Happy Together 05

Austin, 2013: Let's share secrets (II)

Summary:

"I offer you something, Hangman."
The blonde raises an eyebrow, disdainful.
"I see that you want to fight, so I'm going to give you a choice: we have a few punches and then makeup sex, or I tell you something about myself as horrible as what I learned about you today, and we will be even."

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Fandom: Top Gun (Movies)

Relationships: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw / Pete "Maverick" Mitchell  

Characters: Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Rick "Hollywood" Neven, Leonard "Wolfman" Wolfe, Original Child Character(s), Original Characters

Additional Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Implied Mpreg, Age difference, Grammarly is My Wingman, DADT Repeal, Homophobia, Jake "Hangman" Seresin Has Bad Parents

INDEX: https://palabraspulsares.blogspot.com/p/happy-together.html

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On the ride back, Jake stares persistently out the window as if his fascination with the Austin cityscape prevents him from speaking.

"Shall we stop to eat something?" Bradley proposes when they are five minutes from the hotel.

Jake turns to look at him with tight lips and distrustful eyes.

"I prefer to eat in the room," he says defiantly as if he expects Bradley to argue with him.

"Okay," he responds with a shrug.

Truthfully, he is also tired after a day of traveling and the effort to maintain his composure during the funeral. Jake slumps his shoulders and presses his forehead to his window, looking defeated.

What is bothering him?

The passive-aggressive attitude persists. When he asks him what he wants to eat, Jake answers, "Order whatever you want," before going into the bathroom for a long time. When he invites him to watch TV, he snorts, "Can't you stand the silence?" When the food arrives, he purses his lips and stares at the tray angrily. He can tell Jake wants to complain, but Bradley went out of his way to order his favorites, and they're in Texas: the food leaves nothing to be desired.

Jake spends the entire dinner frowning, shooting Bradley resentful glances. Near the end, he makes a downright pornographic noise as he bites into the tiramisu, and Bradley can't contain his laughter, happy to see him relax. His face goes from delight to rage in an instant.

"Don't think you know me just because you can order me dinner, Bradshaw," he spits.

Then, he understands that Jake is ashamed for being vulnerable. He wipes his mouth with the napkin and pushes the plate away.

"I offer you something, Hangman."

The blonde raises an eyebrow, disdainful.

"I see that you want to fight, so I'm going to give you a choice: we have a few punches and then makeup sex, or I tell you something about myself as horrible as what I learned about you today, and we will be even."

Jake stares at him, confused and intrigued. He opens and closes his hands and looks back and forth between Bradley and the bed. Bradley smiles to himself because this confirms that, as he imagined since they first fought at flight school in Corpus Christi, this alpha is as intelligent as he is attractive.

How stupid I am, he thinks, always letting beautiful, selfish guys steal my heart. He loves Jake for everything he has in common with Maverick - his willingness to point out wrongdoing bordering on insubordination, his flying style, his ability to make even the driest aviation presentations erotic - and also for the very different that he is - his conceit, his casual cruelty, his taste for high boots. Either way, neither of them will love him back. Pete because he will always see him as a child. Jake because he will always see him as a competitor.

"Okay, Bradshaw, tell me your horrible secret."

"First, you must promise."

"Promise?"

"We are both going to promise. I will never talk about this weekend with your family, not even with Coyote. You are going to promise not to say anything of what I am going to tell you, nor try to find out more details than the ones I will give you."

Jake narrows his eyes, his curiosity beginning to be tinged with concern.

"I'm officially intrigued." But Bradley stares at him until he exhales forcefully. "Okay, I promise. Tell me your big secret."

Bradley fixes his eyes on the ground and begins to speak in a calm voice.

"I was eight years old, and he was thirty. I thought he loved me, really. I thought I understood what was going on between us."

He ignores Jake's inarticulate noise and keeps talking. He has to get it off his chest. Who better than this betrayed alpha to understand the betrayal he suffered?

"While I was a child, he manipulated me into silence. I had learned about love in Disney films, so making myself believe that adults wouldn't understand wasn't tricky. It's always like this in fairy tales, right? The king who opposes the alpha princess loving an omega and a beta without royal blood, the beta covered in ashes with the pumpkin carriage, the two omega who weave nettle shirts for their five alpha brothers, and five beta brothers turned into swans. Our sentimental education is full of supposed lessons about the need to hide love. So I shut up and played his game. A gallant courtship, that's what I called it in my mind. When I turned eighteen... I still don't know how, but he used his power to take away what I loved most. I realized that everything had been a game for him and… I left home."

A noise makes him look up. Jake is standing with his hands gripping the table; behind him, the chair is lying on the floor. His face is reddish, his nostrils are flaring, his eyes are wide open, and his pupils have dilated so much that he can barely see the green in his eyes.

"Who was he?" he demands between teeth, angry.

"I can't." He tries to control the excitement that causes him to see Jake on the verge of frenzy. "I can't tell you, Jake."

Jake lets out an angry growl, pushes away from the table, and walks towards him. He drops to his knees in front of Bradley and takes his hands. He looks at him with fervor.

"It wasn't your fault, Bradley. You know that, right?"

"Of course, it was my fault. It was me who…"

"No! He was the adult. Just tell me his name, Bradley, you won't have to do anything, I'll take care of everything, okay? He won't  abuse anyone else."

"Abuse? Take care? What are you talking about?"

"The pedophile who abused you, of course. People like that don't deserve to be on Earth." He pauses. A new idea seems to worry him. "Do Neven and Wolfe know?"

"What? Of course not!"

He doesn't want to imagine what would happen if the clan found out he tried to court Maverick. The humiliation! That seems to calm Jake down a bit, but it doesn't cut his indignation.

"It doesn't matter. They are your uncles, and they did not protect you. Fuck it! Brad, Brad," he takes his face in his hands, "forgive me if I made you feel like... That you had to do something that you didn't... Oh! For Trinity's sake, all those times I jump out of bed. It's not... I didn't mean to... We can have all the cuddles you want. Yeah?"

"Jake, Jake! You haven't understood anything. What…?"

What has he done? Why isn't he even able to tell his story without creating even more problems?

"This is a misunderstanding, okay?"

"Brad, don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying! It's just that I've never told this story before and… I realize now how it sounds. I swear to you, I was not abused."

"You just told me that a guy over thirty made you believe..."

"No, it wasn't like that. I mean, yes, but the other way around. He manipulated me so we wouldn't have sex. When I was eight years old, I fell in love with a much, much older omega from my clan. When I proposed to him he... He didn't laugh at me, he didn't tell me it was inappropriate, just that I was too young."

"Oh," Jake says, perplexed. He leans back until he is sitting on the floor.

"Yeah. Well, I guess... There are days when I feel generous and think that he didn't want to break my heart and just thought it would pass. Other days, I feel bitter, and I'm sure he was flattered to have me pining away, willing to fulfill his smallest whims. The truth is that I don't know. I don't know why he acted like that. The fact is, that he didn't say "no" to me, and I spent ten years thinking that… that I just had to court him and we would be happy together."

"So, you're not gay?"

"Are you going to get into that now?" He snaps angrily. "I'm bisexual, okay? Yes, theoretically, I would be able to..." he struggles to find the right word, "maintain a traditional relationship with omega and..." he sighs. "I guess I could have something like a good friendship with a beta who would agree to have a platonic relationship with me. But you're right about something. I am broken inside. Trinity knows I tried. After all, I grew up in a military clan. I knew what was expected of me. But no omega after him has... Nothing, I don't feel anything, you see? All the people I like have narrow hips, vegetal-related scents, and flat chests. I like alphas, and I was born in a time and family that accepted me as I am. I'm not going to waste my life on a fake marriage."

Jake nods slowly.

"Okay. I didn't want to imply..." He scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. "It doesn't matter! So that's your dreadful secret? That you've been in love with the same omega since you were eight?"

"You make it sound almost romantic," he reproaches.

"It is certainly not as sordid as I feared," and he can see the relief in his voice. "I was ready to..." He averts his eyes, obviously embarrassed of losing his composure for the second time that day.

Bradley gets out of the chair and sits on the floor next to him.

"Hey! There's nothing wrong with wanting to be the alpha in shining armor. Thank you for wanting to avenge my virtue."

Jake snorts.

"Your virtue?" He asks mockingly. "The ship of your virtue sailed long ago, Bradshaw. In fact, I was there when it went sailing and sank thanks to my…"

"Oh! Shut up," and throws him to the ground to kiss him.

Hangman's fun, relaxed laugh convinces him that they'll be okay.

They eventually move to bed. They spend the night slowly loving each other.

Bradley knows that Jake doesn't love him and never will, but he also knows he won't betray his trust. So this feels good. It feels like a breakthrough on his own path to healing. He won't have Pete, but he can have Jake's friendship. It will have to be enough. On Sunday, as promised, they visit the Neven-Wolfe family. His three youngest cousins are at home: twins Molly and Ella, fourteen, and little Benjamin, who arrived by surprise in 2002. Grant, the oldest, is in DC working for Navy Intelligence. Dinah is in Austin but has to work this weekend at the hospital where she does her internship.

"None of them are named after their parents?" Jake asks, confused when they are alone, washing dishes by hand.

He giggles.

"No. We're a relatively new clan, only three generations, you know? And basically, we have grown through adoptions. Grandpa Metcalf and grandpa Heatherly left their clans in the late 1970s and began adopting officers with no prior ties to the Navy." He doesn't mention that they were in a particularly advantageous position to do so by directing Top Gun; he knows that Jake would be offended if he started to state the obvious. "So they all come from different traditions, and agreeing on one or two names was almost impossible. They left that task to my generation."

"And has someone already been born within the clan?" Jake asks in a carefully casual tone.

Bradley glances at him and delays his response with the excuse of vigorously scrubbing a frying pan with leftover meat. He knows what Jake is really asking: if there is any Nick or Carole in one of his extended family's houses.

Tradition dictates that the names of dead members be passed to the next generation as quickly as possible. It is a custom that dates back to the animist past when it was believed that giving a baby the name of a dead relative tied its spirit to the clan and allowed it to continue helping. Although nearly nine centuries of Christianity have eroded the belief, name inheritance continues to be practiced. Jake himself is the third Jacob of the Seresin clan. Well, it was going to be. Most likely, one of his nephews now carries name and burden.

Another part of the tradition is that the direct descendants of the person whose name is given to a new member acquire a special responsibility. They become guardians or godparents of these babies. Their biological children will be considered siblings of these people, and any sexual relationship between them is considered incest. That last part is a social convention since having a clan name without being blood-related to the branch of the clan from which the name originated is perfectly possible. Everyone knows it's a convention, but very few people challenge the rule. The anthropological explanation is that clans always need to outspread, and the complicated kinship and incest rules of Western Europe are cultural strategies to justify the preference for exogamous marriages and - unfortunately - the kidnapping of omegas.

Damm! This is definitely going to screw everything up.

"I am the oldest of this generation," he finally admits.

Jake drops a pot into the sink in surprise, the clink of china against metal sounding like a cannon shot in his ears.

"Fuck! How clumsy I am! Ah! Look, it didn't break. I don't know what Henry would think if the first time I came to his house, I broke a plate. And they are pretty dishes, right? Was this china chosen by Henry or Leonard? Honestly, I can't imagine your Uncle Rick in that. I mean, he's a cool guy and all, but..."

Bradley stops listening to concentrate on holding back his tears. He won't cry, he won't.

As a child, when he thought Maverick would marry him, his stupid fantasy included fathering the Nick and Carole of the next generation of the clan. Now, he is an adult and has realistic expectations in line with the times in which he lives and his sexual orientation: there are no babies in his future. He already discussed this with his uncle Ice, clan leader, and his grandfather Jester, the oldest. They calmed his anxiety about possibly betraying the clan. Being a father should not be an obligation, they explained to him. Their clan is modern, not tied to land nor to ancient inheritance rules that demand an heir to the first alpha or similar nonsense. They are a military clan. As long as Bradley contributes to the advancement of the family within the DoD with honor, he will be doing his duty.

But he can't explain any of that to Jake. He can't reveal the clan's inner workings to his... Lover? Friend with benefits? Colleague? He doesn't even know what they are right now! So he'll have to accept whatever Jake decides to do with this information.

They finish washing the dishes in an awkward silence, which Jake tries to fill with empty comments about the quality of the dishes, cutlery, and general decor of the house. For the rest of the visit, he spends most of his time with his cousins. That, of course, wins him points with Leonard.

"He's good with children," comments the beta.

They are sitting on the back verandah of the house. In the yard, Jake plays football with Dinah, Molly, and Ben. Rick and Henry have gotten lost in one of the rooms of the house, taking advantage of the fact that there are a couple of extra adults to keep an eye on their restless offspring.

"Yes," Bradley admits reluctantly.

Bitterness escapes him, and his uncle gives him a condescending look.

"You're not going to tell me that you're jealous."

"No! Why would you think? It is just that…"

"Didn't you expect him to like children?"

"No. To be honest, no."

"Sometimes, it's good to make mistakes with people. It keeps you alert."

"Yes, of course."

"So?"

"So what?"

Leonard stares at him and smiles, sardonic.

"Oh really? Don't you have two children of your own of marriageable age?"

"I have the same responsibility with all the single adults in the clan, Bradley, don't play coy."

"It's not like I can get married."

"Well, the Supreme Court will issue its ruling on United States v. Windsor this fall, right? And anyway, a lot of states already recognize same-gender marriage, even if it's just two people," and it's evident in the tone of his voice that that last bit is a little too much for him.

Bradley huffs in frustration and covers his face with his hands. His uncle shakes his shoulder.

"We just want you to be happy, Brad."

"Yes, I know." He puts his hands on his knees and leans back in his chair. "I'm the one who always chooses wrong, that's all."

"Well, you misschoose great. The boy is very nice."

"That boy doesn't want anything serious, uncle. This is just… in your time they already had friends with benefits, right?"

Leonard gives him a calculating look, then looks back to the yard, where Molly and Ella have thrown Jake to the ground while his little brother runs with the ball.

"If you say so."

By the time they leave the uncle's house, Bradley thinks he has calmed down enough. In truth, he reasons what Jake thinks of his position within the clan doesn't matter. Because he didn't want anything serious before. It's even better. Now that Jake thinks he knows of his supposed obligations, he won't believe that Brad wants something long-term, and he won't be afraid of him creating drama. Jake hates drama. Believing that Brad can't offer him anything more than this informal arrangement is the best way to prevent him from wanting to cancel the arrangement.

On the ride back to the hotel, Jake is happy and talkative. He thought his cousins were great and the feeling seems mutual because they want to visit the Machado ranch. His uncles also receive praise. Overall, the visit was a success. Bradley is justly rewarded for having such excellent relatives with a spectacular blowjob.

By the Trinity, that mouth!

"I'm coming," he warns him between gasps.

The blonde just looks at him with lustful eyes and applies more pressure with his lips while moving his hand up and down. Bradley's world is reduced to those green eyes, green as... he bites his lips. He grunts as the orgasm rocks him, and on his tongue, there is not one name but two.

He's so, so fucked up.

The reading of the will is at ten in the morning, and the flight back to New York at one, so they go with their luggage to the McGinnis Lochridge offices. They are shown into a well-lit meeting room, where the three Seresin sisters and their spouses are already waiting.

"Jacob."

"Julius."

There are two seats prepared for them on one side of the conference table. That they are on the opposite side of the rest of the family is pure coincidence, of course. Bradley completely disconnects from the ritual. He just intertwines his fingers with Jake's under the table, puts on a bland face, and begins to mentally recite the F/A-18 technical manual. It's not until he feels his hand almost break from the sudden pressure that he starts to pay attention to what the lawyer - a sixty-something beta - is reading.

"…this annual allowance of one million dollars will continue until Jacob reaches the age of forty or has a legitimate child, whichever comes first. If Jacob does not have a child before the age of forty, the properties and assets of the Seresin conglomerate assigned to him in this will must be assessed in their fair value; that amount will be given to him in cash, and these assets will pass to the alpha children of Elizabeth, Catalina, and Isabel. If Jacob had a legitimate child before the age of forty, the allocation of one million dollars annually would pass to our grandchild, the child of our alpha. This assignment will remain in place until our grandchild,  born to our alpha son, turns eighteen, when they may decide to participate on the board of the Seresin conglomerate as holder of ten percent of its shares."

The lawyer pauses and raises his head, sweeping his audience with bored eyes. Bradley takes the opportunity to look, too. On the other side of the table, they still haven't recovered from their shock, but their astonishment doesn't stop them from looking at them with hatred. He sees that Jake has a hypocritical smile carved into his face and decides to imitate him.

The lawyer takes a drink of water and returns to reading.

"About…"

Everything goes back to gibberish after that.

When it's all over, the lawyer leaves at a pace too fast to be casual.

"Well, that was interesting," Jake says, clapping his hands and standing up. Bradley imitates him.

"No, you can't leave," Catalina tries to stop him.

He gives her an annoyed look.

"Our plane leaves at one, I'm afraid this has taken longer than I expected."

"But you have to sign the papers to renounce…"

"Renounce? Do you think I'm going to quit? Didn't you hear the will of our dear mommies, little sister? I am the alpha of the family, and just because I have a big dick, I get a quarter of the clan's shares. It's that easy."

"What you are is a shame. How do you have the courage to bring your little catamite to this family event?" Isabel demands. "Our mothers would never have approved."

"Well," Jake shrugs, "at least I'm not fucking my sister's alpha."

He takes advantage of the astonishment that follows his accusation to put his fists on the table and lean toward his sisters and brothers-in-law.

"This is what is going to happen: you are going to commission a new identity statement for the Seresin conglomerate, which commits to gender equality, sexual diversity, and the fight against all types of discrimination. Then, you will ask for a report about how much it will cost to implement salary equality between alphas, betas, and omegas in all our companies and subsidiaries. You will send me those documents in less than four months, and if I find them satisfactory, we will move on to implementation. After the Seresin conglomerate is in the 21st century, I will let you play with the reins I inherited."

"This is... it's an outrage!" Julius explodes. "You haven't done anything for this company. You can't come now and demand that we betray the values that..."

"Spare me the speech, brother-in-law. I have to take a plane. Bradley?"

And they leave.

They don't say anything until they're in the car on the way to the airport.

"By the Trinity," Bradley exhales. "Have I told you that you're very, very attractive when you get all bossy?"

"Yeah?" Jake doesn't take his eyes off the road, but he smiles.

"Yeah." he's so hard it hurts. "I could suck you right now, but I don't want us to crash."

"You know? The airport bathrooms have quite large stalls."

"And the plane?"

Jake turns his face for a moment to wink at him.

"Do you have any idea how many daily flights there are from Austin to New York? I'm sure we can reschedule."

"Okay."

Jake speeds down the I-35.

They arrive in New York at nine at night. They separate without saying goodbye. It shouldn't hurt, but it does.

INDEX: https://palabraspulsares.blogspot.com/p/happy-together.html