Cold As Ice

Hot Attention

When the woman stepped in front of the class, she had immediately all the attention. Her tone however, was formal, serious, calm. Ice liked her immediately.

This woman was the TAGREP of Top Gun, callsign Charlie and the one Maverick had so humorously tried to get laid by the night before. He saw Goose and Maverick cringing at the sight of her and smirked. You can't have everything, hot boy.

Wait. What was that?

Ice frowned and shook his head to get his thoughts straight. Slider slid his arm around the chair and leaned towards Ice.

"You, ok?" he whispered and Ice nodded absentminded, while he listened to the back-and-forth of Charlie and Maverick, which was, to his content, only enjoyed by one of them. Slider however raised his eyebrows and nodded to the pen Ice was playing with. Ice glanced down and cursed under his breath. He quickly swept the ice from the pen and focused his attention back to the class. Slider sledded his arm back, but Ice wasn't disappointed by that anymore. He couldn't expect someone to stay close to him for more than was necessary, not even his best friend.

He tuned back into the banter of Maverick, which was somehow still going on. Apparently Maverick had seen a MiG from close enough that he could tell the classified civilian expert that she had the wrong information about it. Hah, no way.

"Well, if you were directly above him, how could you see him?"

"Because I was inverted," Maverick said with such a smug smile on his lips that Ice couldn't help but cough "bullshit". A couple of people laughed but Maverick turned around sharply and eyed Ice furiously, who was surprisingly intimidated by the fiery gaze which made his skin heat up. Ice blinked, surprised by the foreign feeling, but Maverick took that as a win and his smug smile returned on his face, almost splitting it in two.

Ice sighed. Maybe defeating Maverick on the ground would be a tad more difficult than he had thought.

He would defeat him in the sky though.

That turned out mostly true, but the Maverick-Goose duo was always just behind in the standings, snagging away points and sometimes even victories from Ice and Slider. Ice pushed harder and harder in the first weeks, and he found himself enjoying it. Yes, the locker room was tense at times and the trainings were hard, but Ice had never been challenged so much by someone and certainly not someone who made Ice's skin heat up ever so slightly whenever their eyes fell on the blonde.

Halfway Top Gun, Ice could always feel when Maverick would look at him, sometimes faintly, but sometimes, when Maverick had just climbed out of the cockpit and was supposedly still high on the adrenaline, Maverick's glance felt like Ice had turned the shower on the maximum heat. It almost made Ice feel as warm as that one handshake and Ice noticed he basked in it, wanting more and more until he kept searching Maverick's glances by irritating him, pushing his buttons and sometimes just plainly speaking the truth. Maverick was very dangerous and reckless and not safe after all, that the smaller one would send him another heated look after he said that was just a bonus.

One day, when Ice and Slider where chilling in Slider's room, Slider rolled over on his bed and looked up at Ice who was reading on the tiny couch so he could just snatch a bit of sunlight and be a bit less cold than normal. Still not warm, but a bit less cold nonetheless.

"D'you really think Maverick is that dangerous?" Slider asked him suddenly. Ice looked at him with a frown.

"Yeah, of course man. You see how he flies yourself, don't you? Reckless maneuvers, leaving his wingman, breaking the hard deck." Slider huffed and went to sit upright.

"No, that wasn't what I meant, let me ask again: Do you really think yóu should be the one to tell him?"

"Yes of course should I be the one who tells him. I'm-" Ice stopped midsentence and blinked. Why exactly should he be the one who reprimanded and pushed Maverick? Shouldn't he be focused on his own task, waiting for the other people to get bored and do something stupid, like his callsign, his persona, would do?

Ice sighed. He knew deep down why he did it, but he was not going to tell Slider any of that. He hadn't even told Slider that Maverick made him be less cold in the first place.

"I'm just worried for him, that kid is dangerous for himself and for us. He might get someone killed if he keeps flying the way he's doing now," Ice sighed and that was the truth, was it? Slider raised his eyebrows, but a tiny smile played on his lips.

"Good," he silently murmured, deciding to leave it be and Ice diverted the conversation quickly away from his thoughts about Maverick.

Ice was too focused on getting the bogey in front of him when they were up in the sky the next day to think about Slider's questions. He had the plane in front of him but couldn't quite get the angle to lock him. While he tried, he heard Maverick becoming more and more agitated in his ear, but he could ignore it for now. He couldn't lock so he switched to guns. Goose and Maverick were still shouting in his ears and he huffed, annoyed by their agitation. If Maverick could do it better, he would have to show it.

Ice steered his plane up and away to give Maverick the shot, but when he didn't hear the triumphant shouts from the two that he had expected but instead something that edged closer to panic, he turned his plane as fast as he could only to see the other plane flat spinning towards the sea.

"Mayday, mayday, Mav's in trouble!" Ice said while he felt his heartrate ramping up. All he could do was watch the plane tumbling to the ground, wishing that the man inside would eject before it was too late. Maverick's panicked screams filled his ears and heightened his terror. He couldn't lose Mav. He couldn't go back to the icy existence he had lived with before! But the canopy cleared and he saw two figures getting shot out of the plane. Two white parachutes folded out of their back to swing them down peacefully and Ice let go of his breath.

Until he saw someone hanging limp in the parachute. Oh god, Mav?! No, no, not Maverick? Not the only thing that could warm him up? He couldn't lose that.

"Ice! Ice! Goddammit! Get your ass together and fly us back, you moron!" he heard Slider's voice and that broke his thoughts. He turned the plane sharply and flew back as fast as he could, his head full with worries and fears.

It was only when he heard in the hospital that it was Goose who had died and not his human stove that he could let go of his slight panic.

It was only after the adrenaline had left that Ice realized what a horrible person he was. Seeing Mav's red eyes and trembling body, Ice realized Goose was dead. Someone had died. Someone had fucking died and all Ice could worry about is that he himself would miss something! Ice stumbled away from the silent group of pilots who were huddled together in the hospital and fled to the toilets. He stood there and looked at himself in the big mirrors. He saw an arrogant, selfish, stupid man looking at him and turned around. The accident kept replaying in his head until he could do nothing but horror by what turned out to be Goose's last words and Ice's terrible thoughts with them.

Ice leaned heavily on one of the sinks and stared back to his reflection. He was heaving but kept staring while all around him the water turned to ice and cracked up the pipes and sinks.

Ice hated himself a little more with every pipe that got destroyed.