Wishing Star (Jake & Sean)
Title: Wishing Star Story: Endless Summer Pair(s): Jake McKenzie x Sean Gayle (bromance), Jake x MC (romance), Sean x MC (romance) Word Count: 776 Prompt: “Some souls just understand each other upon meeting.”
Summary: Jake doesn’t like Sean, Sean doesn’t like Jake. But they have something in common that they both like a lot... Well, more like someone.
This is my submission for this week’s #ChoicesCreates, hosted by @hollyashton and @pixelchoices. Not exactly a romance fic as I’d planned originally but here we are!
Some souls just understand each other upon meeting. Some... don’t.
“Don’t think I invited you to join me, Cap,” came a familiar drawl as Sean slipped out through the back of the hotel. He closed the sliding door behind him and glanced around, eyes eventually settling on a dark form swaying casually between two palm trees. With a huff of laughter, Sean approached the hammock, hooking his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans.
“And you have authority over the pool?” Sean asked, standing over Jake as he cradled an open bottle to his chest, one arm tucked beneath his head. The long-haired man raised an eyebrow, a languid smirk spreading over his lips.
“Touché,” Jake said after a moment, chuckling under his breath as he looked away, back towards the sky, and took a gulp of whiskey. Sean snickered, snatching the bottle from his hand the second it left his lips. At first, Jake jumped up and moved as if to grab it back, until he saw the quarterback downing the contents himself. “Well, what do you know.”
Sean swallowed, wincing against the burn on his tongue, and coughed as the liquor slipped down his throat. “Thought you’d be hovering around MC.”
Jake sat up in the hammock, feet resting on the ground as he faced the boy. Sandy locks fell across his face without order, and absentmindedly he pushed them back with his fingers. “Thought you’d be doing the same. Decided I wouldn’t get in the way.”
With a slow nod, Sean bumped Jake’s leg with the base of the bottle before sitting beside him on the hammock. In the distance they could hear various bugs and animal calls... none of which sounded like anything they’d known from their lives before. The ancient stars overhead shone brighter than ever, as if to remind them that this island was a place outside of reality all together, and Sean stared up at them with conflicted emotions running behind his eyes. “We never really noticed each other before we ended up here. MC and I.”
Jake moved to reclaim the whiskey, intentionally bumping Sean’s shoulder with his own, but Sean moved it out of reach and he gave up. “Your loss.”
The football player gave a dry laugh, and a smile that didn’t really reach his eyes. “Yeah... No kidding.”
Jake studied him, deep blue eyes narrowing, analyzing. Sean shifted uncomfortably, going for another drink. “You in love, Rogers?”
He choked at the words, whiskey nearly coming out of his nose. He forced it down and coughed, eyes watering, before staring at the man beside him with something between shock and anger. Shock that he’d ask such a thing, anger that he’d chosen to ask such a thing at that exact moment. “I-I don’t know? No? Maybe? Are you?”
Jake hummed, plucking the bottle from his hand with delicate fingers and taking a gentle sip. With a sigh, he put the whiskey on the ground nearby, clasping his hands between his knees and watching the sky. “Starting to be.”
Before Sean could reply, Jake suddenly shot his hand out, pointing towards something above them. “Wishing star.” He just barely saw the tendrils of the shooting star as it vanished into space. Without even thinking, the thought crossed his mind: I wish—
“For MC to be happy.” Sean was startled as Jake spoke, but not shocked, and as the pilot looked over at him he smiled just a bit. “That’s what you wished for too, ain’t it, QB?”
Sean nodded. “MC deserves it... Maybe more than any of us.”
“Definitely more than any of us,” Jake laughed, shaking his head and grinning up at the heavens, light catching in his eyes. He bit his bottom lip, lost in thought, and just as Sean was about to get up and leave he snapped out of it. “That wish would probably be a little closer to reality if we weren’t jackasses to each other all the time.”
“Probably.” The boy sat fully again, joining Jake in watching the night. For MC, he thought somewhere in the back of his mind. “Truce?”
Jake didn’t even look at him. “Truce.” And with that they remained there, watching the impossible constellations above their heads, in comfortable silence, finishing off the last of the whiskey.
Some souls really do understand each other upon meeting, but not all of them. And those are the souls that bend, that compromise, that work together. And those are often the ones that belong to the strongest people.