needing to disappear, Stan finds himself running away with the circus thanks to the kindly smile, yet unkindly eyes, of a lifelong carnival worker: Clem (Dafoe). Clem offers to take Stan under his wing during the Depression and show him the ropes of moving from town to town, and fair ground to fair ground, but everything Clem offers comes with a price.

For an actor who got his start in the theater, New York City’s experimental scene to be exact, Dafoe sees a lot of the modern artistic nomad’s lifestyle in the seedy side of showbiz, circa almost 100 years ago.

“You’re traveling all the time, you set-up, you do your thing, and then you get out of town,” Dafoe says about the characters in Nightmare Alley. “So that describes the carnival and it also describes the theater, and to some degree it also describes films. Because when you shoot on location, sometimes you’re like an invading army. You come into town, you set up, you make a world, you interact with what’s there, and then you go away.”

Perhaps for that reason Dafoe can best understand a guy like Clem when he filmed an early scene in which Stan awakes to find Clem already risen (with bottle in hand), and perhaps ghosts on his mind.

Says Dafoe, “There’s always that beautiful moment when you come to a set in the morning where it’s starting to take on life, and you feel that in the theater, you feel that in this movie, when you’re coming to the carnival set, and you certainly feel that in film, generally, when you’re arriving at four o’clock in the morning, it’s dark, and the world is coming to life with the sun.”

With that said, Dafoe stops short of agreeing when we draw parallels between modern filmmaking and Clem’s most specialized, and sinister, duty. The duty of turning a desperate soul in Depression era America into… a Geek.

Before the term “Geek” became synonymous with folks who partake in fannish or enthusiastic behavior, the word has its etymological roots in  early 20th century carnival life. It was a slang term—some might even say slur—created to describe “sideshow freaks” who were considered so lowly and incompetent in life that the only “job” they could be expected to perform at a carnival was to bite the heads off live chickens to the sound of a cheering and jeering crowd. It’s a nightmarish scenario that Stan and audiences see in graphic detail during the first 10 minutes of del Toro’s Nightmare Alley.

This root origin for geekdom is excavated in the film, but so is how such misery could be inflicted on a “performer.” In one of Nightmare Alley’s most chilling early scenes, Dafoe explains to Cooper how he “breaks in” a new Geek. It always involves going to a town’s darkest corners and finding a man at the end of his rope—and then to hang him by it while offering a job in one hand and a bottle of liquor with an added shot of morphine therein. When the performer has had too much and finally succumbs to his own demons, then it’s off to the next town and the next Geek.

Given our own geek credentials, it seemed prudent to ask Dafoe about this monologue and if he, too, could see Clem as just a savvy film director or acting coach who is helping men get into character. But the actor avoids such simple analogies for how dark Nightmare Alley can get.

“Clem’s pragmatic and he knows the nature of human desire and human addiction,” Dafoe explains, “and for his own selfish reasons… he recognizes that you can control people and you can reduce them to an inhuman thing if you prey on their desires and their patterns of behavior that they can’t break.”

Dafoe continues, “So he’s kind of a dark figure, and it’s not great to turn someone into a Geek, but he’s also quite objective about it and sort of fatalistic. ‘People who are going to go that way are going to go that way.’ That’s why he searches for people already in crisis. He goes to skid row where people are already in trouble, and they’re grasping at some sort of lifeline, and he doesn’t really give it to them. He just pushes their addiction further.”

It’s a grim prognosis, and one that’s in keeping with the nihilism of most noir. Indeed, del Toro’s Nightmare Alley is the second film to be adapted from the William Lindsay Gresham novel of the same name—the first was a 1947 film starring Tyrone Power. Dafoe tells us he was open to revisiting that film as well as the novel, which he had never read before, because generally speaking, “All information is good. It feeds in there and you take what you can use and let slide what you don’t.”

That being said, del Toro’s film is a mite bit darker still than the ’47 movie and gets to the heart of the appeal of noir.

“They have a fatalistic point-of-view,” Dafoe says when considering the genre. “You can’t help but associate a certain visual style with noirs and a certain kind of attitude. I wasn’t a huge cinephile growing up, but the ones that I did gravitate to tended to be noirs. It doesn’t quite express life, but it does express a dark romanticism [toward it], which I appreciate. A romanticism about human nature and this sense of destiny. How people are tested, how their character is tested in life by circumstance, and most people fall into line with something that is basically already created.”

And creation, of Geeks or Spider-Man movie villain freaks, is something Dafoe is very, very good at.

Nightmare Alley opens in theaters on Friday, Dec. 17, and the UK on Jan. 21.

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[mx-ryder]

Original Fic Fest Day 3: Non-Romantic Relationship

For day 3 here, I’ll be talking all your ears off because, uh . . . My Soul to Keep is chock full of non-romantic relationships. It’s practically only non-romantic relationships, because that’s kind of the whole point of the narrative. As always, thanks to @originalficfest for hosting this lovely event!!

So let’s start off by jumping right in, and I’ll share a bit about Gardaak and Thanatos. 

Gardaak dropped into a bow. "You need not worry about me, master, I have dealt with worse than the villagers.” A beat passed, and Thanatos nodded, acknowledging the claim. “But if you would do this lowly creature one favor?"

He lifted his eyes as Thanatos reached out and took his hand. For an instant he stared at the contrast of Thanatos's thin fingers, clasped so tightly around his own large claws. Then he lifted his gaze, meeting Thanatos's uneven eyes. The Wizard's expression had gone, if possible, even more serious, his eyes searching Gardaak's face.

"What is it? Speak, please."

"Be safe, master."

A beat of silence fell between them, and Gardaak held Thanatos's gaze, trying to convey every fear he had for Thanatos's safety in his stare. Trying to convey just how deeply he feared that someone in the city would do something to hurt his master and friend.

Slowly, Thanatos brought their hands, still joined, up to his chest. He squeezed lightly, never letting his gaze stray to break their contact. "I will be safe, Gardaak. And when I return, I will be known as the most powerful Wizard in all of Bedor. Just you watch me."

Gardaak is Thanatos’s “familiar.” Not much is known about the man--lizard--creature? With the skin, tail, claws, and facial features of a lizard, and the upright body of a man, he’s an anomaly in Bedor and Imivaria alike. Thanatos met Gardaak when he was still young, either before or very early into his transition when he was a teenager. He rescued Gardaak from a traveling circus/freak show where he was on display, and they’ve been fast friends ever since, with Gardaak taking on a naturally more servile role. Despite the less-than-subtle tells (such as Gardaak calling him Master), Thanatos views Gardaak as a friend and equal, and would never let any harm come to him. 

“I’m so happy you’ve come home.”

He pulled away from her, looking into her face again. He was not ashamed to let her see his tears, though his heart twinged as he saw tears tracking silently down her perfect face. Cupping her face in both his hands, he leaned his forehead against hers. She grasped his wrists, her delicate fingers squeezing tight. “I am so, so sorry. I never should have gone away.” Another sob jerked its way out of him, but he took a steadying breath, getting ahold of himself again. He reached deep inside, to where his reserve of strength still held the dregs, and rallied. For Guinevere.

And for her and Bradley’s child.

“Please, forgive me.”

Guinevere laughed, the sound shaky with feeling. Squeezing her fingers around his forearms, she gently bumped her forehead against his before leaning into him again, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “There is nothing to forgive. I am just glad that you’re here now.”

Falmere and Guinevere have been friends since they were children. When he was a young teenager, he began training in earnest to be her personal guard, and he’s filled that role in her life ever since. Guinevere was the first to broach the subject of their budding interest in one another, and also the one to make it explicitly clear that she was not romantically interested in him. Falmere, for his part, has come to terms with the fact that Guinevere will never love him the same way he used to love her. He’s content and happy having her platonic love and support. The best descriptor of their relationship is probably a queer-platonic relationship, which is also the best descriptor for her relationship with Bradley. She loves and is committed to them completely platonically. 

Penny straightened up to meet him as he approached her. Though her stomach quivered with the sudden feeling that she’d gone too far, and insulted and demeaned someone with far more power than she could even imagine, she made herself meet his advance with a calmness she didn’t feel. Her hands shook, until she balled them into fists and folded her arms tight across her chest. “It’s funny, somehow I don’t believe you.” Again, she gestured to the Prince, turning to look down into his face. “Tell me you didn’t do this to him. Tell me I’m not going to be exactly where he is soon.” Her throat tightened, and suddenly tears threatened to fall again. She swiped them away angrily, mad and ashamed that her body would betray her by crying.

Forcing the words out past the lump in her throat, she turned her eyes back to his face. “You are a horrible man.”

“Thank you.”

He said it so sincerely, his expression shifting into one Penny couldn’t guess the meaning of, that she was stunned. She stared at him for a long moment, swallowing back the tears that had been threatening to fall. That had been the furthest thing from a compliment she could muster, and yet . . .

Penny and Thanatos loathe one another. I love their dynamic, and I think they’d have such great chemistry if only they’d just get along. I guess it’s normal for the protag and antag not to get along, though. . . 

She squeezed Travis’s hand, suddenly afraid. “I don’t want to forget.” She whispered it, meeting his eye, searching his face for something that she didn’t find. “I don’t know who I’ll be if I forget.” She’d already forgotten so much, so much that she tried to remember, in the moment when she knew she’d forgotten anything at all. Most days, she knew she must have come from somewhere, somewhere that she called home. She must have had a family, parents who had given birth to her, if not raised and loved her to the best of their abilities. Those were things most everyone had, and so she had to have them too, if only she could remember.

“Whoever you are,” Travis touched her cheek again, finding another tear that had escaped. “You will be my friend. Even if you forget, I’ll be here. I’ll sing to you, and even if you can’t remember, hopefully the songs will help you.”

Travis and Penny are another of my favorites. He’s completely aromantic, and she’s asexual/grey-romantic, so their dynamic takes on a fun little “super physically affectionate in a completely platonic way” dynamic. Part of me ships them like crazy, honestly, but, what’re you gonna do?

Their whole face lit up when they saw her, but Penny could see the hesitance there as well. As they stood and approached, they looked her up and down. She could see the question in their eyes, wondering if she truly remembered, or if she had simply wandered down to the training ground again in her stupor. Approaching them quickly, she reached for their hand, and they gave it gladly. Relief showed in their grin.

“Penny,”

She cut them off. Her heart raced with the urgency, and with an excitement she couldn’t quite explain. “I’ve remembered, but not everything.” Something deep inside her told her that her current clarity was only a fraction of what it could be. She remembered the soldier, but very little else. Only the Wizard’s talk of essences had reminded her why she was in the castle at Summerkeep at all. “Will you come with me?”

Meeting her eye, Korravai searched her face for a long moment. She bore the scrutiny quietly, trying to convey just how serious she was with her gaze. After a moment, the soldier nodded. “Anywhere,”

Korravai and Penny is the closest thing to a canon ship I’ve got. Their relationship is . . . not quite romantic, but with the potential to be, I guess you could say? Korravai is a notorious lady’s-man type character, a soldier-who-drinks-and-fucks-and-swears stereotype to their core, but they’d do anything for Penny. Penny finds Korravai fascinating and beautiful, and learns a lot from them, about herself, the world, etc. If I were going to ship Penny with someone in canon, it’d probably be Korravai. But it’s platonic. For now. 

Not shown here, I also have plenty of familial relationships. Penny’s relationship with her sister, Tabitha, closely mirrors my own relationship with my younger sibling. They’re close, comrades in arms, partners in crime. Penny worries more about her sister than she does about herself, usually. 

Falmere’s relationship with Korravai is as close as can be expected of two siblings who live in totally different countries. They love one another dearly, and Falmere would do anything for his little sibling. But he knows Korravai can take care of themself, and occasionally has to quietly disapprove of their lifestyle. They make it work.

Travis’s relationship with his siblings is off-screen only, but he has two younger siblings he’s extremely fond of. He hasn’t seen them in years, but thinks about them often. 

[nixie-deangel]

✍🏻✍🏻✍🏻

✍🏻 insecure bradley - hangster

Letting out a groan, feeling aches along his shoulders, Bradley smacks his lips together and wonders why his body feels wrung out and pleasantly floaty with a furrow of his brow. Moving to bring his hands up to rub at his face but his brow furrows even more as his right arm is halted by an unexpected weight. Bringing his left up quick, he rubs at his eyes as he turns his head to stare in shock at the sight next to him. Bradley isn’t sure what sort of miracle he stumbled into or favor he pulled from the fates but he wants to do it again and again.  Wants to be able to see a sleep mussed Jake, with lines on his face from the pillow, hair soft and falling everywhere, every morning for the rest of his life. He aches because he knows he won’t.  Knows Jake won’t want much more from him now that they’ve shared a tumble between the sheets. Most people cut back on interacting with him once they’ve had his cock. Knows he’s not much past that for them. The ache in his chest tightens, deepens, because he knows what this means.  Knows he’ll be regulated to the outskirts of Jake’s orbit. Only to be talked to or interacted with in work settings or the absolute fringes of when the Daggers got together to blow off steam after a more brutal mission. Feels the ache grow and grow and grow and he hates it. Hates that he let himself be so dick stupid that he ruined his friendship with the younger man.

Make Nixie Write!

[businessliveme]

Book Recommendations to Turn the Page From 2019 to 2020

(Bloomberg Opinion) –It’s natural this time of year to take a look back at the months past and forward to the days ahead, to think about what made the news and what might shape the future. In that spirit, we asked the columnists of Bloomberg Opinion about the books they read in 2019: What was their favorite? What’s a must-read before 2020 arrives? What would they buy as a gift from their local bookshop? Here’s what they said.

A Must-Read If You Hope to See 2120

Bush fires in Australia caused unprecedented pollution. Europe suffered a record-setting heat wave. Cyclones displaced more than 2 million people in Bangladesh. Venice was flooded by the highest tides since the 1960s. California’s power outages became the new normal. All of which concluded the hottest decade in history, according to the United Nations.

That’s why “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming” by David Wallace-Wells should be everyone’s must-read in 2020. Wallace-Wells provides overwhelming evidence that climate change is the existential threat to humanity. The planet is warming so much, so fast that it will increasingly reduce gross domestic product as much of the Earth becomes unlivable.

Neither despair nor denials are appropriate at this point. “We have all the tools we need, today, to stop it all,” writes Wallace-Wells. — Matthew A. Winkler

Wallace-Wells’s book is a haunting preview of what’s in store for our children and grandchildren if we don’t very rapidly wean ourselves off hydrocarbons. Severe drought, intense heatwaves and coastal flooding will force tens of millions of people to move. And there will be “much more fire, much more often, burning much of the land,” he writes.

Wallace-Wells is clear about who is chiefly to blame. More than half of fossil-fuel-related emissions have occurred in the past 30 years, meaning the planet “was brought to the brink of climate catastrophe within the lifetime of a single generation”

But he’s hopeful, not fatalistic. The task of “unplugging the entire industrial world from fossil fuels” also falls to a single generation. That generation is us. — Chris Bryant

A Must-Read for Embattled Presidents

Since 2019 has been an impeachment year, for me, that means reading about Watergate. There are actually four essential books: Fred Emery’s “Watergate” is the best telling of the story, from President Richard Nixon’s first dabbling with breaking the law all the way through his resignation. The two primary sources absolutely worth reading are the Nixon tapes collected in “Abuse of Power” and the chief of staff’s notes published as “The Haldeman Diaries.” What I’ll recommend, however, is Elizabeth Drew’s wonderful account of what it was like to live through the unraveling of a presidency, reissued as “Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon’s Downfall.” That’s the one I’m going to revisit before the Senate trial starts. And, if there’s time, the best Watergate movie, with apologies to the excellent “All the President’s Men,” is the 1999 comedy “Dick.” — Jonathan Bernstein

A Must-Read for Fugitive Financiers

“Billion Dollar Whale,” by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, is a belter of a financial scandal takedown won’t take you long to read. It’s great fun — more Jackie Collins than forensic Michael Lewis analysis. It can be your guilty secret as you plow through the ever-more unbelievable scams of Jho Low, an ultra-aspiring Malaysian financier who sucks in the great and the (not so) good while ripping off his own country’s sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, with some big assists from Wall Street. A breathless collation of excellent investigative reporting, it shows real life really can be stranger than fiction. With the drama still unfolding in court, you can take a ringside seat as the authorities try to track down our antihero and get Goldman Sachs on the hook. Just try not to snigger at all the Hollywood flakes. — Marcus Ashworth

A Must-Read on the Protest Barricades

The words “Gilets Jaunes” never appear in “La France Qui Gronde” (The France That Grumbles, or Scolds), but the pages of this French volume are filled by the kind of ordinary people who made up the Yellow Vests movement that swept France a year ago.

Ahead of France’s presidential elections in 2017, journalists Jean-Marie Godard and Antoine Dreyfus visited a countryside grappling with suicides by farmers who couldn’t keep going, workers in one-industry backwaters whose jobs went to China, and parents and teachers who had given up on bureaucrats and were fixing their crumbling public school. Their frustration caught Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron unaware when his government tried to raise fuel taxes, sending mobs wearing roadside safety vests to occupy French traffic circles. Since then, protests against overbearing, corrupt or indifferent governments have lit up Algeria, Chile, Hong Kong, Iraq, Lebanon and more (the details differ, of course). This book helps understand the discontent in a country that knows something about inspiring revolutions. — Patrick McDowell

A Must-Read for Ruling the Boardroom

My pick: All five “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels by George R.R. Martin as well as the Dunk and Egg novellas and the Fire and Blood prequel. (Technically, they’re one body of work!)

Martin once asked in a Rolling Stone interview, “What was Aragorn’s tax policy?” It wasn’t entirely rhetorical: His point was that “Lord of the Rings” author J.R.R. Tolkien had “a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper.”

It’s not that simple, of course. Good leaders need more than good intentions. Charismatic heroes aren’t always (or even often) great administrators. Regardless of whether you watched the “Game of Thrones” HBO finale in 2019, if you’re a management geek like me you’ll enjoy reading about Martin’s power-hungry queens and honor-bound knights not only making decisions about love and duty, or dragons and White Walkers, but also about trade embargoes, luxury taxes and the Iron Bank’s singularly aggressive approach to recouping bad loans. The books are also enormously fun, which can’t be said of every leadership tome. And who knows? We may finally get the long-awaited sixth book in 2020. — Sarah Green Carmichael

A Must-Read for the Extremely Ambitious

“Our Man,” a biography of the late American diplomat Richard Holbrooke by George Packer, is a true page-turner, even at more than 600 pages. It is divided into three principal sections, each reflecting a chapter of Holbrooke’s eventful life and America’s geopolitical journey from the 1970s to the early 21st century.

I knew Holbrooke well in his days as a presidential envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. I was serving as supreme allied commander at NATO, in charge of the overall mission of some 150,000 troops, when he came often to Afghanistan. I found Holbrooke highly energetic, full of ideas (both good and bad), extremely self-confident (his abiding characteristic) and utterly ambitious. Until I read “Our Man” and was able to put his vast talent and vaster ego in perspective, I didn’t appreciate how the arc of his career tracked the peak to the essential end of what some have called the American Century. — James Stavridis

A Must-Read for Those Tired of Truthiness

Seymour M. Hersh’s memoir, “Reporter,” takes us back to the golden era of American newspapers, following Hersh’s rise from lowly copyboy to world-renowned investigative journalist. Hersh exposed hypocrisy and deceit throughout the U.S. government — from the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam to Watergate to the Iraq wars — proving that an unrelenting drive for truth can overcome even the deepest duplicity. And as remarkable as Hersh himself is, the book reveals the everyday heroism of his sources, many of them military officers or civil servants who shared information at great risk to their livelihoods and careers. They, as Hersh teaches us, knew that their true responsibility was “to uphold and defend the Constitution […] not the President, or an immediate superior.” — Scott Duke Kominers

A Must-Read for Women Making History, Part 1

It’s 1962, and a young Washington Post reporter is sent to cover the fight for integration at the University of Mississippi. But there’s a problem: She’s black, and no white hoteliers in Oxford will put her up for the night. No matter. She finds a black-owned funeral home — funeral directors make great sources, she notes — and beds down in the mortuary. The result: a page one story spotlighting black Mississippians’ response to James Meredith’s heroism.

Dorothy Butler Gilliam’s memoir “Trailblazer: A Pioneering Journalist’s Fight to Make the Media Look More Like America” is a story filled with insults and triumphs like these. And it couldn’t have come at a better time. As the U.S. heads into an election year with racial justice and women’s rights high on the agenda, our newsrooms remain disproportionately white and male (with predictable consequences for coverage). The media still doesn’t look like America. But history shows that change is possible, with trailblazers like Gilliam leading the way. — Tracy Walsh

A Must-Read for Women Making History, Part 2

Those of us who cover the Middle East — in my case, for two decades, first as a correspondent, now as a commentator — have long known that the finest journalism from the region is the handiwork of the women who work there. That this is not more widely recognized is a travesty that “Our Women on the Ground,” edited by Zahra Hankir begins, at last, to remedy.

It has been many years since I have, at the end of a book, felt compelled immediately to start again from the beginning. On second reading of this superb compendium of reporting by Arab woman, a spasm of envy led me to speculate that the gender of the writers was germane to their excellence: surely my own work could have approached these heights had I, a man, not been denied access to half the population of the region?

Spare yourself such unworthy thoughts and instead partake in the intelligence and depth of insight that radiate from these brilliant journalists. — Bobby Ghosh

A Must-Read for Orwellian Times

The defining book of 2019 focuses on 1984, or more properly, on “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” by George Orwell. Dorian Lynskey’s “The Ministry of Truth,” a biography of the novel, has the zest and momentum of a Stephen King novel, and the piercing clarity and dark sensibility of Orwell himself. It demonstrates that Orwell’s novel, published shortly before his death, is a synthesis of ideas that he had been developing for decades — about human nature, authoritarianism, rage, power, eroticism, memory and, above all, truth.

In the U.S. (and not only there), 2019 was a year in which palpable falsehoods have been stated so boldly, and by such prominent leaders, that it has been difficult to maintain one’s bearings. When tens of millions of people believe things that tens of millions of other people believe to be flatly false, truth has a tough time getting traction. Lynskey ends his book with Orwell’s explanation of why he wrote his novel: “The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one. Don’t let it happen. It depends on you.” — Cass Sunstein

A Must-Read Along With a History Tome

Historians never tire of insisting that policy makers need to learn more history. Yet they are not, typically, very good at explaining how an understanding of history can make for better choices. That was the great contribution of Michael Howard, the recently deceased British military historian, whose two classic volumes of essays, “The Causes of Wars and Other Essays” and “The Lessons of History,” are my must-read books as 2019 comes to an end.

Howard’s key insight is that history provides no specific answers to particular policy problems. What worked before, in one set of circumstances, may backfire catastrophically when transferred across time and space to a very different context. The value of history is broader. It can expand our knowledge beyond our personal experiences, educate us in the complexity of human affairs and the importance of understanding other cultures, and help us recognize the connections between choices and consequences, between causes and effects.

“The true use of history,” Howard wrote, is “not to make men clever for next time; it is to make them wise for ever.” At a time when the U.S. faces no shortage of disorienting global challenges, that’s a lesson worth remembering. — Hal Brands

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