FIC: The Trick is to Keep Breathing (Top Gun, Iceman/Maverick, PG-13)

[carlyinrome]

TITLE: The Trick is to Keep Breathing
RATING: PG-13
FANDOMS: Top Gun
PAIRINGS: Pete "Maverick" Mitchell/Tom "Iceman" Kazansky
SUMMARY: It's a big day, and Maverick's dealing with it.

Written for MJ's Subversion Challenge. Happy 1K, babe. This was all built from you bleed and breathe the air, which is a line from "Aurora" by the Foo Fighters. I learned that just this second because I did not look up the rest of the lyrics before writing; I just wrote from that six word prompt. The title is from the Garbage song of the same name.

Ice woke Maverick with his mouth, made his favorite breakfast, and since then has been dragging him through a full itinerary of pleasant diversions. It's nice. Maverick appreciates it.

It's not helping.

They've spent the last couple hours at a kiddie fun zone with batting cages and bumper cars and mini golf. School just started back again, so it's pretty empty, which is nice, and Maverick's been able to tolerate it, trying just to be with Ice and enjoy their time together, but eventually the bright colors and the constant noise get to him, and he feels it all brighter and louder than he knows it is, to the point that he wonders if this is how Ice navigates the world with his PTSD.

"Can we just go home?" he asks.

Ice nods, says, "Sure. Come on," and drives him home, turning the radio on quietly instead of attempting conversation.

"Do you want to be alone?" Ice asks when they walk in the door.

"Absolutely fucking not," Maverick says. "Just… I don't want to talk, and I don't want to… I don't know what I want to do, Ice, so just… go do whatever you want to do, and I'll just hang out nearby, okay? Please? That's what I want."

Ice nods, and he changes into his trunks, and he gets in the pool. Maverick sits in a chair beneath the shade of the big umbrella of Ice's patio set, and watches him swim. It's nice. Ice is beautiful everywhere, in everything he does, but he's so graceful in the water that watching him is just as meditative as what he's getting out of the exercise, without the work. It's perfect. Maverick opens a beer and doesn't drink it, and he watches Ice cut through the water like he was fucking born there, and he drops into his thoughts.

Today is Goose's birthday. He would have been forty-five. It's almost twenty years since the accident, almost twenty years without him, and the pain that every single part of that causes is still so significant that sometimes Maverick can't breathe around it. He doesn't have PTSD the same way Ice does, the way that it's a part of his life that he has to manage like a diabetic's blood sugar, but sometimes in his dreams he's still in the water with Goose in his arms and it's brighter than Technicolor, and he wakes up and can't remember what year it is. After the first few years of remembrance parties on Goose's birthday, Carole started just having them for each decade. She'll do his fiftieth in a few years. Maverick is close with her and Bradley, who has grown up into a great kid. He's in college now. Goose's kid is in college, and Goose is missing it.

Maverick massages his temple. He's started greying there, and he stopped dyeing over it after Ice caught him with the Just for Men one morning and told him smoothly, coolly, that the grey made him look distinguished. Ice is greying, too, but he's blond and it's harder to tell. He stopped with the stupid highlights ages ago, before they even got together, way back in `94. They've been together over a decade now, and Maverick has wondered more than once how Goose would react to that. Probably with an "I told you so," Maverick thinks, and smiles.

Ice swims up to the stairs, and he sits on the steps, his back to Maverick, slicking his hair back out of his face and catching his breath. Maverick pulls off his shoes and socks, and he walks into the pool in his jeans, sitting on the step behind Ice, Ice between his legs and looking back at him like he's lost his damn mind, which is fair. The water rushes up around him, embracing him, weighing him down. His limbs feel heavy because of the water soaking his clothes, urging him to sink, but Ice is there, Maverick can feel him pleasantly warm and slick between his legs and under his hands, and it's enough to keep his head above water.

"Tell me if this counts as talking," Ice says, "but are you okay?"

Maverick rests his head against Ice's shoulder, sneaking an arm around his chest and pulling him back against him. His hand is over Ice's heart, and he can feel his pulse throbbing in his palm. He knows the tempo by heart, the same as he knows the rhythm of Ice's breathing as he falls asleep beside him every night.

"I'm okay," Maverick says, and it's a tribute to their years together that Ice doesn't say anything, just puts his hand over Maverick's over his heart, and holds on.