Flyboy (Part 1) | Jake Seresin x Reader
Top Gun: Maverick - Jake Seresin x Reader
Genre: romance; fluff; angst; best friends to lovers
Warnings: general hangman being hangman; sexual tension; general cursing; will contain mentions of a break up / previous relationship; general use of pet names; fem!reader; pining; general naval / flying inaccuracies.
Length: Mini-series, chaptered - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Epilogue
Summary: Jake gets called back to TOPGUN the same time you’ve been granted a sabbatical from work. He invites you, his purely platonic best friend of years, to live with him for 6 months and you accept. Just two best friends kicking it back for 6 months in San Diego, Fightertown USA, right?
Flyboy | Mini-Series Masterlist
(If you haven’t already seen them - blurbs and asks (one-shots coming soon) are also listed on the Flyboy masterlist!)
A/N: I know, the pacing for this is a bit slow, but I felt a little scene setting was necessary, we’ll get faster with pacing I promise.
You had sent the text off without much thought before chucking your personal phone onto the corner of your desk. It was just a part of the usual routine you had with Jake where you each shot off the regular text update amidst each of your own busy lives, you with corporate America and he with the VFA-151 Vigilantes, the name of the squadron being something you remembered because he had made you memorise it the day he had been assigned.
“Yeah Jane?” You pick up the handset of your desk phone, silencing it after the second ring, your hands dropping from the keyboard of your computer.
“Jake Seresin on the line for you, shall I patch him through?” You eyebrows shoot up slightly in surprise, as you lean back in your chair.
“Yeah go ahead. Thanks Jane.” The dial tone is brief, before the familiar drawl crackles over your line.
“Why are you calling me on my office line Seresin.”
“You weren’t answering your mobile,” a reach for and flip of your personal phone reveals he is right, “how long?”
“6 months.” You exhale out as your fingers tug at the phone cord, attempting to untangle a knot that had formed.
“Not yet, thought I would get to planning after it got approved.”
“How does a trip to San Diego sound?”
It had taken a total of two minutes for him to persuade you over the phone to come out with him to San Diego for 6 months, but you had let him think it had been fifteen minutes on the phone plus a day. He had explained to you that TOPGUN had called him, along with the entire batch of aviators from the uranium mission, back to help run a 6 month programme during which they would help out with training a new batch of recruits. He had told you that it was orders from the Admiral after the near disaster of a success they had with the uranium mission. You wouldn’t admit, but you had felt your shoulders sag with tension you hadn’t even known you had been holding once you had learned that his role at TOPGUN this round, was far less dangerous than the usual role he played when TOPGUN came knocking.
The summer heat greets you in full force as you exit the airport, your feet stepping through the automated double doors. You raise a hand to shield your eyes from the glare as you roll your suitcases forward, eyes searching for the familiar light brown, almost blonde head of hair.
“Darlin did you bring the whole of New York here?” His voice cuts through the heat, and you can’t help the smile that slips onto your face as you drop your hand from above your eyes to meet the shaded eyes of Jake Seresin. The last time you had seen him in the flesh had been 5 months ago when he had appeared at your door, bottle of tequila and greasy fast food in hand, after your update that you had broken up with Dan, your boyfriend of three years.
“Thought you weren’t going to show.” You joke as he reaches forward for you, tugging you into a hug. His hands engulfing your shoulders, folding you into his body with ease, your hands twisting themselves around his midsection, your cheek pressed into his chest.
“Missed me?” You can hear the rumble of his voice through his chest, as he teases you, but squeezes tighter.
“Not that much.” You counter, as you breathe in, taking in the familiar scent that is Jake.
You had met Jake in high school, long before he had become Jake “Hangman” Seresin. Jake had always been Jake, confident, hot-headed, and sure of himself, but Jake was also well, Jake - your version of Jake, sweet, caring, and goofy. Your friendship had been an unlikely one, you the new transfer student who had moved during the middle of the school year, and Jake Seresin, the popular brown hair, almost blonde kid with the green eyes.
Your family had moved in next door to the Seresin household, and you, as an uprooted teenager, mad about having to move in the middle of the school year when you only had a year and a half more to go, had spent the late afternoons coming home from school pounding the pavement, running laps around the neighbourhood to take out your frustration. It was, as you had thought, better than sitting at home listening to your mother talk to you about “smiling more, trying to make friends, and make the best of the rest of high school”.
Jake had seen you running each afternoon since you had moved in. You didn’t look it, but you were fast, and getting faster. It had been a sweltering Thursday afternoon when he had laced up his running shoes, and fallen into step beside you as you whizzed past his house, on the third lap of your run around the neighbourhood. He hadn’t know what had possessed him, but he had to know if you were any faster than him. You remember throwing him the side eye, and picking up your pace, music pounding in your ears as you both ran laps around the neighbourhood, him matching your pace, and you keeping his.
You were both winded and drenched in sweat at the end of that run, with you ripping off your headphones to him introducing himself in between pants, with a “I’m Jake. You’re fast.”, and the rest well, the rest was history. You both had gone on to become inseparable throughout high school, even going on to graduate from the same college, before you went your separate ways, him to the Navy, and you falling into your life in corporate America. But you always kept in touch, him flying out to see you in New York, you to him, or both of you back home, when you had the time.
“Lying isn’t a good look for you.” He finally breaks away from you, smirk on his face as he takes over both your suitcases from you.
“I think this is a good look for me.” You reach over, plucking his aviators off his face with ease to slip them onto your face as he squints at the sudden glare of sunlight on his face, his hair - sans gel - flopping across his forehead.
“Not a chance.” He snorts as he tugs your suitcases along with ease, navigating both your way through the crowds and towards his truck where you bend, ready to hoist and load your luggage into the back of his truck, when he cuts in, hand over yours, halting you.
“These aren’t only for show you know.” He says as he flexes an arm in front of you, causing his bicep to bunch beneath the sleeve of his shirt.
“Ever the southern gentleman.” You drawl as you bat your lashes at him. You do it in jest, and he knows, but it still earns you a grin before he loads your suitcases onto his truck.
“Ready?” He asks you as you both shut yourselves into his truck.
“As I’ll ever be.” You nod as you buckle yourself into the seat, a nod of your head lining up with the click of the seatbelt into the clasp. “Fightertown USA, here we come.”
You keep your eyes trained on the road in front of you as you settle back into the seat, your gaze still shielded by the aviators you had earlier stolen. It causes you to miss the look on Jake’s expression before he pulls the car out of park. Soft, a mixture of peace, promise, yearning, excitement and wonderment. He manages to quickly wipe it off his face, replacing the look with his trademark smirk as you turn to glance at him for a second.
“It’s cute.” You say as you step through the threshold of the house, pushing Jake’s aviators to rest on the top of your head.
“It isn’t what you are used to.” He follows behind, your luggages in tow. “No shiny glass and sleek corners.”
“Everything I need a break from.” You say as you peer out of a window that offers you a view into the back of the house which boasts grass and a boundary of white picket fence.
“The rest have houses around too.” He closes the door behind him. “I’ll introduce you tonight.”
Bringing the group back as instructors for 6 months came with perks. The Navy had offered them each a choice of accommodation between staying in dorms on base, or in a Navy owned house situated in a closed off Navy gated community a 20 minute drive away from base, which was another 25 minutes away from town. Needless to say, they had all picked the house.
“Tonight?” You echo, as you dump your purse down on the sofa before collapsing back onto it. “I could have plans.”
The sofa sinks as Jake settles in, throwing himself onto the space beside you. He turns his head, cheek smushed against the back of the sofa as he looks at you, brow raised.
“Oh yeah?” You nod and he continues. “Got a hot date lined up that I don’t know about?”
You place a hand on your chest, pretend gasp coming out of your mouth.
“Are you doubting my pull Seresin?”
“No need to doubt darlin,” he pauses, “I’m not sure you even have pull.” He throws out and reaches forward to pluck his shades off the top of your head to place them on their rightful place, the top of his head.
“No pull?” You huff as you sit up to glare at him. “You aren’t the only only one with pull Seresin.” You roll your eyes as you reach out, to deliver a swat to his chest. “You’ll see, I’ll have muscled flyboy on my arm soon enough.”
You hand connects with hard muscle, and just as you are about to retract your arm, his hand is on yours, a warm palm engulfing your four fingers in a lazy hold.
“Tanned, nice body, flies a plane, you know. We are in Fightertown USA after all.” You let your hand, which is still against his chest, engulfed in his grip, sag. “You know, one of you, but not you.”
It is his turn to let his mouth drop open, fake gasp not dissimilar to yours earlier, falling from his lips.
“An imitation me? How dare you settle for less.”
His reaction makes you laugh, the sound which makes him smile. You attempt to pull your hand out of your his grip, only to be met with resistance as he holds it steady against his chest.
“What would the alternative be Jakey?” You play on his childhood nickname, something that you often called but him in a tone which was an eerily accurate copy of the one that only his mother used, emphasising the word as the name as it rolls of your tongue. It makes him groan, his nose wrinkling. He didn’t particularly enjoy the nickname - but always relented when it was you who used it, almost liked it even because it sounded right the way it rolled off your tongue. “You?” You ask jokingly, as your eyes narrow in effort as you continue to attempt to tug your hand out of his.
He lifts your hand off his chest, his grip fully wrapping around your fingers as he tugs both your hands sideways. It makes you lurch forward in surprise, your body stumbling forward from the sudden force, body crashing into his. He releases your hand, his hands steadying you by the waist as you stretch your hands out to find balance - one landing on shoulder, the other on his chest.
“What’s wrong with me?” He breathes out, his voice quiet. You take in his features, his hair, eyes, nose, lips, your face inches from him as your breath catches in your throat at the proximity.
“You’re - you’re..” you stammer, your voice barely a murmur as his body, hard and muscled beneath your hands, becomes painfully obvious, his hands on your waist, feeling as if they could burn through your top.
“You’re an asshole.” You manage to wrangle out, voice suddenly loud as you tear yourself away from him, using his body as leverage to push yourself off, twisting out of his grasp. He lets his hands fall away as you stumble to a straightened position, your face burning from the interaction.
“And that,” he winks, “is pull, both literally and figuratively.”
It makes you curse as you flip him off, before quickly spinning on your heel. You dart over to grab one of your suitcases before wheeling it down the short hallway towards the rooms, determined to find yours. His laughter rings out after you and you glorify it with a shout back of “asshole”, but you don’t fail to note, funnily enough, your heart pounding hard in your chest against your ribs.
“What if they all hate me.” You trudge towards The Hard Deck, your sandals crunching over a mixture of gravel and sand.
“Then we’ll ditch them. Boring bunch anyway.” He says dismissively, as he waves a hand in the air.
It makes you chuckle, because if the loud shouts and music coming from the bar a distance away was anything to go buy, boring was something you were sure they were most definitely not.
“Can’t have you ditching the friends you just mended fences with now can we.” You muse, clearly aware that the uranium mission had repaired and made Jake’s relationship with the group of pilots in the bar. It wasn’t hard for you to understand why he hadn’t been the most well liked by the group - Jake had a tendency to be cocky, not the best team player, something he took pride in projecting, but you knew that when push came to shove, when the situation called for it, he would never put himself before the team - something the others had come to realise with the last mission.
“S’alright, why also do you think I brought you along to San Diego?” He slings an arm around your shoulders and it takes all of you not to tense up, the memory from earlier in the day, the proximity of your face to his, and dare you say, the tension, ringing fresh in your mind. His skin is warm against your bare shoulders, the sundress you have on held up by two thin straps.
“I see you wanted me for a stand-in friend.” You hum as he pulls you against him, his laughter now something you can feel with your body against his.
“Got that much right, c’mon stand-in.” He drops his arm from your shoulders as he pulls open the door of The Hard Deck for you, gesturing you in.
As you had predicted, the aviators were most definitely not a boring bunch, and as Jake had predicted, they most certainly did not hate you. You were already informed of their names and call signs, thanks to Jake’s regular updates, and all it had taken was for you to match names and call signs to face, Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, Robert “Bob” Floyd, Reuben “Payback” Fitch, Mickey “Fanboy” Garcia, Javy “Coyote” Machado, Natasha “Pheonix” Trace, and Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.
They had welcomed you into the fold as one of their own easily, and even more so after Payback had declared that you were “sweet”, and “didn’t know how you put up with Hangman”. It earned you a round of cheers, and a shot shoved into your hand, which you happily threw down your throat along with the rest of them.
“Oh shut up Bagman.” Phoenix shouts from across the pool table, and it makes you snort with laughter as you echo her words.
“Yeah, Bagman, shut up.” Your echo earns you a hoot from Rooster, and cheers from the rest of the team. You grin, and Jake rolls his eyes, smile on his face.
“Wait till we get in the air Trace. We’ll see who is the one shutting up.” It earns him a boo from Phoenix and you take a swig of beer, shaking your head in amusement. Aviators - they were just like overgrown children when they were together.
“You’re rude Bagman.” You say to Jake as you put your bottle down, the rest of the group’s attention now on Rooster and Fanboy who decided to have an impromptu arm wrestling contest hosted by Maverick, their attention falling off you and Jake who are seated on bar stools, towards the side of the pool table.
“Jake.” He corrects as he looks down at you while casually leaning back against the wall behind him.
“I like Bagman.” You say and you see the small furrow that creases between his brows.
“Jake.” He asserts again and you move to take another swig of beer, only to find your bottle empty.
“You’re so bossy, Bagman.” You slide off your stool into a stand, your intention to retrieve another beer from the bar, when a hand encircles your waist, coming to rest on your front, pulling you into the space between his legs, your back connecting with his front his lips just millimeters away from your ear.
“It’s Jake to you.” His voice rumbles, deep, and you can feel his lips graze your earlobe as he speaks. It raises goosebumps on your flesh immediately and you can’t help the involuntary shudder that runs down your body. The hand that he has pressed against your midsection creates a pressure that goes straight down to your core.
“Jake.” You utter, struggling to keep your voice steady, and he releases you, allowing you to step out from in between his legs.
“Good girl.” He smirks, taking a swig of his own beer, acting as if nothing had happened. You pull on a scowl, to disguise the beating of your heart in your ears, and the thrumming in your core.
“I’m going to get another beer, Jake,” you emphasise his name on purpose, to which he only winks, “want anything?”
“I’m good, still gotta drive you home.”
The bartender, Penny, pops open a bottle before sliding it across the counter to you. You hand over your card, but she shakes her head.
“It’s on the house. Heard from Mav that you’ll be here the whole 6 months?”
“That’s me.” You hum as you offer her a smile of thanks.
“Penny.” She introduces herself, and you return the favour, introducing yourself back to her.
“I also hear you are here with Hangman.” She says, her eyes floating across your head over to Jake, whose gaze, unbeknownst to you, has been trained firmly on you since you walked away from him. “You two got a thing going on?”
Her ask makes the heat rise on your face, the two earlier incidents of the day floating to mind. Jake had always been flirty throughout your friendship, it was just in your character, but this time, something felt different. You shake your head, quickly and furiously, as if to dispel your own thoughts.
“We’re friends,” you assert, half for your own benefit, and half for hers, “been friends since high school.”
“I see.” She takes you in, her gaze kind, as she nods slowly in response. Penny doesn’t comment more, but chooses instead to offer you a warm smile. “Stop by more often will you? I get sick of being around these aviators all the time.”
It earns her a laugh from you, both of you looking to the group you had left as cheers erupt, with Maverick holding up Fanboy’s fist in the air.
“Well I guess we know who won the arm wrestle.” You mumble, and Penny chuckles, ending with a long suffering sigh.
