hinamie · 2 months ago
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to moving forward
#my art#jujutsu kaisen#jjk#jjk fanart#jujutsu kaisen fanart#jjk art#yuji itadori#gojo satoru#fushiguro megumi#nobara kugisaki#itadori yuuji#megumi fushiguro#jjk spoilers#satoru gojo#jjk manga spoilers#hina.comic#before any1 says anything i KNOw his birthday is in december ik ik ik this is just 2 show some post-battle bonding after the trauma#its winter in canon n megumi's birthday has passed and he spent it being piloted like a mech so they need to celebrate Now!!#also this was technically a request lmao anon wanted megumi birthday angst hehehehhe i hope u like it <3 bc it KILLED ME DEAD#im going to collapse remember when i said this wasnt harder than the hydrangeas im having second thoughts#page 8 made me want to bash my head in#could have stuck with one flashback image could have left them monochrome could have done literally anything 2 ease the workload#but noooo the chronic overachiever in me would not allow it#rule of threes i had to include all of them and they Had to be in colour it wouldn't have hit the same if i had kept it monochrome#i needed it to look how childhood memories look i needed it to look oversaturated and hazy and fond but unmistakably Gone#it may have killed me but im so proud of this rn like from an art style perspective these megumis and yuujis r top tier by my standards#personal favourites r the first and last panel of crying megumi like not 2 pat myself on th back but expression?????? hello??????#enjoy your cake megumi you've earned it <333 sorry fr hurting ur feelings it will happen again#oh my god i can sleep tonight bless <333 and i met my 3 day deadline NICE im so good at what i do
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wombywoo · 1 year ago
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just checking...
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spoopy-arcade · 1 year ago
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Imagine
If cassie and roxy swap places like a swap au ?
Were cassie is the animatronics wolf
And
Were Roxy / Roxanne is a human?
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OK BUT HEAR ME OUT. Bunny Cassie!!
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bunnyboy-juice · 4 months ago
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NO MORE ASSOCIATING THINGS WITH FEMMES ONLY BECAUSE THEY ARE PINK!HYPERFEM FEMMES ARE GREAT AND I LOVE YOU CAMPY FEMMES WHO EMBODY PINK BUT ALSO JESUS CHRIST CAN YOU GUYS NOT GO MORE THAN ONE DAY W/O TRYING TO SHOEHORN FEMMES INTO BEING ONLY PINK UWU BABIES. I AM FEMME AS IN GRASS AS IN DIRT AS IN TREE BARK AS IN WEEDS SPROUTING THROUGH THE SIDEWALK CEMENT. FEMME AS IN GENDER NONCONFORMITY AS IN FUCK YOU MY FEMININITY IS WHAT *I* SAY IT IS. FEMME AS IN DEPTH AND DARKNESS AND WARMTH AND TERROR. FEMME AS IN CAVES. FEMME AS IN LIGHTNING. FEMME AS IN AN AMALGAMATION OF TRAITS THAT I HAVE DECIDED ARE FEMININE REGARDLESS OF WHAT SOCIETY SAYS. FUCK IS IT THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND?!???
#personal#i am emotional yes#over the years ive had this blog I've made a few posts abt being femme#nd whether they're serious or jokey..... inevitably someone in the tags goes “ohhh yeah bc pink”#or in the case of what inspired this post: someone going “what about the pink ones” on my praying mantis post#and im just.#sick of it. im sick of femme being equated to pink and frilly girlie behaviors.#im sick of femme being equated to skirts and heels. to makeup. to skincare. to pristine nails exactly almond shaped.#im sick of ppl acting like All femmes aspire to this shit. im sick of femms being reduced to this shit.#and i love pink! i love pink! my phone theme is quite literally just black and pink all over.#im just. so tired of any expression of Femme identity being shoehorned into being a Specific type of femininity#especially as someone who DOES get dysphoric wearing skirts. wearing dresses. embodying the femme aesthetic yall are so set on making#if u guys wanna rb this i truly dont care#i just needed to scream#and this is one small thing#but the 2nd largest category of anon hate i have gotten since making this blog is str8 up homophobia from other “queer” folks#saying i cant be femme bc of how i present. calling me slurs (and using them as such) bc they cant understand femme as anything but that#my wife and i have our users in our personal discord server set as 2 different things of anon hate ive gotten#i have had OTHER FEMMES tell me i am not femme. femmes who Know im femme who still call me butch. femmes who ive corrected and been blocked#-by bc of it. the number 1 largest demographic of queerfolk who have me blocked rn is TME femmes who embody pink also#and i dont think its a coincidence at all. (and i know this bc i go to try and follow these ppl bc they get rbed on my dash & i cant)#and ik their blogs arent deleted bc some of them don't block my wife (tall. white. butch) and it cant be politics cause her and i rb#a lot of the same political shit (fuck. i think she rbs More than i do even. this is genuinely mainly a nsft blog)#and usually i don't say anything but im having a bad day so i get to be angry about this and if anyone fucking tries me i will block u#idc if we've been mutuals 4ever. im judt so tired of feeling like i am not Enough as a femme bc i dont embody this shit#im sick of this lameass lip service to he/him gnc femmes etc when the thin white 50s housewife femme is still what is preferred and loved#im sick of this lamesss lip service when y'all feel entitled to theorizing on other femmes genders bc u cant conceptualize a femme who does#wanna be hypetfeminine. im sick of it. im sick of it. im sick of it.#celebrity bun
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pokeberry5 · 4 months ago
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maybe more stephtim for the sketch prompts if u feel inclined? your last art of them blessed me haha <3
this has probs be done before but:
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with bonus ariana bc i have a lot of feelings about her. the good boy ml to steph's bad boy in our quintessential shoujo love triangle. except i dont believe in love triangles <3
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i really like the thought of ari being unfortunately weak for the hero type who can't therefore treat her like she deserves and steph being into goody-two shoes with a (badly hidden) rebellious streak
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dovewingkinnie · 3 months ago
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u know what its so lonely making ocs . and not being part of a fandom too bc nothing interests you but your own ocs . like who do u talk to about them- like someone who is just as invested as you are . WHO DO U TALK TO THERE IS NOBODY im tired of people complaining that their fandom has 5 people... AT LEAST U HAVE THOSE 5 PEOPLE!!! ur gonna have to get lucky somehow and create a fandom urself for your ocs!! cause if u dont then You Are The Fandom!! you are the one carrying it!!!!! yea sure theres no drama or discourse But its lonely as fuck bro!!
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bixels · 1 year ago
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Hi great overwatch rant. Now I'm curious, what are your thoughts on TF2?
It's the Minecraft of sex.
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drenched-in-sunlight · 1 month ago
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"Marika becomes the sum of all the Fromsoft girlies" is nice but you forgot Nashandra who actually has parallels with Marika! Recommending to check it out, she's cool!
let’s get this out of the way now… I love DS2, I think the vibe and gameplay is immaculate and I’ll defend it as a whimsical and enjoyable videogame experience till the end of time.
But my god, I hate how they handle female characters in that one 💀
In fact, I don’t like how they handle female characters in DS franchise in general. It got a bit better in Bloodborne and Sekiro and especially AC6, but overall ever since I started playing Fromsoft game in 2020, my main gripe with them is they only have 2 tropes to shoehorn their female character into: helpless victim of a system that would mangle and exploit them OR serious sword lady. And if I’m being real, it’s the main gripe I have with Elden Ring base game too?
I didn’t discuss it on tumblr because back then I were still trying to keep this blog art-focused, but when the game came out in 2022, I did express my concern on twitter that I found the female characters cast… strangely lacking. Because I went into the game expecting Ema-level of writing (literally Sekiro’s Ema is one of the best female characters Fromsoft has ever written to this day I could and have talked ppl’s ears off about her. And I’m glad she on her own is very different from Marika. That means they could at least write 2 more types of female characters now the bar is on the floor but I’ll take it and cherish what I have), but it felt like they got reset back to DS franchise with ER base game.
(This has an added layer of me being a girl born, raised and lived in a Sinosphere country that is entrenched in Confucius values just like Japan, so yes I do understand and experience firsthand the underlying culture values that shapes their writing. Hell, I live and study postgraduate in Japan for 2 years too).
But we are going off track, this is about DS2. Now, my problem with DS2 is, see, with 1 or 3, the female characters either have very little agency or no agency at all. And it just…. be like that. The male characters are somewhat the same, so it really doesn’t bother me that much. The cool, unique, not sexualized design is enough. But 2?
2 has a lot of female characters…. who either play no role in the world setting or sinister figures that charm men and bring ruins to kingdoms? What?
(Before anyone says “but Lucatiel—” Lucatiel is the beacon of light in that game, yes, but at the same time her purpose centering around her brother is… also a problem I have with the way they handle Malenia’s story. My Fromsoft experience has lore to it as well jfc)
Like, it’s just ??? to me half of those women have no agency or backstory whatsoever apart from being the Dark’s daughters that would bring doom everywhere they go??? You can say everything wrong in DS2 world is their fault and I actually wouldn’t have much to argue. Actually, it’s interesting you bring up Nashandra because I do think Nashandra has parallel in Elden Ring. But not to Marika.
Nanaya.
That’s who reminds me of Nashandra in Elden Ring. Literally the mysterious, lowkey nefarious lady and her old man husband with questionable dynamic DS2 trope 🧍‍♀️ you can actually see that in their name too.
If I have to pick a character in DS franchise specifically to make parallel to Marika, it’ll always be Gwynevere. Because I honestly think it’s amazing they took a character that has the least amount of agency they’ve ever created, and turned the core concept of her (warmth, healing spells, sunlight, mother, daughter, queen, faith) into another character with actual good writing.
That’s why I didn’t include Nashandra in my previous post. Not because I don’t know about her. It’s because I know.
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danrifics · 7 months ago
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b̴͓̠̙̿̐̍̋a̸͖̭̍d̸̢̙͙́̅ ̵͓͕̄̍̀ṱ̷̛h̶̥̤̳́̇̂͠î̶͓͚̮̣͗̾ǹ̷̗͖g̶̨͚͙̟͛͆̑͝s̵̞̞̯͔̎̏
Song: Bad Things by I Prevail
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sophsun1 · 2 months ago
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Brian Kinney + Jeep
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mxtxfanatic · 3 months ago
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I don't remember where I have read this before, maybe it's in the tags of a post or something but someone once said something about Wei Wuxian fans being blinded by their "protagonist-colored glasses" and the context was them basically complaining that Wei Wuxian is overrated within the fandom and that X/Y/Z deserved better. That moment was just so wild to me honestly 😭 What even are "protagonist-colored glasses"? Were they saying that Wei Wuxian fans are deluding themselves into liking him? Weird.
Idk, people wanting to legitimize their hatred of a character through the text while using anything but the text as evidence to support their weird hatred will never not be corny and weirdo behavior. You hate that people love Wei Wuxian, the protagonist of the book about Wei Wuxian? The protagonist that is charming and funny and smart and strong and loves children and always sticks up for everyone wholeheartedly and is gay? You hate that people love that Wei Wuxian? Then go read a novel where the protagonist is a shithead, idk, I just know that you won’t find it from mxtx.
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rottmnt-residuum · 1 year ago
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Any other LGBTQ+ Headcannons that are canon is the comic??;)
*patiently awaits Cupioromantic Donnie*
hmm... had to think about this for a while and talk about it with co-author, but here's what we got. we mostly base this stuff on how plausible it is in show/if there's evidence for it. with a dash of personal experience. This only applies to residuum, btw. I have different personal headcanons for these characters outside the comic.
april: lesbian. this is mostly based off of the fact that most aprils get with their caseys & the comment she said to dale. which could be taken as disinterest in dale specifically, but she seemed more concerned with impressing that popular girl earlier and that reads as more... saphic, i suppose. or at the very least homoromantic.
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raph: raph is just raph. we look at him and basically just *tv static*. go crazy. all we got is jokes or stuff that has too little evidence to support. so, yeah, he's whatever you want him to be i guess?
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leo: trans. already said my reason in the other post. also, gay. if gay were a power source he could power the entirety of the united states for five months straight without a single power outage. failing power grid notwithstanding (< thats the actual word. its supposed to be mushed together like that. wack.).
donnie: as much as i'd like him to be ace/aro spectrum rep, he just doesn't have the evidence in show for us to apply it to him in this comic. it's funny, for being hc as ace so often he sure is the most outwardly romantic/sexual turtle in the show lmao. one! cherry: "you're so cute, but you're so mean! why do i always go for your type?" two! astrogirl?? (whatever her name is) he is very very romantic with her. he has a type y'all. also just look at those two, he's a leg man lmao (bootyyshaker9000 anyone? ha!) anyway. and with the bromance/instant chemistry he had with that one guy in the purple dragons... Pan. or possibly Omni as he does seem to favor... cute brutal femme... Yeah. Omnisexual.
(you have no idea how fucking bad i want this boy to be ace spectrum. hes got the colors y'all!! The Colors!!!!! but alas... i am bound by my canon plausibility creed for this comic)
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mikey: ace. possibly ace/aro. he shows interest in literally no-one. we're aware that the common hc is pan but... we know a pan 13 year old, and let me tell you ahahahaha, kids going through puberty are very uncomfortable to be around sometimes, especially around their partners. or crushes. and mikey... well, that boy is ace behavior personified lmao. aces in the back you get what we mean right?? right??? anyway commiting to aroace
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#residual asks#rottmnt#i really get a kick out of he/him butch lesbian raph and ghostbear-sexual raph#but i'd never use those seriously. or at least in this comic#co-author says what they get if they really had to choose for raph is ace homoromantic#but otherwise...#he's just raph#like we can't apply any identity to him. and we really mean ANY identity. not even straight or umbrella terms like queer#its a very odd feeling#i also really like trans april but we don't have enough evidence for it#in fact there's actually counter evidence- but don't let that stop your dreams y'all. it just stops ours :P#sorry for stepping on your donnie dreams anon#but honestly i think that label applies more to 2012 donnie imo#i really do personally prefer ace/aro donnie. but i'd make everyone ace if i were able lmao#co-author would also do the same thing ahaah#i just don't like depicting romantic relationships. or attraction ahahaah#with mikey... we get why people hc him as pan... but like its a fandomism stereotype#that literally every fandom applies to optimistic friendly characters. and honestly i really don't like the fandomism stereotypes#i just find them... unenjoyable i guess#cuz like y'alll... your sexuality isn't inherently determined by your personality or vise versa#cuz like i know for sure that in fandom spaces- if i were a character- i'd be stereotyped as pan or a hypersexual cis het#to which i am neither. at all.#and co-author would be stereotyped as the demure femme book lesbian#which they are VERY much not#and i know this because i've been fandomified by people in my life more than once#it is a very uncomfortable experience y'all#whoops rant in the tags#residuum#rottmnt residuum#residuum wb
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hungharrington · 2 years ago
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something about teasing steve in public to the point where he's just flustered and so whiny and can barely keep a conversation... aaah
MMMM ANON U ARE SPEAKING MY LANGUAGE 
it won’t even be your fault in the beginning, he’s just a little more keyed up than usual - a steamy dream of your lips stretched around his cock that felt a little too real, had him squirming in his sleep— and worse is, he slept later than usual because of it so he hadn’t even been able to get out of his system before heading to work :( so yeah, his hormones might be flowing a little easier today but steve is fine! he’s fairly confident that the boring lull of his solo shift is precisely the boner killer he needs. 
except, of course, you decide to visit him— because you’re so nice to your boyfriend! and somehow, it’s like you manage to look actually mouth-watering today, like steve does a double take when the chime of the door goes off, head looking up twice and it’s like a visceral reaction, a pulse of heat that runs through his body. steve out right groans a little bit, covers his face with his hands for a moment and then runs them through his hair. you’re frowning a bit because what kind of welcome is that? and steve’s like “no no! not like that!” but fuck, wait those shorts you’re wearing are quite short— showing off your thighs sinfully and steve actually can’t control how he eyes you up and down unashamedly, tongue darting out to wet his lips — you clock the horny in him in a second
“my my, what’s got you in a such a mood today?” you ask, an elbow meeting the front counter as you lean on it, but you might as well be purring the words to steve- the way you just read him in an instant does not help all of the morning’s unforgotten feelings from crawling back into his body— steve groans aloud again when he feels his dick twitch in interest in his pants. 
“don’t,” he warns, jabbing a finger in your direction as his other hand as subtlety as he can readjusts his pants, “i was already nearly late to work because of you!” that makes you frown a bit in confusion, moving to round the counter to properly greet him since it’s so quiet in store- you plunk down a bag containing some lunch of him that you’d brought with you. steve arms are waiting and twine around your waist as your sling over his shoulders and round his neck, a sweet embrace with his back to the door. you smirk up at him just a bit, “late because of me? and how did i manage that all the way from my own home?” 
steve glances at the front door, dutiful in checking there’s no one coming, but even so his voice drops a bit quieter when he says, “you… i had a dream about you.” his face manages to get a little warmer, given away by the colour in his cheeks, and if you weren’t clued in before you definitely are now. steve’s funny about dreams, even though you assure him you’re quite flattered he searches for you even in his subconscious— but he always admits them a bit shyly, like you might react badly.
“a dream?” you echo, slithering your hands from around his neck down his chest purposefully — and steve shivers at the motion. before he gets a moment to tell you knock it off, you’re speaking first, hands travelling to trace over his tummy, “what sorta dream?” you ask, even though you know. steve glares at you because he knows it too. he glances out the front window again and speaks in a hushed voice when he turns back, “y’know,” he says, face somehow growing redder. “like a… a sexy dream,” 
and that makes you laugh a little bit, because how can he be so good at dirty talk in bed and still call it ‘a sexy dream’ like a 13 year old? you’ll never know. all you do know is that you’ve decided mischief is what you’re after today, hands slipping under his polo to scratch lightly along his v line — and it’s enough to make steve’s breath stutter. “what are you—?” he asks, his hands around your waist beginning to move, like he might seize your torturous hands. “what happened in the dream?” you ask instead, cutting him off. you pair your question with a hand that runs down his front, not at all subtle with the way you brush against his cock. it shoots a thrill through you to feel he’s already half hard in his pants- your hand ends up atop his thigh, fingers rubbing the sensitive inner part of it as you ask him again, before he can catch up, “what got you so worked up, stevie?” steve’s eyes scrunch closed, whether from the memory of the dream or your inching higher hand— the other stays on his tummy, thumbing light circles on his happy trail. 
“you-“ he starts, cutting himself off with another little shiver. one hand leaves your waist like he’s going to grab your own but you’re already trailing further up, beginning just lightly palming him through his jeans - and his hand just hovers instead, clenching into a fist. his gaze has moved to watch your hand work him intently “fuck, wait,” he says, breath a little heavier than before. “you— you were,” he’s scarlet in the face by this point, words getting a little weaker. you properly rub him, curling your fingers around what you can feel and giving it a good squeeze and steve audibly swears, some pathetic noise escaping his throat before he can stop it. 
“you gotta stop,” he manages to exhale through a jagged breath, even though his hands stay exactly as they are, flexing through his pent up hormones. “it’s— someone could…” he trails off breathily as you dip your thumb beneath his waist line as you give another delicious rub along his cock, enough that another strangled pitiful noise comes from steve’s mouth, along with a whisper of your name. you can’t tell if it’s lucky for him or not that nobody has come into the store in the time you’ve been toying with him. you pout exaggeratingly, “but you didn’t even tell me what happened in the dream?” 
you choose that exact moment to retract your hands, pulling back just a bit and standing on your tiptoes to press a kiss to his scorching cheek. steve’s blinking, confused by the whiplash of suddenly having so much touch turn to none but you’re already rounding the corner— “you’ll have to tell me later, i guess! enjoy lunch, baby” and he’s like stammering, turning in time as you approach the door and barely get out his own goodbye before you’re gone, the bell chiming as you go. steve huffs, taking one glance at his pants and resigning himself to spending the next hour pressed against the counter and not moving at all. “little minx,” he curses, tugging his collar away from his neck to try cool off even just a bit. he swears that is the longest shift he’s ever worked - but can’t even be too mad about what you did, considering you were well & truly waiting for him when he came home, ready to bring his dream to life 
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starker-sorbet · 9 months ago
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Tony was used to how humans reacted around him when he displayed what he was. Despite the fact supernatural creatures had lived alongside humans for centuries now instinct just couldn't be helped when it came vampires. They were predators after all. The thing is even though he's really young for a vampire (he hasn't even stopped aging yet) Tony had figured out all the reactions he would usually get. Humans were consistent creatures after all. Which is why his new roommate's reactions were so confusing. He never tried to make excuses to not be around Tony when ever he had to fed. Hell he often seemed to deliberately try and stay in their room whenever Tony went to get a blood bag from his fridge. Peter was just a conundrum to Tony. Peter's heart rate went up whenever he showed his vampiric nature, like any humans, but what else goes on with him just doesn't make sense to Tony. Pete seemed to blush at the merest hint of fang and bit his lip whenever Tony needed to use his vampiric strength. If he didn't know better he'd swear that Peter was getting aroused by him. But that wasn't right humans couldn't get over vampire being their predators. Couldn't they?
Modern fantasy au with vampire!Tony used to scaring humans meeting human peter who's attracted to him for anon
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compacflt · 1 year ago
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For the requests/open inbox, this may not be the lane you're looking for, but you made a throw a way mention in a response to the ask about Ice's enforcement of DADT that Bradley and Ice probably got into it at one point about Ice being totally okay with DADT as a policy (which I love your read on Ice being like, 'yeah, nobody should ask and nobody should tell. what's the problem here?') I would love to see that argument go down. Or honestly, just any Ice and Bradley interaction after the reconciliation that suits your fancy. I find that dynamic in your world super interesting. Bradley sees him as a father, Ice sees him as the person whose father I killed. I love the drama.
Five times Ice was so obviously Rooster’s dad + one time he explicitly wasn’t.
[Carole. 1994.]
He’s such a nervous man. Usually that’s not the word people associate with him. Nervous? Never! But he is. Carole Bradshaw’s more a religious woman than a spiritual one. She’s never put any stock into “chockras” or “ouras” or whatever the other girls her age were fooling around with in the late sixties and early seventies. But she does believe that you can understand a person just by looking at him or her, and when she looks at Tom Kazansky, she sees a little anxious creature, shivering in the cold, like one of those tiny spindly dogs who always needs a sweater. Maybe it’s her southern maternal instincts, something primal and animalistic inside her, I need to take care of you—and when he nudges her with a nervous shivering shoulder and whispers, “Can I bum a smoke?” —she reaches down to take his hand and says, “I only have one left. We’ll have to share.”
She knows she makes him nervous. His ears are red, and so’s the back of his neck. It’s early on a Saturday morning, and the church is crowded, and he’s self-conscious about the fact that she’s holding his hand. Good. It’s so rare she gets to make a man nervous anymore. She waves to Bradley, proud in his little striped button-down and his little blue bow-tie, where he’s lined-up with all the other aspiring pianists against the stage along the far wall, under the bare postmodern crucifix. The recital isn’t going to start for another five, ten minutes, and it’s organized by age, so Bradley’s somewhere in the middle. If Tom Kazansky needs a smoke, Carole Bradshaw will bum him a smoke.
They exit out the side door, and the low murmuring of the other proud parents in the church fades to the quiet of the alley. Birds chirping nearby. The sound of a latecoming car on gravel somewhere far away. Her cigarette and the flick of his lighter, her eyes on his mouth and his puff of smoke—it’s lit. He takes a drag, closes his eyes, then passes it to her. “Sorry to make you share,” she says, and she’s watching the red flush creep up the side of his throat with a silent pleasure. When she takes her own pull, she looks down to see that the filter’s gone the sweet red-pink of her old lipstick. Kind of like a kiss, sharing a cigarette.
“That’s okay,” he says. Nervous spindly little dog. “Uh, what’s he playing?”
“Beethoven. ‘Für Elise.’” Then, before he can think to judge, she goes on quickly: “It’s more complicated than you’d think. Goes up and down and all over the place.”
“It’s a good song,” Tom Kazansky says, “though I don’t know too much about piano.” He pauses. “I’m learning a little German, though. I think it’s E-leez-ah. She must’ve been an alright girl if Beethoven wrote a song for her.”
Carole Bradshaw doesn’t know what to say to that. So she says this instead: “Thank you for coming. It made Bradley—well, over the moon, I guess.”
Tom Kazansky smiles shyly. “Sorry Maverick couldn’t come. I know he wanted to.”
Of course he brings up Pete Mitchell. Drags her back into reality. “He’s in Washington again, isn’t he?”
“Correct.” He reaches out for the cigarette; she gives it to him. “TOPGUN’s biggest advocate. I keep telling him he should go into politics. I just talked to him yesterday—he told me he went to the Natural History Smithsonian on Wednesday—he bought Bradley a dinosaur picture book, I think. Does Bradley like dinosaurs?”
Carole Bradshaw shrugs. What nine-year-old boy doesn’t like dinosaurs, but… “He’s more into sea life these days. Whales, sharks, fish.”
“Some fish used to be dinosaurs, they think,” says Tom Kazansky, clearly just trying to fill the silence. Ears red, lips red. Smoke out of his mouth like a fire-breathing dragon.
Carole Bradshaw doesn’t know how much dinosaur history she actually believes. So she says, “It’s still really nice of you to come. You know, Bradley—Bradley thinks of you and Maverick as his—well, his fathers, I s’pose. So it’s nice for you to be here.”
She watches his reaction—just nervousness. Straight anxiety. He doesn’t meet her eyes, like she’s just kicked him in the ribs. He does not want to be Bradley’s father. 
She says, “You don’t have to sign any papers, Tom. You don’t have to put a kid seat in your car. I’m just saying. Don’t worry about it.”
He says, “I can hear the kids starting inside—we should probably go back in.”
So Carole Bradshaw drops the cigarette butt to the ground and steps on it with the bottom of her flat. They go inside, and wait for a kindergartener to finish an overly simple “Canon in D” to take their seats again. She takes his hand. He lets her. After another half-hour, Bradley sits down on the bench in front of the hand-me-down Steinway and busts out “Für Elise” without a single missed note. It still shocks her, sometimes, to watch him play—it still shocks her, sometimes, that she is the mother of all that talent. And now maybe Tom Kazansky is the father of all that talent. How did that happen?
At the end of the recital, Tom Kazansky lets go of her hand. She knew he would. Knew his fatherhood is only temporary. But he lets go of her hand to accept Bradley’s great-big hug in the parking lot: “Gosling, that was so good.” Bradley’s proud smile is missing a few teeth. It makes Tom Kazansky laugh.
And after he drops them off at home, and peels away with a wave and a smile, Carole Bradshaw lights another cigarette from the half-full pack she’d brought with her to the recital and brings Bradley out to the backyard so he can play and she can watch him. But before she lets him go, she looks down at him and says flatly, “If kids at school ask you about Uncle Tom and Uncle Pete—you need to tell them they’re just friends.”
And in his eyes, she can see the confusion of a little boy who hadn’t been aware that Tom Kazansky and Pete Mitchell were anything other than just friends—the confusion of a little boy learning about duplicity for the first time in his life. 
“Okay,” he says, so she lets him go.
[Maverick. 1998.]
“Don’t go easy on him,” Maverick hollers breathlessly over his shoulder, fishing around in the ice chest in the sand for two cans of Coors; “He just joined the J.R.O.T.C.; don’t go easy on him; he’s tougher than all your squadrons combined; beat him into the dirt…”
“Thanks, Uncle Mav,” shouts Bradley from across the volleyball court, where he’s getting initiated into one of the volleyball teams of younger fighter pilots. 
Maverick flashes him a thumbs-up and finds his T-shirt on the first bleacher bench, pulls it on with one hand, and then hops up the rest of the benches to sit with Ice, who’s got his CVN-65 ballcap on and a book open in his lap and is offering informal career advice to one of the other lieutenants: “Yeah, so, in my opinion, it’s all down to what you think you can stomach… If you want me to look over your C.V., I can totally do that—I think I’m free Monday at around thirteen-hundred, if you want to stop in to talk. Not a problem. Not a problem. Alright. See you later.” He watches the lieutenant go, then lolls his head over to look at Maverick, who’s tossing an ice-cold can of Coors up and down. “Hey. Good game. —Coors, Mav? This is an insult.” But he takes the offered can anyway, looking out onto the court, where Bradley—fourteen and just entering his beanpole phase of evolution—is currently spiking the ball. “Cool.” It’s a nice summer Saturday, a casual opportunity for the officers of Miramar to socialize with their families (Ice is wearing a golf shirt and jeans), and by now pretty much everyone knows that Maverick Mitchell’s raising his friend’s kid and that he and Captain Kazansky are good friends, so this is pretty nice. Not much to hide.
“C’mon,” Maverick says, popping open his own can, “you and I were having a scintillating conversation, a few minutes ago.” He’s hunting around for the sunscreen so the tops of his feet don’t burn to ashes in the sun.
“Scintillating. That’s a big word for you. Wow.”
“You’re rubbing off on me, Sir Reads-a-lot—”
“See, that’s funny,” Ice interjects, “because I seem to recall, before you so-rudely interrupted me to go play volleyball with the kids, I was telling you that it’s really not that interesting. It’s actually, Maverick, quite boring.”
“Well, I’m intrigued now. Go on. Finish it off, I wanna know.”
Ice slaps his book shut and gives the long tired sigh of a man who is very self-conscious about the fact that he’s about to turn forty. He pops the tab on his can of Coors and huffs in exasperation when it foams all over his hand. “I mean it, my family history’s really not that interesting. Typical eastern-European immigrant shitshow. U.S. officials change one letter in our last name and everyone loses their goddamn minds… Actually, that story might be apocryphal, I keep forgetting which former Soviet Socialist Republic I’m actually from, I just can’t remember, all the borders got redrawn so many times, one of ‘em…”
Maverick smiles and pulls his TOPGUN ballcap back down onto his head, tugs the brim down low over his eyes so he can tip his head back and not go blind from the summer sunshine. He’d thought Ice would be reluctant to share his family history, but it turns out that most people are just afraid to ask him, and he’s actually pretty eager to talk, if you just ask. Maybe over-eager. He’s rambling. Maverick cuts him off: “Yeah, you do have a left curve to you, don’t you. Genetic.”
The dirty joke strikes Ice dumb for a second, but then he forges ahead, wisely choosing not to engage. He keeps going, oblivious to the fact that Maverick’s not really listening… “Anyway, my grandfather was Jewish, but he died literally the second he stepped foot in America, so it doesn’t count…my grandmother was Orthodox, crazy story how they ended up together; actually, that story’s probably apocryphal, too…she’s the one who raised me, pretty much. I told you that. She brought my dad out to Southern California when he was a little kid, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed, So-Cal’s not exactly the Mecca of Orthodox churches or anything, so he wasn’t very religious at all… My mom was from Milwaukee, I think. Or maybe Minneappolis. Some kinda Protestant. Forget which kind. The preachy kind. But then she died and I didn’t have to go to church anymore, so I didn’t.”
“You just never believed?” Maverick mumbles, half-joking.
“Nah. I mean, I always had too many questions no one wanted to answer. For instance: okay, say you’re bad. Say you commit sin…”
“I’ve never sinned, sir. You’re talking hypothetically.”
“Right. Me, neither. Hypothetically speaking. So you go to Hell. Well, the devil’s there, too, ‘cause he’s a sinner, too. But why’s he want to punish you? What does he get out of it? You’re both in the same boat!”
“Probably a sexual thing,” says Maverick, watching the purple-green imprints of the sun dance around behind his eyelids. “He probably gets off on it. The devil, I mean.”
Ice laughs and laughs. “Sure. Try saying that in front of my mom and see if you survived. I learned pretty early on that they don’t want you to be too curious. So I kept all my questions to myself.” He’s also joking, not taking this super seriously, but that’s a pretty in-character answer. “What about you, Mav?”
“If I’ve told you my family’s history once, I’ve told you a thousand times…” That’s a joke. Maverick’s the one who doesn’t like talking about his family history. Ice hasn’t heard any of it, and for good reason. Maybe someday he’ll tell him about it. “Later. But, remember, I used to be Southern Baptist? Jesus, I was serious into that shit, Ice.”
Ice snorts. “Yeah, right. You.”
“Not joking. I had about eighty girlfriends between fourteen and eighteen, but that’s the most pious I’ve ever been. Lotsa loopholes to make my relationships biblical. Was thinking about being a youth pastor. —I’m not joking. It was my whole personality, for a while. Most of my childhood, anyway.”
Ice is still laughing in disbelief. “Oh, yeah? And then what happened?”
Maverick smiles. “…Got hooked on sinning.” 
“…Yeah,” Ice replies, and Maverick can hear the nervous smirk in his voice, “I guess I’d know a little something about that.”
And normally that would be the end of the conversation. But Maverick’s feeling a little sun-drunk, a little giddy, and he’ll never, ever, ever grow out of instigating stupid arguments with Ice just for the fun of it. From beneath the brim of his ballcap he mutters, “…You think Carole’s brainwashing her kid?”
Ice huffs a laugh, and says through a lazy yawn, “I’m not militant in my atheism, no.” But he, also, will never, ever, ever grow out of instigating stupid arguments with Maverick just for the fun of it, and his curiosity’s clearly been piqued. He stews in it for a second before he snaps, “Do you think Carole’s brainwashing her kid?”
“I’m just saying she has him readin’ outta the Bible, like, five times a day. She sends him to church camp. Does something to a kid.” He has no dog in this fight, but this is fun.
“And what did it do to you?” Ice says, reaching down to shove his shoulder good-naturedly. “Weren’t you just telling me not five seconds ago how you used to be the perfect model of Christian charity?” Maverick mumbles a retort sleepily; Ice pushes on through it: “Bradley’s a human being. Either he grows out of it like you did, or he doesn’t, in which case, whatever, land of the free. That’s the First Amendment. You swore an oath to the Constitution. Maybe you should read it.”
“I’ve read it. I’m not Congress, shithead. How’s it go, you want me to cite it to you directly, ‘Congress shall make no law…’ actually, I don’t know what comes after that. Got me there.”
“Don’t call me shithead, dipshit. And whatever. Good thing he’s Carole’s kid and not yours, then. He’s got a mom who wants him to go to church. It’s up to him if he wants to listen to her or not. That’s growing up.”
Maverick tips up the brim of his ballcap to look at him, sprawled out in the bleachers very unprofessionally for the CO of this entire volleyball court, and snaps back, “Well, he’s a little bit my kid. The same way he’s a little bit your kid.” 
Ice just flicks his sunglasses down onto his nose and purses his lips and neither confirms nor denies this allegation. 
They watch the game together for a while, Ice’s toes pressed against Maverick’s lower back discreetly, trying to work their way under Maverick’s T-shirt. Until one of the young pilots approaches a few minutes later: “Sir!” / “What’s that kid’s call sign again?” Ice mumbles to Maverick, prodding him with his foot. / “Hooker.” / “No shit.” / “Sir!” says Hooker again. / “Which one of us, kid?” says Maverick. / “Captain Kazansky, sir. We’ve got a spot opening up. Wanna play?”
Maverick looks up at Ice expectantly. Ice sighs and harrumphs and waffles for a minute— “I’m too old for this shit.”
“Sir,” says Maverick, “it’s not a competition, but if it were, I’d be winning.” 
Lighting the fire of competition under Ice like that is always a good strategy. He rolls his eyes, but immediately stands and tugs off his shirt and rolls up the cuffs of his jeans; “I’ll only play if I can play with the kid.” 
So Maverick watches the teams get scrambled again with a smile, and sits up to watch Ice join Bradley in the sand. Bradley’s only just now taller than Ice, and Ice clearly isn’t used to having to reach up to curl an arm around his shoulders to strategize, his eyes narrowed like an eagle’s, staring down the competition. Maverick can read his lips from across the pitch: Alright, kid, I’ve been watching for a while, and I think I know these guys’ strengths and weaknesses…okay, here’s what we’re gonna do… And the game begins when Bradley spikes the ball.
Ice won’t always be this fun, this down-to-earth, this human. The admiralty and the guilt and the grief of the years to come will strip it all away from him, bring him back to the cold, remove him from his own humanity. And maybe, even if it isn’t conscious, Maverick can recognize that, right now, watching Ice dive into the sand with a laugh: this summer sunshine is only temporary. It’s gonna have to end at some point. So he doesn’t take it for granted. He keeps his eyes open and watches and tries to commit it to memory.
And after the game, Ice and Bradley come over so Ice can finish his beer and put his shirt and his baseball cap back on, and Maverick can make fun of them for losing. And: “What were you guys talking about for so long before the game?” Bradley asks Maverick with a grin.
“Whether or not your mom’s brainwashing you,” Maverick says.
“Oh!” Bradley says mildly. “…No, I don’t think so!”
“Oh, that’s a great start,” Ice laughs. “You would’ve made a great Soviet. No, I don’t think I’m getting brainwashed. Hey, by the way, Gosling, if you want a beer, Maverick and I won’t tell anyone.”
“Aw, really?” whispers Bradley. “Thanks, Uncle Ice!” And he races down the bleachers towards the ice chest in the sand.
Maverick watches Ice watch him go, fingers still pinching the brim of his CVN-65 ballcap, clearly worrying about something the way Ice always is. 
Then he looks down at Maverick, stares openly for a minute, and says, “You don’t think we’re teaching him to rebel too much, do you?”
[Bradley. 2000.]
“Kiddo! You’re here early!” It was Uncle Ice, walking through his own front door, catching a glimpse of Bradley watching the Astros-Nats game on the TV. He was still in uniform, but smiling wide, and he set his bag down near the couch and leaned over to ruffle Bradley’s hair goodnaturedly.
“Practice ended early today.”
“Oh, okay. Cool. Maverick should be home soon, still at work—your mom’ll be here in about an hour—she told me to put the chicken breasts in the oven, but you know me, every time I use this oven I set off the fire alarm, so you oughta help me with that…”
“And,” Bradley said, watching Uncle Ice wash his hands in the kitchen sink, “I got here early because I wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh, sure!” chirped Uncle Ice. Then he paused, sensing a trap. “What about?”
“Advice,” Bradley mumbled. He took a deep breath, and stood to follow Uncle Ice into the kitchen “I was just—I was just curious. If you had any advice for me joining the Navy. You know, with me being gay, and all. How do I—I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It’s kinda been weighing on me. Do you have any advice?”
Uncle Ice was still drying his hands off on a kitchen towel. Rubbing them red and raw. And when he raised his head to speak, there was something dull and startled in his eyes: “I don’t, um—no, I don’t—I don’t know anything about that. —You should ask Uncle Maverick about that.”
“I did,” Bradley said desperately, because he had. Yes, he’d gone to Uncle Mav first. “He—he told me to talk to you.”
“…Oh,” said Uncle Ice, now standing in front of a shelf to return one of his books to it. This surprised him. Maybe hurt him a little. “No. I—I, I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“But—”
“And there are probably better people to ask than me or Maverick. I—I don’t know—that’s not really my…I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
Uncle Ice swallowed, put the book back on the shelf, then clasped his hands together and set them on the shelf, too, as if leaning over his captain’s desk to chastise someone. He blinked for a long moment. Clearly shifting gears. Becoming someone else so easily. Why couldn’t Bradley do that? “But I can tell you this,” he said, and his voice had gone grave and dim, “and I know you and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on politics—but I can tell you this, professionally, because I respect you, and I care about you, a lot—you’re going to have to keep it a secret.”
Dismayed, Bradley said, “Why?”
“Why’s a funny question to ask about something like this,” said Uncle Ice curtly. He shrugged. “Why? Because it’s the law. That’s why.”
Bradley swung his bat at the hornets’ nest. This was always dangerous with Uncle Ice. “It shouldn’t be a law. Don’t you think?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think. It’s the law. And we get paid to enforce the law, internationally speaking. And the military doesn’t work if personnel refuse to follow the rules in broad daylight. So.” He trailed his fingertip along the spines of all his precious books, then eventually found a different one, started flipping through it absentmindedly. “And even if it weren’t the law, it’d still get enforced extrajudicially. You know what that means?” He did that, when he was intentionally being cruel; used big words that Bradley didn’t know to make himself sound smarter. “It means outside the law. The way people talk to you. The way people respect you or don’t respect you. And this business, the one you want to go into, is all about respect. Being a pilot is kind of like being a knight: you have to be noble, you have to be honorable, you have to respect your service and your adversaries and yourself. And because I respect you, and because I care about you a lot, I’m just telling you the truth—you’re going to have to keep it a secret.”
Bradley blinked. There was something crushing and overwhelming about the truth—maybe the fact that it was the truth, maybe the fact that he hated the fact that it was the truth. It made sense. But it also meant his future was unspeakably bleak. He tried to speak over the lump in his throat when he said, “Yeah. That’s what Maverick told me, too.” And what he’d wanted to hear from Uncle Ice was that Uncle Mav was telling a lie. 
Something went soft and slightly wounded in Uncle Ice’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” Uncle Ice said gently. “I wish I could give you better advice than that. But that’s all I know. I don’t know any more than that.”
“Don’t you want to know more than that?”
“No.”
And thus did the generational gap widen into a chasm. 
[February 2003.]
Dear SN Bradshaw, / Please call/email/write me back when you get a chance. / Love Uncle Iceman.
[August 2003.]
Dear AN Bradshaw, / I hope you’re doing all right. I hope at some point you and I can get in touch to talk. Please let me know if there is some other address I should be sending my letters to. I am not sure if they are finding you. / Love Uncle Iceman.
[May 2004.]
Dear AN Bradshaw, / I wanted to congratulate you on your acceptance to college. Yours is a very good AE program & you should feel very proud. Please let me know if there’s anything you might need as you prepare to start your first year. / Love Uncle Iceman.
[August 2010.]
Dear LT Bradshaw, / I wanted to let you know that I’ll be at NAS Oceana for a conference from December 6-9. I understand that’s your neck of the woods—would you be interested in having dinner with me on either that Tuesday or Wednesday night? I would love to hear how you’ve been doing. You can reach my secretary at the number below. / Love Uncle Iceman.
[October 2014.]
Dear LT Bradshaw, / We Maverick and I want to wish you a Happy Birthday 30th Birthday. We heard you are deployed out in the Atlantic now—we hope you will be able to enjoy the enclosed gift card when you make it back to terra firma. Our updated personal cell numbers are below. / HAPPY BIRTHDAY! FROM UNCLE MAVERICK & Uncle Iceman.
“Haven’t heard back from the kid yet.”
“…You think we ever will?”
The longest silence.
[Pacific Air Type Commander Beau Simpson. 2016.]
You could see it in the way they held themselves. An utmost similarity. Aristocratic propriety. Maybe a little sense of entitlement: look how hard we’ve worked to be here. All three of them had it. More accurately: Captain Mitchell and Admiral Kazansky both had it, and had passed it down to their son.
“Captain Mitchell.” Everyone was watching. The sun had only just set; the sky was melting from horizon-red through orange and yellow and teal up to midnight black above them.
“It’s an honor, sir,” said Captain Mitchell, accepting Admiral Kazansky’s handshake. God, you’d never know it by looking at them. Half the people here on this Roosevelt flight deck knew about them, but they were so convincing that more people weren’t sure. TYCOM Simpson glanced at Rear Admiral Bates, who glanced back in confusion—I thought they were…? They were, TYCOM Simpson signaled, just abnormally good at keeping it a secret.
“Honor’s all mine, Captain,” said Admiral Kazansky, and he passed by without a second glance.
And when he made it down the line of aviators to Lieutenant Bradshaw—you could see it. The similarity in the way they held themselves. Straight and rigid and unyielding. Cold and dismissive beyond belief, even to each other. Admiral Kazansky held out a hand. Lieutenant Bradshaw took it, but refused to make eye contact. Quiet rebellion under the radar: Admiral Kazansky had taught him well. 
TYCOM Simpson glanced at Captain Mitchell, to gauge his reaction. And for once, he and Captain Mitchell were clearly thinking the exact same thing.
Like father, like son.
You could see it in their stubborn determination. How far they were willing to go. How hard they were willing to push. How long they were willing to hold their own hands to the fire, if it meant the familiar painful comfort of staying warm. “Ice-cold, huh?” TYCOM Simpson asked him the next morning, trying to pin down their strategy, trying to secure a guarantee that their family would do what their country asked of them, even if that meant death. Even if that meant the ultimate sacrifice.
“Only when I have to be,” replied Admiral Kazansky, which meant always, and—soon thereafter, he ordered Lieutenant Bradshaw to his death.
But also, Lieutenant Bradshaw went willingly, too.
“Dagger One is hit.”
“Dagger Two is hit.”
Loss is supposed to hit a man in stages. Isn’t that the truth? —Not so for Admiral Kazansky, whom grief obviously swallowed whole in just an instant. He did not break, or bend under its weight. Just stood there staring at the E-2D AWACS screen with wide wounded eyes—not disbelieving eyes. They were gone. Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Bradshaw were gone. He was in no denial whatsoever. He had leapt straight to acceptance.
“Sir,” said TYCOM Simpson hesitantly, and he reached out to touch him—the stars on his shoulder—guide him back to reality—what must it be like, to lose a son?—to willingly forfeit your family?—
But before he could make contact, Admiral Kazansky drew a breath, moved away, and closed his eyes for just a second. Perfectly composed, even with the waters of grief closing over his head, even with three dozen observers in this C2 room all scrutinizing him for his response. Perfectly composed. How did he do it? How could he manage? How was he possibly still this proud?
“Vice Admiral Simpson,” he said calmly, “I relinquish my command to you, until you deem me necessary to return to my post.”
“Sir,” said Rear Admiral Bates, darting panicked, sympathetic eyes to TYCOM Simpson, but it was too late—Admiral Kazansky was already leaving the room. Head held high and steady. 
Some confusing weeks later, after Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Bradshaw returned from the dead, TYCOM Simpson and Rear Admiral Bates would casually debrief the mission together in the lobby bar of the Waldorf-Astoria in Washington, D.C. No hard liquor, just beers. Just barely enough alcohol to give them an excuse to philosophize. “You think pride is a sin or a virtue?” TYCOM Simpson found himself asking, tracing the rim of his gilt-edged Stella Artois glass with a finger, after having recounted the above testimony.
“Neither,” said Rear Admiral Bates. “Gotta be a vice.”
“A vice.”
“Yeah. Good men die because of pride, bad men die because of pride…we send our sons to battle because of pride…wars are fought and won and lost because of pride… every war in human history, when you boil it down, begins when someone says, ‘You’re wrong and I’m right, and I’m proud of my own righteousness, proud enough to kill, proud enough to die, proud enough to send my sons to die…’”
“Oh, okay. That’s the root of all human conflict, then, according to you, Warlock. Okay.”
Rear Admiral Bates smiled and laughed at himself, too. Pride, he mouthed. Then shook his head. “We’re a proud species. It’s our vice.”
TYCOM Simpson was thinking about the two proudest men he knew, Admiral Kazansky and Lieutenant Bradshaw, and wondered what it was, exactly, that had driven a wedge between them, you’re wrong and I’m right and I’m proud enough of my own righteousness to send you to your death/inflict my death upon you… And then he remembered the warnings he’d previously received about Lieutenant Bradshaw and Lieutenant Seresin and their open relationship, and then he remembered Admiral Kazansky coldly shaking Captain Mitchell’s hand… and he wondered if the wedge between them was exactly that: the matter of pride.
[Tom. 2018.]
“Merry Christmas and a happy new year, and all that,” says Pete, raising his glass and reaching over the dining table to clink rims with Tom and then Bradley. “A good year! A really good year! —Sorry your guy couldn’t be here, Rooster. We’ll call him tonight before you go. Tell him we miss him.”
“Where is he again?” Tom asks.
“Washington,” Bradley says with a smile. “Big conference at the Pentagon. I’ll see him next week.”
“You know,” Pete says with a sly grin directed at Tom, “I’ve never actually heard the story of how you two got together.” 
“Oh,” Bradley says, shrugging as he tears open a dinner roll, “not that interesting. Pretty much what you’d expect. Inter-squadron competition-turned-sexual tension. Not exactly within regs, but we did meet each other before D.A.D.T. got repealed, so it wasn’t like we’d’ve ever been within regs, either…” (All the while, Tom’s smirking over the rim of his wine glass at Pete, No, Mav, I’m not gonna tell him I had them reassigned to the same boat…) “We broke up when I got sent to TOPGUN. But we figured it out eventually.”
“Glad you did. Sorry he couldn’t be here.”
Bradley hesitates, then says, “You know what I just realized? I never heard how you two got together…! You’ve never told me that story!”
Tom glances over at Pete, do you want to take this or shall I, and when Pete motions all yours, he sighs and says, “Uh, we don’t really know. We’ve just been telling people nineteen-eighty-six because it’s easy. But in a much more real sense…” He thinks about it, then shrugs. “Whatever. If you really want to know. In nineteen-ninety-three, right after I came back to San Diego to take command at Miramar, he and I had a drunken one-night stand. By accident. Which then turned into twenty-five years of accidental one-night stands. So.”
“Oh, c’mon. You guys bought a house together.”
“Yeah, that,” says Pete, “that was, uh, to facilitate the accidental one-night stands. Make it more convenient for everyone.”
“Cut out the middle-man,” Tom supplies, then shrugs again at the look on Bradley’s face. “That’s our story, kid. It’s not super romantic. We weren’t thinking about it that way. We didn’t know how.”
Pete raises the wine bottle to refill Tom’s glass—though it’s still halfway full—and then raises his eyebrows when he “notices” the bottle’s empty. Changes the subject as he stands: “Okay, what’s everyone feeling? Red, white, what’s next?”
“Red,” Tom says absently. “Anything big, I guess—first cab you see…” But then he thinks about it, and he amends his order before Pete leaves earshot: “Actually—we’ve got that petite sirah we gotta drink—two-thousand-four. Israeli. Might be somewhere in the back, sorry. But now’s a good occasion, I think, to bust it out for the holidays. No reason to save it.”
“Israeli sirah two-thousand-four,” Pete repeats, “okay. I got that.” 
Then he steps outside, leaving Tom and Bradley alone. It’s not awkward—they’ve worked really hard over the last two years to make it not-awkward, after the mission—but human beings are human beings. Prideful, stubborn creatures. There will always be a little guilt between the two of them, and a little blame.
“I have to be honest,” Tom says after a moment, interested in being honest for Bradley’s sake, “sorry we don’t have a better story to give you, about us. It is a little hard to talk about.”
“Why?”
“Well—we don’t know the words we’re supposed to use, for one. It’s your generation who sets the standard for that kind of thing. You young people. We’re a little out-of-date. And…well. I guess we’re just jealous of you. It’s hard to talk about.”
“Jealous?” Bradley repeats quizzically. “Why?”
Tom leans back in his chair and really thinks through what he wants to say. This is one of those impromptu speeches you never really intend to make, but are probably still important to get off your chest. “Maverick and I,” he starts carefully, “will never stop feeling guilty about what we did to you. Ever. You need to know that.” And when Bradley scoffs and huffs and tries to interrupt, he goes on, “Not just pulling your papers from the Academy. It goes back further than that. We will always feel like we deprived you of your father. The merits of that feeling are debatable, sure, but it’s a fact of life. A fact of our lives, anyway. And it’s dictated so much of how we live, and how we’ve lived, over the past thirty years. Part of the reason I came back to Miramar in nineteen-ninety-three was to be with you and your mom. Because I felt I owed you that, in return for what I’d taken.”
“You didn’t kill him,” Bradley says. “Or, at least, I never blamed you for killing him. You or Maverick both. You guys were my dads. You didn’t take anything from me. —Excepting the obvious, the Academy, but that was mostly my mom, I guess, so, whatever.”
“I’m just telling you what our lives have been like since the day I met you. Why we did what we did.”
“Okay. But I still don’t understand why you’re jealous.”
Tom smiles, a little faintly. “Because the other part of the reason I came back to Miramar in nineteen-ninety-three was to be with Maverick,” he says, “and I’m jealous of you because I didn’t recognize that at the time. —Everyone hopes, when they have kids—because, look, I’m not your dad, but you are my kid, really—everyone hopes they can bring their kid into a better world than the one they had when they were a kid, and we did. But no one prepares you for how jealous you get when your kid grows up in a better world than you did. I’m not sure people your age understand how hard it was for us when we were your age.”
“I do.”
“Sure, but I don’t think you do. I—I didn’t…” He sighs. “I never meant to fall in love with Mitchell. He never meant to fall in love with me. There certainly were men in relationships in the Navy back then who could make it work—we weren’t those guys. We looked down on those guys. Most people did. And when you were an officer, your job security and your paycheck relied on your subordinates’ respect for you. If we’d rocked the boat, traded away our respect for our relationship, well, we’d have each other, but we’d be out of a job. And then, if we’d been fired—what did we kill all those people for? For nothing! What a waste of all the lives we took! It wouldn’t have been honorable. Would’ve disrespected the Navy, our careers, the men we killed. So we didn’t talk about our relationship. You know that. Didn’t talk about who we were, or what we were doing, or why, because we were afraid of losing our own honor. Didn’t talk about it until the day you two died and came back from the dead. That’s what it took. Maverick still hates talking about some of that stuff, all the labels, all the words—that’s why I sent him to get a bottle at the back of the fridge, he might be out there a while…”
“Cunning,” Bradley says softly, but leaves the space open after he speaks.
Tom looks away. “Maybe this is getting too deep into the weeds. I’m just trying to tell you what it’s been like for us. Not sure how much of this you want to hear.”
“All of it. —All of it.”
Tom clears his throat. “…Well, Maverick keeps trying to convince me that we never wasted any time. And I know there is some truth to that—we didn’t start out liking each other at all—even if we’d been as brave as people your age are nowadays, even if we’d been open with each other about that kind of stuff, we still probably wouldn’t have ended up together. I mean, we really didn’t like each other. Especially right after your dad died, and especially after you left, in two-thousand-two. So maybe it was better for us in the long run that we didn’t talk about it. But I look back on the thirty years I’ve spent with him, and…it still all feels like a waste to me.” Maybe he really is too deep into the weeds. But he just wants Bradley to understand. “Look, Mitchell is, beyond any possible shadow of a doubt, the love of my life. Always has been and always will be. Right? —I just wish I’d known that at the time. I’m jealous of you because you’re exactly the age I was when I came back to Miramar to be with you and your mom and Maverick, and you’re already married, and you won’t ever have to sacrifice any of your honor for your marriage. You’re one of the most respected men in the Navy.”
“So are you, Ice, and you’re also married to another man.”
“I’ll remind you, though it hurts a little, that I’m almost exactly a quarter-century older than you, and you and I got married within a week of each other. I had to wait for times to change.” He holds Bradley’s gaze for a moment, then finishes the last of his dinner and sets his fork down on his plate. “So, if you were ever wondering why Mav and I are a little bitter around you and Jake, well, it’s because we are.”
“Oh,” says Bradley. “See, I always thought it was just because you and Maverick are both notoriously bitter people.”
“We are,” Tom admits through a laugh. Then he continues, “But—you should also know how proud of you we both are. How proud of you we’ve both always been. We’re not very brave men—well, we are, of course, but maybe not in the way that matters. It’s pretty gratifying to have a kid who’s braver than you are. Every parent’s dream, whether we want to admit it or not. You’re brave enough for all of us.”
It’s at this moment that Pete opens the garage door and sticks his head inside and hollers, “Ice, I can’t find it. What about a merlot? Can we do a merlot?”
“No, baby, the sirah,” Tom answers without turning his head. “It’s on the second shelf, you might—have to rearrange some of the bottles—we have too much wine. We need to drink more, me and you.”
“Not a problem,” says Pete, and he shuts the door again.
“It’s on the third shelf,” Tom tells Bradley in an aside. “He’ll find it eventually. He would’ve tried to change the subject six times by now. —The previous Secretary of the Army—he actually just got married this week, I think; I need to send a card—also gay. He and his partner invited Maverick and me out to dinner the last time we were in D.C. Most uncomfortable I’ve ever seen Mav in my whole life. Asking us questions like, ‘How did you guys get together…?’ ‘Was it easier for you guys because you were in the Navy…?’ ‘When did you…know…?’” When Bradley laughs, Tom does, too. It’s really nice, it turns out, to joke about this stuff with someone who understands. “We just made our answers up out of thin air. I was uncomfortable too, admittedly. That’s what I’m saying. Mav and I never learned the vocabulary to answer questions like that.”
Bradley starts taking their plates to the sink. What a good kid. “You know,” he says from the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder when Tom joins him at the counter, “it’s so funny you bitch that you and Mav don’t have a romantic love story, or whatever. When I was a kid, you and him were literally the pinnacle of romance.”
“Oh, really.”
“Yeah. There’s something romantic about the secret, too. When Jake and I made our relationship official—the first time—I begged him to keep it a secret just for a little while. You know; it was sexy, for a few minutes! Something only he and I knew!”
“And you immediately discovered how awful it is, I’m sure,” Tom says noncommittally. “I’m jealous of you that you learned that lesson young. —Yeah, real romantic. Maverick and I could’ve ended each other’s careers fourteen thousand times over. Real romantic.”
“And trusted each other not to,” Bradley points out—
—which makes Tom reconsider. 
Yeah, okay, maybe it’s a little romantic. The way Grimm’s fairytales, once you wipe away all the blood, are just a little romantic. “I’m of the opinion that the only thing getting old is good for is looking back on your life through rose-colored glasses. Sure. Historical revisionism it is. It was a little romantic.”
“What’s a little romantic?” says Pete, stepping into the kitchen and triumphantly brandishing his 2004 petite sirah; “Have I missed something funny? —It was on the third shelf, by the way. Could’ve told me that before I went and reorganized the whole fridge.”
Tom graciously accepts the half-annoyed kiss to the cheek, and answers, “Nothing you would’ve laughed at, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, one of those conversations,” says Pete, hunting around in the drawer for the corkscrew. “If you were planning on continuing, I can go out and rearrange the wine bottles by region instead of by year—” and scoffs when Tom kisses him back to reassure him, conversation’s over.
“Did you know,” Bradley says, “your husband is now openly calling you the love of his life?”
“Oh, yeah,” says Pete with a smile, popping the cork from the bottleneck, “he tells me that all the time. Nothing new.” Tops up their glasses, then deftly changes the subject: “Oh, gosh. I never asked. This is the big news. How are you and Hangman enjoying SOUTHCOM?”
“Oh, God,” says Bradley, rolling his eyes. “Let me tell you…”
“I think we did good,” Pete says later that night—they’re alone now, so he’s fine talking—as he tugs loose the tucked sheets to clamber into bed, and when Tom moves to turn off the light he adds, “No, you can keep reading.”
Tom sets his book down onto his chest and pulls his glasses off anyway. “Well, you and I are known for doing ‘good,’” he muses after a second. “We’re pretty universally renowned for being good at stuff. But, regarding what in particular? —Raising our kid?”
“Yeah. We did good.”
Actually, they didn’t do very well at all. But of course that’s not what Pete means. Pete means: it’s shocking and stunningly fortunate that they did as poorly as they did and still somehow ended up with such a good kid. Tom’s looking up at the ceiling and feeling very small. “How did that happen? Genuinely, how did that happen? I did always build getting married into my plan for my life—but I never thought far enough ahead to consider having kids. And now you and I have a kid who’s in his thirties. How’d that happen? I remember when he could barely walk!”
Pete yawns and rolls over onto his side and closes his eyes. “You and I have a kid who earned a Medal of Honor.”
“I know exactly how that happened” —and doesn’t like to think about it too much. “I suppose we’re just a family of overachievers. A lot of failing upwards, you and me. Somehow we failed our way upwards into a very happy lifelong relationship, a superstar kid…a few dozen medals each, ourselves…”
“That’s life,” says Pete sleepily.
“That is not most people’s lives. You’re aware that our lives look nothing like the average person’s life, right? You understand that?”
“That’s our life.”
Tom considers this. Yeah, it is their life. Wild how that happens. 
He smiles at the singular word life, sets his book on the nightstand, presses a kiss to Pete’s bare shoulder, and turns off the light.
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bixels · 10 months ago
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idk how off tangent this is but ngl. me as a transfem asian dyke seeing everyone mistake u for butch gives me more self assuredness and hope i can pass. thank you mr bixels for ur lgbtq swag
That makes me feel better.
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