Meeting Death
Thomas Kazansky dies late one Saturday night in an alleyway behind an unknown bar.
The usual O Club was closed for renovations after someone (*cough* Maverick *cough*) put their foot through a floorboard and found termites in the wood.
That’s not quite what’s important, though. What is important is the fact that Ice died.
The two pairs at the top of the Top Gun competition were having a friendly competition in pool when Ice and Maverick get into a small scuffle, jokingly pushing and pulling each other until Ice accidentally bumps into a man taller than Slider and spills his beer on him.
The man hisses something threatening as Ice and Maverick apologize and offer to buy him more beer. When he looks at Maverick, he seems to freeze, attitude taking a 180 into amicable as he apologizes for bumping into Ice. He assures them he’s fine without a refill.
He leaves.
The four aviators look at each other and shrug, unease running through Maverick as he exchanges a glance with Goose. They stay for a couple more hours, getting tipsier and tipsier as they drink and compete in pool and darts.
Once they’re done, steps weaving and smiles on their faces, they exit the bar. The aviators had elected to walk here and elect to walk back, the plan to sober up as they walk a good one in their eyes.
They’re shoved into the next alleyway before they can do anything.
Five guys, all bigger than Maverick, stand at the lip of the alley, knives and a gun on display. The man they had run into in the bar was pointing the gun directly at Maverick’s head while the other four men seemed prepped and ready to stab any of the other three if they moved.
“Mitchell, right?” The question catches Ice off guard, mind sluggish with the alcohol, but quickly clearing with the adrenaline.
“What about it?” Maverick takes a step forward and gets the man to twitch, close enough to almost rest his forehead on the barrel of the gun as Goose groans something that sounds suspiciously like “Why?”
The four men with the knives look between Maverick and their chosen aviator, eyes frantic in what Ice is assuming is the worst plan in the world.
“Your dad, the traitor? He shot down my pops. It’s only a matter of time before you turn tail and betray us just like him, isn’t it?” The man twitches again when Maverick takes another half-step and does indeed rest his head on the barrel of the gun, taking the safety off as Maverick stares into his eyes with mirth.
“My dad, the traitor. Yeah, I do recall hearing about his betraying his team, but not about him shooting down any of them. For someone who’s dead, he sure is fucking up my life more than my mom probably anticipated.” Maverick shakes his head and gently reaches up towards the gun, fingertips brushing it as he gets the stunned man to lower it inch by inch. “Wouldn’t you know it, though? I didn’t know the man. Sure, he was around when I was, what? Four? But he died, so what does it matter if you think I’m anything like the man who didn’t even raise me?”
Three things happen in quick succession.
The barrel of the gun gets to ground level.
Ice loses his balance tripping on a can as he tries to take a step back.
There’s a shot ringing through the alleyway and deafening them temporarily.
Maverick has the man and two others down and facing into the pavement before Slider can blink, Goose fighting with the other two before two shots join the previous four Slider hadn’t previously registered.
Horror dawns on Slider as he registers Ice crumpled on the ground next to him, a puddle of blood joining the other five puddles at the beginning of the alleyway. Slider hits the ground before he knows it, hand coming up to cradle Ice’s pale face.
Gasps wheeze from Ice, growing ever slower and shallower as Slider cradles his best friend and brother in all but blood. A weak hand comes up to grasp his wrist, blood smearing on skin as Maverick closes in on them while dismantling the gun with each step.
The smaller man kneels next to them as soon as Ice takes his last struggling breath, lips covered in red blood as his eyes roll into the back of his head and his hand drops from the gripped wrist. Slider lets out a choked sob as Goose comes up behind his back and presses his large hands against the taller man’s shoulders.
Slider curls into himself with the force of his sobs, left hand coming to cover his mouth as Maverick runs his hand over the wound in the dead man’s chest, murmuring something and occasionally glancing at Goose. Slider briefly hysterically wonders why Goose and Maverick aren’t as upset as he is before Maverick takes the blood from Ice’s chest onto his fingertips and starts drawing something on the skin of Ice’s neck.
The hands on his shoulders tighten their grip and drag Slider back and away from Ice as Maverick tears the man’s shirt open and continues his drawing. Slider lets out a yell of pure adrenaline and anger, fighting against the hands above him while Goose whispers nothing into the air between them, succeeding in keeping the taller man on the ground and watching.
Maverick draws unknown symbols around the wound on Ice’s chest as Slider feels himself going numb, anger dissipating in lieu of confusion and how appalled he is. Goose’s hands slide from his shoulders to wrap around his chest, a noise of pain escaping him as he kneels with his chin on Slider’s head, effectively keeping him still despite the lack of movement.
A voice saying “Chris, how is he?” startles Slider out of his growing reverie, fading attention snapping back at the dual-toned voice.
A sigh escapes the man behind him as he shuffles a little, “He calmed down. I think he’s in shock, Nick.”
Once-green eyes glance up at Slider, stilling the breath in his chest as he takes in the silver eyes that seem to be split into two irises. Black markings that match the ones on Ice’s chest spread below his eyes and onto his neck, disappearing into his shirt collar and seeming to come back from somewhere to rest on his forehead as a crown. The assessing gaze freezes the blood in his veins, making him feel every inch an ice statue, fight or flight screaming at him to run from the predator in front of his eyes.
Those eyes turn back to their dead friend in the alley, murmurs of an unknown language echoing across the walls. The dual-toned voice is joined by the man behind Slider in a chant, voice hitting reverent before dipping Slider into a trance.
Maverick-if it is still Maverick- places his hands on Ice’s chest where the wound lies, words deepening and rattling Slider’s bones as the smallest of the group gets closer to Ice’s face and ends up whispering the words into his forehead.
Before Slider can react or make sense of what he’s seeing, a flash of pure darkness envelopes the alleyway, an echo of many screams and groans of pain reaching his hearing before it’s gone and Maverick is on the ground next to Ice and breathing shallowly.
Goose lets go, running to the downed aviators before sliding to his knees next to them and yelling “Nick!” in a voice Slider has never heard from the man before. The black marks on the smaller aviator fade as Goose-Nick? Chris?- kneels next to him and turns him over, heaving chest pointing towards the sky as Goose turns him onto his back.
Slider watches in fascination as the red marring Ice recedes in tandem with the marks on Maverick, eventually impossibly disappearing to make Ice spotless as if he were still alive.
Goose turns to Ice right as he gasps and sits up as if running away from something. The same language spilling from Goose's lips as he holds out a placating hand and keeps the other on an obviously exhausted Maverick.
Ice stares at the men before him, flinching when Slider eventually decides to move and swinging his wide blue eyes to his RIO, taking in the situation as he notes the almost-blank look on the taller man.
“Ice?” is muttered in the space between them before Slider’s face crumbles and he hits his knees next to his pilot, tears flowing down his face and into Ice’s blood-stained shirt as he grabs his brother and hugs him as tightly as he dares.
Ice’s hands come up to cradle Slider’s shoulders as the taller man sobs breathlessly into his neck. He watches as Goose helps Maverick sit up and they smile at each other, any hints of weakness leaving as they watch the pair next to them.
Eventually, Slider pulls away, tears spent and exhaustion pulling at his shoulders as he confusedly stares between the other three aviators before eventually landing on and staying on Maverick.
“What’s going on?” is the first croaked word in a few minutes, Maverick flinching minutely and looking between the pair before him and Goose at his side.
A wordless exchange happens between the two before Goose sighs and flops against Maverick and says, “Might as well tell them, Nick. It’s about time I’m not the only one who knows.”
“Jenny knows” is shot right back before the shorter man is smacked on the head with a grumble.
What follows, as they pick themselves up and step into a shadow Maverick has to coax them into, is the weirdest explanation of Slider’s life. A tale of Egyptian kings and mummies, false identities and insane conjectures, a group of people hunting down legends to contain them, a god of Death.
A willing possession.
Maverick explains for hours as the other three aviators get cleaned up, Goose butting in every once in a while to correct or add on to what’s said. Eventually, they get to tonight.
Ice and Slider are clothed in soft clothes, curled under blankets on a soft couch in a country Maverick doesn’t tell them the name of, but obviously isn’t America- a part of it they’ve seen anyway.
Maverick explains what happened, in the split second it took the man to shoot Ice, Maverick was already moving and taking the gun from him, giving the god of death enough sacrifices to ensure his ability to bring back Ice unimpeded by the god himself. The shadows had swallowed the noises, leaving the group alone for as long as possible until there was time for them to clean up the evidence of the four aviators and their presence for the other bodies to be found later in the morning.
Maverick gives them tea to keep them as warm as possible while Goose starts a fire. All of this effort to keep them warm doesn’t seem to work on a pale and shivering Ice as his breaths come in uneven and stuttered.
Slider ends up dragging Ice onto his lap and draping his own blanket around the poor man, feeling his ice-cold skin through even the blanket he had been huddled within. Maverick joins them on the couch, hands warmed by the fire and reaching out to rub lines of warmth into the shivering shoulders. Once he deems that effort paid off and Ice has stopped shivering so violently, the younger man gets Slider to relinquish his hold on his pilot so Maverick can drag Ice onto his own lap.
He curls around Ice in a way that should be impossible before Goose brings a hot water bottle to them and sets it on the taller pilot’s lap, a look of concern crossing his face as Ice shivers into Maverick’s neck and lets out a deep sigh.
Goose sits down on his feet in front of the couch, a hand touching Ice’s back as the shivers dissipate. He looks at Maverick and nods knowingly before running his hand up and down the back beneath his hand. “I had to go through this too,” he mutters in the space between them.
Ice shifts to look at him through one exhausted eye as Slider looks at Goose like he had lost his head.
“When Nick, uh, Maverick. When Mav brought me back, I was shivering for weeks, it took a long time for us to realize that Mav actually runs hotter than a normal person because of Set. So we, you know, hung around each other a lot for about two days, and I was better. It was like I was leeching the heat from him.”
“And the energy.”
A laugh sounds between them as Goose nods. “Yeah, the energy. I swear, he’s always been so full of life and energy, but the moment I hung off him, he was asleep for a week, and I felt like I could run up a tower or something. No rope.”
Ice lifts his head to look worriedly at what Slider will admit is an exhausted-looking Maverick. The dark-haired man grins as if he won something before a yawn rips through him and causes him to turn his head away from the taller pilot. Ice obviously tries to pull away, a noise of confusion and discontent squeaking out of him when Goose and Maverick force him to stay, going so far as to put his head back in Maverick’s neck as he fights weakly against them.
Another noise comes from the blond pilot, whether it’s the start of a word or simply supposed to be like that, Slider doesn’t know. Not until Goose is stroking the blond-tipped hair and murmuring, “It’s ok, you’ll be able to talk soon.”
Slider sits up straighter. “He can’t talk?”
With a shake of his head, Goose slumps against the couch a little. “Not really. I couldn’t talk for a while. Your body still thinks it’s supposed to be dead, so it takes a while to keep working. Being around Maverick helps a lot, it’ll go by fast because Ice wasn’t even dead all that long, so he should be fine by tomorrow if they both get some sleep.” A small smile graces his lips as he watches Maverick’s head nod back against the couch and his blinks slow. Ice buries his nose into the line of Maverick’s neck and closes his eyes with a sigh before Slider can think of anything to respond with.
With his own yawn, Goose stands and shoos Slider off the couch, shuffling Ice and Maverick into a lying position one on top of the other, covering them both with a new blanket. Goose turns to Slider and gestures at him to follow, leading him to a clean room and telling him to “get [his] ass to sleep” while he makes sure everything is ok with the house.
Before he knows it, Slider is out like a light.
