14/08/2022: MISS LURKYMURKER!!!!!!!! There Is No Way This Isn’t A Dream!!!! Euro Tripe Rafe Is Back
14/08/2022: MISS LURKYMURKER!!!!!!!! there is no way this isn’t a dream!!!! euro tripe rafe is back on this stupid little app and I AM BEAMING!!!! you are one of my favorite authors of all time and i will follow you to the grave. i read euro trip and then college trip and then managed to just drown in all your work at the beginning of this year (i used to be too shy to get off anon but i’ve been here for a while) and the thing is: i don’t even like rafe 😭😭😭 i came across your blog because i saw another author i really liked saying incredible things about you and just had to give your rafe a chance. AND I AM SO GLAD I DID!!! the way you write him in your universes is just so lovely i couldn’t help but fall in love???? all thanks to your beautiful brain and writing (i’ll be a mess when s3 comes out and euro trip rafe just isn’t there on my screen. life is so unfair.) ANYWAYS!!! all of this to say, i breathe and live for euro trip, the story has a very special place in my heart and SEEING YOU WRITE FOR THEM AGAIN- AM I DREAMING? i’m just crazy happy. here’s me just, idk even know… crying over them??? a super classy review (me when i lie) of this beautiful little nugget you decided to bless us with!!!
“Because you’d meant it. You’d asked him how he was, and you’d wanted to know he’d be okay. Rafe didn’t know whether he deserved that. He didn’t know whether he ever would.
And so, he’d run away.” sometimes i forget how insecure he’s always been :((((
“Rafe swallows. His mind fails to stray from the first voice he heard; the heart-squeezing pressure it places on his chest.” THE HEART-SQUEEZING PRESSURE IT PLACES ON HIS CHEST. dude!!!!! your writing!!!!! i visualize and i feel everything!!!!! how do you do this idk but WOW.
“The way his name falls from your lips is a sharp knife to his chest. And then you ask, “How are you?” and it plunges, twists, cuts deeper.” she’s being so kind and it just makes him hurt a little more my heart can’t survive this.
“Some space from Rafe should come as a welcome relief.
Except that it doesn’t.
All it tells you is that he isn’t himself, at a moment; a large part of him is hurting, and a small part of you wants to fix that.” THE FACT THAT THIS PRE EURO TRIP!!!!! THEY WERE JUST BABIES, THEIR FEELINGS WERE STILL SO VERY MESSY AND CONFUSING I LOVE THEM!!! SHE WANTS TO FIX IT ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️
and then he bumps her chin!!!!! because of course physical touch is rafe’s thing, i missed him so much!!!!
“you pause, you trail off, you soften your expression and watch Rafe’s falter,” i love the way they are not exactly mirroring each other but it’s more of a action-reaction kind of thing, you know? soulmates since forever!!!!!
“And perhaps that’s why this hurts so much; why the comfort of your presence is crushing pressure to his chest. Because letting himself yearn for you — want you, hope to have you, one day — means letting himself love, feel love, feel it all.
Including that which he lost.” i am in so much pain right now.
“Why?” He teases; he’ll break if he answers honestly, he isn’t sure he’ll survive it. Bad, he thinks, I’m doing fucking bad and you’re going to make it worse before you can make it better,” BAD, HE THINKS, I’M DOING FUCKING BAD AND YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE IT WORSE BEFORE YOU CAN MAKE IT BETTER!!!!!!!!!! favorite fucking line!!!!!! just crush my heart.
“He swallows. He tries to find something else to say; something stupid and meaningless that’ll push you away.
He can’t.” of course he can’t!!!!!!!! he’s always been so honest with her!!!! and especially now that he’s so vulnerable, his mom’s death is still so recent… he can’t!!!!!! ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️
“He resists the urge to reach out and brush his fingers over your skin, ensure that you’re real, you’re here, you’re worried about him.” god he’s always been so in love i almost forgot he’s just so drawn to her, like a magnet. i can feel how strong the urge to reach out to her is for him!!!!!!!!! i love the way you write i really do i am in love!!!!!
“You’re here. You were here three months ago, when the wound was still fresh, and it may not be close to healed, yet, but you’ll still be here when it is.” ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
“A friend,” Rafe affirms with a nod. “A friend who I make out with sometimes?”
“And there he is,” Topper says then, throwing an arm over your shoulder as he brings up your rear. “Knew all it’d take was a conversation with you.” A FRIEND WHO I MAKE OUT WITH SOMETIMES QUESTION MARK… I HATE HIM, I HAVE SO MANY BUTTERFLIES ON MY STOMACH RIGHT NOW!!!!!! and really love that we get a little bit of playfulness here because he never lets himself crack open too much!!!! I’M IN LOVE WITH HIM and i love topper’s comment.
“Thank you. Seriously,” his breath is spicy mint, faint raspberry.
“I didn’t do anything,” you answer meekly, folding your arms across your chest. Your forearms brush his as you do so, warm sunshine with rippling muscles.
“You did,” he says, disarmingly sober. “You always do.” these tiny little interactions pre-euro trip make me swoon!!!!!! they kill me from the inside out!!!! it’s all so delicate and intimate and it’s just too much and not enough and it’s everything!!!!! SHE DOESN’T EVEN REALIZE HOW IMPORTANT SHE IS TO HIM!!!!! JUST HER PRESENCE WAS ENOUGH!!!!!!! my favorite interactive in this part.
“But I want to sit with you,” Rafe grins easily, nudging your shoulder with his.” 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 he’s adorable and i’m devastated he isn’t real.
so beautifully written as always!!!! you never miss!!!!
Euro trip blurb: august
Synopsis: Rafe remembers when wanting was enough. (For him, it was enough, to live for the hope of it all)
Warnings: mentions of a parent death, cursing, angst, fuckboy Rafe in full force
a/n: I think this is one of the earliest blurbs I’ve written! Set in the summer before junior year, right after Lillian passed. I remember mentioning that Rafe spent a lot of time avoiding Y/n during the aftermath, because a part of him knew that letting her in would mean letting everything else in too. Here’s some perspective!
“I can’t decide,” the girl whines, the space between her collarbones forming an osculate as she sighs. She angles her body toward Rafe’s expectantly, fresh sunlight bathing her skin burnt amber, faint tones of sepia. “You pick,” she decides, handing him the two spoons in her hand. “Raspberry sorbet or matcha?”
Rafe Cameron doesn’t bother. He places them into the container in front of him untouched, neat movements juxtaposing the sloven way he pulls her close. His lips are firm, impatient enough to leave her breathless; the careless kind of ardency she may define as yearning.
She’d be wrong.
Rafe hasn’t let himself feel anything since his mother’s death. When he bruises her with kisses, tastes the sea-salt, honeysuckle on her skin, it’s because he’s running away.
“Raspberry,” he says when he pulls away, giving her waist an absent squeeze. There’s a barely there imprint of cherry chapstick on his lips, brilliant red that swirls hints of sweet sorbet.
She nods her approval, turning toward the counter to place her order. And when Rafe does the same, when he reaches around her and pays (with clean wad of cash, leaving a tip that’s almost outrageous — even for him), he feels overwhelmingly as though he’s just going through the motions.
Summer’s been hard.
His mother passed away three months ago, today, and all he’s done since then is avoid, avoid, avoid. His father, his younger sisters, his responsibilities, the majority of his friends; all the things he loves, all the things he deserves — you.
Most especially, Rafe’s avoiding you.
Because when he’d walked into class two days after her funeral, red-rimmed pupils with pockets of insomnia beneath the lids, you’d looked up at him and asked, “Hey, how are you doing?”
And you’d done it in that soft, aching voice you never used; it was gentle, genuine, and it’d broken Rafe’s heart cleanly in two.
Because you’d meant it. You’d asked him how he was, and you’d wanted to know he’d be okay. Rafe didn’t know whether he deserved that. He didn’t know whether he ever would.
And so, he’d run away.
Weeks and weeks of missed periods, of stumbling into Noah White’s house dangerously half-cut, and then, at the helm of another cruel summer, opportunistic hook-ups with every girl in his class.
Except you.
“…and then, Lacy said her older brother can totally hook us up!”
Rafe blinks.
“So?” The girl adds, bringing a spoonful of ice-cream to her mouth. “You in?”
“Huh?” Rafe asks then, rubbing the back of his neck distractedly. Endless hours in the sun have lightened the tips of his hair; he’s let them grow out, tease through the frayed edges of his baseball cap.
“Lacy’s?” The girl repeats, brow furrowing a little. “The party? Are you even listening?”
“Oh,” Rafe falters, he shakes his head, he expertly avoids eye contact, “yeah, sure Liz.”
“Yay!” The girl named Liz exclaims, nudging his shoulder approvingly. The movement times perfectly with three sets of footsteps; the bell above Daily Scoop jingles, and in walks warmth, perplexing familiarity.
“Bring Noah,” Liz adds, though Rafe isn’t really listening. His heartbeat quickens. He feels the surface of his palms grow clammy.
“…it’ll be fun, I promise,” continues a voice, glowing and gentle and overwhelmingly soft. “Besides, they’re playing 10 things I hate about you, and you guys know how much I love Heath Ledger —”
“Dude,” groans a deeper voice in response; Topper, maybe Kelce, Rafe doesn’t really care, “you’ve made us watch that film like, a million fucking times already.”
“So? You don’t hear me complaining every time you guys rope me into spending my Sunday playing nine-holes —”
“Except that golf is actually fu— oh, shit, Cameron, is that you?”
Rafe swallows. His mind fails to stray from the first voice he heard; the heart-squeezing pressure it places on his chest.
“Oh, uh, hey,” he answers, turning toward the source of the commotion slowly. He hopes that his expression reads blithe disinterest, that being here with Liz gives you the wrong impression.
It doesn’t.
“Rafael,” you say slowly, taking him in. You haven’t seen much of him over the past three months; his hair is longer, his skin warmer, sunburnt. His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. His pert nose holds a smattering of brown freckles.
The way his name falls from your lips is a sharp knife to his chest. And then you ask, “How are you?” and it plunges, twists, cuts deeper.
Rafe needs it to stop.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he says with a grin, swivelling his cap so it sits backwards on his head. He abandons his table with Liz to head over, all charm and smooth confidence, expertly hidden grief.
“Hey,” you repeat, raising your eyebrows in surprise.
Perhaps you didn’t expect him to approach you so easily. He’s been avoiding you like the plague since his mother’s funeral, and you know it shouldn’t bother you as much as it does. You’re the one who’s always complaining about his annoying grin, his annoying comments, his annoyingly relentless presence and the way he refuses to let up — aren’t you? Some space from Rafe should come as a welcome relief.
Except that it doesn’t.
All it tells you is that he isn’t himself, at a moment; a large part of him is hurting, and a small part of you wants to fix that.
“I’m good,” he answers with a grin, bumping your chin playfully. It’s a tendril of soft touch, but it’s heat enough to set nerve-endings aflame. “Better now that you’re here.”
You frown then, surveying him through narrowed eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant,” you mutter, a crease forming between your eyebrows. “I mean with…” you pause, you trail off, you soften your expression and watch Rafe’s falter, “…everything. Your mom. How are you doing?”
Rafe flinches, almost. The last few words are a barely there whisper, impossibly gentle, as though you care about his answer.
About him.
And perhaps that’s why this hurts so much; why the comfort of your presence is crushing pressure to his chest. Because letting himself yearn for you — want you, hope to have you, one day — means letting himself love, feel love, feel it all.
Including that which he lost.
Because, really, who on Earth’s capable of loving him as unconditionally as his mother did?
“Why?” He teases; he’ll break if he answers honestly, he isn’t sure he’ll survive it. Bad, he thinks, I’m doing fucking bad and you’re going to make it worse before you can make it better, and so, he adds, “You gonna cheer me up with a kiss?”
“Rafael,” you sigh, taking a tentative step forward. There’s half an inch between you, now, faint bergamot mingling with spicy cologne, musk. “Why are you being like this?”
It isn’t the response he expected, and the revelation burns his throat dry, coats his waterline with unshed tears. He swallows. He tries to find something else to say; something stupid and meaningless that’ll push you away.
He can’t.
“I don’t know,” his voice breaks, and he tries not to wince as he clears his throat. Topper and Kelce have long abandoned their posts on either side of you, burying themselves with a menu they’ve already perused a million times . “I’m… it doesn’t matter. Surviving. I’m surviving.”
“Well,” you start, chewing on your bottom lip gingerly. Rafe’s eyes fall to their raw surface, the contour of your jaw, your soft neck. He resists the urge to reach out and brush his fingers over your skin, ensure that you’re real, you’re here, you’re worried about him. “You’ve just… I don’t know. I never got to give you my condolences. I’m sorry, Rafael, I can’t even imagine how…”
You trail off, exhaling slowly. “…I’m here. If you want to talk —”
“— or not talk?” Rafe questions, but he’s grin now, crescent moon curve to his lips that meets the corners of his eyes. It’s the first time in a long while he’s let himself really smile.
You’re here. You were here three months ago, when the wound was still fresh, and it may not be close to healed, yet, but you’ll still be here when it is.
Rafe doesn’t know when the months slipped by; somewhere between his mother’s death, and now, he lost himself within loss, within mourning, endless grief. He doesn’t know when he stopped hoping for, wanting love; when he stopped living for the hope of it all.
He realises now that it doesn’t matter. Lillian Cameron wouldn’t have wanted her son to just give up.
“Will you just —” you pause, pinching the bridge of your nose frustratedly, “— I’m here, okay? As a friend.”
“A friend,” Rafe affirms with a nod. “A friend who I make out with sometimes?”
“And there he is,” Topper says then, throwing an arm over your shoulder as he brings up your rear. “Knew all it’d take was a conversation with you.”
“Shut up,” you mutter, fixing him a stern glare.
“He’s right, though,” he agrees with a wink, and then he pauses, dipping his head until he’s at eye level. This close, you can see specks of green within his blue irises. The tip of his pert nose is sunburnt. And when he adds, “Thank you. Seriously,” his breath is spicy mint, faint raspberry.
“I didn’t do anything,” you answer meekly, folding your arms across your chest. Your forearms brush his as you do so, warm sunshine with rippling muscles.
“You did,” he says, disarmingly sober. “You always do.”
His gaze lingers as he turns back around, and you try not to focus on the way your stomach flips, the way your breath catches at his words.
He’s returning to a table with Liz, you remind yourself, no doubt the millionth girl he’s taken out, kissed on the beach, this summer. You’re not special. He may look at you like you’re the only girl in the world, but you can’t be — not to a douchebag like him.
So, you don’t let his words get to you.
And when you decide to try out two new flavours (mint chocolate chip and raspberry sorbet — a combination that causes Topper to gag, violently), you try not to think about the fact that they taste like Rafe’s breath on your skin.
—
“I can’t believe you actually roped us into this crap,” Topper grumbles, nudging his way through the crowd with you and Kelce close behind. He halts nears an unoccupied patch of grass, crisp blades dried out by the unforgiving, Carolina heat.
“You guys are going to love it,” you insist, unrolling your plaid picnic blanket. The projector is a perfect distance away, cotton candy clouds overlaying large screen.
“Yeah, yeah,” Kelce scowls, setting down several snacks before getting comfortable. “You fucking owe us.”
You send him a saccharine sweet smile, stretching yourself out on the picnic blanket before reaching for a bag of Skittles. The air is thick with the scent of foxglove and forget-me-nots; it’s sticky humidity and cicadas, salty heat that reminds you of the beach.
“Come on,” you press, propping yourself up onto your elbows. You pop several Skittles into your mouth, chewing thoughtfully before continuing, “You haven’t even given it a chance. Just — just wait until the movie starts, alright? And then —”
“Wait a minute,” Topper interrupts; clearly, he wasn’t listening in the first place, “is that fucking —”
“Space for two more?”
You freezd. You recognise that voice; so well, in fact, that you know that the question is directed only at you.
“Uh,” you turn and lift your head, met with Rafe’s figure crouching down beside you. The burnt orange sunset lightens his irises; they look softer, somehow, more genuine than they did. “Why?”
Rafe raises his eyebrows. “For me and Noah?”
“Can’t you guys, like,” you gesticulate awkwardly, floundering, “I don’t know, sit somewhere else?”
“But I want to sit with you,” Rafe grins easily, nudging your shoulder with his.
You frown. “This isn’t what I meant,” you say, eyes darting toward Noah furtively. “When I said I’m here, I didn’t mean you could crash every hang out I plan with Top and Kelce —”
“Sweetheart,” Rafe says then, and he’s almost laughing — how dare he? What about this is funny? “I wasn’t trying to crash your…”
He trails off slowly, trying to find the right words to say. He isn’t sure how he’s able to convey how much your Daily Scoop-side rendezvous meant to him; how very much you’ve helped him feel like himself again.
He feels like an idiot for ever avoiding you. He wants you — needs you to know that.
“…thank you,” he finishes, exhaling slowly. “For… for before, just — thank you, okay?”
For being you. It prompted him to cancel his plans with Liz, just in case, prompted him to drag Noah to the drive-in, just because. Reminded him how it felt to live for the hope of it all.
You may not have been his to lose, but Rafe Cameron held onto the promise of a future where you were.
—
tags: (just some besties) @notdisneychannel @r0und3bitch @destourtereaux @itsalexwin @flossiewrites :)
More Posts from Fivsecondsflat and Others
14/08/2022: OKAY!!! HERE WE GO!!! i read this one a couple of days ago and can’t stop thinking about it. this bradley has crawled inside of my brain and refuses to leave (and honestly, i don’t want him to!!!)
jordan, this is the first fic of yours i had the pleasure of reading and it blew me away?????!!!!!!! i read the sneak peak and just kept coming back to your profile to see if you had posted the full thing and then you did!!!! and i was so ready to dive into this!!! so now that i’ve (tried to) collected myself enough to try and write something of a coherent and worthy enough review, here it is! spoiler alert: it’s just me screaming over your beautiful writing :)
the description really had me hooked from the beginning, we love a smart, bratty girl!!!! i love her personality so much just as much as i love bradley’s and for you to be able to make her just as real and multidimensional… REAL TALENT!!! she’s opinionated and stands her ground and is funny and so smart!!! i just love her and think she’s such a good fit for rooster.
“Plus, he liked smart girls. There was something about them. It didn’t hurt that the ones he had come across were always a little prissy, a little spoiled - a little uptight.
A little bratty.” of course bradley rooster bradshaw has a thing for bratty girls. of fucking course.
“Over the last two weeks, you had been texting frequently, starting off the day with your Wordle scores and a fun fact. It was cheesy and a little nerdy, but you were a big trivia fan - and San Diego County Barstool Trivia Champion - and Bradley had wanted to impress you. It was important that he impressed you.” in love with both of them playing wordle together and separating little fun facts for each other???? bradley thinking it was important that he impressed her!!! he’s a whore but he’s such a romantic and kind of can’t help it??!!! he really likes her and wants to prove himself even with little things like this 🥺
“You were both on drink number two and the awkwardness of your earlier outburst hasn’t quite dissipated yet. The sexual tension on the other hand? If Bradley had thought it was high earlier, it was stratospheric now.” love this!!!!! LET’S GO STRATOSPHERIC!!!!
“If you’re gonna be a brat about it, at least get my title right, sweetheart,” he snapped, the first time all night. He shoved his knee in between your legs, widening the space between your thighs just slightly. “It’s Lieutenant.” no this whole ranking thing is making me go a little insane… just a little… of course he was gonna take the chance to correct her!!!
“Bradley hooked his foot around your barstool and dragged it even closer to him. You let out a squeak and had to brace yourself by holding onto his shoulders.” AND I HAVE PASSED AWAY. JUST LIKE THAT. ABSOLUTELY NO WORDS. HOW DARE YOU DO THIS?????? WHAT IS THIS?????
“And that was when he knew. Knew as well as the sun was going to rise tomorrow morning that you were going to fuck that night.” please stop i can’t functionnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn THIS IS SOOOSIDHSHHDHSD
“What the fuck did you say to her?” Phoenix hissed in Bradley’s ear, snapping him out of his daydream.
He startled and then gestured wildly. “It was going fine for a while and then I told her I was in the Navy and she started going on about defense budgets and misappropriating government property and Uncle Sam sucking my dick - I don’t know, Phoenix!” PHOENIX MY BFF LOVE OF MY LIFE, LOVE HER LITTLE CAMEO!!!! and bradley’s answer 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 the way he’s just so dumbfounded by their interaction so far!!! he’s so stupid!!! i am in love with him!!! this was so in character!!! you nailed it!!!
“Fuck. He wanted you - desperately. And worse than that, he liked you. Liked how smart you were, liked your sense of humor, liked you. And some part of him felt bad for setting you up.” AND WORSE THAN THAT HE LIKED YOU!!!!! YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I LOVE IT WHEN WRITERS EMPHASIZE THIS LITTLE THING!!!!!! because liking someone means so much!!!! and him realizing he did kind of unintentionally hid what he does for a living from her because, let’s be honestly, it normally should’ve come up sooner than it did. anyways, i like that he understands!!!
“You let him take you by your elbow and guide - read drag - you towards the exit, barely stopping to allow you to grab your clutch off the bar top. Knowing Hangman and Phoenix were no doubt watching the entire series of events unfold, Bradley threw his middle finger up over his shoulder, and then let the door close firmly behind his back.” HOT!!!! THE MIDDLE FINGER!!! DRAGGING HER AWAY!!!!!! THIS IS DOING IT FOR ME!!!!
“No, I’m gonna take you home and fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk straight in the morning, that sound good, sweetheart?” You nodded dumbly. “And for the record, it’s not a truck, it’s a Bronco.” STOP i just know he has the time of his life when he gets to correct her on anything!!!! like he finally has some advantage shhfhshcjshdhdhd AND HIS MOUTH IS SO FILTHY I LOVE HIM I CAN’T HELP IT.
“Fuck. Imagine if you weren’t so blissed out getting finger fucked and you could talk back at him? This time he let out a groan.” ABSOLUTELY NO WORDS. I NO LONGER EXIST. AGAIN WITH THE ADVANTAGE!!!!! AND THE FACT THAT HE’S DOING THIS TO HER YOU KNOW!!!! IT’S ALL HIM!!!! ROOSTER’S EFFECT!!!!! I CAN SEE HIS EGO INFLATING LIKE A BALLOON!!!!
“Shh, shh, that’s a good girl, yeah? Such a good girl for me.” NOT A GOOD GIRL DROP. INSANE INSANE INSANEEEEEEEEEEE.
“A few moments later, the Bronco practically rolled into his driveway on two wheels. Thankfully, Bradley had left the porch light on so the house wasn’t entirely dark. You looked at the house critically and he desperately wanted you to like it.
It was important to him that you liked it.” NO BECAUSE HE WAS ALREADY UNCONSCIOUSLY THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP!!! HE NEEDS HER TO LIKE THE HOUSE!!!!! HE’S SUCH A ROMANTIC I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL!!!!!! i love this change in the narrative in between their heated moments so much. it adds so much depth because it’s slowly becoming so much more than just lust. i feel it’s always been a little morr than just lust with them? ❤️🩹
AND THEN HE CARRIES HER FROM THE CAR TO THE HOUSE!!!!!! EVER THE GENTLEMAN!!!! I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!!!
“In turn, you smacked his back. “And you would know all about that - making demands. Hostage negotiations, CIA blacksites - mmmhh!” she’s ridiculous i love her and this made me laugh!!!
“Navy’s good for one thing, I guess,” you muttered against Bradley’s neck while your hands ran over his body.” SPEAK YOUR TRUTH!!!
“When he eventually pulled away, your eyes met, and he rested his forehead against yours.” favorite little detail 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 tenderness in the middle of so much frantic want!!!!
“Fuck me, Bradley - please?”
You said his name. Not lieutenant or asshole or some other slightly condescending moniker. You said Bradley. As in you wanted him - the guy who had originally asked you out. The one you had tried so hard to impress all those days and nights spent texting.
And who was he to say no to that?” was he getting a little insecure? MY BABYYYYYYY I GO BALLISTIC WHEN HE GETS EMOTIONAL!!!!
“Please,” you whimpered sometime later. It was a simple, one word response, but it proved to be his undoing.” i forgot the name of this kink but rooster definitely has it!!!!! anyways IT PROVED TO BE HIS UNDOING????? DUDE I LOVE YOUR WRITING SO MUCH.
AND PAUSE- NOT HER TRYING TO TALK ABOUT CO2 EMISSIONS WHILE RIDING HIM HOW IS HER BRAIN STILL FUNCTIONING LIKE THAT??? in the next line of dialogue i know she doesn’t remember the amount or whatever but the fact that she even tried to bring it up shdgshchhshdhdhd silly!!!
“The absolutely blissed out expression on your face made him groan. “God, look at you now, all cock dumb for me. What happened to that smart girl from before?” GODDDDDDDDDDD.
AND THEN HE LISTS THE PRESIDENTS I CAN’T-
“Good boy,” you just managed to get out before Bradley really felt himself losing control.” IT WASN’T ENOUGH FOR YOU TO THROW THAT GOOD GIRL IN MY FACE YOU HAD TO BRING A GOOD BOY DROP INTO THIS AND EXPECT MY BRAIN TO STILL BE ABLE TO ABSORB ANYTHING AFTER? how???? and the fact that he likes it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ugh!!!!!!
“Gotta wait a couple more dates before we start talking about kids, sweetheart.” THE WAY MY STOMACH STARTED CARTWHEELING OVER HERE LIKE IT’S THE FUCKING OLYMPICS MY GOD. FAVORITE FUCKING PIECE OF DIALOGUE I DON’T EVEN KNOW ANYTHING ANYMORE.
“You both laid there, side by side, chests rising and falling heavily. Fuck. Neither of you knew what to say - if there even was something to say. It had never been like that with anyone else - ever.” IT’S NOT LIKE THIS WITH OTHER PEOPLE!!!! between all the banter and teasing they just really like each other so much!!!!! yeah!!!!
“So, how do we really feel about the stache?” You brought your finger up to his mouth and dragged it across his mustache and then to his lips.” skchjsjdjdjdjdjd i love her!!! and this is my second favorite detail. but absolutely do not mess with the mustache.
“You’ll change your mind after riding my face.” WHORE!!!
“He kissed your nose. “You know us military guys, ready with a moment’s notice.” You yawned. “Or maybe not…” i think i take it back, this might be my favorite detail. the fact that he notices the yawn and probably of course notices that she’s getting tired and sleepy so no round 2 for them at that moment but maybe later 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 rooster my beloved!!!! (the bar is very low i am aware).
“He so rarely allowed himself that time during the week - the ability to ‘just do’ and not over think everything. To do whatever he wanted. But that Saturday morning was different.
Because that Saturday you were there.” HELL YEAH BECAUSE THAT SATURDAY YOU WERE THERE AND IT CHANGES EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!
“Morning,” he rasped as he opened his eyes. You were staring at him, looking like a deer in headlights. “How’d you sleep?” like a deer in headlights! i love this comparison, it made me visualize the scene perfectly!!!
AND YOU HAD TO GIVE US A SCARE I REALLY THOUGHT SHE WAS GONNA LEAVE FOR GOOD I WAS STARTING TO GET SO SAD. very mean of you.
“You think you’re funny, don’t you?” He tried to keep a straight face, but couldn’t hide his smile or the relief he had felt.” ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹 babies!!!! it was all for fun and giggles, a little humor in the morning!!!
“You know, I’ve been thinking…”
“Smart girl.” FUCKING KILL ME.
“You ignored him. “You already fly in that death trap plane and can handle all the g-force so the astronaut training programs shouldn’t be - don’t look at me like that, all surprised I know what g-force is, I’m not an idiot.” i can see him just staring at her in awe while talking about this!! i can see it!!!! he’s so amused!!!!
“He wasn’t about to give up on this just yet.” *JUST INSERT SO MANY HEART EMOJIS* one of my favorite lines!!!!!
“He pulled his lips away from yours. “- Wait, wait - it’s not okay for me to exploit foreign nations, but it’s okay for me to potentially colonize space?”
You straddled his waist, barely moving your lips away from his neck as you gave a reply. “Shh, shh, we can work out the details later…” no because i’ve been watching for all mankind on apple tv+ for the past month and that’s exactly the plot of the show (and there are so many elements in it that connect to the top gun universe) like, bradley’s right on this one sjdhjshdjdjdsjjdjd this made me laugh!!! and it was a perfect ending for the part 1 of their story!!!! i love their relationship so much!!! i love the way you write!!!!!!
and even when we’re wrong in every way, we come out the other side okay [part ½]
Summary: in which lieutenant bradshaw has a thing for smart girls - and maybe ones who hate his guts on principle. a lie by omission is still a lie after all and bradley never exactly told you what he did for work…
OR you take on the us military industrial complex one hinge date at a time…well sort of
Pairing: Rooster x Fem!Reader
Warnings: 18+, explicit language, explicit sexual content (oral (m receiving), vaginal fingering, p in v, and slight dom/sub and praise and rank kink elements), idk basically she’s a bit of a brat? and he likes it? it’s kind of filthy, but it’s supposed to be kind of funny and a little silly?
A/N: thanks to everyone who liked the sneak peek and provided such positive feedback! but i really have to give a shout out to my buddy sol (desertsagecelestial) for being the absolute best sounding board with this fic! definitely check out her wip, it’s amazinggggg. anyway, enjoy! (9.9k) Part 1.5
Continuar lendo
HYPERVENTILATING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
more dom!hazel would be so appreciated if u can hehe 🫶🫶
+ another anon who asked for a cleaning bruises fic
𝐁𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐬 & 𝐁𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐬 | 𝐇𝐚𝐳𝐞𝐥 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐡𝐚𝐧
Hazel Callahan x fem!reader
Summary: "If I put my hands up your skirt right now, am I gonna find you wet?"
Warnings: Established Relationship, Hyper feminine!Reader, PJ as her own warning, Mentions of Bruises, Mentions of Violence, Cleaning Hazel's bruises, Domestic Fluff, Humor, Jealousy, Possessiveness, Smut (+18 Minors DNI), Dirty Talk, Mutual Pining, Fighting Kink?, Fingering, Dom!Hazel, Sub!Reader, Praise Kink, Degradation Kink, Overstimulation
Can be seen as a continuation of this fic but not strictly
Your afternoon had been almost perfect, with Hazel nestled between your open legs just a step lower on the school bleachers. Her head had been thrown back, with her curls running rampant against your skin and tickling your chest. You smoothed her hair down in vain intervals while she played with a loose string on the stitiching of your plaid skirt as she droned on and on about the unlikelihood of being enlisted as a bomb tech by the US Army.
"I don't really know where else I could use my particular set of expertise. What else could I do that won't ultimately lead me down the path of... you know, treason and terrorism?" You nod vaguely as Hazel continues her equal parts aloof and equal parts worrying rants. All while combining your fingers through her hair, "I mean, I just feel like World War III is probably upon us, you know-"
"Ugh, could you guys get a room?" You had been so enamored by Hazel's ranting that you failed to notice PJ at first. Her and Josie made their slow ascent on the bleachers until their shadows blocked your afternoon sun.
"Could you get a girlfriend?" The words had snipped off your tongue with harsh vexation as you instinctively cradled Hazel closer to your chest.
"Jesus-" Hazel had muttered, as she craned her neck up to stare at PJ and a disgruntled Josie, "Why are you trying to hijack my boob time?"
You had to reign in all murderous intentions as PJ grabbed hold of Hazel's forearms and forcibly dragged her up off the bleachers… out of your arms.
"You don't get boob time until we all get boob time. And need I remind you that you're going to be late for Fight Club," You heaved a very loud, very obnoxious sigh as you tilted your head backwards, letting the rays bounce off your pink sunglasses, "You guys should seriously get a room." Said PJ, "Stop giving the entire football team a show. Come on, you're setting us back like 69 years-"
Before PJ sunk her claws into Hazel completely, she bent down until her lips pressed against your cheek, and she whispered, "I'll see you back at my place, yeah?"
Your heart deflated at her confirmation that she was indeed leaving you for Fight Club, "Hazel..."
"Shh, shut up. Just say yes,"
But before you could wrack your brain for something coherent to say, PJ had already begun to make her descent off the bleachers, taking your girlfriend along with her.
You did not hate PJ, nor were you her biggest fan at the best of times. However, nights like tonight made your vexation grow to unimaginable heights simply because PJ is completely and utterly inescapable.
This evening, however, waiting for Hazel to get back from Figh Club, had been perfect. Etta James had been oozing through The Callahan's home speakers as you prepared the butternut soup- Hazel's favourite Post Fight Club recovery meal (although she hated admitting it, because she did not want to put you out of your way).
You are perfectly content, trapped in your web of make-believe as you prance around Hazel's kitchen, assembling your respective bowls needed for the soup. Mrs Callahan had let you in, as she always did after school, with a dismissive wave while she babbled into the receiver of her iPhone. Before she completely disappeared into the innards of her sprawling house, Mrs Callahan vaguely threw over her shoulder "Hazel is at her thing until 5 but I'm sure you've been made aware," and you were left in this great big labyrinth to entertain yourself.
Sex had been even more seldom, given that Hazel was rarely ever in any shape to commence any form of coitus due to the various bruises popping up in unlikely places. You wish you can safely tell yourself you despised seeing her bloody and battered state - that you gain absolutely nothing from Fight Club and that you most likely never will.
But you're staring dreamily into the pot of soup, and you're stirring and stirring, with your heart racing in anticipation of Hazel's inevitable return with her inevitable bruises smeared across her perfect little face.
You had not planned on cooking for anyone because seducing Hazel in her inevitably bloodied state was on the forefront of your mind, and Mrs Callahan had a very tempting bright pink apron hanging on the hook.
So perhaps you did do this all for her.
Perhaps you were waiting for her, to stride on through the foyer, nursing a streak of dried blood down her nose, eager to catch her reaction at seeing you so comfortable in her space while you rushed to swoop in and fawn over her.
This near perfect daydream might have actually manifested…
Were it not for PJ's loud and obnoxious voice bleeding into the kitchen from the foyer, accompanied by the heavy groan of the front door slamming shut. Your shoulders visibly sag as you empty the rest of the soup into your bowl just as the trio rounds the corner into the kitchen.
"Oh my God - soup!" PJ exclaimed rushing towards you with her gaze zeroed in on the bowl locked firmly in your hand. You had been so focused on keeping the bowl from PJ's incessant grabby hands that you failed to see the dazed, almost breathless look that sprinkled over Hazel's face who drifted slowly behind Josie despite this being her house.
Suddenly, every thought about the impending bruise she was facing due to not dodging a right hook earlier vanished from her mind like doves in the wind. Hazel's head was completely flooded with the image of you, in her kitchen, with your cute as fuck little skirt grazing just above your knee.
This almost did not feel real. Less than a month ago, no one barely blinked in her direction, but now...
So enamored was Hazel by your act of service, she nearly failed to catch PJ's innate need to flirt whenever you were in the vicinity.
"You look hot by the way," PJ had slyly said, still reaching for the bowl of steaming soup, which you only drew higher above your head.
"Sorry PJ, only people who make me cum get to eat my cooking."
"Is that an invitation?" She asked, leaning against the counter, "That sounded like an invitation."
Hazel cleared her throat, finally succeeding in having your eyes wash over her. "Can we probably not talk about you fucking my girlfriend, maybe, I think?" She said cooly, discarding her bag somewhere on the floor before making her up closer towards you. Her slouch was even more prominent and you swear the air in your lungs thinned as she brushed up beside you and muttered, "Hey,"
"Hey yourself." And Hazel's tummy instantly warmed as you discarded the bowl on the counter, turning to cup her cheeks in your hands as you observed her latest shiners acquired from Fight Club. Something sinister flashed through Hazel's mind as your big dark eyes scanned over her visage, eyeing the new bruise splotched across her eye and the horizontal laceration on her cheek.
"It doesn't hurt," She can barely find her words under the overwhelming feeling of your care and attention. Your scent is all encompassing, and before she ever allows for anymore of her arousal to stain her boxers Hazel attempts to draw her face out of your palm.
"Jesus, Hazel!" You squeal, pulling her head down closer to your height, until Hazel has to support herself with a hand on the counter behind you, "Please don't tell me you were sparring with anyone on the football team again!"
You hoped you succeeded in masking how turned on that thought actually got you...
Hazel's voice is deep and low as she replies,
"Jeff said that if I can at least dodge his left, left, right hook next time, I could probably be ready for the whole team." You breathe out and airy laugh almost the same time as her, the both of you silently aware of what the other was doing.
"Ugh, you're such a virgin." PJ mutters under a mouthful of soup.
"I literally have a girlfriend," Hazel mutters without looking away. Her gaze was nearly trapped in yours as she allowed you to pull her limp body away from PJ and Josie. "Come on, I need to clean you up."
And that's how you had found yourself, cross-legged on Hazel's bed with her leaning against the headboard like your Oh so compliant little patient. Her gaze is yet to waver from yours, in fact, cleaning the laceration had been utter hell, right up until this point because Hazel had taken to drawing various circles against the skin of your exposed thigh.
The skirt had ridden up marginally from your seating position, and Hazel seems perfectly fine toying with your various emotions.
"You look really pretty," Hazel breathed out as if those words were sitting heavily on her heart ever since you applied the wet gauze against her left cheek. You try to hold your composure, keeping a firm eye on the dressing of Hazel's wound as you say, "I don't really think I want you going to fight club anymore,"
"Tch'yeah okay," she snickers dismissively, "Hey, is this skirt new? It's hot- like 'gay 50s housewife' kinda hot," There's an edge to her voice that has Hazel sitting taller against the headboard before incriminatingly letting her hands drift just a little higher on your thigh. Your breathing becomes heavier as you fight hard to maintain your crumbling composure.
"I'm serious, Hazel," you had begun to whisper. Why had you begun to whisper?
"I don't wanna have to stitch you up every time-"
As soon as the gauze was plastered onto her cheek, Hazel's head was already melting into your chest, nuzzling at your open cleavage exposed by your Pastel v-neck as she says, "God, I love it when you mommy me,"
"H-Hazel," any warning you tried to inject into your tone gets fizzled out by the embarrassing moan that escaped your lips as Hazel's teeth dragged lightly against the skin of your chest. Her hands were restless, as if she was testing herself as to how far she'd allow herself to go so quickly.
You suck in so much air as Hazel's palm cradles the inside of your thigh and because you're cross legged, closing your legs is nearly impossible. "Fuck, I'm so turned on, right now," her voice cracks as she brings her face up from your boobs. Pressing a hand to your cheek, she tries and fails to bring your lips towards hers.
Hazel frowns as you say,
"You think it makes me feel good seeing you like this?"
You ignore the budding voice in your head echoing the loud and very obnoxious 'yes, yes you do like seeing her like this. You like seeing that reckless smile blossom onto her cracked and battered face. It gets you wet and you know it does-'
But your voice is full of fragile conviction as you say, "You think I like seeing my girlfriend beaten up everyday of the week?"
Hazel blinks once before she succinctly replies, "If I put my hands up your skirt right now, am I gonna find you wet?" An entire desert ecosystem is suddenly born inside your mouth, and you swallow thickly as your eyes evade Hazel's uncomplicated, piercing gaze. She tilts her head, smiles gone, simply waiting for your response.
"Do you want me to tell you what I think?" She asks before steadily closing the distance between you once more. Only, you're so terrified of being caught out, so utterly embarrassed at the thought of her finding out about the pool of wetness that had begun soaking completely through your panties, that you back away the closer she gets. Your slinking backwards only allows Hazel to crawl closer until she's hovering above you in the centre of her bed.
You have her undivided attention, and she has yours. Your eyes recklessly scans her face, every cut, laceration, and every old bruise buried under a new one has your lips turning downward as a small, almost imperceptible whimper forces itself out of your throat.
"There she is…" Hazel whispers with a palm cradling your cheek, "There's my needy little girl," You're quickly slipping into subspace right in front of her and Hazel is more than grateful. A single silver pendant dangles from her throat as she dips down, finally connecting your lips in a quietly passionate kiss. Your eyes immediately flutter shut, and so does hers. The both of you are utterly enamored by the sheer lust communicated by the intensity of the kiss alone.
"Fuck," Hazel curses, momentarily breaking apart to peel off her oversized graphic tee. You're watching your girlfriend in her sports bra with unbridled lust shining heavily on your pouty lips.
"Tell me you're wet for me," She says, "Please, Baby."
You're slipping deeper and deeper but you still have half a mind to lightly whisper, "Hazel, they're right downstairs-" She's already crashing her lips back down onto yours.
"Tell me you're wet for me," She murmurs against your lips, never being able to stray too far.
The hand that isn't holding her up, hovering above you, is once again, underneath your skirts, only this time, the tips of her fingers are dragging up against your inner thigh with no chance of stopping.
"Fuck, Hazel,"
"Is that supposed to be an answer?"
You're already pulling your own hips off the bed, seeking her hand out like a whore as you break the kiss only to whimper, "Yes, okay, fine! I'm so wet for you, Hazel- just, please!"
She watches completely fargone as you let your soaked panties meet her awaiting palm. Watching you grind yourself against her hand has Hazel's mind absolutely descending into lust.
"God, you're so beautiful," she says, before finally pressing her own hand against your soaked panties. She rubs in harsh, rough circles, eager to bring you to the very edge of insanity. She needed to see you fall apart for her again and again-
"Inside," You whisper, watching your girlfriend rub your cunt with bated breath. You're still wearing your skirt but you figure Hazel needs to fuck you in it to fulfil some sort of fantasy and you don't entirely mind. Not at all.
"Hazel, Please. I need you inside-"
"Fuck- you're such a slut-"
Your head immediately falls back against the bed as Hazel's movements against your soaked panties increases.
"You like it when I call you a slut, baby?" Your hips stutter upwards in vague response as you moan loudly into the air.
"Fuck- Hazel, I'm close- I'm so fucking- fuck," the orgasm sneaks up on you like a villain in the night and you're spamming underneath her, while Hazel continues to rub your cunt through the torrid sensation. Before you've ever even come down from your high, there's a knock on the door, and look towards it with slightly parted lips and blurry vision.
"Hey- you have no more soup, and I think you two are fucking in there so Josie and I are just gonna g-"
"Fuck off, PJ!" Hazel screams at the door, failing to hear the small little 'Okay, rude' before she's lifting your skirt until they're pooling at your hips.
"Hazel, what're you-"
"Another one, okay?" She nods encouragingly before shifting your panties aside and pressing the colds tips of her forefinger and middle finger against your soaked cunt. "You're going to give me another one. I wanna see if I can do it."
You can't even roll your eyes at her unnecessary display of pride because your eyes are rolling to the back of your head as she drags the essence of your arousal along your clit. "Fuck, you look so hot-"
"H-Hazel," the aftershocks from your previous orgasm rack through your upper body just as the oncoming tempest of lust gears you up for the next one. Hazel leans over you once more as she continues to rub at your clit, "Just one more, baby, I know you can do it. Show me, baby." It's downright evil, the effect her manipulation has on your body as you descend further and further into your lust.
"Look at how perfect you look," she says with a voice thick with lechery, "Fuck, you get me so wet to, baby," she murmurs before instinctive pressing her lips to yours once again, as if something nestled in her being, craved the touch of your lips against hers.
"You're gonna be a good girl for me?"
"Fuck- Hazel-"
"I'm right here, angel," she whispers, before bringing the tips of her fingers to your opening. Hazel is quick to slide her index and middle finger into your pussy until she's fucking you hard and deep. It takes a few short pumps for you to clutch mindlessly at her forearms with your vision slightly waning as you look up at your smiling girlfriend who watches you descend into your orgasm.
"That's it," she coos as you clench around her fingers, "You're doing so well for me, baby,"
"F-Fuck!" You stutter out as you fall into the depths of euphoria. Your mind is flooded with nothing but Hazel, all thoughts previously plaguing your brain is made null and void. In the end, you're just a beacon for her to release her frustrations out on. Even if it means overstimulating you until you become a noisy, helpless mess.
For a while, each other's heavy breathing is all you hear.
That is, until you hear a loud bump against Hazel's closed door, drawing both your attention.
"PJ-" whispers Josie with unimaginable frustration.
"Oh my God, they're definitely fucking-"
*shakes fictional character* where is the rest of your information I want to know more about you
04/10/22: CUTEST PROLOGUE FOR THE CUTEST COUPLE AROUND!!! aaaaaaaaa i’m so happy we’re gonna get to see them in an actual relationship this time!!! IT’S TIME FOR THE REAL DEAL!!! they deserve to be so happy together, i’m over the moon. i know this prologue is super short but i still NEED to highlight my favorite parts so that’s what below the cut!!! 💞
“His velvet jacket draped over his shoulder with just as much swagger as he had when he approached you last night at the wedding – watching him walk was going to be a problem, you realised. Did he always walk so sexy?”
“Was this your ploy? To get me back here…” he bit back a smile as he was in front of you again. You shook your head, a shy smile unable to be held back.” your rooster has such a way with words i’m already turning into jelly!!!!!!!!
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare be sorry,” he reassured you, swallowing hard. “Gee, they look good on you,” his voice dropped and his hands pressed into your hips, thumbs pressing into the soft flesh as you inhaled sharply.” THE DIALOGUE TONE CHANGE IN THIS I’M OBSESSED!!!
“Curiosity killed the cat,” his lip quirked, lowered his face to yours and you slipped his dog tags over his head, but didn’t let go of the chain. His warm hazel eyes caught yours.” 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 i can visualize the scene so perfectly!!!
“he made a face, his palms sliding to your ribcage, lightly tracing the bones under the pads of his long fingers. “Last guess. Better make it a good one,” he warned softly, his tired rasp just… just doing things. Bad, naughty things to your already overstimulated brain. Gee, if this was a dream you did not want to wake up.” PHYSICAL TOUCH ROOSTER YOU WILL ALWAYS BE FAMOUS AND LOVED BY ME IT’S JUST SOMETHING SO PERSONAL AND IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE IN EVERY INTERPRETATION OF HIS CHARACTER THE WHOLE PART ABOUT HIS PALM SLIDING TO YOUR RIBCAGE AND TRACING??????? INSANE. BEAUTIFUL. AND HIS VOICEEEEEEE!!!! “just… just doing things.” YEAH!!!!!!!!! I GET IT!!!!!! SO VALID, SO REAL!!!
“Nathan…” your voice trailed off and watched his face direct you towards another no and you quickly added, “iel?” reader trying to fix it last minute!!! CUTE!!!
AND OF COURSE FROM THE MOMENT I SAW THE LETTER N IN THE MIDDLE I KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE NICHOLAS BECAUSE OF GOOSE AND STILL I GASPED WHEN BRADLEY SAID IT AJHDJSHDHSHS ANYWAYS!!!
“Nicholas,” you said again, burning into your brain so you’d never forget it.” 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥲🥲🥲
AND THEN THE WHOLE NICHOLAS WAS DAD’S NAME PART 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲
“And there you have it. I’m all outta mystery,” he blinked, licking his lips. You were desperate to have him kiss you again. You gave each other bashful grins and fell into a slightly weird silence. He was so fucking handsome, how had you been so blind that this man was in front of you? Looking this fine, smelling this good… and wanting you just as badly.” AND WANTING YOU JUST AS BADLY!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS MY FAVORITE LINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“That part was the hardest part to grasp.” BELOVEDS I REALLY AM GETTING EMOTIONAL!!!
The Relationship Experience - prologue
read this first - the boyfriend experience
Tugging at the chain around your neck, rationality setting in, you texted Rooster furiously fast. “Bradley N. Bradshaw… your dog tags are right here where you left them,” you said as you typed, hopefully getting his attention before he got too far away, or at least seeing your text before he reported.
Fuck, he texted back simply. That wasn’t good, you realised.
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30/12/22: HOLY SHIT BOXER BOB!!! this is one of the best first chapters i've ever read, everything was do engaging and you gave us enough to want more i need to know how their date went i need to know more about bob and mickey’s relationship and the boxing and maverick and how the stories are all going to connect. i need it ALL. just so good. i think you really nailed his personality, or at least the little bit you showed of him in this chapter. all of bob’s lines were so on character but with an EDGE!!! something a little different, but that FITS!!! anyways i’m so excited for the future parts, you’re incredibly talented!!!
“Bob Floyd liked to think he was a good person.” such an engaging opening line!!!
“But there’s an unrelenting pressure that comes with being a good person. A weight that couldn’t be lifted as he exhausted himself with the idea of what exactly it means to be inherently good.” this is getting so good already!!!
“He gives up his seat on public transportation and has reusable shopping bags so he doesn’t have to use the plastic ones at the grocery store.” of course he does ❤️
“Bob Floyd was a good person. Bob Floyd was a good person until, suddenly, he wasn’t. And it could all be traced back to the first time he ever stepped foot into Sugar Plum Bakery.” the name of the bakery in contrast with the whole atmosphere you’ve created for this is so interesting.
“Hi!” You pop up suddenly, smiling brightly. There’s a smudge of flour on your cheek, stipples of it all over your apron, and Bob's almost certain there’s some in your hair too. “What can I getcha?” and i adore her already.
“You bite your lip, eyes squinting as you appear to be sizing him up. It reminds Bob of his opponents in the ring — though their eyes aren’t nearly as pretty as yours — and it almost makes him laugh.” 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
“Bob’s eyebrows raise slightly in agreement. “Today’s special, huh? Then I should probably get one of those, shouldn’t I?”
“It’d be sacrilegious not to,” you tease back, a smile growing on your lips.” love this piece of dialogue!!!
AND THE 20% TIP FOR A 5 SECOND CONVERSATION AND AN APPLE TART HE IS THE SWEETEST
“You hand the box to him with that bright smile and — just like every romantic comedy Bob has ever watched with his mom — his heart stutters when your fingers brush.” AND HE WATHES ROMCOMS????? 😭😭😭😭😭❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨
“Oh?” You turn back to the croissants, pleased with their golden brown color as you move to transfer them to a different tray to bring up front. “And what would you call him?” i also adored this description and her attention to detail in the croissant!!!
“Don’t think it was a cupcake he was hopin’ for,” she looks at you knowingly and you feel slightly flustered at her implication.
He wanted to see you?” i am a puddle on the floor!!!!
“Ball cap guy sticks out like a sore thumb against the few customers in Sugar Plum, a head taller than everyone else even as his head is tilted down to look at his phone.” 😭
AND THEN HE GENUINELY PAYS ATTENTION TO HER RAMBLING ABOUT SWEET PEAS
“That’ll be—”
“What time do you get off?” He blurts suddenly.” I LOVE THIS TROPE!!! IS IT A TROPE??? SPEAKING OVER EACH OTHER IDK BUT I LOVE IT
“You ever think about fighting, Bob?” oh… maverick is RECRUITING???
“Maybe if Bob had done that to the landlord, he’d stop making his mom cry. Maybe if Bob had done that to those preppy college boys, Mickey wouldn’t have to shrug it off with a “People tip pretty good at Charlotte’s anyway”. Maybe if he’d never taken it, and taken it, and taken it, and actually stopped to wonder if maybe he didn’t have to, they wouldn’t have had to take it either.” LOVE THIS LINE
“How much would you pay me?” smart boy!!!
“Because if Adler could come out of it all a good man, Bob could cling to that hope for himself a little longer.” BOB 😭🥺
Do Unto Otters
summary - You should have known to question when Bob suddenly appeared in your bakery and made his place in your life — but, in your defense, his smile was so charming! Five dates in and he’s already swept you off your feet completely with his thoughtful nature and kind heart. But the question still remains: what do you actually know about him? And why does he always come back to you covered in bruises?
warnings - DARK THEMES, boxer au, violence, language, Bob is 6′5″ because I said so, I roasted Mav in this a bit my bad, mentions of violence, “Bob” is kind of a stupid boxer name so I changed it, no use of y/n
this series is 18+, minors please do not interact
word count - 3.5k
please take this as my thank you for 1.5k! I am so so honored that you guys think my stuff is worth reading, it means the world to me. anyway enjoy! - bugs
sweeter than sugar masterlist
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10/01/2022: HOW DARE YOU??? i read this in the morning, went to the dentist, had lunch, went to work, came back home and the entire day was just a BLUR because all that i could think about was THIS!!! 😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫 favorite parts are below the cut, you are a menace!!! (ily)
“you’d never once had the desire to call a partner that before in bed - ever. but with bradley it just fit.” your characterization is always on point, it always makes sense and i love you for it, jordan!!! i personally don’t always like when people overuse daddy (it just doesn’t do it for me) BUT AGAIN, with bradley it just fits it works you are always correct and i have died from this!!!
“but something you probably should have brought up at another time. like when all seven and a half inches of your fiancé’s dick wasn’t inside you.” STOPPPPP
“please,” you said into his neck, but bradley grabbed your chin so you were looking into his eyes.” GRABBED HER CHINNNNNNNNNNN
“‘atta girl…” DO NOT DO THIS TO ME THIS IS TOO MUCH
“‘s all you, kid. come on,” he groaned.” i have died.
“daddy, huh?” he said after a moment.
you sighed and pulled back to look at him, knowing you were in for some teasing, but still more than willing to give it just as good.
“don’t get used to it, bubs.”
(but he would. and he did.)” BUT HE WOULD AND HE DID 🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡 their banter will forever be unmatched!!! best people ever!!!
Jordan!! Share the thoughts!!!! We all are having the same ones!!! Especially since we talked about spanking!!! I seriously need to get laid or find the charger to my vibrator I’m going insane™
the aforementioned spanking will have to wait until later because i can’t quite think of how to incorporate it into their storyline yet (what can i say he’s a Giver in the next two things i’m gonna post), but here’s some good old fashioned daddy shit and cockwarming to hopefully wet your whistle (why did i say it like that?)
OR the first time you call bradley daddy (18+)
the first time it happened was an accident.
well, maybe not an accident, per se. you had thought it plenty of times since you’d been dating bradley and even more since you’d gotten engaged.
but you’d never said it. or at least not to him.
daddy. daddy. daddy.
you’d never once had the desire to call a partner that before in bed - ever. but with bradley it just fit.
and so one night, you had been a little tired from the edible you’d taken earlier (obviously bradley had to refrain) and buzzed from the champagne you were convinced you needed, and your inhibitions had been lowered - drastically. but the ironic thing was, you hadn’t been doing anything out of the ordinary. it wasn’t a scene or anything like that.
no. you were just sitting on his lap, chest to chest, as you warmed his cock after going another round earlier in the evening.
and again, you were a little tired from the edible and the champagne and your head was resting on his shoulder at the perfect angle for you to press little kisses across his cheeks and neck. so when you’d kissed the pretty little scar on his shoulder, he’d shuddered and shifted and you had let out a pitiful whimper. god, you felt so good. he always made you feel so good.
“feel so full, daddy.” you sounded wanton - you barely even recognized your own voice - you sounded tired, young, bratty.
daddy. daddy. daddy.
and then bradley tensed.
and then bradley dug his fingers into your hips.
and then bradley slightly pulled you off his cock.
and then bradley settled you back on his cock, deeper this time.
and then bradley groaned.
and then bradley said: “what was that again, sweetheart?”
you whimpered and couldn’t help but clench your pussy around his cock. embarrassed, you burrowed your face into his neck, knowing even on the cloud you were floating on that you had said something wrong. well, maybe not wrong. but something you probably should have brought up at another time. like when all seven and a half inches of your fiancé’s dick wasn’t inside you.
“daddy…” you whispered, except it came out needier than you would have liked.
bradley groaned and you could feel his cock twitch inside you. “you want more of daddy’s cock?”
“please,” you said into his neck, but bradley grabbed your chin so you were looking into his eyes.
he slipped his thumb into your mouth and you sucked on the tip. his fingers were still sticky from when they’d been inside you a few minutes ago and you felt warm at the thought of tasting yourself.
“you’re gonna have to work for it then…”
you nodded, eagerly. anything. you’d do anything for bradley - for daddy.
daddy. daddy. daddy.
bradley slapped your ass with his other hand and you moaned around his thumb. the action shot a hot wave of arousal straight to your throbbing core. god, you hadn’t even started moving and you already felt so full.
“come on, be a good girl and bounce on daddy’s cock.”
he was loving this, you could tell. if not from his physical reaction then from the cocky tone of his voice and the pleased smile on his face. but a breathier, sluttier voice at the back of your mind kept drowning the rational voice out and could only focus on one word.
daddy. daddy. daddy.
daddy wanted you to bounce on his cock. daddy wanted you to work for it. daddy wanted you to be a good girl.
you started off with slow, languid thrusts of your hips, gradually becoming deeper knowing that was the way bradley liked it - the way daddy liked it. his thumb slipped out of your mouth and then he drifted his hand down your body to play with your breasts. they were desperate for some attention and you jutted them out towards him. they were full and heavy and so sensitive and you let out a whimper as he pinched a nipple.
“‘atta girl…”
the obscene sound of the two of you fucked up against each other filled the room. you were so wet and turned on it was almost pathetic. granted, you still had bradley’s cum inside you from when you had fucked earlier. but god - it was so delicious. you could cum from the sound alone.
daddy. daddy. daddy.
as if reading your thoughts, bradley glanced down to where the two of you were connected and clicked his tongue. “fuck, ain’t that pretty?”
you nodded multiple times in quick succession. god, you were so close. so fucking close.
“harder, daddy, please.”
his hands snaked down to your hips and settled the two of you in a bruising pace and you swore you saw stars again for the second time that night. knowing you were close, bradley brought his hand down to where the two of you were connected and rubbed your clit. his middle and index finger played with the nub and you felt a pull in your stomach.
you arched your back and let out a moan, which he swallowed with his mouth. you both let out desperate gasps and grunts against each other’s mouths as you tried to see who would come first.
“‘s all you, kid. come on,” he groaned.
with a final cry, you came and bradley spent himself inside you soon after. you collapsed against his chest, utterly spent from the multiple times you had already cum that evening. god, you were so overstimulated. your entire body was wrought and warm and yet you still wanted to be closer to bradley. you peppered kisses along his jawline in between catching your breath.
“daddy, huh?” he said after a moment.
you sighed and pulled back to look at him, knowing you were in for some teasing, but still more than willing to give it just as good.
“don’t get used to it, bubs.”
(but he would. and he did.)
18/08/22: HI!!! ME AGAIN!!! THIS TIME TO SCREAM ABOUT JAKE SERESIN!!!! may, i swear to god, how do you do this???????????? there is no oxygen left in in lungs. you outdo yourself again and again. the way you write jake makes me feels like i’m on a roller coaster. you understand him as a character so well (the day i have the capacity to make a full review of all parts of bad habit is coming soon and i know it’s gonna break me because you dissected him on that one, BEAUTIFULLY BY THE WAY!!!) this cowboy au has ruined me forever and i owe you my life for every story you put out for us to read.
“You flip the hat again and put it on. It’s big enough that it goes slipping down a few inches, almost covering your eyes.
Something on Jake’s face goes taut, his gaze darkens, the fist on the bartop clenches once then relaxes.” my brain is buzzing already. the way you set a scene. the way you describe everything!!!!!!! AND OH- OH- HE’S JUST AS AFFECTED BY THEIR INTERACTION!!!!! WHORE ❤️
“He’s silhouetted by the lights of the bar, bordered by the people crowding behind him to order, but you can’t see anything past the green in his eyes. He’s pushed so close he’s almost between your legs, your thighs like open brackets around the shape of him. The hand at the brim of the hat wanders down your back slowly before settling on the backrest of your stool. It’s not even a touch, just the allusion to it, but your heart goes pitter-patter in your chest.” yeah. you write poetry!!!!! this is poetry!!!!! and the use of “pitter-patter” was very on theme i loved it.
“You don’t know what to say to that - your cheeks feel kind of warm, and your brain is buzzing like a beehive.” exactly the same way i feel when i read your work coincidentally!!!
“You’re a cute one, huh?” he says, voice only a little mocking. He leans into your space, crooked grin so close to you that you can see the stubble forming along his cheeks and jaw, a golden dusting of hair against the sun-kissed skin. For a breathless, head-spinning moment, you think about how it would feel pressed to the inside of your thighs, raspy and tickling and just the right side of painful.
He rights the hat, pushes it higher up on your forehead, and then his hand travels to the back of your neck, stays there. His thumb brushes from the brim of the hat to the knob of your spine, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. You let out a shuddering breath, legs clenching.” JESUS CHRIST. HIS HAND TRAVELS TO THE BACK OF YOUR NECK!!!!! STAYS THERE!!!!!! HIS THUMB!!!!!! I JUST DIED!!!!!!
“He laughs, the sound a little heavier than it was before, and says, “You ever dreamed about any of those, too?”
It’s crude, it’s forward, it’s an innuendo so thinly-veiled it’s pretty much translucent. It should make you balk.” JAKE SERESINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN. I HATE HIM. I HATE YOU FOR WRITING HIM LIKE THIS. HOW DARE YOU?
“Anything I could make come true?” he asks.” 😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫😵💫 STOP.
“It’s an offer as much as it is an out. If you pull back now, you’re pretty sure he’d leave you alone. Jake is forward, confident, sure, but he doesn’t seem like the pushy type. For some insane reason, you feel safe with him.” yes to everything here. beautiful. he’s a prince. ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
“It starts as a tingle, as pins and needles, and when you look down, you find Jake’s hand on your thigh, just above the knee. Fingers splayed wide, radiating heat. As your heart rate kicks up a notch, you squirm in your seat.” IT STARTS AS A TINGLE!!!!! AS PINS AND NEEDLES!!!! IMAGERY 11110/10 AS ALWAYS. AND THE HIS FINGERS AGAINS PLS DO NOT DO THIS TO ME. favorite lineeeeeee!!!
“See, there’s this rule, sugar,” he says and leans even closer. For a second, you think he’s going to kiss you, but then he just goes on, “You steal the hat, you ride the cowboy.” there is absolutely no rule he is lying to his teeth but i’ll allow this.
“Your brain implodes.” YEAH. NO SHIT.
“Part of you wants to say no. Let Jake take you home or to a bathroom stall or to the back of his pick-up. Make good on that rule you’re not sure he didn’t just make up. Give into the insistent thrumming of want in the pit of your stomach.” YEARNINGGGGGGGGG. their interactions feel so magnetic because of the way you describe them. very insane of you.
“So you clear your throat, slide off the barstool, and right into his arms. For a second, you’re chest to chest, stomach to stomach, then you’re stepping away, wondering distantly just how flustered you look and taking the hat off.” CHEST TO CHEST!!!! STOMACH TO STOMACH!!!!! I LOVE THIS!!!!!!!
“He waves back silently, then casts another long, lingering look at you that makes your heart miss a beat or two.” PLEASE GUYS GO TO THE BATHROOM STALL THERE IS STILL TIMEEEEEEEEE
incredible and showstopping as always. i’m fearing for my life because of part 2. you’re the best ever.
dime store cowboy . hangman
PART TWO
pairing ; cowboy!jake seresin x female!reader
synopsis ; jake teaches you about the cowboy hat rule.
wc ; 2k
warnings ; 18+ only, minors do NOT interact; explicit language, non-explicit sexual content (it's just flirting)
note: YEEHAW PARDNERS.......... i'm so obsessed with this i'm gonna cry, thank you forever to the anon who requested this. also what if this becomes a series what then WHAT THEN. sorta modified the title from that one kacey musgraves song lol.
sol. sunderlust. you already know what i'm gonna say thank you for being my bestie :(
The whole thing is Carrie Underwood’s fault. You’ll go to your grave swearing it.
It’s just that you’re three strawberry margaritas deep, the lights in the bar are all dimmed, all neon, all flickering, and Jake is leaning into your space like he’s trying to smell your perfume, smiles at you like he’s completely charmed, and then somebody starts playing Before He Cheats on the jukebox and your brain just sorta like. Short-circuits.
The song always gives you an unwarranted burst of confidence, makes you feel like you, too, could vandalize a cheater’s car in a flurry of righteous wrath, so it’s not that difficult to reach up, lifting half out of the bar stool, face suddenly just an inch from his, and steal his hat. The fabric is surprisingly soft beneath your fingers.
At first, Jake looks surprised, his mouth twitching in amusement.
“What you trying to do with that, sugar?” he asks.
And the thing is this. You’re new in town and decidedly more urban (cosmopolitan, you’d like to say, but really, who are we kidding here?) than the rest of the crowd. It’s all a bit strange, all unfamiliar, but when your co-workers invited you out for a Friday night of drinks at the local bar, you were beyond grateful. It was supposed to be a nice little get-together among people who would hopefully become friends. You didn’t expect a guy who looks like he could be Mr. August in a calendar dedicated to half-naked hot cowboys doing various types of manual labor to walk up to you and start flirting like his life depends on it.
At least you think he’s flirting…? You’re not that well-versed in this whole thing.
You shrug, hope you look more confident than you feel.
“When I was little,” you say, turning the hat over and peeking at the inside, where a label proudly states Property of J. Seresin. You let a finger run over it, tracing the shape of his name. “I used to dream about being a cowgirl.”
You flip the hat again and put it on. It’s big enough that it goes slipping down a few inches, almost covering your eyes.
Something on Jake’s face goes taut, his gaze darkens, the fist on the bartop clenches once then relaxes.
“Did you, now?” he asks, his voice suddenly lower, and he takes a step closer. His hip knocks against your knee where you’re angled toward him, every point of your body unconsciously straining closer during the conversation. He tips the hat back an inch or two from your forehead, clearing your vision, and looks down at you, searches your face for something. “Looking good.”
He’s silhouetted by the lights of the bar, bordered by the people crowding behind him to order, but you can’t see anything past the green in his eyes. He’s pushed so close he’s almost between your legs, your thighs like open brackets around the shape of him. The hand at the brim of the hat wanders down your back slowly before settling on the backrest of your stool. It’s not even a touch, just the allusion to it, but your heart goes pitter-patter in your chest.
“Do I?” you ask, breath hitching, legs bouncing with the nerves of it all.
You just don’t do this sort of stuff. Flirting with people, letting strangers chat you up in bars, going along with the quips and the banter and the coy touches… you’re so out of your element. And even Carrie Underwood and her misplaced pep talks have deserted you now. She just threw the match, and then she hightailed it out of here. Traitor.
Jake nods. “You’re real pretty, sugar,” he says. “I especially like the hat with that dress.”
You glance down at yourself and grin. The dress is decidedly too much for a joint where everybody else seems to show up in denim or flannel. You’re just glad you skipped heels in favor of sneakers to dress the whole thing down - you would have stood out like a sore thumb in the sea of cowboy boots.
“This isn’t really… saloon appropriate, is it?”
He laughs, and the sound of it warms your chest. “Not exactly,” he agrees. “But I like it. It suits you.”
“How so?”
Jake lifts a shoulder in a shrug, something unreadable playing about his mouth. “Makes it look like you’re not from here.”
You frown and ask, “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“Sugar,” Jake chuckles, and the sound of that stupid, ridiculous pet name sends a shiver down your back, “that’s just about the highest compliment I could ever give a girl.”
You don’t know what to say to that - your cheeks feel kind of warm, and your brain is buzzing like a beehive.
“I can’t really… see in this thing,” you mumble, tugging at the brim that keeps slipping. Suddenly a little frail.
Jake laughs again, and you decide that you don’t just like the sound - you love it.
“You’re a cute one, huh?” he says, voice only a little mocking. He leans into your space, crooked grin so close to you that you can see the stubble forming along his cheeks and jaw, a golden dusting of hair against the sun-kissed skin. For a breathless, head-spinning moment, you think about how it would feel pressed to the inside of your thighs, raspy and tickling and just the right side of painful.
He rights the hat, pushes it higher up on your forehead, and then his hand travels to the back of your neck, stays there. His thumb brushes from the brim of the hat to the knob of your spine, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. You let out a shuddering breath, legs clenching.
“So you dreamed about being a cowgirl, yeah?” he asks, withdrawing his hand and taking a swig of his beer.
You blink a few times until your vision goes from blurred to focused. Then you clear your throat. “Yeah, like… in elementary school, I think.”
“What’s your opinion on cowboys, then?”
You shrug, turn your upper body sideways to finger the stem of your cocktail glass. “I suppose they have their uses.”
He laughs, the sound a little heavier than it was before, and says, “You ever dreamed about any of those, too?”
It’s crude, it’s forward, it’s an innuendo so thinly-veiled it’s pretty much translucent. It should make you balk.
But there’s something about the night. The music, the drinks, the boy. The heat of the summer outside and the thrill of a new town and a new dress and a new life. It all makes you feel a little bit dangerous, a little bit sexy, a little bit loose. Maybe just for one night, you can pretend to be someone else. Let your hair down.
“Maybe,” you say, hoping it comes off mysterious instead of guarded, closed-off, disinterested. You turn to take a sip of your margarita, and then, in a move so bold not even Carrie Underwood and her car-wrecking could claim it, you lick the salt off the rim of the glass.
When you glance up at him again, his pupils are blown so wide there’s barely any green left visible. He’s looking right at your mouth.
“Anything I could make come true?” he asks.
It’s an offer as much as it is an out. If you pull back now, you’re pretty sure he’d leave you alone. Jake is forward, confident, sure, but he doesn’t seem like the pushy type. For some insane reason, you feel safe with him.
“Depends,” you say. Your voice has gone so quiet you’re surprised he can hear you over the din of the bar. The song has changed, but you don’t recognize the tune. You can’t focus on anything except the man right in front of you anyway.
He doesn’t ask what it depends on, and you’re glad because you don’t have an answer for him. You’re playing this whole thing by ear, and apparently, your hearing is impaired.
It starts as a tingle, as pins and needles, and when you look down, you find Jake’s hand on your thigh, just above the knee. Fingers splayed wide, radiating heat. As your heart rate kicks up a notch, you squirm in your seat.
Jake raises his free hand and tips two fingers to the brim gently. “You know what this means, pretty girl?”
His thumb traces a path up the inside of your thigh, leaves goosebumps in its wake. Suddenly, your mouth is drier than the Sahara desert.
“What?” you ask stupidly. You feel like there’s an entirely separate conversation happening here, one you aren’t really following.
He smirks, but his eyes don’t move from your face. “It’s not really something good girls do.”
You’re distracted by the tuft of hair protruding from the unbuttoned collar of his flannel, the same color as his beard. You wonder if it stretches all the way down beneath the obnoxiously large belt buckle.
Your voice has gone airy. “Why not?”
He hums, fingers traveling just a little higher up on your thigh, almost creeping beneath the fabric of your dress now. You hope you’re not sticky with sweat. It’s so hot in here. But then his fingernails scrape over your skin, the softest of touches, and that thought dissipates along with any other.
“See, there’s this rule, sugar,” he says and leans even closer. For a second, you think he’s going to kiss you, but then he just goes on, “You steal the hat, you ride the cowboy.”
Your brain implodes. If you tried to get up right now, you’re pretty sure you’d keel right over.
“Does that really exist?” you ask, voice barely more than a whisper. He’s so close that you can smell his aftershave, can count the freckles scattered on his nose. So close if you just lean in an inch, half an inch, just a bit…
Somebody says your name, and you almost topple backward off the bar stool in your attempt to put distance between him and you.
Your co-worker stands a step behind you, eyebrow raised and a disapproving look on her face.
“I’m heading home now. You still need that ride?”
Part of you wants to say no. Let Jake take you home or to a bathroom stall or to the back of his pick-up. Make good on that rule you’re not sure he didn’t just make up. Give into the insistent thrumming of want in the pit of your stomach.
But there’s a rational part of you left, too, one that hasn’t drowned in margaritas or the green of Jake’s eyes yet. One that remembers who you really are, truly, beneath the thin veneer of tonight’s pretense.
So you clear your throat, slide off the barstool, and right into his arms. For a second, you’re chest to chest, stomach to stomach, then you’re stepping away, wondering distantly just how flustered you look and taking the hat off.
“Thanks for letting me borrow this,” you say sheepishly and hand it back to him.
Jake smirks, something in his eyes twinkling.
“Always happy to make a lady’s dreams come true,” he says, popping the hat back on. “Anytime, Ma’am.”
You grope around for your purse blindly, a lump in your throat that makes it impossible to speak. That and the fact that you have no idea how to answer that.
“Seresin.” Your co-worker nods at him.
He waves back silently, then casts another long, lingering look at you that makes your heart miss a beat or two.
“I’ll see you around?” you ask, voice trembling like a leaf in a thunderstorm.
The corner of Jake’s mouth lifts in a grin.
“You can count on it,” he says and tips his hat at you. “I believe you may owe me a ride.”
college and my internship have been simultaneously kicking my ass!!! i just wanna lay down!!!
27/11/22: super quick adorable read!!! domestic bradley bradshaw will always be my favorite he’s so malewife it hurts me it pains me. he was born to be a husband!!! this was so cute and i could picture everything and i saw the little note where it said you haven’t written in 5 years, well, i for one am VERY HAPPY you decided to start again and share this with us!!! my favorite parts are below 💞
“Rooster hummed, looking up at you, small smile on his face. He’s been wearing that smile since he returned from his short detachment, happy to be in your presence again.” 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🤲🤲🤲 so precious!!!
“Rooster’s cheeks grew hot, and he was up off the couch to follow you out to your car, pinching your behind as you two went.” the little teasing because he likes to eat healthy 😭
“Rooster, who had the basket in his free hand, hummed in content as your thumb slowly rubbed his hand. “So why the sudden desire for cookies?” my favorite part!!! i could picture this so well!!! the basket in one hand and holding HER hand in the other!!!
and the way he was worried about her trying to reach the high shelfs by herself when he was gone 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
“I’m really happy you’re home.” You admitted, having missed these late nights of domesticity and simple pleasures.” ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
hi pals! top gun: maverick has once again stolen my heart, but this time i need an outlet, so here i am! a more formal post will come sometime soon(ish) with who i’ll write for/what i’ll write, but for now, i leave you this <3
w/c:
summary: late-night grocery shopping with rooster, female!reader
warnings: none
Continuar lendo
13/08/2022: i’m just wanna start this by apologizing. i’m sorry this review is ridiculously long and very stupid because it’s just me copy and pasting my favorite parts and screaming and throwing up over them with emojis. may, your work is probably the best i have read in a really long time. i connect with it so much, your writing makes me feel so much!!!! i was so excited when you said you were working on a rooster fic (because i read bad habit when it came out and almost passed away!!!) and then i finally read this one and it just… no words. it was EVERYTHING. this is everything. anyways you’re super crazy talented and here is me screaming and throwing up because of your lighting in a bottle:
“Suddenly he’s taller than Goose ever was, older, ranked higher. He wants to say, wait, hold on, go back. Wants to rewind to a time when he felt closer to his father, when he could remember what his voice sounded like, what it felt like when he tucked him into bed. When he thought if he just sat by the front door long enough, his father would inevitably walk through it again, hoist him into the air, and press tickling kisses to his cheeks.” THIS MUST HURT SO MUCH. the imagery of bradley growing further away from his dad because he’s going to keep living and now the years are passing and WHAT THEN WHEN HE HITS THE AGE GOOSE WAS WHEN HE DIED???? WHAT THEN WE HE GROWS EVEN OLDER???? it’s cruel. it hurts. it shouldn’t happen this early.
“Part of Bradley thinks it’s unfair, his whole world crashing down and him not even remembering it. Like he’s arriving late for a movie and can’t make sense of the plot.” this makes me really sad. it’s a horrible feeling.
“Mav doesn’t say much, just drives him back to his college dorm and pulls over to the curb, doesn’t even turn off the car. They sit there in silence, with the blinker going and the engine purring.
Finally, Mav says, “Sometimes, you remind me so much of your father, it scares me.” OOOOOOOOOOOOH STOP IT. I CAN HEAR HIS VOICE!!!!!!!
“So it’s like Bradley always suspected. It really is a futile thing, trying to escape the memory of his father. His ghost lives inside Bradley’s chest. Rattles against his bones.” i love descriptions that make these feelings and emotions go literally bone-deep!!!!!! it makes it so much more weighted to me, idk???? i love it. and this one HURT!!
“And he loves him, even if he doesn’t remember him. Thinks that love is some intrinsic, primordial thing. Something that was there before he was born and will be there after he dies. Something he can’t fight. Unstoppable like the tide.” I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS IDEA!!!! IN LOVE!!!!
“It’s good for a while because it feels like he has a purpose, a goal. For so long, Bradley has been drifting at sea, unmoored, unbound, with no sense of direction. Now he’s swimming toward something, broad strokes, every move deliberate.” he was just starting to find himself a little bit only for that to be taken away from him, it’s so sad!!!!
“So Bradley remembers his mother every time he gets into a car. But his dad? Him, he can only get above the clouds.” no!!!!!! no no no because this just adds so much more weight to the “talk to me, dad.” scene in the movie. he only feels close enough to goose in the sky!!! when he’s flying!!!!!! beautiful!!!!!!
AND THEN YOU HAVE TO REMIND ME HE GRADUATED AND HAS NO ONE TO CELEBRATE IT WITH HOW DARE YOU???!!!!!!! everyone in his class with family members and loved ones cheering around while he’s just there by himself…
“His mother always used to say he was a functional dreamer. He had his head stuck in the clouds, sure, but he knew exactly when to pull it out of there too. Maybe that’s why he’s such a good pilot.” FUNCTIONAL DREAMER!!!!!! because he never allows himself to get lost in it too much. oh. i need to know his entire birth chart right now. his sun, his moon, his rising, HIS VENUS, OH GOD.
“So Bradley still is a functional dreamer. He knows that this is something he can never have, can never allow himself to have. He knows the pain of it too well, too intimately, still feels it every time he catches sight of his reflection in a mirror, the golden streaks of sun in his hair, the mustache, the split second of pure, blank horror, of oh god I look like him, I look so much like him, and feels it slice right through him like a knife through butter. He’s been carrying his father’s ghost for so long, sometimes it feels like his spine will crack under the weight.” STOP JUST STOP THIS IS TOO MUCH. i’m feeling all of it with him!!!!!!
“And then he meets you.” gets me every fucking time!!!!! AND THEN HE MEETS YOU AND OF COURSE IT CAUSES A RECKONING INSIDE HIS HEART I CAN’T DO THIS-
“A smile that settles in his heart. A smile that’ll never leave again.” beautiful!!!!!!
“I don’t think….” He trails off, wonders why it’s so easy for him to talk to you, why he can’t stop spilling truths like leaking water taps. “I don’t think I’ll be good for you.” PLEASE STOP ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️ SPILLING TRUTHS LIKE LEAKING WATER TAPS YOU ARE A POET!!!!!!!!
“For the first time, it feels like he knows peace, even with his feet on the ground.” EVEN WITH HIS FEET ON THE GROUND BECAUSE HE LOVES FLYING SO MUCH ITS A NEED ITS WHAT KEEPS HIM GOING BUT ON THE GROUND HE HAS YOU!!!!!!!!! ENOUGHHHHHHHH
idk why but i love when people use the word “ache” in their descriptions it makes my stomach flip flop like crazy!!! such a good word!!!!
“It doesn’t matter that he loves you. It doesn’t matter that he only feels at peace when he’s with you. It doesn’t matter that for the first time since he was four years old, the ghosts have gone quiet.” SHUT UP!!!!!!!! THE GHOST HAVE GONE QUIET!!!!!!!!!!!!
“give you a child.” NOT THIS TINY LITTLE PEACE BY TAYLOR SWIFT REFERENCE YOU ARE SO CRUEL!!!!!!
“Only you don’t leave.” HELL YEAH!!!!! CLING TO HIM!!!!!
AND THEN YOU FOLLOW THIS UP WITH “I want you more,” you say, and that’s that.” SHE WANTS HIM MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“And Bradley - selfish as he is - accepts it. Because he doesn’t want to lose you. Because as much as he tries to convince himself of the opposite, deep down, he knows he’s not a good man. Just like his father wasn’t. They’re both just men willing to leave the people they love behind. Brave enough to fight for the “greater good”, but never brave enough to stay.” it breaks my heart that he sees himself and goose that way. selfish and not good????? bradley… 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
“And sometimes, when you’re asleep, Bradley puts his hand on your stomach and imagines a bump there, imagines a baby growing beneath it, and that’s when the ache gets so strong he thinks he can’t breathe.” THE IMAGERY OF THIS BROUGHT ACTUAL TEARS TO MY EYES!!!!! AND THE WORD ACHE AGAIN!!!! BECAUSE IT HURTS SO FUCKING MUCH!!!!!!
AND THEN HE DREAMSSSSSSS “He dreams he’s thirty-five, and he marries you. He dreams he’s thirty-six and holding his baby. He dreams it’s a little girl with your smile and his eyes, and he loves her more than he thought he was capable of, so much it almost breaks him apart, so much it puts him back together. So much it’s worth it all.” this is so so beautiful i can’t think about any other adjectives my brain has stop functioning.
“It’s all he can allow himself—an ocean in a seashell.” NOT ME CRYING BECAUSE OF A SEASHELL COMPARISON YOU ARE SO EVIL.
“Up in that F-14, that’s when he realizes. The brink of death is a bleak place. It’s a place of memories, a place of despair. It’s a place of hope.” IT’S A PLACE OF HOPE!!! THE CATHARSIS OF IT AL!!!!!!!
“It used to be a relief. Nobody to mourn me after I’m gone. Now it feels like a punishment.” i just really love this character development.
“Your hands leave wet prints against the fabric of his shirt, like something primeval pressed to cave walls, like something that’s been happening for centuries, something that is happening right now, something that will happen again tomorrow and next year and the year after that, and distantly, dumbly, Bradley thinks, Oh. I’m alive. I’m here.” I THINK THIS IS MY FAVORITE PART??????????????????????????? their love is infinite it’s been happening forever for centures and at that moment!!! and it circles back to the beginning when you wrote “Thinks that love is some intrinsic, primordial thing. Something that was there before he was born and will be there after he dies. Something he can’t fight. Unstoppable like the tide.” THE PRIMORDIAL CONNECTION!!!!! SOMETHING THAT WAS THERE BEFORE HE WAS BORN AND WILL BE THERE AFTER HE DIES AND WITH HER IT’S THE SAME THING!!!!! yep. favorite part. favorite quote.
“Suddenly, the thought of you alone in this house is unbearable. Waiting for a man that never comes back. History repeating itself in the worst of ways.” but he came back!!!!!!! it’s okay!!!!!!!!
and then he says he wants to have a baby and she says no!!!!!! because it’s too much all at once she compromised!!!! she became the same type of functional dreamer bradley was before he met her!!! she wanted him more so she got used to the idea of never having one. so much pain.
“Suddenly, he feels a sob building in his throat. To realize how much he’s hurt you, not just today by springing this on you, but by how selfish he was, again and again. By letting his past stand in the way of your future.” STOP PUNCHING ME IN THE GUT!!!!!
“But losing you… Bradley always assumed he was going to be the one to go first.” KILL ME NOW.
“I…” And he knows he’s the one who brought it up, but suddenly all the doubts come crashing down. Suddenly the ghosts crowd around him. “What if I die? What if I leave you? What if we have a baby and I’m not… there?” he’s so scared he’s always been so scared and sad. i want him.
“Oh, Bradley…” Something on your face melts. You step closer, put a hand on his cheek, fingertips still pruned from the water, and say, so gently it breaks something open inside of him, “Bradley. You’re not your father.” and then the dam breaks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AND THEN YOU WRITE THE MOST HEART BREAKING PIECE OF WRITING EVER WRITTEN:
“For so long, Bradley was trying to let go of a world that didn’t want him to leave. He’s been preparing for an early exit since he entered, has been so caught up in dreaming he forgot to live. So caught up in thinking he forgot to do. He thought he would be content to go out of this world and leave nothing behind, to disappear without a trace, without a word, without a ghost.
But now he sees it clearly. Now he understands.
Bradley doesn’t want to stop existing. He wants to cling to this world like someone clinging to the edge of a cliff, like a leech, like a cancer. He wants to haunt someone.”
i have no words. i am just crying and throwing up everywhere because this is SO HEAVY THERE IS SO MUCH TO UNPACK HERE AND IT IT SAD AND BEAUTIFUL AND IT CRACKED MY HEART OPEN!!!!!
when you threw in the carol flashback ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
“Bradley has thought about his life in boxes. Big cardboard ones, the kind you get when you move apartments. He tucks the good parts away beneath his bed, stows them, hoards them like a secret. Like his mother kept her grief. But all the bad parts - the pain and the sadness and the sorrow - those he lets pile up everywhere, in hallways, in living rooms, on kitchen tables. He stumbles over them on his way to the bathroom. He stubs his toe halfway to the closet.” PLEASE STOP MAKING ME CRY!!!!!
“This long, terrible, winding road that led him here. That led him to you.” this reminds me of one of my favorite songs of all time “ceilings” by lizzy mcalpine where she says “Lovely to sit between comfort and chaos” there’s so much good in the bad and bad in the good. it’s all mixed together. it’s life. it’s sad and beautiful and it rips us open and there is chaos and comfort and sometimes the worst things can lead you to your happy ending!!! anyways!!!
AND THEN SHE REMINDS HIM THEY ALREADY HAVE A LIFE TOGETHER!!!!!!! THIS WHOLE TIME IT HASN’T BEEN LEADING UP TO ANYTHING. IT’S BEEN HAPPENING ALL THIS TIME!!!! beautiful. i love her for reminding him. i love you for making her remind him.
“Bradley Bradshaw,” you say, and there’s only a little bit of amusement in your voice, “you’re the love of my life.” ROMCOM MOMENT EXCELLENT!!!! except where is no com here!!!!! no comedy!! i am a crying mess!!!
“Bradley feels like somebody’s poured liquid sunlight into his chest.” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
and then it starts going frantic and they go to the counter because of course they do!!!! I LOVE IT WHEN THEY GO TO THE COUNTER!!!!!! TURN IT UPPPPPPPPP!!!!!
his breeding kink. if i speak- (so many thoughts going through my head!!!!!!!)
“He surges forward, lips against yours again, and you’re so alive beneath him, heart racing, breath heaving, fingers grappling along his neck, his shoulders, his chest, his arms, and Bradley wants to devour you. Wants to sink his teeth into all this life and never let it go again. He wants to exist, right here, in this moment with you forever.” HE WANTS TO EXIST, RIGHT HERE. IN THIS MOMENT WITH YOU FOREVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR probably my second favorite part i love this!!!!!!!
“and the softness in your voice cracks something in him. He swears he could cry again.” I NEED TO KNOW THIS MAN’S ZODIAC SIGN RIGHT NOW!!!! THE SOFTNESS OF HER VOICE ALMOST MAKING HIM CRY AGAIN!!!!! GIVE ME HIS BIRTH CHARTTTTTTTTTTTTT (this made my tummy go a little crazy btw).
AND THEN HE WHISPERS “I’m gonna marry you”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i go feral for moments like this!!!!!!!!!!
“Bradley thinks he’s going to die, but this time it’s nothing like it was up in the F-14.” RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SMUT!!!!!!! SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!!!!
“Your mouth tips open, your eyes not straying from his for a second as he goes slow, as he goes deep, as he goes home. There’s an answer in that too.” AS HE GOES HOME!!!!!!!! 😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
“and you’re all mine, and I’m yours.” i am, once again, screaming and crying and throwing up. he’s such a romantic!!!!!!!!!
“When he glances down at you, at the eyes wide with that much trust, as he realizes you would let him do just about anything to you, that you’ve both opened yourself to each other completely now, no barriers and no ghosts standing between you, it’s like a dam breaking.” NO BARRIERS!!!!!! NO GHOSTS!!!!!!!!!
AND THEN YOU THROW THE PILL IN THE MIDDLE OF IT ALL… AND HE DOESN’T EVEN WANNA THINK ABOUT IT BECAUSE IT’S TOO MUCH “Don’t say it. Let me live in this fantasy. Let me dream a little longer.”
“It’s the thought of it all - a bump beneath your dresses, a baby in your arms, tiny fingers wrapping around his thumb, it’s about the long, long stretch of life ahead of the two of you. It’s about a house filled with love and free of ghosts. It’s about the first glimpse of the ocean after listening to its roar in seashells all his life. It’s about giving himself over to you completely, after years of only dreaming of it.
Do you know? he wonders. Do you know that you’re holding his whole life in your hands?” THE SEASHELLS AGAIN!!!!!!! A HOUSE FILLED WITH LOVE AND FREE OF GHOSTS!!!!!! their happy ending!!!!!!! by this point i was a mess 😭😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️ you need to listen to “all my ghosts” by lizzy mcalpine i think you like magically translated everything that songs encapsulates into this story!!!!!!! anyways!!!! beautiful!!!!!!
“It’s never felt like this before - like dying and coming back alive.” NOT YOU WRITING THE MOST EARTH SHATTERING SMUT OF ALL TIME AND THROWING IN THESE THINGS IN THE MIDDLE OF IT THEY TAKE MY BREATH AWAY!!!! THERE’S SO MUCH EMOTION HERE, SO MUCH MEANING!!!!!!
“Bradley’s heart clenches. Maybe, he thinks, his ribcage is going to crack open. It seems impossible for one person to hold so much love inside.” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 no words. just the crying emoji!!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭
“I got you” I AM PASSING AWAYYYYYYYYY
“You shake your head, lift one hand to run a finger across his mustache the way you like to do sometimes.” favorite little detail!!!!!!
“I’m trying to keep my cum in you. Maybe we’re like super extra lucky, and it works out on the first try.” HE IS SO STUPID I AM IN LOVE WITH HIM.
“Then you’re laughing together, breathless, loud laughter, the bending-at-the-waist kind. The belly-hurting kind. The kind that doesn’t come often.
And it’s good. It’s beautiful. It’s the kind of peace he’s never known before but has wanted always, always, always.” ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
“I love you,” he says, “more than I thought I could love someone. Thanks for loving me back.” THANK FOR LOVING ME BACK?????? THIS IS MOST ROMANTIC SHIT I’VE EVER READ IN MY LIFE???????!!!!!!!! AND IT’S SO ROOSTER!!!!!
“For the first time, Bradley doesn’t think about dying, doesn’t think about leaving. He thinks about living. He thinks about staying.” AND THEN YOU END IT LIKE THIS!!!!!!!!!!! IT’S PERFECT.
perfect. perfect. perfect.
ocean in a seashell . ( rooster )
pairing ; bradley bradshaw x female!reader
synopsis ; bradley has lived with his father’s ghost for long enough to know he’ll never make the same mistakes he did. and then he meets you.
wc ; 10.5k i'm sorry
warnings ; 18+ only, minors do NOT interact; bradley bradshaw's sad, sad life; angst, literally SO much angst; mentions of canon past character death; near-death experience; alcohol abuse; explicit language; explicit sexual content (breeding kink, cumplay, p in v, dirty talk, fingering, idk?)
note: ... yeah i don't fucking know either goodbye. stole the title from "sidelines" by phoebe bridgers aka god.
sol. sunderlust... none of this would be possible without you, thank you forever.
Bradley doesn’t remember much about his father.
These days, he recalls him only in fractions: Hawaiian shirts, mustache, hair that stood up spikey like grass covered in the first tentative November frost. He had big hands, Bradley remembers that, and he used to swing him up on his shoulders and let him ride around living rooms in Army commissioned houses they never stayed in longer than a few months. He always smelled of engine oil, and he played pianos like he didn’t even know the meaning of the word embarrassment.
Bradley based his whole life on the fading glimpses of that man he carries locked in the chambers of his heart. The older he gets, the more gaps he finds.
Suddenly he’s taller than Goose ever was, older, ranked higher. He wants to say, wait, hold on, go back. Wants to rewind to a time when he felt closer to his father, when he could remember what his voice sounded like, what it felt like when he tucked him into bed. When he thought if he just sat by the front door long enough, his father would inevitably walk through it again, hoist him into the air, and press tickling kisses to his cheeks.
Sometimes, Bradley wishes he could go back to when he thought bad things happened only in movies. When he had a father and a mother and an uncle and the bone-deep, unconscious conviction that things would always stay this way.
He can’t remember the day Goose died. Can’t remember Mav coming to the house, can’t remember the dog tags pressed into his mother’s hands. Strange how the most significant day of his little life remains in his memory as just another day - morning cartoons and PB&J sandwiches and his mom reading him a bedtime story. Part of Bradley thinks it’s unfair, his whole world crashing down and him not even remembering it. Like he’s arriving late for a movie and can’t make sense of the plot.
Not once did he see his mother cry over his father. He’s sure she must have shed tears, remembers now the empty tissue boxes and the eyes rimmed in red, understands now what he was too young to see then. But Carol carried her grief like a secret. She locked it behind the mahogany of her bedroom door, she hid it behind the veneer of her smile.
Bradley is nineteen, standing at his mother’s open grave, when he decides he’s never going to do to someone what Goose did to her. What he did to him.
For a while, he wants nothing to do with the memory of that man. Wraps himself in his mother, toys with the idea of taking her maiden name. Goes to college and gets drunk, gets high, gets himself into trouble. Thinks sometimes, in his very darkest moments, that maybe the best thing he could do for the world is to stop existing.
One night lands him at the police station. And it’s not like he got arrested or anything, they just take him in to sober up and tell him to call somebody to come get him. Mav is in town, thank God, and he comes in wearing his old aviator jacket and a wistful expression. Bradley’s call probably pulled him out of some bar or some girl or both.
Mav doesn’t say much, just drives him back to his college dorm and pulls over to the curb, doesn’t even turn off the car. They sit there in silence, with the blinker going and the engine purring.
Finally, Mav says, “Sometimes, you remind me so much of your father, it scares me.”
Bradley doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing. Sits there for a little longer and watches as frat bros and law students and cheerleaders cross the street on their way to hook-ups, to parties, to midnight fast food runs. Envies them just for a moment. Then, without saying goodbye, gets out of the car, goes to his room, and buries himself beneath the weight of his blankets.
So it’s like Bradley always suspected. It really is a futile thing, trying to escape the memory of his father. His ghost lives inside Bradley’s chest. Rattles against his bones.
And he loves him, even if he doesn’t remember him. Thinks that love is some intrinsic, primordial thing. Something that was there before he was born and will be there after he dies. Something he can’t fight. Unstoppable like the tide.
So he embraces it instead. Tries growing a mustache he’ll only be able to pull off much later in life, gets those old Hawaiian shirts out of storage. Decides to give into the underlying current of longing he’s felt every time he tipped his head back and looked at the sky.
Accepting that he loves his father is much easier than he thought it would be. Much easier than hating him.
It’s good for a while because it feels like he has a purpose, a goal. For so long, Bradley has been drifting at sea, unmoored, unbound, with no sense of direction. Now he’s swimming toward something, broad strokes, every move deliberate.
Then Mav pulls his papers.
The worst part of it all, worse than the betrayal, worse than the anger, is the confusion. He thought Mav would understand. Mav of all people.
(It’s his mother, setting a casserole on the table, smiling at Bradley and saying Pete over here, he’s the craziest pilot the Navy’s ever seen. It’s his sixth Christmas, the second one without his dad, and Mav gives him a model of a plane they’ll build together. It’s Mav staring at him with eyes gleaming with moisture the time he stole the Navy hat from his uncle’s head. It’s Mav in every memory of his life, laced so tightly to him he thought they were inseparable, woven together. Now the seams are coming apart.)
Mav, who keeps flying, who seems only to be a real, complete person for those few, short, fleeting moments just after he steps off a plane. Who’s never happy unless he’s going break-neck speed miles and miles above the ground, jumping off death’s shovel, laughing, flipping the bird, and saying look, I can fly!
If Maverick doesn’t understand why Bradley wants to fly, why he needs to fly, then who ever could?
Mav wants to explain it, calls him, shows up at his apartment. Bradley declines the calls, turns off all the lights, and sits on his couch in perfect silence, pretending he isn’t in.
He doesn’t want to hear explanations, doesn’t want to listen to excuses. He wants to fly.
Back when his mother was alive, she wouldn’t even let him get on an airplane. His whole childhood, they only left their state once to go to a funeral of some distant aunt or cousin or uncle, Bradley can’t remember, and his mother drove the whole ten hours there and back. It didn’t even register as anything weird to him - it was all juice boxes and gas station ice cream and goldies on the radio. It was his mom’s laughter and her smile and her fingers carding strands of hair warmed by the sun out of his eyes.
So Bradley remembers his mother every time he gets into a car. But his dad? Him, he can only get above the clouds.
He doesn’t give up. He finishes college, works odd jobs for some money, drifts further and further from the orbit he used to inhabit. And then he applies to the academy again, and then he goes to Top Gun, and he graduates top of his class and wonders what it would feel like if there were somebody to be proud of him. If somebody were congratulating him, taking him out for a celebratory dinner, or just somebody to hug him. What it would feel like if he weren’t so alone.
It’s what he dreams about sometimes, in the very darkest pockets of the night. A house with a swing set and a big, smiling, dumb dog and a pretty wife and a whole gaggle of children running through the garden. Bradley would teach them how to throw a football, and he’d carry them to bed at night, and his wife would smile at him, and there would always be food in the fridge and brownies on the table, and every room would be filled with love, and there would be no ghosts to haunt him.
It’s a dangerous fantasy. It’s a trap door, a slippery slope, it’s a snare, it’s a cliff’s edge. If he stays in it too long, he’ll be lost.
His mother always used to say he was a functional dreamer. He had his head stuck in the clouds, sure, but he knew exactly when to pull it out of there too. Maybe that’s why he’s such a good pilot.
So Bradley still is a functional dreamer. He knows that this is something he can never have, can never allow himself to have. He knows the pain of it too well, too intimately, still feels it every time he catches sight of his reflection in a mirror, the golden streaks of sun in his hair, the mustache, the split second of pure, blank horror, of oh god I look like him, I look so much like him, and feels it slice right through him like a knife through butter. He’s been carrying his father’s ghost for so long, sometimes it feels like his spine will crack under the weight.
Maybe people that live life like he does, like Mav does, like his father did - up in the sky, heads in the clouds - aren’t meant to have anything on the ground. Inevitably, they always end up leaving it.
He decided the day of his mother’s funeral, before the long procession of I’m sorrys and If you need anythings, before he let real estate agents into a house overflowing with cards and flowers - flowers in every room, flowers blooming and wilting and dying like a garden watered by his grief, like a garden watered by his ghosts - that he would never have a family. Not a wife to mourn him, not a child to miss him.
So there’ll be nobody to carry the burden of him.
And then he meets you.
It’s not momentous - it’s easy. Natural. Quicker than he thought possible. It’s stolen glances across a room and a smile that brands him like a mark, that cuts right through to the bone. A smile that settles in his heart. A smile that’ll never leave again.
In the beginning, he tries to fight it. Tells himself not to engage, not to get involved, to stay out of the mess he knows he’ll make here inevitably. To shield him, but to shield you too, to protect you from whatever hurt he’s going to inflict sooner or later.
But then it goes like this:
“Are you never going to ask me out, Bradshaw?” you ask him, smiling as you pluck his Ray Bans from him, as you place them on your own nose, and blink at him from over the rims.
The sun is casting you in gold. Bradley wants to catch the moment in a mason jar and put it on his bedside table. Let the glow illuminate his nights.
“I don’t think….” He trails off, wonders why it’s so easy for him to talk to you, why he can’t stop spilling truths like leaking water taps. “I don’t think I’ll be good for you.”
You don’t miss a beat. One eyebrow raising, you say, “And don’t you think that should be my decision?”
That’s when he knows that for him, you will always be it. That it’ll never be this way again with someone else. It’s not even a question. It’s just the truth.
When he’s with you, for the first time since he sat shotgun in a car with his mother, head nodding along to Elvis on the radio, Bradley feels like he belongs somewhere. Like he’s reached a shore, maybe. Like he can breathe.
For the first time, it feels like he knows peace, even with his feet on the ground.
His mother would have loved you.
You have a long conversation about it. About how he knows you want it - the diapers and the first days of school and the family Christmases. The pitter-patter of children’s feet, the cribs, the tiny fingers curling around your thumb. He knows you’ve dreamed of it all your life. And Bradley also knows, as much as it hurts, as much as it aches, that he can never give it to you.
He needs to be honest. He needs to put all the cards on the table so you know your options, see the truth about him. So you can walk away before you get any deeper into this.
Part of him is sure you will. Thinks it might be better, the safest option for both of you. Hopes you will, fears you will.
It doesn’t matter that he loves you. It doesn’t matter that he only feels at peace when he’s with you. It doesn’t matter that for the first time since he was four years old, the ghosts have gone quiet.
What matters is that he wants you to be happy. What matters is that if that happiness lies somewhere else, with someone else, with someone who’ll give you everything you dream of, give you a life, give you a child… Bradley will let you go. It’ll be the hardest thing he’s ever done, but he will.
Only you don’t leave.
You think about it for a very, very long time. Sit at his kitchen table with your hands folded on the tablecloth like you’re praying, with your head turned down, without looking at him, and then finally you say, “Alright. Fine with me.”
And Bradley’s protesting, pushing, saying, “Honey, you want this, I know you do, you want a family, you….”
“I want you more,” you say, and that’s that.
There’s no lie to it. It’s the truth, naked and beautiful and awful.
And Bradley - selfish as he is - accepts it. Because he doesn’t want to lose you. Because as much as he tries to convince himself of the opposite, deep down, he knows he’s not a good man. Just like his father wasn’t. They’re both just men willing to leave the people they love behind. Brave enough to fight for the “greater good”, but never brave enough to stay.
Regardless of it all, it’s the happiest Bradley has been in years. With you, he doesn’t feel like something is missing from him. He actually feels whole.
Your job as a freelancer allows you to travel with him, and he’s unspeakably grateful for it. He tries to show you, tries to be good about bringing flowers and cooking dinner, thinks if he can make you even a fraction as happy as you make him, he’ll have succeeded. When he gets deployed, he spends days memorizing your face, the shape of your throat where your pulse point jumps, the pattern of your heartbeat, the feeling of you beneath his arm.
And sometimes, when you’re asleep, Bradley puts his hand on your stomach and imagines a bump there, imagines a baby growing beneath it, and that’s when the ache gets so strong he thinks he can’t breathe.
That’s when he hates himself for not being something else: a doctor, an accountant, a real estate agent. Anything other than what he is. Could he have it then, this thing you both want so much? Could he let himself have it?
But eventually, when the fantasies fade, he always circles back to the truth: Bradley isn’t a doctor or an accountant or a real estate agent. He’s a pilot. Always has been, always will be.
He’s just too much like his father. That’s the whole point.
When he gets called back to Top Gun, three years after he met you, something shifts. He doesn’t know to explain it, but from the very first moment he sets foot on North Island again, something about it tastes like the beginning of an end. At night, he can’t settle, roams through the little house you rent off base like a sleepwalker. Checks in on you like he’s afraid you’re going to disappear. Can’t concentrate up in the air, can’t shut his brain off.
It’s like his father’s ghost travels with him in his suitcases, tucked between his neatly folded shirts, climbs out when no one’s looking. No matter where he goes, that ghost goes too. He can’t shake him.
You love California. You like the sunshine and the ocean. Like the Hard Deck and Penny and Phoenix. Turn your face into the warmth like a sunflower, and then you bloom, go brighter and brighter as Bradley goes the opposite direction. As something in him dims.
“Is it because of Mav?” you ask him softly, in the quiet of your bedroom. You’re carding hair from his forehead, fingers gentle, voice gentler.
Bradley can’t look at you. Shame coils low in his stomach.
“Yes,” he says, even if it feels like a lie in his mouth.
You sigh, no annoyance, only affection. Your head is heavy on his shoulder as you press the shape of a yawn into his skin.
“I know he hurt you, Bradley,” you whisper. “It’s okay to be hurt. But I think you need to talk to him.”
He nods into the darkness. You’re right. You’re always right.
“I know,” he agrees, even though he knows he won’t.
When you’re asleep, Bradley slips out of bed. Pats into the living room and sits on the floor, back leaning against the couch. Pulls his knees up to his chest, closes his eyes, and then he dreams.
He dreams he’s four riding on his father’s shoulders through the living room. He dreams he’s ten, in a car with his mother, turning up the radio. He dreams he’s twenty, and he lets Mav explain. He dreams he’s thirty-five, and he marries you. He dreams he’s thirty-six and holding his baby. He dreams it’s a little girl with your smile and his eyes, and he loves her more than he thought he was capable of, so much it almost breaks him apart, so much it puts him back together. So much it’s worth it all.
Bradley’s earliest memory is of the giant, bone-white seashell on his grandmother’s mantlepiece. He remembers how heavy it was, remembers how cold it felt against the side of his face when he pressed it to his ear. He remembers hearing the distant, muffled hum of the waves, the song of the sea, remembers imagining what it might look like.
It’s no comparison to the real thing, years and years and years later, he knows this, but it’s something. It’s better than nothing.
It’s all he can allow himself—an ocean in a seashell.
The mission is a disaster, even if it is successful. Later, Bradley won’t remember what he was thinking up in the air, when he hit the target, when Mav went down, when he decided to go after him. He won’t even be able to tell if that is because he’s in shock or because he really wasn’t thinking anything. Maybe for the first time in his life.
If he had been thinking, Bradley likes to believe he would have kept his plane on course. Would have flown back to the carrier and then back to you, home, home, home. Wouldn’t have gone back for a man he still hasn’t spoken to, not properly, someone he loved once and now barely knows.
But all the ghosts of the people he’s loved and lost crowd up on him in that cockpit - his father and his mother and even Admiral Kazansky and their sad, sad eyes. There’s no room for Mav to be up there, too, he thinks.
So at first, you don’t cross his mind at all. He just follows his instincts like he’s never done before, could never bring himself to do. So much of Bradley’s life has been about dissecting just those urges, dismantling them, disabling them. Making himself into a creature of logic and second-guessing. Now, for the first time, he gives in to the currents and lets himself be rushed away.
And then his plane goes down, and he drifts into the white white white of snow he hasn’t felt in so long - and still, he doesn’t think. But every instinct from the moment of impact on, the moment his feet hit the ground, every instinct centers on you.
Home, he thinks. I need to get home to her.
Up in that F-14, that’s when he realizes. The brink of death is a bleak place. It’s a place of memories, a place of despair. It’s a place of hope.
All he can think of is you. How he’s leaving you with nothing. How he’s going to die here, miles above the ocean, and what will happen then? Who’s going to bring you his dog tags, the way Mav had brought his father’s to Carole all those years ago? Phoenix? Hangman? How are they even going to retrieve them if he goes down in enemy territory? Will anybody even remember the girl in that house, the one he didn’t even marry? And why didn’t he anyway? Why didn’t he put a ring on your finger, buy you a house, get you a dog, give you a baby?
What will remain of him now, in this world after he’s gone?
Nothing, he thinks, and his lungs fill with water, high up in the sky. You made damn sure of that, Bradley.
There will be nobody to haunt. He will disappear, and he will take his mother with him, will take his father with him, will take Mav with him. Nobody to remember him. Nobody to mourn him except you, all alone, carrying the terrible burden of his ghost.
It used to be a relief. Nobody to mourn me after I’m gone. Now it feels like a punishment.
Home, he thinks, remembering the content of your smile and your eyes gleaming in the darkness and your face turning, always turning, toward the sun. Like a child, as he closes his eyes, as he tries to accept the inevitable, he thinks, I want to go home. I just want to go home.
And then that’s what he does—he and Mav. Incredibly, inexplicably, illogically, they go home.
From far away, as he walks up the driveway, the little house with the gardenias you planted blooming pink and red in front of the windows looks like an oasis at first. Then it seems to grow longer, taller, goes from beckoning to daunting. He almost doesn’t make it inside. Almost doesn’t dare to get out his keys, unlock the front door, push through and toe off his shoes. Feels like he’s doing something forbidden, like he’s an unwanted guest in his own home.
You’re in the kitchen, elbows deep in sudsy dishwater, and when he walks through the doorway, when you hear the pat of his socked feet against the tiled floors, you look up at him with an open face full of love, full of relief. It almost bowls him over.
“Bradley,” you whisper, voice soft, and then you’re crossing the room, bubbles and foam and water dripping from your wrists across the tile, and he blinks at the trail you leave for a moment. Then you’re there, arms wrapping around his neck, face pressing against his shoulder, saying his name again and again, like a benediction, like a prayer of thanks.
Automatically, he pulls you against him with both arms crossed over your hips. Inhales deep, lets the familiar scent of you envelop him. Listens to your breath echoing against the dip of his collarbone, to the steady rhythm of your heart.
Your hands leave wet prints against the fabric of his shirt, like something primeval pressed to cave walls, like something that’s been happening for centuries, something that is happening right now, something that will happen again tomorrow and next year and the year after that, and distantly, dumbly, Bradley thinks, Oh. I’m alive. I’m here.
He feels packed in cotton. He feels submerged. He feels not-real, not-present, not-normal. He feels like he’s going to fall apart, and no one will notice.
When you draw back, it takes you only a split second to realize something’s wrong. You frown, the furrow Bradley likes to smooth out with his thumb appearing between your eyebrows, eyes swimming with a concern he doesn’t deserve.
“What happened?”
It’s classified, all of it. There’s so much of his life Bradley isn’t allowed to share with you, even if he wants to. There’s so much he doesn’t want to share but knows he should.
From far away, he hears himself say, “My plane went down.”
He can feel the panic in your body, feels it go through you like a spasm. You try to draw back, but he holds you where you are, afraid he’s going to shatter all across the kitchen floor the moment you’re gone.
It’s not fair, he thinks, how he keeps looking to you to hold him together. It’s just that at the end of the day, you’ve always been so much stronger than him.
“Bradley…” you begin to say, but he can’t hear it. He doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to hear how scared you are every time he leaves, he doesn’t want to hear how it made you feel to know that he almost died because he already knows. He knows.
“I want…” he says into your hair, a fragment of a sentence, a statement that trails off halfway, that goes nowhere. He doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say.
In some ways, he feels stuck in that F-14. Like time kept moving, but he didn’t, remained static and crystallized like somebody dipped the moment in amber and preserved it on a bookshelf. Nothing makes sense to him. Rationally, he knows he’s standing here in his kitchen with you in his arms, knows he isn’t dead, knows he survived, but it doesn’t feel like it.
So Bradley tries to remember grounding exercises, focuses on little things, mundane things, things that shouldn’t exist on the verge of death. The bubbles popping in the sink. The specks of dust dancing through the room. The curve of your spine beneath the worn fabric of his Navy shirt.
Suddenly, the thought of you alone in this house is unbearable. Waiting for a man that never comes back. History repeating itself in the worst of ways.
“I want to have a baby,” he says, out of nowhere, out of some madness that took hold of him up in the air, or maybe when he touched the ground, or maybe at some other point he can’t name, can’t even think.
And it’s not a conscious thought. It’s not a decision he makes. It’s just something that spills from him, something that has been there unnoticed all along, words taking shape on his tongue before he can overthink their meaning, but then they’re out, and they drop between you like an anvil, and it’s like a relief, it’s like a breath he’s been holding for years, it’s like a sigh, something inside of him finally unlatching, finally escaping the shackles he put on it himself.
Oh, he thinks. He’s known this about himself, always, but it’s the first time he says it out loud. It’s always been a want, an ache, a yearning, but now it goes from all that to a need, a thrumming inside of him, something that cannot be ignored. Something that demands to be felt instead of thought.
In his arms, you stiffen.
With your palms on his chest, you push him away from you, take a step back, take the warmth and the scent and the anchor with you. Bradley is surprised he doesn’t float right up to the ceiling.
The openness of your face has shuttered now. You look at him with something unreadable crossing your features, something unfamiliar, and say, “What did you just say?”
Bradley swallows around a lump in his throat. “I want to have a baby,” he repeats, his voice smaller now, quieter, but the words more assured.
Because he does. Because it’s true. Because he’s always wanted this and doesn’t know how to explain to you that now he needs it. How now it’s the only thing that makes sense in a world that’s gone off the rails.
Your face falls, something crumbles, and it hits him like a punch to the gut.
“No,” you say, turning away from him. You step right into the trail of water you left earlier, it soaks into your socks, and then you’re leaving footprints too. Everywhere you go, you leave your mark like a brand. Not one part of Bradley has been left untouched.
Confusion zaps through him, but it’s a muted feeling. Muffled by all the chaos.
“I thought you….” It’s a great effort to form words, like pulling teeth. “You want children. Don’t you want this?”
“Not like…” You pause, rake your fingers through your hair, exasperation crackling from you like sparks from a burned-out socket, and Bradley can’t make sense of it.
You want this, he knows you do. So what’s the problem now? What did he do wrong?
“I don’t….”
“Don’t go there.”
There’s a finality to your voice, and he sees you drawing back from him, sees your shoulders come up, your face turning away, something wilting.
The idea of losing you, of pushing you away now that he’s finally decided to let you in, really let you in, the panic of it finally slices through the haze. Lifts the fog.
Bradley crosses the room and says, “It’s your decision too, honey, of course, it is, but I love you, and I want this, and….”
You whirl on him, and it punches the air out of his lungs. There’s real anger on your face now, your eyes sparkling with unshed tears, and Bradley’s heart clenches in answer.
“You don’t get to do this,” you say, voice heaving with the barely contained emotion, a ship on a stormy sea, “not after I compromised, not after I spent so long trying to get used to the idea of not having a baby, not after giving that up for you, Bradley. You don’t… don’t get to just come in here and change your mind just because it suits you, because you had some near-death experience and you’re full of adrenaline and… and….”
Bradley frowns, moves to touch you, but you flinch away from him, one arm going up to hug your own ribcage. As if you have to shield yourself from him.
Suddenly, he feels a sob building in his throat. To realize how much he’s hurt you, not just today by springing this on you, but by how selfish he was, again and again. By letting his past stand in the way of your future.
“It’s not that I changed my mind,” he begins, trying to string together something that will make you see the truth of it, make you understand what he means.
You interrupt, “You said you didn’t want kids.”
Bradley pauses. Did he say that? If he did…
“And it…” You gasp for breath, the tears now streaming freely down your face, and god, it hurts, it hurts worse than thinking he lost Mav, hurts worse than thinking he’d die in that F-14 because all of that he’d been prepared for, had been practicing for his whole life. Losing Maverick, losing himself, all of that had been inevitable. But losing you… Bradley always assumed he was going to be the one to go first.
“It’s fine,” you go on. “I was fine with it, Bradley, I gave that dream up because… because I wanted you more, and I was okay with it. It was my decision, and I don’t regret it, but for you to just… to just….”
“I do want children,” he says because he doesn’t know what to do except explain it, except make you see the truth of it all. “I’ve always… I’ve always wanted children, honey. I just… after what happened to my dad, after what that did to me, what it did to my mother, I didn’t… I didn’t want to do that to you. I couldn’t do that to you.”
For a moment, you say nothing, eyebrows furrowed, lower lip caught between your teeth.
“You…” You look like you’re trying very hard to understand it. “Are you saying you decided not to have children with me because you thought it would hurt me too much if you died?”
When you say it like that, out loud, logically, through your tears, it sounds so incredibly stupid.
Bradley opens and closes his mouth, once, twice. Finally, he nods.
He expects you to start crying harder, to hit him (all valid reactions, really), but instead, you do the one thing he doesn’t expect: You laugh. It’s a watery sound, barely amused, but it is a laugh.
You bury your face in your hands, then reemerge after a moment, eyes rimmed in red, and say, “God, Bradley, you’re so stupid.”
“I…” He doesn’t know what to say to that. Probably, you’re right. “What?”
“You just…” You exhale a long, shuddering breath. “You keep trying to make decisions without me.”
“... I do?”
“Yeah!” Your voice rises a little, then settles, and you say, “This is my decision as much as it’s yours. If I say I want it, if I say I know the risk and I know the danger, then you don’t get to tell me no. Do you think I’m dumb? Do you think I don’t understand what goes on when you get deployed? Do you think I don’t know that you’re risking your life all the time?”
“No, I… I know you know that.”
You shrug, and it’s a gesture of such helplessness that Bradley’s knees almost buckle.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I don’t know if… if one day there’s going to be a mission you don’t come back from. I don’t know that, Bradley. I can’t know that. But until then… can’t you just let us be happy?”
Bradley’s shaking. Head to toe, tremors that run through him like the tides. Unstoppable. Unrelenting.
“I…” And he knows he’s the one who brought it up, but suddenly all the doubts come crashing down. Suddenly the ghosts crowd around him. “What if I die? What if I leave you? What if we have a baby and I’m not… there?”
“Oh, Bradley…” Something on your face melts. You step closer, put a hand on his cheek, fingertips still pruned from the water, and say, so gently it breaks something open inside of him, “Bradley. You’re not your father.”
And Bradley can’t help it - he cries. It’s an ugly sort of crying, the sort that leaves you with a headache and snot dripping down your face and eyes that hurt. The one you feel in the morning. But it’s a relief too. A release. Rain after years and years of drought.
For so long, Bradley was trying to let go of a world that didn’t want him to leave. He’s been preparing for an early exit since he entered, has been so caught up in dreaming he forgot to live. So caught up in thinking he forgot to do. He thought he would be content to go out of this world and leave nothing behind, to disappear without a trace, without a word, without a ghost.
But now he sees it clearly. Now he understands.
Bradley doesn’t want to stop existing. He wants to cling to this world like someone clinging to the edge of a cliff, like a leech, like a cancer. He wants to haunt someone.
Only there’s something else, too.
A week before his mother died, when she had gone all quiet, when she had lost the vibrancy she used to carry around like a glow, when she had slept longer and spoke less and Bradley had known, somewhere deep inside of him, that things were ending, that they were truly ending, he’d gathered all his courage and asked a question he’d been rehearsing for weeks, months, years.
“Do you regret it?”
Do you regret loving my father now, knowing all that would come after? Knowing the landslide it really was?
And Carol had just smiled, something of that old light returning for a moment, a tenderness so big it felt like violence, and she’d said, “I could never regret him. Not even the heartbreak or the grief or the pain. After all, he gave me you, didn’t he?”
Maybe, he thinks, it’s time to let the past be in the past. Maybe it’s time to let himself have a future.
Maybe it’s time to let go of the ghost.
And you just hold him as he cries like he hasn’t since he locked himself in a bathroom stall after his mother’s funeral, cries until it feels like he’s going to throw up, cries until the gnashing teeth of grief of pain of hurt of anger finally leave him be.
After half an eternity, you pull away, warm hands cupping his face, tugging him gently away from the crook of your neck, so he has to look at you, can’t look anywhere but at you, and then you say, “Bradley, what happened to your father was a horrible, terrible accident. But he loved you. You know that, don’t you?”
He nods. His father, the hazy shape of him, the ghost he’s carried for so long - frosted tips and Hawaiian shirts and the smell of motor oil. Large hands and a mustache and rides around living rooms. So much of him is shadowed, fractioned, incomplete, but not this. This he knows. When he thinks of his father, there’s nothing now but the hazy, easy warmth of love.
“Do you really think,” you say softly, “that they made a mistake when they had you? Your parents? Do you really think they shouldn’t have done it?”
Bradley has thought about his life in boxes. Big cardboard ones, the kind you get when you move apartments. He tucks the good parts away beneath his bed, stows them, hoards them like a secret. Like his mother kept her grief. But all the bad parts - the pain and the sadness and the sorrow - those he lets pile up everywhere, in hallways, in living rooms, on kitchen tables. He stumbles over them on his way to the bathroom. He stubs his toe halfway to the closet.
He never looks at those good parts, afraid they’ll become tainted somehow if he thinks about them for too long, afraid they’ll lose their appeal or their strength. But there’s so much good there too.
Goose loved him, he knows this without a doubt. Carole loved him. Mav loves him, Phoenix loves him, you love him… At the end of it all, even despite all the terrible things that have happened to him, even with the ghosts that have haunted him for so long, Bradley has been loved, and he has lived, and he has been happy.
Shouldn’t that be worth something, too?
“No,” he says, voice soft, “no, I’m glad they had me.”
His life has been a long, long road. Difficult to walk sometimes, full of potholes, some as big as canyons. But there’s so much happiness there, too - car rides with his mother, Mav telling him stories about his father, the moment when the wheels lift off the tarmac at take-off. This long, terrible, winding road that led him here. That led him to you.
You brush your fingertips across his cheekbone, and Bradley capsizes.
“I love you,” he says, and it’s the truest thing he’s ever said. It’s the truest thing he’s ever known. “I want… I want to have a life with you.”
“You do,” you answer. “You have one.”
Bradley’s tears have dried so the sound he makes isn’t really a sob, but it’s damn close to one.
“Do you…” He clears his throat. “You love me, too?”
It’s a dumb question, unnecessary because he already knows the answer. But he needs to hear you say it anyway.
And when you smile, your whole face lights up. It echoes somewhere inside Bradley, somewhere at his core, goes through him like a current.
“Bradley Bradshaw,” you say, and there’s only a little bit of amusement in your voice, “you’re the love of my life.”
His heart jumps like a jackknife in his chest.
Before he recognizes that he’s made the conscious decision to do so, he’s bridged the space between you and has pulled you into a searing, soaring, slow kiss. He fumbles it a little, teeth knocking against yours, but you just laugh into it, going up on your tiptoes, arms wrapping around his neck, pulling yourself closer to him like you want to meld yourself to his bones. Bradley feels like somebody’s poured liquid sunlight into his chest.
Somewhere it goes heated, goes desperate, goes near frantic, all the adrenaline, all the fear, everything pouring from him in a shower of want. Somehow he’s got you pressed up against the counter, tongue tangled with yours, fingers in your hair, fingers on your back, fingers pulling up the edge of the shirt you’ve stolen from him to find the warm, soft skin beneath.
Breathless, heart stuttering, Bradley pulls away, looks at your lips swollen from the tug of his teeth, your eyes with the heavy lids, the hair mussed by his fingers, and he needs to hear it. Needs to know you want this as much as he does. The ache in him twists like a knife between the ribs.
“Tell me,” he whispers, afraid the moment will shatter if he makes a wrong move, speaks too loudly. It’s so fragile - he wants to protect it so fiercely. Presses the tips of his fingers into the place where your pulse hammers away. “Tell me you want to have a baby with me.”
“I want…” And you sigh, a sound like a spring day, a sound like a rushing mountain stream. “I want it.”
He surges forward, lips against yours again, and you’re so alive beneath him, heart racing, breath heaving, fingers grappling along his neck, his shoulders, his chest, his arms, and Bradley wants to devour you. Wants to sink his teeth into all this life and never let it go again. He wants to exist, right here, in this moment with you forever.
“I love you,” he mumbles into your neck, lets his mouth move over the column of your throat, down to the sharp points of your collarbones beneath the soft skin. Sinks to his knees on the kitchen tiles like he’s kneeling at an altar to pray.
“Bradley,” you whisper, fingers going to tangle in his hair, to smooth along the sides of his face, and the softness in your voice cracks something in him. He swears he could cry again.
He doesn’t even know what he’s doing as he nuzzles his nose against the sloping curve of your upper thigh, as his fingers tighten on your hips. He just wants to be close to you. And you’re so soft, so warm, you smell like home, and it tears through him, blazes everything in its wake, to realize just how close he came to losing it all.
“I’m gonna marry you,” he whispers, babbles, barely coherent, pressing his face against the fabric of your panties, inhaling your scent, opening his mouth to push his tongue where he knows your clit is. “Gonna make you so happy, baby, I promise, it’s all I want. I’m never letting you go again, I’m never….”
Above him, you whimper, hips knocking forward, arching into the movement of his tongue for a moment, and he wonders if you’re wet, thinks about the hot, tight vice of your cunt, and groans against you. His cock jumps.
Then you’re tugging him away from you by the hair, and Bradley goes reluctantly, mouth still open, wishing he could stay where he was forever. Drowning in you.
You’re looking down at him with eyes blown wide.
“Bradley,” you say, and there’s something unsteady to your voice. “Take me to bed.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice. It’s a tumble all the way to your bedroom - he kicks off his shoes on the way, you lose your shirt, and he’s somehow, miraculously, gotten down to his boxers by the time he drags you backward with him onto the mattress.
“I love you,” he says as he drags you on top of him, your legs opening around his hips like the petals of a flower. The mattress dips where your knees press against the springs, your weight grounds him. “I love you, you’re so perfect, you’re….”
He has no idea what he’s saying. His brain checked out a while ago, and it’s all just feelings now, just emotions coursing through him, and every once in a while, one will plunge its head through the surface, and then he’ll tell you something nonsensical, something dumb, something important, something he needs you to know, something…
You lean down to kiss him, to shut him up, his brain buzzes, your breasts press to his bare chest, and he’s so hard in his boxers it hurts.
“I love you, too,” you whisper against his lips, smile into the kiss. The curve of it burns against Bradley’s face.
He sits up, grasps you by the thighs to drag you closer, drag your core across his cock, and you both moan against each other. Your fingernails scrape over the back of his neck, where his hair is buzzed so short he knows it feels like prickles, and he shudders, sighs, lets his tongue run across your teeth.
For a while, you just stay like that, rutting against each other like fucking teenagers, tongues lazy, fingers eager, mouths hungry. Even through your panties, he can feel your wetness, wonders if it’s going to leave stains on his underwear, across his thighs. Bradley thinks he’s going to die, but this time it’s nothing like it was up in the F-14.
It’s difficult in your position, awkward, but he gets a finger first on your clit, and then, when he finds you wet and swollen and open, he slides it right inside you. Watches your face as you squeeze your eyes shut, as your mouth falls open on a muffled gasp, as your head tips backward.
You’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
He fucks his finger in and out slowly, adds a second to stretch you, and then he’s saying, “Baby, honey, you’re so tight, you’re so fucking wet, god I….”
You whimper, and then you’re pulling off him, shimmying out of your panties, leaning down to tug his boxers off.
“Gotta have…” Your throat moves when you swallow as you clamber back into his lap. “Want you inside me, please, Bradley. I’m ready.”
He groans, something in his stomach yanking tight, and he’s pretty sure he’s leaking precum steadily by now.
There’s no time to tease, no need for it either, not when you’re both aching for it, not after what you’ve just gone through. The hot slide of him inside you, feeling you all around him, Bradley thinks that might be the only thing that could make him realize he’s actually back here, that it isn’t all just a dream, that he didn’t actually go down in that plane and has been stuck in some kind of cruel limbo for the past few days.
But there’s the other thing too. The need he can’t explain. The selfish, horrible, depraved thing he can share with nobody but you. That nobody but you would ever understand.
Slowly, tentatively, he places his palm on your stomach, fingers splaying wide, and leaves it there. He’s too scared to look at you, too scared of what you’ll think of him, too scared of what you’ll do once you find out how deep his desire runs, how desperately he wants this. Will you hate him? Will you be disgusted? Will you draw back, pull away, leave him alone with all his depravity and all his fears and all his sorrow?
“I need… I want…” He can’t even finish the sentence, brain too foggy. Too scared to meet your eyes, Bradley just blinks at the sight in front of him, his big hand on your skin, and his heart seizes, his insides clench, and he can’t breathe, can’t, he’s going to…
Slowly, your fingers wrap around his wrist.
“Yes,” you breathe above him.
It’s a visceral thing. The words burn through him, wrap around him, curl into him. He surges forward to kiss you, desperate, a choked sound escaping him, and licks into your mouth. Around his wrist, your fingers tighten.
He pushes you back into the sheets, crawls over you and spreads your legs, slides between them where he belongs. When his gaze falls to your face, there’s so much trust there, so much love, and it cleaves him in two, just how much he loves you, just how much he needs you. He doesn’t have the words to express it, can only hope you understand what he means when he plunges into you without preamble, when he whispers your name against the shell of your ear, when he curves around you like he wants to shield you from everything bad in the world.
You moan, fingers coming up to grasp his arm where he’s balancing his weight on the elbows. Your mouth tips open, your eyes not straying from his for a second as he goes slow, as he goes deep, as he goes home. There’s an answer in that too.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, voice choked as he bottoms out, as he holds himself perfectly still. “So tight and beautiful, and you’re all mine, and I’m yours and….”
“Bradley,” you stop him. Wrap your legs around his hips and pull him in. “It’s okay. You can move now.”
So he does.
It’s frantic from the first moment. It’s all the tension that’s been building up for years and years inside of him, all his love and all his longing finally laid open, and he can’t hold back anymore, not when he feels like he’s going to burst out of his own skin at any moment now.
The wet squeeze of your walls around his cock has his eyes rolling into the back of his head.
“Fuck,” he curses, hips pushing forward at an unsteady pace, as he leans down to kiss you again, as you open your mouth for him easily, as he nips at your lower lip.
And it’s so dumb - he’s inside of you, curled around you, his tongue tangled with your own, but Bradley wants you closer, still. Needs to know that you’re there with him, that he’s here with you, that he came home and he is letting himself have this, you’re letting him have it, and he loves you, he loves you, he…
Bradley takes his weight off his elbows, gets his arms around you, plasters himself to you, chest to chest, hip to hip, mouth finding the side of your neck, your collarbones. Like this, with his arms around your shoulders, it feels almost like he’s pulling you down to him with every thrust, like he slides just half an inch deeper into you.
You try to muffle a moan into his hair, but Bradley pulls your face away, keeps his pace as he says, “Wanna hear you. Let me hear you, baby, tell me how much you like it. You love it, don’t you? Love my cock, yeah? Love it when I fuck you?”
Maybe it’s pathetic, but Bradley needs to hear it. Needs to know you’re as desperate for him as he is for you. Needs to know you want it just as much.
On a thrust in, your walls flutter around him, and you whine, back arching a little, head sliding across the pillow as you nod.
“Yes,” you gasp, “I love it, Bradley, I love your cock. Thought about it while you were gone all the time, every night, I….”
Bradley groans, shudders, suddenly so close to the brink he needs to squeeze his eyes shut against the image of you - the glossy eyes, the swollen lips, the absolute ruin he’s reduced you to.
“Can’t say shit like that, baby,” he whispers, leaning to press tender kisses to the column of your throat. “Not when you’re this fucking wet, not when you’re making these sounds… you’re gonna make me cum.”
You giggle, then moan, head lolling to the side to give him better access.
“Good,” you say, legs hiking higher up on his hips, his cock sliding deeper, “that’s the plan, isn’t it?”
If there were any air left in his lungs, Bradley would laugh with you. As it stands, he just ups the ante, going a little harder, watching as your eyelashes flutter, feeling your fingers spasm against the skin of his back.
It’s so hot in the room, both of you sticking to each other with sweat, and maybe that, too, should be disgusting, but Bradley doesn’t care. When he leans down to lick a long, wet stripe along the edge of your jaw, he tastes salt on his tongue.
“I’m gonna….” When he glances down at you, at the eyes wide with that much trust, as he realizes you would let him do just about anything to you, that you’ve both opened yourself to each other completely now, no barriers and no ghosts standing between you, it’s like a dam breaking. He moans, so loud it echoes through the room, leans to plunge his tongue into your mouth, desperate, and then he’s saying into it, “God, I’m gonna fuck you so full, honey, gonna fuck you until it takes, yeah? Gonna keep you right here and fill you up, again and again, gonna make sure to get a baby in you, fuck, you’d be so fucking pretty, honey, so pretty all full of me, I know it, I can….”
And you sob. Full-on. Back arching off the bed, legs sliding off his hips, spreading so wide it must hurt.
“Bradley,” you say, fingernails breaking skin, forehead pressing against his throat to hide your face. “Bradley, fuck, I… the pill….”
He’s shaking his head, cutting you off with his mouth on yours. Conveying what he can’t speak, what he’s too far gone to formulate, here where logic has become a distant, remote concept, here between your legs. Don’t say it. Let me live in this fantasy. Let me dream a little longer.
It’s the thought of it all - a bump beneath your dresses, a baby in your arms, tiny fingers wrapping around his thumb, it’s about the long, long stretch of life ahead of the two of you. It’s about a house filled with love and free of ghosts. It’s about the first glimpse of the ocean after listening to its roar in seashells all his life. It’s about giving himself over to you completely, after years of only dreaming of it.
Do you know? he wonders. Do you know that you’re holding his whole life in your hands?
“I love you,” he mumbles, repeats it as he sinks into you again and again, as he buries himself in you, as he holds onto you like he’ll be back in the cold, cold, cold of all that snow the moment he lets go, like he’ll go back to the cockpit with the ghosts like jailors around him, like he’ll float right off the face off the earth. You have always been his anchor. “I’m gonna give you a baby, honey, I promise, gonna cum inside of you, you want that, right? You want me to come right here in this pretty pussy, fill you up all nice and wet, and….”
Your mouth moves against his clavicle, the feel of it spreading like wildfire through him, and you’re saying, “Yes, yes, Bradley, give it to me, please, I wanna feel it, want you to come inside me, please, please, I need it, I….”
A yell punches from him as he thrusts inside one last time, buries himself to the hilt in your warmth, and then he’s panting, his ears are ringing, his veins are buzzing as he cums, as he paints you with his release. He can’t do anything except hold onto you, bury his face in your hair, inhaling your scent, jerking his hips forward erratically, little sounds escaping him. It’s never felt like this before - like dying and coming back alive. The release of it is so big he feels shattered under its weight.
And you’re saying something to him, whispering words sticky with honey into his ear, pouring them right into his heart, and he can barely hear you over the hammering of his own heart, but it doesn’t matter. You hold him as he trembles, as he shakes, as he tries to collect himself, to control his breathing, hold him and stroke lazy, soft circles up and down his back, trace patterns against his spine, leave soft kisses on any inch of skin you can reach, trapped beneath his weight as you are.
Finally, after an eternity, Bradley pulls away an inch or two, careful not to let his cock slip out. There’s a little embarrassment spreading through his stomach now because he can’t believe he came that fast, can’t believe he didn’t even make sure to take you over the edge with him.
But you barely seem to think about your own lack of an orgasm.
“Are you okay?” you ask, voice gentle, face full of concern.
Bradley’s heart clenches. Maybe, he thinks, his ribcage is going to crack open. It seems impossible for one person to hold so much love inside.
“Are…” He clears his throat, suddenly unsure. “Are you?”
You nod immediately, smile, and the relief floods him. Then you shift, gasp, muscles fluttering around his softening cock.
“Well… I…”
He doesn’t let you finish, shakes his head, says, “You did so good for me, baby. Let me take care of you, yeah?”
He’s already looking at the place where you’re still connected, where his cum is beginning to drip from you in silvery trails. The sight of it is enough to make something like madness descend again, something like that earlier haze, the frenzy of the heat.
Bradley pulls out, sighs at the feeling, and your mouth opens as if in protest, but before you can form any words, he’s replaced his cock with two fingers.
You whimper, eyes closing, a muscle in your stomach jumping.
“I got you,” he says, keeps his eyes on the mess of your swollen cunt, the wet spot soaking into the mattress just beneath, the evidence of his pleasure, smooths his free hand over your chest to settle you. “Relax, honey. I got you.”
Your answer is a moan of his name, fingers twisting into the sheets. He can feel your walls bearing down on the motion of his fingers and knows you’re close, desperately, frantically, torturously close to the brink.
So he speeds up the movement of his digits, swipes his thumb through the sopping wetness, and then across your clit as he fucks his cum back into you. Not letting a single drop go to waste.
“Bradley,” you sob, mouth opening, fingers grappling for something.
Knowing what you need, knowing without you asking for it, he catches your hand with his own and interlaces your fingers. Then he leans down, leans over you, leans in. Finds the seam of your mouth with his own. It’s less of a kiss than both of you panting against each other, finding the same rhythm.
“You can let go now,” he whispers into you. “I’m here. I’ve got you, honey. My perfect girl.”
You come with his name on your lips, cunt clenching around his fingers, arching off the bed and into him, and it’s like a prayer. It’s like a song.
It takes you a while to come down, and he coaxes you through it, brushes kisses against your lips and your jaw and your ear. Hopes he can ground you the same way you ground him.
Finally, softly, voice faint and fragile, you say, “That was… intense.”
Bradley hums in agreement, and then a laugh rips from him. Because it’s all so ridiculous and so monumental, and he doesn’t know where to go with all these emotions.
“I… yeah. It really was.” He pauses, feels shame curling through him. “I’m sorry I sprung that on you.”
You shake your head, lift one hand to run a finger across his mustache the way you like to do sometimes.
“It’s okay,” you say, and he knows you mean it. “You must have carried that for a long time.”
It chokes him up, the way you know him so well. Better than anybody else.
“Yeah,” he agrees, drops his head into the crook of your neck. “It… I want you to know that I really want this. It’s not… it’s not adrenaline, and it’s not just almost dying, it’s… It’s you. I want this with you. Only with you.”
He can feel the curve of your smile against his temple, can hear it in your voice.
“I want it with you too, Bradley. Only with you.”
Bradley’s so afraid he’s going to start crying again that he springs into action instead. Reaches around you for a pillow to push beneath your hips, angle your lower body upwards.
“What are you doing?” you ask, laughing a little.
“I’m trying to keep my cum in you. Maybe we’re like super extra lucky, and it works out on the first try.”
Now you’re laughing in earnest, and he gets the impression it might be at his expanse.
“Still on the pill, Bradley,” you remind him, eyes luminous with your happiness.
Feeling a little sheepish, a little embarrassed, a little elated, he shrugs helplessly.
“Can’t hurt,” he says. Then adds, “Besides… I don’t want all my hard work to go to waste.”
Then you’re laughing together, breathless, loud laughter, the bending-at-the-waist kind. The belly-hurting kind. The kind that doesn’t come often.
And it’s good. It’s beautiful. It’s the kind of peace he’s never known before but has wanted always, always, always.
It’s so much better than anything he could have ever dreamed. Because it’s real. Because it’s true.
All his life, Bradley thinks, he’s been listening to oceans in seashells. It’s good, fun even, for a while, but it’s no replacement for the real thing. It’s no comparison to standing at the shore of the Pacific Ocean, watching waves crest and crash and throw themselves against the beach again and again, like a devotion that never ends. How big and beautiful and terrible the truth of it is.
And he’d thought the whole world was in that seashell.
Once the laughter has died down, once you’ve fallen back into the kind of comfortable silence that can exist only between people that really, truly love each other, Bradley strokes his thumb against your cheekbone, watches your eyes flutter closed.
“I love you,” he says, “more than I thought I could love someone. Thanks for loving me back.”
It’s bumbling, and it’s inadequate, and it doesn’t convey half of what it should.
But you smile at him, eyes opening, face so tender his heart stutters, and you whisper, “It’s an honor, Lieutenant Bradshaw.”
For the first time, Bradley doesn’t think about dying, doesn’t think about leaving. He thinks about living. He thinks about staying.
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just trying to have a good time (i am failing miserably). 22. capricorn. she/her.
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