ooo maybe 28 for fanboy?? or number 8? buzzing over ur writing btw
i went with #8 for this bc i just think that’s soo cute<33 i love writing fanboy this was so fun
8. accidently hitting the other one with a snowball meant for their friend
word count: 1.7k
It was snowing in San Diego. As in San Diego, California.
You looked up to check if the sky was falling, but just got a few more soft flakes to land on your cheeks. You couldn’t help but smile in childlike wonder, spreading your hands and letting the tiny crystals collect on your sleeves. When your best friend had told you he was back in town at TOPGUN and he wanted to see you on his one weekend off, you couldn’t have predicted something like this happening.
His voice broke through your reverie at that exact moment. “Hey, you with us?”
You blinked, looking over to where he was standing with another pilot—the callsign ‘Phoenix’ seemed to ring a bell. She looked just as awed as you were at the sudden flurry, but she was better at hiding it.
“Yes,” you said, jogging to catch up with them. “Sorry. I can’t believe this. We haven’t gotten snow in—”
“Twenty years?” interrupted Reuben, holding out a palm and watching as a few flakes collected in it. “Thirty?”
“Something like that,” murmured Phoenix. Then she blinked and shook herself. “Sorry—we’re gonna be late. Everyone’s waiting for us at the Hard Deck. Come on.”
By the time Reuben’s car had rattled its way off base and down to the beach, the light flurry had turned into a proper fall. When he parked outside the Hard Deck, he nervously squatted by his tires, checking to make sure they were handling the cold okay.
Phoenix laughed at the sight of you both anxiously preening over the vehicle. “California kids,” she said with an amused shake of her head. “Come on, let’s go.”
The Hard Deck was crammed with officers and pilots who were trying to escape the sudden snow, but when the three of you muscled your way to the bar, Reuben looked around in confusion and said, “I don’t see them.”
It was Phoenix who flagged down Penny the bartender and asked where their friends had gone. In reply, Penny just smirked and jerked her thumb over her shoulder, gesturing back towards the oceanfront behind her.
“You’re kidding,” said Reuben.
Penny shook her head.
“Is this Fanboy’s idea?”
“He said something about a snowball fight,” said Penny coyly.
Reuben dropped his head and groaned, but Phoenix tugged you both by the sleeves, saying, “Come on.”
You’d heard tale of this ‘Fanboy’ from Reuben—his new backseater from Whidbey Island, a charming and rambunctious WSO who’d barely been out of TOPGUN three years. It was hard to tell from the stories if Reuben hated having a backseater or admired the kid’s tenacity; maybe Reuben didn’t even know himself. Either way, at the mention of his callsign, you’d be lying if your interest wasn’t piqued.
Phoenix led the way onto the back deck and farther down the steps, onto the sand and snow where a bunch of grown adults were bundled in thick jackets and hurling snowballs that were fifty percent sand at each other, giggling like little kids.
“Oh my god,” said Reuben.
“Phoenix!” wailed one of the men on the edge of the group, taking a few steps up the beach towards you. “Thank god you’re here! They’re killing me! Ack!”
Right on cue, a different pilot nailed the guy in the back of the head, sending him staggering and brushing ice and wet sand out of his hair, wiping at his glasses.
“Hey!” cried Phoenix, already taking off at a run towards the group, bent double to gather a snowball of her own as she went. “Pick on somebody your own size, you leave my backseater alone!”
“Children,” said Reuben quietly, shaking his head. “They’re a bunch of children.”
Piff. A pitiful handful of snow and sand scattered across the back of his Carhartt. Without turning around, he said, “You’re about to enter a whole world of hurt.”
An utterly childish giggle ripped its way out of your chest and you began to sprint across the sand towards the larger group, listening to Reuben give chase behind you, his laugh loud and raucous across the expanse. Blood pounded in your ears as you ducked between two burly pilots, crouching to gather up a few snowballs. It hadn’t been snowing long enough to get any genuinely good powder—the balls were mostly ice and grit—but no one seemed to care. The novelty of a beachside snowball fight in San Diego was too alluring for pesky things like logic to interfere.
All around you, the pilots worked as a team, turning this silly childhood game into a ground-level dogfight.
“Coyote, heads up!”
“On your six, Phoenix!”
“Break right, Rooster, break right!”
Of course, you didn’t have a callsign, but everyone pretty quickly picked up on the fact that you were Reuben’s friend, giving you the complimentary nickname ‘Payday.’ Maybe it lacked some originality, but it was forged in the heat of battle, which you thought was pretty cool.
It was the cry of, “Payday, help me out!” that screwed everything up.
You weren’t sure who’d called for your aid; maybe Rooster, or even Yale. But you jumped to your feet, snowball in hand and ready to defend anyways. Across from you, someone else stood up: a tan man with short, dark hair just visible underneath a gray beanie pulled low over his ears. His strange posture confused you briefly: his arm flung forward, one leg pitched out behind him, his grin huge and white and destabilizing.
Then icy-sharp pain bloomed across your cheek and you fell backwards, hitting the sand hard.
Everyone froze.
Someone—Hangman, you thought—shouted, “Shit, Mickey, not the face!”
The one who hit you—Mickey, you presumed—cried, “I was aiming for Rooster’s shoulder, I swear!”
Your ears were ringing and your face was so cold that it was numb. You lifted one dizzy hand to your cheek, stunned to realize it came away with blood, ice, and sand all combined on your fingers. There were a few people kneeling next to you in the sand, but most of them gave you space, which you were grateful for. Reuben had hold of your arm and was shaking it gently, saying, “Are you with me?”
“I’m okay,” you grunted, shifting mostly upright and trying to wipe the sand out of your eyes. “Just caught me by surprise, that’s all.”
“Are you okay?” a new voice asked, and a firm hand grasped your forearm, hauling you smoothly to your feet despite Reuben’s protests of, “Easy, Mickey!”
You were prepared to have some sort of biting retort or withering remark at Mickey’s expense, but when you met his eyes, the words fell away. His grip on your arm was firm and present, grounding you to the sand and snow beneath your shoes. While there was a definitive mischief-making tilt to his mouth, there was no humor in his eyes at the moment. His brows were knit and his gaze was fixed on the spot on your cheek where you knew you’d been struck.
Realizing you’d never answered his question, you stammered, “Oh, I-I’m okay. It was just an accident.”
“I’m so sorry,” Mickey rushed on. “I was aiming for Rooster behind you, and you stood up as I was throwing, I wasn’t trying to—”
Then Rooster himself was there, pushing in between the two of you and giving you a little more breathing room. “Careful, Fanboy,” he said, his tone light but authoritative. “I don’t know if Penny is equipped to treat talking-induced concussions.”
You blinked, something nagging at the back of your head as you glanced between Reuben, Rooster, and Mickey. Something familiar, like you were staring at a puzzle missing one piece, and the piece had just been handed to you. And then, like wires connecting—
Oh.
Fanboy.
“Oh!” you yelped, taking half a step back. “Mickey’s—that’s—you’re Fanboy?” You glanced back and forth between him and Reuben, who’d buried his face in his hands.
“Wait,” said Fanboy, looking as lost as you’d felt a few moments ago. “You know who I am?”
“You’re the backseater!” you blurted. “From Whidbey Island! Right, Rueben? This is him?”
Before Reuben could speak, Fanboy said with a huge, shit-eating grin, “You’ve been telling your friends about me, Payback?”
Reuben stepped forward, his hands extended placatingly. “Okay, this is getting—”
“I’ve been so curious,” you interrupted, side-stepping your friend so you could keep talking to Fanboy. “From day one, he has always had something to say about you.”
Fanboy grinned, one corner of his mouth pulling up higher than the other. “Good things, I hope.”
“Fifty-fifty,” you said, matching his grin.
“Okay, maybe you should go take a seat at the bar,” Reuben said, laughing nervously and taking you by the elbow. He glanced over your head, gesturing with his other hand. “Hey, Bob, could you give us a hand over here?”
Before Bob could react, Fanboy had come up to your other side, easily slipping your hand through the crook of his arm and waving Reuben off with an easy, “I got it from here, Payback. You guys finish up the snowball fight, okay?”
Reuben looked like he’d rather swallow a lemon than finish up the snowball fight, but he stayed quiet and watched as Fanboy led you up the beach and back onto the deck. You half-expected your best friend to come storming up after you in less than five minutes, but soon enough, the group had gone back to their childish games, whooping and hollering and having a great time.
Meanwhile, Mickey sat you down at a table where you could look out the glass and still see the snow falling on the water. Penny gave him some basic first-aid supplies, and he cleaned up your small cut, saying like he was almost impressed, “You’re gonna have a gnarly shiner, probably. Sorry about that.”
“It’s okay,” you said, feeling strangely sleepy as his fingers brushed at your cheekbone, sending chills down your spine—and not from the cold. “Makes me look cool.”
He smiled widely at that, like he didn’t even notice he was doing it. Feeling strangely shy, you shifted back to front, watching as Phoenix and Rooster worked together to pepper Hangman with a fierce bombardment of snowballs. The flakes over the beach fell like glitter, shimmering and twinkling in the dark late-afternoon light, and without meaning to, you murmured, “It’s beautiful.”
“It really is,” replied Mickey, but when you glanced back at him, you had a feeling he wasn’t talking about the snow.