Summary : The squad is on a hunt for the truth about the dynamics of your relationship with Bradley.
Pairing : Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw x Fem!Reader
Important info : Your callsign is Nitro 💨 :)
Disclaimer : English is not my first language so apologies for any grammatical errors that might have escaped my proofreading, also I have zero knowledge of the military or the navy so sorry for any inaccuracies in that area !💞
Word count : 5.9k
‼️‼️CONTENT WARNING : suggestive, talks about power dynamics, talks about sex, sex habits, crude talks about sex. MDNI.
Part one :)
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Natasha never expected to talk, or even think about you and Bradley’s sex life ever again.
Truth be told, It was a subject she would have liked to never even have to think about in the first place. Alas, working with a bunch of immature and dirty minded naval aviators who giggled at the mere mention of the word ‘sex’ had very unfortunately, and against her will, planted the image in her head. But it was fine she had told herself after you and Bradley had left the Hard Deck, eventually the guys would move on to another stupid and incongruous matter to giggle and theorize about.
The one thing Natasha had never expected was that she would be the one to bring back the topic on the table.
In her defense, she’d probably say the universe imposed the situation on her. That some divine doing had put it right in her face, impossible to ignore and she had been condemned to bring the thoughts from the deepest and forgotten parts of her mind back to life.
The morning after that unwanted debate at the Hard Deck, Natasha was waiting for you in front of the women’s locker room, a little tradition that allowed you to have some short, but much needed time away from the guys before the day started.
She checked her watch for the third time, damn, you were actually late. A rare occurrence that happened… well that had never happened actually. You were too much of a professional about your job to even be anything other than twenty minutes early.
Granted, you weren’t late for briefing or training, but you were late for your daily unofficial meeting with Natasha, and that was enough to have her frowning. She was about to send you a text when she heard your hurried footsteps coming down the hallway.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” you said once you reached her level, sounding a bit out of breath, “Rooster’s Bronco had a rough wake up.”
You looked pristine, like you always did on base, not a hair out of place, and still, Natasha couldn’t help shake the feeling that somehow, something was… wrong with you. Perhaps wrong was a strong word, weird would be a better one. Yeah, there was definitely something weird about you. And you seemed to shift on your feet uneasily under Natasha’s prying gaze.
“How that thing is still driving is honestly a wonder to me,” she finally said entering the locker room and holding out the door for you, and you visibly relaxed at her words
“So, how was the rest of the evening last night ?” You asked, starting to put away your stuff in your locker.
“Uneventful,” Natasha answered flatly, putting her own stuff away, “I didn’t leave long after you, I wasn’t in the mood to endure watching Jake flirt with half the bar.” You snickered before she spoke again, “what about you ?”
She saw you strangely froze out of the corner of her eye.
“What about me ?”
Natasha hadn’t meant anything by returning the question, it was more out of habit, reflex, the meaningless conversations you’d always share before pre flight briefings.
She raised an eyebrow at your nervousness.
“Yeah,” she simply shrugged, “I mean, how was the rest of your night ?”
“Oh, well, uneventful.”
“Look at us, what a life we have,” she marveled ironically while taking off her sweatshirt.
“I know, right ?”
You started undressing as well, preparing to put on your flight suit for the rest of the day.
“When are you doing your sim ?” She asked you, unbuttoning her pants while you were already halfway out of your jeans.
“Um… something like ten thirty if I recall ? Somewhere around that, I need to check again, you ?”
Natasha took a second to think, leaning on her locker, her eyes wandering uselessly around the room, landing on you and—
She only saw it for half a second, but it was enough. She wished she could have just ignored it, forced her brain to move on but it was too late now. And Natasha had to will herself to avert her eyes from the very big, very purple, very obvious, hickey on your inner thigh, just at the crease of where your panties met your leg.
“So ?” You prompted, completely unaware of Natasha’s crisis, passing your legs in your flight suit.
But unwanted flashbacks of the night before kept flashing in her brain. Bribes of it were drowning out everything else around her. And Mickey’s words, of all people, somehow arose amidst the dizzying chaos.
“Well, Rooster seemed awfully unbothered, no ? So what if he was so calm because he’s actually the dom ?”
And God did Natasha hate herself for even allowing this thought to surface in her mind, loud enough that there was no way she could bury it back, deep from where it had come from and never think about it again.
“Nat ?” You waved your hand in front of her face, where she was weirdly staring off into space.
There was no actual way Mickey could be right about this.
“Hey, Nat ?”
And yet…
Natasha finally looked at you, harboring the most believing smile she could mutter.
“Sorry, got lost in my thoughts for a sec there.”
“Yeah, I saw that,” you laughed, grabbing your gloves, g-suit and helmet, during the time Natasha had spaced out deep into uncharted and unwanted territory about your sex life, you apparently had gotten the time to get fully dressed, “okay I gotta go see Maverick before to check something on my jet, I’ll catch you at pre brief.”
“See you,” Natasha said absentmindedly, watching you exit the locker room with a determined step, the way you always did when you walked around base.
She let out a defeated sigh as she stood in the locker room still in just a t-shirt and panties. She hated herself for she was about to do, truly. But at this point she knew this newfound discovery wasn’t going to let her live in peace anytime soon, and she hated even more that she had the perfect people to share this with just at her disposal.
“Phoenix, you’re here just in time !” Javy marveled as soon as Natasha stepped foot in the briefing room, “settle this for us will you, between Payback and me, who do you think would win in a hot dog eating contest ?”
Natasha didn’t pay him any mind as she quickly scanned the room. Jake was lazily lounging on the couch, scrolling on his phone, Reuben and Javy were perched in front of her, impatiently waiting on her answer to whatever debate they had included her into it and she hadn’t listened, Bob and Mickey were engaging in a pretty intense match of table football in the corner of the room. No sign of you, you must had still been with Maverick, and no sign of Bradley either.
Fuck, the universe really had set her up for this.
She took in a deep breath, aware that whatever she was about to say could not be taken back.
“I have a theory.”
That wasn’t quite enough to grasp everybody’s attention. Javy gave her a confused look.
“Okay, well, just answer my question first, who do you think—“
“It’s about Rooster and Nitro.”
Now that did it, exactly as she thought it would.
Jake looked up from his phone, thumb freezing above his screen, and Mickey didn’t even notice that the way his hands had stilled on the handle bars of the football table had allowed Bob to score a goal.
“Look at that,” Jake said, an all too characteristic smirk pulling at his lips, “weren’t you gushing about how disgusting we all were for talking about them last night ?”
“What’s your theory ?” Mickey asked, totally abandoning the football table now, seemingly all too happy to jump back into this conversation.
“I think Rooster is the dom, not Nitro.”
Silence fell upon the room before Mickey loudly cheered, rushing up to get to her side, throwing an arm around her shoulders in a tight side hug.
“Yes ! That’s it, Phoenix ! See ?” He turned to the rest of the guys, who were watching his enthusiastic outburst with a skepticism, “That’s exactly what I was saying !”
“That’s a stupid theory and we all know it,” Jake absentmindedly remarked, his eyes returning to his phone once he had concluded this conversation did not deserve his attention.
“You say it’s stupid only because it contradicts yours, Hangman,” Mickey remarked.
“No, it’s stupid because it’s stupid. Guys, it’s Rooster we’re talking about. Do you seriously think he has what it takes to dom someone ? And Nitro of all people ? He gets pegged,” he said, tone as final as it could be, “probably begs for it every night, and I stand by that.”
“What makes you say that ?” Bob questioned Natasha, joining Javy, Reuben and Mickey around her, completely ignoring Jake’s crude rant, “did something happen ?”
“So,” Natasha began, all reticence and reserves thrown out the window now, “we were in the locker room just now, changing into our flight suits,” everyone made a point of ignoring Jake’s overly flirtatious whistle, “and she has a hickey.”
That got her a perplexed stare from Javy.
“A hickey ? That’s weird, I saw her when she walked in this morning and I didn’t see anything.”
Natasha shook her head, “not on her neck, her inner thigh.” She practically whispered that last part out, her hand coming up to point at her own thigh, exactly where your hickey had been hiding.
Mickey let out the biggest dramatic gasp while Jake rolled his eyes from where he was still lazily slouched on the couch.
“Phoenix, please. Don’t tell me you’re basing this entire thing on one hickey ? It doesn’t mean anything, I swear you people know nothing about sex.” He said.
“You are weirdly adamant about this,” Reuben mused with raised eyebrows.
“That’s just called being right, Payback,” Jake quipped in response.
“Well, in that case,” Reuben clapped his hands loudly, grabbing everyone’s attention, “there’s only one way to settle this once and for all.”
“Please not a betting pool,” Natasha whispered pleaded, not entirely ready to deal with the consequences of her actions.
“It’s betting pool time ! Everyone bets on either one of those options : Nitro doms Rooster—“
“Nitro pegs Rooster.” Jake corrected.
Reuben wasn’t even phased, “— or Rooster doms Nitro. Empty your wallets people, the minimum required is forty dollars !”
“Forty ?! Isn’t that a bit much ?” Bob asked.
“This is a high stakes matter, Bobby.”
“Alright, put me on Rooster doms Nitro,” said Mickey, immediately reaching into his wallets to put out two twenty dollars bills on the table.
Jake merely scoffed from the couch.
Reuben silently added his own money above Mickey’s, “Phoenix ?”
Natasha sighed before getting her wallet out. This has spiraled out of control, she told herself as she looked through it, this is totally unprofessional, theorizing and betting on your coworkers’ sex lives is wildly inappropriate, not even to mention how many HR policies this is breaking, this is a perfect display of immense immaturity—
“Put me on Rooster doms Nitro for fifty dollars.” She finally said.
“Phoenix !” Jake dramatically gasped, and honestly Natasha wasn’t able to tell if the shock he conveyed was genuine or not, “so much for being the voice of reason, what happened to this whole thing being weird ?”
“Shut up.”
He pulled a forty dollar bill, “you all are about to lose so much money.”
Javy put his money above Jake’s, “I’m with you, it is physically impossible for me to imagine Rooster being dominant, genuinely.”
“Finally someone with common sense,” Jake praised him, clapping him on the back.
Bob, who bad been pretty quiet, suddenly seemed to rise from the shadows, putting three twenty dollars bills on the biggest pile, right on top of Natasha’s own money.
“Statistics show that at least sixty five percent of women fantasize about being dominated in the bedroom, a large part of that being women in charge in their daily life, who usually enjoy giving the power to someone else sexually.”
Everyone turned to him, expressions varying and displaying a quite impressive range of emotions. Jake seemed to be the only to find his voice back amidst the shock.
“Now why the fuck would you know that ?”
Bob shrugged, “I don’t know I just read it somewhere and remembered it, I guess.”
Jake squinted at him, pointing an accusing finger in his direction.
“Next person we’re investigating is you Bobby, always knew you were a freak.”
Bob simply chuckled.
“Alright,” Reuben clapped once more in his hands, he seemed to love doing that, “so basically it’s Phoenix, Fanboy, Bob and me against Hangman and Coyote.”
“We’re about to be rich, man,” Jake said to Javy, “you guys are so incredibly stupid it almost amazes me.”
“How are we supposed to know who wins ?” Bob, the voice of reason, questioned, “it’s not like asking outright will give us an answer, i mean, it didn’t exactly get us anywhere last night.”
“Yeah,” Natasha agreed, now fully and weirdly if she had to say so herself, invested, “also we can’t do anything on base, we all know how Nitro is.”
Everyone silently agreed. It was no use talking to you on base about anything that wasn’t related to SuperHornets or dogfight strategies. Within the confined perimeter of military ground you barely even glanced at Bradley, so truly, it was a lost cause.
So they had to come up with a plan.
“Again ?” You looked at Natasha perplexed as you were both planning your flight routes for the next morning in the computer room, “we just went to the Hard Deck yesterday though.”
“Yeah but it’s a nice way to blow off some steam, don’t you think ?”
“Well we just blew off steam yesterday.”
“Yeahhhh, but I told you Penny made these new cocktails that she wants us to try out, give our opinions on so she can decide if she puts them on the menu or not.”
They had a plan, nobody said it was good.
“I don’t know…” you sighed as your mouse clicked useless around your screen, not really tracing your route anymore. You were clearly against the idea but also clearly not wanting to disappoint Natasha, or Penny, “I was kinda hoping to spend a night in with Rooster since we went out yesterday.”
Natasha would always marveled at how on soil proclaimed by the military you’d never call Bradley by anything other than his professional call sign.
She looked at you, the tiniest bit of shame clinging to her at what she was about to do, trying to capitalize on your affection for her and Penny.
“You know Penny values your opinion so much, and besides it’ll be fun. You’re not gonna leave me alone with the boys, are you ?”
You pursed your lips, you were going to crack any second now, Natasha could feel it.
She decided to deliver what she hoped would be the final blow.
“Rooster said he’d come.”
The tiniest flicker of light shined through your eyes.
“Did he ?”
“Yeah,” she affirmed, voice raised in a slightly pitched tone, one that perhaps should have alerted you of the lie she was selling you.
It only took you a second after that, “alright, I’ll come.”
Natasha mentally clapped herself on the back and was pleasantly surprised to notice the lack of guilt that should have accompanied manipulating you. God, who knew it was that easy ?
Now she just had to pray that the boys would deliver on their part.
“Heyyy Brady Boy !” Mickey cheered entering the locker room and making a beeline for Bradley, squeezing his shoulders in a weirdly affectionate way.
Javy shared a look of despair with Jake.
“God, he’s so fucking useless,” Jake muttered out.
Bradley quirked a brow at Mickey’s behavior, and Reuben tried to salvage the already failed mission the best he could.
“You down to go to the Hard Deck tonight ? Penny has some new cocktails she wants us to try.”
Bradley stopped putting his gear in his locker for a second, “cocktails, you say ?”
Reuben’s confidence seemed to waver, “yeah,” he tried to sound sure of himself, “right, guys ?” He turned to the others in desperate need of backup.
“Yes,” Bob nodded, pushing his glasses back up his nose, “she really wants our opinion apparently.”
Bradley hummed, “when did she ask that ? I feel like she would have told me first, you know ?”
Shit.
Yeah… they hadn’t really thought this through.
“Awww, is the little chick hurt because mama hen didn’t text him first ?” Jake mockingly cooed.
Mickey threw a worried glance at Javy.
“Listen, if you wanna play old man and stay at home, that’s fine,” Jake spoke again, “but just know your girl is coming with us.”
If the Penny comment hadn’t really done anything, the mere mention of you finally did it. Bradley stared at Jake, a skeptical look on his face.
“Did she, now ? That’s weird, she said she wanted to stay at home tonight.”
Jake wasn’t even looking at Bradley anymore as he was putting his gear into his locker, “I guess maybe she didn’t feel like getting the strap out after all,” he snickered, the only one amused by his wit.
The group held their breath as Bradley only stood there for a moment, watching Jake with the small hint of an amused smile.
“Alright, I’m in then.” He finally conceded.
Mickey didn’t even try to hide the sigh of pure relief that left him, which got him a mean look from Reuben. Bradley went back to putting stuff in his locker.
Taking off his t-shirt to shower, Jake turned around to face the rest of his squad mates.
“That’s how you do it,” he mouthed to them, a triumphant smirk illuminating his face.
Now Bradley wasn’t stupid. Not even a little.
The guys had been acting weird even since pre-brief and their little ambush in the locker room certainly didn’t help their case. Something was up, that much was very clear. Now he just had to figure out what.
And the fact that you were now sitting next to him in one of the Hard Deck’s booth told him that Natasha must have pulled the same stunt on you, perhaps she had been more subtle than the guys because you didn’t seem to suspect anything.
The smile pulling at your lips wasn’t exactly fake, it was more tired than anything. And it pulled at Bradley’s heartstrings a little. He knew you had been craving that night in together. At least, he’d make sure that coming here was worth your while.
He stood up, “alright, I’m getting drinks, what do you guys want ?”
Unsurprisingly, everyone ordered a beer and Bradley barely managed to hide a snicker at how incompetent they were at keeping up their own lie. They were too busy talking over each other to notice your soft smile towards him.
“Could you get me one of the new cocktails Penny is trying, please ?”
“Of course, sweetheart.” The small white lie still burned his tongue as he said it, he didn’t have the heart to tell you that you wouldn’t be tasting any new cocktails tonight.
Placing the order to Penny at the bar, he made small talk and simply to entertain himself, he decided to ask, “also could you make Y/N of your new cocktails, please ?”
Penny looked at him quizzically as she was drafting a beer.
“What ?”
“Yeah, you know those cocktails you’ve been trying out.”
“Bradley, this is a navy bar. I’m not gonna bother myself with some fancy mixtures when all everyone drinks here are beers. You know the best I can do is either a mojito or a sex on the beach.”
Penny raised a questioning eyebrow when Bradley simply laughed.
He couldn’t believe how genuinely stupid they were.
But they seemed to notice none of it when Bradley came back with a tray full of beers, and the usual mojito for you.
“What–?” You began to ask when Bradley handed you the glass, but he was quick to softly shush you with a kiss to the temple.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, no new cocktails. But just watch, I promise what’s gonna happen is definitely better than anything Penny could have prepared.”
A small laugh escaped you as you gazed at him, perplexed by all the mystery. Bradley winked and squeezed your thigh affectionately.
Talking to Penny and bringing the drinks over, he’d taken the smallest time to think about it and he couldn’t believe he hadn’t figured it out sooner, quite literally at the moment the guys were so insistent about bringing him to the Hard Deck.
The fact that you had been sold the same lie about the cocktails as him was his final hint. Clearly all the others were in on it, and it had something to do with the two of you. From there, it wouldn’t have taken a genius to guess it probably had something to do with the animated discussion about your sex life just the night before.
And it didn’t long for the squad to prove him right.
“So,” Mickey spoke up after a sip of his beer, and Natasha seemed to share an anxious look with Javy, “I was talking with some friends the other day and I thought I’d ask you guys the same question, what’s– um, what’s your guys favorite thing to do in the bedroom ?”
Natasha closed her eyes for a moment, as if trying to find the strength to not break down right here and there. Reuben actually laughed out loud and Jake looked at Mickey with a mix of confusion and despair.
“Jesus Christ, he actually is fucking useless,” he muttered and it wasn’t clear if those words were meant for Javy who was sitting next to him or simply for himself.
“What the fuck, Mickey ?” You exclaimed in a laugh.
“Alright, let’s do it,” Bradley agreed, desperately trying to suppress the biggest smirk ever, “Mickey you start.”
Stunned silence filled the squad’s booth, a very rare occurrence for them to be so quiet. Everyone, including you, was looking at him with wide open eyes. The hint of a confused smile was quirking up your lips, Bradley squeezed your thigh under the table, a silent ‘I got this’ that seemed to settle you down, and he felt his heart speed up at noticing the obvious fluster dusting your cheeks.
Mickey, who had his jaw hanging open suddenly seemed to regain cognitive capacity and cleared his throat awkwardly. Clearly, he hadn’t expected this work, or for Bradley to prompt him to start.
“Blowjobs… ?” He finally said, looking like he blurted out the first word that came to his mind and he wasn’t even sure of his answer.
“Pff laaaaame !” Jake called out, now suspiciously way too invested into this, “if you’re gonna say something like that, at least say it with your full chest, son, own that shit. Alright my turn.”
“I’m not sure I wanna know this,” Natasha spoke up.
She got completely ignored.
“I just love when a girl goes dumb on my cock, you know ? Like when I fuck her so good she can’t speak.”
Natasha made a repulsed moue at his choice of words while you slowly nodded.
“That’s actually… not as bad as I thought,” you chuckled at Jake, “I honestly expected something way dirtier from you.”
He smirked and threw a flirty wink your way.
“There’s plenty more where that came from, darlin’. I could show you if you come back home with me tonight instead of chicken.” His green eyes shifted to Bradley next to you, “No offense intended, Brady boy.”
Bradley’s grin was a strangely attractive mix of smug, knowing and predatory.
“None taken.”
He was completely relaxed, one arm lazily thrown on the back of your seat, ankle resting on top of his knee. The sight of him like that sent a delectable little shiver up your spine, and for a moment it transported you back to just the night before. The memory of what had happened afterwards made you unconsciously clench your thighs.
The rest of the squad shared their answers, Reuben something about how a woman sitting on his face was the equivalent of heaven, Javy ranting about how sixty nine was the best position and the most beneficial one for both parties. Natasha unsurprisingly skipped her turn, mumbling about how she wasn’t taking part in such an ‘inappropriate conversation’, while Mickey coughed a very loud ‘hypocrite’ into his elbow.
Everyone had been going into a circle and as Natasha kicked Mickey in the shin for his comment, everyone realized that the next in line was Bradley. He could almost see half the squad unconsciously hold their breath, awaiting the verdict that this whole shaky and unworthy of decorated naval aviators plan had been designed for. He could see them practically holding on to the edge of their seats, and he could even spot you in the corner of his eye, almost as curious as them of what he was about to reveal about your private life.
Bradley took in a breath, unable to suppress the huge smile from stretching his lips as he finally uttered the words he knew would bring chaos to the entire table.
“Mine’s pegging.”
Watching the frenzy unfold as soon as the words left his mouth probably were the best few seconds of Bradley’s day. Everyone’s eyes got bigger and their jaw hanged open in the funniest dumbstruck expression he’d ever been given the chance to witness. The real kicker though ? Watching Jake literally jump out of his seat at the edge of the booth and cheer, getting some perplexed looks from other people who were just trying to enjoy a beer and nice music.
Jake laughed pointing at his friends who still had not recovered from the information.
“Oh my god I fucking knew it ! I cannot actually believe you guys are so dumb,” he laughed hysterically, extending a hand, “alright pay up. God there is nothing quite like being right.”
“Oh so that’s what’s happening, you guys were betting about us,” said Bradley, seemingly unsurprised by the revelation.
That seemed to get you out of your own stupor caused by Bradley’s response. To say your boyfriend’s words had been a shock would be an understatement. You now looked at Jake with frowned brows.
“Wait, I’m so lost, what the fuck is going on ?”
Jake and the others froze, like caught red handed in the cookie jar. Bradley’s smirk never left his face as he turned to you.
“What is happening, sweetheart, is that our amazing friends apparently made a betting pool about our sex life. I can only imagine the question was whether or not I was submissive ?”
“The exact phrasing was either if Nitro was dominating you or the other way around.” Mickey helpfully supplied.
“Bro, how do you fold under zero pressure ?” Javy chuckled at his friend.
“What ?” You said in a stunned laugh, “is that true ?”
Reuben nodded, “the betting pool is at a comfortable prize of two hundred and seventy dollars.”
“Exactly, and Coyote and I have just hit the jackpot. And honestly I feel like I should get a bonus because not only was I right about chicken being a gigantic sub but I was also right about the pegging and I do think it deserves some recognition.”
“But wait, so only you and Javy bet that Bradley was submissive ? Just yesterday you all thought I was dominant !” You tried to reason, weirdly entertained by your friend’s obsession with your sex life.
Your words seemed to spark some realization in Bradley.
“What changed your minds ?”
Natasha awkwardly cleared her throat.
“Well, um…” she scratched her neck, visibly uncomfortable, “when we were changing in the locker room this morning,” she pointed to you and her, “I— um, I saw a hickey on your inner thigh.” She finished, her eyes squeezed shut as if to not face your reaction to her words.
Before you or Bradley could even answer that, Jake cut in.
“Yeah and clearly, just as I thought, it was stupid to base everything on a hickey. Payback,” he turned to Reuben, who had been carrying the contents of the betting pool safely in his bag, “please deliver the money over to Coyote and myself.”
A snort escaped you, and all eyes turned to you.
“Something funny, Nitro ?” Jake prompted.
Bradley was looking at new with nothing short of pure adoration and devotion in his eyes that were becoming more and more half lidded and clouded with obvious lust as the conversation went on.
“Jake,” you tried to say through little giggles, “you don’t actually think I peg Bradley, do you ?”
He frowned slightly.
“I do, Nitro. I’m convinced by it, and more than that, I just know it.”
“I’m truly sorry,” you started, looking at Javy and Jake, “but, um… I feel like just to be fair to everyone I need to restore the truth,” you said quite solemnly, turning to Bradley with a silent question in your eyes, a permission to share the most intimate details about your life.
His neck and cheeks had taken on a beautiful flushed shade and you recognized in his gaze the hunger from the night before. One of his arms was still thrown over the back of your seat and the other one was now casually draped over his lap, no doubt readjusting the hard-on slowly growing against his pants. His eyes traveled quickly to your lips before going back up to your eyes.
Bradley extended a hand towards your friends, “the floor is yours, sweetheart.”
Turning back to your dumbstruck friends, an expression that hadn’t really left their faces for the last ten minutes it felt like, you cleared your throat as you prepared to turn their world upside down for the second time of the night.
“Sorry, Jake,” you said again, “I don’t peg Bradley.” A small laughed escaped you at the word ‘peg’. “Being dominant is not really my style in the bedroom. I’m flattered that you thought so, though I can’t really imagine what made you think that.”
“Are you kidding ?” Jake exclaimed, “you act like a goddamn drill sergeant and supervising officer all day long !”
That got a few approving nods from Javy, Reuben and Mickey.
You didn’t seem to take any offense to Jake’s words or your friends’ reaction, you simply shrugged.
“Well, maybe that’s why I prefer to give control to someone else in bed ?”
“I refuse to believe it.” Jake declared stubbornly, “chicken doesn’t have what it takes.”
A sudden, and honestly ridiculous if you thought about it, urge to defend Bradley took you, prove that he wasn’t the frail and shy boy Jake seemed to think he was, but the steady man that allowed you to fall apart every night and made sure he was there to catch you.
“Bradley is very good. He is caring, patient, loving, very very attentive, like he is so attuned to me, he can be a little mean sometimes but it’s still fun, even when I’m not allowed to cum he—“ you suddenly caught the various emotions passing on your friends’ faces, going from deeply horrified to entirely delighted, “um… he…” you turned to Bradley, the look in his eyes making you stop. A mix between amusement and desire so strong it made your head spin. The realization of your words and just how much you were revealing hit you all at once, “… I probably should shut up now.”
“Please, please do.” Natasha pleaded from her seat.
“Well, that sure was an unexpected turn of events,” Javy chirped from beside Jake, who was still looking at you with utter shock and disbelief, and the tiniest residue of skepticism, the man had a hard time with being told straight up he was wrong.
“It definitely was,” Bradley suddenly stood up, taking your hand in his, “and you guys have wasted enough of our time with your bullshits. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have business to attend to at home.”
Without another word, Bradley led you out of the bar while Mickey very enthusiastically yelled after you both, “enjoy getting railed, Nitro !”, which got him weirded out looks from customers and an even harsher one from Penny behind the bar.
The cool air of the night was a welcomed temperature shock for your flushed skin. Bradley didn’t leave you a second to speak before he pinned you to the Hard Deck’s wall, his lips crashing into yours with a frenzy that matched yours from just the night before. You chuckled into the kiss.
“Bradley, people could see !” You said against his lips.
“Why does it matter now ? The cat’s out of the bag anyway,” he replied, voice husky with desire as his mouth reclaimed yours.
His hands snaked up your waist and you let out a soft gasp into the kiss, relishing in the way his whole body was pressing against yours, his body heat seeping into your skin.
When he pulled back, his hazel irises were almost completely overtaken by his dilated pupils.
“Get in the car,” he ordered, voice hoarse, “tonight we’re not stopping until you fucking beg me to, is that clear ?”
You nodded frantically, excitement and anticipation lightning up your every nerves.
“Use your words, baby.”
You let out a sound that was a strange mix of a giggle and a moan, the sound a testimony to how turned on and affected you were by the man standing in front of you. A man that had never once been embarrassed by the knowledge that all of his coworkers thought he was getting utterly dominated by you in bed, a man that accomplished every one of your desires and even got pleasure out of doing it. A man that was well and truly devoted to you in the best way, well and truly yours. Grabbing his arm, you made a beeline for his car.
Inside the bar, Mickey was still grinning at the door from which you had disappeared with Bradley seconds ago.
Javy stared at Mickey with an unreadable expression.
“It never fails to amaze me how genuinely fucking weird you are.”
Jake was still seated, a stunned and defeated look on his face as he stared off into the void.
“I physically cannot picture him being dominant.”
“But you could picture him getting pegged ?” Snickered Natasha as she was helping Bob counting and dividing the money equally between them, Mickey and Reuben, “that’s a little suspicious, projecting much ?”
Jake didn’t have the heart to dignify her with a response. Bob stood up with a bundle of his winning money, clapping him on the back.
“Statistics don’t lie, Bagman.”
“Oh shut the fuck up, Bob.”
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Author’s note : ahhh sorry for the delay guys !!😭 like I mentioned, I started a full time summer job until July and the schedule is kicking my ass honestly.
Anyway, this little part was prompted by this ask, so to the anon who sent it in, I hope you liked it ! It’s always so fun to write the whole squad being chaotic together.
Summary : There wasn’t anything in this world you feared more than the sight of blood. And when Jake gets hurt during a mission, despite everything, he’s the one who steps up to calm you down.
Pairing : Jake "Hangman" Seresin × Fem!Reader
Important info : Your call sign is Lightning ⚡️:)
Disclaimer : English is not my first language so apologies for any grammatical errors that might have escaped my proofreading, also I have zero knowledge of the military or the navy so sorry for any inaccuracies in that area ! Also, reader in this has a phobia of blood, which I do not have at all so the writing of it might be widely inaccurate, deepest apologies for that.
And more than that it was a true fear that you harbored for the liquid pumped by your heart, sending life flowing through your veins.
It had been that way ever since you were a kid. Just the sight of the tiniest speck of blood made your skin crawl. It wasn’t always easy, considering the thing you were so afraid of lived just beneath a thin layer of skin, so easily breakable that just a scrape could reveal a crimson red that would send you into an irrational and uncontrollable state of panic. But you had always managed. Turning your head away and squinting your eyes closed during medical check ups and blood drawings, always being careful of the parts of your body that could easily get scratched or scraped — especially your hands… just some little things you were extra careful about in order to live a normal life.
Not a lot of people actually understood your phobia, most thought it was stupid and downright ridiculous. And you partially agreed with them, but that was the thing with phobias, they weren’t meant to be reasoned. They were, by nature and definition, irrational. Besides, this was not something you could do anything about, so really you just let all the dumb jokes and question roll off you. You had to admit some questions were quite funny though. If you were feeling down, you’d remember that one time Mickey asked you if that meant that you were afraid of your own period blood and it would still make you laugh as hard as when you’d first heard it.
Some people were scared of clowns, others of spiders or snake, some were even deathly scared of the ocean and could not set a foot in it. Your fear was blood, and in some way you were grateful for your brain to have selected that phobia among the thousands that inhabited and plagued the human mind, at least this one kept you out of harm’s way most of the time, never would you be caught attempting something stupid just to receive validation, or prove yourself. That’s how you decided to see it.
And right now your blood was quickly flowing towards your legs, seemingly preparing to choose the ‘flight’ option over the fight. Except that there wasn’t anywhere for you to run in the cramped confine of your cockpit.
Your ears were ringing and you could feel your blood pumping in your ears, your heart jackhammering through them. The only thing your mind was able to register was the loud, incessant beeping of your jet, while an urgent, mechanical voice was urging you to pull up. You could faintly hear Maverick’s voice through the comms, screaming at you to eject but his instructions were wildly overridden by the adrenaline coursing in your veins. The mission had seemed pretty simple on paper. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing you couldn’t do with your eyes closed. And yet.
You wouldn’t even be able to explain how and when everything started going to shit. Oh well, maybe you could. It all had started when Maverick designated you as Jake’s wingman, that alone should have warned you about how this mission would end, up in flames. Quite literally.
A louder beeping overtook the first one, this second one was higher, almost screeching, so loud in fact you thought you felt you eardrums pop for a second. A quick check to your panel control showed you that you right engine was on fire. Jesus fucking Christ could this get any worse ?!
How could a mission on your own soil could go this wrong ? You guessed the very little time of preparation for it and having to cooperate with a squad from another base you knew nothing about certainly didn’t help. And a close fly by with another pilot and their wingman had sent both Jake and you into an unrecoverable flat spin.
“Y/N !” Maverick’s voice finally came through the panic fog clouding your brain, “there’s nothing you can do, eject, now !”
Cursing, you grabbed the handle situated in between your legs and pulled as hard as you could. You had never had to eject before, and you prayed you’d never have to do it again. For a split second after you pulled the trigger, you must had pulled something like fifteen G’s, your body flew out of your cockpit while your jet continued its supersonic descent towards the ground.
You were thankful your instincts kicked into gear to somehow try and maneuver the parachute, trying to secure you a safe landing on the ground. The loud sound of your jet splitting the air had you turning your head at the last second, just in time to catch sight of your precious, multi million dollar SuperHornet crashing into some nearby trees in a roaring and deafening sound. Your heart fell down at the pitt of your stomach and an uncomfortable and dreadful shiver shook you at the realization that this could’ve been you, had you not listened to what your wise instructor was yelling in your ears.
Landing was rough. Your legs couldn’t quite maintain you upright with the speed at which you hit the ground, the force of it sending you stumbling forward, even rolling in on yourself. Flopping miserably on your back, you were just thankful you didn’t break your legs or impaled yourself on some tree. You got up on shaky legs and hastily put your parachute away in its bag while trying to contact the base.
“Maverick…? Rooster…? Phoenix…?” You tried, without receiving any answer on the other end, you tapped the side of your helmet where the microphone and speakers were, “anyone ?”
No answer.
Shit, the comms must have gone to shit when you ejected or hit the ground. Well, at least you weren’t on foreign soil so there wasn’t any immediate danger you had to worry about. Looking around you caught yourself thinking that there were worse places to land in after an emergency and possibly deadly ejection. The grass was bright green where you had tumbled, trees were standing high and proud, guarding the borders of what looked like a valley that led to some hills. That was definitely a contrast compared to the sandy and arid grounds of San Diego, and it was a surprisingly welcome one, despite the situation.
You were turning on your beacon when the roaring sound of a jet’s engine made you jerk up. Immediately looking up, you spotted Jake’s jet, spinning at uncontrollable spin towards the high trees. Your heart stopped in your chest, surely he had already ejected and had safely landed somewhere near the end of the valley ? There was no possible way a pilot like him — no matter how much you hated admitting how good he was — still thought he had a chance of coming back from a spin like that—
But your lingering fear suddenly hit you full force in the chest when Jake’s engine sputtered on and off, the undeniable sign that Jake was still inside, trying to pull up his F/A-18.
Good god was he fucking dumb sometimes !
You watched, frozen and powerless as his jet continued its supersonic descent towards the trees. It was like time had stopped for a second, a suspended moment where the only thought flashing painfully in your mind was : Jake is going to die. This is it. After all the shit he’s pulled, his fucking ego is gonna take him out because mister thinks he’s just that good that he would be able to recover from an unrecoverable spin.
But before your thoughts could spiral anymore and your heart stop completely at the prospect of losing the one man you claimed you hated body and soul, you saw something fly out of the jet, mere seconds before the metal bird crashed though the trees. You inhaled sharply, a breath that felt like breaking through the water after being under for too long. And before you could think about it any longer, your feet were already carrying you towards where Jake’s parachute was falling.
Helmet in hand, and heavy gear slowing you down, you still sprinted as fast as you could through the trees, mindful of potential holes and roots. Jake hadn’t even been no where near close the altitude he should have been at to eject safely, he’d been alarmingly low and you feared that his parachute wouldn’t slow his fall enough. Damn him and his stupid fucking ego.
Calling out his name as you got near where he should have landed, the lack of response was making your skin prickle with anxiety and dread.
“Jake ?” You called out, voice growing more desperate than you’d ever admit it.
You stopped, intensely listening for any answer back when—
“Over here !”
His voice felt far away and…strangely strained. You desperately tried to ignore how your heart clenched, no matter how much you hated him and could not stand him, Jake was still one of your squad mate, it was normal to worry about him, right ?
Swallowing the lump in your throat, you resumed your dart in the direction of his voice, and after a full minute of sprint in your entire gear, your lungs were screaming, and a side stitch was beginning to puncture your left side. But you didn’t stop, continuing to run towards him.
And finally, when you felt like your legs were actually about to give out, you spotted Jake, sitting up against a tree, facing a clearing. Rushing one last time to get to him, Jake’s face seemed to illuminate when he spotted you.
“Took you long enough,” he said when you kneeled down next to him, “thought you were about to leave me here for a second.”
You glared at him, catching your breath, “keep up the attitude and I just might do that.”
His infamous smirk slowly pulled at his lips as his eyes took you in.
“You hurt ?”
“No, you ?”
Jake shook his head and you eyed the way his helmet was weirdly placed on his lap.
“Are your comms dead as well ?”
“Yep.”
“Did you activate your beacon ?”
He let out a laugh at that, “Jesus Lightning, do you think it’s my first day in the navy or something ?”
His arrogance rubbed you the wrong way, like it always did.
“It might as well be !” You snapped a little, “I mean what the fuck was that, Seresin ? Ejecting at low altitude could have gotten you fucking killed ! But let me guess, you thought that the great Hangman would be able to undo an unrecoverable spin ?!”
Jake watched your hissed rant with raised eyebrows, and despite yourself you noticed how strangely pale he looked.
“Careful,” he cooed, seeming all too satisfied by what he chose to be worry over him and not pure infuriation over a stupid and downright unprofessional behavior, “your soft spot for me is showing, but don’t worry I won’t tell the squad, I know how you like to keep your feelings secret.”
You scoffed, shaking your head, “I still don’t know how you haven’t got suspended for all the shit you pull,” you said, choosing to entirely disregard his take on how you allegedly felt for him.
“I’m too good,” he grinned, and your heart did something weird in your chest when you noticed his smile looked weirdly strained, forced. The pitt in your stomach felt like it was getting deeper, clawing away at your insides, a discomfort that only grew stronger the longer you stared at Jake, “they can’t afford to put their best pilot on the bench.”
Letting out an exasperated sigh, which Jake keened at, annoying you apparently being his second favorite thing behind flying, you began to get up.
“Let’s move in the middle of the clearing, so search and rescue will locate us better and it’ll be easier for them to land and come get us.”
“No.”
Dusting your flight suit once you were standing on your own two feet, you frowned down at Jake.
“The fuck you mean ‘no’ ?” You could feel yourself getting irrationally irritated, a familiar recurrence whenever you spent just more than a few minutes in Jake’s presence, you took a deep breath to try and swallow back the anger bubbling up in your throat, “I’m sick of your shit, Seresin. So stop being an asshole whose sole purpose is to disagree with me for a second and do what I say.”
“Come on, don’t be so mean Lightning.” He tried to joke, but the usual glint in his eyes was missing, he took in a labored breath, “besides moving is not gonna change a thing for search and rescue, don’t worry.”
Stopping for a moment, you got a good look at him. He was acting weird. He hadn’t so much as moved an inch ever since you had found him, he was just sitting there, his stupid helmet sitting on his lap covering a good chunk of his side with one of his hand seemingly under it.
“Why is your helmet on your lap ?”
“Why not ?”
You let out an incredulous laugh at that, “seriously, what is going on ? You’re being super weird it’s kinda starting to freak me out.”
Jake seemed to freeze, if only for a second.
“I’m not acting weird, you’re the one freaking out over nothing and asking weird ass questions. Just sit down and wait for search and rescue.”
But you stayed right where you were, towering over him — which didn’t happen often — and stared down at him, crossing your arms stubbornly.
“I—“ he started, before wincing almost imperceptibly, “I got a bruise, that’s all. Hurt myself when I landed.”
“And what, you’re telling that it’s the bruise making you act like that ?” You let out disbelieving scoff, “I mean are you hearing yourself ? You sound insane ! I don’t know about a bruise but you definitely hit your head when you landed, that’s why you’re saying weird shit.”
Jake didn’t answer, he just stared right ahead, past your standing frame, a far away look in his eyes. Worry began to seep into the hollowing hole in your stomach, maybe he had actually hit his head and he had commotion ? Or worse, what if he had brain damage or internal bleeding or something ? Just the thought made you shiver in horror. If he was truly hurt, it was best not to move him. You eyed him intensely, as if you could somehow get a look inside of his head to make sure he was okay.
You watched as he readjusted himself against the tree with a groan, the movement making his helmet roll right of his lap, revealing his second hand, very obviously pressing down hard on his side.
“Mmh, applying pressure on a bruise,” You mused, squinting your eyes at him in sarcastic fashion, “is this a new technique I haven’t heard about ? Did you attend a new medical seminar I wasn’t invited to ?”
“Will you just stop talking for two minutes, please ?” He asked, voice breathy.
“I mean, shit, honestly I never pictured you as a masochist, you were always more of a sadist type in my mind.“
That finally made him look back at you and you promptly ignored the slight and short lived feeling of relief it gave you. A grin made its way back on his lips, it was strained but it successfully illuminated his face, for a moment giving it the flair it usually held.
“Glad to know this is something you have clearly thought about,” he huffed out, “if you were so curious you should have just come to me my dear Lightning, you know I’d be more than happy to prove your theories.”
Seeing him joke and tease you like that eased your discomfort, and you turned around, pretending to look at your surroundings while you were hiding the small, incontrollable smile pulling at your lips.
“I mean this place seems pretty quiet, I guess we could give a go to outdoor sex if you’re open to it.” His smug voice said behind you.
“Okay shut up now.” You chuckled despite yourself, keeping your back to him to not give him the idea you were happy to see his quick wit was back.
Your eyes took in the forest that spread out in front of you, the cool wind coming from the clearing behind offering you some relief from the sweat clinging to your uniform. It honestly looked beautiful.
Just as you were about to turn back around, your eyes landed on a random piece of wood lying on the ground and—
You froze.
Whole body becoming rigid, the hair on your nape standing up, nervous system kicking in your flight or fight reflex for the second time in an alarmingly short time span.
The piece of wood was long and wide, chips coming off it, and the end of it was covered in a deep and thick crimson liquid.
No, no, no no no—
Your breath hitched in a pathetic choked up sound, one that held every bit of the terror paralyzing your body. Your stomach churned violently.
Behind you, Jake, alarmed by the sound coming from you, anxiously followed your line of sight, and he cursed under his breath when his eyes landed on the piece of wood.
“Lightning, look at me.”
But you couldn’t move. Your gaze was still fixed on the blood dripping from the piece of wood, staining the forest ground and painting it in that fateful color. Jake’s voice barely registered in your ears, it felt like a distant echo, drowned out by your own heart beating loudly and frenetically in your ears.
“Y/N.” His voice called out again, uncharacteristically gentle, and calm despite the situation, “look at me.”
And you don’t know why, but something in you instinctively listened to him this time. Slowly turning back around, your legs were shaky and threatening to give out at any time. When you were facing him again, your heart lurched, because your eyes didn’t immediately settled on his face, instead landing on the hand that was desperately applying pressure on his side. That same hand that was now stained in blood, the thick liquid coming through the gasps between his fingers. And now that you were looking, the fabric of his flight suit underneath his hand was ripped, letting you catch a glimpse of a deep hole into Jake’s flesh, one that was profusely leaking blood.
Funnily enough, your own blood drained from your face so fast it almost made you dizzy, and a horribly frightened sob left your lips. You didn’t remember your legs giving out but suddenly you were on your knees again, next to Jake.
“Don’t look at it, look at me.” Jake said again, his voice somehow breaking through the terror fog holding your brain hostage.
Your breath was coming out ragged as your eyes finally found his, bright green irises that held nothing but an eerily calmness in them.
“It’s okay, don’t look at it, just focus on me, everything will be alright.”
“What the fuck, Jake ?!” You exploded once it seemed your vocal chords were not entirely frozen by fear anymore, “what— “ you choked up on a sob and only then did you realize the ocean of tears dripping down your cheeks, “what happened ?! Oh my god—“ you felt a sudden wave of dizziness hit you as your eyes quickly darted back over to his wound, like despite the bone chilling fear you were still attracted to it like a magnet.
“It’s nothing, I told you I got hurt when I landed.”
“You told me it was a bruise !” The end of your sentence ended in a desperate cry, your hands were shaking on your lap, chest heaving furiously with each frenetic breath you took.
“It’s barely a scratch,” he assured, and the soothing tone in his voice did not have the intended effect, only drowning you further in panic.
How the fuck was he so calm right now ?
You could feel your chest contract, and suddenly it felt impossible to take a full breath, it felt as if your lungs were somehow too small, sheer panic was settling deep inside your bones with no apparent prospect of leaving.
“Lightning, don’t freak out, it’s gonna be okay, everything is fine.”
There were so many thoughts swirling in your head. The protocol for when someone got hurt during a mission, the knowledge that Jake was bleeding out in this fucking clearing while acting like everything was fine, the black dots obstructing your vision…
“Just take a deep breath for me, yeah ?” Jake’s calm voice reached your ears, “turn around if you want, you don’t have to be near me. You can even wait in the clearing for the helicopter.”
The fact that was he straight up proposing you abandon him so you didn’t have to endure the sight of him bleeding out broke your heart and only worsened your sobs.
“Y/N, it’s okay. You’re okay, everything is fine, I promise,” he soothed again, his voice never wavering no matter how much in pain he must’ve been in.
You took a deep breath that did little to calm you down, but it at least cleared your thoughts a little.
This wasn’t right. Jake wasn’t supposed to be the one reassuring you right now, he was fucking bleeding out for God’s sake ! You were a fighter pilot, amongst the best in this entire world. You had been trained for this and you’d be damned if a little blood was blocking you from doing your job and saving your squad mate.
“Move your hand,” you said in a shaky breath, definitely not as assertive as you had intended, your eyes fixed on him.
“What—?”
You didn’t give him the time to comprehend, instead blindly removing his hand from his side and putting both of yours, and pressing down, hard. He winced, letting out a pained groan and you ignored the pinch in your heart.
For the first time ever since you found him, he seemed to be the one panicking.
“No, hey, hey hey what are you doing ?”
“I’m helping you,” you supplied, with tears still raining down your cheeks, “this is the protocol. And besides you weren’t putting enough pressure on it.”
You squeezed your eyes closed as Jake’s blood started to push back against your hands, the warm liquid trying to spill through your hands as you desperately tried to keep it there. The sensation made you shiver in pure horror and disgust.
“Hey, Y/N, I don’t want you to freak out on me, yeah ?” His hand, the one that wasn’t stained in blood, hovered over your shoulder, unsure if he should touch you in your emotional state.
Your eyes remained closed, trying to focus on anything else rather than Jake literally bleeding out beneath the palm of your hands. The wind brushing your face and the sound the trees made swaying lightly because of it, birds chirping in the distance, the grain of Jake’s strained voice…
“Why didn’t say anything ?” You asked, your voice coming out as a shaky whisper.
When his answer didn’t come fast enough, your eyes snapped open, scared that he might have lost consciousness, but Jake was just staring at you, the faintest of smile pulling at his lips.
“Is that a serious question ?” He laughed a little, wincing when his chest shook a bit from the force of it, “no offense, Lightning, truly, but I don’t know if I would have been able to handle you fainting in my state.”
‘My state.’ You didn’t like that, didn’t like that one bit. His face was paler than you’d ever seen it, his natural Texan tan nowhere to be seen. His green eyes were missing their usual brightness and the underside were horribly dark and sunken.
You were about to say something, probably tell him to shut up, when blood suddenly came rushing out of his nose.
“Shit—“ he cursed before rapidly putting a hand over his nose, frantically wiping at the blood that just kept on coming out. “Don’t look, it’s okay.”
Your heart was beating so fast and hard against your rib cage it was borderline painful. This couldn’t be good.
“Y/N, please don’t look.” Jake’s voice sounded almost pleading now as he was desperately rubbing the blood away and keeping his hand in front of his nose, making him sound nasally.
Blood.
There was just so much of it. Never in your life had you seen so much of the dreadful crimson liquid, and you honestly didn’t know if you were more likely to throw up or faint at this point.
And lingering at the back of your mind, came another whisper of your mind, one that was progressively and terrifyingly becoming louder and louder, overtaking all your senses. There was a lot of blood, yes, and Jake was the one losing it.
Jake was bleeding out, alarmingly fast, out in the middle of nowhere while the only thing you could do to help him was just keep your hands on his gaping injury and prayed that search and rescue would hurry the fuck up.
“Look away, sweetheart, please.” He said again, tilting his head back lightly, as much as he could really, in an attempt to stop the blood from leaving his nose.
But not looking was not gonna change a thing anymore. Because somewhere along the lines, the fear had shifted. Blood still very much terrified you, no doubt, but right now you were covered in it, and yet, you weren’t dead, you hadn’t fainted and the world was still spinning.
And still, something was very, very wrong.
Jake’s nose bleed seemed to have calmed down, he finally put his hand away, which was bright red, and stared at you.
“You know, you are doing much better than I thought you would,” he praised, and given the situation it absolutely shouldn’t have made your stomach flip, “look at you, could it be that the great Lightning has finally conquered her fear ?” He grinned.
You didn’t know if you should be happy he was joking again or not. Your hands had begun shaking again where they were pressing against his bloody side, you still couldn’t bear to take a look at it but you knew by the way it was still profusely leaking blood against your hands, and by how big the piece of wood looked a few centimeters away from you that his injury must have been deep, way too deep.
Very unaware of your internal breakdown, Jake just kept on talking.
“I didn’t even know it was possible to overcome a phobia as deep as yours, but hey, I guess there’s no stopping you, huh ?”
“Stop talking,” you said, trying to hold in a fresh wave of sobs, unwanted images of him lying dead in your arms kept flashing through your mind.
What the actual fuck was search and rescue doing ? It wasn’t like you were on the other half of the fucking planet, you weren’t even on the other half of the country !
Jake didn’t pay any mind to your order.
“At least crashing was good for something in the end.”
Him saying that while literally bleeding out was physically tearing your heart apart.
“Shut up.” You said through clenched teeth.
“Hey I just thought about something, if I die out here you’ll become the best pilot in the squad, perhaps I should be worried this was your plan all along—“
“Shut up ! Shut up, shut up !” You snapped, eyes wide and staring straight at him with a mix of despair and fear, “stop fucking talking about dying ! It’s not funny, and for fuck’s sake stop wasting your breath saying useless shit, just shut up !”
Tears were freely raining down your cheeks now, and you didn’t know how it was possible you still had any left to cry.
Jake was stunned for a second by your outburst, he just stared at your for a moment before his expression broke into something undeniably soft and gentle, his features morphing into something you’d use to approach a frightened animal.
“Hey, hey, I’m sorry, that was a joke.”
You didn’t think you had ever heard Jake apologize in all the time you’d known him.
“Well it’s not funny !” Your bottom lip quivered, another pathetic sob threatening to break out.
“I know, I’m an idiot,” he said, “you’re right, that wasn’t funny.” His voice was low, acting like a soothing balm on your own open wound, the one ripping your heart apart at seeing him like that.
His hand that had been awkwardly hovering off and on above your shoulder finally made contact, squeezing you lightly. And his touch completely finished to break your heart. You burst out in a very inelegant sob, you couldn’t even see through the tears clouding your vision. It was the inevitable consequence of enduring all the events of the day, the mission going to shit, the ejection, the crash, the blood, Jake…
“I don’t want you to die,” you cried out, completely exhausted and at the end of your rope, “so stop saying that.”
“I’m not gonna die, sweetheart,” his thumb rubbed gentle back and forth on your clothed shoulder, occasionally squeezing it.
“But you’re b—“ a hiccup interrupted you, “you’re bleeding out !” The word alone burned on your tongue.
You heard the sound of a zipper opening, trying to blink the tears away you saw Jake open the top of his flight suit before his blood stained hand, the one that wasn’t on your shoulder, came down to take one of yours that was still pressing on his open wound.
“No, no, no Jake— you need pressure—“ you tried to say when he took your hand away, guiding it to his chest.
“It’s okay, honey,” he soothed, “just don’t look down, remember ?” he added when your eyes almost darted down to both of your bloodied hands.
Jake, while maintenant eye contact with you, his green eyes holding an almost tender glint, guided your hand up to his chest, right over his heart.
“You feel that ?” He asked, voice slightly hoarse due to the effort and the pain, but never ever losing its gentle edge.
And sure enough, underneath your palm, was the steady beat of Jake’s heart. A calm and rhythmic thump-thump that didn’t waiver and the rational part of your mind wondered how he could stay so calm under such circumstances, and it probably should have worried you a bit, but the irrational part of your brain, the one that had been running on fumes ever since you spotted the first speck of blood, seemed to finally quiet down a bit.
You let out a breath you didn’t even know you had been holding all this time.
“Yeah, that’s it, see ? I’m okay, it’ll be fine.” His hand was placed right on top of yours, his warmth seeping into your skin and radiating in your entire body.
Your fingers flexed a bit against his clothed chest, a sudden urge to feel more of him, make sure that his words were real, that he was truly gonna be fine, shook you. Jake gave you a reassuring smile and between the tears that still blurred your vision, you took the time to look at him. His blond hair was disheveled and darken by dirt, his jade green eyes held an immense tiredness to them but the tender glint in them, directed towards you, never ever left. There was some dried blood just underneath his nose, and a bit of it also on his lips, that still held that little reassuring smile. His whole face was livid, as pale as a ghost and the visual stripped him of his usual Hangman bravado. Objectively, he wasn’t looking good right now, he looked sick. But somehow, to you, he still did, looked good. There was something so vulnerable and tender about him right now, something that was slowly stitching back together the pieces of your heart Jake had himself, involuntarily, broken.
But being yourself, there was no way you’d be able to properly express the overwhelming whirlwind of emotion taking your body hostage, so instead—
“You look like shit,” you said, sniffling.
Jake let out a chuckle, the sound alone warming you from the inside out.
“Yeah, well, you don’t exactly look like you could run a marathon either, sweetheart.”
That made you laugh. You didn’t even want to think about what you must looked like right now, blotchy and red eyes from the tears, cheeks stained with the salty liquid, hair wild from the ejection… But you didn’t see any disgust or reject in his gaze. Only fondness.
Suddenly feeling bashful under his stare, you made a move to look down but before you could, Jake’s hand that was on your shoulder moved quickly, surprisingly so for someone that injured, catching your chin with two of his fingers, preventing you from looking down at the bloodied mess on which you still kept a firm pressure with your free hand. Instead, he made sure your gaze stayed right on him. This quiet gesture that so blatantly showed how much he cared about how you felt, which definitely felt ridiculous next to his predicament, just sent a sudden rush of affection run through you.
Not knowing what to do of this overwhelming urge, but nonetheless needing to express it, to get it out, to show him, your body acted on its own. Your hand still on his heart, you leaned in and gently placed your lips on his forehead, hoping the soft press would somehow convey every bit of what you were feeling. You stayed perhaps a bit too long for a conventional forehead kiss. Almost imperceptibly, you felt his heartbeat quicken under your hand, the realization making a warmth akin to the first summer rays spread out in your body. When you pulled back, there was a flash of something unreadable in Jake’s eyes.
“You’ll be okay,” you said with a tiny smile, lips wet from your tears and voice hoarse from your sobs.
And truly you said it more for yourself than him.
Jake reciprocated your smile and squeezed your hand, “you’re so brave, Y/N.” He said, full of admiration, and just a tiny bit choked up.
Before you could add anything, tell him how ridiculous it was for him to say that while he had to step up and be the rock for the both of you while he was on the verge of dying, the faint and distant sound of propellers could be heard coming from over the clearing. And just seconds later, the search and rescue helicopter came into view.
The biggest sigh of relief left your lips, you felt the tension slowly leave your body. You, not without regrets, retracted the hand that was on his chest to put it back on his wound, the added pressure made him groan.
“Sorry, sorry, I know,” you said, “it’s almost over, Jake, we’re almost out.”
He smiled at you, and you tried to ignore the ridiculousness of you trying to comfort him at the last minute, while he had spent the entire time trying to calm you down.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
The helicopter landed in the clearing, as close to you and Jake as possible, and seconds after six people from search and rescue came rushing towards you. They carefully hosted up Jake on a stretcher and up in the helicopter, all the while your hands never left him.
“Alright, Y/N, you can stop now, he’ll be fine, we’re gonna clean and bandage him up,” Martin, the main medic, told you just as the helicopter was taking off to the air.
But you hesitated. With the stress and emotion, the time you had spent out there in the clearing had felt like an eternity, and it felt scary to let go of him now, even though you knew it was to leave him in better hands. While deep in your thoughts, you didn’t register Jake asking for a cloth, it was only when you felt his hand land on top of yours that you got out of your anxious trance.
“Everything’s fine now, remember ?” He said gently as his eyes bore into yours, “they are gonna take good care of me, you can let go.”
His hands very gently took yours off his side, cleaning them with the cloth all the while keeping eye contact with you.
“But I don’t wanna leave you,” you said in a breath.
It was a strange feeling, to feel so open and raw emotionally, a state that had been forcefully provoked by the unfortunate events of the day.
“You’re not leaving me, you’ll stay by my side, right ?”
He let out a small, fond chuckle when you nodded almost solemnly.
“Nobody’s making you leave, baby.” He said, tossing the cloth away after wiping your hands clean of his blood.
“Jake ?” Martin grabbed both your attention, “we’re gonna put you under,” he explains, showing off an oxygen mask, “we’re gonna start patching you up while on the way to the base’s hospital.”
Jake nodded before looking at you.
“You gonna kiss me goodnight ?” He asked, his characteristic smirk making a return on his face.
Wordlessly, and perhaps a bit too happy by him prompting it, you leaned in, placing your lips in a delicate kiss on his forehead, one hand coming up to cup his face. You heard him let out a little breath as you pulled away and placed another lingering kiss on his cheek.
“Sleep tight.” You smiled as a tear rolled down your face, not out of fear or sadness but simply out of feeling too much in such a short amount of time, and you quickly wiped it away.
Martin put the mask on Jake’s face.
“Alright Lieutenant, take a few deep breaths for me.”
Doing as he was told, Jake was looking at you with furrowed brows.
“Hey, don’t cry,” he lazily protested, voice already slurred from the anesthesia kicking in.
“I’m not crying,” you assured, a genuine smile stretching your face, “it’s fine, go to sleep, Hangman.”
“I prefer when you call me ‘Jake’.” He whined.
Yeah, he’d be gone any minute now.
You chuckled, “sorry, Jake.”
“That’s better,” his eyes fluttered closed and opened again, clearly fighting the anesthesia, “and when I wake up you can find out.”
“Find out what ?”
“You know…” he trailed off, his eyes closing entirely now, “if— if I’m a masochist or not…”
You burst out laughing, and even in his dazed and near coma induced state, Jake smiled at the sound.
“We’ll see about that, cowboy,” you said when your laughter died down a bit.
And just like that, he was out.
Looking at him just a second longer, feeling your heart settle down at knowing he wouldn’t feel any pain and would be taken care of, you moved away from him, letting the team of medics do their job. Martin kneeled beside Jake and began to cut his flight suit open around his wound. Removing the fabric, about to reveal just how bad the injury was, he paused and turned to you.
“You’re not afraid of blood, are you ?”
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Author’s note : I have mixed feelings about this fic, the idea had been in my head for soooo long and I fear I failed the execution of it, but oh well, I hope it was still good for you !
I’m gonna repeat myself but I do not have a phobia of blood at all so if the way I wrote reader’s reaction seems unrealistic I’m really sorry, please do let me know if it’s so unrealistic that it stops being enjoyable to read, I’ll try to change it if that’s the case
Also if you’ve read my others fics Saltwater Monster and 8-pool meltdown you might notice a pattern, that I desperately need to be comforted by Jake, and those fics are my most popular ones so I’d say we’re all in this together !💞
Finally (god sorry I’m talking a lot) a huge thank you to @berrybigpossibilities who agreed to read the first part of the fic when I was feeling really down about it and gave me their opinion, it helped a lot to finish it so thank you again !🫶
“Baby,” Natasha chuckles fondly, “you’re supposed to touch yourself as well.” She reminds you.
You were so entranced by the way her fingers were moving on her glistening pussy that your own hand had stopped all its movements.
“Fuck, sorry…” you mumble out, fingers resuming their slow circles on your aching clit.
The sight of Natasha sitting opposite of you, hand between her legs, rubbing her own swollen clit while her other hand was pinching one of her nipples was just too much to bear.
“I don’t understand,” you whine, wanting to reach out to her so fucking bad, “why can’t I just touch you ?”
“Because it’s hot, restraint is hot, don’t you think ?” She beckons, a sweet smile on her lips as she lets out the prettiest little gasp you’ve ever heard.
The sound alone has you clenching helplessly around nothing.
“Touching you would be way hotter,” you try to argue in a stubborn huff, a desperate attempt to get her to change her mind and allow you to touch her.
Natasha lets out a fond chuckle, shaking her head slightly at your petulant behavior, “spread your legs a bit more, baby, I want to see that wet pussy on full display for me, can you do that ?”
You curse low under your breath, doing as you were told. Opening your legs a bit more, Natasha’s eyes are trained on your core, and the minute your cunt fully comes into view, you swear you can see her pupils dilate, even from the slight distance between you.
“Good girl,” she praises, “you look so pretty. Touch your nipples, baby, rub them like I do usually.” She instructs, her own fingers never stopping their movement over her glistening pussy.
Letting out a little pathetic moan at her demand, your free hand comes up to your mouth, tongue wetting your fingers so they slide with ease over one of your nipples. The little bud is already erect and the contact with it sends sharp sparks of pleasure coursing through your veins. Instinctively, the fingers on your clit quicken their pace, eager to feel the ecstasy of your release wash over you.
“Slow down, pretty girl,” Natasha coos softly in a breath, the smile evident in her voice, visibly amused by your eagerness and enthusiasm, “I want you to enjoy it. Here, copy me,” her hips buck forward a bit, beckoning you to look down at her hand between her legs, “see ?”
Your eyes that were transfixed on her chest heaving up and down and the way her fingers were pinching at her nipples, comes back down to her core. You suck in a sharp breath at the sight.
Natasha’s fingers are oh so slowly circling her clit, the swollen little bundle of nerves is peeking out from between her folds, pulsing with need. Her pussy is glistening, strings of slick are getting pushed out of her fluttering hole and you just have to restrain yourself to not pounce on her. She lets out a moan that makes your hips buck into your hands.
“Fuck, Nat, It’s not fair,” you whine out desperately, but your fingers slow down nonetheless, matching the agonizing pace at which Natasha is rubbing her clit, “I wanna cum so bad.”
“I know, sweetheart, I know you do. But look at you being a good girl for me, listening so well.”
Her praise washes over you, making your clit twitch under your fingers and your hole pathetically clench around nothing. Natasha just smirks before breaking out into a moan, whole face contorting to display the sheer pleasure she is experiencing by her own hand, which should be yours, you catch yourself thinking in a horny and frustrated daze.
“What do you want to do to me right now, baby ?” She asks, voice going slightly pitchy from the whine that breaks out of her.
“I wanna fuck you, baby,” you answer, breathless, copying her movements when her fingers slightly quicken their pace over her clit, “I— oh fuck, I want to rub your clit with mine and—”, the sight of Natasha is almost too much to bear, her bottom lip is caught between her teeth, apparently intent on keeping quiet while she intensely listens to you pouring out your undying desire for her. Her cheeks and chest are visibly flushed, nipples perky and redden by the torture of her own fingers, other hand in between her thighs, toying with her dripping cunt and you can hear the wet sound each pass of her fingers make on her clit. A high pitched moan escapes you, “I wanna feel how wet and warm you are, want to feel you cum under me and make a mess…”
Natasha moans out as her fingers slip down from her clit, all the way to her fluttering entrance, “you always fuck me so good when you’re on top, sweetheart,” you watch, utterly mesmerized, as her middle finger slip effortlessly into her dripping hole, thrusting in only slightly before slipping back out, fingers coming down to open up her folds so her clenching hole is on full display for you.
A wave of desire crashes so hard into you it feels dizzying for a second, and all of the restraint and good behavior you had promised Natasha suddenly flies out the window as you abruptly sit up from your spot to pounce on her, your lips crashing together with a force that only mirrored your passion for her. She lets out a pleased whimper in your mouth that only spurs you on.
Your hands slip under her knees, gently pushing her down as your hips settle above hers before finally lowering yourself down and making contact with the object of your desire. The moan that leaves you when your clit makes contact with hers is downright obscene and pornographic. You waste no time to start grinding and rutting against her, Natasha’s own whines and whimpers sounding like a heavenly melody in your ears. Between pleasured sounds, she looks up at you, a grin pulling at her pretty pink lips.
“You lasted longer than I thought.”
Author’s note : I’m on a Natasha train lately I don’t know what’s happening.
Btw I am working hard on the Bradley fic, don’t know when it’ll be done though, I just started a full time summer job until July so I’m gonna be a bit busy but trust that I am doing my best !💞 in the mean time, please accept this sweet smut of our amazing Natasha
Summary : There wasn’t anything in this world you feared more than the sight of blood. And when Jake gets hurt during a mission, despite everything, he’s the one who steps up to calm you down.
Pairing : Jake "Hangman" Seresin × Fem!Reader
Important info : Your call sign is Lightning ⚡️:)
Disclaimer : English is not my first language so apologies for any grammatical errors that might have escaped my proofreading, also I have zero knowledge of the military or the navy so sorry for any inaccuracies in that area ! Also, reader in this has a phobia of blood, which I do not have at all so the writing of it might be widely inaccurate, deepest apologies for that.
And more than that it was a true fear that you harbored for the liquid pumped by your heart, sending life flowing through your veins.
It had been that way ever since you were a kid. Just the sight of the tiniest speck of blood made your skin crawl. It wasn’t always easy, considering the thing you were so afraid of lived just beneath a thin layer of skin, so easily breakable that just a scrape could reveal a crimson red that would send you into an irrational and uncontrollable state of panic. But you had always managed. Turning your head away and squinting your eyes closed during medical check ups and blood drawings, always being careful of the parts of your body that could easily get scratched or scraped — especially your hands… just some little things you were extra careful about in order to live a normal life.
Not a lot of people actually understood your phobia, most thought it was stupid and downright ridiculous. And you partially agreed with them, but that was the thing with phobias, they weren’t meant to be reasoned. They were, by nature and definition, irrational. Besides, this was not something you could do anything about, so really you just let all the dumb jokes and question roll off you. You had to admit some questions were quite funny though. If you were feeling down, you’d remember that one time Mickey asked you if that meant that you were afraid of your own period blood and it would still make you laugh as hard as when you’d first heard it.
Some people were scared of clowns, others of spiders or snake, some were even deathly scared of the ocean and could not set a foot in it. Your fear was blood, and in some way you were grateful for your brain to have selected that phobia among the thousands that inhabited and plagued the human mind, at least this one kept you out of harm’s way most of the time, never would you be caught attempting something stupid just to receive validation, or prove yourself. That’s how you decided to see it.
And right now your blood was quickly flowing towards your legs, seemingly preparing to choose the ‘flight’ option over the fight. Except that there wasn’t anywhere for you to run in the cramped confine of your cockpit.
Your ears were ringing and you could feel your blood pumping in your ears, your heart jackhammering through them. The only thing your mind was able to register was the loud, incessant beeping of your jet, while an urgent, mechanical voice was urging you to pull up. You could faintly hear Maverick’s voice through the comms, screaming at you to eject but his instructions were wildly overridden by the adrenaline coursing in your veins. The mission had seemed pretty simple on paper. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing you couldn’t do with your eyes closed. And yet.
You wouldn’t even be able to explain how and when everything started going to shit. Oh well, maybe you could. It all had started when Maverick designated you as Jake’s wingman, that alone should have warned you about how this mission would end, up in flames. Quite literally.
A louder beeping overtook the first one, this second one was higher, almost screeching, so loud in fact you thought you felt you eardrums pop for a second. A quick check to your panel control showed you that you right engine was on fire. Jesus fucking Christ could this get any worse ?!
How could a mission on your own soil could go this wrong ? You guessed the very little time of preparation for it and having to cooperate with a squad from another base you knew nothing about certainly didn’t help. And a close fly by with another pilot and their wingman had sent both Jake and you into an unrecoverable flat spin.
“Y/N !” Maverick’s voice finally came through the panic fog clouding your brain, “there’s nothing you can do, eject, now !”
Cursing, you grabbed the handle situated in between your legs and pulled as hard as you could. You had never had to eject before, and you prayed you’d never have to do it again. For a split second after you pulled the trigger, you must had pulled something like fifteen G’s, your body flew out of your cockpit while your jet continued its supersonic descent towards the ground.
You were thankful your instincts kicked into gear to somehow try and maneuver the parachute, trying to secure you a safe landing on the ground. The loud sound of your jet splitting the air had you turning your head at the last second, just in time to catch sight of your precious, multi million dollar SuperHornet crashing into some nearby trees in a roaring and deafening sound. Your heart fell down at the pitt of your stomach and an uncomfortable and dreadful shiver shook you at the realization that this could’ve been you, had you not listened to what your wise instructor was yelling in your ears.
Landing was rough. Your legs couldn’t quite maintain you upright with the speed at which you hit the ground, the force of it sending you stumbling forward, even rolling in on yourself. Flopping miserably on your back, you were just thankful you didn’t break your legs or impaled yourself on some tree. You got up on shaky legs and hastily put your parachute away in its bag while trying to contact the base.
“Maverick…? Rooster…? Phoenix…?” You tried, without receiving any answer on the other end, you tapped the side of your helmet where the microphone and speakers were, “anyone ?”
No answer.
Shit, the comms must have gone to shit when you ejected or hit the ground. Well, at least you weren’t on foreign soil so there wasn’t any immediate danger you had to worry about. Looking around you caught yourself thinking that there were worse places to land in after an emergency and possibly deadly ejection. The grass was bright green where you had tumbled, trees were standing high and proud, guarding the borders of what looked like a valley that led to some hills. That was definitely a contrast compared to the sandy and arid grounds of San Diego, and it was a surprisingly welcome one, despite the situation.
You were turning on your beacon when the roaring sound of a jet’s engine made you jerk up. Immediately looking up, you spotted Jake’s jet, spinning at uncontrollable spin towards the high trees. Your heart stopped in your chest, surely he had already ejected and had safely landed somewhere near the end of the valley ? There was no possible way a pilot like him — no matter how much you hated admitting how good he was — still thought he had a chance of coming back from a spin like that—
But your lingering fear suddenly hit you full force in the chest when Jake’s engine sputtered on and off, the undeniable sign that Jake was still inside, trying to pull up his F/A-18.
Good god was he fucking dumb sometimes !
You watched, frozen and powerless as his jet continued its supersonic descent towards the trees. It was like time had stopped for a second, a suspended moment where the only thought flashing painfully in your mind was : Jake is going to die. This is it. After all the shit he’s pulled, his fucking ego is gonna take him out because mister thinks he’s just that good that he would be able to recover from an unrecoverable spin.
But before your thoughts could spiral anymore and your heart stop completely at the prospect of losing the one man you claimed you hated body and soul, you saw something fly out of the jet, mere seconds before the metal bird crashed though the trees. You inhaled sharply, a breath that felt like breaking through the water after being under for too long. And before you could think about it any longer, your feet were already carrying you towards where Jake’s parachute was falling.
Helmet in hand, and heavy gear slowing you down, you still sprinted as fast as you could through the trees, mindful of potential holes and roots. Jake hadn’t even been no where near close the altitude he should have been at to eject safely, he’d been alarmingly low and you feared that his parachute wouldn’t slow his fall enough. Damn him and his stupid fucking ego.
Calling out his name as you got near where he should have landed, the lack of response was making your skin prickle with anxiety and dread.
“Jake ?” You called out, voice growing more desperate than you’d ever admit it.
You stopped, intensely listening for any answer back when—
“Over here !”
His voice felt far away and…strangely strained. You desperately tried to ignore how your heart clenched, no matter how much you hated him and could not stand him, Jake was still one of your squad mate, it was normal to worry about him, right ?
Swallowing the lump in your throat, you resumed your dart in the direction of his voice, and after a full minute of sprint in your entire gear, your lungs were screaming, and a side stitch was beginning to puncture your left side. But you didn’t stop, continuing to run towards him.
And finally, when you felt like your legs were actually about to give out, you spotted Jake, sitting up against a tree, facing a clearing. Rushing one last time to get to him, Jake’s face seemed to illuminate when he spotted you.
“Took you long enough,” he said when you kneeled down next to him, “thought you were about to leave me here for a second.”
You glared at him, catching your breath, “keep up the attitude and I just might do that.”
His infamous smirk slowly pulled at his lips as his eyes took you in.
“You hurt ?”
“No, you ?”
Jake shook his head and you eyed the way his helmet was weirdly placed on his lap.
“Are your comms dead as well ?”
“Yep.”
“Did you activate your beacon ?”
He let out a laugh at that, “Jesus Lightning, do you think it’s my first day in the navy or something ?”
His arrogance rubbed you the wrong way, like it always did.
“It might as well be !” You snapped a little, “I mean what the fuck was that, Seresin ? Ejecting at low altitude could have gotten you fucking killed ! But let me guess, you thought that the great Hangman would be able to undo an unrecoverable spin ?!”
Jake watched your hissed rant with raised eyebrows, and despite yourself you noticed how strangely pale he looked.
“Careful,” he cooed, seeming all too satisfied by what he chose to be worry over him and not pure infuriation over a stupid and downright unprofessional behavior, “your soft spot for me is showing, but don’t worry I won’t tell the squad, I know how you like to keep your feelings secret.”
You scoffed, shaking your head, “I still don’t know how you haven’t got suspended for all the shit you pull,” you said, choosing to entirely disregard his take on how you allegedly felt for him.
“I’m too good,” he grinned, and your heart did something weird in your chest when you noticed his smile looked weirdly strained, forced. The pitt in your stomach felt like it was getting deeper, clawing away at your insides, a discomfort that only grew stronger the longer you stared at Jake, “they can’t afford to put their best pilot on the bench.”
Letting out an exasperated sigh, which Jake keened at, annoying you apparently being his second favorite thing behind flying, you began to get up.
“Let’s move in the middle of the clearing, so search and rescue will locate us better and it’ll be easier for them to land and come get us.”
“No.”
Dusting your flight suit once you were standing on your own two feet, you frowned down at Jake.
“The fuck you mean ‘no’ ?” You could feel yourself getting irrationally irritated, a familiar recurrence whenever you spent just more than a few minutes in Jake’s presence, you took a deep breath to try and swallow back the anger bubbling up in your throat, “I’m sick of your shit, Seresin. So stop being an asshole whose sole purpose is to disagree with me for a second and do what I say.”
“Come on, don’t be so mean Lightning.” He tried to joke, but the usual glint in his eyes was missing, he took in a labored breath, “besides moving is not gonna change a thing for search and rescue, don’t worry.”
Stopping for a moment, you got a good look at him. He was acting weird. He hadn’t so much as moved an inch ever since you had found him, he was just sitting there, his stupid helmet sitting on his lap covering a good chunk of his side with one of his hand seemingly under it.
“Why is your helmet on your lap ?”
“Why not ?”
You let out an incredulous laugh at that, “seriously, what is going on ? You’re being super weird it’s kinda starting to freak me out.”
Jake seemed to freeze, if only for a second.
“I’m not acting weird, you’re the one freaking out over nothing and asking weird ass questions. Just sit down and wait for search and rescue.”
But you stayed right where you were, towering over him — which didn’t happen often — and stared down at him, crossing your arms stubbornly.
“I—“ he started, before wincing almost imperceptibly, “I got a bruise, that’s all. Hurt myself when I landed.”
“And what, you’re telling that it’s the bruise making you act like that ?” You let out disbelieving scoff, “I mean are you hearing yourself ? You sound insane ! I don’t know about a bruise but you definitely hit your head when you landed, that’s why you’re saying weird shit.”
Jake didn’t answer, he just stared right ahead, past your standing frame, a far away look in his eyes. Worry began to seep into the hollowing hole in your stomach, maybe he had actually hit his head and he had commotion ? Or worse, what if he had brain damage or internal bleeding or something ? Just the thought made you shiver in horror. If he was truly hurt, it was best not to move him. You eyed him intensely, as if you could somehow get a look inside of his head to make sure he was okay.
You watched as he readjusted himself against the tree with a groan, the movement making his helmet roll right of his lap, revealing his second hand, very obviously pressing down hard on his side.
“Mmh, applying pressure on a bruise,” You mused, squinting your eyes at him in sarcastic fashion, “is this a new technique I haven’t heard about ? Did you attend a new medical seminar I wasn’t invited to ?”
“Will you just stop talking for two minutes, please ?” He asked, voice breathy.
“I mean, shit, honestly I never pictured you as a masochist, you were always more of a sadist type in my mind.“
That finally made him look back at you and you promptly ignored the slight and short lived feeling of relief it gave you. A grin made its way back on his lips, it was strained but it successfully illuminated his face, for a moment giving it the flair it usually held.
“Glad to know this is something you have clearly thought about,” he huffed out, “if you were so curious you should have just come to me my dear Lightning, you know I’d be more than happy to prove your theories.”
Seeing him joke and tease you like that eased your discomfort, and you turned around, pretending to look at your surroundings while you were hiding the small, incontrollable smile pulling at your lips.
“I mean this place seems pretty quiet, I guess we could give a go to outdoor sex if you’re open to it.” His smug voice said behind you.
“Okay shut up now.” You chuckled despite yourself, keeping your back to him to not give him the idea you were happy to see his quick wit was back.
Your eyes took in the forest that spread out in front of you, the cool wind coming from the clearing behind offering you some relief from the sweat clinging to your uniform. It honestly looked beautiful.
Just as you were about to turn back around, your eyes landed on a random piece of wood lying on the ground and—
You froze.
Whole body becoming rigid, the hair on your nape standing up, nervous system kicking in your flight or fight reflex for the second time in an alarmingly short time span.
The piece of wood was long and wide, chips coming off it, and the end of it was covered in a deep and thick crimson liquid.
No, no, no no no—
Your breath hitched in a pathetic choked up sound, one that held every bit of the terror paralyzing your body. Your stomach churned violently.
Behind you, Jake, alarmed by the sound coming from you, anxiously followed your line of sight, and he cursed under his breath when his eyes landed on the piece of wood.
“Lightning, look at me.”
But you couldn’t move. Your gaze was still fixed on the blood dripping from the piece of wood, staining the forest ground and painting it in that fateful color. Jake’s voice barely registered in your ears, it felt like a distant echo, drowned out by your own heart beating loudly and frenetically in your ears.
“Y/N.” His voice called out again, uncharacteristically gentle, and calm despite the situation, “look at me.”
And you don’t know why, but something in you instinctively listened to him this time. Slowly turning back around, your legs were shaky and threatening to give out at any time. When you were facing him again, your heart lurched, because your eyes didn’t immediately settled on his face, instead landing on the hand that was desperately applying pressure on his side. That same hand that was now stained in blood, the thick liquid coming through the gasps between his fingers. And now that you were looking, the fabric of his flight suit underneath his hand was ripped, letting you catch a glimpse of a deep hole into Jake’s flesh, one that was profusely leaking blood.
Funnily enough, your own blood drained from your face so fast it almost made you dizzy, and a horribly frightened sob left your lips. You didn’t remember your legs giving out but suddenly you were on your knees again, next to Jake.
“Don’t look at it, look at me.” Jake said again, his voice somehow breaking through the terror fog holding your brain hostage.
Your breath was coming out ragged as your eyes finally found his, bright green irises that held nothing but an eerily calmness in them.
“It’s okay, don’t look at it, just focus on me, everything will be alright.”
“What the fuck, Jake ?!” You exploded once it seemed your vocal chords were not entirely frozen by fear anymore, “what— “ you choked up on a sob and only then did you realize the ocean of tears dripping down your cheeks, “what happened ?! Oh my god—“ you felt a sudden wave of dizziness hit you as your eyes quickly darted back over to his wound, like despite the bone chilling fear you were still attracted to it like a magnet.
“It’s nothing, I told you I got hurt when I landed.”
“You told me it was a bruise !” The end of your sentence ended in a desperate cry, your hands were shaking on your lap, chest heaving furiously with each frenetic breath you took.
“It’s barely a scratch,” he assured, and the soothing tone in his voice did not have the intended effect, only drowning you further in panic.
How the fuck was he so calm right now ?
You could feel your chest contract, and suddenly it felt impossible to take a full breath, it felt as if your lungs were somehow too small, sheer panic was settling deep inside your bones with no apparent prospect of leaving.
“Lightning, don’t freak out, it’s gonna be okay, everything is fine.”
There were so many thoughts swirling in your head. The protocol for when someone got hurt during a mission, the knowledge that Jake was bleeding out in this fucking clearing while acting like everything was fine, the black dots obstructing your vision…
“Just take a deep breath for me, yeah ?” Jake’s calm voice reached your ears, “turn around if you want, you don’t have to be near me. You can even wait in the clearing for the helicopter.”
The fact that was he straight up proposing you abandon him so you didn’t have to endure the sight of him bleeding out broke your heart and only worsened your sobs.
“Y/N, it’s okay. You’re okay, everything is fine, I promise,” he soothed again, his voice never wavering no matter how much in pain he must’ve been in.
You took a deep breath that did little to calm you down, but it at least cleared your thoughts a little.
This wasn’t right. Jake wasn’t supposed to be the one reassuring you right now, he was fucking bleeding out for God’s sake ! You were a fighter pilot, amongst the best in this entire world. You had been trained for this and you’d be damned if a little blood was blocking you from doing your job and saving your squad mate.
“Move your hand,” you said in a shaky breath, definitely not as assertive as you had intended, your eyes fixed on him.
“What—?”
You didn’t give him the time to comprehend, instead blindly removing his hand from his side and putting both of yours, and pressing down, hard. He winced, letting out a pained groan and you ignored the pinch in your heart.
For the first time ever since you found him, he seemed to be the one panicking.
“No, hey, hey hey what are you doing ?”
“I’m helping you,” you supplied, with tears still raining down your cheeks, “this is the protocol. And besides you weren’t putting enough pressure on it.”
You squeezed your eyes closed as Jake’s blood started to push back against your hands, the warm liquid trying to spill through your hands as you desperately tried to keep it there. The sensation made you shiver in pure horror and disgust.
“Hey, Y/N, I don’t want you to freak out on me, yeah ?” His hand, the one that wasn’t stained in blood, hovered over your shoulder, unsure if he should touch you in your emotional state.
Your eyes remained closed, trying to focus on anything else rather than Jake literally bleeding out beneath the palm of your hands. The wind brushing your face and the sound the trees made swaying lightly because of it, birds chirping in the distance, the grain of Jake’s strained voice…
“Why didn’t say anything ?” You asked, your voice coming out as a shaky whisper.
When his answer didn’t come fast enough, your eyes snapped open, scared that he might have lost consciousness, but Jake was just staring at you, the faintest of smile pulling at his lips.
“Is that a serious question ?” He laughed a little, wincing when his chest shook a bit from the force of it, “no offense, Lightning, truly, but I don’t know if I would have been able to handle you fainting in my state.”
‘My state.’ You didn’t like that, didn’t like that one bit. His face was paler than you’d ever seen it, his natural Texan tan nowhere to be seen. His green eyes were missing their usual brightness and the underside were horribly dark and sunken.
You were about to say something, probably tell him to shut up, when blood suddenly came rushing out of his nose.
“Shit—“ he cursed before rapidly putting a hand over his nose, frantically wiping at the blood that just kept on coming out. “Don’t look, it’s okay.”
Your heart was beating so fast and hard against your rib cage it was borderline painful. This couldn’t be good.
“Y/N, please don’t look.” Jake’s voice sounded almost pleading now as he was desperately rubbing the blood away and keeping his hand in front of his nose, making him sound nasally.
Blood.
There was just so much of it. Never in your life had you seen so much of the dreadful crimson liquid, and you honestly didn’t know if you were more likely to throw up or faint at this point.
And lingering at the back of your mind, came another whisper of your mind, one that was progressively and terrifyingly becoming louder and louder, overtaking all your senses. There was a lot of blood, yes, and Jake was the one losing it.
Jake was bleeding out, alarmingly fast, out in the middle of nowhere while the only thing you could do to help him was just keep your hands on his gaping injury and prayed that search and rescue would hurry the fuck up.
“Look away, sweetheart, please.” He said again, tilting his head back lightly, as much as he could really, in an attempt to stop the blood from leaving his nose.
But not looking was not gonna change a thing anymore. Because somewhere along the lines, the fear had shifted. Blood still very much terrified you, no doubt, but right now you were covered in it, and yet, you weren’t dead, you hadn’t fainted and the world was still spinning.
And still, something was very, very wrong.
Jake’s nose bleed seemed to have calmed down, he finally put his hand away, which was bright red, and stared at you.
“You know, you are doing much better than I thought you would,” he praised, and given the situation it absolutely shouldn’t have made your stomach flip, “look at you, could it be that the great Lightning has finally conquered her fear ?” He grinned.
You didn’t know if you should be happy he was joking again or not. Your hands had begun shaking again where they were pressing against his bloody side, you still couldn’t bear to take a look at it but you knew by the way it was still profusely leaking blood against your hands, and by how big the piece of wood looked a few centimeters away from you that his injury must have been deep, way too deep.
Very unaware of your internal breakdown, Jake just kept on talking.
“I didn’t even know it was possible to overcome a phobia as deep as yours, but hey, I guess there’s no stopping you, huh ?”
“Stop talking,” you said, trying to hold in a fresh wave of sobs, unwanted images of him lying dead in your arms kept flashing through your mind.
What the actual fuck was search and rescue doing ? It wasn’t like you were on the other half of the fucking planet, you weren’t even on the other half of the country !
Jake didn’t pay any mind to your order.
“At least crashing was good for something in the end.”
Him saying that while literally bleeding out was physically tearing your heart apart.
“Shut up.” You said through clenched teeth.
“Hey I just thought about something, if I die out here you’ll become the best pilot in the squad, perhaps I should be worried this was your plan all along—“
“Shut up ! Shut up, shut up !” You snapped, eyes wide and staring straight at him with a mix of despair and fear, “stop fucking talking about dying ! It’s not funny, and for fuck’s sake stop wasting your breath saying useless shit, just shut up !”
Tears were freely raining down your cheeks now, and you didn’t know how it was possible you still had any left to cry.
Jake was stunned for a second by your outburst, he just stared at your for a moment before his expression broke into something undeniably soft and gentle, his features morphing into something you’d use to approach a frightened animal.
“Hey, hey, I’m sorry, that was a joke.”
You didn’t think you had ever heard Jake apologize in all the time you’d known him.
“Well it’s not funny !” Your bottom lip quivered, another pathetic sob threatening to break out.
“I know, I’m an idiot,” he said, “you’re right, that wasn’t funny.” His voice was low, acting like a soothing balm on your own open wound, the one ripping your heart apart at seeing him like that.
His hand that had been awkwardly hovering off and on above your shoulder finally made contact, squeezing you lightly. And his touch completely finished to break your heart. You burst out in a very inelegant sob, you couldn’t even see through the tears clouding your vision. It was the inevitable consequence of enduring all the events of the day, the mission going to shit, the ejection, the crash, the blood, Jake…
“I don’t want you to die,” you cried out, completely exhausted and at the end of your rope, “so stop saying that.”
“I’m not gonna die, sweetheart,” his thumb rubbed gentle back and forth on your clothed shoulder, occasionally squeezing it.
“But you’re b—“ a hiccup interrupted you, “you’re bleeding out !” The word alone burned on your tongue.
You heard the sound of a zipper opening, trying to blink the tears away you saw Jake open the top of his flight suit before his blood stained hand, the one that wasn’t on your shoulder, came down to take one of yours that was still pressing on his open wound.
“No, no, no Jake— you need pressure—“ you tried to say when he took your hand away, guiding it to his chest.
“It’s okay, honey,” he soothed, “just don’t look down, remember ?” he added when your eyes almost darted down to both of your bloodied hands.
Jake, while maintenant eye contact with you, his green eyes holding an almost tender glint, guided your hand up to his chest, right over his heart.
“You feel that ?” He asked, voice slightly hoarse due to the effort and the pain, but never ever losing its gentle edge.
And sure enough, underneath your palm, was the steady beat of Jake’s heart. A calm and rhythmic thump-thump that didn’t waiver and the rational part of your mind wondered how he could stay so calm under such circumstances, and it probably should have worried you a bit, but the irrational part of your brain, the one that had been running on fumes ever since you spotted the first speck of blood, seemed to finally quiet down a bit.
You let out a breath you didn’t even know you had been holding all this time.
“Yeah, that’s it, see ? I’m okay, it’ll be fine.” His hand was placed right on top of yours, his warmth seeping into your skin and radiating in your entire body.
Your fingers flexed a bit against his clothed chest, a sudden urge to feel more of him, make sure that his words were real, that he was truly gonna be fine, shook you. Jake gave you a reassuring smile and between the tears that still blurred your vision, you took the time to look at him. His blond hair was disheveled and darken by dirt, his jade green eyes held an immense tiredness to them but the tender glint in them, directed towards you, never ever left. There was some dried blood just underneath his nose, and a bit of it also on his lips, that still held that little reassuring smile. His whole face was livid, as pale as a ghost and the visual stripped him of his usual Hangman bravado. Objectively, he wasn’t looking good right now, he looked sick. But somehow, to you, he still did, looked good. There was something so vulnerable and tender about him right now, something that was slowly stitching back together the pieces of your heart Jake had himself, involuntarily, broken.
But being yourself, there was no way you’d be able to properly express the overwhelming whirlwind of emotion taking your body hostage, so instead—
“You look like shit,” you said, sniffling.
Jake let out a chuckle, the sound alone warming you from the inside out.
“Yeah, well, you don’t exactly look like you could run a marathon either, sweetheart.”
That made you laugh. You didn’t even want to think about what you must looked like right now, blotchy and red eyes from the tears, cheeks stained with the salty liquid, hair wild from the ejection… But you didn’t see any disgust or reject in his gaze. Only fondness.
Suddenly feeling bashful under his stare, you made a move to look down but before you could, Jake’s hand that was on your shoulder moved quickly, surprisingly so for someone that injured, catching your chin with two of his fingers, preventing you from looking down at the bloodied mess on which you still kept a firm pressure with your free hand. Instead, he made sure your gaze stayed right on him. This quiet gesture that so blatantly showed how much he cared about how you felt, which definitely felt ridiculous next to his predicament, just sent a sudden rush of affection run through you.
Not knowing what to do of this overwhelming urge, but nonetheless needing to express it, to get it out, to show him, your body acted on its own. Your hand still on his heart, you leaned in and gently placed your lips on his forehead, hoping the soft press would somehow convey every bit of what you were feeling. You stayed perhaps a bit too long for a conventional forehead kiss. Almost imperceptibly, you felt his heartbeat quicken under your hand, the realization making a warmth akin to the first summer rays spread out in your body. When you pulled back, there was a flash of something unreadable in Jake’s eyes.
“You’ll be okay,” you said with a tiny smile, lips wet from your tears and voice hoarse from your sobs.
And truly you said it more for yourself than him.
Jake reciprocated your smile and squeezed your hand, “you’re so brave, Y/N.” He said, full of admiration, and just a tiny bit choked up.
Before you could add anything, tell him how ridiculous it was for him to say that while he had to step up and be the rock for the both of you while he was on the verge of dying, the faint and distant sound of propellers could be heard coming from over the clearing. And just seconds later, the search and rescue helicopter came into view.
The biggest sigh of relief left your lips, you felt the tension slowly leave your body. You, not without regrets, retracted the hand that was on his chest to put it back on his wound, the added pressure made him groan.
“Sorry, sorry, I know,” you said, “it’s almost over, Jake, we’re almost out.”
He smiled at you, and you tried to ignore the ridiculousness of you trying to comfort him at the last minute, while he had spent the entire time trying to calm you down.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
The helicopter landed in the clearing, as close to you and Jake as possible, and seconds after six people from search and rescue came rushing towards you. They carefully hosted up Jake on a stretcher and up in the helicopter, all the while your hands never left him.
“Alright, Y/N, you can stop now, he’ll be fine, we’re gonna clean and bandage him up,” Martin, the main medic, told you just as the helicopter was taking off to the air.
But you hesitated. With the stress and emotion, the time you had spent out there in the clearing had felt like an eternity, and it felt scary to let go of him now, even though you knew it was to leave him in better hands. While deep in your thoughts, you didn’t register Jake asking for a cloth, it was only when you felt his hand land on top of yours that you got out of your anxious trance.
“Everything’s fine now, remember ?” He said gently as his eyes bore into yours, “they are gonna take good care of me, you can let go.”
His hands very gently took yours off his side, cleaning them with the cloth all the while keeping eye contact with you.
“But I don’t wanna leave you,” you said in a breath.
It was a strange feeling, to feel so open and raw emotionally, a state that had been forcefully provoked by the unfortunate events of the day.
“You’re not leaving me, you’ll stay by my side, right ?”
He let out a small, fond chuckle when you nodded almost solemnly.
“Nobody’s making you leave, baby.” He said, tossing the cloth away after wiping your hands clean of his blood.
“Jake ?” Martin grabbed both your attention, “we’re gonna put you under,” he explains, showing off an oxygen mask, “we’re gonna start patching you up while on the way to the base’s hospital.”
Jake nodded before looking at you.
“You gonna kiss me goodnight ?” He asked, his characteristic smirk making a return on his face.
Wordlessly, and perhaps a bit too happy by him prompting it, you leaned in, placing your lips in a delicate kiss on his forehead, one hand coming up to cup his face. You heard him let out a little breath as you pulled away and placed another lingering kiss on his cheek.
“Sleep tight.” You smiled as a tear rolled down your face, not out of fear or sadness but simply out of feeling too much in such a short amount of time, and you quickly wiped it away.
Martin put the mask on Jake’s face.
“Alright Lieutenant, take a few deep breaths for me.”
Doing as he was told, Jake was looking at you with furrowed brows.
“Hey, don’t cry,” he lazily protested, voice already slurred from the anesthesia kicking in.
“I’m not crying,” you assured, a genuine smile stretching your face, “it’s fine, go to sleep, Hangman.”
“I prefer when you call me ‘Jake’.” He whined.
Yeah, he’d be gone any minute now.
You chuckled, “sorry, Jake.”
“That’s better,” his eyes fluttered closed and opened again, clearly fighting the anesthesia, “and when I wake up you can find out.”
“Find out what ?”
“You know…” he trailed off, his eyes closing entirely now, “if— if I’m a masochist or not…”
You burst out laughing, and even in his dazed and near coma induced state, Jake smiled at the sound.
“We’ll see about that, cowboy,” you said when your laughter died down a bit.
And just like that, he was out.
Looking at him just a second longer, feeling your heart settle down at knowing he wouldn’t feel any pain and would be taken care of, you moved away from him, letting the team of medics do their job. Martin kneeled beside Jake and began to cut his flight suit open around his wound. Removing the fabric, about to reveal just how bad the injury was, he paused and turned to you.
“You’re not afraid of blood, are you ?”
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Author’s note : I have mixed feelings about this fic, the idea had been in my head for soooo long and I fear I failed the execution of it, but oh well, I hope it was still good for you !
I’m gonna repeat myself but I do not have a phobia of blood at all so if the way I wrote reader’s reaction seems unrealistic I’m really sorry, please do let me know if it’s so unrealistic that it stops being enjoyable to read, I’ll try to change it if that’s the case
Also if you’ve read my others fics Saltwater Monster and 8-pool meltdown you might notice a pattern, that I desperately need to be comforted by Jake, and those fics are my most popular ones so I’d say we’re all in this together !💞
Finally (god sorry I’m talking a lot) a huge thank you to @berrybigpossibilities who agreed to read the first part of the fic when I was feeling really down about it and gave me their opinion, it helped a lot to finish it so thank you again !🫶
Summary : There wasn’t anything in this world you feared more than the sight of blood. And when Jake gets hurt during a mission, despite everything, he’s the one who steps up to calm you down.
Pairing : Jake "Hangman" Seresin × Fem!Reader
Important info : Your call sign is Lightning ⚡️:)
Disclaimer : English is not my first language so apologies for any grammatical errors that might have escaped my proofreading, also I have zero knowledge of the military or the navy so sorry for any inaccuracies in that area ! Also, reader in this has a phobia of blood, which I do not have at all so the writing of it might be widely inaccurate, deepest apologies for that.
And more than that it was a true fear that you harbored for the liquid pumped by your heart, sending life flowing through your veins.
It had been that way ever since you were a kid. Just the sight of the tiniest speck of blood made your skin crawl. It wasn’t always easy, considering the thing you were so afraid of lived just beneath a thin layer of skin, so easily breakable that just a scrape could reveal a crimson red that would send you into an irrational and uncontrollable state of panic. But you had always managed. Turning your head away and squinting your eyes closed during medical check ups and blood drawings, always being careful of the parts of your body that could easily get scratched or scraped — especially your hands… just some little things you were extra careful about in order to live a normal life.
Not a lot of people actually understood your phobia, most thought it was stupid and downright ridiculous. And you partially agreed with them, but that was the thing with phobias, they weren’t meant to be reasoned. They were, by nature and definition, irrational. Besides, this was not something you could do anything about, so really you just let all the dumb jokes and question roll off you. You had to admit some questions were quite funny though. If you were feeling down, you’d remember that one time Mickey asked you if that meant that you were afraid of your own period blood and it would still make you laugh as hard as when you’d first heard it.
Some people were scared of clowns, others of spiders or snake, some were even deathly scared of the ocean and could not set a foot in it. Your fear was blood, and in some way you were grateful for your brain to have selected that phobia among the thousands that inhabited and plagued the human mind, at least this one kept you out of harm’s way most of the time, never would you be caught attempting something stupid just to receive validation, or prove yourself. That’s how you decided to see it.
And right now your blood was quickly flowing towards your legs, seemingly preparing to choose the ‘flight’ option over the fight. Except that there wasn’t anywhere for you to run in the cramped confine of your cockpit.
Your ears were ringing and you could feel your blood pumping in your ears, your heart jackhammering through them. The only thing your mind was able to register was the loud, incessant beeping of your jet, while an urgent, mechanical voice was urging you to pull up. You could faintly hear Maverick’s voice through the comms, screaming at you to eject but his instructions were wildly overridden by the adrenaline coursing in your veins. The mission had seemed pretty simple on paper. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing you couldn’t do with your eyes closed. And yet.
You wouldn’t even be able to explain how and when everything started going to shit. Oh well, maybe you could. It all had started when Maverick designated you as Jake’s wingman, that alone should have warned you about how this mission would end, up in flames. Quite literally.
A louder beeping overtook the first one, this second one was higher, almost screeching, so loud in fact you thought you felt you eardrums pop for a second. A quick check to your panel control showed you that you right engine was on fire. Jesus fucking Christ could this get any worse ?!
How could a mission on your own soil could go this wrong ? You guessed the very little time of preparation for it and having to cooperate with a squad from another base you knew nothing about certainly didn’t help. And a close fly by with another pilot and their wingman had sent both Jake and you into an unrecoverable flat spin.
“Y/N !” Maverick’s voice finally came through the panic fog clouding your brain, “there’s nothing you can do, eject, now !”
Cursing, you grabbed the handle situated in between your legs and pulled as hard as you could. You had never had to eject before, and you prayed you’d never have to do it again. For a split second after you pulled the trigger, you must had pulled something like fifteen G’s, your body flew out of your cockpit while your jet continued its supersonic descent towards the ground.
You were thankful your instincts kicked into gear to somehow try and maneuver the parachute, trying to secure you a safe landing on the ground. The loud sound of your jet splitting the air had you turning your head at the last second, just in time to catch sight of your precious, multi million dollar SuperHornet crashing into some nearby trees in a roaring and deafening sound. Your heart fell down at the pitt of your stomach and an uncomfortable and dreadful shiver shook you at the realization that this could’ve been you, had you not listened to what your wise instructor was yelling in your ears.
Landing was rough. Your legs couldn’t quite maintain you upright with the speed at which you hit the ground, the force of it sending you stumbling forward, even rolling in on yourself. Flopping miserably on your back, you were just thankful you didn’t break your legs or impaled yourself on some tree. You got up on shaky legs and hastily put your parachute away in its bag while trying to contact the base.
“Maverick…? Rooster…? Phoenix…?” You tried, without receiving any answer on the other end, you tapped the side of your helmet where the microphone and speakers were, “anyone ?”
No answer.
Shit, the comms must have gone to shit when you ejected or hit the ground. Well, at least you weren’t on foreign soil so there wasn’t any immediate danger you had to worry about. Looking around you caught yourself thinking that there were worse places to land in after an emergency and possibly deadly ejection. The grass was bright green where you had tumbled, trees were standing high and proud, guarding the borders of what looked like a valley that led to some hills. That was definitely a contrast compared to the sandy and arid grounds of San Diego, and it was a surprisingly welcome one, despite the situation.
You were turning on your beacon when the roaring sound of a jet’s engine made you jerk up. Immediately looking up, you spotted Jake’s jet, spinning at uncontrollable spin towards the high trees. Your heart stopped in your chest, surely he had already ejected and had safely landed somewhere near the end of the valley ? There was no possible way a pilot like him — no matter how much you hated admitting how good he was — still thought he had a chance of coming back from a spin like that—
But your lingering fear suddenly hit you full force in the chest when Jake’s engine sputtered on and off, the undeniable sign that Jake was still inside, trying to pull up his F/A-18.
Good god was he fucking dumb sometimes !
You watched, frozen and powerless as his jet continued its supersonic descent towards the trees. It was like time had stopped for a second, a suspended moment where the only thought flashing painfully in your mind was : Jake is going to die. This is it. After all the shit he’s pulled, his fucking ego is gonna take him out because mister thinks he’s just that good that he would be able to recover from an unrecoverable spin.
But before your thoughts could spiral anymore and your heart stop completely at the prospect of losing the one man you claimed you hated body and soul, you saw something fly out of the jet, mere seconds before the metal bird crashed though the trees. You inhaled sharply, a breath that felt like breaking through the water after being under for too long. And before you could think about it any longer, your feet were already carrying you towards where Jake’s parachute was falling.
Helmet in hand, and heavy gear slowing you down, you still sprinted as fast as you could through the trees, mindful of potential holes and roots. Jake hadn’t even been no where near close the altitude he should have been at to eject safely, he’d been alarmingly low and you feared that his parachute wouldn’t slow his fall enough. Damn him and his stupid fucking ego.
Calling out his name as you got near where he should have landed, the lack of response was making your skin prickle with anxiety and dread.
“Jake ?” You called out, voice growing more desperate than you’d ever admit it.
You stopped, intensely listening for any answer back when—
“Over here !”
His voice felt far away and…strangely strained. You desperately tried to ignore how your heart clenched, no matter how much you hated him and could not stand him, Jake was still one of your squad mate, it was normal to worry about him, right ?
Swallowing the lump in your throat, you resumed your dart in the direction of his voice, and after a full minute of sprint in your entire gear, your lungs were screaming, and a side stitch was beginning to puncture your left side. But you didn’t stop, continuing to run towards him.
And finally, when you felt like your legs were actually about to give out, you spotted Jake, sitting up against a tree, facing a clearing. Rushing one last time to get to him, Jake’s face seemed to illuminate when he spotted you.
“Took you long enough,” he said when you kneeled down next to him, “thought you were about to leave me here for a second.”
You glared at him, catching your breath, “keep up the attitude and I just might do that.”
His infamous smirk slowly pulled at his lips as his eyes took you in.
“You hurt ?”
“No, you ?”
Jake shook his head and you eyed the way his helmet was weirdly placed on his lap.
“Are your comms dead as well ?”
“Yep.”
“Did you activate your beacon ?”
He let out a laugh at that, “Jesus Lightning, do you think it’s my first day in the navy or something ?”
His arrogance rubbed you the wrong way, like it always did.
“It might as well be !” You snapped a little, “I mean what the fuck was that, Seresin ? Ejecting at low altitude could have gotten you fucking killed ! But let me guess, you thought that the great Hangman would be able to undo an unrecoverable spin ?!”
Jake watched your hissed rant with raised eyebrows, and despite yourself you noticed how strangely pale he looked.
“Careful,” he cooed, seeming all too satisfied by what he chose to be worry over him and not pure infuriation over a stupid and downright unprofessional behavior, “your soft spot for me is showing, but don’t worry I won’t tell the squad, I know how you like to keep your feelings secret.”
You scoffed, shaking your head, “I still don’t know how you haven’t got suspended for all the shit you pull,” you said, choosing to entirely disregard his take on how you allegedly felt for him.
“I’m too good,” he grinned, and your heart did something weird in your chest when you noticed his smile looked weirdly strained, forced. The pitt in your stomach felt like it was getting deeper, clawing away at your insides, a discomfort that only grew stronger the longer you stared at Jake, “they can’t afford to put their best pilot on the bench.”
Letting out an exasperated sigh, which Jake keened at, annoying you apparently being his second favorite thing behind flying, you began to get up.
“Let’s move in the middle of the clearing, so search and rescue will locate us better and it’ll be easier for them to land and come get us.”
“No.”
Dusting your flight suit once you were standing on your own two feet, you frowned down at Jake.
“The fuck you mean ‘no’ ?” You could feel yourself getting irrationally irritated, a familiar recurrence whenever you spent just more than a few minutes in Jake’s presence, you took a deep breath to try and swallow back the anger bubbling up in your throat, “I’m sick of your shit, Seresin. So stop being an asshole whose sole purpose is to disagree with me for a second and do what I say.”
“Come on, don’t be so mean Lightning.” He tried to joke, but the usual glint in his eyes was missing, he took in a labored breath, “besides moving is not gonna change a thing for search and rescue, don’t worry.”
Stopping for a moment, you got a good look at him. He was acting weird. He hadn’t so much as moved an inch ever since you had found him, he was just sitting there, his stupid helmet sitting on his lap covering a good chunk of his side with one of his hand seemingly under it.
“Why is your helmet on your lap ?”
“Why not ?”
You let out an incredulous laugh at that, “seriously, what is going on ? You’re being super weird it’s kinda starting to freak me out.”
Jake seemed to freeze, if only for a second.
“I’m not acting weird, you’re the one freaking out over nothing and asking weird ass questions. Just sit down and wait for search and rescue.”
But you stayed right where you were, towering over him — which didn’t happen often — and stared down at him, crossing your arms stubbornly.
“I—“ he started, before wincing almost imperceptibly, “I got a bruise, that’s all. Hurt myself when I landed.”
“And what, you’re telling that it’s the bruise making you act like that ?” You let out disbelieving scoff, “I mean are you hearing yourself ? You sound insane ! I don’t know about a bruise but you definitely hit your head when you landed, that’s why you’re saying weird shit.”
Jake didn’t answer, he just stared right ahead, past your standing frame, a far away look in his eyes. Worry began to seep into the hollowing hole in your stomach, maybe he had actually hit his head and he had commotion ? Or worse, what if he had brain damage or internal bleeding or something ? Just the thought made you shiver in horror. If he was truly hurt, it was best not to move him. You eyed him intensely, as if you could somehow get a look inside of his head to make sure he was okay.
You watched as he readjusted himself against the tree with a groan, the movement making his helmet roll right of his lap, revealing his second hand, very obviously pressing down hard on his side.
“Mmh, applying pressure on a bruise,” You mused, squinting your eyes at him in sarcastic fashion, “is this a new technique I haven’t heard about ? Did you attend a new medical seminar I wasn’t invited to ?”
“Will you just stop talking for two minutes, please ?” He asked, voice breathy.
“I mean, shit, honestly I never pictured you as a masochist, you were always more of a sadist type in my mind.“
That finally made him look back at you and you promptly ignored the slight and short lived feeling of relief it gave you. A grin made its way back on his lips, it was strained but it successfully illuminated his face, for a moment giving it the flair it usually held.
“Glad to know this is something you have clearly thought about,” he huffed out, “if you were so curious you should have just come to me my dear Lightning, you know I’d be more than happy to prove your theories.”
Seeing him joke and tease you like that eased your discomfort, and you turned around, pretending to look at your surroundings while you were hiding the small, incontrollable smile pulling at your lips.
“I mean this place seems pretty quiet, I guess we could give a go to outdoor sex if you’re open to it.” His smug voice said behind you.
“Okay shut up now.” You chuckled despite yourself, keeping your back to him to not give him the idea you were happy to see his quick wit was back.
Your eyes took in the forest that spread out in front of you, the cool wind coming from the clearing behind offering you some relief from the sweat clinging to your uniform. It honestly looked beautiful.
Just as you were about to turn back around, your eyes landed on a random piece of wood lying on the ground and—
You froze.
Whole body becoming rigid, the hair on your nape standing up, nervous system kicking in your flight or fight reflex for the second time in an alarmingly short time span.
The piece of wood was long and wide, chips coming off it, and the end of it was covered in a deep and thick crimson liquid.
No, no, no no no—
Your breath hitched in a pathetic choked up sound, one that held every bit of the terror paralyzing your body. Your stomach churned violently.
Behind you, Jake, alarmed by the sound coming from you, anxiously followed your line of sight, and he cursed under his breath when his eyes landed on the piece of wood.
“Lightning, look at me.”
But you couldn’t move. Your gaze was still fixed on the blood dripping from the piece of wood, staining the forest ground and painting it in that fateful color. Jake’s voice barely registered in your ears, it felt like a distant echo, drowned out by your own heart beating loudly and frenetically in your ears.
“Y/N.” His voice called out again, uncharacteristically gentle, and calm despite the situation, “look at me.”
And you don’t know why, but something in you instinctively listened to him this time. Slowly turning back around, your legs were shaky and threatening to give out at any time. When you were facing him again, your heart lurched, because your eyes didn’t immediately settled on his face, instead landing on the hand that was desperately applying pressure on his side. That same hand that was now stained in blood, the thick liquid coming through the gasps between his fingers. And now that you were looking, the fabric of his flight suit underneath his hand was ripped, letting you catch a glimpse of a deep hole into Jake’s flesh, one that was profusely leaking blood.
Funnily enough, your own blood drained from your face so fast it almost made you dizzy, and a horribly frightened sob left your lips. You didn’t remember your legs giving out but suddenly you were on your knees again, next to Jake.
“Don’t look at it, look at me.” Jake said again, his voice somehow breaking through the terror fog holding your brain hostage.
Your breath was coming out ragged as your eyes finally found his, bright green irises that held nothing but an eerily calmness in them.
“It’s okay, don’t look at it, just focus on me, everything will be alright.”
“What the fuck, Jake ?!” You exploded once it seemed your vocal chords were not entirely frozen by fear anymore, “what— “ you choked up on a sob and only then did you realize the ocean of tears dripping down your cheeks, “what happened ?! Oh my god—“ you felt a sudden wave of dizziness hit you as your eyes quickly darted back over to his wound, like despite the bone chilling fear you were still attracted to it like a magnet.
“It’s nothing, I told you I got hurt when I landed.”
“You told me it was a bruise !” The end of your sentence ended in a desperate cry, your hands were shaking on your lap, chest heaving furiously with each frenetic breath you took.
“It’s barely a scratch,” he assured, and the soothing tone in his voice did not have the intended effect, only drowning you further in panic.
How the fuck was he so calm right now ?
You could feel your chest contract, and suddenly it felt impossible to take a full breath, it felt as if your lungs were somehow too small, sheer panic was settling deep inside your bones with no apparent prospect of leaving.
“Lightning, don’t freak out, it’s gonna be okay, everything is fine.”
There were so many thoughts swirling in your head. The protocol for when someone got hurt during a mission, the knowledge that Jake was bleeding out in this fucking clearing while acting like everything was fine, the black dots obstructing your vision…
“Just take a deep breath for me, yeah ?” Jake’s calm voice reached your ears, “turn around if you want, you don’t have to be near me. You can even wait in the clearing for the helicopter.”
The fact that was he straight up proposing you abandon him so you didn’t have to endure the sight of him bleeding out broke your heart and only worsened your sobs.
“Y/N, it’s okay. You’re okay, everything is fine, I promise,” he soothed again, his voice never wavering no matter how much in pain he must’ve been in.
You took a deep breath that did little to calm you down, but it at least cleared your thoughts a little.
This wasn’t right. Jake wasn’t supposed to be the one reassuring you right now, he was fucking bleeding out for God’s sake ! You were a fighter pilot, amongst the best in this entire world. You had been trained for this and you’d be damned if a little blood was blocking you from doing your job and saving your squad mate.
“Move your hand,” you said in a shaky breath, definitely not as assertive as you had intended, your eyes fixed on him.
“What—?”
You didn’t give him the time to comprehend, instead blindly removing his hand from his side and putting both of yours, and pressing down, hard. He winced, letting out a pained groan and you ignored the pinch in your heart.
For the first time ever since you found him, he seemed to be the one panicking.
“No, hey, hey hey what are you doing ?”
“I’m helping you,” you supplied, with tears still raining down your cheeks, “this is the protocol. And besides you weren’t putting enough pressure on it.”
You squeezed your eyes closed as Jake’s blood started to push back against your hands, the warm liquid trying to spill through your hands as you desperately tried to keep it there. The sensation made you shiver in pure horror and disgust.
“Hey, Y/N, I don’t want you to freak out on me, yeah ?” His hand, the one that wasn’t stained in blood, hovered over your shoulder, unsure if he should touch you in your emotional state.
Your eyes remained closed, trying to focus on anything else rather than Jake literally bleeding out beneath the palm of your hands. The wind brushing your face and the sound the trees made swaying lightly because of it, birds chirping in the distance, the grain of Jake’s strained voice…
“Why didn’t say anything ?” You asked, your voice coming out as a shaky whisper.
When his answer didn’t come fast enough, your eyes snapped open, scared that he might have lost consciousness, but Jake was just staring at you, the faintest of smile pulling at his lips.
“Is that a serious question ?” He laughed a little, wincing when his chest shook a bit from the force of it, “no offense, Lightning, truly, but I don’t know if I would have been able to handle you fainting in my state.”
‘My state.’ You didn’t like that, didn’t like that one bit. His face was paler than you’d ever seen it, his natural Texan tan nowhere to be seen. His green eyes were missing their usual brightness and the underside were horribly dark and sunken.
You were about to say something, probably tell him to shut up, when blood suddenly came rushing out of his nose.
“Shit—“ he cursed before rapidly putting a hand over his nose, frantically wiping at the blood that just kept on coming out. “Don’t look, it’s okay.”
Your heart was beating so fast and hard against your rib cage it was borderline painful. This couldn’t be good.
“Y/N, please don’t look.” Jake’s voice sounded almost pleading now as he was desperately rubbing the blood away and keeping his hand in front of his nose, making him sound nasally.
Blood.
There was just so much of it. Never in your life had you seen so much of the dreadful crimson liquid, and you honestly didn’t know if you were more likely to throw up or faint at this point.
And lingering at the back of your mind, came another whisper of your mind, one that was progressively and terrifyingly becoming louder and louder, overtaking all your senses. There was a lot of blood, yes, and Jake was the one losing it.
Jake was bleeding out, alarmingly fast, out in the middle of nowhere while the only thing you could do to help him was just keep your hands on his gaping injury and prayed that search and rescue would hurry the fuck up.
“Look away, sweetheart, please.” He said again, tilting his head back lightly, as much as he could really, in an attempt to stop the blood from leaving his nose.
But not looking was not gonna change a thing anymore. Because somewhere along the lines, the fear had shifted. Blood still very much terrified you, no doubt, but right now you were covered in it, and yet, you weren’t dead, you hadn’t fainted and the world was still spinning.
And still, something was very, very wrong.
Jake’s nose bleed seemed to have calmed down, he finally put his hand away, which was bright red, and stared at you.
“You know, you are doing much better than I thought you would,” he praised, and given the situation it absolutely shouldn’t have made your stomach flip, “look at you, could it be that the great Lightning has finally conquered her fear ?” He grinned.
You didn’t know if you should be happy he was joking again or not. Your hands had begun shaking again where they were pressing against his bloody side, you still couldn’t bear to take a look at it but you knew by the way it was still profusely leaking blood against your hands, and by how big the piece of wood looked a few centimeters away from you that his injury must have been deep, way too deep.
Very unaware of your internal breakdown, Jake just kept on talking.
“I didn’t even know it was possible to overcome a phobia as deep as yours, but hey, I guess there’s no stopping you, huh ?”
“Stop talking,” you said, trying to hold in a fresh wave of sobs, unwanted images of him lying dead in your arms kept flashing through your mind.
What the actual fuck was search and rescue doing ? It wasn’t like you were on the other half of the fucking planet, you weren’t even on the other half of the country !
Jake didn’t pay any mind to your order.
“At least crashing was good for something in the end.”
Him saying that while literally bleeding out was physically tearing your heart apart.
“Shut up.” You said through clenched teeth.
“Hey I just thought about something, if I die out here you’ll become the best pilot in the squad, perhaps I should be worried this was your plan all along—“
“Shut up ! Shut up, shut up !” You snapped, eyes wide and staring straight at him with a mix of despair and fear, “stop fucking talking about dying ! It’s not funny, and for fuck’s sake stop wasting your breath saying useless shit, just shut up !”
Tears were freely raining down your cheeks now, and you didn’t know how it was possible you still had any left to cry.
Jake was stunned for a second by your outburst, he just stared at your for a moment before his expression broke into something undeniably soft and gentle, his features morphing into something you’d use to approach a frightened animal.
“Hey, hey, I’m sorry, that was a joke.”
You didn’t think you had ever heard Jake apologize in all the time you’d known him.
“Well it’s not funny !” Your bottom lip quivered, another pathetic sob threatening to break out.
“I know, I’m an idiot,” he said, “you’re right, that wasn’t funny.” His voice was low, acting like a soothing balm on your own open wound, the one ripping your heart apart at seeing him like that.
His hand that had been awkwardly hovering off and on above your shoulder finally made contact, squeezing you lightly. And his touch completely finished to break your heart. You burst out in a very inelegant sob, you couldn’t even see through the tears clouding your vision. It was the inevitable consequence of enduring all the events of the day, the mission going to shit, the ejection, the crash, the blood, Jake…
“I don’t want you to die,” you cried out, completely exhausted and at the end of your rope, “so stop saying that.”
“I’m not gonna die, sweetheart,” his thumb rubbed gentle back and forth on your clothed shoulder, occasionally squeezing it.
“But you’re b—“ a hiccup interrupted you, “you’re bleeding out !” The word alone burned on your tongue.
You heard the sound of a zipper opening, trying to blink the tears away you saw Jake open the top of his flight suit before his blood stained hand, the one that wasn’t on your shoulder, came down to take one of yours that was still pressing on his open wound.
“No, no, no Jake— you need pressure—“ you tried to say when he took your hand away, guiding it to his chest.
“It’s okay, honey,” he soothed, “just don’t look down, remember ?” he added when your eyes almost darted down to both of your bloodied hands.
Jake, while maintenant eye contact with you, his green eyes holding an almost tender glint, guided your hand up to his chest, right over his heart.
“You feel that ?” He asked, voice slightly hoarse due to the effort and the pain, but never ever losing its gentle edge.
And sure enough, underneath your palm, was the steady beat of Jake’s heart. A calm and rhythmic thump-thump that didn’t waiver and the rational part of your mind wondered how he could stay so calm under such circumstances, and it probably should have worried you a bit, but the irrational part of your brain, the one that had been running on fumes ever since you spotted the first speck of blood, seemed to finally quiet down a bit.
You let out a breath you didn’t even know you had been holding all this time.
“Yeah, that’s it, see ? I’m okay, it’ll be fine.” His hand was placed right on top of yours, his warmth seeping into your skin and radiating in your entire body.
Your fingers flexed a bit against his clothed chest, a sudden urge to feel more of him, make sure that his words were real, that he was truly gonna be fine, shook you. Jake gave you a reassuring smile and between the tears that still blurred your vision, you took the time to look at him. His blond hair was disheveled and darken by dirt, his jade green eyes held an immense tiredness to them but the tender glint in them, directed towards you, never ever left. There was some dried blood just underneath his nose, and a bit of it also on his lips, that still held that little reassuring smile. His whole face was livid, as pale as a ghost and the visual stripped him of his usual Hangman bravado. Objectively, he wasn’t looking good right now, he looked sick. But somehow, to you, he still did, looked good. There was something so vulnerable and tender about him right now, something that was slowly stitching back together the pieces of your heart Jake had himself, involuntarily, broken.
But being yourself, there was no way you’d be able to properly express the overwhelming whirlwind of emotion taking your body hostage, so instead—
“You look like shit,” you said, sniffling.
Jake let out a chuckle, the sound alone warming you from the inside out.
“Yeah, well, you don’t exactly look like you could run a marathon either, sweetheart.”
That made you laugh. You didn’t even want to think about what you must looked like right now, blotchy and red eyes from the tears, cheeks stained with the salty liquid, hair wild from the ejection… But you didn’t see any disgust or reject in his gaze. Only fondness.
Suddenly feeling bashful under his stare, you made a move to look down but before you could, Jake’s hand that was on your shoulder moved quickly, surprisingly so for someone that injured, catching your chin with two of his fingers, preventing you from looking down at the bloodied mess on which you still kept a firm pressure with your free hand. Instead, he made sure your gaze stayed right on him. This quiet gesture that so blatantly showed how much he cared about how you felt, which definitely felt ridiculous next to his predicament, just sent a sudden rush of affection run through you.
Not knowing what to do of this overwhelming urge, but nonetheless needing to express it, to get it out, to show him, your body acted on its own. Your hand still on his heart, you leaned in and gently placed your lips on his forehead, hoping the soft press would somehow convey every bit of what you were feeling. You stayed perhaps a bit too long for a conventional forehead kiss. Almost imperceptibly, you felt his heartbeat quicken under your hand, the realization making a warmth akin to the first summer rays spread out in your body. When you pulled back, there was a flash of something unreadable in Jake’s eyes.
“You’ll be okay,” you said with a tiny smile, lips wet from your tears and voice hoarse from your sobs.
And truly you said it more for yourself than him.
Jake reciprocated your smile and squeezed your hand, “you’re so brave, Y/N.” He said, full of admiration, and just a tiny bit choked up.
Before you could add anything, tell him how ridiculous it was for him to say that while he had to step up and be the rock for the both of you while he was on the verge of dying, the faint and distant sound of propellers could be heard coming from over the clearing. And just seconds later, the search and rescue helicopter came into view.
The biggest sigh of relief left your lips, you felt the tension slowly leave your body. You, not without regrets, retracted the hand that was on his chest to put it back on his wound, the added pressure made him groan.
“Sorry, sorry, I know,” you said, “it’s almost over, Jake, we’re almost out.”
He smiled at you, and you tried to ignore the ridiculousness of you trying to comfort him at the last minute, while he had spent the entire time trying to calm you down.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
The helicopter landed in the clearing, as close to you and Jake as possible, and seconds after six people from search and rescue came rushing towards you. They carefully hosted up Jake on a stretcher and up in the helicopter, all the while your hands never left him.
“Alright, Y/N, you can stop now, he’ll be fine, we’re gonna clean and bandage him up,” Martin, the main medic, told you just as the helicopter was taking off to the air.
But you hesitated. With the stress and emotion, the time you had spent out there in the clearing had felt like an eternity, and it felt scary to let go of him now, even though you knew it was to leave him in better hands. While deep in your thoughts, you didn’t register Jake asking for a cloth, it was only when you felt his hand land on top of yours that you got out of your anxious trance.
“Everything’s fine now, remember ?” He said gently as his eyes bore into yours, “they are gonna take good care of me, you can let go.”
His hands very gently took yours off his side, cleaning them with the cloth all the while keeping eye contact with you.
“But I don’t wanna leave you,” you said in a breath.
It was a strange feeling, to feel so open and raw emotionally, a state that had been forcefully provoked by the unfortunate events of the day.
“You’re not leaving me, you’ll stay by my side, right ?”
He let out a small, fond chuckle when you nodded almost solemnly.
“Nobody’s making you leave, baby.” He said, tossing the cloth away after wiping your hands clean of his blood.
“Jake ?” Martin grabbed both your attention, “we’re gonna put you under,” he explains, showing off an oxygen mask, “we’re gonna start patching you up while on the way to the base’s hospital.”
Jake nodded before looking at you.
“You gonna kiss me goodnight ?” He asked, his characteristic smirk making a return on his face.
Wordlessly, and perhaps a bit too happy by him prompting it, you leaned in, placing your lips in a delicate kiss on his forehead, one hand coming up to cup his face. You heard him let out a little breath as you pulled away and placed another lingering kiss on his cheek.
“Sleep tight.” You smiled as a tear rolled down your face, not out of fear or sadness but simply out of feeling too much in such a short amount of time, and you quickly wiped it away.
Martin put the mask on Jake’s face.
“Alright Lieutenant, take a few deep breaths for me.”
Doing as he was told, Jake was looking at you with furrowed brows.
“Hey, don’t cry,” he lazily protested, voice already slurred from the anesthesia kicking in.
“I’m not crying,” you assured, a genuine smile stretching your face, “it’s fine, go to sleep, Hangman.”
“I prefer when you call me ‘Jake’.” He whined.
Yeah, he’d be gone any minute now.
You chuckled, “sorry, Jake.”
“That’s better,” his eyes fluttered closed and opened again, clearly fighting the anesthesia, “and when I wake up you can find out.”
“Find out what ?”
“You know…” he trailed off, his eyes closing entirely now, “if— if I’m a masochist or not…”
You burst out laughing, and even in his dazed and near coma induced state, Jake smiled at the sound.
“We’ll see about that, cowboy,” you said when your laughter died down a bit.
And just like that, he was out.
Looking at him just a second longer, feeling your heart settle down at knowing he wouldn’t feel any pain and would be taken care of, you moved away from him, letting the team of medics do their job. Martin kneeled beside Jake and began to cut his flight suit open around his wound. Removing the fabric, about to reveal just how bad the injury was, he paused and turned to you.
“You’re not afraid of blood, are you ?”
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Author’s note : I have mixed feelings about this fic, the idea had been in my head for soooo long and I fear I failed the execution of it, but oh well, I hope it was still good for you !
I’m gonna repeat myself but I do not have a phobia of blood at all so if the way I wrote reader’s reaction seems unrealistic I’m really sorry, please do let me know if it’s so unrealistic that it stops being enjoyable to read, I’ll try to change it if that’s the case
Also if you’ve read my others fics Saltwater Monster and 8-pool meltdown you might notice a pattern, that I desperately need to be comforted by Jake, and those fics are my most popular ones so I’d say we’re all in this together !💞
Finally (god sorry I’m talking a lot) a huge thank you to @berrybigpossibilities who agreed to read the first part of the fic when I was feeling really down about it and gave me their opinion, it helped a lot to finish it so thank you again !🫶
Prompted by this ask, I am working on a little part 2 to my Bradley fic, Behind Closed Doors ! It wasn’t supposed to get a part 2 but I’m inspired now🤭
I also have a little Natasha smut Drabble that I’m finishing up ! After I’m done with these two, I have yet to decide which of my ideas I’m gonna write next, guess you’ll see !!
Would you be up to writing a Natasha x Reader, where reader is Mavericks daughter and after getting stood up by a guy Natasha shows reader why a girls kiss/touch is so much better?
I would totally be up for that and in fact I have a fic idea in my draft that is nearly exactly this prompt (except for the reader being Maverick’s daughter) so it’s definitely something I plan to write !! To let you know just how similar it is, the title is literally “Girls do it better”😭
I don’t know when I’ll get to it though, there are a few other fics I’d like to write first but I’ll do my best to be quick !!
Summary : There wasn’t anything in this world you feared more than the sight of blood. And when Jake gets hurt during a mission, despite everything, he’s the one who steps up to calm you down.
Pairing : Jake "Hangman" Seresin × Fem!Reader
Important info : Your call sign is Lightning ⚡️:)
Disclaimer : English is not my first language so apologies for any grammatical errors that might have escaped my proofreading, also I have zero knowledge of the military or the navy so sorry for any inaccuracies in that area ! Also, reader in this has a phobia of blood, which I do not have at all so the writing of it might be widely inaccurate, deepest apologies for that.
And more than that it was a true fear that you harbored for the liquid pumped by your heart, sending life flowing through your veins.
It had been that way ever since you were a kid. Just the sight of the tiniest speck of blood made your skin crawl. It wasn’t always easy, considering the thing you were so afraid of lived just beneath a thin layer of skin, so easily breakable that just a scrape could reveal a crimson red that would send you into an irrational and uncontrollable state of panic. But you had always managed. Turning your head away and squinting your eyes closed during medical check ups and blood drawings, always being careful of the parts of your body that could easily get scratched or scraped — especially your hands… just some little things you were extra careful about in order to live a normal life.
Not a lot of people actually understood your phobia, most thought it was stupid and downright ridiculous. And you partially agreed with them, but that was the thing with phobias, they weren’t meant to be reasoned. They were, by nature and definition, irrational. Besides, this was not something you could do anything about, so really you just let all the dumb jokes and question roll off you. You had to admit some questions were quite funny though. If you were feeling down, you’d remember that one time Mickey asked you if that meant that you were afraid of your own period blood and it would still make you laugh as hard as when you’d first heard it.
Some people were scared of clowns, others of spiders or snake, some were even deathly scared of the ocean and could not set a foot in it. Your fear was blood, and in some way you were grateful for your brain to have selected that phobia among the thousands that inhabited and plagued the human mind, at least this one kept you out of harm’s way most of the time, never would you be caught attempting something stupid just to receive validation, or prove yourself. That’s how you decided to see it.
And right now your blood was quickly flowing towards your legs, seemingly preparing to choose the ‘flight’ option over the fight. Except that there wasn’t anywhere for you to run in the cramped confine of your cockpit.
Your ears were ringing and you could feel your blood pumping in your ears, your heart jackhammering through them. The only thing your mind was able to register was the loud, incessant beeping of your jet, while an urgent, mechanical voice was urging you to pull up. You could faintly hear Maverick’s voice through the comms, screaming at you to eject but his instructions were wildly overridden by the adrenaline coursing in your veins. The mission had seemed pretty simple on paper. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing you couldn’t do with your eyes closed. And yet.
You wouldn’t even be able to explain how and when everything started going to shit. Oh well, maybe you could. It all had started when Maverick designated you as Jake’s wingman, that alone should have warned you about how this mission would end, up in flames. Quite literally.
A louder beeping overtook the first one, this second one was higher, almost screeching, so loud in fact you thought you felt you eardrums pop for a second. A quick check to your panel control showed you that you right engine was on fire. Jesus fucking Christ could this get any worse ?!
How could a mission on your own soil could go this wrong ? You guessed the very little time of preparation for it and having to cooperate with a squad from another base you knew nothing about certainly didn’t help. And a close fly by with another pilot and their wingman had sent both Jake and you into an unrecoverable flat spin.
“Y/N !” Maverick’s voice finally came through the panic fog clouding your brain, “there’s nothing you can do, eject, now !”
Cursing, you grabbed the handle situated in between your legs and pulled as hard as you could. You had never had to eject before, and you prayed you’d never have to do it again. For a split second after you pulled the trigger, you must had pulled something like fifteen G’s, your body flew out of your cockpit while your jet continued its supersonic descent towards the ground.
You were thankful your instincts kicked into gear to somehow try and maneuver the parachute, trying to secure you a safe landing on the ground. The loud sound of your jet splitting the air had you turning your head at the last second, just in time to catch sight of your precious, multi million dollar SuperHornet crashing into some nearby trees in a roaring and deafening sound. Your heart fell down at the pitt of your stomach and an uncomfortable and dreadful shiver shook you at the realization that this could’ve been you, had you not listened to what your wise instructor was yelling in your ears.
Landing was rough. Your legs couldn’t quite maintain you upright with the speed at which you hit the ground, the force of it sending you stumbling forward, even rolling in on yourself. Flopping miserably on your back, you were just thankful you didn’t break your legs or impaled yourself on some tree. You got up on shaky legs and hastily put your parachute away in its bag while trying to contact the base.
“Maverick…? Rooster…? Phoenix…?” You tried, without receiving any answer on the other end, you tapped the side of your helmet where the microphone and speakers were, “anyone ?”
No answer.
Shit, the comms must have gone to shit when you ejected or hit the ground. Well, at least you weren’t on foreign soil so there wasn’t any immediate danger you had to worry about. Looking around you caught yourself thinking that there were worse places to land in after an emergency and possibly deadly ejection. The grass was bright green where you had tumbled, trees were standing high and proud, guarding the borders of what looked like a valley that led to some hills. That was definitely a contrast compared to the sandy and arid grounds of San Diego, and it was a surprisingly welcome one, despite the situation.
You were turning on your beacon when the roaring sound of a jet’s engine made you jerk up. Immediately looking up, you spotted Jake’s jet, spinning at uncontrollable spin towards the high trees. Your heart stopped in your chest, surely he had already ejected and had safely landed somewhere near the end of the valley ? There was no possible way a pilot like him — no matter how much you hated admitting how good he was — still thought he had a chance of coming back from a spin like that—
But your lingering fear suddenly hit you full force in the chest when Jake’s engine sputtered on and off, the undeniable sign that Jake was still inside, trying to pull up his F/A-18.
Good god was he fucking dumb sometimes !
You watched, frozen and powerless as his jet continued its supersonic descent towards the trees. It was like time had stopped for a second, a suspended moment where the only thought flashing painfully in your mind was : Jake is going to die. This is it. After all the shit he’s pulled, his fucking ego is gonna take him out because mister thinks he’s just that good that he would be able to recover from an unrecoverable spin.
But before your thoughts could spiral anymore and your heart stop completely at the prospect of losing the one man you claimed you hated body and soul, you saw something fly out of the jet, mere seconds before the metal bird crashed though the trees. You inhaled sharply, a breath that felt like breaking through the water after being under for too long. And before you could think about it any longer, your feet were already carrying you towards where Jake’s parachute was falling.
Helmet in hand, and heavy gear slowing you down, you still sprinted as fast as you could through the trees, mindful of potential holes and roots. Jake hadn’t even been no where near close the altitude he should have been at to eject safely, he’d been alarmingly low and you feared that his parachute wouldn’t slow his fall enough. Damn him and his stupid fucking ego.
Calling out his name as you got near where he should have landed, the lack of response was making your skin prickle with anxiety and dread.
“Jake ?” You called out, voice growing more desperate than you’d ever admit it.
You stopped, intensely listening for any answer back when—
“Over here !”
His voice felt far away and…strangely strained. You desperately tried to ignore how your heart clenched, no matter how much you hated him and could not stand him, Jake was still one of your squad mate, it was normal to worry about him, right ?
Swallowing the lump in your throat, you resumed your dart in the direction of his voice, and after a full minute of sprint in your entire gear, your lungs were screaming, and a side stitch was beginning to puncture your left side. But you didn’t stop, continuing to run towards him.
And finally, when you felt like your legs were actually about to give out, you spotted Jake, sitting up against a tree, facing a clearing. Rushing one last time to get to him, Jake’s face seemed to illuminate when he spotted you.
“Took you long enough,” he said when you kneeled down next to him, “thought you were about to leave me here for a second.”
You glared at him, catching your breath, “keep up the attitude and I just might do that.”
His infamous smirk slowly pulled at his lips as his eyes took you in.
“You hurt ?”
“No, you ?”
Jake shook his head and you eyed the way his helmet was weirdly placed on his lap.
“Are your comms dead as well ?”
“Yep.”
“Did you activate your beacon ?”
He let out a laugh at that, “Jesus Lightning, do you think it’s my first day in the navy or something ?”
His arrogance rubbed you the wrong way, like it always did.
“It might as well be !” You snapped a little, “I mean what the fuck was that, Seresin ? Ejecting at low altitude could have gotten you fucking killed ! But let me guess, you thought that the great Hangman would be able to undo an unrecoverable spin ?!”
Jake watched your hissed rant with raised eyebrows, and despite yourself you noticed how strangely pale he looked.
“Careful,” he cooed, seeming all too satisfied by what he chose to be worry over him and not pure infuriation over a stupid and downright unprofessional behavior, “your soft spot for me is showing, but don’t worry I won’t tell the squad, I know how you like to keep your feelings secret.”
You scoffed, shaking your head, “I still don’t know how you haven’t got suspended for all the shit you pull,” you said, choosing to entirely disregard his take on how you allegedly felt for him.
“I’m too good,” he grinned, and your heart did something weird in your chest when you noticed his smile looked weirdly strained, forced. The pitt in your stomach felt like it was getting deeper, clawing away at your insides, a discomfort that only grew stronger the longer you stared at Jake, “they can’t afford to put their best pilot on the bench.”
Letting out an exasperated sigh, which Jake keened at, annoying you apparently being his second favorite thing behind flying, you began to get up.
“Let’s move in the middle of the clearing, so search and rescue will locate us better and it’ll be easier for them to land and come get us.”
“No.”
Dusting your flight suit once you were standing on your own two feet, you frowned down at Jake.
“The fuck you mean ‘no’ ?” You could feel yourself getting irrationally irritated, a familiar recurrence whenever you spent just more than a few minutes in Jake’s presence, you took a deep breath to try and swallow back the anger bubbling up in your throat, “I’m sick of your shit, Seresin. So stop being an asshole whose sole purpose is to disagree with me for a second and do what I say.”
“Come on, don’t be so mean Lightning.” He tried to joke, but the usual glint in his eyes was missing, he took in a labored breath, “besides moving is not gonna change a thing for search and rescue, don’t worry.”
Stopping for a moment, you got a good look at him. He was acting weird. He hadn’t so much as moved an inch ever since you had found him, he was just sitting there, his stupid helmet sitting on his lap covering a good chunk of his side with one of his hand seemingly under it.
“Why is your helmet on your lap ?”
“Why not ?”
You let out an incredulous laugh at that, “seriously, what is going on ? You’re being super weird it’s kinda starting to freak me out.”
Jake seemed to freeze, if only for a second.
“I’m not acting weird, you’re the one freaking out over nothing and asking weird ass questions. Just sit down and wait for search and rescue.”
But you stayed right where you were, towering over him — which didn’t happen often — and stared down at him, crossing your arms stubbornly.
“I—“ he started, before wincing almost imperceptibly, “I got a bruise, that’s all. Hurt myself when I landed.”
“And what, you’re telling that it’s the bruise making you act like that ?” You let out disbelieving scoff, “I mean are you hearing yourself ? You sound insane ! I don’t know about a bruise but you definitely hit your head when you landed, that’s why you’re saying weird shit.”
Jake didn’t answer, he just stared right ahead, past your standing frame, a far away look in his eyes. Worry began to seep into the hollowing hole in your stomach, maybe he had actually hit his head and he had commotion ? Or worse, what if he had brain damage or internal bleeding or something ? Just the thought made you shiver in horror. If he was truly hurt, it was best not to move him. You eyed him intensely, as if you could somehow get a look inside of his head to make sure he was okay.
You watched as he readjusted himself against the tree with a groan, the movement making his helmet roll right of his lap, revealing his second hand, very obviously pressing down hard on his side.
“Mmh, applying pressure on a bruise,” You mused, squinting your eyes at him in sarcastic fashion, “is this a new technique I haven’t heard about ? Did you attend a new medical seminar I wasn’t invited to ?”
“Will you just stop talking for two minutes, please ?” He asked, voice breathy.
“I mean, shit, honestly I never pictured you as a masochist, you were always more of a sadist type in my mind.“
That finally made him look back at you and you promptly ignored the slight and short lived feeling of relief it gave you. A grin made its way back on his lips, it was strained but it successfully illuminated his face, for a moment giving it the flair it usually held.
“Glad to know this is something you have clearly thought about,” he huffed out, “if you were so curious you should have just come to me my dear Lightning, you know I’d be more than happy to prove your theories.”
Seeing him joke and tease you like that eased your discomfort, and you turned around, pretending to look at your surroundings while you were hiding the small, incontrollable smile pulling at your lips.
“I mean this place seems pretty quiet, I guess we could give a go to outdoor sex if you’re open to it.” His smug voice said behind you.
“Okay shut up now.” You chuckled despite yourself, keeping your back to him to not give him the idea you were happy to see his quick wit was back.
Your eyes took in the forest that spread out in front of you, the cool wind coming from the clearing behind offering you some relief from the sweat clinging to your uniform. It honestly looked beautiful.
Just as you were about to turn back around, your eyes landed on a random piece of wood lying on the ground and—
You froze.
Whole body becoming rigid, the hair on your nape standing up, nervous system kicking in your flight or fight reflex for the second time in an alarmingly short time span.
The piece of wood was long and wide, chips coming off it, and the end of it was covered in a deep and thick crimson liquid.
No, no, no no no—
Your breath hitched in a pathetic choked up sound, one that held every bit of the terror paralyzing your body. Your stomach churned violently.
Behind you, Jake, alarmed by the sound coming from you, anxiously followed your line of sight, and he cursed under his breath when his eyes landed on the piece of wood.
“Lightning, look at me.”
But you couldn’t move. Your gaze was still fixed on the blood dripping from the piece of wood, staining the forest ground and painting it in that fateful color. Jake’s voice barely registered in your ears, it felt like a distant echo, drowned out by your own heart beating loudly and frenetically in your ears.
“Y/N.” His voice called out again, uncharacteristically gentle, and calm despite the situation, “look at me.”
And you don’t know why, but something in you instinctively listened to him this time. Slowly turning back around, your legs were shaky and threatening to give out at any time. When you were facing him again, your heart lurched, because your eyes didn’t immediately settled on his face, instead landing on the hand that was desperately applying pressure on his side. That same hand that was now stained in blood, the thick liquid coming through the gasps between his fingers. And now that you were looking, the fabric of his flight suit underneath his hand was ripped, letting you catch a glimpse of a deep hole into Jake’s flesh, one that was profusely leaking blood.
Funnily enough, your own blood drained from your face so fast it almost made you dizzy, and a horribly frightened sob left your lips. You didn’t remember your legs giving out but suddenly you were on your knees again, next to Jake.
“Don’t look at it, look at me.” Jake said again, his voice somehow breaking through the terror fog holding your brain hostage.
Your breath was coming out ragged as your eyes finally found his, bright green irises that held nothing but an eerily calmness in them.
“It’s okay, don’t look at it, just focus on me, everything will be alright.”
“What the fuck, Jake ?!” You exploded once it seemed your vocal chords were not entirely frozen by fear anymore, “what— “ you choked up on a sob and only then did you realize the ocean of tears dripping down your cheeks, “what happened ?! Oh my god—“ you felt a sudden wave of dizziness hit you as your eyes quickly darted back over to his wound, like despite the bone chilling fear you were still attracted to it like a magnet.
“It’s nothing, I told you I got hurt when I landed.”
“You told me it was a bruise !” The end of your sentence ended in a desperate cry, your hands were shaking on your lap, chest heaving furiously with each frenetic breath you took.
“It’s barely a scratch,” he assured, and the soothing tone in his voice did not have the intended effect, only drowning you further in panic.
How the fuck was he so calm right now ?
You could feel your chest contract, and suddenly it felt impossible to take a full breath, it felt as if your lungs were somehow too small, sheer panic was settling deep inside your bones with no apparent prospect of leaving.
“Lightning, don’t freak out, it’s gonna be okay, everything is fine.”
There were so many thoughts swirling in your head. The protocol for when someone got hurt during a mission, the knowledge that Jake was bleeding out in this fucking clearing while acting like everything was fine, the black dots obstructing your vision…
“Just take a deep breath for me, yeah ?” Jake’s calm voice reached your ears, “turn around if you want, you don’t have to be near me. You can even wait in the clearing for the helicopter.”
The fact that was he straight up proposing you abandon him so you didn’t have to endure the sight of him bleeding out broke your heart and only worsened your sobs.
“Y/N, it’s okay. You’re okay, everything is fine, I promise,” he soothed again, his voice never wavering no matter how much in pain he must’ve been in.
You took a deep breath that did little to calm you down, but it at least cleared your thoughts a little.
This wasn’t right. Jake wasn’t supposed to be the one reassuring you right now, he was fucking bleeding out for God’s sake ! You were a fighter pilot, amongst the best in this entire world. You had been trained for this and you’d be damned if a little blood was blocking you from doing your job and saving your squad mate.
“Move your hand,” you said in a shaky breath, definitely not as assertive as you had intended, your eyes fixed on him.
“What—?”
You didn’t give him the time to comprehend, instead blindly removing his hand from his side and putting both of yours, and pressing down, hard. He winced, letting out a pained groan and you ignored the pinch in your heart.
For the first time ever since you found him, he seemed to be the one panicking.
“No, hey, hey hey what are you doing ?”
“I’m helping you,” you supplied, with tears still raining down your cheeks, “this is the protocol. And besides you weren’t putting enough pressure on it.”
You squeezed your eyes closed as Jake’s blood started to push back against your hands, the warm liquid trying to spill through your hands as you desperately tried to keep it there. The sensation made you shiver in pure horror and disgust.
“Hey, Y/N, I don’t want you to freak out on me, yeah ?” His hand, the one that wasn’t stained in blood, hovered over your shoulder, unsure if he should touch you in your emotional state.
Your eyes remained closed, trying to focus on anything else rather than Jake literally bleeding out beneath the palm of your hands. The wind brushing your face and the sound the trees made swaying lightly because of it, birds chirping in the distance, the grain of Jake’s strained voice…
“Why didn’t say anything ?” You asked, your voice coming out as a shaky whisper.
When his answer didn’t come fast enough, your eyes snapped open, scared that he might have lost consciousness, but Jake was just staring at you, the faintest of smile pulling at his lips.
“Is that a serious question ?” He laughed a little, wincing when his chest shook a bit from the force of it, “no offense, Lightning, truly, but I don’t know if I would have been able to handle you fainting in my state.”
‘My state.’ You didn’t like that, didn’t like that one bit. His face was paler than you’d ever seen it, his natural Texan tan nowhere to be seen. His green eyes were missing their usual brightness and the underside were horribly dark and sunken.
You were about to say something, probably tell him to shut up, when blood suddenly came rushing out of his nose.
“Shit—“ he cursed before rapidly putting a hand over his nose, frantically wiping at the blood that just kept on coming out. “Don’t look, it’s okay.”
Your heart was beating so fast and hard against your rib cage it was borderline painful. This couldn’t be good.
“Y/N, please don’t look.” Jake’s voice sounded almost pleading now as he was desperately rubbing the blood away and keeping his hand in front of his nose, making him sound nasally.
Blood.
There was just so much of it. Never in your life had you seen so much of the dreadful crimson liquid, and you honestly didn’t know if you were more likely to throw up or faint at this point.
And lingering at the back of your mind, came another whisper of your mind, one that was progressively and terrifyingly becoming louder and louder, overtaking all your senses. There was a lot of blood, yes, and Jake was the one losing it.
Jake was bleeding out, alarmingly fast, out in the middle of nowhere while the only thing you could do to help him was just keep your hands on his gaping injury and prayed that search and rescue would hurry the fuck up.
“Look away, sweetheart, please.” He said again, tilting his head back lightly, as much as he could really, in an attempt to stop the blood from leaving his nose.
But not looking was not gonna change a thing anymore. Because somewhere along the lines, the fear had shifted. Blood still very much terrified you, no doubt, but right now you were covered in it, and yet, you weren’t dead, you hadn’t fainted and the world was still spinning.
And still, something was very, very wrong.
Jake’s nose bleed seemed to have calmed down, he finally put his hand away, which was bright red, and stared at you.
“You know, you are doing much better than I thought you would,” he praised, and given the situation it absolutely shouldn’t have made your stomach flip, “look at you, could it be that the great Lightning has finally conquered her fear ?” He grinned.
You didn’t know if you should be happy he was joking again or not. Your hands had begun shaking again where they were pressing against his bloody side, you still couldn’t bear to take a look at it but you knew by the way it was still profusely leaking blood against your hands, and by how big the piece of wood looked a few centimeters away from you that his injury must have been deep, way too deep.
Very unaware of your internal breakdown, Jake just kept on talking.
“I didn’t even know it was possible to overcome a phobia as deep as yours, but hey, I guess there’s no stopping you, huh ?”
“Stop talking,” you said, trying to hold in a fresh wave of sobs, unwanted images of him lying dead in your arms kept flashing through your mind.
What the actual fuck was search and rescue doing ? It wasn’t like you were on the other half of the fucking planet, you weren’t even on the other half of the country !
Jake didn’t pay any mind to your order.
“At least crashing was good for something in the end.”
Him saying that while literally bleeding out was physically tearing your heart apart.
“Shut up.” You said through clenched teeth.
“Hey I just thought about something, if I die out here you’ll become the best pilot in the squad, perhaps I should be worried this was your plan all along—“
“Shut up ! Shut up, shut up !” You snapped, eyes wide and staring straight at him with a mix of despair and fear, “stop fucking talking about dying ! It’s not funny, and for fuck’s sake stop wasting your breath saying useless shit, just shut up !”
Tears were freely raining down your cheeks now, and you didn’t know how it was possible you still had any left to cry.
Jake was stunned for a second by your outburst, he just stared at your for a moment before his expression broke into something undeniably soft and gentle, his features morphing into something you’d use to approach a frightened animal.
“Hey, hey, I’m sorry, that was a joke.”
You didn’t think you had ever heard Jake apologize in all the time you’d known him.
“Well it’s not funny !” Your bottom lip quivered, another pathetic sob threatening to break out.
“I know, I’m an idiot,” he said, “you’re right, that wasn’t funny.” His voice was low, acting like a soothing balm on your own open wound, the one ripping your heart apart at seeing him like that.
His hand that had been awkwardly hovering off and on above your shoulder finally made contact, squeezing you lightly. And his touch completely finished to break your heart. You burst out in a very inelegant sob, you couldn’t even see through the tears clouding your vision. It was the inevitable consequence of enduring all the events of the day, the mission going to shit, the ejection, the crash, the blood, Jake…
“I don’t want you to die,” you cried out, completely exhausted and at the end of your rope, “so stop saying that.”
“I’m not gonna die, sweetheart,” his thumb rubbed gentle back and forth on your clothed shoulder, occasionally squeezing it.
“But you’re b—“ a hiccup interrupted you, “you’re bleeding out !” The word alone burned on your tongue.
You heard the sound of a zipper opening, trying to blink the tears away you saw Jake open the top of his flight suit before his blood stained hand, the one that wasn’t on your shoulder, came down to take one of yours that was still pressing on his open wound.
“No, no, no Jake— you need pressure—“ you tried to say when he took your hand away, guiding it to his chest.
“It’s okay, honey,” he soothed, “just don’t look down, remember ?” he added when your eyes almost darted down to both of your bloodied hands.
Jake, while maintenant eye contact with you, his green eyes holding an almost tender glint, guided your hand up to his chest, right over his heart.
“You feel that ?” He asked, voice slightly hoarse due to the effort and the pain, but never ever losing its gentle edge.
And sure enough, underneath your palm, was the steady beat of Jake’s heart. A calm and rhythmic thump-thump that didn’t waiver and the rational part of your mind wondered how he could stay so calm under such circumstances, and it probably should have worried you a bit, but the irrational part of your brain, the one that had been running on fumes ever since you spotted the first speck of blood, seemed to finally quiet down a bit.
You let out a breath you didn’t even know you had been holding all this time.
“Yeah, that’s it, see ? I’m okay, it’ll be fine.” His hand was placed right on top of yours, his warmth seeping into your skin and radiating in your entire body.
Your fingers flexed a bit against his clothed chest, a sudden urge to feel more of him, make sure that his words were real, that he was truly gonna be fine, shook you. Jake gave you a reassuring smile and between the tears that still blurred your vision, you took the time to look at him. His blond hair was disheveled and darken by dirt, his jade green eyes held an immense tiredness to them but the tender glint in them, directed towards you, never ever left. There was some dried blood just underneath his nose, and a bit of it also on his lips, that still held that little reassuring smile. His whole face was livid, as pale as a ghost and the visual stripped him of his usual Hangman bravado. Objectively, he wasn’t looking good right now, he looked sick. But somehow, to you, he still did, looked good. There was something so vulnerable and tender about him right now, something that was slowly stitching back together the pieces of your heart Jake had himself, involuntarily, broken.
But being yourself, there was no way you’d be able to properly express the overwhelming whirlwind of emotion taking your body hostage, so instead—
“You look like shit,” you said, sniffling.
Jake let out a chuckle, the sound alone warming you from the inside out.
“Yeah, well, you don’t exactly look like you could run a marathon either, sweetheart.”
That made you laugh. You didn’t even want to think about what you must looked like right now, blotchy and red eyes from the tears, cheeks stained with the salty liquid, hair wild from the ejection… But you didn’t see any disgust or reject in his gaze. Only fondness.
Suddenly feeling bashful under his stare, you made a move to look down but before you could, Jake’s hand that was on your shoulder moved quickly, surprisingly so for someone that injured, catching your chin with two of his fingers, preventing you from looking down at the bloodied mess on which you still kept a firm pressure with your free hand. Instead, he made sure your gaze stayed right on him. This quiet gesture that so blatantly showed how much he cared about how you felt, which definitely felt ridiculous next to his predicament, just sent a sudden rush of affection run through you.
Not knowing what to do of this overwhelming urge, but nonetheless needing to express it, to get it out, to show him, your body acted on its own. Your hand still on his heart, you leaned in and gently placed your lips on his forehead, hoping the soft press would somehow convey every bit of what you were feeling. You stayed perhaps a bit too long for a conventional forehead kiss. Almost imperceptibly, you felt his heartbeat quicken under your hand, the realization making a warmth akin to the first summer rays spread out in your body. When you pulled back, there was a flash of something unreadable in Jake’s eyes.
“You’ll be okay,” you said with a tiny smile, lips wet from your tears and voice hoarse from your sobs.
And truly you said it more for yourself than him.
Jake reciprocated your smile and squeezed your hand, “you’re so brave, Y/N.” He said, full of admiration, and just a tiny bit choked up.
Before you could add anything, tell him how ridiculous it was for him to say that while he had to step up and be the rock for the both of you while he was on the verge of dying, the faint and distant sound of propellers could be heard coming from over the clearing. And just seconds later, the search and rescue helicopter came into view.
The biggest sigh of relief left your lips, you felt the tension slowly leave your body. You, not without regrets, retracted the hand that was on his chest to put it back on his wound, the added pressure made him groan.
“Sorry, sorry, I know,” you said, “it’s almost over, Jake, we’re almost out.”
He smiled at you, and you tried to ignore the ridiculousness of you trying to comfort him at the last minute, while he had spent the entire time trying to calm you down.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
The helicopter landed in the clearing, as close to you and Jake as possible, and seconds after six people from search and rescue came rushing towards you. They carefully hosted up Jake on a stretcher and up in the helicopter, all the while your hands never left him.
“Alright, Y/N, you can stop now, he’ll be fine, we’re gonna clean and bandage him up,” Martin, the main medic, told you just as the helicopter was taking off to the air.
But you hesitated. With the stress and emotion, the time you had spent out there in the clearing had felt like an eternity, and it felt scary to let go of him now, even though you knew it was to leave him in better hands. While deep in your thoughts, you didn’t register Jake asking for a cloth, it was only when you felt his hand land on top of yours that you got out of your anxious trance.
“Everything’s fine now, remember ?” He said gently as his eyes bore into yours, “they are gonna take good care of me, you can let go.”
His hands very gently took yours off his side, cleaning them with the cloth all the while keeping eye contact with you.
“But I don’t wanna leave you,” you said in a breath.
It was a strange feeling, to feel so open and raw emotionally, a state that had been forcefully provoked by the unfortunate events of the day.
“You’re not leaving me, you’ll stay by my side, right ?”
He let out a small, fond chuckle when you nodded almost solemnly.
“Nobody’s making you leave, baby.” He said, tossing the cloth away after wiping your hands clean of his blood.
“Jake ?” Martin grabbed both your attention, “we’re gonna put you under,” he explains, showing off an oxygen mask, “we’re gonna start patching you up while on the way to the base’s hospital.”
Jake nodded before looking at you.
“You gonna kiss me goodnight ?” He asked, his characteristic smirk making a return on his face.
Wordlessly, and perhaps a bit too happy by him prompting it, you leaned in, placing your lips in a delicate kiss on his forehead, one hand coming up to cup his face. You heard him let out a little breath as you pulled away and placed another lingering kiss on his cheek.
“Sleep tight.” You smiled as a tear rolled down your face, not out of fear or sadness but simply out of feeling too much in such a short amount of time, and you quickly wiped it away.
Martin put the mask on Jake’s face.
“Alright Lieutenant, take a few deep breaths for me.”
Doing as he was told, Jake was looking at you with furrowed brows.
“Hey, don’t cry,” he lazily protested, voice already slurred from the anesthesia kicking in.
“I’m not crying,” you assured, a genuine smile stretching your face, “it’s fine, go to sleep, Hangman.”
“I prefer when you call me ‘Jake’.” He whined.
Yeah, he’d be gone any minute now.
You chuckled, “sorry, Jake.”
“That’s better,” his eyes fluttered closed and opened again, clearly fighting the anesthesia, “and when I wake up you can find out.”
“Find out what ?”
“You know…” he trailed off, his eyes closing entirely now, “if— if I’m a masochist or not…”
You burst out laughing, and even in his dazed and near coma induced state, Jake smiled at the sound.
“We’ll see about that, cowboy,” you said when your laughter died down a bit.
And just like that, he was out.
Looking at him just a second longer, feeling your heart settle down at knowing he wouldn’t feel any pain and would be taken care of, you moved away from him, letting the team of medics do their job. Martin kneeled beside Jake and began to cut his flight suit open around his wound. Removing the fabric, about to reveal just how bad the injury was, he paused and turned to you.
“You’re not afraid of blood, are you ?”
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Author’s note : I have mixed feelings about this fic, the idea had been in my head for soooo long and I fear I failed the execution of it, but oh well, I hope it was still good for you !
I’m gonna repeat myself but I do not have a phobia of blood at all so if the way I wrote reader’s reaction seems unrealistic I’m really sorry, please do let me know if it’s so unrealistic that it stops being enjoyable to read, I’ll try to change it if that’s the case
Also if you’ve read my others fics Saltwater Monster and 8-pool meltdown you might notice a pattern, that I desperately need to be comforted by Jake, and those fics are my most popular ones so I’d say we’re all in this together !💞
Finally (god sorry I’m talking a lot) a huge thank you to @berrybigpossibilities who agreed to read the first part of the fic when I was feeling really down about it and gave me their opinion, it helped a lot to finish it so thank you again !🫶
i know i say it time and time again, but i seriously do adore how you write jake. you somehow humanize him without losing his sense of humor and i love it so much!
i'm so honored that you asked me to read the first part, thank you for trusting me with that!
It really means the world. And again, a huuuge thank you for your opinion on the first part, thanks to it I powered through writing the rest of the fic in two days, otherwise you guys probably wouldn’t have seen this fic for another week😭 that’s how bad I was struggling to write it.
Summary : There wasn’t anything in this world you feared more than the sight of blood. And when Jake gets hurt during a mission, despite everything, he’s the one who steps up to calm you down.
Pairing : Jake "Hangman" Seresin × Fem!Reader
Important info : Your call sign is Lightning ⚡️:)
Disclaimer : English is not my first language so apologies for any grammatical errors that might have escaped my proofreading, also I have zero knowledge of the military or the navy so sorry for any inaccuracies in that area ! Also, reader in this has a phobia of blood, which I do not have at all so the writing of it might be widely inaccurate, deepest apologies for that.
And more than that it was a true fear that you harbored for the liquid pumped by your heart, sending life flowing through your veins.
It had been that way ever since you were a kid. Just the sight of the tiniest speck of blood made your skin crawl. It wasn’t always easy, considering the thing you were so afraid of lived just beneath a thin layer of skin, so easily breakable that just a scrape could reveal a crimson red that would send you into an irrational and uncontrollable state of panic. But you had always managed. Turning your head away and squinting your eyes closed during medical check ups and blood drawings, always being careful of the parts of your body that could easily get scratched or scraped — especially your hands… just some little things you were extra careful about in order to live a normal life.
Not a lot of people actually understood your phobia, most thought it was stupid and downright ridiculous. And you partially agreed with them, but that was the thing with phobias, they weren’t meant to be reasoned. They were, by nature and definition, irrational. Besides, this was not something you could do anything about, so really you just let all the dumb jokes and question roll off you. You had to admit some questions were quite funny though. If you were feeling down, you’d remember that one time Mickey asked you if that meant that you were afraid of your own period blood and it would still make you laugh as hard as when you’d first heard it.
Some people were scared of clowns, others of spiders or snake, some were even deathly scared of the ocean and could not set a foot in it. Your fear was blood, and in some way you were grateful for your brain to have selected that phobia among the thousands that inhabited and plagued the human mind, at least this one kept you out of harm’s way most of the time, never would you be caught attempting something stupid just to receive validation, or prove yourself. That’s how you decided to see it.
And right now your blood was quickly flowing towards your legs, seemingly preparing to choose the ‘flight’ option over the fight. Except that there wasn’t anywhere for you to run in the cramped confine of your cockpit.
Your ears were ringing and you could feel your blood pumping in your ears, your heart jackhammering through them. The only thing your mind was able to register was the loud, incessant beeping of your jet, while an urgent, mechanical voice was urging you to pull up. You could faintly hear Maverick’s voice through the comms, screaming at you to eject but his instructions were wildly overridden by the adrenaline coursing in your veins. The mission had seemed pretty simple on paper. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing you couldn’t do with your eyes closed. And yet.
You wouldn’t even be able to explain how and when everything started going to shit. Oh well, maybe you could. It all had started when Maverick designated you as Jake’s wingman, that alone should have warned you about how this mission would end, up in flames. Quite literally.
A louder beeping overtook the first one, this second one was higher, almost screeching, so loud in fact you thought you felt you eardrums pop for a second. A quick check to your panel control showed you that you right engine was on fire. Jesus fucking Christ could this get any worse ?!
How could a mission on your own soil could go this wrong ? You guessed the very little time of preparation for it and having to cooperate with a squad from another base you knew nothing about certainly didn’t help. And a close fly by with another pilot and their wingman had sent both Jake and you into an unrecoverable flat spin.
“Y/N !” Maverick’s voice finally came through the panic fog clouding your brain, “there’s nothing you can do, eject, now !”
Cursing, you grabbed the handle situated in between your legs and pulled as hard as you could. You had never had to eject before, and you prayed you’d never have to do it again. For a split second after you pulled the trigger, you must had pulled something like fifteen G’s, your body flew out of your cockpit while your jet continued its supersonic descent towards the ground.
You were thankful your instincts kicked into gear to somehow try and maneuver the parachute, trying to secure you a safe landing on the ground. The loud sound of your jet splitting the air had you turning your head at the last second, just in time to catch sight of your precious, multi million dollar SuperHornet crashing into some nearby trees in a roaring and deafening sound. Your heart fell down at the pitt of your stomach and an uncomfortable and dreadful shiver shook you at the realization that this could’ve been you, had you not listened to what your wise instructor was yelling in your ears.
Landing was rough. Your legs couldn’t quite maintain you upright with the speed at which you hit the ground, the force of it sending you stumbling forward, even rolling in on yourself. Flopping miserably on your back, you were just thankful you didn’t break your legs or impaled yourself on some tree. You got up on shaky legs and hastily put your parachute away in its bag while trying to contact the base.
“Maverick…? Rooster…? Phoenix…?” You tried, without receiving any answer on the other end, you tapped the side of your helmet where the microphone and speakers were, “anyone ?”
No answer.
Shit, the comms must have gone to shit when you ejected or hit the ground. Well, at least you weren’t on foreign soil so there wasn’t any immediate danger you had to worry about. Looking around you caught yourself thinking that there were worse places to land in after an emergency and possibly deadly ejection. The grass was bright green where you had tumbled, trees were standing high and proud, guarding the borders of what looked like a valley that led to some hills. That was definitely a contrast compared to the sandy and arid grounds of San Diego, and it was a surprisingly welcome one, despite the situation.
You were turning on your beacon when the roaring sound of a jet’s engine made you jerk up. Immediately looking up, you spotted Jake’s jet, spinning at uncontrollable spin towards the high trees. Your heart stopped in your chest, surely he had already ejected and had safely landed somewhere near the end of the valley ? There was no possible way a pilot like him — no matter how much you hated admitting how good he was — still thought he had a chance of coming back from a spin like that—
But your lingering fear suddenly hit you full force in the chest when Jake’s engine sputtered on and off, the undeniable sign that Jake was still inside, trying to pull up his F/A-18.
Good god was he fucking dumb sometimes !
You watched, frozen and powerless as his jet continued its supersonic descent towards the trees. It was like time had stopped for a second, a suspended moment where the only thought flashing painfully in your mind was : Jake is going to die. This is it. After all the shit he’s pulled, his fucking ego is gonna take him out because mister thinks he’s just that good that he would be able to recover from an unrecoverable spin.
But before your thoughts could spiral anymore and your heart stop completely at the prospect of losing the one man you claimed you hated body and soul, you saw something fly out of the jet, mere seconds before the metal bird crashed though the trees. You inhaled sharply, a breath that felt like breaking through the water after being under for too long. And before you could think about it any longer, your feet were already carrying you towards where Jake’s parachute was falling.
Helmet in hand, and heavy gear slowing you down, you still sprinted as fast as you could through the trees, mindful of potential holes and roots. Jake hadn’t even been no where near close the altitude he should have been at to eject safely, he’d been alarmingly low and you feared that his parachute wouldn’t slow his fall enough. Damn him and his stupid fucking ego.
Calling out his name as you got near where he should have landed, the lack of response was making your skin prickle with anxiety and dread.
“Jake ?” You called out, voice growing more desperate than you’d ever admit it.
You stopped, intensely listening for any answer back when—
“Over here !”
His voice felt far away and…strangely strained. You desperately tried to ignore how your heart clenched, no matter how much you hated him and could not stand him, Jake was still one of your squad mate, it was normal to worry about him, right ?
Swallowing the lump in your throat, you resumed your dart in the direction of his voice, and after a full minute of sprint in your entire gear, your lungs were screaming, and a side stitch was beginning to puncture your left side. But you didn’t stop, continuing to run towards him.
And finally, when you felt like your legs were actually about to give out, you spotted Jake, sitting up against a tree, facing a clearing. Rushing one last time to get to him, Jake’s face seemed to illuminate when he spotted you.
“Took you long enough,” he said when you kneeled down next to him, “thought you were about to leave me here for a second.”
You glared at him, catching your breath, “keep up the attitude and I just might do that.”
His infamous smirk slowly pulled at his lips as his eyes took you in.
“You hurt ?”
“No, you ?”
Jake shook his head and you eyed the way his helmet was weirdly placed on his lap.
“Are your comms dead as well ?”
“Yep.”
“Did you activate your beacon ?”
He let out a laugh at that, “Jesus Lightning, do you think it’s my first day in the navy or something ?”
His arrogance rubbed you the wrong way, like it always did.
“It might as well be !” You snapped a little, “I mean what the fuck was that, Seresin ? Ejecting at low altitude could have gotten you fucking killed ! But let me guess, you thought that the great Hangman would be able to undo an unrecoverable spin ?!”
Jake watched your hissed rant with raised eyebrows, and despite yourself you noticed how strangely pale he looked.
“Careful,” he cooed, seeming all too satisfied by what he chose to be worry over him and not pure infuriation over a stupid and downright unprofessional behavior, “your soft spot for me is showing, but don’t worry I won’t tell the squad, I know how you like to keep your feelings secret.”
You scoffed, shaking your head, “I still don’t know how you haven’t got suspended for all the shit you pull,” you said, choosing to entirely disregard his take on how you allegedly felt for him.
“I’m too good,” he grinned, and your heart did something weird in your chest when you noticed his smile looked weirdly strained, forced. The pitt in your stomach felt like it was getting deeper, clawing away at your insides, a discomfort that only grew stronger the longer you stared at Jake, “they can’t afford to put their best pilot on the bench.”
Letting out an exasperated sigh, which Jake keened at, annoying you apparently being his second favorite thing behind flying, you began to get up.
“Let’s move in the middle of the clearing, so search and rescue will locate us better and it’ll be easier for them to land and come get us.”
“No.”
Dusting your flight suit once you were standing on your own two feet, you frowned down at Jake.
“The fuck you mean ‘no’ ?” You could feel yourself getting irrationally irritated, a familiar recurrence whenever you spent just more than a few minutes in Jake’s presence, you took a deep breath to try and swallow back the anger bubbling up in your throat, “I’m sick of your shit, Seresin. So stop being an asshole whose sole purpose is to disagree with me for a second and do what I say.”
“Come on, don’t be so mean Lightning.” He tried to joke, but the usual glint in his eyes was missing, he took in a labored breath, “besides moving is not gonna change a thing for search and rescue, don’t worry.”
Stopping for a moment, you got a good look at him. He was acting weird. He hadn’t so much as moved an inch ever since you had found him, he was just sitting there, his stupid helmet sitting on his lap covering a good chunk of his side with one of his hand seemingly under it.
“Why is your helmet on your lap ?”
“Why not ?”
You let out an incredulous laugh at that, “seriously, what is going on ? You’re being super weird it’s kinda starting to freak me out.”
Jake seemed to freeze, if only for a second.
“I’m not acting weird, you’re the one freaking out over nothing and asking weird ass questions. Just sit down and wait for search and rescue.”
But you stayed right where you were, towering over him — which didn’t happen often — and stared down at him, crossing your arms stubbornly.
“I—“ he started, before wincing almost imperceptibly, “I got a bruise, that’s all. Hurt myself when I landed.”
“And what, you’re telling that it’s the bruise making you act like that ?” You let out disbelieving scoff, “I mean are you hearing yourself ? You sound insane ! I don’t know about a bruise but you definitely hit your head when you landed, that’s why you’re saying weird shit.”
Jake didn’t answer, he just stared right ahead, past your standing frame, a far away look in his eyes. Worry began to seep into the hollowing hole in your stomach, maybe he had actually hit his head and he had commotion ? Or worse, what if he had brain damage or internal bleeding or something ? Just the thought made you shiver in horror. If he was truly hurt, it was best not to move him. You eyed him intensely, as if you could somehow get a look inside of his head to make sure he was okay.
You watched as he readjusted himself against the tree with a groan, the movement making his helmet roll right of his lap, revealing his second hand, very obviously pressing down hard on his side.
“Mmh, applying pressure on a bruise,” You mused, squinting your eyes at him in sarcastic fashion, “is this a new technique I haven’t heard about ? Did you attend a new medical seminar I wasn’t invited to ?”
“Will you just stop talking for two minutes, please ?” He asked, voice breathy.
“I mean, shit, honestly I never pictured you as a masochist, you were always more of a sadist type in my mind.“
That finally made him look back at you and you promptly ignored the slight and short lived feeling of relief it gave you. A grin made its way back on his lips, it was strained but it successfully illuminated his face, for a moment giving it the flair it usually held.
“Glad to know this is something you have clearly thought about,” he huffed out, “if you were so curious you should have just come to me my dear Lightning, you know I’d be more than happy to prove your theories.”
Seeing him joke and tease you like that eased your discomfort, and you turned around, pretending to look at your surroundings while you were hiding the small, incontrollable smile pulling at your lips.
“I mean this place seems pretty quiet, I guess we could give a go to outdoor sex if you’re open to it.” His smug voice said behind you.
“Okay shut up now.” You chuckled despite yourself, keeping your back to him to not give him the idea you were happy to see his quick wit was back.
Your eyes took in the forest that spread out in front of you, the cool wind coming from the clearing behind offering you some relief from the sweat clinging to your uniform. It honestly looked beautiful.
Just as you were about to turn back around, your eyes landed on a random piece of wood lying on the ground and—
You froze.
Whole body becoming rigid, the hair on your nape standing up, nervous system kicking in your flight or fight reflex for the second time in an alarmingly short time span.
The piece of wood was long and wide, chips coming off it, and the end of it was covered in a deep and thick crimson liquid.
No, no, no no no—
Your breath hitched in a pathetic choked up sound, one that held every bit of the terror paralyzing your body. Your stomach churned violently.
Behind you, Jake, alarmed by the sound coming from you, anxiously followed your line of sight, and he cursed under his breath when his eyes landed on the piece of wood.
“Lightning, look at me.”
But you couldn’t move. Your gaze was still fixed on the blood dripping from the piece of wood, staining the forest ground and painting it in that fateful color. Jake’s voice barely registered in your ears, it felt like a distant echo, drowned out by your own heart beating loudly and frenetically in your ears.
“Y/N.” His voice called out again, uncharacteristically gentle, and calm despite the situation, “look at me.”
And you don’t know why, but something in you instinctively listened to him this time. Slowly turning back around, your legs were shaky and threatening to give out at any time. When you were facing him again, your heart lurched, because your eyes didn’t immediately settled on his face, instead landing on the hand that was desperately applying pressure on his side. That same hand that was now stained in blood, the thick liquid coming through the gasps between his fingers. And now that you were looking, the fabric of his flight suit underneath his hand was ripped, letting you catch a glimpse of a deep hole into Jake’s flesh, one that was profusely leaking blood.
Funnily enough, your own blood drained from your face so fast it almost made you dizzy, and a horribly frightened sob left your lips. You didn’t remember your legs giving out but suddenly you were on your knees again, next to Jake.
“Don’t look at it, look at me.” Jake said again, his voice somehow breaking through the terror fog holding your brain hostage.
Your breath was coming out ragged as your eyes finally found his, bright green irises that held nothing but an eerily calmness in them.
“It’s okay, don’t look at it, just focus on me, everything will be alright.”
“What the fuck, Jake ?!” You exploded once it seemed your vocal chords were not entirely frozen by fear anymore, “what— “ you choked up on a sob and only then did you realize the ocean of tears dripping down your cheeks, “what happened ?! Oh my god—“ you felt a sudden wave of dizziness hit you as your eyes quickly darted back over to his wound, like despite the bone chilling fear you were still attracted to it like a magnet.
“It’s nothing, I told you I got hurt when I landed.”
“You told me it was a bruise !” The end of your sentence ended in a desperate cry, your hands were shaking on your lap, chest heaving furiously with each frenetic breath you took.
“It’s barely a scratch,” he assured, and the soothing tone in his voice did not have the intended effect, only drowning you further in panic.
How the fuck was he so calm right now ?
You could feel your chest contract, and suddenly it felt impossible to take a full breath, it felt as if your lungs were somehow too small, sheer panic was settling deep inside your bones with no apparent prospect of leaving.
“Lightning, don’t freak out, it’s gonna be okay, everything is fine.”
There were so many thoughts swirling in your head. The protocol for when someone got hurt during a mission, the knowledge that Jake was bleeding out in this fucking clearing while acting like everything was fine, the black dots obstructing your vision…
“Just take a deep breath for me, yeah ?” Jake’s calm voice reached your ears, “turn around if you want, you don’t have to be near me. You can even wait in the clearing for the helicopter.”
The fact that was he straight up proposing you abandon him so you didn’t have to endure the sight of him bleeding out broke your heart and only worsened your sobs.
“Y/N, it’s okay. You’re okay, everything is fine, I promise,” he soothed again, his voice never wavering no matter how much in pain he must’ve been in.
You took a deep breath that did little to calm you down, but it at least cleared your thoughts a little.
This wasn’t right. Jake wasn’t supposed to be the one reassuring you right now, he was fucking bleeding out for God’s sake ! You were a fighter pilot, amongst the best in this entire world. You had been trained for this and you’d be damned if a little blood was blocking you from doing your job and saving your squad mate.
“Move your hand,” you said in a shaky breath, definitely not as assertive as you had intended, your eyes fixed on him.
“What—?”
You didn’t give him the time to comprehend, instead blindly removing his hand from his side and putting both of yours, and pressing down, hard. He winced, letting out a pained groan and you ignored the pinch in your heart.
For the first time ever since you found him, he seemed to be the one panicking.
“No, hey, hey hey what are you doing ?”
“I’m helping you,” you supplied, with tears still raining down your cheeks, “this is the protocol. And besides you weren’t putting enough pressure on it.”
You squeezed your eyes closed as Jake’s blood started to push back against your hands, the warm liquid trying to spill through your hands as you desperately tried to keep it there. The sensation made you shiver in pure horror and disgust.
“Hey, Y/N, I don’t want you to freak out on me, yeah ?” His hand, the one that wasn’t stained in blood, hovered over your shoulder, unsure if he should touch you in your emotional state.
Your eyes remained closed, trying to focus on anything else rather than Jake literally bleeding out beneath the palm of your hands. The wind brushing your face and the sound the trees made swaying lightly because of it, birds chirping in the distance, the grain of Jake’s strained voice…
“Why didn’t say anything ?” You asked, your voice coming out as a shaky whisper.
When his answer didn’t come fast enough, your eyes snapped open, scared that he might have lost consciousness, but Jake was just staring at you, the faintest of smile pulling at his lips.
“Is that a serious question ?” He laughed a little, wincing when his chest shook a bit from the force of it, “no offense, Lightning, truly, but I don’t know if I would have been able to handle you fainting in my state.”
‘My state.’ You didn’t like that, didn’t like that one bit. His face was paler than you’d ever seen it, his natural Texan tan nowhere to be seen. His green eyes were missing their usual brightness and the underside were horribly dark and sunken.
You were about to say something, probably tell him to shut up, when blood suddenly came rushing out of his nose.
“Shit—“ he cursed before rapidly putting a hand over his nose, frantically wiping at the blood that just kept on coming out. “Don’t look, it’s okay.”
Your heart was beating so fast and hard against your rib cage it was borderline painful. This couldn’t be good.
“Y/N, please don’t look.” Jake’s voice sounded almost pleading now as he was desperately rubbing the blood away and keeping his hand in front of his nose, making him sound nasally.
Blood.
There was just so much of it. Never in your life had you seen so much of the dreadful crimson liquid, and you honestly didn’t know if you were more likely to throw up or faint at this point.
And lingering at the back of your mind, came another whisper of your mind, one that was progressively and terrifyingly becoming louder and louder, overtaking all your senses. There was a lot of blood, yes, and Jake was the one losing it.
Jake was bleeding out, alarmingly fast, out in the middle of nowhere while the only thing you could do to help him was just keep your hands on his gaping injury and prayed that search and rescue would hurry the fuck up.
“Look away, sweetheart, please.” He said again, tilting his head back lightly, as much as he could really, in an attempt to stop the blood from leaving his nose.
But not looking was not gonna change a thing anymore. Because somewhere along the lines, the fear had shifted. Blood still very much terrified you, no doubt, but right now you were covered in it, and yet, you weren’t dead, you hadn’t fainted and the world was still spinning.
And still, something was very, very wrong.
Jake’s nose bleed seemed to have calmed down, he finally put his hand away, which was bright red, and stared at you.
“You know, you are doing much better than I thought you would,” he praised, and given the situation it absolutely shouldn’t have made your stomach flip, “look at you, could it be that the great Lightning has finally conquered her fear ?” He grinned.
You didn’t know if you should be happy he was joking again or not. Your hands had begun shaking again where they were pressing against his bloody side, you still couldn’t bear to take a look at it but you knew by the way it was still profusely leaking blood against your hands, and by how big the piece of wood looked a few centimeters away from you that his injury must have been deep, way too deep.
Very unaware of your internal breakdown, Jake just kept on talking.
“I didn’t even know it was possible to overcome a phobia as deep as yours, but hey, I guess there’s no stopping you, huh ?”
“Stop talking,” you said, trying to hold in a fresh wave of sobs, unwanted images of him lying dead in your arms kept flashing through your mind.
What the actual fuck was search and rescue doing ? It wasn’t like you were on the other half of the fucking planet, you weren’t even on the other half of the country !
Jake didn’t pay any mind to your order.
“At least crashing was good for something in the end.”
Him saying that while literally bleeding out was physically tearing your heart apart.
“Shut up.” You said through clenched teeth.
“Hey I just thought about something, if I die out here you’ll become the best pilot in the squad, perhaps I should be worried this was your plan all along—“
“Shut up ! Shut up, shut up !” You snapped, eyes wide and staring straight at him with a mix of despair and fear, “stop fucking talking about dying ! It’s not funny, and for fuck’s sake stop wasting your breath saying useless shit, just shut up !”
Tears were freely raining down your cheeks now, and you didn’t know how it was possible you still had any left to cry.
Jake was stunned for a second by your outburst, he just stared at your for a moment before his expression broke into something undeniably soft and gentle, his features morphing into something you’d use to approach a frightened animal.
“Hey, hey, I’m sorry, that was a joke.”
You didn’t think you had ever heard Jake apologize in all the time you’d known him.
“Well it’s not funny !” Your bottom lip quivered, another pathetic sob threatening to break out.
“I know, I’m an idiot,” he said, “you’re right, that wasn’t funny.” His voice was low, acting like a soothing balm on your own open wound, the one ripping your heart apart at seeing him like that.
His hand that had been awkwardly hovering off and on above your shoulder finally made contact, squeezing you lightly. And his touch completely finished to break your heart. You burst out in a very inelegant sob, you couldn’t even see through the tears clouding your vision. It was the inevitable consequence of enduring all the events of the day, the mission going to shit, the ejection, the crash, the blood, Jake…
“I don’t want you to die,” you cried out, completely exhausted and at the end of your rope, “so stop saying that.”
“I’m not gonna die, sweetheart,” his thumb rubbed gentle back and forth on your clothed shoulder, occasionally squeezing it.
“But you’re b—“ a hiccup interrupted you, “you’re bleeding out !” The word alone burned on your tongue.
You heard the sound of a zipper opening, trying to blink the tears away you saw Jake open the top of his flight suit before his blood stained hand, the one that wasn’t on your shoulder, came down to take one of yours that was still pressing on his open wound.
“No, no, no Jake— you need pressure—“ you tried to say when he took your hand away, guiding it to his chest.
“It’s okay, honey,” he soothed, “just don’t look down, remember ?” he added when your eyes almost darted down to both of your bloodied hands.
Jake, while maintenant eye contact with you, his green eyes holding an almost tender glint, guided your hand up to his chest, right over his heart.
“You feel that ?” He asked, voice slightly hoarse due to the effort and the pain, but never ever losing its gentle edge.
And sure enough, underneath your palm, was the steady beat of Jake’s heart. A calm and rhythmic thump-thump that didn’t waiver and the rational part of your mind wondered how he could stay so calm under such circumstances, and it probably should have worried you a bit, but the irrational part of your brain, the one that had been running on fumes ever since you spotted the first speck of blood, seemed to finally quiet down a bit.
You let out a breath you didn’t even know you had been holding all this time.
“Yeah, that’s it, see ? I’m okay, it’ll be fine.” His hand was placed right on top of yours, his warmth seeping into your skin and radiating in your entire body.
Your fingers flexed a bit against his clothed chest, a sudden urge to feel more of him, make sure that his words were real, that he was truly gonna be fine, shook you. Jake gave you a reassuring smile and between the tears that still blurred your vision, you took the time to look at him. His blond hair was disheveled and darken by dirt, his jade green eyes held an immense tiredness to them but the tender glint in them, directed towards you, never ever left. There was some dried blood just underneath his nose, and a bit of it also on his lips, that still held that little reassuring smile. His whole face was livid, as pale as a ghost and the visual stripped him of his usual Hangman bravado. Objectively, he wasn’t looking good right now, he looked sick. But somehow, to you, he still did, looked good. There was something so vulnerable and tender about him right now, something that was slowly stitching back together the pieces of your heart Jake had himself, involuntarily, broken.
But being yourself, there was no way you’d be able to properly express the overwhelming whirlwind of emotion taking your body hostage, so instead—
“You look like shit,” you said, sniffling.
Jake let out a chuckle, the sound alone warming you from the inside out.
“Yeah, well, you don’t exactly look like you could run a marathon either, sweetheart.”
That made you laugh. You didn’t even want to think about what you must looked like right now, blotchy and red eyes from the tears, cheeks stained with the salty liquid, hair wild from the ejection… But you didn’t see any disgust or reject in his gaze. Only fondness.
Suddenly feeling bashful under his stare, you made a move to look down but before you could, Jake’s hand that was on your shoulder moved quickly, surprisingly so for someone that injured, catching your chin with two of his fingers, preventing you from looking down at the bloodied mess on which you still kept a firm pressure with your free hand. Instead, he made sure your gaze stayed right on him. This quiet gesture that so blatantly showed how much he cared about how you felt, which definitely felt ridiculous next to his predicament, just sent a sudden rush of affection run through you.
Not knowing what to do of this overwhelming urge, but nonetheless needing to express it, to get it out, to show him, your body acted on its own. Your hand still on his heart, you leaned in and gently placed your lips on his forehead, hoping the soft press would somehow convey every bit of what you were feeling. You stayed perhaps a bit too long for a conventional forehead kiss. Almost imperceptibly, you felt his heartbeat quicken under your hand, the realization making a warmth akin to the first summer rays spread out in your body. When you pulled back, there was a flash of something unreadable in Jake’s eyes.
“You’ll be okay,” you said with a tiny smile, lips wet from your tears and voice hoarse from your sobs.
And truly you said it more for yourself than him.
Jake reciprocated your smile and squeezed your hand, “you’re so brave, Y/N.” He said, full of admiration, and just a tiny bit choked up.
Before you could add anything, tell him how ridiculous it was for him to say that while he had to step up and be the rock for the both of you while he was on the verge of dying, the faint and distant sound of propellers could be heard coming from over the clearing. And just seconds later, the search and rescue helicopter came into view.
The biggest sigh of relief left your lips, you felt the tension slowly leave your body. You, not without regrets, retracted the hand that was on his chest to put it back on his wound, the added pressure made him groan.
“Sorry, sorry, I know,” you said, “it’s almost over, Jake, we’re almost out.”
He smiled at you, and you tried to ignore the ridiculousness of you trying to comfort him at the last minute, while he had spent the entire time trying to calm you down.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
The helicopter landed in the clearing, as close to you and Jake as possible, and seconds after six people from search and rescue came rushing towards you. They carefully hosted up Jake on a stretcher and up in the helicopter, all the while your hands never left him.
“Alright, Y/N, you can stop now, he’ll be fine, we’re gonna clean and bandage him up,” Martin, the main medic, told you just as the helicopter was taking off to the air.
But you hesitated. With the stress and emotion, the time you had spent out there in the clearing had felt like an eternity, and it felt scary to let go of him now, even though you knew it was to leave him in better hands. While deep in your thoughts, you didn’t register Jake asking for a cloth, it was only when you felt his hand land on top of yours that you got out of your anxious trance.
“Everything’s fine now, remember ?” He said gently as his eyes bore into yours, “they are gonna take good care of me, you can let go.”
His hands very gently took yours off his side, cleaning them with the cloth all the while keeping eye contact with you.
“But I don’t wanna leave you,” you said in a breath.
It was a strange feeling, to feel so open and raw emotionally, a state that had been forcefully provoked by the unfortunate events of the day.
“You’re not leaving me, you’ll stay by my side, right ?”
He let out a small, fond chuckle when you nodded almost solemnly.
“Nobody’s making you leave, baby.” He said, tossing the cloth away after wiping your hands clean of his blood.
“Jake ?” Martin grabbed both your attention, “we’re gonna put you under,” he explains, showing off an oxygen mask, “we’re gonna start patching you up while on the way to the base’s hospital.”
Jake nodded before looking at you.
“You gonna kiss me goodnight ?” He asked, his characteristic smirk making a return on his face.
Wordlessly, and perhaps a bit too happy by him prompting it, you leaned in, placing your lips in a delicate kiss on his forehead, one hand coming up to cup his face. You heard him let out a little breath as you pulled away and placed another lingering kiss on his cheek.
“Sleep tight.” You smiled as a tear rolled down your face, not out of fear or sadness but simply out of feeling too much in such a short amount of time, and you quickly wiped it away.
Martin put the mask on Jake’s face.
“Alright Lieutenant, take a few deep breaths for me.”
Doing as he was told, Jake was looking at you with furrowed brows.
“Hey, don’t cry,” he lazily protested, voice already slurred from the anesthesia kicking in.
“I’m not crying,” you assured, a genuine smile stretching your face, “it’s fine, go to sleep, Hangman.”
“I prefer when you call me ‘Jake’.” He whined.
Yeah, he’d be gone any minute now.
You chuckled, “sorry, Jake.”
“That’s better,” his eyes fluttered closed and opened again, clearly fighting the anesthesia, “and when I wake up you can find out.”
“Find out what ?”
“You know…” he trailed off, his eyes closing entirely now, “if— if I’m a masochist or not…”
You burst out laughing, and even in his dazed and near coma induced state, Jake smiled at the sound.
“We’ll see about that, cowboy,” you said when your laughter died down a bit.
And just like that, he was out.
Looking at him just a second longer, feeling your heart settle down at knowing he wouldn’t feel any pain and would be taken care of, you moved away from him, letting the team of medics do their job. Martin kneeled beside Jake and began to cut his flight suit open around his wound. Removing the fabric, about to reveal just how bad the injury was, he paused and turned to you.
“You’re not afraid of blood, are you ?”
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Author’s note : I have mixed feelings about this fic, the idea had been in my head for soooo long and I fear I failed the execution of it, but oh well, I hope it was still good for you !
I’m gonna repeat myself but I do not have a phobia of blood at all so if the way I wrote reader’s reaction seems unrealistic I’m really sorry, please do let me know if it’s so unrealistic that it stops being enjoyable to read, I’ll try to change it if that’s the case
Also if you’ve read my others fics Saltwater Monster and 8-pool meltdown you might notice a pattern, that I desperately need to be comforted by Jake, and those fics are my most popular ones so I’d say we’re all in this together !💞
Finally (god sorry I’m talking a lot) a huge thank you to @berrybigpossibilities who agreed to read the first part of the fic when I was feeling really down about it and gave me their opinion, it helped a lot to finish it so thank you again !🫶
thank you so much @starburstbarnes for tagging me, it’s a really fun tag !!
rules : if tagged, copy the questions into a new post and let us know your answers !
—————————————————————————
- When did you start writing ?
I started writing when I was 11 ! And I actually started with a fanfic, that was only meant for myself because it was (and i wish I was joking) a handwritten fic of 170 pages (I never even finished it) where I just included myself in the Harry Potter world and I made Harry fall in love with me, so yeah, I started with that.
- What fic do you wish could get a little more love ?
I would say Home Sweet Home, it was my very first Bradley fic, I spent a lot of time on it and I was just a tiny bit disappointed when it didn’t really get a lot of engagement, but reflecting back I understand that it might be a bit of a boring prompt. But still, I personally am still quite fond of this fic ! :)
- First famous or fictional crush ?
Definitely Dylan O’Brien in the maze runner ! I watched the first two movies when I was quite young, like under 10 years old and my god was I smitten !! Seeing him on screen for the first time genuinely felt like some sort of revelation
- How open are you to people irl about writing fics ?
Not open at all lol !! Literally no one, and I truly mean no one, not even my best friend knows that I write and post fics. I firmly believe that fanfictions (or at least my fics) reveal so much about the person writing them, so sharing fics anonymously is fine because well you guys don’t know me personally but just the thought of my friends, who know me, reading my fics ? Yeah it makes me cringe sooo bad ! And I quite like to have this thing just for myself :)
- What is a mundane fact about you ?
I don’t really know if this is mundane and fit the question but I used to write Teen Wolf x readers when I was 12 on wattpad, and I was actually quite big in the French teen wolf community, like my book of imagines had 12k views and that was crazyyyy for me, especially for a French book because usually French fandoms are not the most active on stuff like that, English will always get a wilder audience, so yeah :)
Thanks again to @starburstbarnes for tagging me, it was really fun !!!
No pressure tags :) : @timerainocean @teacupsandtopgun @livthelazywriter
“What do you get out of this ? I mean… does that even feel good for you ?” You question Natasha as she secures the harness on her hips.
Looking down at you, her lips quirk up in a smile, one hand coming to rub your thigh affectionately.
“I get to see you cry on my cock, and that alone feels fucking great for me, sweetheart.”
The way she was referring to the plastic dildo in between her legs as hers had your stomach, and something way lower, flutter desperately.
“Also, the front of the harness is rubbing on my clit, but that’s just an added bonus,” she winks at you.
She nudges the tip of her strap at your entrance. Natasha had spent one long hour thoroughly preparing you to take her and the need was burning hotter than ever. Your hips buck lightly, trying to take more of her.
“Be patient, baby,” she soothes, a hand rubbing your hip tenderly, “I don’t wanna hurt you.”
“You’re not gonna hurt me,” you said, growing even more restless with the way Natasha was rubbing the tip of her strap on your puffy clit, “please just put it in.”
She flashes a cocky smirk at you before slowly pushing inside of you. You frown a bit at the stretch but the strain quickly turns into pleasure when Natasha buries herself to the hilt, her hips flush against yours. She stays still for a minute, allowing you to get accustomed to the size.
“How does it feel ?” She asks, her voice all breathy from the sight of you full of her.
Your walls flutter around the strap, “good, really good…” you exhale shakily, “it’s a good length, I’m glad we chose that one.”
Natasha’s hips begin to slowly grind against yours, not even thrusting yet, just a languid roll that has you moaning out in pure delight, your hips bucking up to meet hers.
“Nat, more,” you pout, the desire, the need, for her to fuck into you is getting stronger and more desperate every second she refuses to give into you.
She leans in, licking over your bottom lip, “yeah ? You need me to pound into you, baby ? Need me to fuck you hard and deep ?”
All you can do is nod desperately as she finally gives you what you want. Natasha is almost completely lying on top of you as her hips hit yours with a force you didn’t know she was capable of, her breasts move in tandem with yours, your nipples rubbing against each other with every thrust.
“Oh fuck, you feel so good, fucking me so good !” You cry out as the tip of her dildo hit that spot deep inside of you that makes you see stars.
She is almost putting you in a mating press with the way she is positioned above you, she feels so fucking deep inside of you, and you feel so so full of her, the sensation is setting your insides on fire.
Her head is in the crook of your neck, plastering open mouthed and wet kisses on the thin skin.
“You like that, baby ? Like how deep I am inside of you ?” One of her hand leaves your hips to snake its way on your lower stomach and she presses slightly, making you moan out, “I’m right here, you feel me sweet thing ?”
“Yes, yes yes yes,” you chant, half delirious on pleasure.
She leaves the confines of your neck, straightening back up, taking one of your hands with her. Her eyes are boring into yours as she takes your middle and ring fingers in her mouth, her tongue circling them and coating them in her spit.
“Touch yourself for me, pretty girl. Make that clit feel good while I fuck you.”
Your pussy clenches hard at her words and the obscene show she is putting on for you as your body obeys her on its own. Your slick fingers leave her mouth and trace down her body, squeezing one of her nipples on the way down before arriving at your messy cunt. Your neglected clit twitches hard when your hand finally makes contact, rubbing quick circles on it, your moans only become louder and louder.
“Fuck, Nat, ‘m so close, I’m gonna cum so fucking hard…”
Your pussy flutters desperately around Natasha as she smirks above you, keeping the delicious pace that’s slowly bringing you to your high.
“Do you feel good ?” You asked in between whimpers, “does that feel good for you ? Please Nat…”
“Awww, my sweet angel,” she coos squeezing your breasts affectionately, “yes it does, it feels so good watching you take my cock like a good girl.”
Her words spur you on, the fingers on your clit picking up the pace.
“That’s it, baby, cum for me, rub that pretty clit.” Her words are punctuated with those heavenly hard thrusts that fill you to the brim every time.
And before you know it, your pussy clenches down hard on the strap, practically locking Natasha in place as you ride out your high. Your back arches, tits pushing out into her hands as violent tremors shake your body. An obscene amount of slick is being pushed out of you, forming a white ring at the base of Natasha’s strap.
When you come back down, Natasha is still in you, rubbing your thighs appreciatively.
“You did so good, sweetheart, took me so well, I’m proud of you.”
Your stomach flips at the praise.
“Was it… good for you ? Did you cum, I mean ?” You question, out of breath and feeling a bit sheepish under her prying gaze.
A grin pulls at her pretty pink lips, “I did, it felt so good to fuck you like that, baby.”
Her words have you clench helplessly around the strap.
“Well… you must be pretty messy under that then, no ?” You point to the harness sitting on her hips.
Her eyes flick to you with a predatory glint.
“What do you say about me cleaning you up ?” You ask, your hands coming up to move the strap out of you and slowly take the harness off her, revealing her slick folds and puffy clit from rubbing against the material.
She smirks as she watches you trail kisses down her body, all the way to the place she needs you the most.
“I’d say you you better get to work, baby.”
Author's note : Currently struggling to finish my Jake fic so please accept this Natasha Drabble as an apology.
I have so many more Drabble ideas for her and they are all smut😭 need her so bad😔
As always, sorry if the smut is bad, I never had sex with a woman.
