sequel to as lions. as lions tldr: time-travel fix-it in which TGM mav wakes up in 1986, relives TOPGUN, and makes some distinct changes to certain fates. paved in gold is set approximately a year later.
i’ll preface this to say aug/sep has been hellishly busy for me and i’ve been having enormous difficulty finding free time to work on this—but i’m too excited by the premise not to share a little of what i have. 😔
Maverick wakes in darkness. For a second, he’s groggy, slow, lost, surrounded in unfamiliar shadows, unfamiliar shapes, dimly lit in the amber bars of the streetlight beyond the blinds. The nightstand is strangely bare. No phone, no tangle of cables. Just a watch and a pair of dog-tags, glinting.
Then he remembers, and—oh. Notices the weight of the arm around him. There’s the culprit.
The arm loosens as he shifts, as he settles down again, before drawing him into a firm chest and the cradle of another body atop the sheets. Maverick grumbles, but soon sighs, mollified, when a large hand charts a lazy path beneath Maverick’s cotton tee.
Blearily, he asks, “Time?”
“Five,” says Ice, sounding far too lucid for what just came out of his mouth. Maverick feels the gentle drag of his nose against his ear; despite Ice being a veritable hot water bottle, the tip of it is slightly cold.
He smells like mint and Maverick’s shampoo. Already up and about, then. Nothing new. Their circadian rhythms are so rigid that Maverick only checks the alarm clock before bed out of sheer habit.
He closes his eyes again to the gentle press of lips against his nape. His heart thumps against Ice’s palm; something Ice clearly catches, because his mouth curls against Maverick’s skin.
A year now, and Maverick’s still not entirely used to the affection. A year, and Maverick still starts, sometimes, when Ice leans in.
“Rise and shine,” says Ice, a soft gust of breath against Maverick’s ear, raising gooseflesh up and down Maverick’s arms.
“You were the one who climbed back in.”
“Little old me?” says Maverick playfully. He rolls backward just as Ice sits up—carefully. In the muzzy darkness, Maverick can just barely make out the shape of him: already dressed, his khakis perfectly ironed and creased in all the right places.
“Calling yourself little, are you?” And old, Ice doesn’t say, but Maverick hears it anyway.
He stretches out into the warm spot Ice left behind. “Nothing wrong with it. Works in my favor.”
“Only place that matters,” says Maverick, with a breezy smile.
Ice returns it. He gets to his feet. “1100 hours,” he says. “Don’t forget.”
Maverick slaps a hand over his heart. “I’ll always be where the captain wants me to be.”
“Is that so?” says Ice, who was present when the base commander visited the TOPGUN complex that spring and Maverick was nowhere to be found. In Maverick’s defense, he’d been helping Stomper with a family emergency. Easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission, all that. Viper had nearly popped a blood vessel.
Ice only shakes his head. He reaches over to pat the hand still on Maverick’s chest, and Maverick grabs it, hangs on. Ice smiles. “See you in a few.”
“See you,” says Maverick. Reluctantly lets go.
He watches until Ice disappears from sight. A moment later, the front door opens and closes with a quiet click.
It’s still dark outside. The days are getting shorter and shorter, and in a sense that’s a blessing. Ice doesn’t like to linger—especially in the summer, when daylight stretches long and neverending.
He loiters a few minutes longer in bed, seeking the elusive peace of earlier. The duvet is still warm, the pillow next to him sweet with the familiar scent of Ice’s cologne. It melts something in him, even after all this time. Reminds him of a tidy home office, well-lit and welcoming; of an arm around him on the flight deck, steering him through the crowd; of a glaringly bright ready room twenty-odd years ago, Ice asleep against Maverick’s shoulder.
The ceiling fan whirs over his head. It’s the only sound in the silence of the early morning. It clicks with every rotation, lists slightly to one side.
Maverick gives himself one more moment. Then he gets up.