***
It's here when I wake up every single morning
Follows me down the stairs
In the paper on the wall and the plaster on the ceiling
Every single drop of air that I'm breathing
What am I supposed to do
What am I supposed to do with
All the love you left me
It can't hold me, it don't kiss me
But in these sheets, it lays down with me
All the love you left me
You left me, left me, left me, left me
Can't wash it off like makeup
Leave it in the closet like a dress out of style
Can't light it up and burn it
Box it up and send it like the shirt you left behind
What am I supposed to do with
All the love you left me
It can't hold me, it don't kiss me
But in these sheets, it lays down with me
All the love you left me
I turn the lights on, I turn the lights off
But it don't matter, baby, all that I got is
All the love you left me
(You left me left me left me left me)
The love you left me
Sara Evans - All The Love You Left Me
***
The saddest word
in the whole wide world
is the word almost.
He was almost in love.
She was almost good for him.
He almost stopped her.
She almost waited.
He almost lived.
They almost made it.
Nikita Gill
***
Javy's Best Man Speech (given at the adults-only reception the night before because Celia saw it beforehand and realized it would not go over well with all the kids at the actual ceremony) goes like this:
"You fucking fuckers. You two have been the biggest pains in my ass for twenty goddamn years now. I should have known from the moment you two saw each other when you tried so damn hard to make it look like you were looking at other people, that I was never going to get a good night's sleep again. I have put up with so much shit, so many sleepless nights, I think I became an alcoholic there for a minute. It's been a decade, and the two of you are still as locked on to one another as you were in the beginning. Thank god you guys finally worked it out, and I can stop drinking. I can't…I spent hours trying to figure out what words couple properly express how happy I am that the two of you are finally together and happy. I feel like I raised two kids, and they just graduated college and became useful adults. I've raised you so well. (Jake had chucked a bread roll at him at that point) Seriously, I don't think you two realize how many people were pulling for you, and even when I had my doubts, I was still hoping. It's impossible not to when you're looking at two people that so obviously belong together. I don't think there's anyone else that could make you guys happy…or put up with you for so long. (this time, Bradley throws the bread roll) You guys make each other better because you want to, and it's so fucking amazing to watch it happen. All those poets and writers and movies have no idea what it really takes. Or what it means to actively choose someone when you know it's going to take work to make it, well, work. Seriously, you guys have no idea how relieved I am that you finally got your shit together. (He might have been tearing up at this point, but there's no recording, so no one can prove anything.) You're so fucking good together and I think I'm getting used to walking in on you two, because it doesn't even gross me out anymore, you're actually kind of hot now, and the nightmares have stopped. (He was definitely drunk by this point.) I think it's Stockholm Syndrome, but that's okay. I just want Jakey to be happy, and I don't know why the chicken is the one that makes you happy, but he does, and you make him happy, and it's great, really. Just be happy for fuck's sake, you guys deserve it! You're so much less of a pain in the ass when you're happy…Also, I paid someone to get rid of that couch while you guys were away for the weekend, so you can stop blaming each other.
***
The next day, Celia refuses to apologize for not stopping him from giving that speech.
***
The end, when it comes, is somehow surprising but also not.
Jake wakes up a few months after his fortieth birthday and just knows.
It helps that his siblings are at the foot of his bed.
Lily, who Jake was too young to remember but recognizes from the pictures. Beside his daughter, who turned out to be her spitting image in looks and spirit and is two years gone now.
Brian, in his rodeo best, shining boots and spotless hat. Just like the last time, Jake saw him alive.
Jessie, with the badge he was proud of and the crooked smile their mother had always told him he got from their grandfather.
Michael, in his Trooper uniform, and Jake can't see it, but he knows there's a sonogram photo in his wallet.
Jordan, grinning, and Jake can hear the 'Baby Bro' that he hated when he was young.
Peter, quiet as always, soft smile and no sign of the bullet that killed him.
It drives Jake to press a hard kiss to the scar on Bradley's shoulder.
And then to his chest, right above his heart.
He stops and listens for a few minutes to the beat of Bradley's heart.
The only song Jake will never tire of listening to.
Things have been brewing around the world for a while now, bets going around at work about what would kick off first, and Jake makes a note to change his bet on his way to work.
***
He's commanding the Squadron out of Oceania now. His prediction about the Dagger Squad came true, but the few years they lasted were fun, and Jake doesn't have any regrets about the time spent there.
Only Javy and Bradley followed him to Oceania. The others are scattered around the world again, except for Brigham, who's stationed in Texas as he and Ren await the birth of their first child.
Bradley enjoys training more than he enjoys the actual missions and they've started negotiating where they're going when Jake's time in command is up, but it's looking like back to Top Gun. Neither of them are upset about heading back to the West Coast, Bradley kept his parents' house, and the last round of renovations added another spare bedroom, so Javy won't have to worry about his own place.
If he's willing to live with them again.
He still complains that neither of them are good at remembering to lock the door.
Jake still maintains he should knock louder, but Bradley never fails to blush bright red and apologize.
Javy has another little one on the way, and Nat got married last year. Even Bob is getting ready to start a family. Most of their former squadron is sharing big news over their group chat and managing to run into one another once or twice a year.
Jake and Nat never manage to really recover, but there are no hard feelings, just two people ready to move on and a relationship sacrificed for the shake of the future.
That's the unfortunate truth of life, it seems. You could love the same person, and you could both want the best for them, and you could still have completely different beliefs of what the best was.
Nat and Jake both loved Bradley.
They both wanted him to be happy. Healthy. Loved.
But they both saw it happening in very different ways.
And it was entirely possible both of them were right.
They could both be wrong, too, but that's a bit less likely.
Regardless, there's no ill will. Just comfortable differences that they accept and don't bother bringing up anymore.
Nat even flew out for their wedding and led a beautiful toast at the reception.
Occasionally, Jake still worries that Bradley is upset about the state of things, but they've long since learned to table that conversation before either of them gets truly angry.
It's kind of disappointing now that he dwells on it, the last time he saw Nat was almost eight months ago and Jordan sprawled out in the seat next to him means he's never going to see her again.
Or any of the other Daggers.
When he gets to the hangar, he sits in his car for a minute, ignoring Peter's knowing gaze from the back seat and trying to figure out if it's worth it to send a message to the group chat.
He doesn't want to kick up a fuss or send something that will make them all feel guilty after, but he does kind of think they deserve a message. He called Celia and the kids and the ranch this morning after all. And Cyclone and his wife. And he had Bradley had a video chat with Mav and Ice just last night. He'll see Javy and Bradley in an hour or so.
So it's all kind of lining up except for the former Daggers.
Is it worth saying anything? He knows most of them only half believe in the Seresin Curse anyway, and they'll feel even worse if they get upset or tease him about it, and then he dies right after.
The mission launches in four hours, and he still has paperwork to do, so he settles on a short message pretty quickly.
See you guys later!
***
When Jake gets to his fighter, there's a man in an old flight suit standing by the nose.
Davey Seresin has the same gentle smile Jake recognizes from all the pictures, but there are a few more lines around his eyes than there were the last time Jake remembers seeing him in person.
His presence is strong enough that Jake thinks he can actually feel his hand on his shoulder as he climbs into the cockpit.
***
Javy doesn't catch on immediately.
Jake, and Bradley, seem normal by the time they all meet up to discuss the mission. Jake spends the morning hold up in his office slogging through paperwork, and Bradley leads a class on engines as they all try not to think about the afternoon's mission.
It's the closest they've gotten to the Dagger mission all those years ago and it's got everyone in the squadron on edge. Not to mention, it is rare for a single mission to pull all their most senior pilots and their commander. If it goes catastrophically wrong, the unit will be gutted to the point of not being able to function.
However, things rarely go that wrong, so none of them are that worried.
Regardless, Javy doesn't realize it's that day until they're in the briefing room, and he catches Jake smiling.
Not the normal shit-eating grin he wears, but something softer. The small, private smile he wears when he looks at pictures of his dead family members.
Except he's smiling at a blank wall.
Oh.
They'd gotten complacent, he realizes. Jake had lived past his fortieth birthday, and they'd all just kind of assumed he was safe when they should have been thinking he's forty, this is it.
How did he forget that?
No, he knows how. Everything else was going so good, Celia and the kids, Jake and Bradley, their work, even the loss of Lily had been the only truly horrible thing in the last few years, and since they'd gotten through that, albeit barely, his heart had just assumed there couldn't be anything worse.
And his head had turned a blind eye and done its best to ignore logic and the fact that life was rarely fair or kind.
He feels like a fool as he watches Jake tune back into the meeting, Bradley next to him none the wiser.
And Javy sees three distinct paths for the future.
***
One, the easy way, the least painful. The one Javy wouldn't even be that upset about.
Javy stops him, beats him into the ground for the third and final time in their lives, and it saves Bradley's life.
Bradley moves on. He mourns Jake for the appropriate amount of time, a couple of years, and always keeps a few mementos around to remind him of the great love he lost.
But he moves on eventually. Settles down and has some kids, maybe even with Nat, if things with her marriage don't work out.
They might start talking again with Jake gone.
He may or may not stay in touch with Dustin, but there wouldn't be any hard feelings anywhere.
Javy and Celia would even go to his wedding if he got married again.
He might tell his kids about Jake and the Seresins and the sprawling land where the horizon stretches as far as the eye can see without a building in sight.
He might not because it hurts too much to remember.
Sometimes, people lock away their valuables to protect them. Sometimes to stop them from being changed. Afraid that the eyes of others may change their meaning.
And sometimes the impact they've left is just so strong the thought of sharing it with someone else feels like blasphemy to the subject of the memory.
People can be terribly possessive of the things they love.
And still, some people leave them out on display for all the world to share. Eager to show off that they were loved that deeply, that they carry something so important so long after it's gone. Even the noble desire to show the rest of the world that there's hope for them all, even if it doesn't last forever.
It was still important while it was there, and something being intangible doesn't lessen its power or value.
Bradley's always worn his heart on his sleeve for the world to see.
***
Two is….less easy.
Javy stops him and Bradley doesn't move on.
Bradley watches Jake go down, and a part of him goes down with him.
Javy picks him up after, and when Javy files his retirement papers the next day, Bradley's not far behind him.
He might stay a few more years, but his love of flying was so wrapped up in flying with Jake in the end that, eventually, it's more painful than comforting.
He'll end up at the ranch not long after.
Because when you love a Seresin, that's the best way to remember them. To go to the place they all came from, the place that calls them all home in the end.
He helps Javy and Celia raise Dustin and then their own brood.
Maybe he dates a few times, has a couple of lasting relationships that fill the years, but they all end eventually because they all realize that Bradley already had the one person he was going to marry and raise children with and lost him.
Maybe a couple of them will even fight to make Bradley move on.
But he won't.
Bradley has always been spectacularly stubborn. Roots dug so deep there was only one person capable of moving them.
And he's gone now.
He'll move to the ranch permanently eventually, a ghost among the living, and he only fades even more when Dustin dies at thirty-seven, in combat in Europe and that war they all knew was coming.
Javy will probably lose a child to that war, too.
He and Javy will spend their days getting older and slower and watching over the Seresin lands, remembering the ones they lost and just waiting until it's time to rejoin them.
Maybe Bradley will last long enough to help Javy raise Lily Grace and Dustin's grandchildren.
Maybe he won't.
But eventually, he'll just fade completely from sight, and Javy will bury him next to Jake in the Seresin family plot and finally be relieved that at least his suffering is over.
At least he and Jake are together again.
***
The third path….Jake would never forgive him for the third option.
But Jake'll be dead, so it's not like Javy's going to have to listen to him bitch about it.
In the third path, when Bradley finally gets up again, bleeding and bruised and so, so desperate, Javy finally steps aside, and Bradley launches.
But even all that speed that Bradley's finally gained isn't enough to make a difference.
Jake goes down in a blaze of glory, Bradley right beside him, and all Javy can think is at least they were together.
He'll bury them next to one another in the family plot, next to Jordan and Peter and Lily Grace, and he won't have to worry about watching one of them try to go on without the other.
Dustin will get quiet after that, always the sensitive one, losing his father and his sister enough to silence him forever.
But he helps raise Lily Grace's children, has a few of his own, and puts on the uniform his father was so proud of.
He and Javy will have a huge fight over whether or not he should fly like his father, but it's a pointless argument.
For all that Dustin's the opposite of his father on the ground; he's just like him in the air. Racking up kills and medals and impossible achievements in the war that eventually gets him a month before it ends.
He'll go down in history as one of the most influential soldiers in that war, his skill in the sky striking so much fear into the enemy that they missed their best opportunity to win, so they lost.
Javy'll live long enough to see their great-grandchildren grace the world before he finally goes and takes his place in the family plot next to Celia and his mother.
And the Seresins will go on.
Dying young.
Fighting.
Maybe someday they'll figure it out.
Maybe someday they'll break the curse.
Maybe they won't.
But it'll be long after Javy's gone.
***
And now, he's staring at Bradley, who gets up every time Javy beats him down, seeing the years play out.
And it hurts to think about Bradley without Jake.
Bradley will forgive him if Javy stops him because he'll know it was Jake's request. He already forgave Mav for his mother's.
And Jake will be dead, so it's not like either of them will be able to blame him for anything.
They'll just have each other and their memories.
For however long Bradley lasts.
Bradley gets to his feet, angry and crying, and Javy….
For the first and only time in his life….
Javy gets out of his way.
~fin~