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Maverick felt like shit.
He wasn't going to make a production out of it. The hospital was finally fucking releasing him, so he could go back to his own housing on-base and feel like shit there, and god, he was looking forward to it. He hated being here, hated being looked at while he was like this. He was hurt, fine; he didn't mind being hurt. It happened too much for him to think he was ever going to be able to escape it. But that didn't mean he wanted anybody knowing, seeing that he was. And now that they were finally letting him go, he could shut himself away, put himself back together without anybody looking, and then he'd be fine.
He washed himself as best he could, cleaned himself up, rinsed his mouth out. Getting dressed again took a little while. He didn't want any help, didn't ask for any. The sharp deep ache in his head throbbed in time with his heart, and he couldn't stand up straight without the pain in his ribs stabbing hard enough that he couldn't figure out how to breathe around it. He hated that he couldn't move any faster than this, the closest to slow and careful he'd ever been in his life. It hurt. But he could do it.
The nurse still hadn't come back, by the time he was done. He could just go, he thought. Walk out before they noticed, before they could stop him.
But before he could even step toward the doorway, between one moment and the next, someone else moved into it, filled the open frame of it.
"Ice," Maverick said, without quite meaning to.
It came out thin, hoarse. He hadn't talked to the nurses much. He hadn't talked at all, when he'd been able to avoid it.
And jesus, he didn't want this. As much as he hated strangers hovering over him, examining him, cataloging every wound left on him—the last thing he wanted was Ice seeing him like this, pale and shaky, barely holding himself up.
But it was already too late to stop it. Ice was looking at him, pale eyes sharp and steady, unwavering. "Maverick," he said. "Ready to go, huh."
"Always am," Maverick shot back, rusty, fumbling to find the rhythm of it—push and push back, the way they'd always done it, because he was fine, and he didn't need Ice thinking he wasn't.
Except Ice didn't push back. "Okay," he said instead, and tilted his head, took a half-step back out the door of the hospital room: an invitation.
Maverick was stuck for a second, uncomprehending. "What," he said at last, "you're running a taxi service now?"
But Ice still didn't push back. It was weird, the way he looked at Maverick then; intent, like always, but without force or pressure, a wall gone that had toppled when Maverick hadn't been paying attention. "No," he said, quiet. "You were never going to have to catch a cab."
"Right. Because you were going to come and get me."
No dice. Ice didn't get pissed, didn't go cold, didn't treat it like the hard-edged joke it was.
"Yeah," he said, and reached out, took Maverick by the arm just over the elbow.
It would be a lot of effort to shake him off, Maverick decided distantly. Not worth the trouble.
They left, like that.
Nobody stopped them. Maybe the Iceman had already talked to somebody, stared them down, or maybe he hadn't. Either way, they got out the doors.
There was a car out there—Ice's. Not bad.
It occurred to Maverick then that he didn't know what had happened to his motorcycle, after. Not that he could've ridden it anyway, like this.
He got in the passenger side on his own. Ice didn't help him, wasn't even looking at him; that made it a little easier, maybe.
But once Ice was behind the wheel, he didn't do anything, for a long moment. He had a hand on the parking brake, his feet on the pedals, but he was just sitting there, looking out the windshield.
Fuck, Maverick thought. He was going to—he was going to say something. He was going to say something, and it was going to be fucking awkward. Because they didn't do this, they never had. Pilot and wingman: they kept each other alive, had each other's backs, but they did it by shooting the enemy out of the sky, by being faster and deadlier than anything else up there. Maverick had never needed Ice's goddamn pity before.
He braced himself for it, jaw tight. He was ready. He'd spit it back in Ice's face, open the door and get back out of the car, walk back to the base if he had to—
"I don't know what I would've done," Ice said.
Maverick blinked. He felt disoriented. The words that had been piled up on the back of his tongue dissolved, and he didn't have any to replace them.
"If you had," Ice said, and then stopped.
Maverick looked at him. He'd seemed like himself, still and expressionless in that way he was when he wanted to be; but from right next to him, Maverick could see strain around his eyes, his mouth. His throat was working.
"If you'd," he said again, and then, as if trying a new flight path, an alternate approach, "If you were—" but that wasn't any better. His fingers flexed around the parking brake, the wheel, his knuckles abruptly white.
"Ice," Maverick said.
Ice shut his eyes.
"I don't know what I would've done," and his voice was low, the softest Maverick could ever remember hearing it.
Maverick didn't know what the fuck to say. He didn't know what the fuck that meant. His head was pounding, and his chest ached, and he wasn't going to do anything stupid. He wasn't going to let himself do anything stupid.
After thirty more seconds, maybe, Ice opened his eyes and started the car. The windows were down. The rush of wind, the noise of it, let Maverick off the hook, and he turned his face gratefully away from Ice and tried to get a fucking grip.
He was fine. They'd be fine, everything would be fine, as long as he didn't do anything stupid.
They'd been fucking for a while.
It had started after the SS Layton. After the world had rearranged itself with one moment at its center, the weight of one body, the impossible blow of one slow smile.
It had happened the way everything happened, with them. They'd pushed each other into it, goaded each other further and further one step at a time, until there had been nowhere to go except across that last line, the only one left between them. Neither of them had ever been any good at backing down.
The fucking had been like that, too. Pushing each other to the limit, throttles cranked, a dare and a challenge. Risking it all, riding the edge like they were invulnerable. They weren't, they never had been; but you didn't say it. You didn't think it. Not when you were in the air, and not with this.
And then the crash happened.
Not in a jet. Would've been easier to handle if it had been, maybe. The motorcycle, that was all. The motorcycle, some hammered civilian running a red, and that was all it had taken.
No helmet, because that wasn't how Maverick operated. He was lucky he'd walked away from it. He'd been thrown clear, across a good thirty yards of pavement. Cracked his head and a handful of ribs, and road rash had stripped the skin off half his leg, his shoulder, where he'd skidded.
It was the kind of shit that could've happened to anybody, and Maverick had fucking hated it. Last thing he ever wanted was to get dragged down to earth like that—the only way he was looking to go out was blazing, wild and unforgettable, doing something nobody else had the guts to do.
He hadn't been able to get back up, after. He hadn't been able to move, hadn't been able to think. He couldn't remember getting hit; he could only remember lying there, head empty, leg and shoulder burning, dimly bewildered.
But it hadn't been that bad. He was fine. He didn't need any help, and he hadn't asked for any.
Except Ice had shown up anyway, had come to get him and take him home. I don't know what I would've done, if you'd—if you were—
But he wasn't going to let that fuck with his head. He knew what this was and what it wasn't, and he wasn't going to do anything stupid.
Ice didn't try to talk to him, the rest of the drive back to base.
It wasn't that far. But it felt like it, with every beat of Maverick's heart ricocheting through his aching head, his throbbing ribs—with every inch of Maverick's awareness fixed helplessly on Ice, on the echo of his steady warm grip where it had been closed above Maverick's elbow and on the strange taut feeling of the empty air that separated them now.
Ice was driving. There was no good reason why he should take his hand off the gearshift and set it on Maverick, and there was no good reason why Maverick should want him to.
Instructors' housing on base was all in a neat row. Once Iceman was done dropping Maverick off, he'd be home himself inside thirty seconds. He'd be almost as close as he ever was when they were in the air. Maverick couldn't ask for closer.
The car slowed. Maverick shut his eyes.
He couldn't ask for closer. That wasn't how this worked. Even if he did ask, why should Ice go along? Just to—what, sit there and watch him hurt? Help him peel gauze off his raw, stripped skin? Maverick hardly wanted to be there for it; he couldn't expect Ice to.
He was so fucking tired.
The car stopped. Maverick bit down on the inside of his cheek, and reached out to catch the door latch in his fingers.
But he hadn't pulled it yet, when he heard a car door open.
Ice's, not his.
He sat there, slow with the surprise of it. Ice had almost rounded the car by the time he got it together and got out.
And that meant he had a shot after all, didn't it?
He didn't rush it, as much as that grated. He had a better chance of moving smooth, almost like nothing hurt, if he did it slowly.
Ice caught his arm again. Not hurrying him, not even—not even really steadying him, Maverick thought, because he wasn't putting any strength into it, wasn't trying to counter Maverick's weight with his grip. He was just holding on, that was all.
It was an advantage, and one Maverick was willing to use. He didn't pull free of it, and when he stepped through his own front door, Ice was right behind him, and hadn't let go.
He got lucky. When he stopped, turned, Ice was looking at him—and the next thing Ice did was lift a hand to his head and slide a couple fingertips through his hair, where it was shaved down around the stitches.
On the one hand, too bad Ice was looking at them. They weren't exactly attractive. On the other hand, it gave Maverick an open angle, a space he could move into.
"How's your head," Ice said, quiet, barely even a question.
Pounding. But that answer wasn't going to get Maverick what he wanted—what he needed.
Maverick gave him a damn good smile instead, wide and slanting, a dismissive cocky angle. "Just fine," he said, and took the opening: moved into the touch of Ice's hand so it slid around the back of his head instead, swayed in close, and pressed his mouth to Ice's.
Ice made a low sound in the back of his throat. Maybe surprise, maybe half a protest, except if that was what it was, it didn't last; he didn't push Maverick away, and he kissed back as firmly as he ever had before. His hand stayed right where it was, cradling the curve of Maverick's skull, with the other still closed around Maverick's upper arm. He didn't seem pissed, and if those thick black stitches had put him off, he wasn't showing it.
It was good. It felt good, the warm solid strength of his body, and Maverick hadn't felt anything good like that in over forty-eight hours.
God. Maybe this was really going to work. Maybe he could keep Ice from leaving after all.
"Come on," he murmured against Ice's mouth. "Almost five days now, right? We never go that long."
Ice shifted his hand, rubbed a thumb along Maverick's jaw—pushed, created a little space, but it wasn't a no. "Maverick," he said, almost softly.
"Come on," Maverick repeated. "Come on, huh?"
He'd caught Ice at the waist, not aiming anywhere in particular but just meaning to hold himself up, hold Ice in place against him to be kissed. He let his hands skim down, gripped the outside of Ice's thigh with one and found Ice's fly with the other, and Ice wasn't hard yet, but that was fine. Never took that long, with him.
Ice drew a sharp little breath. "Mav," he said, and there was a warning in it this time, but that was fine, too. Maverick had always gotten a lot of mileage out of warnings—out of blowing right past them, and waiting to see what anybody was going to do about it.
"Come on," and Mav closed his hand a little tighter, rubbed along the shape Ice's cock made in his pants, and yeah, there it was: a responding pressure, a fresh kind of heat and weight making itself known.
Ice was silent for a moment. Silent, and perfectly still, not even shifting his hips, like Mav wasn't practically jerking him off through his slacks. "Is that what you want?" he said at last, quiet and level.
Maverick grinned at him, showing teeth. "Don't I always?"
Ice didn't grin back. He was—he was just looking at Maverick, eyes flicking back and forth across Maverick's face, measuring, assessing.
"Okay," he said.
Getting Ice into the bedroom was easy enough.
They didn't always bother, when they were in a hurry. But they had fucked in a bed before, so it wasn't like it was a rule. And Maverick figured it was going to be simpler that way—if he didn't have to stay on his feet the whole time, if he couldn't throw his head back and hit a wall. If he managed to give himself a second concussion, forget staying for a while; Ice was probably going to strongarm him back into the car and drive him to the hospital all over again.
But Ice didn't need to know any of that. Maverick did what he could to keep the pace up, jostled Ice along one step at a time and kept his hand busy between Ice's thighs, fucked Ice's mouth with his tongue, and it almost felt normal, for a minute or two.
Then Maverick felt the bed hit the backs of his knees. And fuck, this was going to hurt, but he could handle it. He could take it, because if he couldn't then he deserved to lose it.
He let himself fall, pulled Ice down over him.
And Ice bit out a curse against the corner of Maverick's mouth, took a quick shuffling step, and didn't come down on him—had jerked one hand away from Maverick's arm, Maverick understood a second later, and had caught himself.
"Jesus, Maverick," he said sharply.
"Oh, relax," Maverick said. "Listen, I know what I'm asking for here, all right? You don't need to treat me like—"
He stopped. Something in Ice's face was changing, his mouth twisting, a strange raw look Maverick had never seen on him before.
"Jesus, Maverick," Ice said again, so low Maverick almost couldn't understand it.
He was holding himself up over Maverick on one arm; his other hand had stayed where it was, cupping the back of Maverick's head. He moved it down, slid his fingers through Maverick's hair again—the part that was still longer, and then the part that wasn't. Maverick tensed, reflex, because the ache that was still pounding its way through his head was centered right under the place where the skin had split, the line of stitches there. But Ice's fingertips were so careful, moving over each fat dark thread, that Maverick could barely feel the touch.
It made something in Maverick's chest tight, being touched like that. He loved taking a good risk, but only when he knew what he was risking, only when it was something he could afford to lose—this wasn't like that. This scared the shit out of him.
"Come on," he said, too loudly. "Come on, let's just—"
He shoved a hand between Ice's thighs again, found the line of Ice's cock and ran the heel of his palm up it firmly. He could get this back under control, bring their nose level before the engines stalled out. It would be fine.
Ice breathed out sharp through his nose, and Maverick figured that was a good sign, right up until Ice moved. Brought a knee up onto the mattress, beside Maverick's thigh—also good, except he was doing it to free the hand he'd been holding himself up with. He reached down and caught Maverick's wrist in the circle of his thumb and forefinger, yanked it cleanly over toward Maverick's other hand at his hip and caught that wrist in his other three fingers, and Maverick had about half a second to realize what he was doing, to start trying to tense against it, before Ice had drawn his hands up, taken his trapped wrists and pinned them just over his head.
There wasn't any strain in it, with his elbows bent—the grinding pain in his ribs stabbed him briefly, but that was because he'd sucked in too hard a breath, too deep.
"Ice," he said unsteadily.
"You must feel like shit," Ice said, still gentle, even mild.
The hand that wasn't trapping Maverick's wrists drifted from the side of his head to his face, his cheek, his jaw. That side was bruised, Maverick knew, though it didn't look half as bad as it had a day ago.
"It's okay," Ice added, and then slid his knuckles along the underside of Maverick's jaw, his chin—tipped it up, just a little, and leaned down, and kissed him.
Not the way Maverick wanted to be kissed, not really. Long, and slow, and shallow. But Ice was clearly still into it, still interested, and Maverick could work with that. Maverick could get him going again. It would be fine.
Ice released his mouth, after a minute. Let his fingers follow the line of Maverick's throat to his shoulder—to the edge of the gauze there, just peeking out of the collar of his shirt, the bandage that went down and sideways over his back where the pavement had scraped skin clean off.
"Ice," Maverick tried.
Ice was staring at his own hand, at the taped-down edge of the bandage. Then he looked up again, met Maverick's eyes, and this time he didn't have to touch Maverick's face for Maverick to be ready for it, when he swayed down and kissed Maverick again.
His ribs got it, next. Ice found the edge of his t-shirt, loose around his waist, and skimmed it up—slid fingertips around his side to his back, asked him with that touch to lift up just a little, and Maverick did it without thinking and then flinched; stupid, but he'd relaxed somehow without realizing it, stopped bracing for it, and flexing like that to help Ice push his shirt up had hurt. He hadn't meant to let it show.
"Easy," Ice said, "easy," and then the shirt was out of the way, not off but pushed up to Maverick's underarms.
It didn't make for a pretty picture, not like this. He was fifteen different colors, fat dark swathes that followed the shapes of his ribs under his skin. But they hadn't actually broken that badly, mostly just cracked in place. He was fine.
Ice drew a slow breath. He didn't touch them; he spread his hand out over the ribs on the other side and left it there. His throat moved, but he didn't make a sound, didn't say a word.
Maverick didn't know what to do with that. He didn't know what to do with the way it felt, to look at Ice looking at any part of him like that.
"I'm okay," he said, hoarse.
Ice shut his eyes. "You're okay," he said, but not like he was agreeing—like he was repeating it, reminding himself. Like he was trying to believe it.
For all that Maverick had been the one groping between Ice's legs a minute ago, Ice was the one who got Maverick's fly open first. And it wasn't—it wasn't hot, not exactly. Not when he was doing it like that, slow and careful, easing Maverick's jeans down his hips; not when the reason he was doing it was so he could bare Maverick's thigh, the long thick stretch of bandaging that covered the outside of it.
Ice touched that one, too, ran his fingertips along the tape that held it down, and the sensation was itchy, shivery, hard to pin down. Maverick shuddered under it helplessly, and Ice's eyes found his again, and then Ice kissed him some more: pressed his wrists a little harder into the sheets, held him still for it, and drew it out, sweet and lingering.
When he was done, he let his mouth drift over Maverick's jaw, the side of his throat, and then up to the shell of Maverick's ear, and he said, very quietly, "Let me stay."
Maverick swallowed. They didn't do that. They—hadn't ever done that.
But then this was how this worked, wasn't it? They pushed each other. They pushed each other, crossed one line and then the next, because neither of them could figure out how to back down. Neither of them could figure out how to give less instead of more, more and more and more, every time.
Which meant it was his turn to push. No matter how goddamn terrifying it felt.
"You want to," he said, and he was aiming for even, maybe a little goading—he was in the ballpark, he thought, except for the part where his voice sounded like it had been scraped out of his throat with the wrong side of a knife, except for the weird pointless heat in his eyes.
"Yeah," Ice said, because he'd taken every dare Maverick had ever given him; because, maybe, it was true.
"Okay," Maverick said, and Ice breathed out slow, hot and shaky and relieved, into the side of his throat, and stayed.