Only the Good Die Young

***

If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?

Jodi Picoult

***

It's not until Jake's in flight school, after finishing the Academy at the top of his class and three years of spending every free break back at the ranch with his daughter, that things change significantly.

For four years, Celia had taken to driving out to the Academy every other weekend, enjoying the road trip with whichever of Javy's siblings was around or her father. 

Amara didn't like driving, but she called often enough that Jake and Javy never felt very far from her.

For better or for worse, Jake didn't bother making too many friends at the Academy. He needed top marks for the track he wanted, and he needed Javy to get top marks, too, not that it was much of a stretch.

What Jake had in relentlessness and hard work, Javy had in natural talent and dedication.

Jake, despite what he managed to convince the world, was not naturally gifted in the aircraft. Or at math or any of the other skills needed to be a fighter pilot. His father hadn't been either, and he'd still ended up one of the most respected pilots of his generation.

But it turned out that what Jake lacked in natural talent, he made up for in hard work, obsessive dedication, and pure bullheadedness, and it was enough to make people think he'd been touched by god himself.

Javy thought it was hilarious and almost blew the secret a few times when he couldn't help but laugh at the wrong time.

So, Jake spent his downtime studying with Javy and his free time with Celia, his daughter, and whatever family could come up with her that weekend and tried to do everything all at once, and for three years, everything worked out.

By the time he graduated, he could take whatever spot he wanted and couldn't have told you the name of a single classmate besides Javy.

Life on the ranch made military life ridiculously easy, and Jake found that no matter how competitive the class, it paled in comparison to a few hundred head of pissed-off longhorns, and god only knew what critters that would strike when you weren't paying attention.

Right before he started flight planning, and still years before Javy gets his act together, Celia decides she wants a second child. Specifically, a full sibling to Lily Grace, and she and Jake prove they're miracle workers when she gets pregnant again after a single night together.

As thrilled as they both are, it's enough to make them both swear never to sleep together again since Jake's happy with two, and Celia wants to have kids with Javy when he finally grows a pair.

She'd figured it out by then but didn't seem in a hurry to push him along.

Sometimes, Jake simmered over how relaxed they were about it. How they assumed they had so much time down the road to deal with things.

He's always had a timer in his head, counting down to the second. Thirty years left when he was ten. Give or take a few. 

Twenty-five when he had his first kiss and twenty-four when he lost his virginity in the hay loft.

Twenty-three when he started the Naval Academy at seventeen.

Maybe just twenty, but Javy made him swear not to focus on the maybes. He doesn't even like Jake thinking about his fortieth birthday.

Javy's still holding out hope that Jake will be the one that beats the odds.

Jake knows he won't, but he's given up that argument because he doesn't like the desolate look it brings to Javy's eyes.

Regardless, this time, the whole family is there when Dustin Seresin is born.

Quiet and easygoing, the opposite of his boisterous sister. Named after a long-dead cousin who never came home from the jungles of Vietnam.

There have been so many Seresins they're running out of original names.

Celia changes her last name to Seresin. She's already Jake's heir, and she wants to have the same name as her children, even though she has no intention of ever marrying their father.

There are times when Jake is convinced she's more loyal to the blood than he is.

More determined to keep it going, to give it a future when Jake has dark moments and nearly convinces himself it'd be better if they just died out.

There'd be no one to pay back the debt then.

A final middle finger to whatever fucker was holding that IOU.

The first day of their indoctrination course, he's watching a video of Lily Grace pulling her brother around in a little red trailer when he meets Bradley for the first time.

Bradley Bradshaw is all smiles, miles of muscle, glittering eyes, and a deep laugh that makes everyone around him sit up and look. He's older than all of them by a few years, happy to lend an ear or advice, and apparently too mature to get involved in any of the competition or petty squabbles that come with a highly competitive group of people.

He's here to fly, and he'll help anyone who asks.

He's a lying liar who lies, Jake thinks, watching what he knows is a mask look back at him from among their cohort without a single crack, no matter how much of an asshole Jake is.

It takes Jake an embarrassingly long time to figure out that not even Bradley realizes he's wearing a mask.

And the thing is, Jake likes their cohort. More than he likes most people. So does Javy, who goes on and on those first few weeks about how they could be real friends and could visit each other between assignments.

Even Jake, who's never needed more than his family and the people on the ranch, starts to think it might be fun to do what all young people their age do and get drunk and lost at parties they shouldn't be at.

They even go to a few. 

Bradshaw, Lee, Avalone, and Lennox all somehow share an almost psychic ability to know where the best parties are, and between the four of them, Cohort 002-15 always has somewhere to go to blow off steam. Trace and Bassett, the only two females in their group, manage to balance having fun with dealing with a bunch of drunk boys, while Vikander, Floyd, Fitch, and Garcia are usually the ones carrying someone home at the end of the night.

Jake and Javy fit in well, though they only ever carry each other home. Jake beat out Bradshaw to be class leader, and he's wary of giving anyone that kind of leverage over him.

Javy's the only one he knows will go down with him if it comes to that, and Jake knows he's pissed off some people enough that it could happen.

He likes Trace the best. Natasha, although she doesn't let him call her that. She works just as hard as he does and faces twice the challenges with more grace than Jake will ever manage.

She laughs at him the first time he goes off on a tangent, ranting about the unfairness of the grading scale when their instructor scores Natasha two points lower than Jake, even though she flew the maneuver better.

She didn't like that instructor, and neither did Jake by the time they were done with him.

They bond over late-night study sessions when the others have already given up and gone to bed and Javy's sound asleep under the desk.

Jake even briefly imagines what it would be like to date her and quickly dismisses that thought when he realizes he would almost be dating himself.

And, for whatever reason, Javy doesn't really like her. Although, he's surprisingly reticent to tell Jake exactly why.

Add in the few times when it seems like she might actually be dating Bradshaw, and Jake decides it's more trouble than it's worth when he's already got two kids at home.

Jake doesn't need a family; he's already got a great one, and he's not going to risk his career for a fling in flight school.

Of course, there's also the fact that she probably wouldn't say yes if he asked anyway. Jake might look good, but she'd be branded forever, as stupid as that double standard was, and Jake wasn't that much of an asshole.

That said, it's fun to flirt and argue with the only person who's driven enough to keep up with him.

Jake even manages to make friends with Bradshaw when he can ignore that he's lying so hard his pants are on fire. 

Mostly, they both have to be very drunk, but they've figured out that three shots and a couple of beers will make them the best of friends. Enough to even duet at the piano a few times. 

Bradley taught himself, but the old lady the next ranch over who used to teach at Julliard taught Jake, and according to her, he's classically trained.

But he's also Texan, so he's better with a fiddle.

Jake only plays when they're all too plastered to realize what's happening, so it's years before any of them realize he can play Moller by memory.

Somehow, they get through their basic course without any major issues. 

Jake and Bradley fight when they're sober, or as much of a fight as it can be when Jake critiques Bradley's every performance, and Bradley pretends to be mature by ignoring Jake completely.

Javy and Natasha have taken to running betting pools on them, but Jake never sees any of the money, so he never figures out what the stakes are.

There's a short period where Javy begs Jake to just sleep with Bradshaw and get it out of his system, and Jake has to explain exactly how much of a liar Bradshaw is, and then Javy wants Jake to stay as far away as possible.

It's not that Javy doesn't like Bradshaw. He's a good guy, and he'll throw down with anyone who says otherwise. But Bradshaw's got baggage that he can't even see, and maybe if he'd met Bradshaw first, he'd be more willing to take the risk, but he met Jake first, and Jake comes first, and they've been brothers since the day they met, so Bradshaw's out of luck.

Javy does hope he figures his shit out eventually, for his own sake if no one else's, but he's not going to drag Jake along while he does it.

***

Things get more challenging when they start training in their actual airframes. Jake, Javy, Bradley, and Natasha are all in the same class, and their late-night study sessions barely keep their heads above water while giving Javy a chance to watch what's turning into a weird three-way dance they're doing up close.

He gets more and more concerned the longer it drags out.

Natasha refuses to discuss her personal life with Jake or Javy, but it's clear a few times she's talked about it with Bradley.

Bradley plays like he blows through people the way Jake does. Casual friendships and sleepovers that somehow never become more.

Jake has always been open and honest about the people in his bed. Javy already had enough details for the rest of his life. It's funny, though, Javy knows exactly how many people Jake has actually slept with, and it's nowhere near what people seem to assume. 

But Jake is tall and blond, with a sharp smile and enough confidence to make even the biggest asshole willing to follow him where he leads. 

Javy has always found it odd that Natasha and Bradley were willing to be friends with him back then. Their personalities didn't exactly line up. Javy's chill by Jake's standards, but he's got just as much ego and confidence as his friend. It's just quieter because Javy's learned that the blow you don't see coming is the deadliest of all. 

But even Javy hesitated to extend the branch of friendship to the two, and he knows they felt the same way back.

So, there are more than a few nights at the library that he wonders why Natasha and Bradley are willingly sitting with them, taking Jake's critiques and barbs with good humor and even occasionally firing their own back.

Jake and Natasha share a drive and love of flying that could be the basis for something incredible. Natasha would never have to worry about where she stood. Jake's a lot of things, but he's never thought gender played a role in how good someone was at something, and he's blatantly obvious about how much he respects Natasha.

And she might not be as sharp as Jake, but she's the same right back.

Her friendship with Bradley is softer, quieter but no less strong. Javy knows she's cried on his shoulders on a few days that were just too hard and that Bradshaw had cried on hers one day a year. It's not something that had to be announced the way Jake and Natasha's had been. It felt like it had always just been there, and everyone accepted it.

It made Javy nervous.

For all that the Seresins talked softly and carried a big stick, he'd never seen a group of people so devoted to love. They don't bother with church anymore, but Javy knows his isn't the only family that came looking for shelter and put down roots that tangled with the Seresin's own.

The land around the Seresin homestead is a legacy for more than just the tragic family it's named after.

Natasha and Bradley had been shooting down rumors that they were dating since the first day of class. And as much as part of it is just the standard military gossip, any time there are two people of opposite gender in the same room, there's something that sticks in Javy's chest and makes him worry.

Jake likes them both, though he's less willing to admit it where Bradshaw is concerned. Admires the natural gifts they have that Jake doesn't and the fact that they help more than they try to lord it over anyone else's heads.

At their cores, they're good people, and there are surprisingly few of those in the world nowadays.

And Javy knows they're going to hurt Jake, but he can't figure out how or when, and until he can, he can't convince Jake of that.

***

They go home for the long holiday weekend, splurging on red-eye flights and pre-loading their barracks fridge for energy drinks for the early morning they get back.

Jake's practically bouncing as he gets ready to start teaching Lily Grace to ride by herself on Trigger, and Javy knows he's going to spend the day with Dustin balanced in front of him so Jake can be ready to catch her if she falls.

It's a family tradition now, teaching the kids to ride as soon as they've mastered walking. Javy's family is looking forward to enjoying it with the two babies that are on the way.

Before they came to Texas, the Machados were musicians. And prostitutes. But they've learned not to brag too much about that part. The days of honor in survival and mastery of the art are gone, though they might be coming back, but still. 

Everyone loves music, so they stick with that.

Javy's great-grandparents were slaves. Came over on the ships in chains before taking their freedom in the chaos at the end of the Civil War and the death of a good, if idealistic, president.

The fools that tried to put them back in chains learned very quickly that it was best to cross the Machados off the list as dealt with and move on.

They made their way to New Orleans and blended into a vibrant city that lived more at night than it did during the day. They build a small empire running a respected brothel and music hall, mixing blood with the Creole and French before they lost it all to a few generations of drunks, and by the time Javy's mother came screaming into this world, there wasn't much left. 

Amara Machado was an Amazon like Mary Seresin had been gunslinger. Fighting from birth against forces that thought they'd roll over two weak women who refused to rely on men to get by.

Oh boy, had those forces learned. 

Amara had managed to turn the burned-out ruins of the music hall into a successful jazz bar, with a band, usually made up of anyone in the family that could play an instrument and wasn't busy.

For a while, that was all of them.

Javy remembers walking home from daycare with one of his older siblings and doing his workbooks at a table in the corner where the waitresses (women got better tips serving food and drinks, men got better tips as musicians, and Amara was going to feed her family no matter what) could keep an eye on him, while his uncles and cousins played the songs of their ancestors.

They played the songs of everyone's ancestors by the end of the night, meshing jazz with Billboard Top 100 for the week, and Javy can remember some truly awful mixes that left the patrons in stitches.

They made the best tips those nights.

Amara Machado could wrangle any drunk, balance any ledger, teach any lesson that anyone could think of, but she had one weakness she couldn't escape.

His name was Juan Cole, though they were all pretty sure that wasn't the name he'd been born with. He was a charmer to the nth degree. Handsome, creative, and someone should have put him down before he could sharpen his teeth.

Javy never got an actual answer for when Amara actually took up with him, but he figured out it was sometime after high school and that she'd had his oldest sister pretty much immediately. 

No amount of threatening from his grandparents could dislodge him, and Juan Cole didn't bother showing up to either of their funerals, passed out drunk in the bedroom while the rest of the family cried.

By the time Javy came along, everyone knew what was really going on, and Amara had tried unsuccessfully to separate herself from him a dozen times.

Javy always wondered if he could ever love someone enough to take them back like that again and again. Even as an adult, he's torn between admiring the strength of his mother's love and despairing the weakness that let Juan Cole back into the house every time.

It's a disservice to his mother and anyone else who'd ever been in that kind of relationship to say the answer was simple. 

Even Javy still loves his father in a way. He wouldn't be here without him, even though he was more than happy to help drag his body to the grave they'd dug out in the far field and cover him with enough dirt and rock that no one will ever find him again.

The Seresins ran part of the herd back and forth over the area until it was so flat and compacted that there was no way to tell exactly where the body was, and every once and a while, Javy or one of his siblings will wander out there, and just stand, smug, on top of the man who thought abuse was an acceptable form of love.

Amara will never have another. She's never said it, but Javy and his siblings know. Something got turned off when she finally managed to get away and make a break clean enough that Juan couldn't find an opening. 

***

For the rest of her life, Amara Machado doesn't take another person to her bed. Still holding a small candle lit for the man who was just as quick to hurt as he was to whisper sweet nothings in her ear.

***

What ended it was Juan putting the jazz bar so far in the whole that the IRS started knocking, and an abusive, alcoholic baby daddy wasn't enough of an excuse to buy time to try and pay back what they owed. 

A few cousins pooled what resources they could, filled a car with food and clothes and the glove box with cash in small bills, and Amara shoved five kids inside and took off not long after the streetlights came on.

She didn't stop driving for three days, and Javy still remembers the blast of dry heat across his skin, like standing behind the engine of his fighter the first time he stepped outside and saw Texas. 

The broken-down gas station and endless stretch of dusty prairie weren't much to look at, and he wasn't the only one in the car hoping they'd keep driving for another three days.

The small town was nothing compared to the glitz and soundtrack of the Big Easy, so quiet and hot at night that Javi couldn't sleep.

They couldn't keep going, at least not immediately. Exhaustion and gas had taken their toll on their bodies and their funds, so they'd found an abandoned trailer outside of town.

Just in time to watch small-town justice at its finest.

They found out the details later.

A high school football coach whose tastes ran too young and too unwilling, and Javy is right there with them when they say that sick fuck got what he deserved. 

Everyone's so enraged, the Machados included, that it doesn't really sink in for the younger ones that that rage could get turned on them for nothing more than the color of their skin.

The next day, after they learn the young Seresin girl has been buried in her family plot, Javy's mother spends what little money they have left, buys groceries, and borrows the soup kitchen to make food she delivers to the Seresin family in person. 

The older Machado siblings are out looking for work, the younger ones scrounging the thrift store, when she goes over, so none of them knows what exactly what transpires that results in them moving into the trailer on the ranch, but its running water and heat and Mary Seresin wants the younger kids sleeping in the main house where it's safer, so no one complains.

In the years that follow, it gets harder and harder for Javy to remember the city he spent the first six years of his life in.

They all pick up some weird amalgamy of an accent, Texas twang and Southern drawl and New Orleans soul. 

They stop wearing knock-off designer tennis shoes and start wearing boots.

They stop saying they're from Louisiana and start claiming Texas.

The first time Javi meets Jake, he's nothing more than a gaping wound, and Javy can see the blood leeching out of his skin every second. He's the youngest Seresin; looks like he's Texas-made flesh, born and bred in the dust and heat and sweat of the plains in summer. 

And Javy knows, somewhere inside his fragile six-year-old heart, that he's never going to leave this boy.

There's a thrill in heading out after chores in the morning and not having to be back until dark. And even then, they stay out past it, and no one gets in trouble.

That was never allowed in the city.

Javy, whose asshole father had always called him small, sprouted up after a few weeks of plenty of good food until he caught up with Jake, and then they both kept growing all the way through high school.

Amara was a few inches over six feet, and so were all of Javy's siblings. 

He still ended up the shortest, but at least he doesn't have to tilt his head too far back to look any of them in the face.

The first time he sees a rodeo, Amara tries to take them as a family treat, only to learn that once your family with the Seresins, YOU'RE FAMILY, and a rodeo is an EVENT. 

These people took it more seriously than Christmas, much to Javy's early amusement.

Everyone got new boots and jeans, and Javy and his siblings pretended not to see their mother cry when the ranch foreman wiped out the ranch credit card to pay.

That old coot was one of Javy's favorite people even after he died. He chewed tobacco and spit, and they all learned a plethora of new cuss words, but he always had something to do and a friendly ear, and dear god, you did not bad mouth anyone within earshot of that man.

Looking back, he's pretty sure the old man was in love with Amara, but he must have known it was never going to happen because he never said anything.

Just left her a short letter and the foreman's house when he died. 

Amara didn't cry that hard on her worst days with Juan and left flowers on his grave every Sunday for the rest of her life.

But that day wouldn't come for years, and today, Javy and his siblings were dressed up in brand-new jeans without any holes, shiny boots stitched with designs, and clean shirts with shiny buttons.

They got their first Stetsons, too. Sat through three hours of measuring and fitting before the other ranch hands were satisfied.

Javy still has that hat in his closet at the homestead. Waiting for his kids.

Then the whole ranch, dogs included, trooped down to the rodeo and watched Brian Seresin take the gold in bull riding.

To be honest, it was a bit traumatizing the first time. For all the Machados, except one of Javy's older brothers, who got an old gleam in his eye when he saw the first ride.

He's a nationally ranked bull rider now, but that's later.

Today, Javy sat, horrified, as a two-thousand-pound bull named Nail 'Em Hard flung Brian Seresin around like a rag doll while his siblings screamed encouragement from the stands and the arena fence.

Eight seconds was a long fucking time when you were trying to stay alive.

And when Brian Seresin finally went flying, the timer was clicking over to eleven seconds, and most of the arena was screaming.

He got perfect marks.

Not that Javy knew what any of that meant at the time.

All Javy knew was that all the Seresins were insane.

Who the fuck wanted two thousand pounds of pissed-off wild animal between their legs?

Jake's got a truly terrifying grin on his face when he asks Javy if he wants to try, and there aren't enough words in the English language for Javy to articulate how much that is not happening.

No.

Absolutely not.

Never.

I'll die first, Seresin, and even then, I won't let you tie my dead body to one of those monsters.

Don't make me kill you.

Javy's older brother Adam does start training with Brian, though, and Javi unbends enough to agree to horse riding lessons. Although when Jake jokingly leads him to the bullpen the first day, Javy runs so far so fast that it takes freakishly fast Jake a while to catch him and apologize.

He doesn't mind the horses. There are a few on the ranch that aren't good for beginners, and the hands all have their preferred mounts that don't usually get shared around. 

But Mary's Trigger, Brian's Lightning, and Jake's dad's Firefly don't bat an eyelash at gunfire or fights (and why they knew that Javy didn't want to know) and were great with kids.

Jake's got a temperamental colt he's training that he's named Storm Warning but usually just calls Asshole. He's a gangly, going-to-be huge thing, jet black with a white star on his forehead and white socks and just as much attitude as his owner.

Javy's still waiting to see which of them comes out on top.

Javy learns to ride on Firefly, and Mary gets a sad look on her face sometimes when she watches them.

It takes a little bit for Javy to actually find it fun, but when it does finally click, every minute of free time he has is spent riding the stretches of land between the highway and the river.

Before long, it feels like he's been riding all his life, and he's more comfortable on the ranch than he ever was in the city.

Jake's father is the one who first takes him up in a plane. In that crappy little Cessna, that shouldn't have been able to stay in the air given how loose some of the bolts were and how much the engine rattled.

Javy doesn't get the attraction, but Jake and his siblings love it, and it is kind of cool to see the entire ranch spread out below.

Ted Seresin is a good man.

Even decades later, that's the first thing that comes to mind whenever Javy thinks of him. 

Ted Seresin is a good man. He catches spiders instead of killing them and releases them out into the garden. Though he swears to his wife that he stomped the bastards to death. 

He tends the garden when he's home and teaches Javy what really makes the world go round. He never got angry or raised a finger in anger, not even when someone deliberately tried to pick a fight with him.

And he didn't hide it when he cried over his daughter.

He was gone a lot. Flying for the Navy.

Javy knows nothing about the Navy, but the ranch hands talk about him in almost reverent terms, so he must be important. 

When they carry his coffin up the long front drive, there isn't a dry eye on the ranch, and the row of mourners along the fence lines contain three men with stars on their shoulders, a handful of men in expensive suits from DC, and the State Governor. 

His first cattle drive turns out worse than he could ever have expected. 

The first few days are fun. Wrangling longhorns takes skill and patience, and camping out around a fire, listening to the coyotes sing brings a peace that he didn't realize was missing.

None of them were expecting the idiot in the sports car. The laws have gotten so convoluted over cattle versus the roads that it's almost impossible to drive them on foot anymore. But the Seresin herd is large and moving such a short distance that the State normally turned a blind eye as long as no one got hurt.

The ranch saved a lot of money just by walking them across the one road in their path.

The downside was that there were no uniforms around to deal with the odd, not-local vehicle that had to wait. 

The sports car had California plates. A brand new cherry red Ferrari. 

None of them had ever seen a car that expensive before, and by the time they realized he wasn't stopping for the herd, he was laying on the horn, and the cattle were already out of control.

The rest of the day was hazy. Even years later, Javy couldn't recall much beyond the dust, a flash of red, and his mama telling him to keep an eye on Jake.

They took us in and saved us, so we protect them, Javier.

Machados protect Seresins. 

And Seresins die young. They die bloody and usually wearing a uniform of some kind. Protecting strangers.

The stampede had turned towards town.

Mary Seresin was a gunslinger. As fast with her fists as she was with her words. Petit and blond, gunpowder wrapped up in lace. 

She wasn't a Texas rose like they sang about in all the songs; she was barbed wire. Strung tight around everything she cared about and drawing blood whenever necessary.

She'd scared Javy at first. She wasn't a woman to mince words; her husband was definitely the softer one of the two, but she cared deeply, fought hard, and lived as well as she could with the weight on her shoulders.

She'd been born on the ranch, and she'd die on it like all the others.

All Seresins came home in the end.

It was always funny to see six-foot-something Amara lose an argument to barely five-foot Mary, but they had adored each other. Kindred souls that recognized each other across the boundaries of time and space. 

The entire ranch got up and went back to work the next morning. 

Life went on.

It had, too. 

Javy helped Jake coax Trigger into eating because a part of him thought they might not save Jake if they couldn't save Trigger.

When Jake decides to follow in his father's footsteps and fly for the Navy…well, it's not like Javy can leave him now. 

~tbc~