#i need him (in me) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sil-te-plait-tue-moi · 11 months ago

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You're killin' me!

Quick summary: Phantom and Maverick have had their fair share of head-butting – competition, ego and feelings don't mix well, apparently. Finally, however, they seem to reach a peace after a day on the beach.

Word count: 3K (getting into writing these shorter fits woo!)

Warnings: Kind of angsty but also you make out so like is it really that bad; allusions to smut; lots of swear words; yeah, not much for this, it's pretty PG.

A/N: YAYYY, I'm back, sort of but also not really but also ENJOY THIS FIC. Yes, technically it is an extract from an unfinished chapter of the mav x reader Wattpad story I'm halfway through writing (yes, I have a wattpad, it's called nonoitsnina), and maybe (BIIIIG emphasis on MAYBE) I will do a second part where y'all actually fuck and stuff but for now just take this. If anyone's still slinking around the Top Gun stuff, that is. Also, Bee is your RIO here. Just to preface. And Phantom (YOUR CALL-SIGN) shortens to Tommy or Tom from time to time but like if you read the Wattpad book (YES I KNOW I SOUND LIKE A SCARY 14 YEAR OLD) it makes more sense. OKAY ENJOY COMMENTS ARE APPRECIATED HAVE A LOVELY JUBBLY DAY

***

Stupid smiles plastered bright across their faces, Bee and Goose are already dashing down the road, speed-walking like a couple of suburban mothers, one swathed in a beach towel and picnic blanket, the other lopsided with a half-empty cooler grasped in one hand.

I watch them go, brow furrowed, over my shoulder, slightly disconcerted.

“I guess they—” Mav pauses, then huffs, equally as confused, “—really wanted those ice-creams.”

Sure. That’s why they keep glancing back at us and giggling like idiots: ice-creams.

Maverick and I are strolling along the boardwalk back home – despite washing my feet at the tap, there’s still sand between my toes that tickles my skin with every step, but I could care less. He’d asked if I wanted us to take the bus—but I’d said no. Call me a loon (Bee certainly would), but, even after a full day of work—or play—nothing beats sitting outside in the quiet. Except sleep, I guess. But, when I can keep my eyes open, looking out a good view—and, boy, is this watercolour sunset some view—is perfect. After growing up in a city full of dust and cracks, I’ve embraced it: I’m gonna be one of those old ladies in a rocking chair on her porch, day and night, night and day.

Having just finished my own crêpe, I eat Maverick’s. When I ask him if he’s bothered by it, he tells me he’d bought them both for me in the first place.

Sweet. Y’know, I really thought I was a good judge of character. I had to be, to be fair, growing up, pursuing this career – you must always assume the worst until proven otherwise. That’s the safe way, and it’s served me well. Until it had me screaming and yelling at everyone. That’s not—right. It makes me absolutely nauseous.

So, all of these estimated traits, good and bad, have either been tossed or been filtered out.

It boils down to Maverick and his easy grin. He walks along the edge of the sidewalk, just looking at me with that goddamn easy grin. I’ve half a mind to slap him, just to give me a break from his attention. It makes me horribly self-conscious, forces a little thrill on me, like when you’re at the apex of a rollercoaster, just about to tip over. It feels like that, but it also feels like light streaming through a half-blinded window, so the warmth just collects there on the sill so that, when you touch it, you wish you could roll under it like a blanket. Of course, that warmth accumulates. I’m sweating. Like—a—pig.

Jesus, I want to scream into my hands with how good he looks. His dark hair is still slightly damp with seawater, stiff in some places and criminally soft in others. Every now and then, he’ll pull at the white button-up that sticks just a little to his chest, to the contours of his stomach, and fan the skin there. Jesus Christ. My hands are basically twitching to touch him there, to feel the heat of him beneath my palm, solid and beating gently with his heartbeat. I clasp my fingers very tightly around my fork, my crêpe slip, concentrating it all into one point.

I can’t tell if feeling like this is the best or the worst. Jesus, imagine if the other guys knew. They’d never shut up about it. Christ, they’d never take me seriously again. I don’t want to be the “girlfriend” – I want to be a formidable pilot. So many people just don’t think those two things can ever coexist.

Not that I want to be a girlfriend. I couldn’t say that word out loud without feeling wrong. I’m a lot of things, but I don’t know if I could be that.

A bike passes with an urgent ring of its bell, and Maverick twists his body in towards mine, hand hovering over my back, to push me out of the way from it.

I go blank, scrambling to remember where we were in the conversation, mouth dry.

“So, you’re telling me,” I begin, grinning, “going into Return of the Jedi, you hoped that Luke and Leia would end up together?”

Mav sighs and rolls his eyes, tearing off a little of what remains of the crêpe. ‘Well, at the time, I didn’t know they we’re fuckin’ siblings—”

“Maverick, that is incest.”

“Come on!” he laughs, and it’s the best sound in the world. “Goose thought so, too! Luke’s the main guy, so, like, it’s not not logical to think he’d get the main girl, right—?”

“But it’s Han Solo!” I exclaim, throwing my head back with a snort. He smiles down at me, eyes warm, in a way that I’m probably misinterpreting and will replay over and over in my head when I’m trying to sleep in bed tonight. “I thought you’d be a Han Solo kind of guy.”

“What, I remind you of him?” He tosses his head back and smoulders. I fake a gag.

“Well, he’s just—he’s just—” I trail off into laughter. “He’s really—I can’t explain it! If you ask any girl, she’ll know what I mean. Han Solo is so—” I giggle again, remembering how stunned and attracted to him I was when I first watched A New Hope in the theatre. “He’s just a lot of things.”

“Oh, yeah?—like what?”

Gosh, I can feel myself burning up – does he have to lower his voice like that? Does he have to try and catch my eye? God, it’s almost easier to hate him, to be honest – at least then I wouldn’t be acting like such a puddle.

“Like, charming and daring and, um—and clever, and—I don’t know. It’s just the way he speaks or something.”

He hums, hands in his pockets, his dad’s jacket draped over his forearm – I don’t think I’ve seen him go anywhere without that leather jacket. “And you like those things?” he pushes.

I bark out a laugh. “C’mon, Maverick, everyone like those things.” True enough – I could be blind and still fall in love with Han Solo and his smooth-talking. “And why Luke? Even if they weren’t siblings, why him? He had zero chemistry with—”

“Because he’s the chosen one!”

“—yeah, well, he—”

“He’s cool! Luke is objectively cool. He’s a pilot, he’s a Jedi, he’s a leader, he’s—”

“What-ever!” I exclaim, scrunching up my nose at him, and we giggle into quiet. “I’m not saying I didn’t like him as a character – I think he’s an amazing character. I just wouldn’t fuck ‘im.” I cackle at the absurdity of it all.

We continue walking.

Maybe all of this will fade in a couple hours. Maybe it’s the magic of Top Gun, this beach, this dusk that settles in fast around us, the lights that illuminate the darkening boardwalk. It’ll all be over in a couple more weeks, anyway. Bee ‘n’ I’ll go back to the carrier and be on with things, and Maverick will do whatever it is that he does. I know Goose says we should make plans to meet after school’s out, but who really has the time to spare? So, thank God Mav didn’t ride in on his motorcycle, ‘cause, if he’d insisted I hop on and wrap my arms around him and rest my head on his shoulder and la-la-la, I’d be in great danger of sleeping with him.

“D’you wanna head straight back?”

I look up at him. “Hmm?”

Jesus, he needs to tone down his looks or something – it’s disarming, a hazard, really. Those green eyes are givin’ me some mean butterflies, alright. Nowadays, I’ll see him fresh out of the sky, hair spiky and dishevelled with sweat – he doesn’t wear helmet hair as well as others, that’s for certain – and I’ll have to bury my face in my locker. I’ll see him absentmindedly chewing on his dog-tags, and it’ll have me air-headed for the rest of a lecture. I can’t classify it as a distraction, but it’s—certainly not intended. My head isn’t screwed on so tight, and I can’t keep tipping up in the cockpit – I know my ambition to win and these thoughts about Maverick have no correlation, but, good God, maybe if I could just focus more in classes—

“There’s—” he starts, then swallows. “We could go to the pier. Not really a view anymore, but we could see some lights. Boats, maybe.”

“Yeah,” I reply, excitement jolting through my body.

“Yeah?” I nod. He smiles. “Okay.”

When he asks me if I’m cold, he readjusts his jacket on his arm, like he’s already made his mind up to lend it to me. Of course, I shake my head – I’d probably end up stinking up the damn thing with how much I seem to be sweatin’.

We take our time to the end of the pier. When we reach the railing, we step up onto the bar and lean out to look down at the softly lapping water.

“You—erm—”

I turn to look at him, and the stutter of his words stops abruptly, his eyes wide. He looks at me dumbly, like I’m one of the seven fuckin’ wonders. Now, I’ve seen Maverick drunk, stupid, and downright embarrassing himself—just think of the time she lost that fuckin’ lovin’ feeling—but, even when he doesn’t know something, he always keeps face. He always has something to say. Now?—now, here, he looks hopeless.

“You—”

“I what, Mitchell?” I grin, shoving my hair behind my ear in light of the strong breeze that suddenly billows in from across the sea. “Watching the ships, right?” There they are: little dots on the horizon.

He flushes, snapping his attention away. “Right.”

I know what’s coming – I pick up on all of it: the fidgeting of his hands, the downcast dart of his eyes, the way he bites down on the inside of his cheek. Though it kinda perks me up to begin with, I just end up wilting again at the reminder of a certain instructor who I am evidently not.

Still, it’s nice to hear him say: “It’s just—” I tilt my head towards him, “—I think you’ve got great eyes. Great everything really. I dunno. I think—you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

I snort. “That 4% really got to you, hey, Mav?”

He doesn’t laugh, just pauses, takes a second to think about what he’s going to say. “I—don’t know—how to say it.”

My heart drops—in the bad way. “What?"

“That I think about you—a lot.”

Oh, Christ. I let out a deep sigh, and, immediately, his face drops like a stone. “Oh, don’t do that, Maverick.”

“Do what?” he protests through a weak smile.

I recoil just a little bit: he’s a flirt, yes, but I didn’t take him for a dirtbag. “Do what?” my ass. He knows what. Blonde-hair-and-bright-eyes, who’s what. Think of how smart she is, how accomplished she is, how beautiful she is, how level and respected she is – all of these things and a man can still write Charlie of as not that big a deal? That’s fuckin’ low.

“You’re being mean,” I tell him firmly, trying to force down the disgust that pushes under my tongue and the embarrassment that burns over my cheeks.

Maybe Carole and Goose really weren’t exaggerating. Maybe he has got eight women all lined up for him, just waiting for him to call.

His hand makes to touch my shoulder but doesn’t end up making contact – it just hovers, unsure. Either way, I wasn’t going to let it happen. Either way, I find myself scurrying back, away.

Mav has the audacity to look confused. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to—”

“So, what?” I snap, hopping down from the railing and scowling unabashedly at him once more. “I’m one of those girls you string along?”

He laughs – only, it’s not cute anymore; it’s fucking annoying. “No—!”

The wind blows strongly, warm, still, but with the promise of a storm. I have to raise my voice in order to get myself across, I tell myself: “What?—you wanna challenge yourself, or something? Me and Charlie—?”

This?—this seems to piss him off. Mav’s expression crumples into indigence as he protests strongly again, “No—!"

“But—”

“Phantom,” he presses desperately, eyes pleading for me to listen – I’ve seen that expression on him before; every time I’ve ignored it, I’ve ended up regretting it, yelling myself silly over a misunderstanding. So, I pause. I listen. The urgent haze fades away within the span of three deep breaths.

“I wanted Charlie’s advice on how to speak to you. I was nervous—am nervous—and I don’t want to say the wrong thing. She’s very—to-the-point. And Goose and Bee fluff like their lives depend on it.”

Nice one. Nice going, Tommy: do what you do best and throw a fuckin’ rage, why don’t you?

“I thought you didn’t like me—” I say to him dumbly, “—after what I said to you.”

We don’t talk about that argument in the locker rom. We don’t talk about the one after volleyball either, or the one in the air. It’s no excuse – that Viper is breathing down my neck, that I know Skipper expects highly of me – to act like a dick to all the competitors that block my way to that damn trophy. I need to climb this hill.

And here Maverick is, thinking about me—a lot.

“Your opinion matters to me more than you’d think,” he admits with a snarky, little snort. “You’re—” he trails off; the gale dies down. “You’re just—I don’t know how to put it. I’m—not great at the serious-talking stuff.”

“Embarrassed?” I tease. God, I know I am.

He grins. “A little bit.”

We make our way back to the dorms, talking. He tells me he’s liked me ever since this one lecture at the beginning of Top Gun—after the induction, after the bar, after the first exercise—when he’d said something dumb in response to Charlie’s criticism. According to him: “You turned back and looked at me and—and you just smiled. God, I dunno – I just couldn’t look away from you. Even—even after you, y’know, y’turned back around, I—I was just staring at the back of your head, hoping you’d do it again. That you’d look at me again, smile at me again.”

I don’t even remember that day.

He walks me to the door of my dorm, where the windows are all dark and the blinds all flat shut.

No way to make it up to him. No time, either. Should’ve kissed him right then and there at the bar that first night when he came over to the jukebox. Bee saw it in my face – I know that now. I should’ve let him win that bet with himself.

I might be about to do him that favour now, I guess. All flushed, all pretty, all nervous—he gets nervous?—Maverick is so close to me that the heat of his body radiates onto mine, far too dangerous for my liking. This is not what I intended. This is so far off my plan of how this program was gonna go.

But his nose is brushing mine, and his hands are so warm and gentle as they press over my arms.

“Can—?”

I nod softly. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

The kiss, when it comes, is this soft, tentative sink into a brittle release. The gentle press of his nose into my warm cheek elicits a quiet sigh from the both of us – the break from silence must render me into this here embarrassing mess, melting like the ice-cream we shared earlier in the hot sun, because Mav gets that shit-eating grin on his face like he’s watching me lose to him at volleyball all over again. Whatever – he’s the one that probably had to take a cold shower over how I looked.

I cup my hand over the back of his neck, drawing him closer still to me.

Maverick kisses like he’s paying attention to every single detail of it – his eyes are slanted just slightly open, watching my face, and one of his hands rests kindly over my neck, his fingers pressing just a little into the pulse point which I’m sure is racing like a damn horse by now.

Of course, he’s beautiful at this. Just my fuckin’ luck. Technically, yes, it is prohibited to have sexual relations on work premises. Even a man and a woman behind a locked door is assumed to be inappropriate – I’ve heard that one too many a time by the air boss back on the carrier. I’m far from a goody-two-shoes, but rules are rules for a reason. So, of course, it’s just my luck that I meet an unfairly handsome pilot with pretty eyes and entirely too destabilising a kiss. He trails his nose down along my jaw before burying it there in my neck; I hold him tight to me, fingers curling around the thick muscle of his shoulders.

When we kiss again, it’s different: searing, crushing, slow, breathless. The chorus of crickets and cicadas and other night-things is drowned out by the roaring of blood in my ears and the soft noise that slips past Mav’s lips as he pauses for breath, to pant hotly over my cheek.

“You’re gonna have to help me out here, stud,” I mumble helplessly against him, to which he nods fiercely, reaching out blind for the door-knob and guiding me stumbling into my room.

Bee isn’t here – upon the side table, there’s a little, folded note that reads in chicken-scratch handwriting: Staying with Goose for the night. Have fun!

#pete mitchell x reader #pete maverick mitchell x reader #pete mitchell #top gun #top gun maverick #goose bradshaw #tom cruise x reader #im back on my bullshit #i feel the need for speed #i need him in me

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