katiesharms

[katiesharms]

When I’m reading smut and the author breaks the flow of the story so that the characters can tell us that they have enthusiastic consent it feels exactly like when Dora the Explorer looks directly into the camera and says ‘Seat belts so we can be safe!’ anytime she gets into a motorized vehicle.

[katiesharms]

Wait are you really pro-ship?

back in my day we just called it minding your own business

[katiesharms]

i promise i am still writing prompts i just got crazy busy and now have covid 😭

[katiesharms]

65 (or march 6th) for @paulmezcal - love is a laserquest by arctic monkeys

i can't think of anything to dream about/i can't find anywhere to hide

it's weird to be haunted by someone who isn't dead.

bradley's well used to hauntings at this point in his life - his father looms over his career, his mother over his house. mav over his trust issues and most reckless tendencies. and jake over his heart.

he hasn't seen jake in years - 5 to be exact, almost to the day. since their leave ran out post mission and jake broke out of the daydream they had been in together, like he'd never even been there.

"this has been fun," jake had said, that same smirk he always has affixed to his face. "we should do it again some time."

and then he got in his car and drove off, leaving bradley in the parking lot, watching him, frozen in place. he's still there, in a way. it's weird, maybe concerning, how much everything reminds him of jake. the blanket across the back of the couch that they had laid down on the floor and fucked on top of the second they got home, adrenaline and relief taking them both to the edge in record time. the mug in the cabinet that jake dropped one morning when trying to prove he had the balance to be a waiter. the shampoo jake left that bradley started using, and kept buying even after it ran out.

it's not like he hasn't tried over the years. he's dated others, but it's all fallen away and all that's left is the stain on bradley's ceiling from the time jake opened the microwave and the butter exploded.

it's all pathetic. so pathetic that when he answers the door on a sunday afternoon, bradley almost doesn't believe it.

"jake," he says dumbly. maybe this is just another one of his daydreams.

"bradley," jake says back, more sure. always more sure. "you gonna invite me in?"

wordlessly, he steps aside to let jake come in. the man wastes no time getting comfortable, seemingly still acquainted with bradley's home after all this time. jake sits at the small table in the breakfast nook, so bradley sits across from him. he's struck with the memories of sharing their morning coffee here.

"what are you doing here, jake?" bradley asks when the other man is silent for a long time.

"i, uh, just got home from deployment," jake's not looking at bradley; instead, he's tracing his fingers over the wood grain of the table. "i got into my car and started driving south. didn't realize where i was going until i hit bakersfield."

it's not an answer, but bradley's too confused and too tired to fight. "and why did you come here?"

"i guess i was just thinking of you. it was just your birthday right? 40?"

bradley starts. he didn't know jake still kept those facts about him, stored away in some private file.

"yeah," he confirms. two weeks ago, he turned 40. the same age mom was when she was diagnosed.

"when i saw the date, i remembered how you used to look in the mirror sometimes, for so long i was afraid something had happened. and when i would ask you, you just told me you had to remind yourself that you're still here. i guess i was just wondering if you still had to do that. or if you've found something else to ground you."

for a long time, bradley thought jake would be that person. he almost was; by the end of there few months together, bradley's nights spent studying himself, picking out the differences and similarities to his parents, shrunk and shrunk. instead, he let jake kiss it out of him.

"not yet," bradley settles on as an answer and tries to decode the way jake's brows scrunch together, how his shoulders droop.

"i'm sorry. i know that's what you wanted."

it feels cruel, almost. that jake is sitting her and dangling what he refused to give bradley in his face.

"of course," jake continues, "you've never been very good at asking for what you want."

the truth of it burns, and bradley feels hot.

"what about you?" bradley volleys. "i remember distinctly feeling like this whole thing was some kind of game to you."

"it was," jake admits so easily that it shocks bradley, just for a moment. "i never felt like anything was real. i liked to move fast and not care about what i left behind."

"used to?" bradley echoes back carefully.

"yeah," jake confirms, looking deep into bradley's eyes. "used to."

"what changed?"

jake shrugs. "i think i finally feel my age. and i think i finally realized that i need to stop pretending you were just some lover, like all the rest."

bradley sucks in a sharp breath. "jake, you can't say that. not now."

jake's face crumples. "look, i know it's probably too late. but i'm sorry and i miss you and i want to try again. for real."

"what's changed?" bradley asks again, trying to quell the hope crawling up his throat.

"nothing. except for me. if that's enough."

bradley doesn't know if it is. but for now, it's good enough for him. he reaches across the table to loop their hands together and squeezes.

#top gun maverick #hangster #my writing #prompts #top gun fanfiction #hmmm that's enough

[katiesharms]

34 & 65, jakebradley, xo

(ignoring the fact that you did numbers and not dates :squint:) 34/feb 4 2023 - a sunday kind of love

and i'm on a lonely road that leads to nowhere/i need a sunday kind of love

bradley's first (and probably, if he's being honest with himself, only) memory of father is hazy. warm, dreamy, diluted, like it's been soaked in sepia. if he thinks hard enough, he remembers (or invents) his dad's curly hair, his long limbs, his boisterous laugh, all of it wrapped around his mother as they sway in the kitchen.

for a while, to him, that's what love was. holding your wife in the middle of your kitchen on sunday morning, swaying clumsily to the record playing from the living room, not caring about the pancakes getting burnt. bradley never cared that his breakfast was late and messed up; he wanted to live in that love that blanketed their whole house.

he spent a lot of his 20s chasing that feeling, that half dream, half fantasy of the perfect life. fell into and out of beds and relationships and had his heart pulverized by jake seresin.

(here is where jake would always interject. "i think we were equal opportunity pulverizers. we liked to take turns," he'd say, with a wink lascivious enough to make bradley shiver).

love, after that, became even more of a pie in the sky. just another thing out of bradley's reach. until it's not.

post-mission (pretty much immediately post, as soon as bradley walks out of medical), jake corners him against a wall and kisses the lights out of him. and then he follows bradley home when they dock, and never leaves.

bradley keeps waiting for it to be difficult. for it to fall apart like it did the first time. for jake to look at him and decide he isn't worth it, isn't worth bradley's high walls and terrible communication, worth the nightmares that predate the mission but have only gotten worse since, worth the stupid arguments they still can't stop getting into.

but no matter what, bradley wakes up every morning to see jake's sleeping face. it seeps in slowly, through early mornings and late nights, afternoon runs and evenings at the hard deck. bradley pays it no mind but all of a sudden, his life has that dreamy quality that he hasn't experienced since he was 3 years old.

"i love you," jake says first, because he was always the brave one. it's early in this new relationship, but deep into their knowing each other.

"i—" bradley starts and stops, the words like a brick in his throat. after a pause, jake speaks again.

"i know," he says softly, "take your time."

he's spent so much time thinking that this kind of love wasn't in the cards for him. that he used it all up too early on, soaking in it like a greedy, ungrateful child. bradley had come to think of love as something that doesn't come easy.

but maybe it is easy. maybe it's letting jake try to distract him while he makes their eggs. it's listening to jake complain about the same pilot he's been complaining about for weeks, humming in commiseration and feeling at home as jake's voice blankets him. it's wrapping his arms around jake and swaying with him in the kitchen, the same etta james record his father would play every sunday on.

#ik u wanted slice of life but this is what happened #top gun maverick #hangster #top gun fanfiction #mine #prompts #i'll do 65 in a sep post

[katiesharms]

someone: hey I noticed this thing you did in your writing!

me, kicking my feet up flirtatiously: oh??? do you want to hear my thoughts on why I did that? do you want a play-by-play of the language choices in every related sentence? do you want an exhaustive breakdown of The Themes???

[katiesharms]

i want to warm up my writing muscles so! for every day of 2023 i added a song to a playlist. send me a date + a ship and i’ll write something based on the corresponding song!

#prompts #me nice 🤨

[katiesharms]

there's an undeniable secret level of romance that can only be achieved between two people who have divorced badly

#i'm so sorry but hangster

[katiesharms]

as always pls add where you're from in the tags!!

#nina <3

[katiesharms]

baby i’ve got half finished wips you couldn’t even imagine

[katiesharms]

mound visit.......

some stuff......i would have loved to render this the way i did hockey trout ohtani but im too tired….

ive been missing baseball and all and ive also been thinking about this parallel..... gay ass movie.....

#omg....... #go phils

[katiesharms]

#pls vote this is at a three way tie

[katiesharms]

#idkkkkkk #i already changed it to davidbyrne so it’ll be a week before i can change it again

[katiesharms]

#my MOM #take that gender stereotypes

[katiesharms]

Hey I’m a big fan of ur writing in ao3, i know this is random as hell but can i request a fic with hangman/rooster AND hangman/goose?

It could be a romcom or pwp or fluff or anything idc but it’s just really interesting to read😩❤️

hey! thank you so much for reading and saying you enjoy my writing - it means a lot. as for the request, i generally don’t take them unless they really inspire me/fit into a universe i was already planning on expanding. i also am not really a fan of most rare pairs, and hangman/goose is one i frankly have no interest in

#asks

[katiesharms]

i like a challenge when the prize is you

By: thegeckbros | @katiesharms

For: MadeItUp | @gothampot

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw/Jake "Hangman" Seresin

Rating: E

Word count: 5,709

Summary: “Does anyone ever choose trick?” Bradley asks, giving Jake a once-over.

Jake’s eyes flash. “Why, you offering?”

“I thought you were. That’s the whole point of the pickup line, right?”

“So you’re saying you wanna know my tricks?”

COLLECTION

#hey it’s mine!

[katiesharms]

sometimes it's not even "he would not fucking say that". sometimes it's "he would not fucking say that. nobody would ever fucking say that. nobody talks like that. have you ever spoken to another human being"