Archive of Our Own

"Right now you arrogant sons of bitches are thinking you're the best of the best. Out there that might be true, but around here…” Viper paused, probably for effect. He was a great one for effect. “Well, let’s introduce your flight instructors, Lieutenant Commanders Tom Kazansky: callsign Iceman, and Pete Mitchell: callsign Maverick."

Maverick and Ice stepped forward in perfect military unison from the space they'd occupied uncharacteristically unobtrusively beside the blackboard; they stepped up beside Commander Metcalf - Viper - with their hands tucked in neatly behind their backs, their new insignia and name badges pinned to their new blue flight suits. They'd been promoted together, once Ice had taken up the offer of a teaching job at Top Gun and Maverick's request to be stationed there had finally been run up the flagpole and saluted. Now they were the new instructors on deck, meeting their very first class. Maverick was finding it an oddly satisfying experience.

Viper introduced the new class to Jester and Charlie; Maverick just about restrained himself from a totally obvious wink at his girl, Charlie, Charlotte Blackwood, the civilian expert assigned to the Top Gun program, but it was a close-run thing. It was a quick intro then the newbies filed out all too eagerly behind the hangar boss to get a look at their planes, Charlie wandered off in the direction of her office and Viper motioned for the rest of them, all three of the flight instructors, to follow him. They followed him. After all, Maverick hadn’t joined an armed force to be an insubordinate son of a bitch all of the time.

Viper took a seat at his desk up in his office while Jester lounged against the bookcase at the side of the room just like he practically belonged there – Mav guessed he did, since he was as much an institution there as Top Gun itself - and Maverick and Ice just hung back by the door like a collective third wheel. Viper was handing out cigars for some unfathomable reason but it turned out neither of the two new instructors were smokers so the boss just shrugged and snapped the box shut loudly.

“Blue,” Viper said. Maverick frowned. He glanced at Ice; obviously Ice had no more idea what the heck Viper was talking about than Maverick did because there was an uncharacteristic if admittedly barely noticeable frown on his otherwise unfathomable face.

Jester nodded in some kind of approval. “TJ,” he said, taking a puff on his cigar, still leaning against the bookcase and somehow looking even more at ease in the office than Viper did.

“Maverick?” Viper said, turning his way from Jester, rolling the cigar between his thumb and middle finger as he leant on his desk with an oddly expectant look on his face. Maverick had no damn idea what this was all about, which was a really unfamiliar feeling. He hated feeling like he’d missed something and right then he was definitely missing something.

“Sir?” he asked. Ice looked distinctly pleased that Viper hadn’t asked him first, and Maverick tried hard to ignore the faint but still infuriatingly smug smile on his face. He was pretty sure working with Ice was going to push enough of his buttons without getting pissed off in front of his commanding officer.

“The trophy. Who’s going to take it? I’ve got Blue, Jester’s taking TJ, so who’s your bet?” Viper dug around in his pants pocket for a second then smoothed a twenty-dollar bill out on his desktop. “Twenty dollars in and the pot’s yours if your man comes in Top Gun this class. It’s a tradition, boys, so who’s your vote?”

“Tex Kellerman,” Maverick said, without a moment’s hesitation, before he’d even really meant to reply. He’d read the guy’s file. He kind of reminded him of himself if that could ever be considered a good thing, and he liked to think it was. Certain others would’ve differed.

“Ice?”

Now Ice didn’t look so smug. He shrugged. “I don’t seem to have much choice left, sir,” he said, “but I’ll take Trapper.”

Viper nodded. “Very good. Have a seat, boys.”

So they took a seat, side by side just a little too close for comfort in the narrow seats in front of Viper’s desk that Mav was half convinced were too small on purpose just to make visitors uncomfortable. They sat there while their CO and his XO puffed on their cigars and made small talk about aerial manoeuvres but all the time Maverick’s mind was turning barrel rolls. That bet had unsettled him, still unsettled him as he stared at his own twenty sitting there on the pile with the others. He wondered who’d bet on him, who’d bet on Ice, who’d bought himself a beer or two when Iceman and Slider came in first. He wondered who’d lost out when Goose died and Maverick lost it.

Maybe it was one of them. Maybe one of the men right there at that desk had lost twenty bucks the day Goose Bradshaw hadn’t come home from exercises. Maybe one of the guys, his CO, his XO, had cursed out loud that day because he’d known Maverick losing Goose was as good as him losing the bet. Christ, that was morbid, and pretty goddamn unlikely knowing the two guys but Christ, he couldn’t help himself. And suddenly he felt like all that smoke there collecting in Viper’s office was suffocating him.

It seemed like half a full-fledged eternity until he was dismissed and he left the office stinking of smoke from head to toe and feeling sick to his stomach. He could’ve hit something, he thought, or someone, totally irrational but there it was, and so he decided to hit the base gym instead. Punching the hell out of a stuffed vinyl bag wasn’t going to make it all go away but maybe it’d be a start.

---

Maverick was in the faculty shower room in his tighty-whiteys, leaning against the edge of sink. He’d spent an hour and a half in the gym, Ice at the other side of the room rowing incessantly on that damned machine with its persistent whine while he punched till his wrists and his knuckles ached and then hit the treadmill till his legs felt like spectacularly watered-down Jell-O. When he’d worked himself almost to the literal point of collapse, he’d decided it was time to shower and get the hell out of Dodge.

But unfortunately all the running and punching apparently hadn’t been enough because he was still seeing Goose in his head and how the hell could he function that way on a daily basis? He knew Charlie was there at her place and she’d be waiting for him; she’d hold him in that understanding way she always did and brush away the tears he almost wouldn’t know he’d cried like some gigantic pussy. She’d love him. He loved her, he thought, and she’d love him, but right then that wasn’t even close to being what he wanted. It was so far from what he wanted that he wasn’t even sure they were in the same damn zip code. He didn’t want her sympathy or her tenderness or tears in his eyes that she’d stoically understand. He wanted something else. He needed something else. He knew if he didn’t watch out he’d be spoiling for a fight and it wouldn’t matter one damn iota who it was with so he guessed he’d have to come up with something else. One thing came to mind.

He grabbed his shampoo, tugged off his underwear and headed into the showers, knowing this was a bad goddamn idea. The shampoo was the mild baby stuff he’d used and been teased for ever since he’d found out his eyes reacted badly to the regular kind because to hell with itchy eyes in the sky and he squeezed some out onto his hands as he stepped in under the hot spray. He ran his left hand down over his cock and back to squeeze tight for a second at the heavy balls behind, then he rested that hand against the wall instead, spread his legs and brought his right hand down to the cleft of his ass.

He just ran that hand between his cheeks at first but then, slowly, with the tip of just his index finger, he started to circle the tight ring of muscle. His cock twitched and his balls tightened as he pressed his slippery fingers in past it – two at once, though it was a tight fit – and it made him gasp hoarsely, the sound mercifully lost in the running water. He had only a few brief moments there, pressing his fingers in and out and believing he was alone. After that, Ice spoke.

“Maverick,” he said, but Maverick didn’t turn. He just slipped the fingers from his ass and used that arm to lean more heavily against the wall, letting the spray wash over him almost like hadn’t heard a thing, except obviously he had. He had. He rested his forehead against the cool tiles and felt vaguely sick, vaguely embarrassed but really, down deep, he was just too numb to give a fuck.

“Maverick,” Ice said again, louder, closer, lower. His footsteps were intentionally loud against the wet shower room floor, like he was giving him the time to back up and back away as he approached. Maverick pinched the bridge of his nose and didn’t move an inch. Of all the stupid times, of all the guys, of course it had to be Ice. It was always Ice when he least wanted it to be, when he most wanted it, when he had no idea what he wanted.

So he didn’t reply at first; instead he moved again, thinking, not thinking, whatever. Fuck it, why not; he ran one hand back over his ass, fingers pushing between his cheeks before he leaned back down against the wall. He spread his legs further then he nodded, a small motion, barely perceptible but not quite just for himself. Something told him Ice wouldn’t need much more of an invitation if he was still there, still watching, and it turned out he really didn’t.

He felt Ice’s chest push up against his back, hot and slick under the pouring water. Ice reached out and braced himself with his left hand against the wall and Maverick watched that hand, transfixed by it, hating the way he was studying nails and knuckles and a small scar he’d never seen before. He felt Ice’s cock up against the small of his back before he shifted it further down; the wide, blunt head pressed in between his cheeks, right in tight against him. And then Ice thrust in, hard.

Maverick grunted, full, and so did Ice. Ice’s free hand found the wall and he leant down harder, pushed in deeper while Maverick pushed his hips back against him, still pressed to the wall and tense. He squeezed his eyes shut; he was seeing stars even before Ice hit the spot inside him that made him mewl like a goddamn day-old kitten. God, Ice was big, and rough, his cock slamming into him and his dog tags hitting Mav’s back as Maverick’s own collided with the wall. It hurt like a son of a bitch but it was so fucking good that he couldn’t have cared less about hurt. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and listened to Ice muffle a moan against his shoulder as he came, the sound oddly muted even further by the hiss of the showers.

He pulled out, breathing heavily, and didn’t say a word as he left Maverick there alone.

It didn’t take long, fisting his own cock as he sank to his knees. He came and watched his semen wash away as he felt Ice’s come trickling pretty fucking disgustingly from between his legs. That washed away, too. He saw to that.

He turned off the shower. He dried himself and he dressed and left, settling down perhaps a fraction gingerly astride his motorcycle. He sped away, aching. It had been hard, the sex, faster and rougher than he was used to and he wasn’t quite sure if it had gone down the right way, if there were a right way for it to go at all, but the image of Goose was gone.

He had a feeling it had been just what he’d needed, even if he now felt lower than ever.

***

Marshall ‘Tex’ Kellerman was a huge goddamn hulk of a man who looked more like a first-class marine than a navy pilot. He was pushing 6’7”, built not unlike a huge brick shithouse and Maverick – correctly, as it happened – thought he’d probably have a tough time even fitting into the cockpit of an F-14. But Christ, what the guy could do once he got himself in there! He was starting to make Top Gun look like a walk in the park. Or maybe he just didn’t have the competition that Maverick had had.

Viper seemed impressed. Maverick just congratulated himself on a bet well placed and wondered who the guy had had to blow to get a flight suit in that freakishly huge size.

He wasn’t worried; he was still the best even if his name wasn’t on the blessed Top Gun plaque. Ice’s was, and he was better than Ice, so he guessed that meant something. Maybe just to him, or just to him and Ice.

Goddamnit. Speaking of Ice, thinking of Ice, there he was, just standing there at the other end of the classroom, staring at him in a way that made it seem somehow like staring at him was perfectly natural, like it wasn’t just about the weirdest thing Maverick could conjure. He couldn’t read that infuriating poker face but he had a feeling that he wasn’t the only one thinking about the names on that plaque. Ice still thought he was the best and annoyingly, frustratingly, he had the plaque and the shiny silver trophy to prove it.

Still, Maverick knew now wasn’t the best time to set about trying to prove him wrong and besides, it wasn’t as if they were enemies. They weren’t exactly friends, sure, but they weren’t enemies. They were colleagues, co-workers, which sounded pretty damn weird even just in Maverick’s head, let alone out loud.

“We’ve got a mission to fly,” Ice said suddenly, and Maverick realised that far from the trophy, Top Gun, who was the best of the best, he’d been waiting for the Iceman to say something about the previous night back there in the showers. He wasn’t sure what it meant that he hadn’t said a word about it at all, not even some bullshit Iceman witticism.

Maverick checked his watch and then nodded. Ice was right; they had someplace to be. They left the room together in perfect silence.

---

It was their first time in the air as a real team, their F-5s and Jester’s A4 screaming through the bright blue Californian sky high over the Mojave Desert. Somewhere out there was Tex and his rear, a guy named Hawk who Maverick had known back in flight school, and Viper’s pet crew, Blue Kowalski - Christ but that was close to Kazansky, close enough to get real damn confusing real fast- and ‘Coop’ Cooper. Confident though he was, Maverick had to admit this looked pretty damn tough.

He didn’t have time to dwell on it. The radar blipped.

“Two bogeys on our six,” Maverick barked into his radio, knowing they were Tex and Blue. That much was pretty damn obvious since the others weren’t even in their league.

The radio crackled. “I seem them,” said Ice. “Coming in high and right.”

So Jester gave the order. “Break formation.”

They broke.

It was a hard-ass dogfight, even with the numbers on their side. Fifteen minutes in Tex got a missile lock on Jester, putting him out of the game and evening things out for the student body. So now it was just two on two: Maverick and Ice, Tex and Blue.

It turned out the instructors played together a little more effectively than the students; with a little quick thinking and with Ice bizarrely following Maverick without so much as a hint of dissent into a diving stunt that was obviously far from making it into the textbook, the next thing that the so-called best of the best knew was Maverick and the Iceman had them in a firm missile lock. Game Over. Score one for the Top Gun brass.

They didn’t talk much afterwards. In fact, they didn’t talk at all, they just went right ahead and hit the showers. Maverick glanced at Ice; he didn’t have to say a word. Ice moved in behind him, his cock already hard in his hand.

They left separately, maybe twenty minutes later. Mav was starting to think the switch to Top Gun was the best and worst decision he’d ever made at the exact same time.

***

A week and a half of fucking in the showers and then suddenly, nothing. It wasn’t even as if Ice was avoiding him because they were just as, well, just as whatever they were with each other whenever they weren’t flying or screwing, whatever the hell that was, snarking in hallways, sneering in the mess hall, telling tales over lunch. Maverick was at a loss, it wasn’t fun in the least and it wasn’t like he could just saunter on up and ask Ice what the hell he thought was going on because outside of the shower room they’d never admitted what they did in there, inside it. Maverick was pretty sure they never would and he guessed that was the way it had to be. He could deal with that.

But really, he had no choice; he settled back in for competition week three and tried to put the whole goddamn, godforsaken mess out of his mind. He thought he did a pretty good job, too, not staring at Ice like he’d lost his mind in the classrooms or the corridors, not waiting around in the showers just in case he happened to turn up. And he had the competition to focus on, because Tex and Hawk were still ahead even if Blue and Coop had managed to creep up and close the gap just a few significant points. So what if it was only twenty bucks? He liked to win. He’d always been a pretty sore loser.

Still, it seemed like there was something missing every day he was there and he couldn’t put his finger on what it was though he guessed he didn’t put a whole lot of extra thought into it. He saw Charlie a couple of nights that week and took her out at the weekend but that didn’t seem to help. She was nice and he liked her but he couldn’t believe he was basing a whole relationship on nice. Strange, considering he’d thought he'd loved her and now he just wasn’t sure, like he wasn’t sure about anything anymore that wasn’t just flying.

So he concentrated on the flying. It was easier in the air because up there in his F-5 he knew exactly what to do. It was like his mind turned off and he just went by instinct – he didn’t have to think about Goose or Goose’s death while he was flying single-seat, just like he didn’t have to think about his illicit shower room liaisons – and lack thereof – with Ice. Flying was simple. Flying was everything.

But then Friday came around. Maverick had planned a sensational night in front of the TV with a six-pack of Bud followed by one day of hanging around the house and one day of performing on Charlie’s mattress with impressive finesse, getting some well-earned downtime. He thought maybe then he’d feel better, feel different, but he didn’t get a chance to find out. After a quick and unexpected meeting with Viper about how he was granting the instructors a week’s leave after the current class’s graduation, his old buddy Hawk headed him off in the parking lot.

“Hey, Mav,” he called, jogging over, still in his flight suit and carrying his helmet hooked over one hand. “Come have a beer with us in the O Club tonight, okay? We haven’t seen you in there since we got here, the guys are starting to think you’re some kind of stiff.” He gestured over at Tex and a couple of the other flight crews who were having a loud conversation about some football game Maverick must have missed. He missed all of that, rowdy conversations about sports, about whatever, drinking with the guys, actually y’know, having fun some of the time. He didn’t need to be asked twice.

“Sure, Hawk,” he said, straddling his bike and kick-starting it to life. “I’ll see you in there.”

---

The Officers’ Club was pretty much heaving when he walked in at nine and it didn’t take a genius to spot the Top Gun contingent. The sixteen of them – all eight flight crews – were spread between two tables they’d pushed together in the corner and, obviously, hanging at the bar. Maverick walked over and they greeted him with an already drunken roar that felt pretty much like home.

He settled down on the stool they freed up for him between Hawk and Cooper. He ordered a beer and took a sip as Hawk was telling him they were glad he’d turned up and then he turned. He was just trying to make out which game was showing on the wall-mounted TV across the room but he found himself looking right at Ice.

“What’re you doing here, Kazansky?” he called down the bar, loud over the din of music and laughter, hoping it didn’t look like he was eyeing Ice in his whites when much to his own frustration he pretty much was. Sure, all the navy guys in the place were there in white uniforms for the night out but Ice’s was crisp, immaculate.

“Students asked me,” Ice yelled back above the din, somehow without really seeming to yell at all. Maverick shrugged and held up his beer bottle for a second with a silent cheers; Ice did the same, almost smirking, piquing Mav’s irritation for a second. Then he turned back to Hawk, back to the conversation, and away from Ice’s distracting gaze.

The alcohol flowed plentifully and Maverick was glad for the guys’ sakes that it was a Friday night. He lived off base now so he’d have to ride his crotch-rocket home after half of one beer that he spilled on the bar and a sea of Coke, but the others were going at it like there was no tomorrow in sight. He didn’t envy them their inevitable hangovers. Still, he didn’t need alcohol to have a good time and despite a surreptitious glance toward the end of the bar every so often – Ice was with a girl and Maverick was damned if he’d let that get to him – he was actually enjoying himself. He was one of those oddities in life who really liked being around drunk, rowdy sailors. Not that any of them were exactly sailors per se, but they were all navy so he guessed it kind of counted.

It was somewhere around 11:30 that someone – probably TJ Kennedy since he was further gone that all the rest – ordered a round of something totally awful and had them set alight in some stupid attempt at macho showmanship. They spread them out down the bar and not to be outdone by newbies Maverick did his first, followed by Cooper who managed to singe his eyelashes. Maverick just smirked as Hawk somehow set his hair on fire and Tex, laughing, put him out with his beer. Suddenly Hawk’s whites weren’t quite so white.

Ice did his last, catching Maverick’s eye as he did so. He watched him as he downed the shot casually then slammed the glass down on the bar with a mutter of frat boys not quite under his breath at the charred, beered Hawk and his snickering entourage. Maverick noticed that the girl was gone and Ice gave him this strange, impenetrable look while the others were occupied that made his stomach flip and his cock twitch. Then the Iceman upped and disappeared into the head.

Maverick wasn’t sure but he thought he knew that look and he pretty much had to find out if he was right. He left the bar with a quick mutter that went as unnoticed as his departure and headed for the bathroom.

He’d always had impeccable timing; he walked in as the last other guy walked out, after Ice had finished but before he’d got himself tucked back in. Ice glanced up, checking it was him first before he turned to him, cock in hand. Then, stroking himself, he headed for the cubicle farthest away from the door. Maverick followed like some kind of obedient puppy, cursing under his breath as he did so.

Ice locked the door. They just looked at each other for a second, Mav might’ve said almost apprehensively if they hadn’t been precisely who they were, then Maverick was up against the wall and Ice’s hands were everywhere. The next thing he knew his pants were around his knees and they were both hard, pressing against each other, gasping muted gasps. He felt half dizzy as Ice’s cock and Ice’s hand touched his and his hips jerked completely out of his control. Ice smiled, his eyes somehow darker even under the harsh fluorescent lights that washed his skin out till he almost looked unreal, like some kind of facsimile of Ice and not the real thing. He leant in closer till Maverick could feel his jaw brush against his neck and his eyes snapped shut.

Ice took them both into his hand and he jerked, slowly at first and making Maverick twitch with it, then harder, faster. Soon Maverick was stifling moans, biting down on his jacketed arm so he wouldn’t moan out loud. God, this was an indiscreet place to be screwing around, but mostly he didn’t care. He’d take a fucking court-martial ten times over if only Ice would keep touching him like that, and he did. Christ, he was so close.

He came with a jerk and a muffled cry and Ice wasn’t far behind. He stepped back and left Maverick leaning against the wall as they both tried to tidy themselves with tissue and then zipped up their pants; Maverick smoothed down his jacket and his hair and eyed the door while Ice wiped his hands and flushed the evidence. Still a little unsteady, still tingling, Maverick unlocked the door and stepped into the doorway. His head was spinning. He shouldn’t have moved so fast but suddenly that court-martial wasn’t looking so appealing.

The room was empty despite the din outside and he made to leave before someone else could come in but Ice caught his arm and pulled him back, jerked him back into the stall so hard he almost fell and by God he would’ve taken him with him if he had. He wanted to ask what the hell he thought he was doing but then their mouths came together and the thought vanished completely from his head.

It wasn’t a soft kiss; it was all tongues and teeth, Ice’s fingers tightening almost painfully in Maverick’s short hair and Maverick’s eyes squeezed closed as he moaned like an idiot adolescent into Ice’s mouth. But it was too short. Maverick still wanted more when Ice pulled back and walked straight out, straight back into the bar. He left him there, practically panting up against the wall with no idea what had just hit him.

He licked his lips. His mouth tasted of fire. His shirt smelled of Ice’s cologne. This was all one big fucking mess.

***

Maverick spent most of Saturday between lying in bed trying not to think about Ice’s mouth on him and taking a little emergency trip to the grocery store. He realised just how bad things had gotten when he went over to the refrigerator and came up with half a pint of greenish milk and a slice of pizza that was about one step away from qualifying as a sentient life form. In fact, he searched through all his cupboards and came to the conclusion that unless he could live on a shaker of oregano and a bulb of shrivelling garlic, he was going to have to bite the bullet and hit the store.

Two hours later – he was a slow shopper and carrying groceries on a motorcycle from halfway across town wasn’t an easy feat even for a fighter pilot – he was unpacking his frozen pizzas and ready meals for one when Charlie called. It was a short conversation as it always was with her where the phone was concerned; Maverick had a theory that she liked to look her prey in the eye and the telephone put them on an even footing. She asked him to lunch the next day and he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten to phone her and invite himself over. This was so. Fucked. Up. He said yes and then settled back down in bed with a couple of beers and a bowl of nacho chips to watch some serious TV.

He woke up the next morning in a damp patch he suspected was beer with the buttons of the TV remote imprinted on his forehead. It had obviously been a great night.

Charlie had made lunch. She wasn’t a great cook but she did at least try hard, even if her best meal to date was still a green salad; Mav was the sort of guy who could pretty much burn water so they’d always been a hell of a pair. Maverick just sat there at the table in her kitchen in a house that looked exactly like his except his was full of still-packed boxes from the move and hers didn’t smell faintly of boot polish and nacho cheese. He’d spent long enough at her place now that he knew where the knives and forks belonged and where she kept her spare towels for when he showered there sometimes; he had a regular seat at the table and a side of the bed and if he didn’t watch what he was doing then pretty soon she was going to ask him to move in. Up until a couple of nights before that, the thought had terrified him significantly less that it did right then. It was hard to believe he’d actually wanted it.

She was smiling at him in that cute-lascivious way that only she could really pull off with any success. If things went much further then they’d be in bed together and he knew that had been the plan but oh man he just couldn’t do it. Not when he knew she’d want him to hold her when they were done and all he’d want to do was bolt for the door like a total fucking coward.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, frowning, a concerned look on her face as she leant forward over the table on her elbows. She really did love him. Maybe he even loved her but Christ, this was so messed up. Really. Totally messed up.

“I think I… look, I’ve got to go,” he said, not even looking at her. It wasn’t that he couldn’t look her in the eye because he knew he could have if he’d wanted to, but that was the point right there: he didn’t want to.

“What? Did you leave the stove on? Forget to feed the cat? Was the chicken really that bad?”

“No I, just. Look,” he said. “I can’t do this. I think I love you, Charlie, but I can’t do this. It’s too…” He frowned and glanced, gestured around the room like that was some kind of answer and didn’t just make him look like an incoherent ass. “It’s complicated.”

She was quiet. She was so quiet that he just had to look up to see what the reaction actually was and he half expected her to have her head in her hands or be preparing to beat him about the head with the salad tongs. Neither was true and he realised he really should’ve known better, much better, because that just wasn’t her. She was just looking at him, her expression somewhere between quizzical and concerned.

“Is this about Goose?” she asked. “If it is, I understand. It’s too early. You saw what Goose’s death did to Carole and if you had an accident…”

He frowned. Oh, wow, she was way off base. This was not about Goose ‘cause not everything was about Goose, even if sometimes it felt like or looked like it was. He just didn’t think he could give her the commitment she wanted or deserved. Or something like that, anyway.

“Yeah, maybe that’s it,” he said. “I just--"

“Is there someone else?”

For a second he just couldn’t say anything; he stared at her, almost agape, and he couldn’t say a word. She was starting to get a little teary-eyed but he suspected it had more to do with anger or his awkward indifference than any real sadness. That said a lot.

“No,” he said, and he did mean it. Really he did. At least he tried to.

Charlie shook her head, a couple of angry tears spilling down over her cheeks now and she looked like she hated that it happened. “I don’t believe you, Maverick,” she said, and to be honest he didn’t blame her; he wouldn’t have believed him either. “Just get out. I don’t want to see you here again.” He opened his mouth but her glare made him close it again with a snap. “Just go.”

So he left. He picked up his leather jacket and he left through the back door while she sat there at the table. She did have her head in her hands then and he hated himself for that. He hated that he was relieved. He hated that he couldn’t give her everything she deserved because he was too fucked up to give anyone what they needed, least of all himself.

He wanted to tell her he’d never meant to hurt her. He wanted to tell her that there was no one else. He knew he should’ve fought harder, made her listen to him, but as his bike roared into life he had to admit that it had sounded like a lie to him, too.

***

They spent Monday morning in the air, which suited Maverick just fine.

Not a one of the eight crews had managed to get either Ice or himself in a firm missile lock and gratifying as that was, he was starting to wonder if his teaching was at fault. Either that or the two of them were even better at the stick of an F-5 than they were of an F-14 and since both alternatives seemed entirely plausible to him he had no earthly idea which one was true. It was frustrating. He wished he had the experience behind him to back up his talent and guessed he had to lack in some areas, at least.

Still, Viper hadn’t complained and so he was working on the assumption that he was just too damn good. And, grudgingly, that Ice was too. It was the path of least resistance, after all.

After a lunch spent chatting with Hawk and a couple of his classmates about what he thought he was going to do with his leave – he thought maybe he’d go see Carole and the kids and someone said they thought Ice said he had family coming to stay, though imagining Ice with family was pretty hard - he spent the afternoon running the simulator. Tex and Blue had decided that since they couldn’t to fly against each other for real because the competition just wasn’t set up that way they’d play a little game of time trial with the simulator. Maverick was in a seemingly inexplicably affable mood and found he felt strangely inclined to aid and abet.

After that, trying to keep the ruckus of the other flight crews who were standing by watching down to a dull roar, they had drills with Tom ‘I eat, drink and breathe the textbook’ Kazansky and one-on-one simulator time with Maverick. The afternoon passed quickly. The guys asked him out for a drink at the end of the day but he declined; they took off and he hit the gym. He had a little frustrated energy that he needed to work off. He wanted to exhaust himself. He wanted to sleep the night through for once because of it and not dream of jetwash and cemeteries.

The sun was setting as he hit the faculty showers; the sunset shone in through the high, frosted windows and turned the white tiled room a blinding burnt gold. He knew Ice was still there, or he had been as he’d left the gym because he’d seen the newly purchased vintage Aston Martin he’d been bragging about as he’d peered out of the window. All he had to do was wait.

That first night he waited almost a full hour, getting crinkly under the hot water. He thought Ice must’ve been detained – he’d probably be in Viper’s office going over lesson plans or he’d had a phone call to make or he’d left his car keys on the desk over in hangar two. But he didn’t come, and his car wasn’t in the lot when Maverick finally left.

The second night he waited again. Not as long – just over half an hour this time – but he waited. Ice didn’t show. He felt like a fool when he walked out into the parking lot and saw the car was gone already. After what had happened Friday at the bar he’d felt sure Ice would meet him back in the showers but he’d left instead. The bastard had left. Mav went home and told himself he wasn’t jerking off to the memory of Ice’s mouth.

Wednesday was tough. Blue of all people almost had him out somewhere over the Pacific and he came back to into base slightly rattled because of it. He’d thought if anyone was going to get him it’d be that big lug of an in-flight genius Tex, but Blue? Maybe the Top Gun trophy race wasn’t quite the foregone conclusion he’d been convincing himself it was, even after Blue had narrowly won Monday’s simulator time trial. He’d told himself that was a simulator, just a machine, and so it really didn’t mean anything. Maybe it did. It was a horrible doubt to have.

And then he hit the showers. It had been a long day and his back was aching and he told himself he was absolutely not going to hang around in there on the off chance that Ice might wander in. He did hang around, though, like he should’ve known he would, and of course Ice didn’t wander in. Like he should’ve known he wouldn’t.

He started his bike with a kick slightly harder than was absolutely necessary, slipped on his beloved aviator glasses and let the wind dry his hair as he made his way home at a totally and utterly excessive speed. He nuked an individual mini microwave pizza and ate it along with half a bag of ready-to-serve popcorn in front of a marathon of Star Trek reruns. Later it felt kind of odd jerking off in his armchair with Captain Kirk still on TV.

He watched some old cartoons and chuckled along without much conviction. He tried to read – not exactly his favourite occupation but Charlie had recommended some sci-fi book by a guy he’d never heard of and he thought maybe it’d take his mind off events on planet earth, but he’d broken up with Charlie so he figured he didn’t have to read if she was never going to ask him what he thought of it. If he hadn’t decided that he’d had to break up with her right that instant then he would’ve had someone to massage his sore shoulders and his aching back. Way to go, Mav. Score one for the dumbass vegging out in front of Quincy.

It was barely 9:30 when he finally turned off the TV and mooched into the bedroom. He’d left the curtains closed all day so all he had left to do was strip off his clothes and fall straight on into bed. He was so completely unenthused that he couldn’t even jerk off so he just lay there staring at the ceiling and hoping to God that he’d fall asleep soon. It didn’t seem likely.

And just as he was dozing off, the phone rang.

***

Thursday morning came and he showed up on the base looking like he’d been up all night without a minute’s sleep. He’d cut himself shaving and half way through pre-flight he realised he still had a piece of tissue paper stuck to his jaw. Jester was frowning at him. Ice was giving him weird looks every moment he wasn’t talking to Charlie.

It was the second hard day in a row, back out over the desert this time. Usually he’d say that he didn’t think up there but today? He was thinking and he wasn’t even thinking straight. He knew he should’ve called in sick but could he have been alone all day rattling around in that house, watching crappy Mexican telenovelas and pretending that everything was fine? Work had seemed like the best option at the time. He was starting to have a change of heart at the awkward moment of piloting a jet over the Mojave.

And to top it all off, he heard the beeping of a missile lock just before they were due to head in. Blue – Blue of all people – had got him. Killed him dead in a symbolic manner. Fuck, what a perfect end to the day.

He took a shower and only thought about Ice’s hands and mouth and cock for a second as he left it. He congratulated himself with a wry smile as he dried himself; he got halfway through dressing before he slumped down on the bench in front of the lockers and dropped his head into his hands, fingers tight in his damp hair. He felt like hell. He’d have said he couldn’t remember the last time he felt so fucking dreadful but he knew exactly when that was. He wasn’t likely to forget it.

Then the door opened. Someone walked in with a rush of air that was chilling against his skin that was still hot from the shower. There were footsteps, loud, coming his way. He pulled on his t-shirt and ran his hand through his hair, pushed it back from his forehead. He glanced up. Perfect - it was Ice.

“What the hell’s wrong with you today?” he asked. “They should never have had you.”

Maverick didn’t look up this time. He started to tie his bootlaces instead because looking at Ice wouldn’t make this any better, any easier. “Carole called last night,” he said. “Goose’s wife. Goose’s widow. One of the kids… it was a hit and run.” He paused, not even sure why he was telling him anything at all as he pulled his laces tight, maybe a little too tight, biting into his fingers but that didn’t seem to matter all that much. “He didn’t make it.”

“Christ.” He heard the sound the lockers made opposite him as Ice leant back against them. “Christ.” He sighed, apparently out of witty retorts for the day or maybe, for once, understanding there was a time and a place and this was neither. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, so am I.” Maverick sighed. He might’ve felt better if Ice had been colder. The last thing he wanted was his sympathy.

Then they both went quiet, the only sounds their breath and the creak of the ancient water pipes, the hum of fluorescent overhead lights that washed out all of the shadows from Ice’s face and made him look practically inhuman. They just stayed there like that in silence for maybe a couple of minutes, Mav acutely aware he was being watched but totally unable to care about that, and then Ice started to walk away. As he got to the door, turned the handle, he stopped. His boots squeaked against the condensation on the tiles as he turned back.

“My place,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. “Tonight. Midnight.”

Maverick didn’t ask why or even how he knew he knew where his place was. He just nodded, and Ice left.

---

He was already half hard by the time he got to Ice’s place and only barely keeping himself from humping his bike seat out of sheer and utter desperation. He lowered the kickstand, adjusted his crotch like an oversexed teen and walked up to the door wondering if this made him a bad person or a pervert or both or something else completely. He didn’t decide. He rang the doorbell instead and the door swung open maybe ten seconds later, not long at all.

“You’re late,” Ice said, standing aside to let him in.

“I know.” He didn’t even bother with an excuse despite the fact that the one he had was pretty damn legitimate. All the houses for three blocks looked exactly the same in the dark and the numbers were pretty goddamn hard to see through a visor from the seat of a moving motorcycle. But hell, Ice would’ve had some damn retort about him being a fighter pilot for fuck’s sake, how a motorcycle shouldn’t be a challenge, so Mav kept his mouth shut.

The house was almost as dark inside as it was out; there was a light on in the lounge, maybe a table lamp, but that was the extent of it. Still, the moon was almost full outside and it looked like all the curtains were open. Ice looked almost… well, icy, in the moonlight. He closed the door behind them and he turned to Maverick, offering him a glass of what looked rather like scotch.

“Drink this,” he said, so Maverick took it and he drank it. It was scotch and it actually made him feel a little better, not that he’d ever admit it.

“Trying to get me drunk?” he asked, only half joking.

“No.”

And then Ice kissed him, hard, his hand suddenly there at the back of his neck as he pushed him up hard against the nearest wall. Maverick dropped the glass and it shattered loudly on the floor.

“I’m--" Maverick started, pulling away. But Ice’s grasp was firm.

“It’s only a fucking glass,” Ice said, and pulled him back in.

They kissed. Maverick had his eyes closed and one hand on the back of Ice’s neck; he almost didn’t realise that they were moving, that Ice had tucked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans and was pulling him away from the door and the broken glass, up the stairs. Ice pushed open the bedroom door and pulled him inside with him, nudging the door closed again behind them to shut them in.

Ice pulled back and in the moonlight Maverick realised that all he was wearing was a pair of dark sweats and a tank top. Ice pulled off the shirt and tossed it to the floor; Maverick shrugged off his jacket and dropped it on top of Ice’s shirt. The pile of clothes began to grow and grow, faster and faster, Mav’s boots and Ice’s pants, more and more in a rush until they were both standing there undeniably naked and Maverick was blushing like he’d never been naked with the guy before. Not that he thought Ice would be able to see it in the poor light but his cheeks were flaming red. He was surprised there was any blood free to rush to them, considering requirement in other parts.

He stared at Ice. He was just as hard as he was but he didn’t seem anywhere near as awkward about it; he should’ve been awkward, damnit, then Maverick would’ve felt like less of an ass standing there nude in the guy’s bedroom the way he was. It was an awkward situation for Christ’s sake, the two of them standing there like that, knowing they were going to screw, knowing they’d be using the bed that Ice slept in every night and not a shower back on base or a bathroom stall at the O Club. Such a mess. Such a fucking mess. And this really wasn’t the best way to deal with grief, either, no matter what his body was telling him. None of this was right.

But then Ice touched him. He slid his hand up over Maverick’s shoulder and stepped in as he cupped the back of his neck. Their cocks brushed together and Maverick flinched; Ice leaned in, put his free hand on his shoulder and just kissed his neck, pressed his mouth down right over his jugular, hot and hard.

Maverick shivered; Ice pulled back and gestured to the bed. Maverick took the hint; he climbed on facing the headboard and knelt there, sitting back on his heels feeling mildly disconcerted. “Lube?” he asked, glancing back very briefly over his shoulder. He felt better having his back to him, like he could pretend it wasn’t him at all, and the less they talked the better.

“Nightstand,” Ice replied with a vague gesture in its direction. The bastard looked amused.

He reached over and pulled open the drawer; on top of an address book and a half-used blister pack of Advil was some sort of generic tube of lube so he took it out and screwed off the cap.

He was getting to be an expert at prepping himself and knowing Ice was there, leaning against the wall at the opposite side of the room and watching, just waiting for him to finish, made it so fucking hot. He squeezed the lube onto his hand as he knelt there, down on his knees and propped up one hand; he squeezed his balls and rubbed his cock and then he reached back, breathing hard already. He pressed two fingers in. He thought he heard Ice make some kind of sound but he couldn’t be sure if, let alone what, that sound was.

It only took maybe thirty seconds. He didn’t need long and besides, he wanted it a little rough. Maybe a lot rough. Maybe he wanted it to hurt. Maybe he wanted it to hurt for days. Ice seemed willing to comply.

“Ready,” he said, willing his voice not to catch. It did. All he could do was laugh at himself for it.

Ice didn’t reply but Mav felt the mattress dip as Ice crawled up behind him. He held the lube back over his shoulder and Ice took it, their hands touching for a second. He listened as Ice slicked himself, felt Ice’s hand against his hip and then… fuck. He pushed straight in with one quick stroke and he hit Maverick’s prostate at the same goddamn time. He almost came right then and there, gasping at the shiver of pain and the fucking pleasure.

Ice stayed still behind him, in him, his breathing heavy but ultimately controlled. The bastard was even ice cold during sex. Maverick refused to be; he pushed back, pushing Ice deeper. He got the hint pretty quickly.

It was hot. It hurt in the start, but it was fucking hot. Ice’s hands dug into his hips almost hard enough to bruise, his cock filled him and hit that spot inside him over and over. Then he reached down and took Maverick’s cock in his still lube-slick hand and he jerked him hard, over and over. It was too much. He came over Ice’s hands in hot, sticky bursts and let himself collapse forward on the bed, a moan strangled in his throat and then muffled by the pillows.

Ice followed him down. Just a couple more thrusts and he came too, with a long, low groan. For a long moment he just stayed there on top of him, inside him, before he rolled off to the side, and then he looked at him. Maverick half expected him to throw him out right then and there but he smirked instead – or maybe he smiled, he couldn’t tell in that crappy light but knew which was more likely – and tossed the bed sheet over both of them, up to the waist.

“Go to sleep,” he said. “We’ve got an early start.”

***

Maverick went into his CO’s office the next morning and asked for a day’s leave to attend his godson’s funeral. Then he went down to the hangar, got strapped into his plane and flew his ass off for hours against the best of the best that the US Navy had to offer. They were good but he was better.

He’d woken up sticky that morning and as he’d opened his eyes he hadn’t had a clue where in the blue fucking hell he was. Then he’d realised. He was in Ice’s house. He was in Ice’s bed. The body sleeping there next to him so goddamn serenely was Ice.

He didn’t really know what to do and Ice was still asleep, face down on the mattress and completely, distractingly naked, so that did nothing to limit his options. He could wake him up – a prospect that, quite frankly, scared him shitless. He could go to the john and let the flush wake him, see where they stood when he got back in, or he could leave. If he was honest, he’d liked the sound of option number three most of all.

Their clothes were all jumbled up on the floor by the bed but he extracted his stuff with a minimum of fuss and dressed in the hallway at the top of the stairs so he wouldn’t be in danger of waking him. He put his boots on at the door and then hightailed it home to shower and change before work. He felt like a fucking coward. Ice would probably think just that when he woke up and found he’d gone and hadn’t even left a note; he might have, maybe, would’ve liked to think he would have but he hadn’t got a clue what to say. ‘Thanks for the fuck, Ice, you took my mind right off of Goose’s kid’s funeral’ just didn’t seem to cut it somehow.

Ice was avoiding him. Real, honest-to-God avoiding him. Even when things had been their most screwed up he hadn’t avoided him but now he was definitely, definitely avoiding him. When they got out of the F-5’s he just disappeared and only turned up sometime after lunch for their joint class and man, that was awkward. Then he disappeared again and when Maverick got to the parking lot, and he practically ran the whole way, Ice was already gone. The guy had just vanished. Yup, he’d screwed up big time. He hadn’t even gotten the cold shoulder – he’d been completely blocked out, no shoulder at all. It was really weird behaviour for a guy like Ice, all things considered.

When Viper showed up out of the blue as he was about to start his bike and asked what was with Ice, that was when things seemed really weird. After he’d fought down the urge to ask what made him think he had any idea what went on in Ice’s head – they weren’t even friends for crying out loud! – he just told him he didn’t know. He was a lousy liar, but Viper didn’t press and he guessed he honestly didn’t know anyway.

He went home, spent some quality time with his dress uniform and the ironing board then watched some bike racing on TV. After twenty laps he was thinking of calling Ice despite the pesky little fact he didn’t actually know his number. Forty-five and he was ready to go over. By the time the racers crossed the finish line he’d chickened out and who the hell did Ice think he was ignoring him anyway? Stupid immature jerk. Damn him, it wasn’t like they were friends, wasn’t like they were lovers. He’d done the right thing by leaving.

Except by the time he’d reached the kitchen and was reaching for his fifth or sixth beer, he’d started to wonder what might’ve happened if he’d stayed. He had the whole weekend to brood on it.

***

God, he hated funerals. He remembered his father’s back when he’d been just a kid and remembered Goose’s much more recently and it wasn’t often that his best uniform came out of mothballs, let alone twice in a year. Technically he could’ve turned up in civilian clothing but it felt right somehow when he arrived there at the cemetery in San Diego in his best, ribbons and hat and shined shoes. A couple of other officers were there, blue uniforms, white gloves, and it seemed sort of solemn enough, sombre enough for an eight-year-old’s funeral.

The priest was excellent as far as priests ever went. The casket was just what poor dead Sean would’ve wanted, had he had the choice – black and thoroughly depressing though sadly lacking in dinosaurs, which was exactly as it should be. Carole and her girls cried so much. Goose’s parents and in-laws were almost worryingly stoic. God, Maverick hated funerals.

They all went back to Carole’s place after though really all he wanted to do was get back into his rental car and drive back down to Miramar at a speed that would have landed him in the county lock-up if the traffic cops were on patrol. There was just something about Goose and Carole’s two girls swarming around his legs in their frilly little dresses that he knew had been bought for their father’s funeral, so they were now almost too small because the two of them just kept on growing. They kept calling him Uncle Pete and probably didn’t understand for a second that their big brother was never coming home from school. He was pretty sure they still didn’t get that their dad wasn’t just on deployment.

He slipped away and hid out in the kitchen with a tray of finger food and a glass of too-dry white wine. He could hear the people milling around outside and he wished he hadn’t come, wished he’d stayed back in Miramar though things were pretty fucked up there too. He checked his watch, checked it again, checked it for the hundredth time. He could’ve been in his F-5 at a few thousand feet with an F-14 screaming down behind him. He could’ve been flying formation with Ice and Jester and maybe even Viper – had the CO had to go up because he’d bugged out? He sighed and took another sip of the wine, grimacing briefly. He wasn’t a wine guy. He was practically still tasting whiskey and regretting a broken glass.

“Sucks, doesn’t it.” He looked up; Carole was standing in the kitchen doorway, red-eyed in a long black dress. She was holding a half-empty glass of wine in her hand. “The wine. It sucks.”

He nodded. “Yeah, it really sucks,” he agreed. He put his glass down on the table and got to the door just as Carole burst into tears. He wrapped her up in his arms and held her tightly, feeling his throat go tight as she rested her head on his shoulder. God, he loved her, like a sister or maybe a sister-in-law. They both missed Goose. They’d both miss Sean.

“I’m sorry,” she said, after a couple of minutes, wiping her eyes as she pulled back. “Your shoulder’s all wet.” She flicked at it with a handkerchief then leant back against the table behind her. Maverick propped himself up against the counter in front of the sink, watching her as she pulled herself together. It was kind of impressive how she managed it in spite of everything, though it was probably only going to last a matter of minutes.

“You know, I called Charlie,” Carole said. Maverick frowned. Now there was an interesting non sequitur – wet shoulders to his ex-girlfriend in one easy step. He guessed that was Carole through and through. It was one of her endearing qualities.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, Maverick.” Carole’s red eyes were scrutinising him even as she dabbed at them with her handkerchief. “She told me you left her. In fact, she told me you’d been seeing someone else and she hated the sight of you.”

Maverick rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “That’s not really true,” he protested, but she didn’t seem to be listening.

“I told her you’d never cheat on her. I mean, you’re crazy about her, why would you cheat on her? But she said you’d practically admitted it.” She cocked her head to one side. “Tell me you didn’t screw up another relationship, Mav. Tell me you didn’t go behind her back.”

“I didn’t.” But he didn’t sound at all convincing.

Carole popped a vol-au-vent into her mouth, chewing between sentences, and carried on. “I know I can be a bit of a mother hen, Maverick, but it’s only because I love you like I do. You’re like my kid brother, y’know? I want to see you happy. And Charlie made you happy, right?”

He frowned. “Yeah, she did,” he said. “Carole, it’s just. Look, it’s complicated, okay?”

“Don’t get me wrong, if she wasn’t making you happy and you found someone who does, I’m not saying I agree with it but if--”

“I didn’t.”

“No, no, I’m happy for you.”

“Carole, you’re not listening to me.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

And she practically flung herself at him, bursting into another gale of tears. So he just hugged her and tried to forget what she’d said, waiting for the crying to be over. None of this should’ve happened to her. Of all the people he knew, she deserved it the least. She felt so fragile and the realisation was jarring; she’d always been the strong one.

“Thanks for being here,” she said, drying her eyes as she stepped away. He just gave her a small lopsided smile. “I’d better get back. I’ll call you. Maybe we could go out sometime, the zoo maybe, take the kids.” She paused, squeezing her eyes shut. He knew she was thinking about Sean, about Goose. “They’d like that.”

“Sure,” he said. “Me too.”

“Be happy, Mav.” And she left the room.

He didn’t stay long after that. He shook a few hands and said goodbye to the girls on the way to the door and then he broke down crying in the car, letting himself do it, maybe just for a couple of minutes because he couldn’t help it, he had to let go. Sometimes life could be so fucked up.

He dried his eyes and he headed home.

***

“My place,” Ice said. “Tonight.”

Maverick frowned and opened his mouth to say something – he wasn’t entirely sure what, exactly – but he nodded instead. Ice’s gaze lingered on him a moment longer then he stalked off down the corridor.

“Hey!” Maverick called after him. He stopped and turned, standing there side-on to him with his head turned to look back. “Aren’t you avoiding me?”

“I was.” He smirked, the arrogant son of a bitch. “And now I’m not.”

---

The day dragged on now that he had all day to think about it. He was wandering around the base, running the simulator, eating lunch, talking to Viper, and all the time thinking about what was going to happen later that night. He could see the front door of Ice’s house when he closed his eyes, the brass numbers bright in the moonlight. He could see Ice as he opened up the door to let him in. He could see his bed. He could feel his mouth. It was torture.

According to Viper, who had the final say as program CO, Tex and Blue were pretty much neck and neck for the trophy. There wasn’t long left – just a few days – so they’d been devising a few little games to play to really push them. Suddenly Maverick was glad because well, he needed something else to concentrate on and it was pretty easy to concentrate away from terra firma. The guys all filed out to their planes and they spent the afternoon in the air. The manoeuvrability that the F-5 had over the F-14 made it all much more fun that he really should have been having the day after the funeral, even if Tex and Blue were riding him pretty hard.

Then it was over. Ice must’ve lost concentration, if just for a millisecond, because Tex took him, Game Over. It was getting routine for Tex and Blue and occasionally TJ and Trapper to take out Jester, but Ice? The guy must have been having a spectacularly off day. He didn’t look any different as they hopped out of their F-5’s and wandered inside the base – same damn cool look on his face, same icy blue eyes. He wanted to ask what was going on but hell, they weren’t friends and really, any less than stellar comment on his performance and Maverick had a feeling Ice probably wouldn’t open the door that night. He started to convince himself that the guys had just got incredibly, unbelievably lucky instead of pondering the short list of alternatives.

He did open the door, standing there in just a pair of black sweats that made his skin look white like paper or snow in the moonlight and hung down low on his hips, showing off a trail of light hair that led down beneath the waistband. No drink this time though Mav he felt like he needed it. Ice just let him in and they went straight to bed. Maverick hadn’t realised until right then just how much he’d hoped to be back there, even if he wasn’t sure he should be there at all.

Ice led him up the stairs and sat him down on the edge of the bed; somehow like magic they’d lost their clothes along the way, scattered down the hallway and up the staircase so they were both stark naked in the half-light. Ice’s cock was at a level just below Maverick’s chin as he stood there in front of him by the foot of the bed and for a second he really thought he was going to ask him to suck him off, maybe not even ask, but then Ice was on his knees on the floor, pushing Maverick’s thighs apart. And suddenly, suddenly, before he could get any sort of handle on the situation, Ice was going down on him instead.

His mouth was hot and wet and hell, he hadn’t been blown by either a girl or a guy for a long time, probably not since a dumbass dare back out somewhere in the Indian Ocean where there was a distinct lack of female company and not too much to do. Then there was the fact that Charlie had been thoroughly proper when it came to sex, which meant roughly translated that her mouth had stayed firmly above his shoulders at all times and he’d been fine with that, A-OK. But Ice? Oh God, oh God.

Somehow he kept his eyes from rolling and he looked down; one glance at Ice’s perfect lips on his cock and he just couldn’t look anymore. He squeezed his eyes shut and leaned back, screwing up the sheets in his hands as he just let himself feel without the benefit of the visual aid. Ice sucked slowly, played with his balls, stroked his hands over his thighs, raked his nails over his stomach. He was so good that Maverick started to wonder where he’d learnt it and the stab of jealousy hit him completely out of left field. Really he was surprised he had enough coherency left to think about it when he was so damn close, so soon, so frustratingly soon.

He came and Ice just kept on sucking till there was nothing left but dry spasms, his hips bucking faintly. He slipped Maverick’s cock from his mouth, wiped his lips on the back of his hand then popped in a breath mint from the top of the nightstand and hell, wasn’t that just like the smug son of a bitch. Especially when he looked up with a smirk on his face. Mav could’ve hit him, or walked out, or any of a hundred different things.

He didn’t have time to dwell on it. Ice was pushing him back and he was letting him; he rolled him over and reached over into the drawer in the nightstand. Maverick was still tingling, almost shuddering when Ice pressed to fingers inside him. He was too far gone to realise how loudly he was moaning or how fucking wantonly he was pressing back against him and somehow he almost came again as Ice replaced his fingers with the length of his hard cock. Maverick’s mind was swirling, his skin flushed and damp with sweat. As Ice came he bit his shoulder harder than Mav guessed either of them had expected him to. Maverick was too far gone to care.

They lay there side by side after, Mav still breathing hard, still disconcerted. Ice pulled a sheet up over them and Maverick stared at the ceiling, hyper-aware of the line where Ice’s shoulder and arm were touching his own, hot and solid.

He didn’t move. In less than fifteen minutes he was pretty much dead to the world.

***

Eventually the light streaming in through the open curtains woke him and he lay there for a moment, rubbing his eyes. It was different this time – he knew where he was right off the bat, for one, and for another… well, Ice wasn’t in the bed. Maverick wasn’t sure what he would’ve done if he had been, like before, like the first time, but he really wanted to think he wouldn’t have bolted for the door. He had a sneaking suspicion he would have.

He wasn’t in the bathroom, either. But there was this sound downstairs, and a familiar smell. Bacon. The fucker was cooking.

Maverick followed the trail of his discarded clothing down the stairs, dressing as he went along. He almost slipped out the door without saying a word but by the time he’d thought about it he’d already mysteriously made it to the open kitchen doorway. Ice was at the counter by the stove, serving out something that he grudgingly had to admit smelled delicious. There were two plates.

Then Ice looked up at him.

“I think I ought to get going,” Maverick said quickly, not quite inside the room, leaning on the doorpost with his leather jacket in his hands. Ice didn’t really stop what he was doing; he picked up the two plates and walked barefoot across the kitchen’s tiled floor to the table where he set the plates down by two glasses and a carton of juice, then took a seat.

“Maverick, it’s 6am,” he said, picking up a slice of toast and taking a bite. “We’re not due on base till nine.” He gestured at the plate sitting opposite him. “Relax, have some breakfast. Have some toast at least.”

His argument was oddly persuasive; Maverick stepped into the room and walked up to the table, slung his jacket over the back of the chair and took a seat.

He’d been pretty sure it was going to be awkward but Ice produced his work files and they started reviewing pilot performance over bacon and eggs. Ice poured them both some juice and they talked some more. They kept going as Ice made them coffee; it seemed they both agreed that Tex Kellerman flew more like Maverick than the textbook demanded but both still thought he should and would win. Maverick had an idea that their reasons for it were probably vastly dissimilar but that really didn’t matter; he’d never thought they’d agree on anything at all.

He glanced at his watch and when he read 7:45 he frowned and made a quick exit; he needed to shower and change into his uniform and it never looked good when he turned up late for work. He started his bike, surprised that he found he was actually faintly reluctant to leave.

---

It was Wednesday. Two days of training left after that, then graduation on Saturday and still they didn’t have a clear winner. Viper was frustrated – Mav could tell by the extra snap in his step – and Jester was just plain pissed. Probably because he’d backed a losing horse, but that didn’t change the fact.

Charlie was taking a class that morning, out in hangar two by the simulator, and the maintenance guys kept the noise down just for her as they serviced the A4’s at the rear of the hangar. Maverick and Ice sat in, pulling up a couple of spare chairs at the back. Charlie pointedly ignored them.

He still thought she was pretty and he still liked the sound of her voice but he still thought her lectures were essentially only so much unfounded bullshit. Obviously so did Ice because the two of them spent most of the hour and a half of her class shuffling their chairs together and muttering about negative G dives and the manoeuvrability that the MiG had over the F-14. Charlie hadn’t seen combat – Maverick and Ice both had, separately and also at the same damn time – but obviously she was in no mood to have her class interrupted by corrections, even from them. After half an hour of over-loud whispering in back she started glaring, and she didn’t stop.

Jester came in for a review of the previous two days’ flight sessions and while Ice wandered off to only God knew where, Maverick decided he’d better stay; after all, he’d missed Monday’s session and he knew he should really get up to speed. It turned out Viper had gone out instead of him, which made him feel vaguely guilty and sort of gratified together, but really the session had been more about tactics than an actual mission. TJ and Blue had scored well, whereas Tex and his rather unorthodox approach hadn’t really made the grade. Maverick wondered how much of that was down to Jester and his continually annoying by-the-book attitude.

They broke for lunch. Maverick ate with Hawk and Tex, Blue, Coop and a few of the other students and got all caught up on the hockey scores, then they all headed out to the hangar to their planes for the afternoon session.

They put Maverick and Ice together up in an F-14. Ice was the world’s worst backseat driver for the first twenty minutes but he settled down after that and they actually played pretty well together. The idea was ostensibly that since no one ever seemed to get a target lock on anyone but Jester, Maverick and Ice would join the team and show them how it was done. At least that was what Viper said, but Maverick suspected he just wanted the guys to have a little fun and mostly at their expense. After all, he’d promised Ice would get a go in the pilot’s seat the next morning and Maverick could see what it was like to be out of control.

It was a weird afternoon. Maverick and Tex almost had Jester and Viper but then somehow they lost it and the next thing they knew Viper was laughing at them over the beeping that signalled a missile lock. So, they lost. But they’d always lost against Viper in the smaller, lighter A4, and somehow Maverick had impressed the hell out of the students even losing.

Then they left. Well, the students left – Ice and Maverick joined Viper, Jester and Charlie in Viper’s office for some day-end discussion that amounted to a grand total of nothing, and then they left.

It had been a good day. Maverick had a feeling he was going to sleep well and for once, he was right.

***

Ice was a madman. There was no other explanation for it, except maybe that Maverick wasn’t exactly mad about flying when he wasn’t in control. And he wasn’t in control – Ice was.

But slowly, really slowly, Mav started to calm down. He knew Ice knew what he was doing in an F-14 and even if he hadn’t been behind the wheel of one, metaphorically speaking, for the past few months, it was glaringly obvious he was the best damn pilot out there. He took risks that Maverick had never realised he’d taken. And no one out there could touch him, especially with Maverick in the co-pilot’s seat.

The session ended just before lunch and he hopped out of the place with a new and bewildering sort of respect for Ice’s skill; he wondered if the same had been true the day before. Then, after he’d changed out of his flight suit, he joined the guys for lunch.

“So you’re coming tonight?” Hawk was asking Cooper and a couple of the others as Maverick slid into an empty seat with his tray. Cooper nodded; the general consensus seemed to be in the affirmative, whatever it was they were planning.

“Mav?”

“What?” he asked, between – and sort of during – a couple of bites of sadly dry meatloaf.

“Tonight. You gonna be there?”

“I’m not a mind-reader, Hawk. Where?”

“Iceman’s place. He asked us all over, beer and pizza on him before we’re all packed off to our previous mundane existence. You in?”

Maverick shrugged. He hadn’t heard a word about it and it wasn’t as if Ice hadn’t had a chance to ask him. And he knew Ice was sitting down at the other end of the table, talking hockey with Jester and a couple of the guys, perfectly in earshot, but he’d be damned before he’d look at him.

“I don’t think I’m invited,” he said at last.

“Bullshit, man – open invitation to the Top Gun students and faculty, from the lips of the Iceman himself, I swear to God.” Hawk had his best serious expression plastered to his face and his hand was on his heart. Maverick had seen that look too many times back in flight school to trust it completely, but he shrugged anyway.

“Sure, I’ll see you there,” he said.

---

Beer and pizza indeed.

Maverick rang the doorbell just after nine and a mildly inebriated Coop Cooper greeted him with a slightly slurred Maverick, where’ve you been, man? The party’s started without you! He had a slice of pepperoni pizza in one hand and a bottle of Bud in the other. Maverick followed him inside like maybe he really needed a guide.

Coop headed into the lounge; Maverick put his head round the door and waved as a few calls and a few cans went up around the room. About half the class was watching some pay-per-view boxing match in there, sprawled on Ice’s furniture or the floor. Coop was bitching because TJ had stolen the recliner in his absence. There was no sign of Ice. Maverick left the room.

Trapper Pierson came out of the bathroom, came down the stairs and headed into the kitchen, and so Maverick followed him. It turned out Ice and the other guys were gathered around the kitchen table where there weren’t really enough chairs so they’d borrowed next door’s crappy plastic patio furniture, playing poker.

“Hey, Mav, glad you made it!” Hawk called; the guys mostly turned, nodded, waved, gave some sort of half-drunk greeting, and Ice just looked at him for a second before going back to his cards. There was no money on the table. Maverick joined Vegas Wilder leaning against the counter who passed him a beer; soon he found out that Hawk and Coop had conveniently ‘forgotten’ their wallets so the whole damn table of navy officers was playing poker for M&Ms.

It was a weird sort of night. He played and lost a few hands of poker, ate some pizza, drank some beer and caught half of a Schwarzenegger flick on VHS that the guys in the lounge had mysteriously produced and were geekishly dissecting like they knew anything but flying. It was like a low budget frat party without the girls but everyone seemed to be having a pretty good time and Maverick guessed fear of the Iceman and non-graduation by extension kept everyone from treading nacho chips into the carpets.

It was about 1am when the guys started to leave, which was actually pretty darn late when the guys had to be up, dressed and probably running laps, knowing Jester, by 7am. That was the advantage of being an instructor – starting at nine and being on the right side of Jester the majority of the time. Tex, Hawk and TJ were the last to trail out, about 1:45. Maverick was the only one left, pretty much drunk though he hadn’t meant to end up that way. He doubted anyone had noticed they’d left him behind.

Ice turned off the TV in the lounge, stuffed the pizza boxes and the leftover M&Ms into the trash then leaned against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed across his chest and looked at him. Maverick realised he’d never really been there at night with the lights on. It was kind of strange that the place wasn’t all shadows and crappy moonlight through half-open blinds.

“I’m going to bed,” Ice said, still looking right at him from the counter while Mav sat there at the table shuffling the cards like a Vegas dealer desperately in need of a refresher course. A moment and Ice strode over to the kitchen door; Maverick frowned and guessed he’d be going, that he’d need a cab and he’d leave the bike outside, come by again in the morning, but Ice turned in the doorway and looked back over his shoulder.

“Are you coming?” Ice asked.

So he went.

---

He took him on his back.

It was odd doing it that way and Maverick wasn’t sure how he felt about it at first, a pillow under his hips and his knees pushed up, pretty much more exposed than he’d ever felt in his life, but then Ice was over him and in him, bracing his arms at either side of him and looking right down at him with those fucking insane intense blue eyes. His doubts melted away along with all the tension in his spine and what little was left of his mind. He would’ve let Ice do whatever the fuck he wanted.

It was slower and it lasted longer and by the end they were both shivering and covered with a sheen of sweat that stuck Mav’s hair down to his scalp and made Ice’s biceps slick as Mav’s hands gripped him there. Maverick’s mind wouldn’t stop reeling after; he could still see the look on Ice’s face as he’d thrust inside him, could see his face as he’d come, and the disjointed goddamn intimacy had his whole head totally off-kilter. He could still feel Ice’s hand on his cock and Ice’s cock inside him. This was fucking ridiculous.

He was staring at the ceiling as Ice pulled the sheet up over them just like usual. That was, of course, assuming there was such a thing as ‘usual’ between them and Maverick wasn’t totally sure of that. But then he felt Ice’s palm against his face, turning his head. Ice leant closer and pressed his mouth slowly, hotly to Maverick’s, a flash as their gazes met for a second like a shiver of adrenaline, then he settled back down on his own side of the bed. This did nothing for Mav’s state of mind. Nothing made sense.

“Get some sleep,” Ice said.

Maverick rubbed the back of his hand against his mouth as he frowned into the dark. He’d try; he’d try.

***

He woke with a start.

What the fuck was that noise? A plane, a fighter, probably an F-5. Fucking loud, but that was fine considering he was lying in bed in Fightertown, USA.

Bed. Not his. Christ, another morning in Ice’s bed. And thanks to that damn fool pilot who had no business flying by at – he checked his watch, fishing it from the nightstand; 5:47am – Ice was now wide awake beside him, running a hand over his hair as he lay there, not quite watching him.

Maverick hauled himself up to sit leaning back against the heavy wooden headboard and Ice followed suit, resting his head back against the wall, chin tilted up, throat exposed. They glanced at each other then they both looked away. Somehow there was something different about waking up in bed with Ice, something awkward, something different to skipping out before he woke or going down to a sensible, work-oriented conversation over breakfast, that Maverick didn’t want to think about just then. He saw the outline of Ice’s morning erection through the sheet and his own cock twitched in response; all he wanted to do was straddle Ice’s thighs and bury his face in his long neck, grind against him till they both came. This was ridiculous. Fucking plane. Fucking pilots. Fucking Miramar.

Then Ice slipped out of the bed. Maverick practically breathed a sigh of relief as he watched Ice’s bare ass retreat into the bathroom but then he stopped and turned a complete one-eighty. He stood there in the bathroom doorway, leaning forward with a hand on either doorpost, naked and half hard.

“I’m taking a shower,” he said, and licked his lower lip almost like he hadn’t meant to do it. He turned and went inside but Ice never did anything that wasn’t deliberate and that lick of his lips said it all, spoke volumes. Roughly three seconds later, Maverick was in there with him.

If he squinted, he could almost pretend the sunlight was fluorescent. He could almost pretend nothing had changed at all.

---

The last day. Viper called the instructors in while the guys were off at lunch; apparently Tex and Hawk had gone ahead and won and when they made the announcement to the students no one seemed particularly surprised by it. They were all really sporting about it, even Blue and Coop who, quite frankly, reminded Maverick more than a little of Ice and Slider. It kind of fitted if Tex and Hawk were Mav and Goose, even if Tex was nearly a clear foot taller than Mav and Goose, well. Goose. He didn’t feel like finishing that line of thought. He didn’t want to think about that at all.

Just because it was the last day of school that didn’t mean anyone there got to slack off. They got up in the air for one last simulated mission, all four combat flight instructors against the eight crews of the Top Gun graduating class. The thing was insane, exhausting and a hell of a lot of fun that Maverick hadn’t really known he’d needed as much as he did. Though, of course, at the end of the day they all had to come in, change out of their flight suits and think about leaving. Some for longer than others. And Viper called Maverick, Ice and Jester into his office.

He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about the goddamn bet. He’d won, of course; he collected the eighty bucks that had been sitting in the top drawer of Viper’s desk the whole time, steeped in cigar smoke, received everyone’s reluctant congratulations and declined the scotch that Viper offered to them all, and then he left. Ice followed close behind.

“I wonder which one bet on me,” Ice said as they walked. Maverick shrugged. “C’mon, you’ve got to have thought about it. Was it Viper? Jester? Did they bet we’d both lose?”

“Christ.” Maverick stopped abruptly, turned and slumped back against the wall there in the corridor leading away from Viper’s office, rubbing at his eyes. “Look, I don’t need this right now.”

Ice frowned. “If this is about--"

He didn’t care what he was about to say – Goose, the trophy, any-damn-thing. “Fuck you, Kazansky,” he muttered, angry but not entirely sure why that was. He wasn’t sure he cared who was the best anymore. He was finding it hard to care about anything at all he was so worn down with everything that had happened, memories right there pulling at him all the goddamn time. He missed Goose and he hated this. He hated risking his career to wake up awkward with a guy he barely knew. He hated fooling himself that it didn’t matter. “Just, fuck you.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s one thing we haven’t done yet.”

Maverick froze – that was a low blow and he just hadn’t expected it, bringing up what they’d been doing out of hours when they were arguing about, well, what the hell had they been arguing about? He just stared, half-panicked somewhere inside when he realised there were a few other officers in the corridor, just down the corridor, not fifteen feet away, and looked at Ice with a distinct expression of I can’t believe you just said that broadcast all over his face. His heart was hammering and judging from the look on Ice’s face he couldn’t believe he’d said it either. Ice was visibly rattled. That was maybe the most disconcerting part of the whole damn thing.

Maverick rested his head back against the wall. Ice sighed as he joined him, practically shoulder-to-shoulder like that was natural for the two of them somehow when no, no. Maverick couldn’t help it – he turned and he punched the wall, not hard enough to break his hand but hard enough to bruise it.

Ice laughed, half at him and half at what-the-fuck-ever else, the situation, maybe himself, and ran one hand over his cropped hair. “I think I need a drink,” he said.

“I think I need a doctor,” Mav replied, rubbing at his bruised hand.

Ice smirked. That was better. That was familiar. “Don’t be such a teenage drama queen, Maverick,” Ice said. “I’m buying.”

---

They didn’t hit the O Club after that. They passed it and Maverick followed Ice’s Aston Martin all the way back to Ice’s place but then he passed that, too; Mav was frowning inside his helmet until he realised what Ice was doing. They wound up in his own front yard instead of in the parking lot of the bar like he’d been expecting, instead of Ice’s driveway, wondering the whole time what the hell was doing and why he didn’t just peel off and bug out. But he didn’t. He slowed the bike in the driveway and followed Ice up to the door, unlocked it and let them both inside the house. Ice led the way like he knew the way somehow, like Ice in Mav’s place wasn’t incongruous as hell. He didn’t even get the drink he’d been promised till later.

It was absolutely, genuinely, demonstrably goddamn ridiculous. Ice locked the door with Mav’s key while Maverick tugged off his helmet and gloves and left them stuffed together on the bureau in the hall, tugged off his jacket and hung it by the door with Ice’s like they were both meant to be there and Ice hadn’t just somehow invited himself into his home. Then Ice stepped right in behind him, his hands at Mav’s waist, pressed his hips up against his denim-clad ass and walked him up to the nearest wall. Mav let him do it, rested his forehead down against the magnolia paint, leaned on his hands as Ice’s fingers tugged at the collar of his t-shirt and Ice’s mouth came down on the juncture between neck and shoulder, hot and wet and insistent. Maverick sighed. They couldn’t keep on doing this.

They went upstairs. The blinds were drawn but the room was just as bright as Ice’s had been that morning when they’d been so damn rudely awoken and Mav watched as Ice pulled off his shirt, as Ice looked around over the untidy room with an appraising eye and Mav tried not to think about the spotless squaring away of Ice’s place. But, of course, he hadn’t exactly been expecting company. Ever.

The afternoon sun was a whole hell of a lot different to the harsh fluorescent shower room lights back at the base or the tumbles in the dark in a house that wasn’t his sometime past midnight and he felt oddly self-conscious as he pulled off his own shirt. He could’ve slapped himself for that, or maybe punched another wall. There wasn’t much clothing left between them once their shirts were gone and they made light work of shedding them as they stood there in Mav’s bedroom. They didn’t close the door and they left the window open behind the blinds; the breeze blowing in, making the blinds clink against the glass, went a long way to distracting Maverick from the fact that it was such a dumbass idea that they were even there at all.

Ice stepped in and kissed him slowly, thoroughly, like that even made sense. One hand rested at Maverick’s shoulder and the other at one side of his face, the pad of Ice’s thumb resting almost hot by the orbit of one closed eye. Maverick had hold of one of Ice’s biceps, his other hand teasing at the small of his back with his nails. When Ice pulled back they weren’t gasping for air; Maverick just felt flushed, sort of embarrassed. He found himself smiling and hated himself for it, shook it off, stepped back and ran his hands through his hair instead. Ice laughed. Mav wasn’t sure it was funny.

Ice pulled him down onto the bed and they landed in an awkward heap that knocked the air right out of both of them as every possible part clashed together. Maverick ended up on top, lying heavily against Ice, braced up on his forearms as he leaned in to kiss him before they’d both even really caught their breath again. Ice’s thighs were wide apart and Maverick lay between them, trapping their cocks between their bellies, rubbing together. Fucking lunacy, Mav thought. He did find that funny, at least.

“I want you,” Ice said, almost offhand because only Ice could be casual about that, though Maverick couldn’t say he was surprised by the sentiment when judging from the situation at hand. The words though, or maybe just the fact he’d said them at all, they surprised him. From the way Ice looked as he said it, much more than the nonplussed tone of his voice, it was like some kind of a reluctant confession and made something inside Maverick pull tight with anticipation. Ice looked vaguely pissed off by the fact he’d even spoken at all or maybe just by the fact that Maverick was heavier than he looked as he lay there.

Mav started to move, to shimmy off to the right on the bed he’d left unmade the last time he’d been in it so he could lie on his stomach and wait, but Ice stopped him with a quick squeeze of his forearm and a hitch of his leg to stop him moving. “Look, I want you,” he repeated, looking Maverick dead in the eye, looking every inch like he wanted to kick himself for saying it or maybe kick Mav for not understanding his point in the first place without further explanation. He winced like the notion of actually saying it aloud physically pained him. “Fuck’s sake, Maverick, are you brain-damaged? In me.”

Mav quirked a brow comically before he could stop himself. “Like you said on base?”

Ice actually rolled his eyes at him and his statement of the obvious. “Yeah, Mav,” he said. “Like I said on base.”

It was pretty much unexpected. So far it had all been pretty one-sided, Ice on top, and Maverick hadn’t exactly expected anything else if he’d ever really expected anything at all. It was a weird change in dynamic even after what Ice had said back on base because Mav had been pretty sure it was a poorly timed, poorly aimed retort more than an actual request but hell, apparently he’d meant it, or at the very least it’d made him think through their options. It made Maverick pause there over him, on top of him, as Ice started to look a shade more pissed that he hadn’t moved or responded, not that he could say he didn’t want it. God, he wanted it. He hadn’t realised how much he had until suddenly it was a possibility.

He took him on his back. A quick scramble in a drawer by the bed for the lube he knew was there and Maverick was buried in him balls-deep and gasping without even really knowing how he’d got there except maybe Ice had manipulated him into it, not that he gave a damn if he had. Ice held onto his forearms, gripping there like Maverick was the only thing tethering him to the earth and bit back a groan as Maverick moved inside him. It took every ounce of will left in him not to lose it completely when he heard that but he couldn’t let himself do it. He wanted it to last. If nothing else, if this was it and nothing else again, he was going to remember the flush in Ice’s tanned skin and the arch of his back as he fucked him.

They went slowly, maddeningly slowly, letting the pressure build up as they moved together breathlessly. It coiled down low in Maverick’s belly, tighter and tighter till he tingled with it, almost ached with it. He bit down on his bottom lip as he came, bucking into Ice in uncontrolled, uncontrollable flexes of his hips as Ice just watched him do it. Ice, teasing his own cock between the two of them, wasn’t too far behind.

For a moment Maverick stayed right there, looking right into Ice’s face, into his bright blue eyes like it wasn’t fucking weird that he was doing it and Ice wasn’t lying there in what was soon going to be a pretty uncomfortable position, if it wasn’t already. He didn’t know for sure that anything had changed between them but it felt like it had; the way Ice was looking at him like they’d both totally lost it said it had. Then he pulled out and stretched out next to him, close enough that their shoulders touched despite the size of the bed. He felt better, even if he was sure a therapist would tell him fucking around with Ice was only causing him more problems than it solved. This wasn’t therapy, even if it felt pretty good.

Then things got weird and the silence got awkward and they left the bed. They dressed quickly, gazes pointedly averted, and wound up downstairs like nothing had happened or maybe like everything had.

Sitting in his own damn lounge at somewhere just past 5pm with a glass of whiskey cheap enough to make his eyes water there in his hand was really fucking weird. He swilled the stuff around the bottom of the glass as he sat there in his usual armchair and didn’t look at Ice who was doing pretty much the same thing with his own glass. They looked just like the set Ice had, the one that Maverick had broken one of weeks before. It seemed like months. It wasn’t even two months.

“I had a girlfriend in high school,” Ice said, suddenly, breaking what was definitely one of the more awkward silences of Maverick’s recent experience.

Mav raised his brows. “What--“

“Shut the fuck up and listen.” Maverick held up his hands in defeat, nearly spilling his drink in the process, and then proceeded to shut the fuck up. “I had a girlfriend in high school. Class president. I played hockey. She kept trying to get me to screw her, y’know? And after a while I realised I didn’t want to.” Ice took a sip of his foul drink as he looked at Maverick across the room, pointedly. “What I wanted to do was screw this guy I knew from JROTC. So I screwed the guy from JROTC and I dumped the girl and I joined the academy.”

Mav frowned. “So why--"

“--am I telling you?” Ice shrugged. “It seemed relevant.”

“You screwing a guy in high school seemed relevant?”

Maverick laughed and shook his head, pretty close to incredulous as he leaned back heavily in his seat. He stoically wasn’t thinking about his own time at the academy, one of the guys he’d known who’d washed out just a couple of months before graduation and everyone had known why; he wasn’t thinking about how that guy had blown him after a baseball game there on campus and how close they’d come to getting caught, how close he’d come to ending his career before it’d even started. Yeah, he’d done it a couple of times since, he was reckless or maybe just cocky that way, but the implication there was clear: Ice hadn’t. That seemed relevant.

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

They looked at each other, from opposite sides of the room, and Maverick tried so damn hard not to think about what they’d done, what they’d just done, what they’d been doing for weeks and how insane that was. They hadn’t put names to it, hadn’t even talked about it and probably never would but neither one had made a move to stop it and that spoke volumes; being in the air had always been every-damn-thing to Maverick and he was fucking with that just to fuck around with Ice. And somehow, right then, Ice looked sick and tired and pissed and frustrated all at the exact same time in a way Maverick had never seen him look before.

Ice wasn’t in control. Fuck. Ice wasn’t in control. He’d never seen him that way and he guessed no one else had, either. At least not since high school.

Ice leaned forward, arms on his knees, cradling his glass in both hands. He shook his head.

“We have a problem,” Ice said.

Mav laughed.

“Yeah, Ice, we have a problem.”

***

US Marine General Thomas Kazansky was an imposing guy.

They were officially on leave and Maverick was officially half-enjoying ordering pepperoni pizza and falling asleep on the couch in front of reruns of Star Trek while Ice was busy with his visiting family but it was pretty hard to say no when you’d been invited to dinner by your CO and the guest of honour was so high up in the goddamn chain of command, even if he came from another branch of the service. So, two days into a weeklong vacation, Maverick had dutifully shined his shoes and pulled on his whites and headed over to Viper’s place on base to meet Ice’s father. He wasn’t exactly surprised to find he hadn’t known a damn thing about the guy.

Ice was there somewhere, in his dinner whites; Mav kept catching glimpses of him around the place as he was tugged from introduction to introduction. The general was visiting with his wife, one daughter and his youngest grandchild, a three-year-old with blonde ringlets whose nanny spirited her away just before dinner. He couldn’t get away from polite conversations about the program and where he’d been stationed before that and what his family did and where his career was heading and so he smiled and smiled and took every drink he was offered. It wasn’t a great idea but it seemed like a way to get through it.

Ice’s sister seemed like a nice girl, mid- twenties and classically beautiful just like her mom, whose husband was a marine major working in intelligence who was up for promotion somewhere back east, hence his absence. She talked and talked and talked, like she’d been starved for contemporary conversation and maybe she had been considering her company for the trip west consisted of her three-year-old, her parents and a shy nanny who’d barely said three words to anyone before she’d left.

Ice’s mother was fair and tall and slim, well spoken, intelligent, and Mav could kind of see the resemblance. The general, though; the general stood ramrod-straight with a glass of whiskey in his hand and tried not to glower unprofessionally every time he glimpsed his son. He was an imposing guy, big but not really heavy, silver hair cropped Marine Corps short but not even thinning a little, wearing an absolutely impeccable dress uniform. He shook Maverick’s hand as Charlie introduced them, his grip firm. Mav could only imagine how pissed the guy had been when his son had decided to join the navy and not the marines, but he could see where Ice got his reserve, and maybe his ego.

Ice called the guy sir when necessary to address him and spoke very little over dinner except to his mom. Mav was over at the other side of the table and made small talk with Ice’s sister while he pointedly didn’t watch him pick at his food.

“Is he dating?” Ice’s sister asked, gesturing vaguely over at Ice with her wine glass while Mav almost choked on a forkful of salmon.

“I don’t know much about his personal life,” he said. Which, in way, was true.

“I guess it’s been hard on him since his wife passed.” She took a sip of her wine and Maverick tried so very hard not to stare at her goggle-eyed as he reached for his own glass to wash that statement down.

“Wife?”

“Oh, you don’t know?” She gave a small, rueful smile. “I guess it’s not exactly mess hall conversation. She was called Alison. They were in the same graduating class and got married straight out of the academy. She was shot on her first deployment.” She glanced at Ice. “That was when Tom decided to be a pilot.”

Mav rubbed at his eyes and he tried to muster some kind of response but it turned out it wasn’t necessary; Ice’s sister’s train of thought had already moved on a couple of stations. He was just left guessing it made sense that it was turning out Ice was just as fucked up as he was.

He met him in the kitchen, after, while Viper and Jester and the general were all smoking cigars in Viper’s study and the ladies had decided to take some air – and some wine – on the terrace outside. There were uniformed servers around, collecting dishes and glasses to return to the officers’ mess, and Mav hung back out of their way as he watched Ice pour himself a glass of water full of ice cubes and then head back into the dining room. He followed.

“You were married,” Maverick said, blurted, like he couldn’t keep a damn thing to himself anymore. The drinks hadn’t help that.

Ice laughed, bitterly, abruptly. “You’ve been talking to my sister,” he said. “She never could keep her mouth shut.”

“But you were married.”

“She died.” Ice leaned back against the wall as he looked at him, coolly, appraising. “Are you expecting me to be wearing the ring?” He took a long drink from his glass, throat working as he swallowed. “I buried it with her.”

Mav nodded and they returned to silence. He guessed he understood why when there was nothing left to say but he couldn’t escape the feeling that he’d just fundamentally fucked something up.

---

They didn’t talk the next day. They didn’t talk the next day either and before he knew it his alarm was beeping loud enough to wake the dead and it was Monday again, the week was gone, it was time to meet a new class. Time to place a new bet. He did just that – Duck and Duke, based more on the names than any deep-seated feeling that they might actually win. Pleasantries were exchanged, then he drove home again, pissed at himself and pretty much at the world in general.

It was weird. It wasn’t like he hadn’t spoken to Ice because he had – they’d discussed a few training initiatives, they’d spoken in Viper’s office, they’d talked hockey with some of the students over lunch – but it was like there was nothing between them. It was like Ice had just turned it all off and they were back to square one or square whatever, back when they’d first returned to Miramar as instructors, back when they’d first met before that, and he guessed maybe that was what the conversation that day, sitting in his lounge after sex he’d never expected to be having, had been about. They’d had a problem and Mav had thought they just hadn’t resolved it but there was an easy solution. There was an obvious solution and Ice was taking it, moving on. It was like nothing had ever happened.

Except that it had, and Maverick wasn’t sure he could forget it. He wasn’t sure he’d have wanted to if he could.

He went in on Monday and taught two classes – one solo and one with Ice – then stopped to watch Charlie teach hers. He thought maybe he wanted to regret leaving her, regret not waking up with her in the morning, having a regular relationship that made some kind of sense, but aside from the fact that he found himself lost in her lecture he realised that staying with her wouldn’t really have solved a thing. Not a single thing. She was just like Ice’s high school girlfriend and the only thing that he really regretted was hurting her.

The class ended and the students filtered toward the door, Maverick with them. “Commander!” Charlie called. Not that there were many commanders in the room but apparently this escaped his notice. “Maverick!”

He stopped – an impressive feat in the strong, steady flow of students heading for the exit – turned back and walked over to her desk.

“I talked to Carole,” she said as the last student left the room. “She says the girls are doing well. You were down there over the weekend, right? They were pleased to see you.”

“I’m pretty sure they just like that I take them out for ice cream ‘cause their mom likes to make them eat beets,” Mav said, casual, suppressing a frown as he wondered where exactly this was going.

She smiled at his reply, picked up her bag, turned, began to walk away and he paused by the desk; he watched her as she headed to the door. Then she stopped.

“I thought it was going to be awkward working with you, after,” she said, turning to face him. “It’s not, for me. I hope it’s not for you.”

“You know, I never meant to--"

“I know,” she said, smiling faintly, cutting him off. “We could try to be friends.”

“Yeah. I’d like that.”

“So, you can take me out for drinks Friday night.” Her smile brightened, a faintly mischievous edge to it that said he’d be picking up the tab. He pretty much deserved that.

“Sure. I’ll pick you up at seven?”

She nodded her agreement and this time she really did walk away; he watched from the doorway till she turned the corner and slipped out of sight. He was glad she wasn’t angry – things were so much better this way. He really hadn’t meant to hurt her. He hadn’t known what the hell he was doing and he guessed he still didn’t. He needed to move on. He wasn’t sure how.

He spent some time in the gym, showered and left the base late, after dark. He tried to tell himself he’d needed the workout but really it was just a diversion tactic because there were things he didn’t want to think about and as long as he was running, rowing, lifting weights, nothing seemed to intrude, nothing made him think of a shattered glass or the way the stark shower room lights picked out all the angles in Ice’s face. And of course, there was the added bonus that he’d get off to sleep in a snap and snore soundly till the alarm woke him.

That was the theory, at least. The reality was, however, that he lay awake till 2am. So much for that plan.

***

The whole new class, the whole class, was ridiculously by-the-book – it was like teaching a room full of walking, talking textbooks or malformed Ice-clones with roughly half the original’s talent at the very, very most. They were only two days in and already he couldn’t have cared less who won, except that he hoped to God that the winner didn’t want to stick around there with the teaching team afterwards.

But then things got better. Not in the sense that the class suddenly morphed into a cohort of flying prodigies but it got… easier, all of a sudden. It dawned on him that really, no matter the troubles he may or may not have had, he was still pretty lucky; after all, there weren’t exactly too many people he knew could claim to enjoy their jobs the way he did and he had the distinct – and surprisingly comforting, given the situation – impression that he could still probably get any girl in San Diego on a Friday night if he felt particularly inclined. The past didn’t matter. Well, not as long as he didn’t think about it, and it was actually pretty surprising how many things he came up with to keep his mind from wandering onto those forbidden topics, from naming all the US Presidents chronologically to finally finishing that sci-fi novel that Charlie had recommended weeks ago.

By Thursday, thanks to his miracle cure-all, he was convinced that it was all going to be okay, he was going to cope. In time he’d compartmentalise, tuck away all those memories of Goose and Sean, of jetwash and hit-and-runs, and he’d stow Charlie back there, too – at least he’d push out all the guilt and the half-baked notions he’d had at the beginning like how she might’ve been the one and maybe one day he could’ve asked her to marry him. Then there’d be a nice little box in the back of his brain labelled Tom Kazansky that he’d never look into again. That ought to do it. When he’d got his head sorted into all those neat little categories, he’d be fine. Just fine. He’d move on.

Seeing Charlie on Friday night seemed to prove that he was right; they sat together in the bar at the O Club and had a few drinks and he wasn’t surprised to find he paid for it. They chatted and it wasn’t awkward, neither of them brought up their crappy shared history and neither of them tried anything they might’ve regretted. It all went just as he’d planned, just as he’d thought it would, even though Charlie looked stunning and he was looking devilishly handsome in his whites, even if he did say so himself. He even took her home without incident, said goodnight and left without kissing her.

Then he went back to his place and fell asleep, eventually, in the end, naming all of the US States in alphabetical order. Backwards.

---

The first person he saw on Monday morning was Charlie; she was leaning against the wall at the end of the corridor talking to someone who was standing just out of view around the corner, a folder under her arm. She must have caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye because she turned and smiled and gave him a slightly uncharacteristic little wave and so he changed his mind about going straight to the locker room to change into his flight suit and went to say good morning, or words to that effect, instead.

He turned the corner. It took approximately three seconds for his whole plan to fall apart completely because she was talking to Ice, one hand brushing his arm, standing just a fraction too close, and Ice was smiling.

“Thanks for Friday,” Charlie told him, but he wasn’t really listening; he was too busy trying not to gawk at Ice who was, incidentally, looking right back at him, the smile now vanished entirely from his face.

“We’ll have to do it again sometime,” he said, glancing back at her, forcing up a smile that was maybe convincing. “Hey, I’m sorry, I’m late for…” Maverick gestured vaguely, looking quickly from one to the other and back at Charlie. “Y’know, something. I’ll see you guys later.” Then he practically fled down the corridor in the general direction of the locker room, trying to keep his jog steady and not actually flee. Until he turned the corner, he could almost feel their eyes boring holes in his back. Luckily, he guessed, this wasn’t too far away from his usual flaky behaviour for them to think much of it.

He avoided them both for the rest of the day, which wasn’t anywhere near as easy as he thought when his job was as closely linked to theirs as his was. All through the simulator sessions he was asking himself if Ice was seeing her, if that was what the smiles were, if that was why her hand was on his arm and if that was it then how could he have missed it? And he felt such a fool for not having seen it before. He felt a fool for so many reasons, for believing he could really cope, for all of it. All he wanted to do was ride his bike home at an almost unfeasible speed, order Chinese and watch sports news till he felt more prepared to face the world. Which could definitely take some time. He was fucking pathetic. The next thing he knew he’d be seeing the base shrink and talking about his childhood.

He ate lunch with Tex Kellerman and talked MiGs. He’d stuck around after his win and Maverick had a feeling he’d make a great teacher but he was quite honestly the last person he felt like talking to right at that precise moment. Or maybe not the last, but he didn’t feel like talking at all, to anyone. He felt like an ass. He’d never known the guy at all, not even for a second. Maybe he’d never known Charlie, either. He just would’ve liked the courtesy of her telling him, even if he didn’t expect that from Ice.

They went up briefly after lunch, sort of pointlessly because all they did was make a few easy dives and make it clear that no one should ever buzz the tower under any circumstances or they’d suffer the wrath of not only the disgruntled tower chief but Jester and probably Viper too. Then they came back in, changed out of their flight suits and left for the day. Mav had a date with a six-pack and baseball game and he wouldn’t end up jerking off with Ice in his head. He wouldn’t. Maybe he’d call Carole, she probably had a friend she could set him up with.

He’d parked his bike in his usual space that morning and it was sitting there as he left the building, as usual. However, the figure standing beside it, leaning against the driver’s side door of his own car, was not usual. He knew exactly who it was as soon as he saw him from across the parking lot and he thought for a moment about turning back as he stood by the doors, pretending like he’d forgotten something inside and hiding out like a total coward. He didn’t turn back; he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wiping his palms against his jeans, cursing at himself, and then he walked across the lot.

“Something I can do for you?” he asked once he was in easy earshot. He stopped next to his bike and started toying with his helmet.

“I thought we understood each other,” Ice said, still leaning against his car door, his hands tucked in behind the small of his back. The stance looked strange, slightly awkward, not like Ice at all.

“I understand pretty well,” Maverick said, curtly, pulling on his gloves. He glanced up; Ice was frowning.

“This morning--"

“Yeah, you and Charlie seemed to be getting on real well.” He zipped up his jacket. “We don’t need to talk, Kazansky – I’m pretty capable of working it out for myself.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

Ice sighed as Maverick straddled his bike. “Look, my parents went back east this morning,” he said.

Maverick frowned at the seeming non sequitur. “How’s that anything to do with me?”

Ice’s frown deepened. “My place is empty again,” he said. “And I’m not dating Charlie, Mav. What the hell.”

Maverick gripped his helmet a little more tightly. “So what am I missing?” he asked, ignoring the Charlie element completely. Something in Ice’s look told him that was completely unimportant, totally beside the point. “Either I’m missing something or you’ve totally lost it. Maybe you ought to see the shrink.”

“I know it’s been a couple of weeks but I didn’t think you were that challenged,” Ice said. “You knew you couldn’t be there while my parents were in the next room. There’s risk and then there’s stupidity.”

“Oh.”

Ice shrugged. “It just wasn’t a great idea for you to, us to.” He didn’t finish the thought though Maverick’s head did it for him, graphically, luridly, with all the things they’d ever done and more. It turned out his head was pretty inventive. “Maybe my mom wouldn’t give a damn but the general would court-martial me himself if he could find a way.” Maverick felt all the blood draining from his face, a simultaneous kick of adrenaline as it all started to sink in. Christ, he’d been an ass. An adolescent ass. “And my sister’s a gossip with a three-year-old. If I’d sneaked away in the middle of the night, Mav, you think she wouldn’t have known?”

“I thought…” He laughed, resting his forehead against the visor of his helmet that was still in his hands. This was just insane. “Fuck, I don’t know what I thought.” He stopped and frowned. “I guess I thought you meant something else. Then you and Charlie...” He gestured vaguely. This was just insane.

“I thought you got it,” Ice said, looking at him incredulously, somewhere between amused and horrified. Then suddenly he didn’t look so amused; all the amusement just drained straight out of him as he jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “What I said, Mav. I just.” He cleared his throat, awkward. It was kind of neat to know that Ice didn’t have any more of a handle on this than he had. “Look. I meant we need to be careful if we’re doing this. Really careful. None of your reckless bullshit.”

Maverick paused, feeling a grin spread across his face and not giving a good goddamn how it looked. “I can live with that.”

And Ice returned the smile with one of his own. “Follow me home,” he said. He would. There wasn’t even a question of it.

Maverick sat there astride the bike and watched as Ice slipped in behind the wheel of his car, closed the door with a bang. He turned the key and the engine roared to life; he started to back out, back away, then stepped on the brake.

“You’ll have to take me for a ride sometime,” Ice told him, nodding at the bike. And then he drove away, not waiting for Maverick’s answer because they both knew he didn’t need to. This was maybe the closest they were ever going to get to talking about whatever the hell it was they had but Maverick was pretty sure it didn’t matter. Ice got him. They were both as fucked up as each other and Ice got him.

Maverick watched him go, his Aston Martin speeding away with the same complete, precise control that he held himself in damn near 100% of the time, rock steady, ice cool. It was strange when he thought about it – Ice drove the same way he flew, balanced right there on the edge of a knife, and though disaster called at either side there was no sense that he’d ever fall. But no one saw that, that life lived on the edge – they saw the control and not the risk. No one saw Ice but Maverick, maybe because he took all of the same risks. Maybe he knew him after all. Maybe he got Ice, too. It was a weird goddamn thought.

He pulled on his helmet, kicked the bike into life and then turned to follow, the ghost of a promise of an arm around his waist and no idea how or if this was ever going to work. All he knew was he needed to try. They’d be each other’s damn wingman if they had to be and they’d win or they’d fuck up in formation. They could share control. They could get each other through.

And maybe they’d take the next step along the edge together.