The way Nate and Eliot let each other lie to each other is so important to me.
It’s quiet things, they’ll let each other keep their utterly see-through pretences and obviously hidden secrets, Nate will look away when Eliot is hurting so he can put himself back together alone, Eliot will trust Nate without answer if not without question and without either when that specific urgency creeps into his voice, they’ll ask but won’t push when something clearly hits too close to home letting them share what they want and ignoring the rest, they’ll let each other hide behind the job, with that mask of professionalism and duty because it lets them put whatever it is aside and not fall apart for a little longer.
There so much trust in it. they're trusting that if something was really actually important, they would share, and that they can handle themselves and eah other to catch one another if they can’t.
It builds so much trust, too. They’re in a crew of grifters and conmen and people who read people to survive, they’re constantly on display to people who can read them better than anyone and they’re so so used to hiding. Having that relationship where, yes, they can read each other better than almost anyone just like the rest of the team but at least they try to pretend they can't probalbly feels like safety to them.
But that relationship lets them confide in each other. They both talk to each other with a different honesty than they ever use with anyone else: Nate will tell Eliot things in this specific casual tone and Eliot will let him pretend like it really is casual and doesn’t mean everything, Eliot will tell Nate things with this knowing and this darkness in his voice and Nate will never make him tell more than he chooses to share, they’ll both tell each other things and know that anything they say will never leave the room.
it also lends real weight to the times they don’t let the other lie, when it’s like you have to acknowledge the situation, you have to accept help, you have to tell the crew something, they’ll listen to each other in a way they won’t to anyone else because they know it actually matters.
jack is like if the wolf in sheep’s clothing was specifically wearing the sacrificial lambs clothing and in willingly risking himself to be the weapon he . I’m losing it already He loses the wool and embraces being a wolf or some thin gggggg idk
Ice never noticed how many things Maverick chewed on until after the battle had ended and he had come to a startling realization that made his heart hurt.
They were celebrating the victory at Viper's rather large house that never fails to make Ice a little envious. The BBQ the Top Gun recruits had been invited to was in full swing before Ice noticed what Maverick was doing.
Ice was talking to Viper's wife about something he will never remember when he saw Maverick weaving back and forth out of the corner of his eye. Ice turned his head briefly to check on him and had to look back in a double-take before what was happening registered in his brain and short-circuited it.
The shorter man was going back and forth across the yard, helping Viper bring food to the long row of plastic tables that had been collected and brought to the middle of the large expanse of grass.
That was not the thing that made Ice question Maverick's sanity.
What did do that was the fact that Maverick had a soda can dangling between his teeth by the metal edge, swinging gently with every step and moving the man's chin along with it in a bobbing motion.
As he walks, Maverck's head swings gently side to side, first looking out one eye and then the other to see where he is going past both the can in his mouth and the tray full of food in his hands. He sidesteps the rest of the recruits playing a messed-up version of football that somehow involves wrestling, making his way to the tables beyond the playing children and next to Ice, eventually setting his tray down in a now-rare empty spot on the row of tables.
Ice assumes the younger man will set his soda down as well.
Ice is wrong.
Maverck turns and makes his way past the chaos again, head swinging gently and angled vaguely downwards as he expertly dodges bodies and toys from the children and adults alike.
Ice hears a chuckle beside him, startling him enough to make him twitch an inch to the right as he registers Viper's wife's presence had gotten closer to his left side. He really needs to remember her name.
"What?"
She shakes her head fondly, "He's just like his father. Duke was always holding what he could in his mouth, gave me plenty of heart attacks doing it to my pretty glass cups during dinner time. Lord knows they both forget there's something wrong with the picture. I thought it was the funniest thing, seeing this man about a foot taller than me holding his keys or just about anything in his mouth as he used his hands for something else." She beams a beatific smile at him and walks away.
Maverick passes Ice to put something on a table near him, barely pausing when Ice reaches out and grabs the soda can gently from his mouth. Once the food tray is put down, Maverick turns and beams at him, reaching over to grab it back.
For half a second, Ice contemplates putting it above his head. He knows he will get kicked in the nuts for it and decides against that course of action. He instead turns it over to inspect it-a normal Coke can- and hands it back.
A loud shout and rambunctious laughter makes him look at those playing "football," finding a group dog pile and Viper shaking his head as he nears the table with a tray of ribs.
Viper and Maverick exchange a look that Ice can't discern before Viper passes them and Maverick brings a hand to his mouth. A shrill whistle cuts through the noise. Those on the floor still or sit up and knock heads, those about to tackle (Hollywood) slip in the sudden stop and land face first in the dirt, and those being quieter than the others nearly give themselves whiplash to look. Ice had nearly jumped out of his skin at the noise, clutching his chest and looking offended at Maverick as the smaller man smirks and Viper subtly presses a bill into the hand behind his back.
Viper's voice rings across the silent yard, "Lunch time! Asses in seats, the lot of you."
Ice registers as his right arm is grabbed in two hands, dragging him towards where Viper and his family are starting to sit. He looks at Maverick to find that stupid can in his mouth again and his eyes sparkling with mischief and joy.
Once they're seated, Ice assumes Maverick will remove the can and put it on the table.
You know what they say about assuming.
Maverck starts serving up the food around them, grabbing dishes and serving them to others as they ask, putting some on his and Ice's plates as he gets to it.
The entire time, he has that stupid can in his mouth.
Once everyone has their food and Maverick is satisfied, he sits down fully and takes the can out of his teeth, licking his lips briefly as he settles the can on the table and opens his plastic-wrapped eating utensils.
That entire lunch, Ice cannot for the life of him concentrate on anything but the man beside him. Maverick has always been larger than life, but now that Ice has come to a realization he is still in denial over, he seems much bigger.
The younger man never stops moving; he talks with those around them, his hands waving wildly the entire time, moving his body to emphasize a point he made, standing up to deny something with his whole chest. For someone Slider jokes is "such a little guy," Maverick has the yelling capacity of a Spartan army and quiets the table twice when he jumps up to defend himself and his position in a conversation.
What drives Ice into near-insanity himself is that the entire time he's talking, Maverick has something in his mouth he's chewing on or licking food off of or simply playing with with his tongue.
Today is the day that Ice realizes the shorter man has a freckle on the right side of his bottom lip, almost hidden in the pink until he starts biting at his lip out of some sort of habit that seems to belie nervousness.
Today is the day Ice realizes he's doomed and so deep in his own feelings that he's metaphorically drowning with them.
After tearing his eyes off of Maverick's lips for the nth time, Ice catches the knowing look Slider is shooting him, wishing he could sink into his seat and disappear.
When lunch is said and done and enough conversation has been had, people start standing and helping with the cleanup. When Maverick gets up to help, Hollywood and Jester grab him by the arms and sit him down, forcing Ice down with him and demanding that the raven-haired man be babysat so he doesn't try to help.
Chest warm with laughter, Ice mock salutes and puts his arms around Maverick's shoulders, effectively trapping him in his seat.
Maverick sighs and melts into Ice's chest reluctantly, reaching out to grab his half-empty soda can and start playing with it, taking small sips as well. Ice notices a small clunking noise after a few minutes and cranes his head around Maverick's, watching as the man uses a canine to pry the pop tab off and then start working to separate the top of the can and the rest of it.
Ice grabs the can out of Maverick's mouth, a weak protest slipping from the man before one of the kids shows up with a full can and hands it to him. Ice watches as Maverick pops the can and starts sipping the soda again, then turns to the other can to investigate the damage.
To his surprise, Maverick had already gotten a hole through the aluminum, making it seem as if someone had stabbed the can. Ice wonders just how strong the other man's teeth are to do this.
Before he knows it, Ice is no longer on babysitting duty and the party has been cleaned up. They all get up and going, saying thank you to Viper's family and moving to go to their own spaces to relax after the long day.
Ice is kept awake that night by haunting thoughts of the freckle on his wingman's bottom lip, practically begging to be kissed.
After that day, whenever they're facing each other, Ice can't help but look for the small brown spot, watching as it stretches and moves with each expression and each word. Had Ice been paying attention to the sarcastic words said and not just responding to them instinctively, he would be a pro at reading lips.
Slider has been giving him knowing looks for weeks now.
Ice doesn't like it.
Within weeks, Ice notices the pattern he had been unseeing of before. He watches as Maverick holds cans and pencils and eating utensils in his mouth, chewing on fingernails and long sleeves and sticks of some sort of snack with a mysterious origin.
It's quite literally a mystery. One second, the man is empty-handed; the next, he's got a snack in his mouth.
Ice watches as the man opens things with his top right canine, chewing through cans and bottle lids like they're nothing. Ice absurdly wonders if the younger man can open a soup can without a can opener.
He hopes he doesn't get the answer.
His pining grows each and every day. It's not just this habit he's taking notice of. He notices how soft Maverick is with women and children and those who don't know what to do wth him. Ice even sees the man stop walking to help a small lizard in the walkway on a particularly hot day, taking it aside under a bush and giving it water.
It's almost as if the snark of the younger man is hiding this soft side of himself Ice has only started noticing recently.
Tom "Iceman" Kazansky is doomed.
One day, Slider has had enough; he's carrying a protesting and struggling Maverick over his shoulder when he enters their room. He plops the smaller man down on the foot of Ice's empty bed, whispers something that makes him still, and leaves the room.
Ice looks after Slider in stunned confusion for about a minute, turning to Maverick to ask what's happening and freezing at the full-face blush the other man is sporting. Maverick grins up at him from halfway across the room and stands to cross to the couch two feet from where Ice stands.
Maverick's voice startles him all the same, despite how closely he's watching the man. "So. You've been watching me."
At Ice's spluttering and furious pink flush quickly spreading from his ears to his face, Maverick nods and his smile grows softer. "I've been watching you, too."
This makes Ice pause in his effort to find the right words to brush this off. At Maverick's little pat on the couch next to him, Ice sits and faces the smaller man, tucking one foot under himself to get comfortable while hiding how insecure he feels.
Maverick breaks the silence again, almost startling the other man from his quick spiral into his own thoughts. "You play with your hands a lot, you know that?"
Ice stares in confusion, eliciting a chuckle from the man in front of him. "You do! I noticed during the celebration, when everyone else was cleaning up. You had your hands in front of me, and you were playing with your own fingernails or the soda can. I put my necklace in grabbing distance, and I don't think you even noticed when you started playing with it. There's a ring, see?"
Ice stares as Maverick brings his dog tags out of his shirt, a gold wedding band with decorative lines etched on it on the small chain, clinking against the tags. Before Ice can come to any conclusion about the ring, Maverick slides his right thumb into it and reaches inside his shirt with his left hand for a silver wedding ring with a small diamond surrounded by the same etching design
Ice recognizes the gold ring then. It's the very one that had been on Goose's finger and dog tag necklace the entire time he had been married to Carole. The information hits him like a ton of bricks before he can even think about how he had apparently been playing with it.
It hits him even harder that it seems like Carole had given Maverick both of their wedding rings. For what, Ice doesn't know. He thinks he doesn't want the answer.
A hand on his arm startles him from his reverie, making him look up at the small, sad smile Maverick gives him as he tucks the necklace back in his shirt, giving it what seems like a habitual pat before moving both hands to rest on Ice's shoulders.
"Sorry."
Ice narrows his eyes at the younger, "For what?"
"I didn't realize you didn't know about the rings."
Ice shakes his head, "Why do you have them? Carole must have given them to you, but why?"
The sad smile gets impossibly sadder, turning into a frown. "I loved him. Not like Carole did, of course, but he was my brother. He was the closest thing I had to family until I met Carole and Bradley, then they became a part of us. Carole wanted me to have these because they'll help me remember the good times. With them as a family. Before I ruined it."
Ice feels righteous indignation at that, grabbing Maverick's wrists and catching his gaze when it snaps to him and tries to dart away. He shakes Maverick bodily by the wrists and makes an incomprehensible noise of frustration.
"You didn't do shit."
"Ice-"
"Shut the fuck up, me time. Did you plan to get into my jet wash? Did you sabotage the ejection? Did you hold Goose under water personally?"
A horrified gasp follows the last question, the raven-haired man's throat working to get past the tears that spring up while he shakes his head adamantly.
Ice brings him closer by his wrists, scooting on the couch to wrap the smaller man in a hug. "You didn't do shit. It was a bunch of circumstances that could have been avoided individually, but not all together. If anything, we should both take the blame for letting competition get in the way."
A small noise of indignation greets him as the smaller man decides to release himself by jabbing his fingers in Ice's side. "If I can't take the blame, you can't either. I'll probably always blame myself, but never you."
Before Ice can open his mouth, Maverick shakes his head and covers the older man's face with his hands. "Let's just drop it, ok?"
Maverick pulls his hands away and shakes his head again. "As I was saying, you were playing with Goose's ring-yes, you're allowed to do that, shut up-and it made me realize you have a habit of playing with things in your hands."
Maverick looks down at his own hands, blush returning to his cheeks as he continues, "I started watching. Noticing, really, how you use your hands for everything, even if they're not needed. You talk with them, use them for emphasis, you play with the hem of your uniform or your sleeves when you're bored. It's fascinating to watch because you always end up with a pencil or pen in your hand, and I don't even know where it comes from, and you're almost always twirling it."
Ice blinks, slowly processing the words that had just been thrown at him and had gone faster as the shorter man talked.
Maverick looks up briefly, looking away with a wince and going to stand, "I'm sorry, maybe this was a mistake-"
He's stopped by a hand on his wrist, gripping gently and pulling him back even more gently. "You bite things."
Maverick turns and locks eyes with an extremely red Ice, confusion evident in every inch of his body as he lets the gentle hand on his wrist guide him back to sitting on the couch.
"What?"
Ice looks away, going impossibly more red, the blush creeping down to his neck in a fascinating way that Maverick doesn't know what he wants to do with. "You bite things, and it's the most frustrating thing in my life. Like, you don't understand, you always use your right canine for everything, it's not even longer than the rest of them or anything, you just use it more. You smirk, and it's always angled to show off your right canine. You bite through things like plastic and soft aluminum like it's your job. You think I get pens out of nowhere? Where the hell do you keep those weird ass pretzel sticks you chew on when you think no one is watching in class?"
They had been moving closer together throughout the rant, Ice having forgotten to let go of Maverick's hand and then gesturing with his own as he spoke.
"Do you know how frustrating it is to watch you just chew on your utensils in the mess? They're meant for food, not the teeth marks you leave in them. I swear I saw the cooks point out your dining set one day and set it aside away from the others because of how chewed up they are. I'm pretty sure you get the same set until you've chewed on it so bad it's no longer safe to use."
Maverick goes to open his mouth, interrupted by a shake of the older man's head.
"I don't know how you don't see it, you've destroyed two pens in the time we've been here, one of them actually exploded in your mouth and I'm sure it was gross and then sometimes you chew on something stupid and I can't help but look at that stupid freckle-"
He makes a startled noise when his lips are smothered with the feeling of warm softness. He blinks dumbly as Maverick pulls back and smiles at him sheepishly.
After Ice stares for a few seconds, Maverick starts to get visibly nervous, "Please tell me that's where that was going because-"
It's his turn to be silenced when Ice grabs his chin gently and pulls him closer, lips meeting in a gentle caress before the taller man smiles and kisses the right edge of his mouth, his cheekbone, his forehead, and finally the tip of his nose before returning back to his lips for a slightly longer kiss.
Maverick breaks the kiss and moves to straddle Ice's thighs, pushing the taller man into the couch back and stopping there as Ice gets comfortable under him, hips readjusting to plant his feet on the floor as his hands find purchase on the younger man's hips.
As Ice readjusts himself, Maverick simply cradles his face in his hands, thumbs stroking his cheekbones and gliding over fluttering eyelashes. As soon as the other man sits still beneath him, Maverick reengages, kissing softly and sweetly, speaking as he moves slowly to Ice's left ear, each word punctuated by a kiss. "So. About. That. Freckle."
Ice groans in embarrassment and turns his head to catch Maverick's lips again, savoring a slow and sweet kiss before breaking away and looking into mischievous green eyes. "Don't think we could ignore that?"
Maverick smirks and kisses the tip of his nose, "Unfortunately not, I don't know what you're talking about in the first place."
Ice reaches up his left hand and guides Maverick's face back down for another slow kiss, thumb brushing against the freckle as they pull back. "Right here. There's this freckle that you'd think you'd be able to see better when your lips are lighter, but sometimes you bite them, and it gets darker when they do."
"You looking at me that closely, pretty boy?"
"I just willingly kissed you, I think I'm allowed a certain fascination."
Maverick smiles at him, kissing his nose again before leaning their foreheads together and closing his eyes, breathing in the moment.
Ice follows his lead, closing his eyes and basking in the warmth and weight on his lap, happy despite the fumbling of the day.
Slider finds them there later on, curled up together on the couch and sleeping in each other's arms, Maverick buried deep within Ice's chest as if he believes they can become one through way of osmosis.
Slider has to watch his back for a moment to make sure he's breathing, unsure how he is when his face is fully covered and buried in the chest and shirt of another human being.
And if they start trying and failing at being subtle, well, Viper and Jester were out sick that day and the rest of the class suddenly had an aversion to looking in any direction that would get the two men in trouble.
I played rdr2 before rdr1 and let me tell you hearing John wheeze after being shot dozens of times and sounding just like Arthur struggling to breathe and wheeze on that cliff side made me lose my shit
