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roosterforme · 3 months ago

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Aim for the Sky Part 41 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: A quiet wedding anniversary spent in the mountains is exactly what you and Bradley need.

Warnings: Adult language, DILF Roo, pregnancy, kinda smutty, lactation kink

Length: 2000 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader

Aim for the Sky masterlist. This was written to accompany my series Is It Working For You? along with a bunch of my one-shots and other series, but it can be read on its own! Check my masterlist for the reading order.

"Is that all you're bringing?"

You turned toward your husband where he stood in the bedroom doorway, rocking Rose in his arms while she fussed. Your hand stilled on your bag on the bed. "You haven't specifically told me where we're going, Bradley. Just to pack for four nights."

"Mountains," he grunted, like that was supposed to be explanation enough as he pressed a kiss to your daughter's forehead while she reached for his mustache. But that's all he'd been saying. "Just pack some sexy stuff."

You'd been picturing a quaint cabin off the beaten path as the destination for your second wedding anniversary, but Bradley had packed two bags for himself and one for Rose. How much could he possibly need? You were starting to question everything now.

"It's not like I have maternity lingerie," you murmured.

"It's not like you need it, Baby Girl. You look cute in my sweatpants. Or nothing." He walked into the room and glanced into your bag which contained just a few outfits, your boat shoes, and your toiletries. "Maybe you packed enough after all. Let's hit the road. I want Rosie to nap on the way."

Twenty minutes later, your daughter was already sound asleep in her car seat as your husband buckled you into the passenger seat of the red Bronco. You yawned as he pulled the seatbelt over your belly, and he bent to kiss his daughter as she squirmed against your bladder. You contemplated running back inside to use the bathroom again, but you were about to doze off just like Rose.

Bradley's lips brushed yours. "We'll be there in a few hours."

You nodded, thinking you'd wake up for part of the ride to enjoy Bradley's Motown playlist and his rich singing voice. But instead, you managed to sleep through several hundred miles and the sunset, only waking up in time to hear the tires crunching.

"There's snow!" you gasped, gaze catching on the evergreen trees covered in white in the dying light.

"Yeah," Bradley replied between songs on his playlist as he turned down a driveway. "Why do you sound so surprised?"

Your breath fogged the window as an opulent house three times the size of the Craftsman came into view. The windows were glowing orange; there was a porch the size of your entire driveway. "When you said mountains, you meant like whole-ass mountains! I packed my boat shoes!"

Bradley snorted as the Bronco came to a stop while you gawked at the mountains all around. "I added some of your cold weather clothes to my bag. Some of the stuff you used to wear when we went to Maryland for the holidays."

Tomorrow was Thanksgiving. One month until Christmas. It dawned on you that you and Bradley had no real reason to go back east now even though you both had roots there. "After Nugget Part Deux is born, we should take the girls to explore Virginia and Maryland. We can see your cousins. We can stop at the cemetery and visit your parents."

Bradley paused with the driver's side door open, cold air rushing into the Bronco's warm interior as his brown eyes studied yours. "What made you think about that?"

It was hard to put into words the way his parents would fill your mind with sadness and your heart with so much love it almost hurt. "I miss them."

"Me, too," he replied easily, never questioning the way you felt like Carole and Nick held a place in your family although you'd never met them. "Let's do that in the summer. And let's work on picking a name for Nugget Part Deux. It's getting to be a mouthful."

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You were laughing at the sight of Rose in her head-to-toe snow suit, but Bradley was busy making sure her exposed cheeks and nose weren't getting too much of the cold air. He kept picking her up from the snowy cabin steps to press his lips to her face.

"Feels okay," he whispered, letting her continue to play. She seemed to like the cold as she crawled toward the spot where you were sitting, compiling a small mound of snowballs as you casually tossed out one of the baby names that you claimed was on your short list.

"Nora?"

Bradley grunted in response. "It's okay." Personally, he had really liked some of the names that seemed to match better with Rose's. "What about Violet? Wasn't that on the list?" He watched Rose pat the snowballs and giggle as you scooped her up. Two cute little girls with pretty flower names just made sense.

"Yeah, I liked that one. And I liked Poppy."

"Me, too," he agreed, watching your smiling face as you put some of your snowballs into Rose's mittened hand and tried to launch them at him. When they fell short, you threw them directly at his chest instead.

"She's not cooperating!" you complained. "You're supposed to be on my team, Rosie. The girls team."

"Absolutely not." Bradley scooped up some of the powdery snow and sprinkled it over your head until you were rolling your eyes. "Rosie is on Team Daddy. Better luck with Poppy Violet, Sweetheart."

As he plucked the baby from your hands, you smiled up at him. "So it's settled then? She has a name? For real?"

Naming Rose after a song he'd played for you made sense, but this made sense, too. "Yeah. She officially has a name," Bradley said softly as his gaze settled on your belly. It was hard to tell you were pregnant with your winter coat zipped up and snug around your body, but his hands were so used to the way your hips and waist felt right now. Suddenly he couldn't wait to touch you. "Let's go inside. I don't want Rosie to get too cold, and the wind is starting to pick up now that it's getting dark."

"You just want to mess around," you replied, getting to your feet on the snowy steps.

"Of course I want to mess around. My wife is hot."

Your eye roll was accompanied by a little smirk. "Let me feed Rosie so she can take a nap, and then it can be your turn."

Bradley watched you settle into the overstuffed couch in front of the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the mountains. Fresh snow was beginning to fall as he poked at the logs in the fireplace, making sure the great room was warm enough for his girls. Then, as Rose curled against your round belly, he made himself useful in the adjoining kitching. He knew you'd be hungry for dinner after you were done feeding her, and Bradley was always hungry. The leftover turkey deli meat and stove top stuffing would make the most perfect sandwiches, so he lined everything up on the counter.

"It's so pretty here," you murmured, eyes fixed on the windows as he dimmed the lights so you could see the heavy snowfall that was moving in. "I wonder how much snow they'll have here by Christmas."

"We could find out next year," Bradley mused. "We can come back with your parents and the girls. There are four bedrooms, after all."

"Do I even want to know how much you spent on this?" you asked, turning to look at him.

Bradley deftfully dodged the question. "Just imagine a huge tree in the corner. Poppy's first Christmas. I'm sure your mom would make dinner, or we could just do sandwiches again. I'm kind of liking the sandwiches."

"I'm kind of liking all of this," you whispered, repositioning Rose to burp her, but Bradley loved that task. He settled on the couch beside you and took her in his big hands, patting her back. "You were right, Roo. We needed a little break as a family."

When you went to put your bra back on, he shook his head. "Don't bother with that. I'm going to be all over you in a minute. Rose always burps quickly for me, just like a good little Nugget."

His sentence was followed by a soft burp that made you laugh, which made your tits bounce, which made Bradley whimper as he stood to put the baby down for a nap so he could get his fill of you.

When he returned to the living room, you were naked, skin glowing in the firelight as you coaxed him closer to the couch. "Oh, you look so pretty, Baby Girl. We're definitely going to have to come back here."

You giggled as you unzipped his jeans and straddled his lap. "We can't fuck in front of the fireplace if my parents are here with us."

"Please, stop talking about them," he whispered, letting your heavy breasts fill his palms as you guided his erection to your pussy. Your body was perfect and welcoming as he filled you until you gasped. "That's a good girl."

Your head lulled back as he wrapped his lips around your nipple, and you kept his cock warm until it was time for him to fuck the absolute shit out of you.

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As soon as you stirred in the California King sized bed that you and Bradley had spent the better part of last night defiling, you heard him rasp, "Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart."

You stretched, feeling the workout he'd given you throughout your entire body. You were sore, in a good way, but combined with your pregnancy exhaustion, you were hoping to sleep in a little longer. His smile more than made up for the early hour when you looked at him.

"Has it really only been two years? It feels a lot longer than that," you whispered, kissing along his unshaven cheek to his mustache.

"I'm not sure if that's a compliment, or..."

"It's a compliment," you promised, wrapping your arms around him. "Hey, remember that time you asked me out and I said no?"

"Hmm, vaguely." He squinted at the ceiling and chuckled as his hand came to rest on the side of your belly where Poppy was currently thumping around. "But that didn't last long. And look how far we've come, Baby Girl." He turned his head, dark eyes earnest as he asked, "Want to take a bath while I get breakfast ready? I brought the thermometer to test the water for you."

He had packed pretty much anything you or either of your daughters might possibly need. And a bath did sound good, especially after last night. But since you couldn't have the water as hot as you liked, you didn't linger very long, opting to join your husband istead.

More snow had fallen overnight, but he had a fire warming the living room where he was walking around, holding Rose to his chest with one hand. He was singing a song from his Motown playlist, and you were shocked she was reaching for his mustache instead of crying to eat. But that changed as soon as she saw you.

"Not so fast, Nugget," he crooned. "Let Mommy take a bite of her breakfast first." That's when you noticed two slices of confetti cake and two flutes of pink champagne on the coffee table. "It's non-alcoholic, so have as much as you want. And I brought the cake from your favorite bakery back in San Diego."

Somehow it was perfect. Everything was perfect. Bradley in his ratty gym shorts and Rose fussing to eat. Cake for breakfast and couch snuggles for the entire day.

"I love you, Bradley," you promised, reaching for his hand and pulling him close until his lips found yours for probably the millionth time in just a few years. "I love you so much. You make everything perfect."

His lips curled against yours as he smiled. "I just want to spend the day with my girls."

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Let that man enjoy spending time with his girlies! He earned it! That's the end of the series, besties! This has been so fun for me! Thanks you so much for reading along and leaving so much love. I'd love to visit Roo and BG (and all these other wild and crazy kids) through asks, blurbs and one-shots, so please feel free to send them to me. Love love love you!

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callsignmagnolia · 2 months ago

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Pain & Joy

pairing: bradley "rooster" bradshaw x f!reader, no physical descriptions, no use of y/n, just petnames

synopsis: Holidays can bring up ghosts that we forget are haunting us.

warnings: 18+, pregnancy, tears, loss of parent/mother, a sad bradley bradshaw (this is absolutely a warning okay? but he is loved, don't worry)- I think that is it but please let me know if I need to tag anything else!

I do not consent to my work be posted elsewhere or translated but please reblog, comment, and like to your hearts content!

word count: 3.3 k

Hello Friends! This my first fic I am sharing (yay!) so please be kind but offer constructive advice- I would so appreciate it! I do not have a beta reader so forgive any mistakes. Anyway, the weekend before Mothers Day is so heavy for so many for so many reasons- I thought of Bradley and was inspired to write. I love you all and are sending you all of the kindness! <3

Zach Bryan's "Sweet DeAnn" is central to the story so I would suggest giving it a listen before you read!

The weather was awful today- Bradley had felt it in his bones when while his jet was loaded into the catapult. He knew it was going to be a rainy, stormy ride as he practiced dogfighting over the California desert. His neck tightened with each jerk of the stick, feeling tension build as he forced himself to not think and let instinct take over his mind. Visibility worsened by the hour. Hangman became snarkier by the minute. Rooster grew more unnerved with every passing second. When Mav grounded everyone, relief fled through his body as he made the turn back towards Fightertown.

As the wheels touched down and Mav started assigning ground duties, Bradley couldn’t shake this feeling that he just needed to be home, in soft clothes, not in a flight suit or in a ridged metal seat. He is a good solider and would never leave the rest of his crew to do his job. When Hangman grows as he stands after crouching by his engine for all of fifteen minutes, Rooster’s back tenses, bracing for whatever excuse will pour out.

“Hey, Mav, not that I am trying to get out of maintenance runs, but I do have a flight home to Texas later this evening,” Jake’s southern drawl deepens as he gets to his point through a flashed smile, “and I would not want to disappoint my niece by showing up late to her dance recital without flowers in my arm.” Well the man does live up to his name.

Phoenix and Bob share a look before rolling their eyes but Bradley is just too exhausted to even throw a half-hearted look his way. He just simply wants to go home and watching Jake Seresin walk out early emphasizes that. The tension in his neck is blooming into a full on migraine- it’s just a maintenance run and then he’s home. That is what he focuses on for the next hour and half until Mav finally sends them all packing for the weekend.

The next thing Rooster remembers is walking up the stairs to the house with his keys in hand to unlock the door. The smell of supper hits him as he steps in, carefully removing his boots. The air is warm, the soft light welcoming, the quiet music curling around his heart and he is more grateful than normal to be home.

“Honey, is that you?” his wife calls from the kitchen. He tries to answer but it feels too heavy in his throat. Soft clothes, her. I’ll feel better once I have both, he tells himself as he rounds the corner to find her stirring the sides on the stove. He slots himself in behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, letting his frame rest on her. She readjusts her stance to support the weight of his body. “Rough day?”

“It was just long. Bad Weather. Tight flying. Tension headache. And Jake Seresin,” he groans into her shoulder, hiding his eyes from the heat of lima beans floating up into the air.

“Go put on your pajamas from Christmas and I’ll come rub your neck before we eat, hmm?” She shoves him in the direction of their bedroom, tangling her finger tips with his. He discards his uniform and his dirty flight suit in the utility room as the song changes to a familiar tune. The soft flannel smooths over his inflamed skin from a much too hot shower on post. He lets out a sigh as he grabs the jar of lavender beef tallow that his girl says solves everything.

“Do you only listen to Zach Bryan while I am at work?”

“He motivates me. You wouldn’t have baked spaghetti tonight if it wasn’t for him. I wouldn’t be complaining,” she winks towards him as she settles him between her legs on the couch.

Her warm fingers dance along his neck as she lets the cream melt on his skin before she starts to work out the knots.

“Oh darling, you just don’t know how good that feels,” he almost moans as her knuckles dig into his taut muscles. This everything he had dreamed of all day. His girl, soft pjs, a hot meal coming soon, and a warm house. She spends almost half an hour meticulously rubbing each tension point and whispering sweet nothings to him. He almost feels a tear shed as she goes to fetch supper as they had silently agreed that it would be an eat on the couch night. The heaviness in his heart isn’t fading as fast as he thought it would, but he hasn’t eaten yet either so he shoves off the thought as a biological need.

Rooster is running his fingers through the hair of his personal angel as she nearly drifts to sleep curled up next to him with her head on his chest. Their couch is honestly too small for these antics these days but she cannot give up the position she claimed just a few weeks into their relationship. She’d been called to North Island because he had injured himself and found an exhausted, bloodied Bradley laying passed out in a hospital bed. She climbed up there with him and slept for another eight hours until he woke. After that, it was just tradition.

To think about how long ago that was is somewhat incomprehensible to the pilot now. She has been the cornerstone of his life for so long, he can barely remember life before her. Some things are ingrained in his memory, however. Glimpses of his parents fill the happy moments but much of what he remembers is the pain that life hands to you. He used to pack it away- now he tries to analyze it carefully so he can keep it far away from his daughter. His rough hand rests on his wife’s growing belly- if only his little girl would kick right now. The heaviness in his body is still present despite his whole world being perfect at the moment. Sleep will let me shake this.

When he comes to, Rooster sees the clock on the mantel is blinking 1:00 am. Zach Bryan is still playing softly and his wife is still fast asleep next to him. He treats her like crystal as he slides carefully out of her grasp to make his way to the kitchen for something, anything, to get rid of the vice-like tension throughout his whole body. He doesn’t want to have to go to sick call over a general complaint of feeling awful- Hangman and Coyote would never let him live it down- but something had to give. Sunday was his beautiful wife’s first Mother’s Day and he wanted her to be cared for like she deserved. She was growing his baby while still loving him and he didn’t have enough ways to show her how much gratefulness he has in his heart.

He’s shuffling through the cabinet where his angel keeps all the remedies she offers him to keep him up and running, from NyQuil to homegrown herbs, when the lyrics stop him dead in his tracks.

I’d be calling you right about now Tell you stories of a pretty fine gal Remind you of the things that your boy's into How he looks and he acts and he talks like you

He wants to pick up the phone and call his mom. Ask her what she did when he was restless like this as a child. Tell her about how he’s learning about how to be a girl dad so he can be the very best.

This world's not meant for showin' mercy I got pictures of us that hurt me 'Cause I'm squeezin' you and you're smilin' through That flash up on the wall

He glances up the wall to see the picture of infant him in his dad’s arm with his mother hugging them both on a tarmac in Florida after her graduated from flight school. The first tears start to run down his face as he thinks about how he had always planned to recreate that photo for his mom when he graduated, but she had been stolen from him too.

His heart clinches and the top of his shirt sticks to his skin as the song plays through the quiet house. He always misses his parents. It’s become a permanent fixture in his life, but tonight? Standing alone in the kitchen, the loss of his mother is front and center, crushing the air out of his lungs like 10 G climb.

Then I think about the moments It's a shame you'll have to miss My wife and I's first kiss And your baby raisin' kids

His wife stirs on the couch, pulled from her slumber by a muffled wail from her kitchen. Cold from where Bradley isn’t laying next to her, she wanders through the house to find him. As she turns the corner to the kitchen, the sight of her husband curled up in tears on the floor breaks her heart in two.

“Oh Honey,” she breathes as she kneels next to him on the floor. Her arms wrap around him and she pulls his head to her chest, humming softly to calm his nerves. His skin is flush against hers, hands shaking as they grasp at hers. The last lines of the song float through the air and she realizes what happened. “Sweet DeAnn,” she whispers as she presses soft kisses to his hairline. His tears are soaking her t-shirt- she can feel the sorrow washing over him like waves as he shivers in her arms. She squeezes her eyes shut as she tries to offer him enough peace to get through.

The thing about love is pain comes along with it. His pain is hers, she feels it in her chest. The weight of not being able to fix it accompanies the pain, as if she was drug down to the bottom of the ocean. His grip on her tightens as new tears wash over him, afraid he will wake up to find out that her, that his daughter, are all just figments of a grief strained mind. As her fingers card through his damp hair, he considers if this is how it will end for his own unborn child: crying in the kitchen over the loss of her dad who couldn’t learn from what hurt him.

Suddenly, he wrenches back from his wife’s embrace, frantically wiping away the streams on his cheeks. “Sorry, angel,” he chokes out, “I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to bed so y’all can sleep.” He musters the smallest, tight lipped smile, holding back a new round of tears.

She stares at him for a moment in disbelief as she tries to process the sharp change in behavior. He is distancing himself from her, closing up on himself. The Navy told her about this in the spousal support classes she had been taking- tears, vulnerability, pain, was consider weaknesses and sailors don’t want to be weak. They don’t want to burden their families with their own fears and sorrow.

“Honey, there is no need to apologize. This is what it means to be loved by someone.” She speaks softly, with gentleness lacing her every word. Her arms reach out in the dark to pull him back in to her chest but he evades her carefully.

“Just go to bed. I love you both.”

“Bradley,” she says with caution, placing her hand on his thigh, desperately trying to comfort him, “Just let me hold you for a while longer.”

“No. You need to sleep.” He bites.

“We’re a team. You’re awake. I’m awake.” There is a beat of silence as he struggles to find his words.

“I don’t even know why I’m crying except that dumb song and there is no man who should have his pregnant wife on the floor at all hours of the morning,” he whispers, a tremble in his words. The house is near silent now, the music almost tuned out of both their minds. She doesn’t dare to move her hand any further. As each of them waits for the other to move, her own tears roll silently down her face. She has never seen him this distraught and all she wants to do it hold him and make the pain go away.

She is the first one to move. She pushes herself back until her shoulders meet the cabinets, her hand leaving his thigh. She rolls up her shirt to expose her stomach to the cold air. “Come tell your best girl about it, Daddy,” she whispers as she reaches out for his hand. His lip quivers as he looks toward her. His heartbeat is loud in his ears. This feels wrong to a naval aviator- to be vulnerable for such a long period- but talking to his daughter has become his favorite pastime. He caves after a few minutes, settling his head in her lap where his little girl could hear him. His wife ran her hand carefully through his hair, keeping the other firmly planted against his chest to feel his beating heart.

“Hi baby,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to where her head was at her last ultrasound. “I’m sorry to wake you. I know you and mama need sleep. You’re both doing such big things right now.” He pauses as he rests his forehead against her stomach. “I always wonder who you are going to be. What your eyes will look like, how your laugh will sound, whose personality you will inherit. Let’s just hope it’s not Uncle Jake’s- I don’t know if I could handle both of you.”

His wife laughs lightly above him. Rooster and Hangman may not see eye to eye on many things, but one thing is clear: Jake Seresin will never leave you hanging when it counts the most. Rooster stood terrified before he climbed in his jet for the first time since he saw those two little pink lines and it was Jake that told him: “I’ll always protect you for your family.”

“I’ve been thinking about your mama so much more this week. Because of you, sweet girl,” his voice catches as he tries to continue, “this is her first Mother’s Day and I want it to be perfect for her. I’ve been so tired today. I thought coming home to you two would make it all wash away so I could focus on my girls. But here I am laid out on the floor with no energy.” Falling to whisper, “I don’t even know if I remember how to celebrate Mother’s Day. It has been so long since your Nana was alive.” His tears cloud his voice, his body involuntarily curling in closer. “She would have loved to meet you both, my Bradshaw girls.”

Tears are streaming down her cheeks, running into his hair as she begs herself to stay quiet and give him the moment he needs with his daughter. She should have known- the tension that was building in his body all week was his body remembering something his brain wouldn’t allow him to dwell on yet. The weight he couldn’t shake wasn’t an illness- it was grief. Whilst it may be her first Mother’s Day, it was his first one where he had to celebrate someone else. His first that he was not a child, but a father. And there would never be one that he was both.

Life marches forward, regardless of whether we are ready for it or not. Pain and joy are often commingled together like a knot that can never be undone. The joy of celebrating this new season was juxtaposed by the pain of loss. Hearing Sweet DeAnn triggered memories in his bones that he hadn’t even considered yet. He had no mother to call and ask what she would have wanted for Mother’s Day when she was pregnant with him. He felt as if he was flying blind into a storm, searching for home.

“Truth be told, baby, I don’t know if I can do this without her. I don’t know how to take care of your mama or how I’ll do at being your daddy,” Bradley whispers to his daughter, but his wife overhears, her fingers tightening slightly in his hair, a tear splashing onto his temple. He turns to glance up at her splotchy face and his heart seizes at seeing her in pain because of him.

“Bradley Bradshaw, you are the very best daddy in the world. You take phenomenal care of me, always have and always will,” she coos, trying to wipe the heat away from his cheeks. “I couldn’t think of a more honorable and loving man to be my husband and the father of my babygirl.” Her eyes are glossy but they are rich in sincerity. They are silent for a while, focusing their attention on each other until she pulls him up and leads him to the new vintage clawfoot tub he installed for her two weekends ago. She had been complaining about how in a week or so, their old tub wouldn’t be deep enough to cover her belly so he took it upon himself (and voluntold the Daggers that they would be assisting) to get her the tub of her dreams.

Under dim light and reeling thoughts, he doesn’t realize that she had filled the tub, nor that she had pulled him out of his damp pajamas until her hand is guiding him to sink down in between her legs.

“It’s two am, angel. You and the baby need to sleep,” he protested lightly as she pulled him near to her chest.

“No, we are exactly where we are supposed to be,” she whispers, pressing a kiss to his neck, “Please tell us about Nana, Daddy. Your girls want to know about the woman that raised you.”

With a deep sigh, Bradley begins to talk about his mother, his father, what their life was like after they lost him, everything she had ever taught him. With each memory, each laugh, each tear, the tension he has been suffering under begins to release from his muscles. His wife draws circles on his thighs as she listens intently and never once chastises him. Each passing moment brings a bit more relief as he tells his girls about his mother until sleep takes over his body, his head tucking gently in the crook of his wife’s neck where he sought solace nearly 10 hours ago when he first walked in the door.

On Sunday morning, as he brings breakfast in bed with flowers to his own Mrs. Bradshaw, he feels more settled- as if he can learn to balance this new season with the grief of what is no longer. As she eats her pancakes, she presses a small, wrapped book into Bradley’s hands.

“It’s not my day for presents, angel.”

“I was going to wait until Father’s Day but I think you need this now. I found it in the storage container a few weeks ago while looking for your baby pictures for the nursery” she smiles. His hands begin to shake as he carefully tears back to the paper to reveal an old journal. On the front he recognizes his mother’s handwriting, instantly tears springing to his eyes as he reads:

For my baby, when he has a baby.

Authors Note:

Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it! Gosh the way he breaks my heart and i just want him to be happy. Please direct any advice or notes or requets to the ask box!

#bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw x reader #top gun fandom #bradley rooster x reader #top gun 1986 #dispatches from maggie #top gun maverick #dagger squad #bradley bradshaw #rooster x reader #rooster fanfiction #writers on tumblr #writeblr #fanfiction #mothers day

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aworldinsideaperson · 9 months ago

Text

Loss-Robert “BOB” Floyd

Pairing: Robert “Bob” Floyd x wife!reader

Plot: The worst day of Bob’s life.

Warnings: Critical injuries, medical themes (probably many inaccuracies), Angst, sadness, potential for death, car accident, talk of Carol Bradshaw’s death.

Word Count: 2,967

Robert Floyd had few fears. If asked, he would say the list of things that scared him was rather short. Spiders, talking to new people, and death. Though as he walked in circles around the hospital waiting room he wondered if the only thing that truly terrified him would come to pass.

He couldn’t tell if it had been seconds or hours since he arrived, a phone call he never expected to receive putting him in auto pilot; one moment standing beside his friends smiling to being in the faux comforting waiting area trying to piece together the words the doctor had uttered.

Accident. Bleeding. Severe. Surgery. Everything we can. Everything we can. Everything. We. Can. Bob Floyds one, true, debilitating fear coming to fruition. The loss of his wife.

He was hardly aware of his surroundings, pacing in a never ending circle, determined to walk a hole into the floor of this hospital. One by one his friends came, calmly laying a hand on his shoulder and taking a seat to watch Bob’s cyclical parade of one.

Phoenix stood from her seat, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder as he came to a stop. “Bob, why don’t you sit down.”

His head shook violently as the tears came to his eyes and his breath caught as he stuttered quickly. “I- I- I can’t. I can’t shit- sit c- c- cause they’re gonna- gonna be out any- ugh- any second and ugh they’re um- they’re gonna - they’re gonna tell me she’s okay and- and I- I just- I just- I gotta be ready. Cause- Cause if I'm standing they’ll know who to talk to and- and there won’t be any kind of um mix up with- with who to- who to talk to. So I’m gonna stand and I’m gonna wait and- and she’s gonna be fine. She’s gonna be fine and- and- and- and-” He could feel his heart beginning to race again and he found it difficult to get a breath as the panic began to rise in his chest once again.

Nat took his hand and squeezed to tightly in hopes of grounding him as she spoke gently. “What if I stand for a little while, you sit, take a breath, and I’ll stand. So they know.”

Looking into her eyes Bob took a deep breath and nodded. “Thank you.” He said softly as he squeezed her hand and moved back to the seat Natasha had vacated.

Bob sat between Bradley and Jake, taking a deep shaking breath, and Natasha stood. She took up post for her backseater, pacing in his place; half an hour she paced before Bradley took her place, then Jake after him. A change of guard every thirty minutes as each of his coworkers, his friends, his family, took turns standing and pacing and waiting. His people being there for him as much if not more than his wife.

As Bob stands, ready to let Maverick have the seat he’s vacating is when news finally comes. Striding toward the naval group was a tall man with a stoic look. “Mister Floyd?” Feeling as though the air has caught in his chest once again Robert Floyd only nods and takes a single step closer.

He tries to keep his head high with confidence as the man before him stands rigid and places his hands behind his back, his face still set without emotion. Bob is sure he’s about to get the worst news of his life, quickly playing out if anyone would be fast enough to stop him from walking into traffic. Then the doctor’s lips start to move.

“My name is Doctor Michaels, would you like to go somewhere more private?”

Robert Floyd looks around the room, filled with some of the people who cared about him most, people who’d kept him alive, people he’d kept alive, his family, and he shook his head as tears began to well up in his eyes.

Nodding, Dr. Michaels continued. “Your wife is on her way out of surgery and into recovery. Making it through the surgery was tough but she did make it. She is by no means out of the woods and I don’t want to give you a false sense of hope but you can come back and stay with her while we monitor her and get a room ready.”

Dr. Michaels began to walk away, leading Bob toward a double door as he continued to speak. “Over the next few hours we can discuss the extent of her injuries and what recovery may look like going forward.” He stopped beside a clear glass wall and Bob averted his eyes, keeping his focus on the doctor as he continued to speak. “She’s not out of the woods but making it through the surgery should be seen as a positive step.” Reaching out and placing a hand on Bob’s shoulder Dr. Michaels attempted a reassuring smile of sorts. Peaking for the first time at his badge he saw a yellow line across the bottom and the word ‘Resident’ in bold script. He wondered if this was the first time he’d had to deliver poor news. If the worst day of Bob’s life was a sort of milestone for the young man before him. “You can head in whenever you’re ready.” Squeezing his shoulder Dr. Michaels turned away and continued to walk down the hall.

Squeezing his eyes tightly Bob breathed deeply and finally turned to the door the opened automatically before him. Stepping inside the room he was greeted to a barely lit room, two nurses moving beside his wife tending to her. Tucking a blanket around her legs, hanging bags from her IV pole, quietly finishing and moving from her bedside. Both nurses gave him a small, sad smile as the left the room.

He couldn’t bring himself to move. He couldn’t bring himself to look up from the floor. The beeping. The pumping of the ventilator. He wasn’t ready to attach the surrounding sounds with an image. It feels like an eternity before he feels he can look at her. She doesn’t look like herself. Hooked up to machines, bags of medication dripping into her body, bruises and cuts marking every inch of skin he can see. It’s not until he sniffles that he realizes the tears he’s been bottling for hours have finally broken free. He moves slowly across the room, sitting in the chair beside the hospital bed. He reaches out to brush his fingers over her hand, fingers then slipping into her palm and drawing patterns on the soft skin. The only place that seems to be free from cuts.

Letting out a breath he trains his eyes on the face of the woman he’s loved for so long. “Hello there Mrs. Floyd, it’s me, Mr. Floyd your husband. I’m here darlin’.

Hours had passed, the sun long since set when a hand was once again placed on his shoulder. His fingers still drawing on the skin of his wife’s palm as he looked up at several staff members shuffling into the room. The woman holding his shoulder spoke gently. “We’re going to transfer her to the ICU now. The process of moving patients can be overwhelming for family so if you’d like to come with me I have some paperwork for you to work on; you can it back to the waiting room and I’ll come get you when she’s all settled?”

Bob shook his head, turning back to look at the woman he loved. “I’d much rather stay.”

“Truthfully Mr. Floyd-” She began before being cut off by Bob.

“It’s Lieutenant. Sorry she’s always on me about correcting that.” He didn’t have a habit of interrupting people. In fact if his mother had been in the room she would have attempted to scold him like he was a little boy again. But his wife was always addamet about correcting his title. Said he worked hard for it and deserved to have it recognized. She’s been so proud of his promotion she’d moaned lieutenant for hours that night.

“Lieutenant Floyd.” She began again. “Truthfully, she’s due for more sedation and there is a probability that she’s come out of it enough to experience some significant pain during the transfer. You need to take care of yourself too and you don’t need to experience that. Please. Let me come get you when we have her all settled.” She reached for the hand he had dangling over the armrest and squeezed it in her own. “I promise you if things take a turn in the time you’re away I will come and get you quicker than a flash.”

Bob looked into her eyes and as his shoulders relaxed he nodded. He squeezed wife’s hand once more, and whispered that he’d be right back as he kissed her forehead. Then he turned from the bed, following the woman out of the room and towards the nurse’s station. With a sad smile she hands him a stack of papers, a clipboard, and a pen.

“Here is that. Take your time with it. There is a lot of information and questions in there so don’t feel like you have to do it all at once.” Turning around she reached for a large opaque bag with the hospital’s name and logo printed on the front and handed it to him. “Here are her belongings. Most of the clothing was unsalvageable but everything is in there except…” Her eyes darted around the space in front of her as she searched for something. “Aha! This is the jewelry she was wearing when she came in, including her wedding ring.” Placing the small bag in his hand and wrapping his fingers around it as she squeezed his hand tightly. A feeling of comfort passed through him as she held it tightly. “I’ll come get you the moment she’s settled.”

Looking into her eyes Bob took her in for a moment. A short woman, early 50’s, graying brown hair and deep brown eyes radiating kindness. She reminded him of his mother and tears came to his eyes again. “Thank you.” His words hardly audible.

“Do you need help finding the waiting room?”

Shaking his head Bob slipped the small bag into his pocket. “No, I remember. Thank you ma’am.” She nodded and Bob turned to walk back to the room where his nightmare started.

Walking back through the double doors he looked up to find the waiting room still half full of faces he knew and a gentle smile came to his face. “What’re you guys still doing here?”

Mickey answered. “We wanted to be here in case either of you needed anything.”

Shaking his head Bob found two empty seats, placing the contents of his arms in one and plopping down heavily into the other. “You didn’t need to do that. It’s been hours.”

Natasha moved to the other side of her friend, draping an arm around his shoulder and pulling him in for an awkwardly angled hug. “We needed to be here for you. How is she?”

“Not good. Critical condition they say. They’re transferring her to the ICU and they’ll come get me when she’s settled.” He leaned forward, his forearms on his knees as he closed his eyes and tried to focus his breathing.

“How are you?” Jake asked, today one of the few times he’d been truly kind to Bob.

Looking up at him, his body still resting forward, Bob let out a huff that was reminiscent of a laugh. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” Leaning back again, eyes trained on the floor as he spun his wedding ring around his finger. “You guys should head home, it’s late and I’m sure we’ll still be here in the morning.”

“At least let us see her. Let her know that we’re here for her and that we’re with you. Whatever either of you need, we’re here.” Maverick insisted.

Looking around the room, the eyes of his friends trained on him as they all nodded in agreement so Bob nodded too. Tears filling his eyes at the love surrounding him. “Thanks guys.”

For 45 minutes the group sat in near silence; startling at every opening door or foot step rushing past. When the woman from earlier came into the room Bob made sure to take note of her name tag. Elizabeth. Social worker. She smiles warmly as she approaches Bob, taking note of the gaggle of people following along as they arrive on the 8th floor. Trekking down the hall in a single file line until they reach room 875. Directly across from the nurse’s station. Bob grabs Nat’s hand and squeezes tightly as the two of them walk into the room, everyone else lining up against the wall to wait.

He can hear Nat suck in a breath but to Bob it’s a better sight than before. The room is a little brighter, there’s a tv playing the Food Network attached to the wall, a wall of windows and they’d turned off the sound of the monitors so at least he wouldn’t have to hear the incessant beeping though the sound of the compressing ventilator still filled the room. His wife is still covered in bruises and cuts, but she looks like she’d been cleaned up. Most of the dried blood was gone, and it looked as though someone had at least attempted to smooth her hair. Sitting in the hard recliner beside her bed, Bob took her hand again and the tension in his shoulders eased. “Let everyone know they can come in when they’re ready.” Bob didn’t move as she left the room and returned with their flock.

For several minutes everyone just stood watching. Watching as her chest moved up and down. Looking at a woman whose face they knew but the could hardly recognize in the current state. Then slowly but surely they stepped up to her bedside one by one.

Fanboy taking her hand and whispering a prayer before kissing it and making a sign of the cross.

Rueben with a crack in his voice assured her that she’d be okay as he pressed his lips to the top of her head.

Jake had tears welling in his eyes as he wrapped his arms around Bob from behind and squeezed him tightly. “I live the closest. Call me if things change.”

Coyote stayed by her feet, his face hard as he gently patted her ankle and quickly left the room.

Maverick kissed her forehead, telling Bob he’d be back in the morning.

The last three in the room, Bob, Nat, and Bradley. The three of them sat silently for some time; Natasha in the chair opposite Bob and Bradley on the couch built into the wall beneath the windows. Eventually as the clock signaled the end of one day and beginning of the next Natasha stood, pressed a kiss to her good friend’s head and turned to Rooster.

“You comin’ Roo?”

“Actually Bob, if you don’t mind, I think I’d like to stay.”

Giving Bradley a sad smile he let his head fall to the side as it shook. “You really don’t have to do that Brad.”

“I want to.” He assured.

Bob nodded and Phoenix said her goodbyes, hugging her backseater extra tightly and then leaving the men alone in the room.

Bob sighed, his hand still gripping tightly to his wife’s. He leaned back in the chair and turned his head to face Rooster. “So, why’d you want to stay?”

Bradley leans back slowly, running a hand through his hair as he looks up at the ceiling. “Um, my mom was in the hospital when she died. She had been doing pretty good and we were expecting her to get out soon so no one was there. Well, no one but me. One second we were laughing and talking about going on a road trip before I left for college and the next,” His eyes were now trained on the ground, emotions surfacing that he rarely let others see. “Well the next she was gone.” Standing up, Rooster took the seat on the other side of the bed and took her hand in his. “I was alone when my mom died and I know that Mrs. Floyd here is going to make a full recovery, but on the off chance that I’m wrong, you don’t deserve to be here alone.” Bradley looked over at Bob who’s tears were once again finally spilling over.

“Can I have a few minutes alone with her right now?”

“Yeah. I’ll go find us something to snack on, gotta be a halfway decent vending machine around here.” He stood and walked out of the room, the door closing behind him.

Bob sits in silence at first. His head devoid of thoughts as he watches his wife’s chest move up and down in time with the only sound in the room. He’s holding her hand, remembering the very first time their hands touched all the way back in the 7th grade. How her fingers had brushed against his so softly as they sat side by side in the library. It happened six times before Bobby swallowed his fear and took hold of her hand firmly. Their hands had been so small then but he remembered them fitting like puzzle pieces when their fingers interlocked. Their hands had grown but they always managed to still fit together perfectly.

Bob closed his eyes tight, lifting her hand to his lips he pressed a kiss to the back of it before he looked at his wife’s face and spoke firmly. “I don’t know if you can hear me baby, but if you can, don’t give up on me.”

#bob floyd #bob floyd x reader #tgm fanfiction #tgm fic #bob floyd imagine #robert bob floyd #robert bob floyd x reader #bob floyd fanfiction #bob floyd fic #tw: surgery #tw: medical #tw: injury #tw: accident

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marie-swriting · 5 months ago

Text

Everything Was Okay - Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw

Top Gun Maverick Masterlist

Summary : You and Bradley are in love, but overnight, he stops reaching out.

Warnings : angst, ghosting, sad ending, mention of Goose's death, feeling like you're not enough, maybe some grammatical mistakes as English is not my first language, tell me if you see some or if I missed any warnings.

Word count : 2.1k

French version

Song inspiration : Forever And Always (Taylor's Version) by Taylor Swift

In your bed, you’re straddling Bradley’s lap while you’re talking about your favorite book, Frankenstein, and its author and making big gestures to emphasise your words. You’re completely focused on your improvised essay and Bradley is focused on the passion with which you’re speaking. He looks at you with starry eyes while he tries to follow your train of thoughts as best as he can. He doesn’t stop you, allowing you to get out everything you have in mind. A smile makes its way to his face, realising how his affection for you turns a bit more into love.

After rambling for about an hour, you breathe normally again, recovering from your passion rush.

“Long story short, you absolutely have to read this book,” you conclude, beaming brightly. “I can’t believe you’ve never read it.”

“Everybody knows the story, I don’t see the point of doing it,” Bradley replies, shrugging and you dramatically roll your eyes.

“See, that is the precise reason everybody misinterprets Frankenstein. It’s exactly why people think Frankenstein refers to the creature when it’s actually-”

“The scientist, I know. See, I listen to you.”

“And weirdly enough when I ask you to put the toilet seat down, you don’t.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, faking an innocent expression.

“Yeah, let’s say that,” you add, quickly tickling him.

In one move, Bradley takes your hands and gives you a defiant stare before throwing you over and taking the upper hand. You laugh while Bradley starts tickling you. By some miracle, you manage to grab the pillow next to your head and hit him with it. He pretends to fall by your side, playing dead. Once you’ve let your guard down, he takes you in his arms and kisses you passionately.

“I love you,” Bradley suddenly confesses.

“I love you, too.”

“You have no idea how happy I am with you. I’m yours forever and always.”

Overwhelmed by this new milestone in your relationship, you put your hands on both sides of his face before pressing your lips on his again.

A loving smile makes its way on your face as you think back to the first time you said “I love you” to Bradley while staring at your copy of Frankenstein. You sit down on your couch and put a blanket over your legs. Before starting your reading, you take your phone and check your notifications. Bradley has been in deployment for three months, he’s coming back in two weeks and you haven’t had any update from him for two days now. You know he can have busy days thus you don’t worry too much but you’d be lying if you said you wouldn’t give anything to have a message from him. You open your conversation and take a picture of your book before sending it to him with a quick text.

Text from you to Bradley, 9:50 P.M.:

Daily reminder you have to read it or we’ll break up ❤️

You put your phone next to you and peruse for the umpteenth times your favorite novel.

Day six.

You haven’t heard from him for six days. Yet, Bradley has read your texts. Sometimes he reads them and only replies a few hours later but in this case, it’s not normal. You don’t understand what’s happening. One day Bradley did not text you back for three days though it was only one time and he felt guilty about it. Of course, you had promised him you weren’t mad at him, knowing it wasn’t his fault. You understand his work keeps him busy. However, right now, your guts can’t stop whispering in your ears something is wrong. Bradley should have found a way to talk to you by now.

You try not to imagine the worst case scenarios and search for a rational explanation. In any case, Bradley will call you tomorrow. Last time you talked, he told you which day he’d be free so, in any case, you’ll hear from him tomorrow. No need to panic... right?

He still hasn’t called.

He told you he’d call around 7:00 P.M. and it’s almost nine and still nothing. Maybe something came up? Anxious, you put on a random tv show as you wait for his call. Every ten seconds, you check your phone to make sure you haven’t missed his call or a text saying he’d ring you later. But nothing. Radio silence. In spite of yourself, you start biting your nails, something you only do when you’re too stressed. Your eyes have stopped watching the tv for twenty minutes and they’re now staring at your phone as if they could magically make a call from Bradley appear. You wait for so long that you end up falling asleep on your couch when the clock is about to strike 2:00 A.M..

You still don’t have any news from him, consequently you start worrying more and more. Maybe he’s been hurt and considering you’re only his girlfriend you didn’t get a call? You sent a text to Phoenix and she told you Bradley had to eject while training, though nothing bad happened to him hence there’s no reason why he hasn’t communicated with you. Natasha tried to reassure you by saying maybe he has some problem with his phone which would explain his silence. Though, you both know there’s something fishy going on.

His silence isn’t trivial. Something is up. You think back to the last time you saw each other and everything seems normal. You had spent the night at his place, enjoying as much as you could your boyfriend before he had to leave. You hadn’t gone out, you had only watched a movie before going to bed, well you had actually talked for a few hours before sleeping. The next morning, in spite of the fatigue, Bradley hadn’t regretted it, he had been glad he had made the most of the last moments he had with you. Therefore, everything was okay. You had done nothing wrong or at least, you don’t think you had. Was it your last call with Bradley? It hadn’t been a long one, he was tired of his day. He had only told you his assignment - at least, the nonclassified details - and then, you had explained what you had been up to. Bradley had ended up falling asleep on the phone. You had smiled as you had heard his light snores. You had hung up then sent a ‘goodnight, I love you ❤️’ text before doing just like him. This sudden change in character can’t be caused by your last call either. Everything was okay. Was it one of your last texts then? You open the conversation and read some of them. Nothing out of the ordinary, some ‘I love you’s here and there, some random discussions, others more serious ones but nothing too bad. You really don’t get it. Everything is supposed to be okay so why is he playing dead?

The more the time goes by, the more a thought makes its way to your mind: what if everything was over? What if Bradley wanted to break up? It would explain his sudden silence. If you’re right, you don’t know what you did wrong. You overanalyze it time and time again, you were happy with him just like you thought he was with you; you are about to celebrate your one year anniversary, therefore why would he end it now? It made no sense.

You try not to be pessimistic, yet as the silence grows louder, the more complicated it is. You feel so low that you can’t even work properly. You’re making a lot of mistakes at the café, mistakes you used to do when you had begun five years ago. And the second you’re home, it’s no better. You only eat what you need, not being too hungry and you spend your nights in your bed, rereading your numerous texts, searching for how you could end up this way. How could you go from ‘I’m yours forever and always’ to having no news at all.

Two weeks have gone by since the beginning of Bradley's silence vow consequently you know he has come back and you’re set on confronting him; the sadness having officially turned into anger. He can’t just ignore you that way, promising the earth and then overnight not talking to you anymore. You want explanations and you will get them.

However, you don’t even have the time to leave your house when someone knocks on your door and the second you open it, you find Bradley with a shameful expression on his face. At least, he’s not proud of what he’s done, it’s already a start.

“Did you remember you had a girlfriend?” you sharply ask and he looks down.

“Can I come in?”

“Depends, are you going to let me do all the talking or are you gonna answer?”

“I’m gonna answer,” he says, looking up.

Despite your annoyance, you step aside and allow him to come into your house. Bradley walks to your living room while you follow him, preparing yourself for what he’s about to say.

“I know I owe you some explanations,” Bradley starts, scratching his neck.

“You totally do. You stopped replying to me, I was worried! I called Natasha and she told me that besides the time you had to eject and you didn’t get injured, nothing happened to you. So tell me!” you retort, angry and hurt. “Was it something I did? Did I say something that hurt you? Because, clearly, you’re avoiding me and I have no idea why. For me, everything was okay between us before you left, so tell me. If you wanna break up, fine, but tell me.”

“I… we should stop,” he states.

“Why? What changed?”

“It’s better that way.”

“You gotta do better than this. I just spent two awful weeks because of your cowardice.”

“You deserve better,” Bradley explains after taking a deep breath, “someone who doesn’t always have to leave for work and who isn’t risking his life.”

“And who do you think you are to take this decision for me? I knew what I was getting myself into when I decided to date you. I know damn well you have to be away for a long period of time, that your job is dangerous and I’m not gonna lie, I miss you and I fret every day, and yet I still wanna be with you,” you reply, pointing your finger at him. “I made the choice to stay with you because I love you. You don’t have the right to decide we should stop because of things I accepted.”

“You’re saying this now but in the long run, you’ll change your mind.”

“And how do you know? You don’t even want to try to last longer than a year with me.”

“You can’t understand,” he insists, avoiding your gaze for a second.

“I understand you’re a coward. You create a problem on your own and to solve it you want to break up. You know what? You won. It’s over between us,” you announce, angry tears about to fall. “And not because of your work, but because you ruined everything. I have been miserable for two weeks, worrying myself sick, questioning myself, thinking I wasn’t enough and all of this so you could come back swanning in just to toss me aside like an old sock. And I won’t stand for it. Get out,” you add, coldly, showing him the exit. “Get out of my house, Bradley. I don’t wanna see you ever again.”

Heart tightening in his chest, Bradley nods and turns around without looking back, without seeing the tears streaming down your cheeks, though he hears your sob the second he closes the door. You stare at it for a few minutes, replaying the scene in your head. You thought you’d get answers, you only got more confused. You sit down on your couch, tears still making their ways on your face.

Top Gun Maverick Masterlist

Bradley’s face is in a similar state. He tries wiping his tears in vain. He gets in his Bronco, breathing deeply several times before driving away. He keeps telling himself he did the right thing, he shouldn’t regret it, yet his heartache only grows. He doesn’t like the way he ended things with you, he should have done better, however he didn’t have the strength to gather his courage and tell you things directly. Bradley knows he’ll never find someone like you, but he thinks it’s better that way. He thought he was ready for a serious relationship, that the ghost of his parents had left him, yet he only had to eject once and to stay at the hospital for observation for him to imagine a future where you two would have the same fate as his parents and he can’t handle it. He’d rather suffer by cowardly leaving you behind instead of leaving you to grieve his death until the end of your life.

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tgmsunmontue · 3 months ago

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Wild fields of forget-me-nots - 9/15

During the training for the mission Jake has an accident which results in him losing 10 years of memories.

A lot has happened in ten years. Bradley broke up with him. DADT was repealed. He got an air-to-air kill and a new callsign.

And he doesn't remember any of it.

ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT

PART NINE

The mission is a success. It’s also a shit show. But no one dies, so there are more tallies in the success column than the shit-show one. He’s never flown so fast in his fucking life and he’s pretty sure he’s going to crash from the adrenaline drop any minute now, but he needs to go and make sure Bradshaw is legit alive and well and breathing. He told Jake he would keep an eye on him, bring him back safe, and he’s done the best he can.

“Thanks for saving us. Saving me.”

“Yeah well, I’ve got a best friend who would have been quite upset if I came back and you didn’t…” They stand there then, side by side, catching their breath. “You need to tell him. When we get back. You need to tell him.”

“I know. I know I do… You know I was already planning on telling him.”

Javy hums at that, because they’ve been gone what feels like an eternity but which is in fact only five days. Another thirty-six hours and they’ll be back on the mainland, debriefing and then who the fuck knows what’s going to be happening next. Definitely not him. Bradshaw looks fucking awful, like a man sentenced to death and Jake’s callsign hits him again, the idea that he’s a noose around Bradshaw’s neck, leading him around his entire life without even knowing it. He finds himself feeling a little bit sad for him, because he seriously doesn’t know how Jake will react when he gets his memories back.

Bradshaw staggers then and he catches him automatically, arm looping under Bradshaw’s and around his back. Javy shifts, looks Bradshaw in the eye and takes in the dilated pupils and his inability to meet his gaze.

“Come on, sick bay for you. Need to get you checked out…”

“You too Maverick,” Cyclone orders, and Javy hadn’t realized that he was standing there, either of them; both watching and no doubt listening to Javy and Bradshaw talk. Maverick doesn’t say anything though, simply steps into the space on Bradshaw’s other side and then they’re walking toward the sickbay, guiding Bradshaw’s stumbling steps and he swallows, suddenly nervous that Bradshaw isn’t as okay as he had first seemed.

“Bradshaw… talk to me. How are you feeling?”

“Like I’m going to throw up.”

Fuck. He doesn’t know if he can deal with both Jake and Bradshaw walking around with concussion, although Jake’s symptoms weren’t typical at all, and he had some physical injuries too. The Corpsman beckons them all inside and there’s another one in there. Bradshaw slumps onto a bed, clearly using up all his energy to walk here, even with assistance from both him and Maverick. They all get checked out, and the next time he glances over at Bradshaw he’s passed out, and he hopes it’s just sleep.

“He okay?” Javy asks, jerking his chin in Bradshaw’s direction.

“Concussion. Sprained ankle. Some bruised ribs. He’ll be fine.”

Javy wonders what they’d say if he wasn’t going to be fine, it’s not like he’s on the need-to-know list. Still. He guesses he’ll stick to Bradshaw’s side and get him back to Jake as soon as possible. Bradshaw’s got a promise to keep and Javy’s going to ensure he sticks to it.

“What did you mean?” Maverick asks and Javy startles a little, looks to where Maverick is sitting on the side of his bed, his eyes on Bradshaw lying asleep and Javy looks between them. “Lieutenant. What did you mean. Is Bradley… are he and Hangman…”

“Uh…” Javy starts, wonders why it’s always him that gets put on the spot. What awful things did he do in his past life to have karma be coming for him this badly.

“It’s not really my place to say. Sir.”

“Well I can’t exactly ask Bradley now…”

“Would he tell you anyway?” Javy asks, and as soon as the words out of his mouth he flinches, realizes how mean they sounds, even to his own ears. “Sorry sir, that was –”

“No. No. You’re fine lieutenant. That was… that was a fair assessment. I would like to think he might. Now. We promised to talk.”

“Then you’ll need to talk to him sir. Once he’s awake.”

“Right. Once he’s awake. How is Hangman anyway?”

“Uh. He’s… recovering.”

“Heard he lost a chunk of memories.”

“Yeah. He did.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“Uh. No sir. Thank you though.”

Fuck. Jake used to idolize Maverick, and a whole bunch of other aviators. Then the hero worship stopped and that makes sense now if he thinks back to when Jake and Bradshaw first got together. Jake no doubt heard some home truths and that likely changed his view. He wonders if Jake knew exactly who it was they were throwing out of the Hard Deck those few weeks ago, whether he’d have still been angry on Bradshaw’s behalf. Fucked if he knows. He may never know.

… … …

Bradshaw wakes up and he’s got all his memories; Javy thanks whatever deities are keeping an eye on him. Because that would have been a fucking awful situation, but one so hilariously comical he’d almost broken into hysterical giggles at the mere thought of it all. Not the blind leading the blind, but two stubborn men forgetting their relationship to one another. Fuck. Actually. Maybe that would have been easier, if they could have started over with a clean slate. Except no, he doesn’t want that to happen. Whatever Bradshaw’s problem and issues were or are he seems to have maybe made progress on them in the intervening years.

Of course, Jake no longer poking and prodding all of Bradshaw’s sensitive spots is likely helping matters right now. Bradley’s temper completely defused by Jake’s accident, and because Jake doesn’t know better; doesn’t carry that anger with him at the moment. Javy has to admit to himself he’s a little worried about Jake remembering and how that’s going to go down, and wonders if Bradshaw telling him the truth is going to help or hurt.

(Next up in Chapter 10, Jake's POV and maybe the last chapter...)

TEN

#Wild fields of forget-me-nots #Hangster #top gun maverick #Top Gun Maverick AU #bradley rooster bradshaw #jake hangman seresin

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chiaraanatra · 1 year ago

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Life as We Know It | Part 2

Summary: You and Seresin unexpectedly become the caretakers of Bradley and Natasha's baby girl, Nicole. Can you two put your disdain for one another aside for Nic's sake? Based on the movie "Life as We Know It"

Warnings: Parental/character death, mentions of cops, CPS, & social work, angst, arguments, and swearing. This chapter is a sad one. no use of Y/N. Later chapters will contain mentions of parental death! Always check chapter warnings!

Word Count: 2.7k

AN: Here is part two! Thank you for all the support on part one! I hope you all enjoy!

《 part 1 || part 3 》《 m.list || ao3 》

You vividly remember that God-forsaken phone call.

The day itself had been good, productive even. When you picked up the phone there was a chipper tone in your voice "Hello?"

The man on the other line had a very no-nonsense tone when he said your name.

Your brow furrowed, "Speaking."

The next words that came out of his mouth caused you to drop the phone. Before you knew it, you were in your car on the way to the police station.

The trek to the station was a blur, it was as if you closed your eyes and once they opened, you were there, walking up to the desk hoping to find some answers. Or, even better, that this was some sick joke. "I'm looking for Officer Kerner."

An older man in a uniform walked up to you, a sorrowful look on his face that told you everything you needed to know. "We found your name and number in her phone under emergency contacts. Now, I know this must be a lot to take in, but we need information about the nearest next of kin. Can you supply those?" His voice held a serious tone, he had a job to do.

"Umm... Both of their parents are gone, but I- I think there are some cousins..." God, this isn't actually happening.

Officer Kerner’s tone softened, "Would you like to sit down, ma'am?"

"No..." that’s when it hit you, "Oh God! They have a baby girl, Nicole Bradshaw... she wasn't... was she- was she in-" You couldn't bring yourself to ask the question.

"No. She was in the care of a babysitter. She's okay. We've placed her with CPS for the night."

"CPS...? Child Protective Services?" There was unmistakable confusion in your voice.

"They handle cases like these." When that didn't seem to ease your confusion, he continued. "Orphaned children."

Your hand covered your mouth as tears streamed down your face. Your best friend and her husband were gone, and their daughter was God knows where with some family probably scared out of her wits...

You were pulled out of your thoughts by the doors opening behind you. When you turned you were met with the sight of Seresin. You could tell by the look on his face that he knew little about what had happened.

"Seresin..." You walked over to him with open arms, tears streaming down your cheeks. You couldn't help but bury your face in his chest. Something was calming about the way he gently stroked your hair.

Seresin was at a loss but felt he needed to be strong for you. He wasn't sure where this feeling was coming from, but he continued to supply your comfort while the officer gave him a similar explanation as to what had occurred.

After meeting at the police station, the two of you went back to your apartment to make some phone calls to try and figure out what to do next. You had been on the phone for what felt like hours.

Jake walked around your apartment becoming acquainted with your space and making little observations about your life. In the three years since you met, he realizes he's only seen you in the context of gatherings, never really on your own. The more he thought about it, he really didn't know you at all.

You were pacing, practically yelling at the phone, unnerved as to why you couldn't just pick Nic up tonight. When you got off the phone you fell onto the couch, "They know nothing and won't know anything until morning..." You let out a heavy sigh, "Outside of that, their lawyer wants to meet with us at their house to go over their will..."

He walked closer to you, finding himself seated on the arm of the couch next to you. "It's gonna be okay. She’s safe and we’ll know more in the morning." He gave your arm a little squeeze.

A small smile made its way to your face, and you pushed him a little. “You’re being too nice... It's weird…”

Seresin couldn’t help but chuckle a little at your statement. You two were usually bickering and teasing one another constantly but he knew this wasn’t the time. You two had been through too much in the last few hours.

He looked at his watch and then back at you. “You gonna be all right if I head home? I’ll meet you at their house in the morning for the meeting with the lawyer. Hopefully, we can figure out what’s gonna happen.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” You watched as he walked towards your apartment door. Before making his exit, you called out to him, “Thank you Seresin.”

He gave you a nod before making his way out the door.

The next day, neither you nor Seresin had heard anything about Nic. Rather you were both sitting at Nat and Bradley's dining room table talking to their lawyer.

You couldn’t help but note how stereotypical the man looked. Navy suit, round glasses, slicked back salt and pepper hair. Even his voice held a certain air that screamed ‘lawyer.’ If you were being honest, you couldn't even remember the man's name.

He crossed his arms on the table looking at you both. “This is... obviously a rough time for you both and I'm sure you must have questions."

"Yes," you interrupted without a second thought. "What about Nic, what will happen to her?"

"Yes, Nicole. We have already made arrangements for her transfer. The foster family will bring her to CPS. The social worker feels like she will do best adjusting in her own environment. So, she needs to be picked up and brought here." The man shuffled through some of the papers that were strewn across the dining room table.

"Okay." Seresin nodded his head, "Who does that?"

The lawyer looked at you both in surprise, "I'm sorry. Did they not talk to you about their guardianship arrangements...?"

"No." You and Seresin said in unison before looking at each other.

The man rubbed his temples and shook his head a little. "Alright, well. When preparing their will we discussed, in the unlikely event that they should both pass, whom they would like to appoint as Nicole's guardians. They named you. Both of you.

"What?" Your voices once again rang in unison.

"They picked us? Both of us together?" Seresin’s voice was filled with disbelief.

"I know this is probably not how you wanted to start a family."

"There's been a misunderstanding. We are not together or anything.” You tried to wrap your head around what was being said but the pieces weren’t coming together.

“Yeah! They tried to set us up on a blind date years ago and we never even made it to the restaurant," Seresin let out a breathy, nervous laugh.

You rolled your eyes at the reminder of your first encounter with Seresin, “I don't even know if you'd call it a date. He was an absolute dick; he made a booty call right in front of me before we even left for the restaurant.”

"Look," the lawyer interrupted. "I know this is overwhelming. Believe me, I tried to convince them not to go through with it, but they chose you. Now, there are options. Firstly, you can say no. Keep in mind this is a child, not some puppy you got for Christmas that you can take back to the shelter if things don't work out. This is a big commitment."

"Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God." Seresin was spiraling.

You took a deep breath and cleared your throat. "Options. What kind of options?"

"Yes, well there are some cousins. It's possible that one of them would be willing to take guardianship."

Your mind spun with ideas and before you could fully flesh any of them out, you spoke "What if one of us, on our own, chose to honor Nat and Bradley's wishes? Or both of us, hypothetically?"

The lawyer gave you a look that said he hoped your hypothetical was not one you were actually considering based on how he saw the two of you interact. "They named you so it's just a matter of setting up a court hearing to grant you custody, that's about it."

Your mind was spinning, and you couldn't hear a word the man in front of you was saying. Something about finances? Maybe this was a dream and at any moment you would wake up. You closed your eyes, squeezing them shut as hard as you could, but when you opened them, the same sight sat before you.

The lawyer continued, "But Iet's not get ahead of ourselves. Okay? Let's just focus on Nicole."

"Yes." You nodded.

"Right." Seresin's voice cracked ever so slightly.

"I suggest the two of you move in here in the interim. Again, the social worker thinks Nicole will do best in her own environment.

"You want us to live together?" Disbelief rang through the voice of the man sitting next to you.

The lawyer shook his head a little, "Yes, just for now. Again for Nicole. Until you both decide what you wanna do.

Nat what have you gotten me into...?

You felt like you were going to pass out or throw up. At the rate you were going, both seemed likely.

The two of you walked up to the desk of CPS. Seresin stood next to you. He looked stoic but you could see something in his eyes. Apprehension? Fear? You weren't sure what it was, but it was slowly breaking his strong facade.

You swallowed thickly before speaking. "Hello, we're here to pick up Nicole Carole Bradshaw?"

The woman at the desk nodded before getting up and rifling through some paperwork. You took a shaky breath and Seresin placed a soft hand on the small of your back. You weren't sure what to make of this softer side of Seresin, but your mind didn't allow you to deviate further into those thoughts. You were here for Nic, for Nat, for Bradley...

The woman placed some papers on the counter. "I need both of you to sign here, here, and here." Once signed she directed you to sit in a small waiting area, "She'll be out shortly."

'Shortly' felt like a lifetime, but, in actuality, it was no more the 5 minutes or so. Seresin was the first to lay eyes on her, patting your shoulder, "There she is."

You both practically ran to meet the social worker who carried an exhausted-looking Nic in her arms, "Hi. sweet girl." Nic was placed in your arms. The little girl yawned, tears coming to her eyes. "Oh, honey... " When Nic started to cry, your heart broke. “I know. I know…" you placed a soft kiss on her forehead.

“Hey pretty girl, look what I got.” Seresin waved her favorite bunny plush in front of her, but it did little to quell the girl's cries.

She reached out for Seresin, small, grabby hands trying to find comfort in the tall man. You quickly took notice, "You want Uncle Sese? Here..." You passed the little girl over and her wails were quelled. He did have a way of calming her quickly. You looked at the sleepy, teary-eyed girl in his arms. She looked so much like Nat and Bradley. You couldn't help the tears that gathered in your own eyes, "Okay. Umm, we should get her home."

By the time you got back to the house, it was after 9. You had tried to put Nic to bed, but once you set her down, she would start crying. So, there you were, sitting on the living room couch bouncing Nic on your leg as she chewed the ears of her stuffed bunny.

Seresin was pacing about the room. At the rate he was going, you thought he might pace a trench into the rug, “They definitely didn't think this through."

Your mind was in another place, "We need to establish a sleep schedule... That's very important." Nat had always talked about sleep schedules when she was pregnant, but you weren't sure if those ever panned out.

"What?" Seresin looked at you in disbelief. How could you be talking about sleep schedules at a time like this?

His tone brought you out of your thoughts, "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

He rolled his eyes, "I said they didn't think this through. Did Nat say anything to you? Or Brad?"

"They didn't tell me anything..." You let out a sigh looking down at a still fussy Nic bouncing on your leg.

"I'm sorry, this is not the kind of thing you forget to mention. 'Hey, man! Work’s really been crazy. You see the new Top Gun movie? Oh! And by the way, if I die, I'm gonna leave you with my kid!' Common that's just messed up!"

You couldn’t deny the oddness of them telling you nothing, but you felt a need to defend your friends, "I-I mean Nat was a planner. She always needed to have a plan and I guess we are part of that plan."

"You wanna walk me through this plan? Are we supposed to Iive in this house together, both sleep-deprived and taking care of a child? Sounds like a compelling psych experiment. Assuming you and I can even afford to pay for this place."

"The lawyer said the mortgage is covered..."

Seresin took no time interrupting you, "Yeah, the mortgage is the least of our worries. What about the upkeep? The utilities, the taxes? You have any idea the monthly on a place like this? Brad was a junior partner. I don't make that kind of cash! And what do you do? Listen to people bitch for a living.

You couldn’t help be offended at his assumption of your work, "I'm a partner psychologist at a private practice. I do pretty well... And I don't listen to people bitch, I help people with real problems."

"Yeah? WeII, raising a child is not the same as listening to adults bitch about their feelings."

"I didn't say it was!"

Seresin threw his arms in the air, "Kids are messy, they bite, they pee on everything. They're basically dogs, except I don't have to worry about a dog Iicking a goddamn electrical socket." Seresin’s hands moved dramatically as he explained himself. "Oh, and pray tell, how does Nic fit in with you meeting a guy, getting married, and having a kid of your own? Have you thought about that? I mean you're cute but a woman with a baby is gonna have a hard time competing for the few guys who don't suck."

You looked up in disbelief, "And what do you know about dating? I'm sure the closest you get to a ‘date’ is your bedroom after picking some girl up at the bar!"

"I know that in the dating world, you wouldn't be considered single. You would be considered complicated, beyond complicated."

"You don't know anything about me."

Seresin didn't skip a beat, "I know that you can't open a childproof drawer."

You were taken aback slightly, "They can be tricky- that's beside the point! Why are you trying so hard to convince me not to help her?"

"I'm thinking about what's best for her."

"No, don't get it twisted. You're thinking about what's best for you!"

"I promise you; she is at the forefront of my mind right now. I'm trying to do what's best for her. And let me tell you, sweetheart, we're not it!"

"They loved Nic more than anything in the entire world. Out of everyone, Seresin, they picked us…" you paused when you noticed Nic starting to squirm in your arms. Her tummy began to make noises and as you pulled her away to get a better look at her, she spit up all over your chest. You tried to take a calming breath looking down at the little girl smiling up at you.

As much as Seresin wanted to laugh, this was the reality of the situation. "Do you honestly think we're what's best for her?" He handed you a towel and grabbed Nic, holding her close to his chest.

《 part 3 》

As always, feedback, likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated!

Top Gun Taglist: @callsign-viper @luckyladycreator2 @saturnsbabe69 @desert-fern @pono-pura-vida @dempy @t-rexs-world @averyhotchner @drxgxnslxyer @daisydark

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𝑊𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑎 𝑏𝑒 𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑔𝑒𝑑? 𝐿𝑒𝑡 𝑚𝑒 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 💜

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horseshoegirl · 1 year ago

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Set Me Alight: Part 8 - Salt and The Sea

📜Everyone has been on a Bob kick lately (I think), so this is coming right when it should! Let's see how Grace and Bob feel about all this. Shall we? 👀

‼️ - +18, Minors DNI, Strong Language, Original Female Character (s), Bradley Bradshaw x Natasha Trace, Bob Floyd x Original Female Character (This is all in their perspective), Third Person Pov for this one, Angst, mentions of bullying, hurt, overheard fights, preventing a panic attack, frustration, and Grace being sad and done with Bullshit.

#4.6k

Part 7 | Masterlist | Part 9

Present Day

Sixteen hours.

That's how long Bob's carefully guarded, carefully constructed walls took to crumble after all these years.

There was an inkling the night before as he settled into his tent, a feeling that knocked once or twice from the inside of his chest. It wasn't there when he woke up this morning or during the trek here to the falls.

But the second Grace raced up behind him, everyone watching Veronica climb out of the water, that feeling returned. It seemed no longer content to sit around and wait for Bob to figure out why it had.

Grace grasped his hand, pulling herself to hide behind his body so she could stifle her giggles into the back of his shoulder. Bob couldn't help the few snorts that shook through his body either. However, he pitied Javy, watching as he tried to console his girlfriend, who was stomping her foot like a three-year-old child over the fact that her makeup had been ruined.

The both of them couldn't say it wasn't an unwelcome sight. They knew what Maeve had done, catching her hooking something onto the loop of Veronica's jeans, knowing it was damn well meant for Jake. Though the pair knew better than to act on it, they imagined themselves holding up a fist to the air, like in the Breakfast Club, silently praising the act of Karma on her behalf.

Maybe even quietly counting tallies next to her name in Bob's traveller's journal.

Maeve needed a win. A big win against one of those two. They weren't going to say shit about it. They only wished, deep down, they could have helped.

But when Bradley had taken her by the arm, leading her way, another knock, this time harder, thumped in his chest. Another followed it. And another, until that feeling morphed into what Bob could only describe as a white-hot pain, burning every nerve in the pit of his stomach.

Bob knew what was about to happen.

While there hadn't been much to discuss, Bradley had pulled all the guys together after Maeve went to bed last night to discuss his proposal. Standing in that circle, Bob realized it had been more of a pep talk than anything else.

Everyone already had a predetermined role—some part to play in helping Nat get to the right spot. Bob and Grace merely had to act surprised, with the rest of the group save Jake, Maeve, and Rueben, when they eventually emerged from the bush, a shiny new ring hopefully on her finger.

It was a horrible plan, he had thought then. He knew—more so than most—that involving Jake and Maeve in such an event would only result in disaster. He even had said as much to Grace when he turned in for the night, climbing into their shared tent.

Grace merely highlighted Nat's inconsiderate behaviour regarding her feelings, turning her back to him as she settled into her sleeping bag. The action was so absolute, so final, they said nothing else about it the rest of the night.

But laying awake, staring at Grace's back, Bob couldn't help but think about it. Grace was right. With all the shit Jake and Maeve threw at each other since the moment they had met, Nat would have to be completely stupid not to realize just how fucked up it was not to tell Maeve Jake would be coming on this trip.

It wasn't the first time Grace brought it up, either. Bob knew how his girlfriend felt about Nat, Maeve, the entire group, their inability to stand up for her, and their failure to separate themselves from Nat.

He'd be lying if he hadn't felt the same at one point or another.

But Bob knew why everyone didn't, why he didn't, and why, even to some extent, Jake didn't either, even if he was more verbal about it than anyone else.

From behind the scenes, everyone tried to protect Maeve and themselves from a fallout with Natasha. Not the fallout itself but the aftermath. At that point, he had rolled on his back, trying to figure it all out from the safety and privacy of his tent.

But who was he kidding? There was nothing to figure out.

Nat's scandal was an anvil, and her history and behaviour were hanging over every person in the group by a single thread. Even in the years since it happened, since they had all left school and Grace and Cora joined the group, it still had everyone in a chokehold.

And Maeve was oblivious to it all.

Bob wasn't sure when it happened, but it became an unspoken agreement to protect Maeve from that truth. So they were burying it to keep the peace—at least, everyone but Bradley. Bob couldn't say what was happening inside his friend's head, nor would he ask him.

But nobody would go out of their way to upset the group's 'supposed' hierarchy—not when real friendships and relationships, whether made with Nat's influence or not, were at stake.

Maeve had to deal with the brunt of it, and Bob would regret it every day for the rest of his life.

No kind words or assurances could help the cluster of nerves swimming in Bob's stomach when Grace hooked her arm through his. Leading him to a section of the pond free from tourists, she wanted to avoid the temper tantrum Javy and Rueben, to an extent, would have to deal with. Seeing fish in the water earlier and knowing Bob would get a kick out of trying to identify them, she welcomed the distraction.

But as the pair searched through their books to match the first fish they saw, the first shout vibrated through the air, and Bob felt like he was going to hurl.

There was no mistaking it for what it was. Nat was, for lack of a better word, shitting on Maeve and Jake. It was loud. It was scary. And no matter where anyone went, it was impossible to block out the noise.

They stood there, staring down at the words and diagrams in their books, no longer interested in the fish, scared any movement or action would have them on a chopping block. Though her eyes blurred, Grace was sure there were no more fish to look at anyway, for they, too, would have felt the noise vibrate against the water and would have been scared away.

At least they felt like they were able to.

When it finally fell silent, Grace nervously reached for Bob's hand. She led them away from the water through a tiny gap in the bush, deep into the forest. She didn't dare stop, walking blindly for minutes until she saw a little nook encased by a massive tree.

Its branches hung low, as did those of the surrounding trees. Each covered the space in a vibrant green shade, offering a safe place from the events leading up to this moment. A giant, thick tree root rested above the ground, and Grace pulled Bob down as she sat upon it.

Neither one spoke, nervous to say anything. Birds, the wind and bugs filled this space instead. It could have been hours, though Grace started to play with Bob's fingers only minutes later. He let her slide her fingertips over his skin and grasp around each finger until she smoothly threaded each together. Over and over, she did this, never once altering her pattern or rhythm.

Grace was trying to ground herself. And for Bob, it made everything that much worse.

It had been sixteen hours to the dot since that first knock in his chest. And while Bob had admitted last night and perhaps now that the trip, the excuses, the group dynamic, Nat's behaviour—was hopelessly warped—the truth was he had known for days, months, maybe even years.

He'd simply shoved it all deep down under lock and key, partly for selfish reasons. Sixteen hours was merely all the time it took for that lock to break and for everything to come rushing back to the surface. Because while the person he loved was hurting on behalf of someone else, it was too silent in this forest, even at this distance.

It was the lack of Maeve and Jake tearing each other apart.

"I think something happened to Jake and Maeve," Bob said in a rough voice, finally finding the courage to speak.

Grace's hands froze, not moving an inch. She lifted her head, eyebrows knitting together. Bob didn't meet her gaze, too nervous to look away from their joined hands.

"It's too quiet," he offered softly. "Especially after that."

Grace also dropped her eyes to their hands, biting the inside of her cheek hard. "She'd be tearing into him right now. Forget Nat. Maeve would clear out the whole damn park with a single shout."

Bob nodded absentmindedly, turning his hand to mock Grace's earlier pattern, a silent gesture to let her know he had been paying attention.

"Or she'd be running off to apologize to Nat, and Jake would be seeking us out, tail between his legs."

"Nat should be the one apologizing to her."

Grace's statement was so blunt and sharp that Bob feathered his jaw. And something in that quick movement made a thread in Grace's gentle heart snap.

She tore her hand from Bob's grip and shuffled away from him further down the log. She swallowed hard, refusing to turn back and look at him as she fiddled with a ring on her finger. When Bob went to follow, naturally reaching for her like it was second nature, she shuffled again.

"No," she mumbled lowly, shying away from his touch. Bob frowned, sliding closer once again, softly calling her name. But Grace only pushed herself up from the log, her fists balled and clenched tight. "No!"

She stomped forward a few steps, not wanting to leave the found safety of their little nook. Threading her fingers through her hair, she paced back and forth, trying to count her breath.

"Grace..."

She spun wildly, her eyes narrowing, her lips pressing into a thin line, and her jaw clenching. "Don't 'Grace' me," she gritted out behind her teeth.

Bob dropped his forehead into the palm of his hand, his elbow digging hard into his knee. "Don't..."

"Don't what, exactly?" she seethed. "Don't talk about 'it'?

Bob dug his nails into the denim of his jeans - enough to feel a pinch through the fabric on his thigh.

The laugh Grace let out was bitter, morphing into a harsh shout. "Come on, Bob! Cora and I might have been the last ones to join whatever fucked up friend group this is, but Nat couldn't give two shits about Maeve! And it's this unspoken thing nobody talks about. Why?!"

"Grace..."

"Don't!" she snapped, stomping her foot, making clumps of dirt fly out in all directions. "I don't care about some fucked up unspoken agreement! I care about Maeve! Don't tell me you don't, Robert?!"

Bob finally lifted his head, though he focused on the way they came, not once meeting his girlfriend's angry stare.

"Bob, so help me... If you say no..."

"You know I do!" he rushed out, shaking his head.

"Then why don't you fucking say something?!" she cried out. "Why doesn't anyone say something?! She's suffering, and nobody does anything!"

She didn't even know she was crying hot, angry tears until she felt one fall off her cheek, a slight cool breeze marking a path on her skin.

"I wanted to. I wanted to, so badly, the first time I noticed it. And you told me not to."

Bob did, and he always wondered if Grace resented him for it.

She sighed, wiping the tears from her face. She paced back and forth a little bit, trying to calm herself down. Because Bob didn't deserve her anger, it was unfair of her to even yell at him in the first place.

Instead, she walked up to the tree, pressing her forehead into the bark, once again trying to count her inhales and exhales.

"When Bradley told me about Nat when he was going to school, I thought she was just a phase. Whenever he called to talk to Dad, I just sat back and wondered. I wondered how long it would take and what the reason behind the break between those two would be."

Grace lifted her head, fixing her eyes on a ladybug climbing the trunk. "You could imagine my surprise when he brought her home for spring break."

She placed her hand on the wood, twisting back to look at her boyfriend. "I never told you this, but I didn't like her the second I met her."

Bob lifted his head to meet her gaze. "Why..?"

"Because she thought I was a threat. That I harboured a crush on Bradley, and I would steal him from her," she shrugged.

Bob's eyes shot up his skull. "... I mean, you two grew up together... did you... ever?"

Grace audibly gagged, adding a few choking noises for a dramatic effect. "He's like my brother, Bob. What the hell?"

He held his hands up in surrender. "I had to ask."

Grace didn't address the remark when she continued, "She treated me horribly that entire week. She sweet-talked my dad and only was nice to me when he was around. Thank God he saw right through her. The second he left, he said that Carole, Bradley's mom, wouldn't have approved. I agreed."

With a narrowed forehead, Bob's mouth gaped open, bobbing like a fish. "Wait... then why did she..."

"Why did she suddenly start inviting me to stuff? It's cause I was dating you. I was no longer a threat. And she acted like she had never done what she did in the first place."

While Bob might have met Grace through work, he was surprised to learn she had grown up with Bradley. How she acted around Bradley bore no resemblance to a long-lasting, familiar childhood friendship. However, the longer he thought about it, the more it made sense—her closed-off and quiet nature when she was around them.

That the first time they saw each other again, all Bradley could manage was a slight nod.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Grace only offered causally, "You'd be surprised at all the stuff that doesn't require your input. Sometimes you gotta leave people to do the lame shit they do and watch them fuck it up on their own."

A ball formed in her throat. "But Maeve... when I met Maeve and saw what was happening, my heart broke. And she is the only exception to what I just said."

Bob knew what was coming next. Like a coward, he braced himself hard.

"You told me not to say anything when I first brought it up. But now? I can't keep doing it. Not after what she just did to them. Not after that."

"Grace... Don't..."

"Maeve is drowning, Bob! Drowning!" she shouted angrily, startling a nearby bird on a branch. "And I can't stand it any longer. We need to find her, grab her, and take her home. Take her away from all this. From Nat, from those two bitches... God, if they gaslight anything else, they could practically set the whole fucking forest on fire."

"You don't believe in swearing, Grace," he deadpanned.

"Maybe I do now!" she cried. "I feel guilty. Guilty Bob! Cause I bit my lip like a good girl when Nat just what? Uses her? Ignores her? Disregard her feelings? Like hell, why didn't she try harder to figure the fuck out why Jake and Meave are at each other's throats?! Or how those two bully the fuck out of her?"

"Maeve wouldn't tell us about Jake when we asked."

"And you don't find it strange she wouldn't?" she challenged him. "Out of everyone in the group, she didn't tell a soul. Why? Why didn't she? Why wouldn't she?!"

Grace's heart was hurting, and she knew Bob truly knew why. He had been around them longer than she had, so there must have been a reason he told her not to. There had to be.

"At first, I thought it was something everyone accepted, you know? That everyone was trying to figure out what had happened between her and Jake. I thought tensions were high because of that."

She blew out a shaky breath, Bob not once interrupting her.

"Maybe it was a fucking game they were playing with each other until they finally worked up the courage to admit they like each other enough to get into each other's pants. Cause whatever the cause, Maeve wouldn't be so goddamn hurt if she didn't care!"

Bob closed his eyes, a huff of a laugh escaping his mouth.

"But last to join the group, right? You have to be quiet. Read the room. Get a sense of how to act and what you can say. Cause learning to fit in with new people, you have to pick up these things. The best way to get along with everyone else. Like how Maeve runs the second Jake walks into the room? How she avoids conversations about him if she can help it?"

Grace blew a raspberry out of pure frustration. "Jake was never the real issue, though. Everyone just made it out to be. Everyone should have noticed how Maeve bit her tongue as Nat walked over her opinions. How Nat derails conversations, not just where Maeve is concerned, but practically with everyone to make it about her."

Grace laughed, shaking her head. "She got the brunt of all of it, and we just... watched."

Grace finally approached Bob, standing before him, though he didn't lift his head from where it hung low on his shoulders. Had he chosen to look up, he would have noticed how the sun finally peeked through the leaves, beams of light breaking the shade, leaving Grace in their spotlight.

"I meant, she invites us all on this trip so we can watch her get proposed to? And she doesn't bother to tell her that Jake is coming along, too? I mean... how selfish can she get?!"

"Grace, this isn't going to solve..."

"WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?!" she yelled, throwing her hands at the sky. "That ship left the fucking dock ages ago."

Bob's eyes fixed on a leaf stuck under a fallen branch at her words. Grace knew from that reaction alone that she had resonated with something within his kind, caring soul.

"I just... can't... I can't anymore, Bob. If I'm the first to take the leap and break up this group, then good fucking riddance. It needs to be done so we all can get some peace."

She slid to her knees in the dirt in front of him, her hands resting firmly on the sides of his thighs.

"How many years have Nat and Maeve known each other, and not once did Nat realize how hard her supposed best friend had been falling? How could she not recognize that, Bob? And how could she continue to force Jake and Maeve together when Maeve just wanted to escape?"

She reached forward to cup his cheek, guiding his gaze to meet hers. While silent rage resonated within them, Bob knew it wasn't meant for him.

"Why did you tell me to be quiet that first time I brought this up? Why do you still tell me, too?"

Bob gulped, forcing his eyes away. Grace stroked her thumb under his eye, encouraging him on. "I don't know what happened, baby, but I don't think it will be all sunshine and rainbows when we return to the group. Not this time. Just tell me, please."

Bob blew out a shakey breath and shook his head. "Because I wanted you to stay."

"Stay?"

He had contemplated all the reasons, stacking them up brick by brick last night, refusing to acknowledge the leverage Natasha could have used against him. But Bob had damned himself with that one word.

Stay—He wanted Grace to stay. Because if he brought this up, if he told her, there was a chance she wouldn't—at least, there was a possibility.

He lifted his chin, staring into her eyes.

Nat's so-called leverage was kneeling in front of him, begging him to tell her the truth. Her eyes were desperate, so much so that Bob knew he was possibly damned if he did and undoubtedly damned if he did not. Grace had chosen her path, and he would steadfastly follow her wherever she decided to go.

There was no ever questioning that.

Bob reached for her sides, pulling Grace close between his spread legs. She let him, hands landing softly on his biceps before they slid down to his forearms. Bob traded his grip on her jacket to hold her hands, only to trace the same pattern she had a few minutes before.

He braced himself and took several sharp breaths before asking, "Did anyone ever tell you about Natasha's so-called scandal? Back in school?"

Grace cocked an eyebrow. "Only what Maeve's told me. Bradley and I weren't on speaking terms, and he'd never tell Dad if she had one. Though, Maeve didn't even know the complete story."

She let Bob turn her hand over and trace the lines on the palm of her hand. "But she shut me down hard after that. Saying Nat worked to put it behind her and move on, so we all should, too."

Bob scoffed. "Always protecting her."

"Bob?"

Bob hesitated, his gaze flickering away from Grace's expectant eyes. He swallowed hard, the reluctance clear in his tight jaw. Then he closed his eyes, leaning over to whisper in her ear, his voice cautious but a whisper.

Grace's eyes widened, and a gasp slipped through her parted lips at his words. She could hardly breathe as he told her the story. And when he was finished, she tilted so far back on her heels in shock that she almost fell onto her butt.

"Bob! What the hell? After everything I just told you?!"

Bob still hadn't opened his eyes, his head hung low in shame.

"I would have never left you over that! Over complete and utter bullshit? Who do you think I'd believe more? Her or my boyfriend?"

"I didn't know. I didn't want to risk losing you."

"You listen here, Bob Floyd," Grace urged, grabbing his face with both hands and forcing him to look at her. "I'm in a relationship with you. I love you. I would have never believed her if she had done that to us."

He kissed the inside of Grace's wrist, a deep weight lifting off his chest.

"God, I want to throttle her."

"I think that's why everyone doesn't call her out. Cause they don't want it to happen to them. Or at least, deep down, I never did 'cause I didn't want Maeve or Bradley to be alone with..."

Grace nodded, letting Bob know he did not need to continue explaining.

"We should try to find her, Bob. Let her know we love her and that we'd follow her. I have no idea if anyone else would besides Mickey and Cora. Hell, I'd even offer to leave with her and get drunk on her Aunt's apple cider 'cause this whole damn trip was a bad idea."

Bob huffed a sad laugh. "It is apple picking season. I bet she'd love it if we went with her."

Grace snorted. "You just want free apples so I can make my apple crisp."

With the tension from before gone and the weight of Bob's chest finally disappearing with his confession, he joked comedically, "Ssshh, don't jinx it."

Grace rolled her eyes, letting the moment pass before offering quietly, "Where do you think she is? Maeve?"

Bob regarded her for a moment before letting out a long sigh. "Considering the lack of voices, Maeve's probably tried to separate herself. Or she made a rash decision and decided to leave alone."

Grace gasped. "What about Jake?"

"Jake ... I bet 50 bucks Jake ran after her regardless."

Her face contorted into one of disgust. "What? Why? Can he not leave her alone for once in his life?"

Bob stood, wiping his hands on his jeans, before extending a hand to Grace. She took it without another word and allowed him to guide her up and off the tree. He revealed yet another truth as he helped her step over the massive root.

"Remember when I went with Bradley and Jake before Maeve hurt her wrist? Jake wanted to show us a fishing spot...?"

Grace winced. When Bob told her what happened, she instantly regretted not being out there with her. Hold up in her tent, she had been working on plans for a museum exhibit. Even if she had to do a little work, she could have at least done it in the company of a friend.

"I found out Bradley's been trying to coach Jake into mending things with Maeve. We might have been giving him some... advice."

Grace froze with her two feet atop the curved piece of wood.

"What!!?" she shrieked, making Bob wince. "Please tell me you weren't the one who encouraged him to keep up the prank thing. Bob, if you told him to scream 'there's a Bear..'."

"It wasn't me! Nor was it Bradley! We just told him to try to talk to her without anyone around. Cause things seem to go to shit when everyone else is there. He just needed to incite her to stay. Make her laugh. Talk to her like a human being!"

"Men," she scoffed, jumping down off the root. "Never go to a group of idiots to do a woman's job."

Bob froze, eyeing her carefully. "Are you calling me an idiot?"

Grace smiled, reaching up to stroke across his cheek. She kissed his lips with a quick peck and leaned back. "Hmm... my idiot, though."

She took several steps back towards the falls when she called out over her shoulder to a befuddled Bob. "You realize if we locked them in a room or trapped them in an elevator, with nobody else around, they'd probably figure it out?"

"How so?" he called back, finally following her.

"Jake obviously wants to fix it. Maeve runs. All you need to do is stop her from running. She'll give in if you provoke her enough, which Jake already does. "

Bob paused, reflecting for a moment. "He doesn't think when it comes to her, does he?"

"Does she?"

When they emerged from the bush, Bob and Grace ran to the first person they saw, hoping at least someone saw either Maeve or Jake. Nobody had. Not until a few minutes later did a couple mention seeing someone bearing her resemblance climbing the waterfall. They also mentioned seeing someone who looked like Nat go up, but she had already come back down.

Grace stared at them in horror. "I'll go get Mickey and Cora," she rushed out quickly, leaving Bob alone to start the trek up the rocky slope. As he did, a million thoughts crossed his mind.

Finding Maeve and Jake tearing each other apart, hoping Mickey and Cora's skills weren't needed. Or the more stupidly optimistic thought - either was trying to find a few moments of peace.

As if.

Or perhaps it was none of those things. Maybe what awaited him above was something far worse than he could ever fathom.

But when he reached the top of the falls, neither Maeve nor Jake were there, and Bob didn't spare the effort to take in the view. Instead, he searched the ground, kneeling when he spied several tracks in the mud.

Two sets, both inherently female, were marked along the river bank in the mud. Bob's eyes followed them until he saw a separate path of them walking back. Then he noticed another pair of tracks, the boot tread clearly belonging to a man. They followed one of the other tracks, veering quickly off into the bushes. They were noticeably disturbed, leaves and branches bent unnaturally, and the longer he followed the underbrush and mud, the more he understood what happened.

Bob set off, knowing just exactly where he needed to go.

Can I just say I love Bob and Grace?

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roosterforme · 2 years ago

Text

Always Ever Only You Part 9 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: What are you supposed to do when you don't know how to talk to your husband? How is he supposed to love you and your body when you can't even figure out how to love yourself anymore? You watch Bradley leave for deployment.

Warnings: Angst, sex, swearing

Length: 3700 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader

This was written to accompany my series Is It Working For You? along with a bunch of my one-shots and other series, but it can be read on its own! Check my masterlist for the reading order. Always Ever Only You masterlist. Gorgeous banner by @mak-32

When you woke up on the bathroom floor the morning after your promotion banquet, and remembered what happened, you started crying. Your dress whites had been so perfect and crisply pressed. The excitement for your new piece of hardwear had fueled you along. You had forgotten about how much you hated your body right now, at least for a few hours.

Everything ached as you stood up and tried to stretch out all of the kinks you had from sleeping on the bath mat. Bradley was leaving tomorrow. He would be gone for eight weeks. And you didn't even want to leave this bathroom and see him right now.

But when you opened the door, curious about what time it was and ready to pack your back and go home, you nearly tripped over your husband. He was sleeping on the floor outside the bathroom, curled up with a pillow and a sheet. You braced yourself on the doorway so you didn't fall.

"Baby Girl," he croaked, his voice still hoarse.

Your eyes were stinging, and you felt miserable knowing he had slept on the floor, too. But he had ruined your night, and you didn't even want to have to listen to him apologize to you.

"I want to go home," you informed him with a steady voice that betrayed how terrible you felt.

"Can we talk about this?" he asked, getting to his feet and looking as miserable as you felt. "I wasn't trying to hurt you."

You just closed your eyes and shook your head. The sooner you got home, the sooner you could take a bath and change and start to feel better. "I don't want to talk about this right now."

He ran his hand over his face and swallowed hard, and you slipped past him to get your stuff together.

You were back home by nine o'clock. Part of you wanted Bradley to vanish and leave you alone. The rest of you was panicking inside, because by this time tomorrow, he would be gone. And then what would you do? It might be weeks before he could call you. But even though you knew you needed to straighten things out right now, you just couldn't bring yourself to do it.

So you sank down into a bubble bath while he muttered something about taking Tramp for a walk. Good. He was gone now. The house was quiet. And you were left alone to think about how out of control your emotions were. But you decided were allowed to be frustrated that your night got ruined, and you were allowed to be annoyed with Bradley. However, today was also your last chance to see him for two months. And you were ovulating.

So you shaved your legs and got out of the bath. Then you tried to do your normal routine of drying off and applying lotion, but you could hear Bradley messing around in the bedroom. When you wrapped your towel around yourself and poked your head in, he looked up from his duffle bag. "Hi," he said softly. He had his underwear and some clothing in stacks on the dresser. He was packing to leave.

You shifted your weight from foot to foot, your fingernails digging into your palms. Never had you ever, not even once, felt this awkward around him. It was disorienting and unsettling. You couldn't have imagined this if you tried. His brown eyes were sad and apologetic, but he seemed to be holding back what he wanted to say. And you were sure your expression was similar.

You had no idea how to make any of this better. So you blurted out the first thing on your tongue. "You're right. We shouldn't be wasting time. And maybe there's something physically wrong with one of us, but maybe there's not. So I think we should have sex today. While I'm ovulating."

But Bradley didn't budge. He blinked at you and licked his lips. "I'm sorry I upset you. And I really don't know if having sex right now is the best idea, you know?"

It's not like you even wanted to. But you felt like you should. So you let your towel drop to the floor at your feet, because you knew it was impossible for Bradley to feel nothing when you were naked for him.

His lips parted, his pupils went wide, and his breathing was ragged. "You really want to?"

"Yes," you said softly, lying to your husband even as he took a step closer to you. When his lips met yours, you turned your head so that his mustache skimmed along your neck instead. He kissed down to your shoulder, and it felt good. It always felt good. But you had to force yourself to lay out on the bed as he quickly undressed.

When Bradley settled on top of you, he stroked his fingers along your slit and then met your eyes. You knew you weren't wet. You bit your lip and had to hold back your tears.

"We don't have to-"

"Yes," you said, cutting him off. "We do."

Once again, he looked like you'd physically hit him. He just nodded and brought his fingers up to his lips, coating them with his saliva and returning them to your core. You let your head tip back against the pillow and tried to think about your honeymoon or the way Bradley once gave you a hat trick. You tried to imagine being back in La Jolla. Anything sexy. But all you could think about was how desperately you wanted to see a positive pregnancy test.

You hiccuped softly, squeezing your eyes shut as Bradley lined himself up with your opening and pushed himself inside you. He just needed to cum. The sooner the better.

"You okay?" he asked, pushing himself deeper.

You nodded, barely meeting his eyes. "Yeah."

And so he started to thrust as he kissed softly along your collar bones, but after a few minutes, you could tell he wasn't even as hard as he usually was. Tears stung your eyes. You couldn't do anything right. You couldn't get pregnant. And you couldn't keep your husband hard. You couldn't even seem to go five minutes without wanting to disappear into thin air.

When Bradley met your eyes, he muttered, "Sorry."

"It's probably my fault," you whispered, but he pressed his lips to yours and shook his head.

"It's not, Sweetheart." But he had to bury his face against your neck and stroke himself with his right hand until he was hard enough to fuck you while you laid there beyond mortified. And the sound of his soft grunts as he came inside you was such a relief when you finally heard them, you sank back with your forearm over your eyes.

Bradley didn't collapse in bed with you. He didn't snuggle up with you in his arms. You felt the bed dip as he climbed out and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

-------------------------

It was a long time before Bradley felt like he could walk back out into the bedroom and face you. What was happening here? He had fucked up last night. He knew that. He burst your bubble, tainted the delight you felt when you were being promoted. And he hated that he did that. He was proud of you, and he never wanted to disappoint you. But he'd just disappointed you again today.

You were gone when he opened the door, and he felt relieved. Embarrassment washed over him again. He wasn't hard for you. He was always hard for you. Even at the most inopportune times, he was ready to go just thinking about you. He didn't even need to touch the porn they gave him when he jerked off to collect a sperm sample for testing. He just pulled up one of the videos you and he made on his phone and went to town. Two minutes of looking at your body and listening to your voice and he was filling up that little cup.

"Fuck," he grunted, returning to his duffle bag instead of looking for you. Because he didn't even know what to say right now. Tears were collecting in his eyes as he packed his bag. His stomach was growling for lunch, but he didn't think he deserved to eat anything.

As he put the finishing touches on his uniforms and flight suits, he finally tossed his bag aside. He wasn't even going to be here tomorrow. He needed to fix all of this right now. He hadn't told you he loved you all day, and you hadn't said it to him. Maybe starting there would be a good jumping off place to try to fix things.

"Baby Girl?" he called out as he walked down the hallway into the kitchen. And he was treated to the sight of your beautiful body, gorgeous face and elegant hands. But you were holding the piece of mail he'd been trying in vain to hide all over the house. And when you met his eyes, you looked angry.

"I can explain," he said, holding his hands up in surrender. But that just seemed to make you more upset.

"What the fuck, Bradley?" you asked, the paperwork shaking in your hand. "Were you going to tell me about this? Or just try to avoid all of it?"

"I-" he started before freezing up. Your face was righteous with anger in a way he'd never witnessed before, and he wished he could go back to yesterday and do everything right.

Then your face melted into sadness. "You weren't going to say anything. Were you?" When he didn't respond, you screamed, "Were you?"

He watched you ball up the papers in your hands before you threw them at his chest with as much force as you could manage. He caught the paper ball, heart pounding and skin on fire. And then you rounded on him. "I can't believe you got your sperm tested without saying anything to me about it!"

He sucked in a deep breath. "I was just trying to help," he managed as angry tears flowed down your cheeks. When he took a step closer, you pressed your palms to his chest and pushed him back.

"You didn't fucking help anything! It's all my fault that I can't get pregnant!"

"You don't know that," he said as you shoved him harder. "We don't know that."

You reached out and smacked the balled up paper out of his hand and shouted, "Yes! I do! It's actually my fault. It's a fact. I saw it right there on that paper! Your sperm is perfect. So my body must be fucked up!"

"Baby Girl," he gasped in agony. "Don't. Please." To him, you were perfect. And having a child really wasn't worth seeing you like this. Seeing how you'd been sinking in on yourself over the past few months. But maybe right now you weren't wrong. He didn't even know anymore.

"And you were just hiding the results from me?" you asked, your voice still shaking with rage. "Blaming me quietly?"

"I'm not blaming you for anything!" he said, louder than he anticipated. His voice boomed through the kitchen, and you looked up at him like you didn't even know who he was. Even Tramp had run for cover by this point.

"That's okay," you whispered, your eyes unwavering even though they were filled with tears. "I'm blaming myself enough for both of us."

He looked at the floor. There was nothing he could do to fix any of this now. And you were literally the last person he wanted to disappoint. As he raked his fingers through his hair, he whispered, "Maybe it's a good thing that I'm going away tomorrow."

He heard you sob as you kicked the sperm test results across the room and stormed down the hallway.

You were in bed the rest of the afternoon, and Bradley wasn't sure if you were asleep or not. So he avoided the room altogether as he wallowed in this pain that he brought on himself. And on you.

-------------------------

You cried in bed for so long all afternoon, you must have fallen asleep at some point. Bradley's sperm was perfect. It was of higher quality than 95% of men in their mid-thirties. It was ideal for impregnation. The most desirable quality you could imagine.

And you kept imagining it. He'd come inside you hundreds of times. Thousands of times. Countless times. Even since November, he'd put his Grade A sperm inside you more times than you could possibly keep track of.

So, this was your fault. And now you knew it. You tried for hours to think about work or your friends or even the fact that you should have been able to go to brunch this morning to gush about your promotion banquet. But everything was turning to shit now. It was probably time to think about alternate options. Or consider just giving up completely.

But why should Bradley have to give up his dream of being a dad just because you weren't able to give him what he wanted? You couldn't be that selfish. As sleep overtook you, disturbing and hurtful ideas filled your mind. You were vaguely aware of Bradley in the room as the afternoon light got dimmer. You could hear him put something in your nightstand. You heard the zipper on his duffle. But you couldn't open your eyes through the haze of pain and exhaustion.

When you jerked awake in your pitch black bedroom, you heard Bradley's voice next to you. "Are you okay, Sweetheart?"

You reached for your phone. It was after eleven o'clock. He'd plugged it in for you. He must have gotten himself dinner and taken Tramp out and finished packing for his deployment.

And then your heart sank as you reached for him. Bradley laced his fingers with yours, and you squeezed your eyes shut at how good it felt to simply hold his hand.

"I don't know," you whispered, because you weren't really sure. Bradley brought your hand up to his mouth and kissed your fingers. You sighed against the sensation of his mustache on your body. You wanted to keep this feeling alive. This little glimmer of hope. But you muttered, "It's late. Go to sleep," as you withdrew your hand and rolled onto your side.

He was silent for so long, you weren't sure if he was still awake. Finally he said, "I hate leaving you more than I hate anything else. But we'll figure this out. I love you."

But instead of responding, you let him doze. When you both woke up at five to the sound of his alarm blaring, there were several feet of space between your body and his in the king sized bed. You felt like absolute shit. It was hard to breathe as you watched Bradley climb out of bed and head for the bathroom. You knew everything he was going to do: shower, shave around his mustache, apply deodorant. But you didn't want to see it. You went into the kitchen where you had all of the ingredients to make him heart shaped pancakes and strawberries. But you didn't want to make them.

Instead you made some French press coffee and cried softly. You took a few sips and felt like you were going to throw up. You tried to eat a granola bar, but you gagged. You had forty one minutes until the Admirals would start calling everyone aboard the aircraft carrier. Less than an hour until your husband would be away for two months. But even when he cautiously walked into the kitchen in his uniform with his duffle bag, you still couldn't quite formulate what you wanted to say to him.

Because maybe he was right. Maybe you and he needed to spend some time apart. You hated yourself and your body, so how did you expect him to love you right now? And you resented him for the decisions he was making and the things he was saying to you. It felt like he didn't understand how it feels to be you. And then you laughed darkly, because of course he didn't. And you were doing a shitty job of describing it to him. A horrible job of communicating with him in general.

"Let's go," you said, heading for the front door in the old lounge pants and shirt you'd slept in. You felt disgusting, so you might as well just look disgusting, too.

But he headed you off, keeping his hand on the doorknob so you couldn't turn it. "I can't go until I know you're listening to what I have to say."

"What?" you snapped, because that was just a lie. He'd be leaving shortly even if you refused to listen or drive him there. That was just a fact.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ruin your night. I didn't mean to hide the test results from you."

"But you did," you whispered harshly. "On both accounts."

"I know," he said solemnly, reaching for you before dropping his hand to his side. "And I'm sick over it. But this doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you or that I'm perfect. And we can keep trying as soon as I get home, okay?"

"If I even feel like it," you sobbed, pushing his hand out of the way and wrenching the door open. "If you even want to. If you can even stay hard for me."

"Sweetheart!" he called out, running after you as you got into the driver's seat of your car. You'd drop him off in this one instead of the Bronco, just because it would irritate him.

You were turning the key and shifting into reverse before he even had his door closed. You wanted him gone. Now. You needed the silence of the house without him in it. Keeping your tears at bay was impossible, but at least the drive was quiet. Bradley had his hand over his eyes, and his head was tipped back. You saw the way his Adam's apple worked against his neck as he swallowed hard, but you didn't say anything to ease his mind. If you had to feel bad, then so did he.

You made it to the docks in just a few minutes, and you were out of the car right away. You saw Bob and Nat on the dock, waving and waiting for the two of you, but you just couldn't go over there. You didn't want to see them or have to explain why the two of you were miserable.

As you turned to face your husband, you were shaking with tears, and so was he. There was just a foot of space between you, but you hesitated. And it was clear to him that you didn't know what to do. So he just stood there and wiped at his eyes, shaking his head.

"This is not how I wanted to leave things between us," he rasped, and you looked down at the ground. He was the one who kept telling you he wanted to talk, but you kept shutting him out.

When you opened your mouth to try to tell him that you still loved him, he held up his hand to stop you.

"You deserved more than what I gave you, okay?" he whispered, and your tears just came faster. "You deserved the world, and clearly I wasn't delivering on all of my promises. At the end of the day, if I'm the one responsible for all of your tears, then what fucking good am I as your husband?"

"Bradley," you croaked, sucking in a deep breath.

But he just kept going, even though whistles were blowing and his squadron was being called. "I love you so much. I'm always going to. And I'm sorry I'm leaving you like this. I should have tried harder, because you are everything."

Your heart was breaking as he wrapped one big hand around the back of your neck and kissed your forehead. You tried to say his name again, but nothing would come out except a wretched sounding sob. So you reached for him and kissed his lips softly. But then he was pulling away, and you felt bile in your throat.

"I love you." Your voice was so soft and broken, you weren't sure if he heard you. As he joined Nat and Bob, you cried next to your car, overwhelmed by the feeling of finality. You stayed until he boarded the carrier, but then you climbed behind the steering wheel again. You needed to go to work. You needed to go home and change first. When you tried to start the engine, your fingers fumbled the keys. After three tries you screamed and pounded on the steering wheel with your fists.

Your heart was broken, and now you had nothing to show for it except some bruised hands. But as you finally got the car started and headed home, you thought to yourself that at least your day couldn't get worse.

That was just wishful thinking on your part. As soon as you walked inside your bedroom with the intention of taking a hot shower, your eyes caught on something gold on Bradley's nightstand. He had left his wedding band. He never took it off. You couldn't recall a single time he had removed it since you slipped it on his finger last November.

It was cold to the touch when you picked it up. It was supposed to feel warm from being on his finger. You wanted to call him and demand an answer as to why he was going away on a deployment without his wedding band, but you were too scared to hear the answer. And as his words came flooding back, you climbed into bed with the ring held tight in your sore fist.

You deserved more than what I gave you.

Bradley deserved more, too.

----------------------------

Well. Now they are both on their own for two months. And I hurt my own feelings. Thanks to @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 10

@hotch-meeeeeuppppp

@swthxrry

@chassy21

@yaboid19

@solacestyles

@avoirlecoupdefoudre

@daisyhollyxox

@throwinsauce

@awesomebooklover17

@wintercap89

@whosyourgnomie4

@rosesinmars

@blog-name6996

@bcon24

@wishfulwithwine

@backinwonderl4nd

@tetragonia

@gingerbreadandpaper

@emptyloverofmine

@chaoticassidy

@missmirandafe

@changlingkhat

@sugarcoated-lame

@avada-kedavra-bitch-187

@katiebby04

@marantha

@averyhotchner

@abaker74

@heli991113

@k-k0129

@noz4a2

@tallyovie

@shanimallina87

@starlightstories

@teddyluvs2sing

@little-wiseone

@ccbb2222

@lilyevanswhore

@o-the-o-grim-o-reaper-o

@hecate-steps-on-me

@xoxabs88xox

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callsign-venus · 2 years ago

Text

I'll Be Home for Christmas | Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Reader

Description: With Bradley on deployment, you don't find the Christmas season as cheery as usual. The Daggers make it their mission to help you get into the holiday spirit. Cue intensely competitive gingerbread house decorating competition.

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: Fluff with a teeny dash of angst. Drinking. That’s pretty much it. Really just self-indulgent, friendship-heavy fluff with lots of pining. Enjoy x

Nat King Cole’s voice dances out of your record player has you put the finishing touches on your cranberry Aperol spritzes. Their cherry warm color makes you smile despite yourself.

You have always loved Christmas, but this year it hits you like a truck – and not even one with a tree strapped on top. All the little traditions that usually warm your heart with holiday cheer feel just plain sad to do alone. You had a tremendous battle with your artificial tree, which fell on you twice. You were proud of yourself for not crying, and in the end you were able to admire all of its eight feet of glory. Then you remembered you had to light the whole thing. Two hours later, you had undone no less than three tangles of light strands, found out two of them were dead (and all your untangling had been for nothing), and had one big cry fest for yourself. Not even a steaming cup of cocoa made you feel better after that disaster.

Wrapping presents for your friends and family, rewatching all your favorite Christmas movies, and driving around rich people neighborhoods to admire their lights hadn’t gone as poorly, but they all made his absence grow harder to ignore.

When Bradley told you his deployment would last through the holidays, you struggled to keep your disappointment to yourself, though you’re sure he could see it shining in your eyes. As much as you would miss him during the holidays, you knew it was worse for him, with only emails and skype calls for comfort – no silly little Christmas rituals to occupy his mind.

“You need help in here?” Natasha’s voice jolts you out of your pity-party spiral.

“No, I just got distracted,” you say, scooping up two of the spritzes and offering her one. “Let’s get this party started.”

Phoenix smiles and accepts your cocktail. She herself had just gotten back from her own deployment, and pretty immediately sensed your holiday ennui. She was the one who suggested this festive evening, and you’ve never been more grateful for her friendship.

While you were listless in the kitchen, she had assembled the most perfect gingerbread house making station you’d ever seen: frosting packed into several near-bursting bags, candy canes arranged in perfect rows, gumdrops with a shimmering dusting of sugar, and a scattering of gingerbread roofs and walls waiting patiently to be dressed.

“Wow, Nat, this looks great.”

“Thank you. I’m sure the boys will mess it up in three seconds flat, but at least you appreciate it.”

As if on cue, your front door bursts open, and a clot of merrily dressed sailors spills into your home, arms stacked with presents for Secret Santa. You point to the open space under the Christmas tree, and quickly your and Natasha’s presents are joined by all the others.

After the presents are unloaded, you and Phoenix are engulfed in hugs. Fanboy is wearing a Santa hat, and he has two in hand that he passes to you and Phoenix, insisting that you put them on right now. You happily oblige, as you’re inching closer to how you usually feel during the holidays now that you’re surrounded by friends. Even Jake is cheery, having rocked up in an ugly Christmas sweater covered with bows and tinsel, which is bizarre yet comforting. You do your best not to think about the person you wish was here most, as the Daggers seem dead set to help you have a great Christmas despite his absence.

“This is for you, our gracious host.” Bob hands you a potted poinsettia. “Thanks for putting up with us.”

“It’s really no problem,” you insist as you place the flowers on the side table by your couch. “I love you all.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “Still, we’re a lot, I know.”

He’s not wrong – Coyote and Payback have already found the spritzes and Fanboy’s popped three gumdrops into his mouth – but you don’t mind. Even when the gingerbread house decorating competition starts. Calling it a competition might be an understatement. The Daggers are more than competitive, especially about inconsequential things. Nobody speaks as they draft their houses in bright white icing and stud them with decorative candies. The only way to get them to quiet is through arts and crafts, you muse as you decorate your house with swirls of icing like snow drifts and tiny snowflakes dotting the roof and walls.

The sabotage begins early, when Hangman reaches for a bowl of peppermints and not-so-subtly brushes his hand over Phoenix's roof, smearing the frosting.

“Hey asshole,” Natasha says. “That’s my house.”

“Oh really? Looks like you got a little smear there.” Jake slides a finger across Phoenix’s carefully piped shingles, messing up her roof even more.

“You’re a dead man, Seresin.” Nat narrows her eyes. She won’t go for Jake’s gingerbread house, she’ll bide her time. You’re glad you’re not Hangman right now.

“Got anymore spritzes?” Coyote asks you.

You nod your head. “In the kitchen, help yourself.”

When Coyote gets up to refill his glass, Fanboy snatches his piping bag and swaps it for his almost empty one. While Fanboy’s distracted, Payback helps himself to the pile of Twizzlers Fanboy’s been hoarding since the beginning of the competition.

“Who is even going to judge these?” You ask almost absentmindedly as you stand a gingerbread couple together at the door of their house with copious amounts of frosting. “We all know whose house is whose.”

There’s a smattering of laughter.

“We’ll figure it out after Secret Santa,” Nat assures you as she completes the retiling of her roof, the eaves perfectly punctuated with peppermints.

Before you can question the logic of that solution, Bob asks for your opinion on colored versus strictly green and red gum drops.

“Hey, no helping the competition,” Fanboy complains.

“What?” You level a heavy gaze on him. “Scared you won’t win if Bob and I combine forces? I would be.”

“I’m just saying, this should be a fair contest,” he says.

You shrug him off and answer Bob, but in the spirit of sabotage, you neglect to tell him about the frosting dried on his cheek.

Even though you’re risking your gingerbread house’s safety, once you’ve finished, you slip into the hall. You refresh your inbox on your phone, and you smile as you see an email from Bradley.

Subject: Miss you

Hey pretty girl. Been missing you all day today. Wish I was there to hang stockings and give you the best mistletoe kiss the world’s ever seen. Don’t forget to hang it – you can leave it up until I get back. Don’t have a lot of time, but I just wanted to let you know that I love you and I can’t wait to come home to you.

Your heart flutters, as it always does when you get an email from him. You quickly type out a response.

Subject: Miss you more

Hey hot stuff. I’ve already hung the mistletoe and have no plans to take it down until you make me see stars under it. I miss doing holiday things with you (you really know how to wrangle the tree), but Nat especially has been helping me through it. Still, I really miss you. All I need is your arms around me and everything will feel right again. Can’t wait to see you again.

You press send and sigh. You never want to complain – it’s Bradley who had to live on an aircraft carrier for months at a time – but sometimes it feels so unfair for two people to be so in love and yet spend the holidays all alone.

You give yourself a moment to collect yourself before you go back to the increasingly hostile competition. Jake has icing in his hair – you know Phoenix is responsible, but her wrath won’t end there – and Payback’s house had a giant fist-sized crater in the roof. Surely unrelated, Coyote’s knuckles are dusted with gingerbread crumbs. You couldn’t help the smile the chaotic scene pulled from you. Especially since your gingerbread house remains in pristine condition.

You thank Nat for watching over it, and she responds with a bright smile. “No problem, I can’t have the boys messing up your Christmas celebration.”

“Hey!” All the boys except Bob protest in unison. Phoenix raises her brows, point proven.

Once all of the gingerbread houses are complete and aligned in a row like a candied neighborhood block, the party shifts toward the Christmas tree. Bob distributes presents to each of you. Yours is an envelope, and you know it is from Nat. Your name is written on the thick, cream paper in Nat’s graceful script, which you know like your own after years of friendship.

“No one can beat my present,” Nat boasts as she catches you studying the envelope.

“Oh we’ll see,” Coyote says.

You swallow down a little lump, seeing everyone around the tree without Rooster. Though you love and appreciate your friends, the emptiness of his presence is almost smothering.

Your mood warms when Jake volunteers to go first. You’re his Secret Santa, and just as you predicted, he loves the smartphone-controlled paper airplane you got for him. He opens it and has it folded in a matter of seconds. He syncs it to his phone, and his first flight ends with the plane crashing into Coyote’s head.

“Durable.” Hangman remarks as he picks up the paper airplane, which holds its shape just fine.

“Asshole.” Coyote replies.

Payback is next, and he gets a bottle of scotch from Jake. You don’t know much about scotch, but from Payback’s reaction, you can tell it’s a really nice bottle.

Coyote gets Bob a navy Aran sweater, which Bob wastes no time throwing on.

“Feel how soft!” Bob says as he smothers Coyote in a hug. Cue three minutes of Bob inviting everyone to touch his sweater – you can’t blame him, though, it is really soft.

Bob’s gift to Coyote makes you wonder how Nat is going to top it. Bob made a crochet version of Taffy, Coyote’s miniature pinscher.

“Thank you, I love it.” Coyote cradles the crocheted dog tight, and you wonder if you’re just imagining the tremble in his voice or if he’s actually about to cry.

“Come on Javy,” Jake says, “don’t go all soft now.”

Fanboy gets a countertop pizza oven from Payback, which instantly becomes one of his most prized possessions based on the sheer amount of pizza he consumes.

“Thanks, man.” He gives Payback a friendly punch on the arm. “You all have to come over for pizza night.”

You all hum in agreement. Fanboy’s pizzas are amazing, and you wouldn’t mind spending another night with everyone together. Well, almost everyone. You swallow down the lump in your throat.

Phoenix opens her gift from Fanboy slowly, as if she’s afraid of its contents. She peels back the shiny green paper to reveal a charcuterie board and a set of cheese knives with wooden handles that match the board. She hugs it close to her chest and mouths thank you across the room to Fanboy, who doesn’t notice because he’s reading the pizza recipe included with his oven.

Finally it is your turn. All eyes in the room land on you, strangely sober despite the freely flowing spritzes. You give Phoenix a quick glance as you slide a finger under the flap of the envelope, but her expression is unreadable.

“It's a…” you say as your fingers graze a satiny band of fabric. “Blindfold?”

You hold it up for everyone to see. Everyone’s expressions are carefully arranged to not convey anything. Not quite the laughter you were expecting. A sense of uneasiness blooms in your stomach.

Nat stands up and takes the blindfold out of your hands. Quicker than you can think, she’s tying it around your head.

“What is going on?” You ask.

She finishes the bow and pats your shoulder. “Just you wait.”

A few suppressed snickers fill the room and make your uneasiness melt into dread. The gentle shush of a door opening and closing makes it worse.

“I swear, if you guys are ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas-ing’ me right now I will be so angry.”

The silence that falls after you speak is so, so loud. No one turned the record, so even Nat King Cole is quiet. But then you hear it. It’s hard to explain, but you’d know that breathing anywhere. You’d spent many nights falling asleep to that gentle lullaby or hearing it as he held you close in the kitchen, neither of you caring that dinner was burning on the stove.

You rip off the blindfold, and there he is. Bradley. Bradley. Standing next to your Christmas tree, a bow tied around his chest. The Daggers surround him like magician’s assistants, all their hands raised in a sort of ta-da manner.

You leap off the couch and into his waiting arms. He smells like an aircraft carrier and shitty coffee, his clothes rough and government-issued, and his hair cropped a little too close to his head than you know he likes – but he’s yours. He’s yours in the way his embrace consumes you, blurring the line between you and him, erasing the months and miles of distance between the two of you. He’s yours in the way the beat of his heart drums in rhythm with your own. Yours in the way that you are his as well. He lifts you up so your feet dance in the air, pressing kisses to the top of your head.

He sets you down and crashes his lips into yours. He slips his tongue into your mouth unabashedly, and despite your audience, you let him. The kiss is long enough that you start to feel bad for everyone else, so you sheepishly pull away.

“Goddamn, Rooster,” Hangman says, “let the girl breathe.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He waves the comment away.

But you don’t want to breathe. Not if your other option is to kiss Bradley until you’re both oxygen starved. Because you’re starved for him, need to feed on his presence.

Then the realization sets in. Rooster is supposed to be deployed for another month. You wheel around to face Nat. “How the hell did you do this?”

She shrugs. “Loverboy emailed me last week, just after I got home from my deployment. Said he was coming home earlier than expected, and he wanted to surprise you.”

“Wait, so all of you knew?” You pointedly look at everyone, but nobody can quite keep eye contact with you.

Bradley wraps an arm around your waist. “They all did pretty good keeping it under wraps, huh?”

“I would hope so, given our clearance levels,” Jake says.

Everyone laughs, but you’re still reeling. You can’t believe Bradley is here. His calloused fingers rubbing the skin of your back, just under the hem of your shirt. His gentle laugh reverberating against your body, reminding you what wholeness feels like. His lips, slightly chapped (with none of your chapstick to steal on the carrier), murmuring into your hair. You can’t hear what he’s saying, but you know what he means nonetheless.

You’d imagined Bradley’s homecoming as a flurry of ripped clothes, bruising kisses, and mutual insatiable hunger, but this is better. All of your friends in the same room, sharing in this festive homecoming, looking like absolute dorks. Fanboy’s Santa hat sits askew on his head. Payback and Coyote are obviously drunk off their asses (they definitely pregamed the festivities, as Payback has been reduced to giggles and Coyote has actual tears streaming down his face). Jake has yet to realize the frosting in his hair, Bob the frosting on his face. And Natasha is a dork by association. You and Bradley too. But the overwhelming love in the room makes you want to sob happy tears.

Bradley happily indulges you all in judging the gingerbread houses. He gets down to eye level with each entry, runs his fingers along the roofs, occasionally snaps off a piece of candy and pops it in his mouth.

“Very good job, everyone.” He speaks to the group as if you’re all kindergartners, reveling in the building anticipation. There’s never a prize for Dagger competitions, but there doesn’t need to be. Bragging rights is all they need, no matter how menial the situation.

Bradley carefully reshuffles the houses in order from last to first place. Fanbody. Jake. Payback. Coyote. Nat. He purposefully shields first and second place. Only you and Bob are left – maybe the least competitive people in the room – and still, tension is thick in the air.

“And the winner…” Bradley’s voice booms like an old-fashioned gameshow host, “...is…”

He finally slides to the side to reveal your house sitting in first place.

Bob sticks his hand up for a high five. Your hands collide with a solid thunk.

“Not fair,” Fanboy protests. “Rooster’s obviously biased.”

“Come on, he didn’t know whose house was whose,” Phoenix says. “Besides, you weren’t even in the top five, and Payback had a hole in his roof.”

“It’s ok, Nat,” you voice oozes with fake sympathy. “I’d be upset too if I spent so much time on a shit gingerbread house.”

Fanboy’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh you want to play that game?”

He lunges around the table, and you immediately grab Bradley to use as a human shield.

“Lots of talk from someone who’s gonna hide behind her boyfriend,” he says teasingly.

“I’m not hiding.” You tighten your grip on Bradley’s waist, his hands covering yours. “You can get to me, you’re just gonna have to get through him first.”

Bradley puffs out his chest. “Nobody disparages the gingerbread contest queen. She earned her title by being the best.”

Later, because he can’t keep a secret from you (the only thing that saved the Secret Santa surprise was only being able to communicate through email), Bradley confesses that he knew which house was yours the moment he saw it. But still, that one little detail doesn’t negate the fact that you are the gingerbread contest queen.

And Bradley defends your honor well as you maneuver him from behind to keep a distance between yourself and Fanboy. Eventually, Bob steps in to broker a peace deal to end the conflict. Somehow, you are roped in for bringing more spritzes to Fanboy’s pizza night, but he can no longer dispute the fact that you have the best gingerbread house. A win is a win, and your gloating privileges remain.

Later, when everyone is winding down and glancing at their coats hanging by the door, Bradley pulls you into the kitchen.

“Honey, I think our guests are about to leave.” You try to move back toward the living room, but Bradley keeps hold of your hand. “Please, let’s not be rude.”

He shakes his head. “They’ll understand. They know. They know exactly what it's like.”

You relent because he’s right. Even you don’t know what it’s like. Loneliness has been a long lingering companion of yours, but you suffer her presence at home surrounded by close comforts and your parents a short drive away. For Bradley, for Nat, for Jake, for Bob and all the rest, it’s different. It’s their job. They suffer loneliness with mostly long shifts and shitty food for company.

So you let Bradley chase out his – and your – loneliness in the kitchen. As he pulls you ever closer, his palms flattening you against him, you wonder how you ever survived apart when it was so clear that your souls were really just one.

You break away panting. God knows how long you were indulging, but you just about jump out of your skin when you realize Phoenix is in the kitchen right behind you, pouring herself a glass of champagne.

Your cheeks warm. “Nat!”

“Sorry, didn’t bother me, so I didn’t want to bother you.” She shrugs. “Want a glass?”

You decline, and you and Bradley shuffle out of the kitchen like teenagers caught in the act. Nearly everyone is shrugging their coats on, chatting about the night, when they catch sight of the two of you.

“Now, just where in the hell did y’all run off to?” Jake prods.

You can’t even look at them.

“Just the kitchen,” Rooster says, locking his hand in yours. “Needed to make sure the champagne was still flowing.”

Everyone shares the same knowing look that makes you want to shove them all out the door. Instead, you and Bradley post up at the door like perfect hosts and thank everyone for coming as they slip into the surprisingly chilly night. Then, only you, Bradley, and Phoenix are left.

While everyone was saying their goodbyes, she was sipping her champagne and quietly wiping sugar, gingerbread crumbs, and crusted frosting off the dining table.

“You bitch,” you say as you swoop in to help her clean up. “How come you didn’t tell me as soon as you found out?”

She laughs and takes another sip of wine. “Why don’t you ask Rooster?”

You raise your eyebrows at him. He sheepishly grins.

“In my defense,” he says, “it was a really good surprise.”

“I can’t believe you two.” You laugh. “But thank you for the surprise. It was wonderful.”

You try to direct your gratitude to them both, but something in Rooster’s expression snags your gaze and won’t let go. There’s still an unsatiated hunger heavy in his eyes.

Nat sets down her now empty glass. “Alright, lovebirds, I’ll take that as my cue to leave.”

She gathers her things, and you walk her to the door.

“Thank you.” You give her a hug. Neither of you are super touchy, but your gratitude for her tonight is almost endless. “Thank you for everything.”

“Don’t mention it.” She squeezes you tight before letting go. “Goodnight, Rooster!”

“Goodnight!” He calls from somewhere deep in the house.

“Sounds like he’s waiting for you,” she winks. “See you soon.”

“Get home safe!”

And with that, it’s just the two of you. You expect Bradley to pounce the second the door closes, but he doesn’t appear as you linger by the doorway. Odd. You check the kitchen, living room, and dining room. All empty.

“Bradley?” You call.

“Right here.”

His response floats from down the hallway, from your bedroom.

And sure enough, there he stands in the doorway. Right under the mistletoe you hung up earlier in the week, the biggest grin on your face when you pictured his homecoming some time after New Years, all the Christmas decorations gone except the lonely mistletoe, waiting patiently for his arrival. But now, you can put the mistletoe to good use while Christmas is still bright on the horizon. The warmth of the season bleeds into the warmth of your kiss. Christmas will come as surely as it would have if Bradley was on deployment, but now you welcome it. You want lazy days sipping eggnog and baking cookies. You want late, festive nights at the Hard Deck with the Daggers, getting into pool competitions with Bradley as your loyal teammate despite how disastrous you are at pool, assured in his easy we-lose-together attitude. You want a Christmas morning with presents that don’t matter because the best gift you could ask for has already appeared right by your tree tonight, wrapped in a bow.

“Don’t leave me ever again,” you whisper against his chest.

“I won’t,” he says, “I won’t.”

You both know it’s not something you can ask of him, not a promise he can keep. It’s not fair to either of you to pretend like this will be his last homecoming, the last time you both are starved of each other for months. But right now, it feels good to pretend.

You can’t think long about his future deployments, however. Your worries melt away as Bradley makes good on his promise to give you the best mistletoe kiss the world’s ever seen.

#bradley bradshaw x reader #rooster x reader #bradley bradshaw fanfiction #bradley rooster bradshaw #top gun maverick fanfiction #rooster fluff #bradley bradshaw fluff

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topgun-imagines · 2 years ago

Note

Happy anniversary!!! Really looking forward to your future writing! :)

🍓 + Jake

Thank you Lovely!! :)

Never Forgive You Jake Seresin x Female!Reader | Your trust and love for Jake is not enough sometimes. warnings: cheating, angst, fighting, pregnancy, heartbreak. @topguncortez

The Final Sunset Jake Seresin x Wife!Reader | Jake takes you to feel the sun on your skin one last time. warnings: death, sadness, cancer, grief. @topguncortez

Squirt Jake Seresin x Female!Reader | Jake is determined to make you feel things like you've never felt before. warnings: unprotected sex, daddy kink. @topguncortez

In The Night Jake Seresin x Wife!Reader | Jake helps you live out one of your sexual fantasies. warnings: CNC, usage of sleeping pills (melatonin), talks of safe words, vaginal fingering, oral sex (F) receiving. @topguncortez

Floydsin As Dad's Jake Seresin x Bob Floyd | warnings: pregnancy, mentions of needles, mentions of vomiting, mentions of failed adoptions, labor. @topguncortez

Undiagnosed Katie Blair grew up trying to be the perfect daughter. She always struggled to be the prim and proper little girl her parents wanted. Big personality as a kid, but now at 25, she's the shy admiral's daughter who just keeps her head down and tries to get through law school. So what happens when she's had enough and with help from a certain Lieutenant, she gets out. General Warnings: Angst, smut, asshole parents, trauma response, Jake is a jerk at first. @callsign-magnolia

You Might Want To Step Aside two times your boyfriend and twin brother had to stand up for you, and the one time you shocked them by doing it yourself. warnings: anxiety, shy reader, protective Hangman, protective Bob, insecure reader, self doubt. @awaywith-thefaeries

Roughing It Jake Seresin begged you, his best friend to go camping with him and Bradley Bradshaw—but not for the innocent reasons you might think. A simple camping trip turns into something much more unholy. Callsign— Giggles Warnings: Jake Seresin x F!Reader. Bradley Bradshaw x F!Reader. Unprotected sex. Male receiving oral. Choking. MxMxF Threesome. Creampie. Obvious power dynamics. @ohtobeleah

Always A Bridesmaid Bradley tells all the guys at his wedding that his little sister is off limits… But when has Jake ever listened to Rooster? Warnings: a teeny bit of angst, mentions of alcohol, drinking, smut, oral (m + f receiving), unprotected pinv, slight overstimulation, age gap (not really specified but reader is around 23-24 yrs old, jake is in his early 30s), jake being too damn charming for his own good, rooster being a very overprotective big brother, jake being a menace, and natasha being the best sister-in-law, for the sake of this story we’re gonna pretend that Goose died a few years later than what is canon to explain how Bradley has a sister that’s 10+ years younger than him lol @sugarcoated-lame

Middle Of A Memory Jake Seresin was an asshole, everyone knew it. He flew with confidence and held a cocky smirk. Behind every cocky smirk and snark remark was you, built into his memories, memories he always lived in. Warnings: 18+,mentions of alcohol, mentions of flying accidents, mentions of death, swearing, angst and of course fluff. @sunnysidevans

Who Did This To You? In your most vulnerable hour, Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin is the one to find you, and the one to ask you the ultimate question. “Who did this to you?” Warnings: Mentions of Abuse and DV (NOT committed by Jake), nongraphic description of resulting injuries, a very one-sided bar fight, mention that a character is going to therapy, insults and confrontation by a past abuser. (This story is a who did this to you trope. While it is only dealing with the 'who did this to you’ aftermath of what was done, please keep that in mind.) @justfandomwritings

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mrsroosterbradshaw · 1 year ago

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travelin’ soldier

bartender!reader x bradley bradshaw

summary: in which bradley is about to get deployed and walks into the hard deck and strikes a conversation with a pretty bartender. she keeps him company whilst he is deployed.

a/n: dw i know this isn’t geographically accurate but please bear with me 🫶

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

It was just another regular shift bartending at the Texas Tavern in Huston, Texas for Ellie Lynch. She had to restock the bar, wipe the counters, mix drinks for customers, and repeat the process over and over again. She was wiping down the counter when she heard the bell ding, signaling someone had just walked in. A tall, muscular man with the best looking mustache and sandy curly hair that Ellie had ever seen before caught her eye as he walked through the front door and sat right in front of Ellie at the bar.

“Welcome into the Hard Deck!!” She greeted him with a sweet southern drawl that sounded like music to Bradley’s ears and an innocent, welcoming smile in which he returned. “What can I get for you today, sir?”

“Hi.” Bradley said. Ellie could tell he was shy and he had a hint of sadness lingering behind his eyes. “Could I just get a coors light, please?”

“Of course.” Ellie responded and gave him a smile.

Ellie grabbed a cold coors light from the fridge, popped the bottle cap off, and set the bottle in front of Bradley. “Here you go, sir.” She said softly, looking into Bradley’s big, brown eyes.

“Thank you, darling. I have an odd question, but would you mind sitting down for a while and talking to me, I’m feeling a little low.” He asked the blonde behind the counter.

Ellie gave him a sympathetic smile and relied with, “Of course. I’m off in an hour and I know where we can go.”

“Thank you.” Bradley replied before taking a swig of his beer. “I’m Bradley Bradshaw by the way. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Eleanor Lynch, but my friends call me Ellie. The pleasure is all mine Mr. Bradshaw.” She said to him. “So what brought a fellow like you to Huston?”

“I’m a naval aviator. I’m stationed here for the next few days.” Bradley explained. They talked until her shift was over an hour later.

After Ellie grabbed all of her things, she and Bradley walked down to the pier and sat along the side. “Thank you for agreeing to talk to a complete stranger and I bet you got a boyfriend, but I don’t care. I’m going to be deployed in a few days and I got no one to send a letter to. Would you mind if I send one back here to you?” Bradley asked shyly.

“Of course Bradley. I would love that.” She relied and grabbed his hand, interlocking their fingers.

After talking for a few hours, Ellie bid Bradley goodnight and went home. When she got home, she called her mom to tell her all about the handsome soldier she met while working. Her mom picked up the phone and all she had to say to Ellie was, “Eleanor, I think you are too young for him and far too young to be waitin’ for the love of a travelin’ soldier.”

The next few days, Ellie and Bradley got to know each other really well. But, alas, the day of Bradley’s deployment came. She drove him to the base and hugged him goodbye. They promised to write to each other and Ellie kept that promise.

So the letters came from a naval base in California then Vietnam and Bradley told Ellie of his feelings and how it might be love, and all the things that he was so scared of.

Ellie found herself checking her mailbox twice a day, waiting for a letter from Bradley. On one particular Saturday, she checked her mailbox, not expecting to find anything since his last letter was from weeks ago, but she found a letter from Vietnam and knew it was from her Bradley.

She opened the envelope and grew teary eyed from what Bradley wrote, “My dear Ellie, I spend every day thinking about you and how I was so lucky to have ran into you before I left for this deployment. I’ve never felt this way before or towards anyone and I’m scared that it might be love. I’m so scared of love while being in the navy because of my parents. My mom and dad were so in love and then one day my dad passed away in an plane ejecting accident and I vowed to never make any woman feel the way my mom felt after my dad passed if I died. That was until I met you. I’m confessing this to you because it’s getting kinda rough over here and I think of that day of us sitting on the pier and I close my eyes and see your pretty smile. Don’t worry, but I won’t be able to write for a while. I’m not saying anything will happen, but just in case I had to confess that to you. I love you Eleanor Lynch. With all my heart and that scares me. I have to go, please continue writing to me even though I won’t be able to write back. Sincerely, your Bradley.”

Ellie cried that night. She cried because she missed Bradley and was worried about his safety. She just wanted her Bradley back.

A week had passed since she got the letter and everything felt as though it was back to normal. Well other than the fact Ellie was crying herself to sleep every night. Ellie was working with her coworker, Dusty, on a slow Tuesday with the news playing softly on the tv behind her. She was minding her business while pouring drinks when the news caught her attention.

The news headline was ‘local veterans in Vietnam found dead’. Ellie gasped lightly, dropped the glass she was holding, and gripped the bar to help her regain her balance. “Ellie are you alright?” Dusty asked, but Ellie didn’t hear him with the loud ringing in her ears. She had to get out of there. Her mind was running a million miles per second with thoughts like ‘what if they are talking about Bradley’ and ‘I hope it’s not my Bradley’. Her vision blurred as she tried to get around Dusty. When Dusty’s arms grabbed Ellie, she collapsed and began sobbing. Dusty was confused on what was happening but then he heard the news and it all clicked.

Ellie had been talking about Bradley nonstop at work, gushing about something romantic he said in his letters or the way he always addressed her as ‘his Ellie’. Dusty could tell they were head over heels for each other.

Dusty held Ellie as she broke down and drove her home. Ellie was devastated. She wasn’t eating or had any motivation to do anything. This went on for a week and Dusty and Ellie’s family were worried about her. One evening she was tucked into her bed, like she had been since noon, and cried at the thought of how Bradley said he loved her and how she will never be able to say it back.

Until she heard the doorbell ring.

Ellie was so confused on who could be at her door at this time of evening. She wiped her tears and walked to the front door. As she approached it, all she could think about was how she desperately wanted it to be Bradley behind the door, but in her mind, it was impossible because he was dead.

Ellie slowly opened her door to reveal a very much alive Bradley Bradshaw. All Ellie could do was stare at him. Was she dreaming? Was this some kind of sick joke?

“Hi Ellie.” Bradley rasped.

Before Ellie’s mind could even comprehend what she was doing, she jumped onto Bradley and sobbed into his neck. Bradley dropped his large duffle bag on the porch and caught her and with one hand on her back and the other one on her head, clung to her like he was a kid and someone was threatening to take away his favorite teddy bear. They stayed like that for a while before Bradley spoke up, “Ellie, please look at me.”

Ellie shook her head. “No, I don’t know if this is real or I’m dreaming. And if I’m dreaming I don’t ever want to wake up.” Ellie replied.

“Ellie. You aren’t dreaming. I’m back.” He said with a smile.

Ellie finally allowed him to put her down and she stepped back, finally looking at him. He looked more muscular, if that was even possible, and had slight beard stubble. But in the end, it was still her Bradley standing in front of her.

“Bradley, I thought you died.” She said, looking him straight in the eyes while hers were tearing up. “I was so sad. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Well I’m here now. And I won’t ever leave you. I would have written to you but after the mission, the admiral wanted us to be shipped back as soon as possible. I’m so sorry I made you worry. That was never my intention and I never want to put you through that again. All I could think about was you during my time over there. I would talk about you every chance I got and I kept all of your letters-” Bradley ranted.

“Bradley, shut up” Ellie cut him off. Did he hear her right?

“Wha- What?” He nervously stuttered. “What do you mean shut up-” Ellie cut off Bradley with a kiss. Time seemed to stand still as they shared their first kiss, a moment filled with innocence, sweetness, and the promise of young love. The world around them faded away, leaving only the sound of their hearts beating in unison.

“Bradley, I love you too.” Ellie said after breaking the kiss. “I was so scared I wouldn’t be able to tell you those four words in person.”

“Oh thank God.” Bradley replied. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I love you so much, Eleanor Lynch.”

“I love you so much too, Bradley Bradshaw.” Ellie replied before kissing him again. “And by the way, I kept all your letters too.”

#bradley bradshaw x oc #bradley rooster bradshaw #deployment #us navy #top gun maverick #bradley bradshaw x pilot!reader #viral #fanfic #bradley bradshaw fic #bradley bradshaw x female reader #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw imagine #bradley rooster bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw x mitchell!reader #Spotify

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missmarveledsblog · 9 months ago

Text

Bet on it ( Bradley Bradshaw x Reader) part 10

summary : nat and unexpectedly her dad show up to an emergency girls night at she tries to figure out her feeling for bradley will she let herself give him that one chance or will she let the past keeping her from the man she loves ?

warnings : fluffy , feeling a little angst but not much honestly blink and miss it , not proofread soz , last part of the series

previous part

Barely half an hour later since she hung up the phone she heard the doorbell knowing and expecting who it was what she didn’t expect when she was her dad to be there too .

“I needed a lift and he could help “ nat shrugged walking in ,

“ i can leave if you want “ pete stood looking confused.

“ no come on you could actually be of some use” she headed into the living room to see nat pouring out three glasses of wine .

“ just water for me “ Mav shook her head .

“ i think i’m still in love with rooster” she finally blurted out .

“Actually wine is fine .. anything stronger?” he looked to the equally shock female pilot .

“ if i had stronger i would of drank it now” she huffed sinking into the sofa .

“Welcome to girls night captain , buckle up “ nat handed him the glass patting his shoulder.

“ honestly it’s not to late i can leave you both you it “ he grimace and slightly scared to what girls night would entail .

“ no wait with you track record could scare some sense into me “ y/n sat up straighter .

“ it’s not that bad “ he defended .

“ penny on and off since before the 80’s , my mom , don’t even get me started on the ones in between i mean out of those shit shows i only like karen did you know she’s married to a woman now” y/n looked up as nat choked on her wine.

“ oh we are so getting into that one … did you know she was gay or did you mess her up that bad she was like fuck men “ nat excited asked .

“ so you think you love bradley “ Pete sat looking to her ignoring the female pilots gaze on him .

“ i don’t know .. i know, i haven’t stopped and now i don’t know what to do “ she down the glass ready to pour another.

“ is it such a bad thing ?”

“ i don’t know i mean our track record tells me run , plus i don’t want to get hurt again or ruin a friendship we built up over last while “ she poured the wine out into her glass her head been a mess before this but this tipped it over made things even more messy.

“ what if it doesn’t end bad , i mean as your father i should be saying run and beat him up trust me sometimes i still do want too but then i see how hurt both of you were and i’ll be the first to say i never doubt his feeling for you even when the whole mess happened” pete told her word filled with honesty and slightly getting emersed into the whole girls night thing.

“ Mav dad is right , even now he get into sad binges of romcoms and ice cream .. dont tell him i told you that . plus third time could be the charm, he’s been on what maybe three or four dates since you guys broke up and none ended in anything not even a kiss doesn't that tell you something”

“ well he’s getting countless offer of head and god knows what since that video “ she grumbled . “ sorry dad … wine “ she winced as he nodded.

“ turns them down .. jake told me . speaking off the video everyone thinks you guys are made for each other people are lip syncing it with their partners and down even get me started with the comments “ nat laughed .

“ bradley mentioned the comments too “ she said pulling her phone out going to the original video going straight to the comments holding her breathe not knowing what to expect . someone where nice compliment their voices together then her cheeks headed at what some would comment on him , her or both together as she looked up at nat.

“ thirsty as fuck right ?” she snorted .

Nodding she read further not even looking in the direction of her father then she saw them the ones that made her breathing stop and her heart swell in her chest .

“ if my future husband looked at me the way he looks at her i’ll know he’s the one …. They were made for each other .. i want what they have” she read them out word catching in her throats ready stories of people witnessing their grand parents and parent looking at each other like that still do this day .. a real kind of love. Clicking out of she hit play on the video tears falling down her face as bradley ‘s raspy melody filled voice filled her ears the way he looked at her as she was approaching him singing along . both lost in the song she remember it like yesterday how it felt like it was only them two in the room and nothing mattered not the past or the future just them in that moment singing a song like it was written for just the both of them .

“ i really fucking love him “ she sobbed hiccuping as she drank more of her wine .

“ so what are you gonna do about it because we both know that boy isn’t going to ruin any chance you give him” pete smiled brightly.

“ i’m going to tell him when he gets back in person i’m going to tell bradley bradshaw i love him so much it hurt more not having him “ she stood raising her glass as the chuckled sensing she was bit tipsy but she meant what she said.

“ great can’t wait … so you turned a woman gay “ nat smirked as both girls turned to the man .

“ i’m gonna need more wine “ he grimaced as they giggled.

He was excited , nervous and everything all the above and in between . he could feel it every time they talked the flirtatious back and forth written in the words or on the calls even the care packages felt different . maybe it was wishful thinking but shit he hope it was true that she was finally giving him a chance but in all the happiness and fear of it all he knew he had to tell her . maybe risking a friendship and destroying what was just rebuilt but he had to know if he had even a sliver of hope being hers again . he spent the last two months thinking of how he would do it , would he show up at her house boombox outside her bedroom window … no too cheesy, he could make a declaration in the hard deck… no that didn’t end great last time . He could take one of the jets and get the dagger squad to spell it out on the sand on the beach … no he couldn’t since they deployed Mav to bosnia for doing something like that .

“ hey chicken we’re docking soon hurry up “ jake called the blonde had a stupid smile on his face all morning, maybe he was just excited to get home on land.

Part of him was sad knowing no one would be waiting , hearing some of the guys saying their girls would be there made him slightly jealous but if all went well if someone was watching over him maybe his next deployment would be different. Now he was more concerned getting off this ship so he could shower and go straight to her , ready to bare his whole heart and pray it didn’t get broken. He was ready to face his scariest mission to date .

She was scared shitless , checking her make up and hair in the mirror of the bronco , smoothing out her dress hoping it wasn’t too much or too little . three month of waiting to see her friend and now two month ready to give her heart to the man she always been in love with since she could remember . giving their past she was terrified , logic told her to run but logic also told her it might be different this time , this time it was of their own accord no bets or stupidness . everyone words of how real his feelings where told her that third time might actually be the charm . looking out at the crowd , family members , loved ones waiting for their loved ones to return , kids anxiously waiting for their siblings , family member or parent to come home a feeling she could relate to giving she was like those very kids probably too often given who her father was. The cheering snapped her out of her thoughts as the ship began docking a nod from nat as she ran through the crowd to do her part of the part .

He barely had time to enjoy the feeling of standing on the dock til he felt nats hug to him and hangman then next thing he know she was pulling him like a hound out of hell through sea of people . he was yelling sorry at the people he nearly knocked down which honestly was a lot .

“ will you slow down “ he yelled .

“ No can do bradshaw , you can thank me later or tomorrow depending on how good this goes “ she called back laughing a he looked back to see hangman shaking his head joining in one pulling while the other pushed til she stopped dead in her tracks and jake pushing him forward making him stumble and halt wide eyed as he looked down in shock at what was like an angel before him , last person he expected to be there .

She didn’t say anything , the words she practice in the comfort of the mirror suddenly gone from her head , words on tip of her tongue and staying their so instead she launched herself into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist while crashing her lips to his .

No thought or hesitation came to mind as he dropped his bag catching her in his arms and kissing her back fuck if this was a dream he was never waking up . her hold and his own tightened , both pulling the other tighter , closer melting into the embrace.

“ we guess we’ll see you both later “ nat cackled as she called.

“ or next week … that that back behind closed door kids here “ jake snorted only for it to be followed by an oww.

Pulling back both breathless , forehead resting against each other , eye telling him what her words couldn’t .

“ took words right out of my mouth honey “ he chuckled kissing her lips then peppering her face in kisses .

“ i love you . i can stop even when i shouldn’t i still do so god help me bradshaw if you hurt me again i will have you hog tied and thrown into shark infested waters “ she smiled holding his face in her hands taking him in like it was first time .

“ honey i’ve been in love with you for so goddam long no way in hell i messing this chance up again i’ll feed my self to the sharks” he kissed her again like he couldn’t stop once he start once he was allowed to . “ shark infested water and hog tie has bob and nat written all over it “ he laughed shook his head laugh barely able take his eyes off her only till he pulled the handle he realized his bronco was there .

“ they will do it don’t underestimate bob “ she winked .

“ so you love me still “ he asked as she nodded . “ does this mean i have my girl back … like this is real “ he asked .

“You bet your ass it real..roo?” she smirked.

“ that’s me honey “ he kissed her cheeks, jaw , neck and any part of her skin he could put his lips .

“ bring me home or lose me forever “ she pulled his face to her .

“ show me the way home , honey “

a.n : thank you so much for reading this series and sticking it through it was so much fun to writing it and get the positive reaction from you all so thank you all and hope you enjoy future fics <3

taglist : @peachmartini @shanimallina87 @kawaiiskeletondragonbanana @paisleebubbles @emosrkool

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marie-swriting · 2 years ago

Text

What If - Jake "Hangman" Seresin

Top Gun Maverick Masterlist

Summary : After having an accident, Jake wants to live in the moment even more and take your relationship a step forward, but do you ?

Warnings : Bradshaw!Reader (Reader is Bradley's younger sister by two years), mention of plane accident, mention of deaths (parents and best friend), fear of losing loved ones, proposal, angst, sad ending, implied struggling with mental health, maybe some grammatical mistakes as English is not my first language, tell me if you see some or if I missed any warnings.

Word count : 4.6k

French version

Song inspiration : Champagne Problems by Taylor Swift

You run in the hospital hallways, searching for room 322. Your anxiety increases with every step you take. Your destination seems unreachable. Your eyes are filled with tears but you hold them back. However, the second you walk through the door 322, they run free on your cheeks. Seeing Jake’s body laying down on the bed, hurt, doesn’t help to reduce your stress. Hearing you walking in the room, Jake gives you a big smile as if he didn’t almost die the day before. You get closer to him, examining him a bit more while wiping your cheeks. His left arm is in a sling, his head is bandaged and he has several cuts on his face.

“So, I heard you like bad boys,” Jake starts with a cocky smile, “is this good enough for you?”

“Jake, this is not the time to make jokes. You could have died!” you retort, sitting on the chair next to his bed.

“And I didn’t. I’m here and alive.”

“And hurt.”

“The fact is I’m alive. Thanks to your brother.” he specifies, showing Bradley with his chin.

“At least, we now know who is the best pilot.” your brother jokes.

“In your dreams, Rooster, I just wanted to test your ability to react quickly.”

“You’ll do your pissing contest later, tell me how you’re feeling.” you ask, still panicked.

“I’m fine. I almost don’t feel anything thanks to the meds. Y/N, I am fine, really.” Jake promises you, taking your hand with his right one.

“I’m gonna leave you alone.” Bradley informs you by pressing your shoulder. “Get some rest, Hangman.”

“I’m sorry for worrying you.” Jake says once you’re alone.

“Trust me, it’s not just worrying. I really thought… For a moment, I was sure…” you stutter, a tear rolling down your cheek again.

“I know, I’m sorry. Come here.” he invites you, moving in the best way so you can lie down.

“No, I might hurt you.”

“I don’t care.”

Reluctantly, you get closer to the bed. You think of the best way you could get in bed without hurting him. Jake rolls his eyes before dragging you towards him with his abled arm. You find yourself next to him and you put your head in the crook of his neck, inhaling his natural scent and the hospital.

“Don’t ever do that again. I can’t lose you.” you mutter.

“You won’t lose me. I promise.” Jake affirms, forcing you to look at him. “I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you, Jake.”

You give a small smile then you press your lips against Jake’s. Your kiss isn’t as passionate as it could be, yet it shares all the love you feel.

Once the night comes, you refuse to leave Jake. You literally beg the nurses to let you stay the night. At first, they insist on you leaving, nonetheless when you explain how scared you were to lose your boyfriend and how you can only stay in San Francisco for two days due to your job, they accept. Therefore, you’re currently on the chair in the corner of the room with a thin blanket. Jake wanted you to stay with him on the bed but you said you wouldn’t, you are afraid you might hurt him while sleeping. Your unimportant argument lasted thirty minutes but you stood your ground until the end.

Tired because of his medicines, Jake fell asleep in a few minutes. As for you, you stay awake, watching his chest rise and fall at the rhythm of his breaths. You don’t dare to look away, fearing that by doing so, he might stop respiring.

Notwithstanding, with the hours passing by and with all the emotion you felt, Morpheus comes to embrace you in his arms. At first, your sleep is relaxing though as soon as you start dreaming, your breathing quickens. You see Jake lying on the ground unconscious, you hear your own heart-rending scream when Bradley tells you about an accident, you smell the rain while the coffin sinks in the ground, you touch the tears on your fingers whilst you’re wiping your cheeks and finally, you feel your own heart that seems like it stopped beating in your chest.

You wake up jumping at that last sensation. You calm down your breathing while you stare at Jake, wanting to make sure he’s still alive in his hospital bed. You can’t see his chest moving, you panic then you stand up from the chair and run to him. Jake lightly opens the mouth before closing it several times and then changing position in the bed. Seeing him moving makes you sigh in relief.

Jake is okay. Jake is alive. Jake is not dead. Jake will not die.

No matter how many times you repeat those sentences like a mantra, your anxiety still doesn’t leave your body. Tears threaten to really stream down your face so you discreetly leave the room. Thankfully, the corridor is empty, allowing you to cry your eyes out. You hold back sobs as much as you can. If you sobbed, you would wake Jake up for sure.

You need a moment to calm down your tears. Seeing Jake hurt because of his work in the Navy overwhelmed you so much for several reasons. The first one being because you love Jake and you don’t want to lose him. The second one is because of the buried memories. Your dad died when you were still a baby and Bradley was only two. You don’t have memories of him but you know how much his death affected your mom. The loss of your father isn’t the only one haunting you. You also lost your best friend Lucy. You had been friends with her since you were four years old. You were inseparable until she enlisted in the army and died at twenty.

Receiving Bradley’s call about Jake gave you a glimpse of what your mother and Lucy’s mom went through, a trial you always hoped you’d never face.

Once you're sure you won’t fall apart, you go back in the room. By some miracle, Jake didn’t hear you leaving or entering, probably because of the medicine - normally, he’s a light sleeper. You walk back to the chair and stay awake the whole night, you don’t want to sit through another tragic scenario made by your brain.

The next day, you stay with Jake until the evening. You don’t want to leave him behind in the hospital, however, you have work so you don’t have a choice. Bradley promises you he’ll stay with Jake until his family comes during the week-end and he’ll keep you updated on Jake’s health. You only trust Bradley for this, you know Jake might not tell you everything to not worry you.

When you’re back home, you find your apartment dull. What is supposed to make you feel better can’t comfort you whilst in your mind, you get more lost in your deepest fears. The fact you’re in the process of moving out doesn’t help.

Jake and you are supposed to get a small house together. You should have the keys in two weeks, his deployment was supposed to be over by then. A few days ago, you were still looking forward to leaving your apartment and living with the man you love and now, you don’t know anymore.

Your relationship has always been exceptional, not only because he’s a good man but also considering that, before him, you wouldn’t allow yourself to date an army man. You always knew your mother as a half empty shell so you always wanted to protect yourself from the same deadly fate and the loss of Lucy didn’t help either. You’re already worried about losing your brother and Maverick, whom you consider as your uncle, you don’t want to risk losing your partner, too. Therefore, you had always refused to fall in love with a man like this. Before, you could do it until Jake appeared in your life; just like his personality, his entrance in your life was loud. You tried to resist it but your heart didn’t give you a choice so, for the first time, you broke your own rule. Your relationship with Jake is the most beautiful one you’ve ever had and you have no regrets about it. You used to have no regrets about it. His accident was a good reminder of how dangerous his job is.

Until you came home, you tried to shut down your fears and your doubts though, now, in your half-empty apartment, you can’t ignore it anymore. That night, you can’t sleep, your mind too busy to torture you.

Unfortunately for you, your mind doesn't give you one second of peace. The following days, you doubt your whole relationship with Jake, imagining the worst case scenarios in which he’d die during several milestones : your first house together, your wedding, pregnancies, anniversaries. The list never seems to end. You can’t be optimistic about it. You’re completely lost in your worries to the point where you end up living like a robot. You’re making yourself sick while anticipating the worst.

Your downward spiral is interrupted a week later by a knock on your door one morning. At first, you ignore the noise, comfortably staying in your discontent. However, when the person insists, you leave your bed and open them, not without sighing, annoyed. You’re about to tell the person to leave but the presence of Jake stops you. He wasn’t supposed to come back to San Diego right now and yet, here he is, in front of you, a big smile on his face and his left arm still in the sling and his wounds on his face starting to fade.

“Jake? What are you doing here? You still need to rest!”

“I know, I wanted to see you though and I couldn’t wait so I took the night train at the last minute. Can I come in?” Jake asks and you let him in, still surprised.

“Why didn’t you call me? I could have come during the weekend.”

“I wanted to surprise you. You’re okay ? You look under the weather.” he observes, stroking your cheek.

“I should ask you this, you’re the one who almost died not even a week ago.” you answer, taking his hand in yours.

“I’m better, Y/N. Even Bradley told you so. The recovery is gonna be long but I’ll be okay.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“I love when you go all mother hen. It’s cute.” he says, kissing your cheek and you let go of a laugh.

“You’re an idiot. Let’s go to the living room.” you invite him, starting to walk. “Do you want something to drink?”

“No. I just want to talk to you.” Jake informs you.

“About what?”

You frown when he prevents you from sitting on your couch. He slowly strokes your hand before taking a deep breath.

“Look, you know I always try to enjoy the present and with this accident, it really made me realise how precious what we currently have is. I don’t want to waste any seconds, I want to enjoy every moment with you. There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a moment now but I would keep telling myself it might be too early so I always pushed it back then I talked about it with my mom and she convinced me to jump in with both feet.”

“Jake, what do you mean?” you question, stress twisting your stomach.

“Y/N,” Jake resumes, looking deeply in your eyes, “since the second I saw you, I knew you were the woman made for me. I knew you were worth the fight, even if, at first, you wouldn’t pay attention to me. You’re the most intelligent, funny, compassionate and beautiful woman I know. We will have our own house soon and I can’t wait to reach this milestone with you but I’d love for us to reach another one.” he confesses, putting one knee down and your eyes are wide open.

“Jake.”

“Y/N, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”

“Wh-what ?” you stutter and Jake nervously laughs.

“Will you marry me?”

“Are you serious?” you question, dropping his hand.

“Huh, yes, I even have the ring.” he specifies, taking out the ring from his pocket, “Though I gotta admit, I think of saying it’s just a joke right now, you’re making me nervous.”

“I’m just surprised. I don’t know what to say.” you defend yourself.

Your eyes are set on Jake’s ring. You’ve seen it before. He’d shown it to you the day you first met his parents a year ago. It’s his great-grand-mother’s ring. It’s simple but you find it beautiful.

“It’s easy, say yes or no.” Jake replies with an anxious smile.

“Jake, we’ve only been together for two years.” you argue and Jake stands up.

“We don’t have to get married next year. We can be engaged for several years. We can wait before calling each other husband and wife, but I have to admit I’d love to, at least, call you my fiancée.”

“Jake, I can’t.” you end up saying.

“What, do you have a first husband in your attic or something?” Jake laughs and you see the panic in his eyes.

“No, I can’t marry you.”

Your sentence sounds like a fatal blow in Jake’s ears. He stays silent, staring at you without understanding what’s going on. He gets a grip on himself when his phone rings in his pocket. Jake knows it’s his mom. She knew he was going to propose today and she is impatient to call you her daughter-in-law. However, it looks like it won’t be the case. Jake opens his mouth several times before managing to utter something:

“What? Why?”

“I… I can’t.”

“But I love you, we love each other. You love me, right?” he asks, doubtful.

“Of course I love you, Jake, more than I ever loved before.” you promise him, making him frown.

“What’s the problem then?”

“I don’t want to marry you.”

If your first refusal already seemed awful to him, the sentence you just said is the final blow. The fact that you don’t want to marry him breaks his heart. He’s lost. It was supposed to be a joyful moment and yet, the ground is falling apart under him.

“What? Did something happen? Did I do something? I… I thought everything was fine between us.”

“It is.”

“Y/N, you have to stop being vague, I don’t understand anything.” he retorts with a strong tone. “What’s going on?”

“You should leave.”

“No, We have to talk about it. You can’t tell me you love me then tell me you don’t want to marry me. Talk to me, Y/N, you have to talk to me. Give me a reason, at least.”

“You wouldn’t understand.” you answer, avoiding his eyes.

“If you explained to me, maybe I’d understand. Are… Are you breaking up with me? Is that why you haven’t been calling me lately?” he questions, desperately searching for an explanation for your behaviour.

“I’ve just been thinking a lot and I think it’s best if we stop right now. I’m sorry, Jake, but I can’t keep being with you. You’ll find someone with whom you’ll share your life with and who will want to marry you.”

“I want it to be you.” he says with a weak tone, tearing up.

“Jake, please.”

“Very well then.” Jake accepts, hurt in his eyes.

Jake turns around and at the rhythm of his steps, your heart breaks whilst you’re looking at him walking to the door. You begged him to leave and yet, you only want to scream at him to come back to you and to hold you in his arms while you apologise. Yet, you stay silent. Jake doesn’t look back when he closes the door.

Once you’re alone, you fall down on your couch. In your head, you convince yourself it’s the best decision. After all, you should feel relieved, now, you don’t have to worry about losing Jake because of his job anymore. Nevertheless, your mind is not calm. You don’t know which way to turn but for different reasons. You wish it was different, it was easier, he had another job, you weren’t afraid. You spend the night crying while removing every trace of Jake in your apartment and unpack some boxes. You have to move on right now before you lose yourself a bit more.

You haven’t talked to Jake for three weeks. He tried to contact you but you ignored every one of his calls. He first wanted to fix your relationship before understanding it was too late, though he wants explanations, explanations you keep for yourself. You don’t want to tell him, you know it’s ridiculous. Why end a relationship given a potential “what if” when everything is fine? However, you also know if you had moved ahead with Jake, you would have ended up sabotaging your relationship. Technically, it’s what you did though at least, you didn’t have to call lawyers to leave his life.

Bradley tried to call you, too, and just like for Jake, you ignored him. Jake probably told him about your break up and Bradley, always being the honourable man, wants to fix the situation. Except the situation can’t be fixed. You don’t want to fix the situation.

When you come back from work that day, you’re surprised to discover your brother at your doorstep. Without thinking, you run in his arms. Sure, you’ve been ignoring him lately but you missed him. The last time you saw each other, you were too focused on Jake to pay attention to him. He holds you in his arms and strokes your back. As soon as you break your embrace, you let Bradley in. You go to your kitchen while talking about banality. Whilst walking, Bradley pays attention to your apartment and notices there isn’t a picture of Jake anymore. Once you’re sitting at the table, you stay silent, waiting for who will be the first to talk about the subject.

“We should talk about the elephant in the room, don’t you think?” Bradley says after a few minutes.

“There’s nothing to say.” you retort, tensed.

“Y/N, you threw away a two years relationship for no reason.”

“I have my reasons.”

“Which are? Jake is probably curious to know them.”

“If you came here to make things better, you’re wasting your time, Brad’.”

“You can’t act like that and expect to not justify yourself. You were happy with Jake, you love him and you broke up without giving a warning. I have to admit when he told me you refused his proposal, I was shocked. I thought you were gonna say yes without hesitating.”

“You knew?”

“He asked me before coming here. I confess, I laugh at him, I didn’t expect him to ask for your hand or give me a heads-up, like he said.” Bradley informs with a smile, thinking back to the memory. “Everything was good between you two, wasn’t it? So why?”

“It’s better like this. He’ll have a wife who knows how to stay and I won’t suffer.”

“Wait, is all of this because of the parents and Lucy?” he questions, understanding the reason. “You’re still with this stupid no-dating-army-guy rule? I thought we were over with it! Y/N, you can’t ruin your life just because you’re scared.”

“I don’t want to end up like mom! You can’t blame me! We were kids but you can’t deny there was a before and an after with mom. She wasn’t laughing like she used to, she wasn’t smiling like she used to. She was the shadow of her former self. I don’t want to go through this if Jake were to die.” you confess.

“It’s because of his accident, isn’t it?”

“It reminded me he could die at any given moment with his work.”

“Just like he could die off-duty. He can have an accident, have a heart attack, choke while eating. You don’t know what will happen in the future. You can’t condemn yourself ‘cause you’re too afraid he might die while flying. It’s ridiculous.” Bradley affirms, resolutely.

“I’m already afraid of losing you and Mav’ and I already lost Lucy and we lost dad, I don’t want Jake to join this list. Can’t you really blame me? I’d rather protect myself by not being afraid everytime my boyfriend goes to work.”

“Let’s imagine the worst were to happen, don’t you think it’d be better to think you spent every second with him? You’d rather live with regrets? You’d rather break your own heart?”

“At least, I know why I’m hurting.”

“Y/N, you have to think about it again.” he sighs. “You have to get out of your head that the worst will happen. You can’t prevent yourself from being happy because of what could happen. You deserve a beautiful life and to be with Jake. I never saw you this happy before and it kills me to see you throw it away because you’re scaring yourself.”

“The problem is I can’t help it,” you start with trembling lips. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it when we first got together then it got better. However, since his accident, it’s been worse. Since your call, I keep imagining what could have happened and what could happen and I’m tired of it, Bradley. I’ll never get rid of it and I hate it but that’s how it is. Believe me, if I could change, I’d do it right now, but I can’t.”

Bradley hugs you as soon as he sees you crying. He holds you against him until your tears stop a few hours later. His heart aches seeing you hurting this much. He knows you’ve always been more affected by your father’s death. Being the youngest, the emptiness you feel about your dad has always been stronger. It got worse with Lucy’s death. That day, Bradley really saw you get broken. He hated every second of this moment of your life. He hates seeing suffering like you currently are. Several times, Bradley tried to help you, he advised you to go see a professional but you’ve always refused. Until now, he had hoped your fears would ease with time, yet, your relationship with Jake just proved him it got worse and he doesn’t know what to do. He’s completely distraught whilst he keeps holding you against him, hoping to give you some kind of comfort.

Two months have passed since your break up. You take it day by day to heal your broken heart. Bradley tries to stay with you as much as he can while Jake isn’t surrounded by anyone. He prefers to wear a mask and pretend your negative answer isn’t hurting him. Nevertheless, the second he’s home alone, his mask falls and he allows himself to feel all his pain. Jake, who has always done it, manages to fool everyone with his fake cocky smile. Almost everyone. Coyote sees right through him.

That night is no exception. Sitting at the counter in the Hard Deck, Jake is drinking his third alcoholic drink. Jake has isolated himself from the rest of the Dagger Squad, saying he’s tired and wanted to be alone. Though, Javy doesn’t let him be in the doldrums. He sits on the stool next to Jake and orders a beer from Penny. Coyote gives him some minutes of peace before speaking.

“Wanna talk about it?”

Coyote doesn’t even need to specify for Jake to understand. Your relationship has been a taboo subject for two months.

“Not really.” Jake says, taking a sip.

“You should.” he replies while Penny hands him his beer. “Do you at least know why she made this decision?”

Jake didn’t tell anyone the reason for your fallout. He feels humiliated enough by your harsh refusal to his proposal, he wants to bury the end of your relationship and never talk about it again. Though Javy is right, Jake knows he has to open up.

“Rooster talked to her. Turns out she doesn’t want to marry me because she’s scared I might die on-duty.”

“Did your accident scare her that much?” Javy questions, taken aback.

“It was the final straw but she’s always been scared apparently. I mean, I suspected it, you know, seeing what we do for a living, it makes sense. She also lost her dad and her best friend in similar circumstances. The problem is I didn’t know those deaths affected her that much. Anyway, there is nothing else to say.”

Coyote doesn't say anything for a moment, taking in the information and the way might have felt when he learned them.

“Well, she would have made such a lovely bride. What a shame she’s fucked in the head.” he says, ignoring what else to say.

“She suffered and she doesn’t want to go through this pain again, we can’t blame her. I’m not saying she should stay lost in her fear, it’s not healthy though, I get why she does.” Jake states before taking a deep breath and finishing his drink in one go. “I just wish she would trust our love more than her fears.”

Once he comes home, Jake sits down on his couch, sighing loudly. He runs a hand on his face, emotionally drained. As soon as his hand lands on his thigh, his eyes find a picture hung beside his TV that he didn’t have the strength to remove. It’s a photo he took at the beginning of your relationship, more precisely the day you told each other ‘I love you’ for the first time.

You had spent the day at the beach during summer. The sun was setting down whilst you were laughing at a stupid sentence Jake had said. He had stopped laughing before you, admiring you while you tried to calm your laughter. Then, Jake had looked deeply in your eyes and he had said those three words so simple and yet, so powerful. You had replied the following second with a big smile on your face. Before leaving the beach, Jake had asked to immortalise this moment. Thinking back on it, it was cliché and cheesy but Jake didn’t care. For you, he would have done the most cliché gestures if it could make you break a smile.

Jake keeps staring at the picture, your relationship running in his head. Without noticing it, he tears up before the tears stream down his face. It’s the third time he cries since your break up. The first time, it was the night of the proposal after he went home and the second time, when Bradley explained to him the reason behind your ‘no’.

Jake has never been good with his emotions. Between his education and his work in the army, he’s never learned to put words on his pain and to accept being vulnerable. With you, he had succeeded to understand himself better and to open up. It was still complicated despite two years together but he had improved. Now, he is back to square one. He’s back to his shell, running away from his emotions. Though, it doesn’t mean his mind isn’t haunted by 'what if's. What if he never had this accident? What if he had seen right through your fears sooner? What if he had managed to reassure you? What if he had managed to convince you to get the help you need? What if everything was different?

Top Gun Maverick Masterlist

As for you, the questions are similar. Every night, you torture your own mind before crying yourself to sleep whilst looking at the spot where there once was the picture of your first ‘I love you’ before you ripped it off from your bedroom wall just like you ripped off both of your hearts from your chest.

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milesdickpic · 2 years ago

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His Little Girl | Bradley Bradshaw x Reader P.84

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Hi, besties! First, I would like to start off by thanking everyone for still being here with me. I can't thank you all enough for everything. I love you all so much! I hope you are all enjoying the story still! I love you all so so so much! 💕Without further a-do... Happy reading and enjoy! ❤️

A/n: Dadley Dadshaw comes to the rescue after a long long week back at work. Leia Rey's 7th birthday is just over the horizon 🫣

Word Count: 3.8k

Warnings: crying, tiredness, slight anxiousness, sadness, some disappointment, but a whole lot of love 🥰

Please don't take my work, I will find you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bradley’s POV

I had been back at work for my first week of the full 12-hour shifts. In the morning I would go to training and go through the vigorous exercises to help my body get ready to withstand Gs again. I had been working on breathing techniques for the first week. It was hard because my abdomen was still healing. I knew I had to take it slow, but also put my 100% effort into it. Next week I would continue to work on my breathing because I failed the breathing maneuvers practice test. It really discouraged me, but I thought about you and the kids. I knew I had to just trust the process.

I came home from the last day of training for me for the week. I was beyond tired. I would go to training, then do some paperwork for my officers, go back out to the tarmac to instruct for flying, go back and do more paperwork, meet with each of my LTs to get them up to par with codes and protocols, train some more, then push more paperwork. Being a senior officer was tough and tiring. I’ve never had to do so much instruction and paperwork in my career with the Navy.

I came home more tired than I had been in a long time. I just wanted to take a shower, eat, and lay on the couch with the kids and you. When I walked into the house, it was like I walked right into a zoo. The boys were crying in the arms of Phoenix and Hangman, Austin was trying to console Leia, the house looked like a tornado hit it, and it smelled like rotting cheese in the house. I stood in the doorway frozen.

“Guys? Guys??” I was trying to catch at least one of them’s attention, but they were all frantic and focusing on each child they had. “Hello!”

They all looked over at me and Leia came running over to me, “Daddy!” She had tears in her eyes. I picked her up and held her close to me as I rubbed her back. The boys were still wailing while Phoenix and Hangman were trying to get them to stop.

“My girl. What happened? Where is momma?” I brushed Leia’s hair from her face and kissed her forehead. I looked at my daughter concerned.

She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, “Momma went to her doctor's appointment and had to go to the store, Braddie pulled my hair really hard when I was playing with him and Luke. It really hurt.” She started to rub her head, “I know he didn’t mean it, but it really hurt, Daddy!” She started to cry hard as she held her head.

“Oh, my girl!” I held her close to me and kissed her head over and over again. “How about we get you some ice and a PB&J? How’s that sound, Leia babe?”

She sniffled and nodded. I brought her over to the counter and sat her on the top of it. I pulled out an uncrustable from the freezer and placed it on her head. “Let it thaw out on your head while I get the toaster.” I gave her a little smirk and poked her belly. She let out a little giggle and nodded. I brought out the toaster and I grabbed an ice pack. I replaced the sandwich with the ice and placed the uncrustable into the toaster. “Okay, my girl. Stay here. I need to check on your brothers, okay? Help your Aunt Nat and your Uncle Jakey.” She nodded and continued to hold the ice to her head.

I jogged over to my wailing boys. “Oh, what did the bad people do to you boys?” I chuckled as I went over and gave them both kisses on their hot ass heads. “Jesus Christ, how long have they been cryin?” I grabbed Bradley from Hangman and started to bounce him in my arms. “Daddy’s here, Bradley boy. It’s okay.” I started to shush him as I continued to soothe him.

“They’ve been crying for probably 10 minutes. They both have clean diapers, and both DEFINITELY fed, played with, burped… everything. I have no clue what happened.” Jake rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to think of anything else.

Bradley started to settle down in my arms and I chuckled. “They probably just miss their daddy is all.” I pulled Brad back to look at his face, a little smirk appeared when he looked at me. “I am so sorry for leaving you boys here with these strange crazy people!” I said in my mushiest baby talk. “Daddy promises to not stay this late at work again. I’m so sorry, baby.”

Bradley started to giggle in my arms. I handed him back to Hangman, so I could help Phoenix with Luke. He was still ballistically crying. “Come here my Lukey-bear.” I grabbed him from Phoenix and started to bounce him as he screamed at the top of his lungs. “AWHHH! I KNOW!” I agreed with him in my once again muckiest baby talk. “You were stuck here with the bad people! I am so sorry, my love.” I rubbed his back as he cried into my shoulder.

“Daddy! Can I eat my PB&J now? It popped out of the toaster!” Leia called over to me.

I nodded and made my way over to her. I grabbed the PB&J and unplugged the toaster. I placed the sandwich on a paper towel. “Let it cool off a little bit, babe.” I kissed her head and continued to place the toaster away as I continued to console Luke.

He started to calm down little by little as I kept telling him it was okay and I rocked him in my arms. I pulled him from my shoulder and looked at him in his tear-filled eyes. I continued to talk him down. “Hi, my handsome boy. You’re okay. I promise. Daddy is here now. It’s okay.” His little lip kept quivering and I kept shushing him. “You’re okay my boy. I love you. Daddy loved you so much.” I placed little kisses on his tear-stained cheeks causing him to give me his first pair of puppy dog eyes.

“Oh, man. Those are going to be the death of me. Courtesy of myself. Shit.” I sniffled as I tried to hold back my tears. It was the cutest thing I had ever seen in my life. “You’re okay, I’m here, babe.” I gave him a couple of kisses on his lips and he giggled from the tickling of my mustache. “There’s what I love to hear.” I smiled at Luke as he continued to giggle.

“Damn, Bradshaw. Who would have ever thought?” Phoenix laughed and shook her head.

I squinted my eyes at her and jerked my head back as I handed Luke back to her. “What are you talking about, Trace?” I made my way back over to Leia to check her head.

She held Luke against her hip and bounced him. “I mean who would have thought that you over a year and a half ago, would be such a good and responsible dad of three?” Phoenix started to laugh.

“Yea, seriously, Rooster.” Hangman laughed. Austin just looked at the three of us confused before he made his way over to Phoenix to play with Luke.

I checked Leia’s head and removed the ice pack. “Feeling better, babe?” I raised my brows at her and she nodded. I smiled and handed her her PB&J.” Good!” I kissed her forehead and put the ice pack back into the freezer.

I leaned against the counter next to Leia, “You guys suck. Out of all of you, and I mean the WHOLE squad. I was most responsible. Straight from the get-go, I was gonna be a great and responsible dad.” I rolled my eyes at the both of them. “Now. The real question is… Why the…” I covered Leia’s ears, “Fuck does my house smell like spoiled and rotting cheese?”

The three of them looked at each other and looked over at the pile of diapers near the trash can. I followed their gaze. “Guys. Really? What the hell?” We all started to laugh together as I went and cleaned up the pile of death to throw away outside.

~~~~~

I went upstairs to clean up and get out of my work clothes. After I was finished, I sat on the edge of the bed and took a little breather. I sat there and thought about how you have been such a good mom and have been handling all 8 of the kids that are in this house. I sighed and smiled. I was so lucky to have someone like you. I just didn’t know how you were so good at it.

What if I’m not enough? Am I lacking? Are Phoenix and Hangman actually really shocked that I can be a dad?

Hangman came into the room and sat next to me. “You alright, Rooster?”

I nodded and chuckled. “Yea. I’m good. Y/n home yet?” I looked at him with a raised brow.

He shook his head. “Nah, not yet. Maybe she’ll return the favor. She’ll be back when the boys are 7 and Leia 14.” He raised his brows at me and gave me a devious smile.

I gave him a blank stare and blinked my eyes at him. “Fuck you, Seresin.”

He started to laugh and winked at me, “When?”

I rolled my eyes and shoved him off my bed. “You’re an asshole, dude.” I started to laugh as he got up off the floor.

“You know. It was a good joke, Bradshaw.” He laughed and slapped me on the back.

I stood up and shook my head at him. “Yea, Yea. Fuck off. Where are my kids?” I started to chuckle as we made our way downstairs.

“MOMMA!” Leia yelled as you walked through the door.

Jake nudged his elbow into me. “She’s 7 years early, bro.”

I scoffed and shoved Hangman down the remaining steps of the stairs. You looked up at us as he stomped down hard trying to hold onto the railing so he wouldn’t fall. You looked at both of us with wide eyes as you kissed Leia’s head.

“What’s going on here, boys?” You started to laugh as you removed your shoes.

I walked over to you with open arms, “Just Bagman being Bagman, babe.” I kissed you over and over again. “I missed you so much, sweetheart.” I held you tight in my arms and embraced your warmth against me.

“I missed you too, Brad.” You hugged me a little tighter. You pulled back and smiled at me. “How was work today?”

I laughed and shook my head. “Babe, forget work. Guess what I walked in on when I got home today.” I looked at the three stooges.

They all looked at me with wide eyes and shook their heads at me. I looked at them with my brows raised and my head cocked to the side. I mouthed at them, “Oh really, now? You don’t want me to?” As I pointed at you. They all waved their arms to signal “NO!”

You turned around and looked at all four of us. All our shenanigans stopped. You smiled at all of us, “What did you walk in on?”

I sighed. “Oh, you know.” I looked at the three of them as they grew nervous. “Just the best godparents in the world taking care of our children.” They relaxed in relief. I squinted at all of them.

You smiled at the three of them and went over to give them a group hug, “You guys are the best! Thank you so much for watching our babies while I went to my appointment and Brad was at work. I knew I could count on you all!”

They all hugged you back and they all looked at me nervously. I shook my head at them all and laughed because none of them had the guts that Daddy Bradley had to come to their rescue. Leia came back over to me and jumped into my arms.

She got close to my ear and whispered, “Are we just not gonna tell momma we were all crying?” She looked at me with big eyes.

I chuckled and nodded. “You got it, babe. This stays between us.” I poked her nose and she giggled.

She saluted me and nodded, “Yes, sir.” We both laughed and I squished her tummy before letting her back down.

~~~~

Later that night, you and I brought Leia to her room to tuck her in for bed. You kissed Leia on her forehead and smiled. “So my Leia Rey. Your birthday is in a week. What do you want to do for it?”

I smiled at her and raised my brows. “What you think, my girl?”

She pushed her lips together and looked around the room. “Hmmm. I don't know?” She giggled. “I just want to spend time with everyone and my brothers. I don’t wanna party or anything. I just want to watch movies.” She smiled at you and me.

You and I looked at each other with raised brows. “Sweetheart, are you sure? You don’t wanna invite your friends over for a party?”

She shook her head at me and looked down as she played with her fingers. “Can I have a party in San Diego? With Papa Mav, Penny, Amelia, and my uncles?”

You and I looked at one another again. Our poor girl was homesick and missed everyone back home. You sighed and placed your hand on Leia’s hands. “I wish we could go back right now, Leia.”

She smiled and held your hands, “It’s okay, momma. I understand that Daddy has to work. I just thought I could ask.” She kissed your hands and got comfortable in her bed. “I’m sleepy now. Give Luke and Braddie a kiss good night for me. Night momma and daddy. I love you.”

We both gave her another kiss and left the room. We went back into our room and laid down. The boys were fast asleep in their bassinets. I looked at you sad and you looked at me the same.

“Sweetheart, If you want, You, Leia, the boys, and Austin can go back to San Diego for Leia Rey’s birthday. I don’t want her to be sad.”

You sighed and laid against my chest, “Bradley.”

I shook my head and then laid it on top of yours. “No, sweetheart I am serious. I can ask Mav and Penny to come and get all of you so you can have extra help. I just want her to be happy for her birthday.”

You looked up at me and shook your head, “Bradley. That is sweet of you, but I think Leia would be even more sad if she didn't have her daddy with her to celebrate.”

I played with your hand in mine. “I just don’t want her to be sad. I know she misses everyone back home. I just want what’s best for her. Even if that means you guys go back home for a while.”

You shook your head and kissed my cheek. “We aren’t going anywhere without you, Bradley. And I assure you, Leia would say the same.”

I pushed my lips together and kissed your forehead before we fell asleep. “I love you, babe. The offer will still stand if you change your mind.”

~~~~~~~~

Your POV

Over the next week, you and Bradley had been prepping something for Leia’s birthday. On the day of her birthday, you had asked Jake, Nat, and Austin if they could take the kids to Evelyn and Phantom’s house as you and Bradley set everything up for Leia’s party.

You and Bradley didn’t want to not celebrate your daughter. It would be her first birthday in another state, with her dad, and her brothers. You wanted it to be extra special for her because you all wouldn’t be where you are now without her.

You and Bradley loaded up the truck with all the party supplies and headed down to the beach. This year for Leia’s birthday theme, It was going to be Leia’s Luau. You and Bradley picked a spot on the beach to set up.

You had invited some of Leia’s friends from school and Bradley invited some of his pilots and their families to celebrate Leia on her special day. It was going to be a small gathering for her. You and Bradley wanted to surprise her. Bradley played music as you both continued to put the party together.

You and I by Rebelution (I fuckin love them and this song 😭) starts playing-

Bradley put down The last tiki statue by the entering pathway of the party and ran over to you. He took the tiki torch from your grasp and threw it on the ground as he spun you around into his arms.

“Bradley Bradshaw! What the heck?” You started to laugh.

He chuckled as he held you close to him. “Sweetheart, I owe you this little dance for everything you’ve done for this family in the last year. You deserve more of a break, but let's take this little one right now, together, and dance.”

You grabbed his hand and held it in yours. “I’d love to.”

I can’t deny my heart beats for you… You can’t deny these sparks, set the mood. Here’s my hand forever. Hold it tight together. You and I.

Bradley kissed the back of your hand and held you close to his chest as you both slowly danced to the song in the middle of Leia’s party setup. You closed your eyes and listened to Bradley’s heartbeat and the way his chest vibrated as he sang softly.

“You and I. I wanna waste some time. Right by your side. Watch the day fly by and not even mind. I can’t deny my heart beats for you.” He laid his head on top of yours and gave it a kiss. He placed both hands on your back and rubbed it slowly. It was nice to finally have some alone time for you and Bradley. You both hadn’t had something like this in a long time.

“I love you, Bradley, Always.” You smiled as you held onto him tighter.

You could hear him smile. “And I love you, Sweetheart, forever.”

I’ll wait for you my dear, for the day. You say I do, my dear, and drift away. Hold my hand forever, fly away together, You and I.

~~~~~

You and Bradley finally finished setting up Leia’s Luau. You looked at your phone and it was almost time for everyone to start showing up. You and Bradley did one more walk-through of everything to make sure you hadn’t forgotten anything. In the front, Bradley had set up two tiki statues to signify the entry point of the party. Then there was a walkway that was lit up with tiki torches on either side and flowers scattered all over the walkway that led up to the party set up. When you got to the party area, there was a sign that said, “Aloha! Please take a LEI-a!” And it was full of pretty colorful Leis on each side. Then there was a picture moment area with a backdrop for all guests to take pictures with the Polaroid camera. Next to the picture set up was another pair of tiki torches with string and clothes pints attached so everyone could add. Their pictures as memories for Leia to look back on. Then there was a tent set up for the food and drink area. There was a drinks table for kids and one for adults. There were pineapple bouquets set up on each table. There was a food table where food would be placed for serving and then another table for Leia’s cake and other sweets.

You and Bradley smiled at each other and sighed. “We are all set, sweetheart. Hangman and Phoenix will bring the games when they come with Austin, Leia, and the boys.”

After a while, all the guests started to show up. Everyone was dressed for the Luau. Some of the kids were already making their way to the ocean to play and build sandcastles. Jake and Nat had texted Bradley to let them know they were all on their way. Phantom and his family arrived. Evelyn had made some cupcakes for Leia’s cake table. She brought them over to you and smiled.

“Honey, it was so hard to hide these from Leia. She kept wandering the house as if she were looking for them!” She started to laugh as she placed a kiss on your cheek before placing them on the cake table. Bradley went and greeted Phantom. They all brought gifts for Leia. She was loved by so many people, she was going to be spoiled here like she was back in San Diego.

Phantom and Bradley came over to you and Evelyn. “Where is the birthday girl? Are they all on their way? They left a little after we did.” Phantom came and gave you a hug.

You nodded and smiled. “Nat and Jake said they are almost here. So she will definitely be surprised when they arrive and she sees there is a ‘Luau’ going on.”

Phantom smiled and patted you and Bradley on the back. “You both did such a great job with little time! I wish you would have asked us for more help. But we are happy to be a little distraction while you both came out and did this for her.”

Bradley laughed and shook his head. “How did she react when you all wished her happy birthday when you saw her?”

Phantom recreated Leia’s face by slapping his hands on his cheeks making his eyes super wide and opening his mouth. You and Bradley started to laugh. “That’s our girl. We didn't get to say anything to her because we were unfortunately already gone before she woke up to head over to your house.” Bradley pushed his lips together. “So hopefully this’ll make up for it and she doesn’t think we forgot one of the most important days of the year.”

And with that Bradley's phone buzzed and he looked at it. He looked at you and Phantom and smiled. “They’re here. You know what that means.”

Bradley called around to everyone and got them all in order. “Alright everyone in your stations. The birthday girl will be here any minute now!”

Everyone gathered around and waited for Leia to show up with Austin, Nat, Jake, and the boys. You and Bradley stood patiently and eager to see Leia’s face. Bradley slung his arm over your shoulder and held you close.

“Here she comes, sweetheart!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I CAN'T BELIEVE OUR GIRL IS 7!! WTF 😭 Are you all ready to party? I'll see you babes in the next chapter! 🫶🏼

Party guests are in the comments 🎉

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