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“You can be my wingman anytime.”
“Bullshit, you can be mine.”
In the dark privacy of Ice’s room, the phone on the bedside table rang with all the considerate tact of a fry pan to the temple.
Ice jolted like he’d just acquainted himself intimately with a live wire, sheets tangling around his legs as he fumbled for the phone in a sleep scrambled panic. Propped up on one elbow, he nearly dropped it twice as he brought it to his ear, heart thumping viscerally in his chest above a stomach churning like the sea.
“Who. Why.” he demanded hazily, tongue heavy and uncoordinated, mind even more so.
“So when you said anytime, did you mean anytime?”
The voice took a few seconds for Ice to identify, but when he finally did, he felt a rush of something alarmingly homicidal.
Eyes slits and face scrunched up against Maverick’s audacity, Ice peered at the blinking red numbers on his bedside. “It’s three in the fucking morning.”
“Hence why I’m asking.”
“Mitchell,” Ice groaned, flopped back into his pillow, running a hand across his cheek and the slight rasp of stubble. “You’ve got five seconds.”
“Well, see, the thing is-”
“Four.”
“Okay! Okay, look it wasn’t even-”
“Three.”
“Ice-”
“Two.”
“I got hit by a car!”
“One- you what?” Ice shot back upright. Well that sure was one way to wake a guy up. “Mitchell, you better be calling me from a goddamn hospital.”
The initial pause was damning. “I- It's not that bad.”
“Just lightly hit by a car then.”
“Clipped my back wheel,” Maverick agreed, completely missing the sarcasm in Ice’s tone. “Hit and run. Bikes totalled, so I was kinda hoping for a ride.”
“Are you hurt?” Ice asked, flicking on the bedside lamp and pushing back the blankets. The rush of witching-hour-cool was entirely uninviting. Through squinted eyes he set about getting dressed, phone tucked between his ear and shoulder.
“Nothing that needs splinting.”
“Not what I asked.”
Maverick had the gall to sound irritated when he said, “I’m fine.”
Ice paused, halfway into his jeans. “Oh I’m sorry, am I overstepping? Are the questions a bit intrusive for a three AM phone call?”
Maverick did pick up the sarcasm this time. “Sorry, I just- Can you just come get me?” he asked, sounding weary all of a sudden, “I promise I’ll answer all your questions in person.”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Ice sighed, shrugging on his jacket. “Give me an address.”
-
Three weeks later, concussion healed and stitches along his hairline gone, Maverick came skidding into their shared office with a wild look in his eye.
“I need an alibi,” he said, in lieu of nothing.
Ice, being the only other person in the room, was forced to conclude Maverick was talking to him. He capped his pen and set it down next to his half finished paperwork, perfectly parallel, then looked back up at Maverick, who was watching him expectantly from the centre of the room.
“What did you do?” Ice asked, because that felt like the question that needed answering first.
“Nothing, honest. I’ve been here, in this very office, all day.” Maverick held up his palms, looking particularly sly. “But someone definitely did something.”
“Explain.”
“So, Cane is on base for a few days.”
Ice knew this. “Captain Cane,” he corrected.
“That sounds stupid,” Maverick shot back with an eye roll, “point is, he’s a prick, so some of the guys, not naming names, found out what car he drives and kind of.. gave it a new paint job.”
For some reason the first thing that slipped from Ice’s mouth was, “What colour?”
“Sunflower yellow, according to the tin.” Maverick stared for an unblinking moment. “Allegedly.”
Ice pinched the bridge of his nose. “You can’t just say allegedly.”
Maverick groaned. “C’mon man, have you got my back or not?”
Ice looked at Maverick, really took him in. The vicious spikes in his sweaty hair, the flush on his cheeks from sprinting down the halls, the rumples in his uniform. The splash of ‘sunflower yellow’ staining the toe of his left boot. Ice clicked his tongue, standing from his chair, rounding his desk and meeting Mav in the centre of the room.
With purposefully detached movements he set about straightening the khaki fabric, brushing his palms firmly across Maverick’s chest and biceps. Ice spun Maverick around by his shoulders and tucked his shirt in at the back, ignoring the surprised protest and evasive squirming. He jerked his wingman back to face him, hands moving to drag through Maverick’s hair, fixing it into something less windswept.
Ice found Maverick staring up at him when he started to draw back, and it was all he could do not to run his fingers through the black tangle just one more time. Ice cleared his throat and Mav blinked thrice in rapid succession.
“If you want to make that lie at all believable,” Ice said, turning sharply on his heel, marching to his desk and digging through one of the drawers. “I’d recommend at least doing some of your paperwork.” He withdrew a small tub of polish and a waxy face washer he’d sacrificed for the greater good. He held them both out in Maverick’s direction.
Still yet to make a noise since Ice had manhandled him into something presentable, Mav stared at the offering, down at his boots, then back up again.
“I’m not going to do it for you,” Ice prompted.
Maverick startled like he’d just returned to his body. He shook his head. “Why do you have that in your desk?” he mocked.
“You sure make helping you a chore, Mitchell,” Ice snapped back wryly.
“Right.” Maverick looked a little sheepish, a smile pulling at the creases in the corner of his mouth. He took the polish and rag. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” Ice returned to his seat. “Seriously. Don’t.”
Maverick gave him a dazzling grin. Ice pointedly did not return it.
-
“I can’t believe you,” Ice hissed for probably the sixth time since he’d wrestled Maverick into his truck outside the O Club.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Maverick protested just like every other time, perched up beside the sink, knees parted to make room for Ice.
Ice’s bathroom light flickered overhead, like it too protested the lie.
It was, as Maverick put it, all a big misunderstanding. A joke gone too far. Ice, like always, took his words with a dangerous amount of salt. Salt he had then rubbed in the numerous wounds on Maverick’s face when he’d asked, desert dry, whether it was after the first or the fifth punch that Maverick realised maybe he just wasn’t as funny as he thought he was.
Maverick hissed when Ice began working on the cut above his eyebrow. His irritated huff brushed across Ice’s face.
“Hold still,” Ice admonished.
“I am holding still,” Maverick argued with conviction and, evidently, no self-awareness.
“No, you’re not. Just-” Ice grabbed Maverick’s jaw, fingers digging into the squish of his cheek, mindful of his injuries, and tilted his head back.
Maverick did go still then. Dead still, like some sort of opossum reflex.
Ice was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, or poke it with a stick, or whatever else the mixed metaphor might call for.
Loosening his grip only slightly, he moved the alcohol wipe back to Maverick’s skin, cleaning away the dried blood then holding it all together with a strategic butterfly strip. He found his fingers lingering, pressing at the edges just hard enough that Maverick winced.
When Ice flickered his gaze down a few inches, Maverick was already watching him. His searching eyes were hooded against the fluorescent overheads. This close, Ice could see the flecks and ripples in his bright green irises, perfect imperfections.
Maverick’s tongue ran over his parted lips, careful of the ruby red split and the swelling it caused. Ice swallowed, tragically audible.
“Mitchell,” he said lowly, cautiously, eyes still fixed on Maverick’s mouth. Subtlety, where art thou?
“That’s me.”
The knees around Ice’s hips tightened, holding him in place. Maverick’s hands moved to toy with Ice’s dog tags, pulling them out from his loose t-shirt and giving the chain a goading tug.
Ice held firm, teetering on the edge of indecision, dreadful logic holding the upper hand by a thread. He covered Maverick’s hands gently with his own, holding them still. His words came out forced and reluctant. “You need to sleep it off.”
“Fuck that,” Maverick scoffed, taking the initiative to lean in himself, brushing their noses together. “I need you.”
Well then.
Ice wasn’t sure who moved after that, all he knew was that Maverick’s lips tasted like blood and bad decisions. That his mouth moved like the rest of him, forceful and arrogant. Ice pressed back just as surely, tonguing the swollen cut and muffling the gasp it elicited.
Yeah, Ice could get used to this.
Anytime.