FIC: Then I Climb in Bed With the Thunder (Top Gun, Iceman/Maverick, NC-17)

[carlyinrome]

TITLE: Then I Climb in Bed With the Thunder
RATING: NC-17
FANDOM: Top Gun
PAIRING: Pete “Maverick” Mitchell/Tom “Iceman” Kazansky
SUMMARY: Maverick is working his ass off setting up TOPGUN at its new home in Nevada, and Ice is working his ass off just keeping things together. How long before a straw breaks the camel’s back?
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Takes place at TOPGUN NAWDC in early 1996. A sequel to The Eye of the Storm, Hurricane Blues, and Lightning Strikes Twice.
AUTHOR’S NOTES, cont’d: At this point in the story, TOPGUN has moved to Fallon, Nevada’s Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Center. This is written throughout the story as NAWDC, which you should pronounce as a two-syllable word: NAW-DIK.
CREDIT DUE: Thank you to my incredible beta reader, escritoireazul, for helping me make this the best story it could be. She went above and beyond on this one, and I adore her for it. (And other things.) The title is from a poem by Amanda Mosher.

CHAPTER ONE

   If I look into your eyes for long
   I feel the rush of
   a near death experience:
   not fatal, but nearly so.
      - Komal Kapoor


It was one a.m., and Maverick was sitting on the cool tile floor of his base assignment’s kitchen. It was a nice house and all, but there was one huge problem.

That problem was on the other end of the phone tucked between Maverick’s ear and shoulder.

“I don’t want to repeat myself,” Ice said, “but this is absolute bullshit, and if one of us doesn’t find a place off base soon, I’m going to lose my mind.”

He was repeating himself, but he was also echoing Maverick’s own frustrations. Two weeks in Fallon. Two weeks of base assignment. Two weeks apart, because every one of their neighbors was Navy, and they would sure as shit notice any sleepovers.

“You’ve gone longer without getting laid,” Maverick said, attempting levity.

“That’s not the point,” Ice growled. Pause. Then, in his normal tone: “That’s mostly not the point.”

Maverick knew it wasn’t, for his own sake, but it was harder on Ice. The reason they were up and on the phone at this time of night was because Ice had woken from a nightmare alone, with no one to help him through it, no one to help him come back to himself.

“It’s not forever,” Maverick said gently. “We just have to get through this part, and we can. You can. I know you can.”

Ice sighed. Maverick listened to him breathing. Flashed back, unbidden, to all the nights he’d fallen asleep beside him in the dark, the entire world condensing to the feel of Ice’s body beside his, the sound of Ice’s breathing.

“You found a new therapist yet?” he asked.

“No.”

Maverick gritted his teeth. That needed to change, and fast. “How about PT?”

“I stopped by the VA and talked to some people, but I haven’t had a session yet.”

“Why not?”

“I just haven’t.”

“Ice—”

“If you’re thinking of lecturing me, I encourage you to suppress that urge.”

Maverick shut his mouth. Fiddled with the phone cord.

“Wish you were here,” he said finally.

“Me too,” Ice said. He sighed. “I feel like I’m a million miles away. It’s two blocks. I could walk there in two minutes. Fuck.”

“It’s not forever,” Maverick said again, firmer this time.

“Feels like it.”

“Yeah," Maverick said. "Yeah, I know."

***

It was two months until TOPGUN NAWDC would see any students, but Maverick was drowning in work. It was almost entirely administrative, the kind of work he’d never seen himself doing until he’d graduated from TOPGUN himself. Sometimes he wondered what his younger self would think of the man he’d become. Ten Years Ago Maverick Mitchell had planned to spend his entire life in a plane, and might have completely ignored the mountains of paperwork he now tended to, but 1996 Maverick Mitchell found he didn’t really mind it. Usually. Moving a military installation was an enormous undertaking from an administrative standpoint, which was where he was looking at it from.

Mostly he was able to keep his head in the game, but now last night’s conversation with Ice kept pulling him out of his work. Ice was having problems adjusting to their new situation. It wasn’t just that they couldn’t see each other as much as they wanted—as much as they needed, maybe. He hadn’t replaced any of his doctors yet, and Maverick didn’t know why. He had the time. And maybe that was Ice’s biggest problem at the moment. Because almost all of the work right now was administrative, Ice didn’t have anything to do during the day. He put on his uniform every morning and came in to TOPGUN, but until there were students to teach, there wasn’t actually much for him to do. Ice did not deal with inertia well. He would have been a lot better, mental health-wise, if he’d had something to keep him occupied. He was able to turn off his emotions, for the most part, if he could devote the logical part of his brain to a task, but there just weren’t any. When he was idle, he just had to feel, which was dangerous anyway, and especially now, when he was feeling so bad.

Maverick wanted to help. He would have done anything to help, but he didn’t have a clue as to what that meant in this circumstance. He was trying to keep an eye on Ice until he figured things out. He was trying to be there.

He was trying.

***

When he’d transferred to Miramar officially, his first time living on shore for any significant length of time in more than a decade, Ice had bought a car, an all black ’93 Mazda RX-7. Maverick had told him it looked like the fucking Batmobile, and had been lectured for ten minutes about the Wankel engine, the twin turbo chargers, and the physics of the power and speed involved in both, and Maverick had felt really, really bad for the car salesman who’d had to deal with Ice. But it was a pretty sexy ride, and it handled like a dream. Ice hard waxed the body and oiled the leather interior with what was probably the exact regularity the owner’s manual suggested, so the car was immaculate at all times, and Maverick occasionally had the uncomfortable feeling that he was going to fuck it up, a feeling he’d never had before he’d met Ice. Then one day Ice had said casually, “We really should teach you to drive, Mav,” and Maverick had to ask him to repeat himself.

This was their first lesson in Fallon.

“First things first,” Ice said.

“Key in the ignition,” Maverick said.

“Seatbelts.”

Maverick rolled his eyes, but he buckled up. “Yes, mother. Now the key?”

“I don’t know, have you adjusted your mirrors?”

Maverick sighed dramatically. He adjusted the mirrors, then stuck the key in the ignition and started the car before Ice could give him any more boring tasks.

“Foot on the brake, shift to reverse.”

“I know, Ice, come on. When are we gonna do some advanced maneuvers in this thing?”

Ice massaged the bridge of his nose. “This car was not built for stunt driving, and it is not—and this point I would like to make very clear—a fighter jet. It is designed to keep all four wheels on the ground at all times, and should not even approach Mach 1.”

“Roger that,” Maverick said, and peeled out of the space.

Ice could get nitpicky, especially when he was in a position to judge Maverick’s performance, but in truth he was mellowing out significantly when it came to Maverick driving his car, and Maverick knew that, really, Ice trusted him. Not just with this. With almost everything.

And that was really nice. Maverick tried to think of something he was prouder of, and couldn’t.

Fallon was dry, with little vegetation. There wasn’t even much grass. The parched earth was a desaturated tan, almost grey, and occasionally a small cluster of high-elevation trees—scrub pines or Rocky Mountain maples—would break up the landscape, but mostly it was just flat earth and the highway stretching out to the horizon. Often, this caused a wild kind of claustrophobia, but it was nice for a drive in Ice’s souped up coupe.

Maverick drove the Mazda slowly through town, and then opened her up when he hit the highway. They drove past uniformly uninteresting terrain: the dry, colorless earth and the occasional long stretch of an alfalfa field, the plants the least green green Maverick had ever seen. But it didn’t really matter, because he was sitting with Ice, just the two of them, cozy in this little fuselage barreling down the highway, and in honesty, there were few places Maverick would rather be.

Ice stretched, letting his hand linger on Maverick’s shoulder, his thumb rubbing absently at the base of Maverick’s neck. "Why don’t you find somewhere to pull over, Mav?"

"Pit stop?"

"I just need to stretch my leg."

Maverick steered the Mazda into the first good pull off he saw, an abandoned gas station that looked like it had opened in the ’50s and closed decades later without ever being updated. He turned off the car, and looked at Ice. He had taken off his seatbelt, but made no move to leave the car.

"Need help getting to your feet?" Maverick asked. He started to open his door, but Ice’s hand squeezed down on his shoulder, and he stopped.

"Just wait a minute, Maverick."

Maverick waited. Ice looked at him, his hand still on Maverick’s shoulder, and then he used that hand to take hold of Maverick’s hair, and he leaned in and kissed him, pressing Maverick back into his seat. Maverick kissed him back, grabbing Ice as he stretched over the gearshift and settled in Maverick’s lap, head bent and shoulders hunched to keep from hitting the roof. In this position, pushed against the seat with Ice looming over him, Ice was huge, and Maverick felt dominated and swallowed up, and he liked both more than he should have.

“Hold on,” Maverick said, and he pulled the lever on the side of the seat, reclining the chair as far as it would go. Ice let out a little gasp as they fell, and Maverick laughed and held onto him, looked up at him now from this new position. Maverick’s head was back and his center of balance was off, and he felt giddy, and he laughed again, biting down on Ice’s neck and opening the front of his jeans.

“Did you have this planned all along?” Maverick asked.

Ice’s voice came out breathy. “So what if I did? Do you object?”

“No, Commander.”

Ice tore open the front of Maverick’s pants, actually ripped the fabric, and he had one hand in Maverick’s hair and the other gripping his cock, and his mouth was hot and wet and rough on Maverick’s neck. There were going to be marks for sure, but Maverick couldn’t have cared less. He grabbed Ice’s hips, pulled him up his body as best he could, so their pelvises were flush, and he pushed Ice’s hand away, grabbing his own cock and Ice’s both at once and stroking them together. Ice whined and panted and grabbed the headrest to steady himself, rocking the seat beneath them. He buried his face against Maverick’s neck, his hips thrusting in time with Maverick’s hands on him.

“Say my name,” Maverick urged.

“Maverick,” Ice breathed. “Maverick, Maverick …”

Hearing Ice’s voice break as he moaned his name was enough, and Maverick’s vision flashed white as he came, jerking in his own hand, then Ice a moment over, crying out shortly and then collapsing against Maverick.

Maverick could feel Ice’s heart pounding against his chest, felt Ice’s chest heave as he gulped in greedy breaths. He felt their hearts beat back to normal, keeping in time.

“This was our best lesson yet,” he said, and Ice laughed.



CHAPTER TWO

It was the end of another work day. Maverick had sorted all the paperwork on his desk the best he could, and was pulling on his jacket and turning off the light before he shut the door behind him. There was an officer in service khakis shadowing his doorway, and at first Maverick just registered the uniform and thought Ice had come to walk him out, but when he looked up, he saw it was actually his boss, Captain Foster, who oversaw all of NAWDC, including Maverick supervising TOPGUN.

“Commander Mitchell,” Foster said, “do you have plans tonight?”

“Um, not exactly.”

“I was hoping you might join me and Commanders Lee and Burke from Strike and C2, and Commanders Rutger and Harris of N8 and N10. Just a little powwow, as it were, among the training divisions.”

Great, Maverick thought. Work after work.

“Of course, captain,” he said.

“O Club in half an hour, then?” Foster said.

“Yes, sir. See you then.”

Foster left. Maverick sighed, locked up his office, and headed out to the parking lot.

Ice was leaning against the trunk of his car, which he’d just happened to park next to Maverick’s bike. Nothing odd about that; TOPGUN had its own parking, and right now it had three employees. Maverick’s secretary, Jenny, had left for the day, so Ice and Maverick were all of TOPGUN on base. Ice was leaned back against his Mazda, his slim hips in the service khakis cocked out, and Maverick’s mouth went dry.

“Hey, boss man,” Ice said. He had his aviators on, and all Maverick could see was the shine of the sun off the lenses, and the suggestion of a smile. “Wanna get some chow?”

Maverick sighed. “I can’t. I have a work date at the O Club with Foster and all the other training program heads.”

Ice frowned, but quickly recovered, plastering on his default frosty nonchalance.

“O Club, huh?” he said. He hauled himself off the car. “Have fun.”

Maverick walked after him as he headed for the driver’s side door. “Maybe we could do something after.”

“Don’t let me cramp your style, Mitchell,” Ice said, smiling in a way that was more about showing his teeth than showing warmth. He got in his car, and drove away.

Shit.

Maverick sighed, climbed onto his motorcycle, and headed to the O Club.

The NAWDC O Club wasn’t much different from the O Club in Miramar, or, to be honest, most any O Club Maverick had been to. There was a bar, and places to sit while you drank, and the clientele was men in uniform and some locals in civvies, mostly women. Maverick got himself a cool bottle of beer at the bar, and then joined Foster and the other commanders at a booth off to the side.

Foster made introductions. Maverick smiled and shook hands, and he nodded when appropriate while the other men talked.

Foster was talking about some sort of paperwork initiative when Maverick spied something of note at the bar. Looking trim in his khakis, mirrored aviators still on even in the low light, Iceman was leaning over the bar to speak to the bartender. The bartender put two drinks into Ice’s hands, and Ice smiled and turned and gave one of the glasses to a girl in civilian clothes with a skirt that ended a good two inches before it should have. The girl, dark and passing pretty to land solidly on sexy, giggled into her drink and put a hand on Ice’s chest. With Ice wearing those damn glasses, Maverick couldn’t tell if he was looking at the girl or looking at him, or ignoring them both completely.

"Bureaucrats are in a twist about paper waste and recycling," Foster was saying, "so try to use email for non-classified communication as often as possible."

Ice leaned down a bit so the girl could whisper something in his ear. He smirked, but didn't laugh, at whatever she said, and took a sip of his vodka up. Maverick knew exactly how it felt to kiss Ice with the liquor on his tongue, how he could feel the chill of the vodka and then Ice's heat beneath it, how he'd taste the sharp, almost chemical taste of the vodka first, and then the earthy, sweet taste of Ice beneath that.

Harris was saying something about his department, and Maverick couldn't remember which one it was. The girl was leaning into Ice, her hips angled towards his, almost brushing up against his fly.

Maverick exhaled slowly. Ice had no interest in women. He never had. He'd told Maverick once that he had never done anything sexual with a woman, and he'd never wanted to. That wasn't the sort of thing Ice would lie to him about, and moreover, Maverick was pretty good at spotting Ice's lies. He believed him. Whatever little game Ice was playing with this girl, it meant nothing. Nothing would come from it.

So why was it driving Maverick so crazy?

Ice finished his drink, and set the empty glass on the bar as he walked past it to the men's room. Maverick excused himself abruptly and tripped out of the booth, and he followed Ice into the bathroom.

He was only a few steps ahead of him. Close enough to catch. Maverick took a split second to check to make sure they were alone, and then he pushed Ice into the handicap stall, followed him in, then shut and locked the door behind them.

"What the fuck do you think you’re doing?" Maverick hissed.

Ice slid his aviators off, then tucked them away in a pocket. "What do you mean? I went out for a drink and got assaulted in the men’s room."

Maverick glowered. "Don’t play dumb with me."

"I was just returning the favor," Ice said smoothly.

Maverick ground his molars together. "So, what? You’re punishing me for working late? Are you going to fuck that girl just to make me jealous?"

"Would that work?" Ice asked. Then: "Consider the possibility that not everything’s about you, Maverick."

"Not everything. But this definitely is."

Ice didn’t say anything. Maverick put his hand on Ice’s sternum and pushed until Ice was backed up against the wall of the stall. Ice let Maverick move him, and he watched his face with his infuriatingly even gold gaze.

"What now, Mitchell?"

"You’re being such a brat," Maverick said. "I oughta spank you."

Ice flushed, and he panted out a short breath. Maverick pushed him again, even though he was flush to the wall and couldn’t be moved back any further, and then he pressed his own body against Ice’s as hard as he could, pinning him, hurting him a little, maybe. Maverick grabbed a handful of Ice’s short hair and used it to angle his face down to kiss him. Ice was rigid at first, probably more surprised than anything, but soon he relaxed, moved into it, his tongue slipping into Maverick’s mouth and his hands grabbing hold of him, pulling his body against his own.

Maverick bit the joint of Ice’s jaw, and Ice pushed back. Maverick took hold of his shoulders and spun him around, slammed him face first into the flimsy metal divider, which shook as Ice hit it. Maverick pressed Ice to the wall, and he reached around and opened his pants. Maverick pushed Ice’s pants and underwear down, and then he opened his own pants, released his erection. He kept Ice pushed against the wall as he fucked against the cleft of his ass.

"Christ," Ice hissed, and he reached down to touch himself, but Maverick grabbed his wrist.

"No," he panted. "No way. You put your hands on the wall and you ride home with blue balls."

Maverick half expected Ice to fight him, but he didn’t. He put his hands on the wall, palms flat, shoulder height, like he was being frisked by the police, not fucked by his boyfriend. Ice rested his forehead against the wall, too, and his chest heaved, but he was still otherwise. Looking at him like that, subservient, put Maverick’s dick into orbit, and soon he was bucking against Ice’s back as he came, resting his forehead against the back of Ice’s neck.

Maverick cleaned them both up, and then they dressed. Ice was eyeing him warily, and Maverick looked at his dick before he zipped up, saw how hard he was, how uncomfortable his ride home was going to be.

"You wanna come?" Maverick asked.

Ice nodded, a bit sullenly.

"Go to that motel on Main and Cherry, the one with the bird on the sign."

"Blue Bird Inn."

"Yeah. Get a room, and leave a key at the desk under my name. Wait. I’ll come to you. And don’t touch yourself, or you’re not getting anything. Copy?"

"Yeah."

"I said, 'Do you copy?'"

"Yes."

Maverick kissed him. "We’re gonna talk, too, so prepare for that."

"Okay."

"Wait in here a minute after I leave. What’re you going to tell that girl?"

Ice shrugged. He slipped his aviators back on, and smiled humorlessly. "I’ll think of something. I’m good on my feet."

"Yeah, you are," Maverick said. "I’ll see you soon."

And he left him there.

***

Maverick managed to sit through the rest of Foster’s powwow, but it was hard going, imagining Ice alone in that motel room. Would he have taken his clothes off? He’d been told not to touch himself, but would he listen? Maverick was aching again by the time Foster decided enough was enough, and he had to exert most of his self-control not to run to his bike at a dead sprint.

There was a key under his name at the Blue Bird Inn, Room 104. Stairs were hard for Ice after his injury. Maverick walked down the cracked sidewalk, counting off the door numbers: 100, 102, 104. He unlocked the door, and stepped inside.

Ice was waiting for him on the bed, still in his uniform. He was sitting slightly bent with his elbows on his knees, hands hanging between his legs. He looked up when Maverick walked in, smiled a little.

“Hey, Mav.”

Maverick dropped the room key on the table by the door, and he crossed the room to Ice slowly. Ice watched him; in the low light afforded by the cheap motel lamps, his pale eyes glinted silver, like a wild animal’s.

“Hey, Ice,” Maverick said. He sat next to him on the bed, resting his hand on the back of Ice’s neck, fingers brushing over the hair at the nape. It was so short there, buzzed so close, that it was just soft bristles, like petting a baby hedgehog.

“How was your meeting?” Ice asked.

“Boring as hell without your little show on the other end of the bar to keep me entertained.”

“So you did appreciate my performance.”

Maverick looked at him. Ice was looking away.

“I need to know what’s going on with you,” Maverick said.

Ice shrugged. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit. You’re acting weird. I mean, everywhere, but that stunt you pulled at the O Club…? That wasn’t like you at all. That was like … well, that was like me.”

“And you disapprove because you’re afraid I’m horning in on your territory?”

“I disapprove because I’m fucking worried about you, Tom.”

Ice sighed. He moved his fingers idly, rhythmically, his Navy ring glinting in the low light.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“I have an idea,” Maverick said, crowding his space. “We’ll play a game. You tell the truth, you can come. You don’t …”

Ice flashed his teeth. “That’s extortion.”

“You’re not leaving me very many options.” Maverick sighed. “This isn’t supposed to hurt, Tom. You’re supposed to trust me—”

“I do,” Ice said, so softly Maverick almost didn’t hear him.

“So talk to me.”

Ice sighed. Looked at his hands.

“I’ve been to three different therapists since we moved here,” he said.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because they’re not working out. I can’t talk to them.”

“Because of them, or because of you?”

Ice clenched his hands into fists, held the position a moment, and then released it slowly, stretching his fingers out. This was one of the exercises Ice’s therapist in Miramar had taught him to work through overwhelming emotions, and Maverick knew it wasn’t because of him, but it still hurt him to see it. He wanted to help. He would have done anything to help Ice shoulder some of what he was carrying, but he didn’t know how.

“Because of them, I think,” Ice said. “It’s just—don’t say I’m not trying, because I’m trying, Pete. But you have to go in there, and you have to sit down, and you have to tell this stranger the worst parts of your life, things—things you don’t even want to think about, things you don’t want to admit are real, and … I don’t trust them.”

“What about your old doctor? How was it with her?”

“Easier,” Ice said softly.

“Okay, well, that means someone’s out there you can talk to. So keep looking. Find someone you can trust.”

“I am. It’s just—it’s taking some time, and in the meantime…” He gestured with his hands, at nothing, but Maverick understood. He put his arm around him, and Ice relaxed into the embrace, resting his head on Maverick’s shoulder.

“I’m here,” Maverick said. “In the meantime—shit, all the time—I’m here.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “You still wanna come?”

Ice looked up, leveling a sharp look at him. “You kidding?”

Maverick laughed, and hauled himself up off the bed. He knelt between Ice’s knees, rubbing his hands up and down Ice’s thighs. Ice let out a soft, pleased sound, and Maverick opened the front of his pants slowly, maintaining eye contact. Ice ran his fingers through Maverick’s hair, a gentle touch, and looked at him with such fondness Maverick felt it like a weight on his sternum.

“I got you, Ice,” Maverick said.

He smiled. “Yeah, Mitchell. I know.”

Maverick slipped his hand into Ice’s pants, pulled out his cock. He definitely wasn’t as hard as he’d been when Maverick left him in the men’s room, but his erection still looked painful. Maverick squeezed Ice’s balls, and Ice moaned.

Maverick met his eyes. “You didn’t touch yourself?”

“No.” Then, a moment after, softer: “You told me not to.”

“Good boy,” Maverick whispered, and grinned when some color came to Ice’s cheeks. He lowered his head, taking Ice’s cock into his mouth. Ice murmured, and bucked a little, but then forced himself to still. Maverick ran his tongue around the head of Ice's cock, teasing the slit, and then took him in deeper, providing good suction, his tongue rubbing along the underside of Ice's cock as the head pushed against his tonsils.

"Fuck," Ice gasped, and his hand slid over Maverick's shoulder, too weak to grasp, just reaching out.

Maverick held onto Ice's good leg for leverage, and he sucked him down the best he knew how while massaging his balls with his other hand. Ice made a weak noise, and then 3, 2, 1 and he was coming, crying out and pumping into Maverick's mouth.

Ice collapsed back onto the bed, laying on his back with his pants still open. Maverick wiped his mouth and crawled up beside him. Looked him in the eye.

"You think your date could've done that better?" he asked, and Ice groaned.

"Consider giving me a pass on this one," he said.

Maverick laughed. "Not on your life, ladykiller."



CHAPTER THREE

Almost two weeks later, Maverick couldn't get Ice out of his office. He'd asked him to sit in on the interviews with the pilots applying for teaching positions, but their last candidate had left fifteen minutes ago, and Ice was still there. And he wasn't talking. He would sit for a minute, then pace around the room a bit, then sit back down, dancing Maverick's pens over his knuckles or trying to find a comfortable way to prop up his bad leg, or flipping Maverick's letter opener blade over handle and then catching it on the descent, something Maverick thought Slider might have taught him.

"I like Jubilee," Ice said abruptly.

Maverick looked up from his paperwork. "Huh?"

"For the instructor position."

"We need to fill two."

Ice shrugged. "She's the only one I like so far."

"Pick someone else."

"I will, when you bring in better pilots."

Maverick sighed. "I don't know, Ice. I'm a little concerned about hiring a woman for this job."

Ice smiled humorlessly. "You've already got a fag. Why not round out the set?"

"What is up with you today?"

"Nothing."

"Bullshit."

Ice just glowered at him. Maverick sighed. "Okay, can you go be perfectly normal in your own office, then? I've gotta get some of this done today, and you're fucking distracting."

"There's something I have to tell you," Ice said, and he said it in a way that Maverick put everything down and gave him all his attention.

"I think I might have found a therapist."

"For PT, or—"

"No, the other thing."

"That's great, Ice. I'm happy to hear that. Guy or girl?"

"It's a woman."

"And you've talked to her?" Maverick asked. "You can talk to her?"

"I've had two sessions, and they've gone okay. I'm seeing her again tomorrow."

"Good, Ice. That's really good."

"That's all," Ice said. "Do you still want me out of your office?"

"Yeah, I do, but I'll take you out to dinner tonight, if you want."

Ice smiled. "It's a date," he said, and left Maverick with his paperwork.

***

They had Mexican, and then they had sex in Ice's car on the way back. Maverick went to bed feeling good, but he found himself awake at one a.m. again, on the phone with Ice as he worked through a nightmare. He sounded strange, disconnected, and he was having a lot of trouble focusing, and Maverick sent out an actual curse, like an old god, to everything keeping him from being next to Ice in bed at this moment.

"Doesn't it ever stop, Maverick?" Ice asked. "It just seems to go on and on."

Maverick wasn't sure what to say, so he just said, "Hold on, man. Just hold on."

***

Ice came to work looking ragged, and after lunch he left for his therapy appointment and then never came back. Maverick was worried, but rationalized that Ice probably needed some rest and had just forgotten to call in, even though that was very unlike him. This had a success rate of about sixty percent calming Maverick down until around three p.m., when Maverick got a phone call.

"Commander Mitchell, this is Rachel Chen. I'm Tom Kazansky's therapist. He needs a ride home, and he asked me to call you."

"What happened?"

"I'll explain when you get here. Is that all right?"

"Yeah, I guess," Maverick said. "What's the address?"

Twenty minutes later, Maverick was squirming in an uncomfortable waiting room chair while someone fetched Ice's therapist.

After a moment, a woman came in from the door leading back to the offices. She looked right at him.

“Commander Mitchell?” she asked. Maverick stood, approached her. “I’m Tom’s therapist, Rachel Chen.”

“Pete's fine,” he said, shaking her hand. “You don’t need to keep calling me commander.”

“Feel free to call me Rachel,” she said. “Can we have a word in my office?"

Maverick followed her. Rachel was in her 40s, maybe, and attractive. Her black hair was pinned up loosely, and her clothes were chic and modern. She had freckles across the bridge of her nose, and she was wearing a shimmery, rose-colored eyeshadow. Mostly, she didn’t look like a doctor at all, and Maverick wondered if that was what Ice liked about her.

"Have a seat, please," she said, and closed the door as Maverick took one of the chairs in front of her desk. She sat behind it, rested her hand on a Manila envelope. Maverick glanced at it; he had a pilot’s vision and could read the heading on the tab: KAZANSKY, THOMAS. "Tom has given me permission to speak to you a little about what’s going on with him. Normally everything he tells me is privileged."

"Where is he?"

"He’s in one of the exam rooms, laying down. I gave him a tranquilizer, also with his permission. Our session today did not go very well."

"Is he—he’s not okay, I guess," Maverick said. "That’s a stupid question."

"Transitions are often difficult for PTSD patients," she said. "He’s just made a big change, and it’s disrupted the feeling of safety his old routine had. It’s not making him worse; it just—think of it this way, Pete. This is a permanent injury, like the injury to his leg. He is always going to have symptoms, but he’ll have good days and bad days, and his success in managing the symptoms will depend on a number of factors. Right now, many of the aspects of his life are making it difficult for him to manage his symptoms. It’s not his fault; it’s not that he’s not trying. It’s like if he had to walk ten miles to work every day, how that would make everything with his leg worse."

Maverick nodded. "Okay. How do I help?"

"Keep doing what you’re doing. Be patient. And look out for warning signs that things are becoming more than he can handle. If you think he’s going to hurt himself, he may not be able to get himself help. You’ll have to do it for him."

She took a card from the small, silver stand on her desk, and wrote something on the back before handing it to Maverick.

"That’s the on call physicians line. If he is having an emergency outside business hours, you call that number. The doctor on call can help you, and they can get ahold of me if it’s not me on call. An emergency, Pete. As in something you would take to the emergency room if it was his leg and not this. Do you understand?"

"Yes. Thank you." He put the card in his wallet. "Can I see him?"

"Yes. If you’d like, you can take him home. I think he’s having a bad time, not an emergency, and I feel comfortable releasing him to you. He made you his emergency contact, and he asked us to call you."

Rachel showed Maverick to a room down the hall, and left him. Maverick went in; Ice was laying on his side on an exam table, curled up a little. Maverick knelt before him, and Ice blinked at him, druggedly.

“Mav?”

Maverick smoothed his hand over Ice’s hair. “Rough day, buddy?”

“It’s been a rough … I don’t even know how long, Maverick.”

“Well, I’m gonna take you home now, okay?”

“Yeah,” Ice said. “Yeah, I want to go home.”

Maverick helped him to his feet, but after that he could walk okay, and they left the office together. Maverick drove Ice home in his own car, and he got him into his house and into his bed. Then he walked the two blocks back to his own house. It felt like a hundred miles.



CHAPTER FOUR

Maverick had installed a second phone next to his bed in case Ice tried to wake him in the night and he couldn’t hear the one in the kitchen. It was coming up on two a.m., and the ring of the phone next to his bed woke him, and the minute he put the receiver to his ear, he was glad he’d had the foresight to install it.

“I can’t do this,” Ice said, exhaling the words between sobs.

“Yeah, you can,” Maverick said. “Tell me what’s going on. Talk to me.”

Maverick waited, listening to Ice cry, for a long few minutes.

“Everything hurts,” Ice said finally. “It’s too much, and it’s constant, and I feel like it’s degrading me, like it’s—like it’s breaking me down until I’m just … pieces.”

“It sucks,” Maverick said. “I know it does. But you’re stronger than the pain. You are. You can do this.”

Ice was quiet for a long time. Finally: “I don’t want to.”

Maverick got out of bed. He tucked the cordless against his shoulder and went to the closet, started pulling out clothes.

“Don’t do anything,” Maverick said. “I’m coming over.”

“No. No, you can’t.”

“The hell I can’t. You stay right there and wait for me. I’ll be five minutes. You can wait five minutes, Tom. Tell me you can.”

“I can,” he whispered.

“I’m on my way.”

Maverick ran the two blocks to Ice’s place. The lights were off, but when he tried the front door, he found it unlocked.

Ice was a few feet away, sitting on the last stair, looking at him. He wasn’t crying anymore, but it was easy to tell he had been, and he looked drawn, severe.

“Maverick,” he said softly.

Maverick shut the door behind him, and he came over to Ice, knelt before him so they were at eye level.

“Hey,” he said.

Ice’s voice was flat, emotionless. “You can’t be here. You’re risking everything.”

Maverick shook his head. “No, I’m not. You—you’re everything, Tom.” Maverick put his hands on Ice’s arms, holding him as best he could while in this position, while looking him in the eye. “If it’s between keeping you or keeping my wings, I choose you. I just need you to choose me, too, Tom.”

“What do you mean?”

“It sounded like you were thinking of checking out back there. I know this is hard. I know it hurts. But I know it gets better, too, and I just need you to believe that, and I need you to choose being with me over … over not being here at all.”

Ice bowed his head, let his forehead rest against Maverick’s.

“I do,” he said softly. “I choose you, Pete.”

Maverick kissed him. He held him for a long time, then gently pulled away.

"I love you," he said. "I’d do anything for you. But right now I think you need more help than I can give you. Your therapist gave me a number for emergencies, and I think this is an emergency."

Ice shook his head. Maverick could see naked fear in his eyes. "They’ll lock me up."

"It’s not jail. It’s a hospital. A few days to get your head on straight. I won’t let them keep you any longer than that, I promise."

Ice put his head in his hands. Maverick petted his hair, his back, until his breathing went back to normal.

"Okay," he said weakly.

Maverick nodded. "I’m proud of you, Tom. Go pack a bag. Just some clothes and your toiletries. I’ll call your doctor."

Ice let Maverick help him to his feet.

"I’m trusting you, Maverick," he said. "I’m trusting you with my life, here."

"Everything’s going to be okay, Tom. I promise."

Ice went down the hall to pack. Maverick dug the therapist’s card out of his wallet, found Ice’s phone, and made the hardest phone call of his life.

***

Maverick drove Ice’s car to the hospital, Ice in the passenger seat, looking out the window. It had just begun to snow, and small, fragile flakes spun around the car as it crawled through the streets.

“I didn’t see snow until I was eighteen years old,” Ice said.

Maverick looked at him. Ice had grown up in Honolulu; his father was a Navy officer stationed at Pearl Harbor. Maverick looked at Ice, the profile of him lit by the streetlights and the moon. He looked drawn, as tired as Maverick had ever seen him, and he was still legitimately the most beautiful person Maverick had ever seen up close.

“Tell me about it,” he said. “The first time you saw snow.”

Ice traced a line down the fog on his window with the tip of his forefinger, charting the fall of a snowflake.

“We moved to Annapolis when I got into the Academy,” he said. “Me and my sister. My first semester had just ended, and Sasha and I were staying in this shitty apartment with these ancient radiators as the only heat. It was so cold some nights that I would wake up and every single muscle in my body hurt from shivering all night.”

He spoke like he was in a trance. Maverick listened.

“One morning, really early, I was still in bed, and Sasha ran into my room and turned on the lights, and she jumped on my bed—literally jumped on it, so hard that I bounced on the mattress. And she said, 'Tommy, you have to get up.’ I thought the damn apartment was on fire or something, but she dragged me outside, both of us still in our pajamas, no shoes on. It had snowed overnight, and there was like six inches of pure, white snow on the ground, and more coming down, and it was like … it was like seeing another world. I didn’t know how it would feel. Everything was so quiet. I looked up at the sky, and snowflakes landed on my face, and they felt like kisses.”

Maverick bit his lip, and he wiped at his face with his knuckles. He wasn’t sure when he’d started crying.

“It’s a pain in the ass. Snow. It makes—I guess it makes things—life—harder when it’s around. But I always just remember that first time, the beauty of it.”

Maverick tried to swallow a sob, but couldn’t manage to hold back all of the noise. Ice looked at him, and he looked worn in a way Maverick had never seen him before, a threadbare kind of worn, but he forced a small smile, and he ran his fingers through Maverick’s hair, squeezed his shoulder.

“You’re not gonna lose me, Pete,” he said. “I promise. I’ll always come back to you.”

***

Rachel met them at the entrance to the hospital. She’d told Maverick to come to the psych wing at the back of the building, which was a locked ward, so they stood outside in the snow. There were a few other cars in the parking lot, employees, probably, and compared to the rest of the hospital, it was quiet and dark.

“Hi, Tom,” Rachel said, and smiled warmly. “I’m really proud of you for doing this.”

“Seventy-two hours,” he said. “And then Maverick can come get me.”

She nodded. “That’s the deal.” She looked at Maverick. “Pete, are you comfortable having that kind of responsibility for him?”

“I mean, I already do,” Maverick said. “Just not on paper.”

Ice took his hand, and squeezed. Maverick squeezed back.

“We’re going to put it on paper,” Rachel said. “I’ll need you both to sign some things.”

“Okay,” Maverick said.

Ice nodded. “Sure.”

“Okay,” Rachel said, “are you ready?”

Ice’s hand tightened around Maverick’s to the point of pain. Maverick looked him in the eye.

“You can do this, Iceman. Come on.”

They followed Rachel inside, waiting for the orderlies to buzz them into the building, temporarily unlocking the door. There was a reception desk just on the other side of the door, and they stopped before it.

“Tom,” Rachel said, “they’re going to have to look through your things. Would you prefer to be present while they do that?”

“What are they looking for?” Maverick asked.

“Contraband,” Rachel said, “which in this case is basically anything he or another patient could use to hurt themselves. This is a safe facility for patients at risk for suicide or self-harm behaviors.” To Ice: “They’ll let you know everything they take out, and they’ll give it all back when you check out.”

“No,” Ice said. “That’s fine. I don’t have to be here while they look.”

He handed his duffel to the orderlies behind the desk. Rachel took them into a small room to the right, an office with some desks and computers and a lone worker, an older woman with silver hair wound into thick box braids. She and Rachel led them through Ice’s admissions paperwork. When they were done, the woman with the braids printed out a hospital bracelet with Ice’s information on it.

“Right wrist, honey.”

Ice went a little pale. Maverick squeezed his shoulder. “Come on, man. You can do this.”

Ice held out his hand, and the woman with the braids affixed his bracelet. Ice looked at it like it might be venomous.

“Tom,” Rachel said, “we’re going to take you back now. I can see you’re wearing some jewelry; the staff won’t let you keep that while you’re here, and I thought you might prefer Pete hanging onto it to letting the staff take it.”

Ice took off his Navy ring, and handed it to Maverick.

“And your dog tags, Tom,” Rachel said.

Ice look stung. He rested his hand over where the tags hung between his pectoral muscles.

“I’m not supposed to take them off,” he said quietly.

“They’re a hanging risk, Tom. I’m sorry.”

“They take them off us when we’re dead,” Ice said, like he hadn’t heard.

“I’ll keep them warm for you, okay, Ice?” Maverick said. “I’ll wear them the whole time, I promise.”

Ice swallowed thickly, but eventually he nodded. He pulled his dog tags off over his head, and handed them to Maverick, who, true to his word, immediately put them on. They jostled against his own; it wouldn’t be long before they got tangled up, he figured.

“Okay,” Rachel said, standing, “Pete, I’m going to take Tom back now. You can’t go with him any further. You can come visit him tomorrow; give me a call in the morning, and I’ll explain the procedure for that. Tom, you can say goodbye, if you like.”

Maverick and Ice stood looking at each other for a moment before either of them moved. Ice pulled Maverick into a tight hug, and then he kissed him, just once, but firmly and for a long moment. When they broke off, Ice looked him in the eye, resolutely.

“I’m gonna get better.”

“Yeah, you are,” Maverick said. “It’s gonna be okay, Ice, I promise.”

Ice nodded, but he looked a little panicked as he followed Rachel back further into the ward, past another set of locking doors. The woman with the box braids showed Maverick out the first set, and he walked back into the cold, his hands in his pockets, Ice’s dog tags laying against his heart.



CHAPTER FIVE

It was almost five a.m. by the time Maverick got home. It was still dark and it was still snowing; a thin layer of frost clung to the sparse grass in his front yard, shining silver in the streetlights. He felt exhausted on a cellular level, but he knew there was no chance of going back to sleep. And he didn’t want to. The last thing he needed was to dream. Maverick opened a beer, and he sat in his recliner in the dark, holding Ice’s dog tags in his hand, hard enough that he imagined the letters imprinting onto his palm.

***

Work was a blur. Maverick locked himself in his office and called Rachel’s number several times before the practice actually opened, getting a prerecorded message in an annoyingly chipper tone three times before an actual human picked up.

“She’s with a patient,” the receptionist said. “She’ll call you back when she has a moment between appointments.”

There was paperwork. He took some phone calls from brass and vendors and a pilot applying for one of the instructor positions. He drank coffee.

None of it stuck in his mind. Everything just rushed past.

Rachel called a little after ten. She told him she’d called the hospital to check on Ice before returning Maverick’s call, and that by all accounts he’d had an uneventful night. She told him that he could visit Ice between two and five, and explained the guidelines for doing so. Maverick wrote them down so they wouldn’t slip away like everything else.

He was a zombie until one o’clock, and then things started coming back into focus. At one thirty, he told Jenny he was taking a long lunch, and he stopped and ate at a greasy spoon a few blocks away from the hospital, mostly to burn time until visiting hours.

Soon after, he parked in the back lot of the hospital. There were more cars now, and it had gotten too warm for snow as soon as the sun came up, so things looked different than the last time he’d been here, only hours before. He sat on the bike looking at the grey face of the hospital. He had a vivid memory of walking beneath fluorescent lights, through scrubbed, antiseptic-smelling hallways. A different hospital, a different patient, but still so familiar. They’d told his mother it would be a short stay, too. And it had been. But Maverick had walked in with her and he’d walked out without her, and that … that couldn’t happen again.

He set his jaw. Exhaled slowly. It wouldn’t happen again. This was different. This was Ice, and Ice wasn’t sick, he was just hurt, and in a few days, Maverick could take him home.

Maverick got off his bike, and he went to the door. It was a locked ward, so he had to be buzzed in. At reception, they checked his ID and issued him a visitor’s badge. Rachel had explained the rules for visitors to him over the phone this morning, but the orderlies at reception explained them again. Don’t give him anything, don’t leave the common areas, don't take off your badge. You have one hour.

The orderlies led Maverick back through another set of locked doors, and things were more relaxed on that side. There was another reception-type desk, but after that, the room opened up, and there was a common area with couches and chairs and an old television. There was a small bookcase with dozens of cheap paperbacks filling the shelves, and a few folding card tables with elderly copies of board games piled on top.

And Ice. Ice was waiting for him on the other side, dressed down in clean sweatpants and a black t-shirt with a cartoon rabbit and some Japanese lettering on it. He still looked drawn, but he looked like he’d slept, and he smiled when he saw Maverick.

“Hey,” Maverick said, and Ice surprised the hell out of him by walking right up to him and wrapping his arms around him. Maverick melted into the embrace, like touching Ice put him through a phase change, and it was hard as hell to break it off.

“It’s good to see you,” Ice said. “You wanna sit?”

They went to the quietest part of the common room, as far away from the television and other patients as they could get. They sat on one of the couches, facing each other, three or four inches apart, max.

“How’s it going?” Maverick asked. “What … I don’t know what you do in here.”

“Therapy,” Ice said. “Lots of therapy. One-on-one with the doctor, then one-on-one with the therapist, then group, which is … well, I hate it the most, let’s say that.”

“Yeah. That sounds like a lot. What else?”

“Meds,” Ice said, and he winced a little as he said it. “I feel like a damn science experiment; every few hours, they call me up to the nurse’s station, and they give me more pills to swallow. They watch me take them, and then they make me show under my tongue to prove I actually swallowed them. They gave me a pill to put me to sleep last night, and I have to take the Xanax every few hours instead of just when things get bad, and … and they’ve started me on an antidepressant. Just … just for a little while. It can’t be long term, but Rachel said that it can kind of … dig me out of this hole.”

“Is it working?”

“I think … maybe it is. A little. She said it would take a couple days for it to get in my system and really start helping.”

“Have you guys talked about drugs like this before?”

“Yeah,” Ice said, “but like I said, it can’t be long term.”

“Why not? If it helps?”

Ice’s jaw set. He looked away. “I won’t be able to fly, Mav. I can’t take them and fly.”

Maverick’s first thought was, So don’t fly. But he knew how he’d feel if someone said that to him, and he wouldn’t be so cruel as to say it to Ice. Instead, he nodded, and clapped a hand on Ice’s shoulder. “Well, I hope they get you back on your feet in a hurry, then. You know how bored I am without you?”

Ice grinned. “Sorry, Mitchell. I know it’s all paperwork and brown nosing without me there to make things interesting.”

“Yeah,” Maverick said, but he couldn’t keep a smile on, “it’s pretty dull.” He cleared his throat, forced the smile. “So, they let you have conjugal visits in here, or what?”

Ice laughed.

***

Maverick lay in bed most of the night, staring at the ceiling. He felt exhausted and wired at the same time, like he’d taken one of those torture drugs that wouldn’t let you sleep. How many days until that actually killed you? Ice would probably know. Ice knew a lot of things Maverick didn’t even think about.

Maverick traced the letters on Ice’s dog tags like he was reading them in Braille. It was probably just his imagination, but he felt like he understood the shape of each individual letter.

K-A-Z-A-N-S-K-Y

T-H-O-M-A-S

I-C-E-M-A-N

Over and over again, until morning.

***

Maverick took a long lunch again. And again, Ice was waiting for him on the other side of the second set of locked doors. He was wearing a t-shirt with the USNA seal on it—had he had that since college? It still fit; he looked good in it—and he was smiling. He looked well-rested; his eyes were brighter, clear and focused in a way Maverick hadn’t seen in a while.

“Jesus,” Maverick said as they broke off their embrace. “You look great, man. What are they doing to you?”

Ice shrugged. “Drugs are working, I guess.”

“You feel good, too?”

“Yeah.”

Maverick let out a breath he felt he’d been holding for a long time. “Thank God.”

“Look, Mav. I’m sorry I—”

“No,” Maverick said. “Don’t. Don’t even think of apologizing. Not for any of it.”

Ice bowed his head. “Thanks, Pete,” he said softly. “For everything.”

Maverick hugged him again. In that moment, he needed his hands on him like he needed oxygen.

***

Maverick came home from work, ate cold leftover Chinese takeout, and then fell asleep on the couch before he could even grab the remote. He slept deeply, all the way ’til morning.

***

Maverick arrived at the hospital at two p.m. just like he had the past two days, but this time he drove Ice’s Mazda instead of the bike. Reception buzzed Maverick into the building, and he found Rachel waiting for him at reception.

“Afternoon, Pete,” she said. “I’d like to ask you one more time before we sign the paperwork: Are you sure you’re comfortable being responsible for him?”

Maverick laughed. “Hell, if I wasn’t, it’s way too late now. It’s not a paperwork thing; it’s just—you know, Tom.”

She smiled. “Okay. Come sign his discharge papers, and he’s all yours.”

Maverick signed the papers. A moment later, Ice came through the locked doors from the patient side of the ward.

“Here to bust you out, Slick,” Maverick said, and Ice grinned.

The orderlies gave Ice his things back. Rachel talked to him a moment about his prescriptions, then handed them over, several orange bottles in a ziploc baggie. She gave him some kind of schedule with several dates and times circled, and then she cut off his wristband and threw it away.

“Call me if you need anything,” she said. “Please make those appointments, Tom, and keep up with the meds. You seem pretty close with your boss; I’m sure he’ll approve some PTO.”

Ice blushed a little. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Rachel.”

They started to walk out when Maverick remembered something. “Oh, hey, wait a minute, Ice.”

Ice waited. Maverick gave him back his Navy ring, and then he slipped off Ice’s dog tags and put them back where they belonged, around Ice’s neck. Ice held his hand over them over his heart for a moment, and he smiled, and they left the hospital.

Maverick drove. He glanced over at Ice in the passenger’s seat, the paperwork he’d walked out with.

“You got homework?”

“Yeah,” Ice said. “I’m supposed to keep up with the intensive therapy for another week. It’s outpatient, but I’m going to need some time off work.”

“That’s fine, man. We’ll make it work. What about the meds?”

“She wants me to keep taking them for two weeks, and then I can taper off. I’ll be fine to fly when the new class comes in.”

“If you need more time than that, we’ll make do,” Maverick said. Ice gave him a look, and he sighed. “Just—just keep being honest with me about what you need, and we’ll be fine.”

"Deal," Ice said.

***

Maverick hired Jubilee. They were short an instructor, but he’d gotten most of the support staff hired, and three instructors could do the work if they had to, if they hustled.

Two weeks to go until the first TOPGUN NAWDC class arrived. Ice had finished his intensive therapy, and he was a day or two from tapering off the antidepressants completely. He seemed good. Stable. He seemed like himself.

Maverick was packing up for the day when Ice shadowed his doorway.

“Hey,” he said, “you wanna take a ride with me? I’ve got something to show you.”

Maverick arched a brow. “What is it?”

Ice smiled, showing his teeth. “It’s a surprise.”

“Good surprise, or bad surprise?”

“Good surprise,” Ice said, and helped Maverick into his coat.

Ice drove them off base, but they didn’t go into town. They drove the other way, past an elementary school, an outdoor market, and a park with a running track and a couple tennis courts. They passed several suburbs, advertised with wood and stone entrance signs boasting names like CRESTWOOD MANOR and FOX LAKE. Ice turned into CASABLANCA. The houses were cottage-style, and the yards were the same dry, colorless dirt as most everything else in Fallon, but there were lots of cottonwoods shading the houses.

“You know what I miss?” Maverick said. “Grass.”

Ice chuckled. He turned onto Spanish Sahara Drive, and then pulled into a driveway halfway down the street.

“What are we doing here?” Maverick asked.

“I told you: I have something to show you,” Ice said, and he got out of the car.

Maverick followed him up to the house. It was a one story cottage with a covered porch bordered by white railing. The trim was white, too, but the house was painted the color of depression glass.

“This house is pink, Ice.”

“You’re right, Mitchell,” Ice said with irritating nonchalance. He stepped onto the porch, dug into his pocket, and came up with a key. He unlocked the door, and motioned for Maverick to go ahead of him.

Maverick stepped into the house. The interior was bare, but very clean, and it looked like it had been renovated recently, but in a way that worked with the basic character of the original house instead of stripping it and starting over. It had dark hardwood floors and interesting, functional woodwork, like the built-in bookcases that bordered half of the living room.

“Whose house is this?” Maverick asked.

Ice looked at him. He looked a little surprised. “It’s mine, Mitchell.”

“What?”

“Signed the papers on my lunch break,” he said, and continued walking through the house. Maverick followed. “I’m going to have some painting done, neutral colors on the walls, and the kitchen desperately needs new appliances, but otherwise, it’s move-in ready.”

They walked through the kitchen and out the back door, onto a large covered porch. The porch itself was made up of slabs of red, terracotta-style tile, and it was completely enclosed with mesh screens that would keep out wildlife and the elements while allowing you to see out. There was space for a seating area on the right, and on the left, a large, in-ground pool.

“It’s heated,” Ice said, “so I can use it all year round. That’s what took so long: finding the pool.”

The situation was starting to hit Maverick.

“You bought a house,” he said.

“Yup.”

“Off base.”

Ice smiled. “Yes, Maverick. Off base.”

Maverick grinned. He slung an arm around Ice’s waist, pulled him in close, kissed him.

“Thank God,” he said, and Ice laughed.

“This place got a bedroom?” Maverick asked.

“It does,” Ice said slowly, “but my bed’s in storage. Soon, though, Maverick. Really soon.”

Maverick kissed him again. “You’re worth the wait. I guess.”

Ice rolled his eyes. “Thanks for that glowing endorsement.”

Maverick looked at him, the fine features of his face, the shape of his mouth and the color of his eyes so familiar it felt like Maverick was looking at his past and his future all at once. His expression softened; he softened everywhere.

“I love you, Tom,” he said.

Ice smiled, kissed him softly. “I love you, too. You ready to do this?”

“What this?”

“This … next step thing. With me, I mean.”

Maverick kissed him, hard this time. “You bet I am, Iceman. Fucking bet on it.”

“I always bet on you, Maverick,” Ice said softly. He looked at him for a moment, fondly, unspeaking. Then he smiled. “Movers are coming Friday. You can keep me in bed aaaaaaallll weekend.”

Maverick grinned. “It’s a date. Now. You got more to show me around this place, or can I buy you dinner?”

“I’d love dinner. Italian?”

“Whatever you want.”

Ice raised his brow. “We’re not going to fight about it?”

“No. This once, let’s not.”

They walked out of the house together.

“I think you’re getting soft in your old age, Mitchell,” Ice said.

“Fuck you,” Maverick said. “Old age, my ass. You’re three months younger than me.”

Ice smiled. “There he is. And it’s four months, Mitchell, do the math.”

They got into the car, fastened their seatbelts.

“Don’t talk to me about math, Kazansky,” Maverick said as Ice backed down the driveway. “You know how much math I do every day at thirty thousand feet, in my head, in a split second, while doing eight other things, and it has to be stone cold fucking perfect every time?”

“Yes, I do, since I am also a pilot,” Ice said dryly. “So I guess what I should glean from this conversation is that you don’t know when my birthday is.”

“Okay,” Maverick said. “When’s my birthday, hot shot?”

“April first, which is perfect, actually. God delivered you to this earth on April Fool’s Day.”

“My mother delivered me, smart ass.”

Ice massaged the bridge of his nose. “Dear God …”

They bickered all the way to the restaurant, but they laughed, too.