Sotera

So, hear me out. Bradley knows about the Iceman but doesn't know him.

He's the friend Uncle Mav takes for important dinners once in a blue moon, and Bradley feels awkward around him because the man is tall, even if not the tallest man in his young life, and even if his mom tells him to go say hi, he hides behind Mav's leg and spends most of the night looking out at this man like he is some sort of mythical creature who not only knew his dad, Nick, but flew with him too. There's a picture in moma's bedroom of the five of them: moma, dad, uncle Mav, uncle Slider, and the Iceman.

Iceman is the man that Bradley hates a little bit because when he ships out, Uncle Slider wakes up at actual dawn, and Bradley can never get back to sleep because then his mom gets up too, and Uncle Mav really really tries to walk around on his tips when he comes through the door with him, but Bradley is awake. And it's too soon for him. So he has the right to hate him a little bit because of that.

In the years to come, the Iceman is going to be a voice over the phone, a sporadic presence over their table, and the person who will make Uncle Slider, who he calls Papa these days, cry like a baby the day he and his mom got married. And he's going to be the person with whom Uncle Mav sometimes disappears for weeks at a time, sometimes even months, coming back generally more tanned and happy than Bradley can remember him even being. He is the man who sends letters and postcards that his mom pins on the fridge and the man who makes his Papa leave the house at 2 am because his plane had been shot down and nobody knows shit about what happened. He's the man who forces him to wear his suit because of the medals and all that, and he has to go, especially if they are in the afternoon. (It's that Iceman forces him in the suits, nope, that's all his mom's work).

So yeah, he knows of the man, but he knows very little of him, and maybe he spent about twenty hours in his presence and company in his sixteen years of life. Then, during a party, some of his classmates ask if his uncle Mav is single because her aunt is interested in him, and Bradley doesn't know how to answer. When he asks his mom that same afternoon about Mav's love life, she shrugs and says, "He has someone, baby goose, had for a long time," and that's all he gets out of her, besides a single long look at the photo of Mav and the Iceman.

Something happens in the two years he and uncle Mav don't talk because something stupid Bradley said and something equally stupid Mav answered, and Mav writes to him a lot—letters, mail, and even a wedding invitation he sees five months later because he was away for his training and didn't switch postal codes. He doesn't open it because he's still angry with him, and his mom is so fucking disappointed with Bradley because "he got married and you weren't there". This thing hunts him for a long while, until he doesn't see Mav by chance when he gets assigned to Top Gun for the first time. He's wearing his wedding band, and he smiles sadly at him before saluting a superior and disappearing in the crowds, talking away with the base commander.

(It takes another half a year before they reconcile, but Mav doesn't talk about his spouse, and Bradley doesn't ask. He hears, thanks to the gossip vines, that the Iceman is getting his second star, and his mom talks, with Papa about his white hair and how distinguished he looked, during a barbecue the week before. Papa laughs and says, "Yeah, I'm sure he thinks exactly the same.")

But then he gets to know the Iceman, and not only of him after the mission, after he and Mav almost died, the man himself, with four stars on his shoulders and enough commandments on his chest to make the jacket look really heavy to wear, came to salute them on the bridge, shaking hands with every pilto and exchanging a couple of words with Mav himself. They are back on the land, Mav is sleeping in the back of the Bronco when they arrive home, and Carole and Ron are already at the front door waiting for him, talking with a guy sitting on the patio swing.

"Hey Mav, we are here," he says, gently shocking the man.

It almost happens all too fast, considering Uncle Mav is injured, and he's limping because his ankle is in a cast. He wakes up and looks around like he doesn't know where he is, but then his eyes focus on the figure who's looking back at him and who's getting up and walking towards them. And oh god, the Iceman is there, the fucking Admiral is in his backyard, and he's walking towards his car, but his eyes are on the person behind him, who's trying to get out of the car without killing himself.

"Kazansky, fancy finding you here," Mav starts, straddling himself against the Bronco.

"I was in the neighbourhood, so I thought to come by and say hi," he says, all serious but with a smile trying to creep on his features.

"Always a pleasure to see you, Admiral," Mav answers, already taking a step towards him.

"It is always a pleasure to know you are alive, Captain," he said, closing the distance between them, taking his face between his hands, and kissing him slowly.

"Fuck Pete, Jesus Christ, baby, I'm so happy you're home," he murmurs, and Bradley knows he shouldn't be hearing this because it's private and not for his ears. So he slips out of the car, as silently as he can and walks towards his mama and papa who engulf him in the biggest, warmest hug he has received in a little while.

He doesn't know how long they spend like that, hugging each other and not really talking because Bradley is getting all the comfort he needs by only being there, until Mav pats him on the back and says, "Hey B, I want to introduce you to someone."

And Admiral Kazansky smiles at him, not in the polite way he got accustomed to seeing him smile, but in a warmer, more familiar way: "Hi, I don't think you really remember about me, I'm Tom, Pete's husband."

So, at the end of the day, he knows of the Iceman, because of gossip, and knows a little about him because his mom and papa talk a lot about him, but he can say he personally knows Tom Kazansky, the man who married his uncle Pete and who sits in front of him every time they come over for dinner.

If people don't admit that alcohol is a drug so help me God I will pour an entire bottle of wine on their hair.

Wine? Drugs. Beer? Drugs. That awful cocktail you made in your dorm room out of leftover coffee and orange juice and tequila? D-d-d-drugs.

This may sound obvious to you but society at large puts alcohol in this removed category away from other drugs. If you tell most wine moms that they have a drug problem they'd be appalled that you'd ever say such a thing. It's just time for humanity to admit that we like doing drugs. Most people's drug of choice just happens to be alcohol.

🗡️ Daggers Through the Decades

🕺 groovin’ through the seventies 🪩

🕹️ kickin’ it in the eighties 👾

🚬 just hangin’ through the nineties 🎸

BLOODSUCKER, FAME FUCKER, BLEEDING ME DRY LIKE A GODDAMN VAMPIRE !!

VAMPIRE 2023, dir. Petra Collins

You may not be my endgame, but I'll always have mad love for you.

Who approved that line? Why?

Reblog if you are Team Benvi

Slider and Goose slow dancing in a laundromat in the middle of the night while waiting for their uniform to be ready.

(While Slider is wearing one of Goose's hawaiian shirts and Goose one of Slider's one shirts because they share one wardrobe, and so the stuff they put in their bags is more than mixed by now.)

"Do you think you have a soulmate, Mav?”

"Yes. I had a soulmate"

Bradley sat up straight at that, eager for details. "Tell me more. Who was she? What happened?"

Maverick smiled widely, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Tom." 

hello come to my inbox with ideas, I feel like writing little stories. go wild with hangster and icemav and even sloose!

(okay sorry all headcanons are valid and such but)

bradley is ice-coded (!)

and jake is mav-coded (!)

which means upon bradley bringing jake home to meet the parents

ice would immediately see through the hangman routine and want to adopt jake

because he knows how happy mav made him

and he wants that for his baby goose??

(an ice who doesn’t like jake doesn’t EXIST in my world view thank you very much for coming to my TED talk)

i'm writing the time travel icemav au and this shit HURTS. damn im putting maverick into a blender and having fun with it

(it's gonna be a short fic lmao)

what if i add goose/slider

guys I had a random goose/slider idea what has this world came to

basically goose complaining to carole about slider but also saying how he's sorta funny and handsome but no homo and have you heard about mav being stupid about ice-

and carole is like my love you spent an hour talking about this slider guy are you sure mav is the only one with a crush and that's how goose realizes he may not be straight

seeing reddit refugees repeatedly hit their post limits and comment their thoughts on every reblog is kind of refreshing. site migration be damned these guys know how to blog

if they didn’t want me to believe that rooster and hangman were in love then maybe they shouldn’t have included significant scenes of them parting and reuniting that directly parallel each other… just a thought.