Work Text:
Little Sparrow
Ice drowned at the lack of noise in the mornings that he’d not quite gotten used to. The sound of Maverick snoring next to him because he refused to allow his husband to believe that he didn’t snore was the only noise that he heard at five o’clock in the morning. Three weeks ago, and for years he was used to the sound of their resident up at dawn to go for a run. Jakob Seresin to be making noise. It wasn’t even a lot of noise but it was the sound of him drinking a protein drink and getting ready for his run. Thinking back on how they met him he smiled at how Jake had been put into his office when he’d been injured and on medical leave he’d smiled at how he’d told an admiral that unless he had an appointment that he’d best leave. That Admiral Kazansky didn’t have time to be dealing with walk-ins.
Considering he’d been having a lunch date with Pete at the time in his office he’d been grateful for it. Mav had barely been able to keep quiet, he'd been laughing so hard, even more so when they’d found out that it had been the same Admiral who had been bothering him for the last week about the program he was trying to promote.
Which had led to them asking him out to lunch, which had somehow led to them having more of a second child relationship with him. Which was why they’d been confused when he’d told them that he wouldn’t be staying with them during his leave. That he'd be staying at his assigned housing.
Bradley had been staying with them for those two weeks so he knew that it likely had to do with that. Actually he was certain that it had everything to do with Rooster being here. Jake didn’t want to be in the way as they got along with their kid after fifteen years of going no contact with him. From how he’d acted around Bradley during those weeks during the mission he knew that he’d been taking his anger out on Rooster. For years, but he’d been even more brutal on their son during those weeks at Top Gun.
Deciding that he was going to start getting ready for work since he was already awake, and he would’ve have to get ready anyway in about twenty minutes he got up. Feeling the instant cold, the lack of Mav’s body against his own. The feeling of arms falling off his body and smiling as he watched Pete rolling over so that he was resting where he had just been laying. Walking down the hallway he looked into Jake’s room and he smiled at the dog which had disappeared from their room last night.
“Beretta come on.” The long whine that he let out showed how much he missed sleeping in the bed with Jake. The dog that he’d gotten had glued himself to Jake’s side from the moment that he’d entered the door. The very same that had been inconsolable ever since Jake hadn’t been coming around anymore. To say that Ice had been reminded of when Bradley hadn’t been showing up anymore hurt him to the core.
Jake had been the one that had forced him to go to the doctor too. They’d found cancer in his throat and he’d never been able to live it down. The kid had gotten permanent rights to say that he’d told him that he’d needed to go to the doctor which still got to Mav. Maverick wasn’t saying how much the kid’s absence was affecting him but he’d been taking him out to the hanger for years and having someone that could actually be there all day with him, someone that hadn’t had the same history as Bradley had helped him out.
Looking down at his phone as he turned on the coffee maker he frowned slightly. It had gotten to where the three of them had been practically talking every day. The kid had even been staying at the house during the mission, his ptsd raging ever since he’d gotten his first air kill. The two of them had been talking to him about it, and he wondered how their kid was dealing with it right now. Especially after getting another kill, remembering how he’d woken up multiple times to Jake curled up on the couch with Beretta watching television because he couldn’t go back to sleep.
The smell of coffee filled the air and Ice couldn’t help but to breathe it in. The sound of socked feet hitting the stairs caught him off guard, generally this had always been his time. Maverick and Bradley both weren’t morning people by any means. Even Jake hadn’t been one, not really, but he’d wake up to exercise. When he felt a pair of arms wrapping around his body, hands clasping so that a very familiar nose could rest in between his shoulder blades he smiled.
“Good morning sweetheart.” The mumbled good morning against his back had him laughing slightly before he focused on pouring two cups of coffee versus one.
“What’re you doing up so early?” At the feeling of a cheek resting against his back instead of a nose he paused to listen to what his husband was going to tell him. More than a little curious as to why he was awake this early in the morning.
“I’m going to go by base housing and see if I can catch a glimpse of Jake.” The sadness in Mav’s voice caught him off guard. The two had been peas in a pod and he had been wanting to go but hadn’t wanted to overstep. Thinking that he should say something against him going, he was too desperate to have any news about him to advise him against going.
“Just make sure that you don’t push him away even further.” The soft kiss against his spine warmed him even more than coffee ever could as he drank it slowly to keep from burning his tongue.