#these poor bastards | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

princesssarcastia · 10 months ago

Text

since so many people liked the snippet of this chapter i posted to tumblr last week, here's the full version!

so: In the aftermath of a sudden and long-awaited reconciliation, and a battle, Bradley sticks to Maverick’s side like glue.

(you can also read it here on ao3)

—

Bradley levels the doctors and nurses with a blank, uncompromising stare every time they try to move him to his own bed. Maybe there was a chance a few hours ago, freshly coming down from the high of feeling glad to see Maverick for the first time in fifteen years, where Bradley would have taken the chance to sit alone in the dim and lick his wounds. To punish himself in private.

That was before one of these idiots let it slip in his earshot that this is Maverick’s second ejection in a month.

He’s not moving an inch.

And Maverick won’t make him.

So that’s that. There’s nobody else in a thousand miles of this ship who has a chance of getting Bradley to do something he doesn’t want to.

Every instinct feels rusty, here. It’s been so long since he was in a position to comfort, to want to comfort. But Bradley wants…

He wants.

Maverick tenses so abruptly when Bradley starts moving toward him that he immediately regrets it. Especially when Mav hisses in pain, muscles that shouldn’t be moving now twisting themselves into knots because Bradley couldn’t—

“Hey, no, come back here,” Maverick says roughly, when Bradley pulls his hand back. “Come back,” he repeats, and leaves his own lying palm up at his side.

Hesitantly, Bradley slides their hands together, applying gentle pressure until Maverick squeezes back.

“It’s okay,” Maverick says, as Bradley keeps his eyes on their joined hands. It’s been so long. The years start welling up in his chest, spreading to his eyes, pushing him to scream and rage and let it all out on the man who always lets him—

No.

“No,” Bradley says faintly. “No, I don’t think it is.”

“It will be.”

Bradley looks up, finally. “How do you figure?” He looks up and sees his dad, lying there, too many machines hooked up to his body for everything to be okay. Looking too small for the underclothes and the blankets piled on him, too small for the dark circles to fit on his face. Funny, how he didn’t notice those before the mission. Before they got back.

The last time he saw someone look like this—

The last time he sat next to someone’s hospital bed and held their hand—

Oh, fuck.

It hits him again in a wave. The undertow grasping at his feet. Uncle Ice is gone.

“Maverick,” he says, breathless with it. “Dad,” he says, and his voice cracks wide open and lets it all out for Maverick to hear. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’m sorry about Uncle Ice,” Bradley finishes.

Maverick rears back with everything but his hand, drawing another hiss from his own lips when he moves things he shouldn’t be moving. His eyes are already wet, wide, and wild with it.

“And I’m sorry,” Bradley swallows, “I’m so fucking sorry. For what I said to you. If I’d known…” He trails off. He’d like to think he wouldn’t have said it.

No wife. No kids. No one to mourn you when you burn in.

But he can’t promise that. And he won’t lie. So, he leaves it there.

His dad looks everywhere but at him. It would hurt more if he didn’t have Bradley’s fingers in a white-knuckle grip, holding on for dear life. The monitor next to him picks up speed and runs with it, fast enough to make Bradley wonder if they aren’t about to get interrupted by some angry medical staff trying to kick him out for the third time.

“I did wonder,” Maverick says, heart still on display and going wild, “just for a second. If maybe, we were a little better at it than I thought.”

Now it’s Bradley’s heart racing. They don’t talk about it. Maverick and Iceman, the pair of them never talk about it, and neither does Bradley, and neither do Rachel or Isaac or Sofia, as far as he knows. Everyone knows. No one talks about it. These are uncharted waters.

“Nah, you were pretty bad at it,” Bradley says, lighter than it deserves. Light enough to keep this above the waterline. “To anybody who—who cared.” And that’s it. That’s all he has for this, especially in the middle of a fucking navy carrier where they still shouldn’t talk about it. Even if Maverick is suddenly in a sharing mood about the biggest taboo of them all, even if it looks like he could ask, and Maverick would answer.

So, he starts sweeping his thumb along the back of Maverick’s hand instead. Slow, steady motions, like he can draw some of the pain out through his dad’s skin.

Maverick takes one deep breath, then another. Then a third, and they’re getting closer together. “And you,” he sucks in another breath, something twisted up on his face, “you—care.”

It’s a knife between his ribs, and he deserves every serrated inch of it. “I do,” Bradley says. “God, I do care. About you both.” I’m sorry, he doesn’t say, I’m sorry I made you doubt me, because he wants to be here and he doesn’t want to lie…and he’s not sure, yet, that he’s sorry for all of it.

Maverick’s breathing doesn’t speed up any more, but it doesn’t slow down, either. Doesn’t let him say anything back.

“Talked to Rachel at the funeral,” Bradley says, eyes back on their hands. “She’s still pissed as anything at me.” He sits up straighter in his seat, ignoring the aching in his spine and the way it pulls at scattered tears in his skin. Starts timing out his own breathing. In for four passes across the back of Maverick’s hand, pause, and out for seven more. Again. And again.

Maverick shifts, probably looking at Bradley as he catches on to his game. Maybe he smiles. Maybe he softens. Bradley wouldn’t know, though, because he can’t meet his gaze right this second.

“I always hated that,” Maverick says, finally. Capable of speech, at least, that’s better. Even if his voice is strained. “The kids carrying our shit for us. Hated that. Kids shouldn’t have to carry that. Just because we were…” he trails into nothing.

It’s their shit, too, Bradley doesn’t say.

She has a right to it, Bradley doesn’t say.

Since when am I not one of your kids? Bradley doesn’t say.

“Me, too,” Bradley says finally, because it’s true. “I hate it, too.” Breathes another cycle, willing Maverick to join him without being willing to ask. “But they can’t always help it, you know. Can’t help loving. Or caring.”

Even when I wished I could, wished more than anything, Bradley thinks and doesn’t say. Even then, I couldn’t help it.

“Doesn’t mean they needed to pick sides. We never—that was never what we wanted.”

Bradley huffs. “Tried that for a few years, remember? Didn’t really work out.”

“Yeah.”

He sounds strangled, again, so Bradley stops poking at him for conversation and focuses on the breathing. Focuses on their hands. They’ve both got dirt caked into their wrinkles and folds and embedded under their nails. There’s blood, too. Little speckles of it, on Maverick’s, from doctors-alone-know-where, and a great smear of it on the back of Bradley’s hand. He must have swiped at his neck at some point. Irritated at the feeling of blood creeping where it didn’t belong.

He wants to clean it off. Wants to get rid of the dirt and the blood and the reminders of how they got here.

But he’d have to let go, to do that. Probably have to pry Maverick off him with a crowbar of some kind, too, given that he’s still white knuckling this particular maneuver.

“I don’t remember much of it.”

Bradley looks up, finally. Maverick is looking down at him again but there’s something fuzzy about it. The painkillers that were promised finally doing their jobs, maybe.

“Much of what?”

“The funeral. Ice’s—the service. I know I left my wings with him, but I don’t remember…what anyone said. If I said anything.”

His gut starts shifting and twisting and coiling like some kind of animal trying to threaten him, ready to strike. “You didn’t say anything,” Bradley says quietly, unsure. “It was…I mean. They gave him all the honor he was due.”

“You were there,” Maverick says, not quite a question but close. His gaze winds between Bradley’s eyes, looking for something.

“Yeah, Mav, I was there. So was the rest of the detachment. Think they called in most of Fightertown to see him off.”

“But you were…” Maverick trails off, his voice threaded with confusion. Definitely painkillers, Bradley thinks, as he tries to parse out what Maverick wants from him—assuming it’s not just to twist the knife. Of course it isn’t, he corrects himself. Mav was never the one who liked to do that, between the two of them.

“I would have been there anyway, even if they didn’t tell us. I would have come. Would have skipped out on training and snuck in with the crowd, if I had to.” Bradley thinks about it for a second and realizes that’s what he did anyway. He did sneak in, tried fruitlessly to avoid the casualties of this, his longest war, now bereft of the very bedrock of their lives.

“I didn’t see you,” Mav murmurs, still confused, his eyes turning sightless to the middle distance.

“I don’t think you were seeing much of anything besides Uncle Ice,” Bradley says, lost in this conversation. What does he want? What is he missing?

Maverick lays his head back against the bed and blinks at Bradley like an animal, slow and trusting except for the furrow in his brow. “Wanted to see you. I looked for you, but I couldn’t see you.”

“I’m sorry,” Bradley chokes out. “I’m so sorry, I know I wasn’t there for you. I know the things I said—” his throat closes up and he loses the fight to get those words out. But Maverick waits for him to finish, so patient with him like always. “I just wish I’d known, about Uncle Ice. I wish I’d known he was sick again. I would have gone to see him,” Bradley says, desperate for Mav to believe him about this one thing despite all the evidence to the contrary. “I would have gone, no matter what. I’m sorry,” his voice breaks again and he ducks his head and swipes at his eyes with his free hand.

Maverick’s sigh rustles the hair on the back of his head, it’s so big. Shifting fabric, a quiet sound in the back of his throat, and then Mav’s other hand is resting there, gently, so gently, on his head. “Don’t be sorry,” he says, voice more grounded and present now. “Don’t be sorry you didn’t know. It’s his damn fault for not telling anyone,” he adds. “Not yours.”

Bradley remembers the funeral, remembers the anger in everyone’s faces along with the grief, but he’s not one to talk. And he can’t imagine—he can’t imagine—

“Yeah, but he didn’t tell me because I wouldn’t let him. I wouldn’t let either of you talk to me.”

“He was the commander of this whole goddamn ocean, Bradley, if he wanted to tell you it wouldn’t have mattered what you wanted. Besides,” his voice is slow and grinding, “he didn’t tell me, either. He didn’t tell anyone.”

At that, he looks up, sliding Maverick’s hand down to his neck. “No. He—no. He must have told you.”

“No,” Maverick says, steadied again by something burning in his eyes. “No, he made Sarah do it. Just like he made her—” he cuts himself off and jerks his head away, a muscle in his jaw ticking once, twice. “Last week.”

“Last week.” Bradley feels like he must be on some painkillers of his own, now. The good stuff, the stuff that should have Maverick out cold already, because what.

Here is another first in what he can only now bear to hope will be a long, long line of them: he’s furious. He’s furious on Maverick’s behalf and it sits in his chest like a breath of fresh air, like relief. How dare he, Bradley doesn’t say. What an asshole, he keeps tucked behind his teeth. A question forms he can’t find the words for even in his own head about Aunt Sarah, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Ice and Maverick, one he’ll probably never find the words for.

“I’m sorry,” he finally settles on. “God, I’m sorry.” This time, Maverick doesn’t chastise him, just squeezes his hand, because he can hear the difference.

“I knew as soon as I saw him that it was close. That he wouldn’t…make it. Much longer. I missed so much of his life, Bradley, so much of him, I couldn’t be there all those years but I wanted to—I wanted to be there for him. For Sarah. I wanted to hold his hand when he—” Maverick’s voice is full of tears and grief and startlingly close to overwhelmed. “I just wanted to be there, I wanted to see it, I wanted to see him again,” his breath starts to hitch. “I never got to see him, never, Bradley, I miss him so much,” Maverick swings his head back to Bradley, meets his horrified gaze with tears running down his face and bright red eyes.

He surges up from Maverick’s bedside and settles awkwardly on the edge, pulling him into his arms and wrapping a firm hand around his neck and a gentle one around his ribs. His dad buries his weeping face into Bradley's shoulder, arms circling him in turn and clutching at his shoulders. He keeps talking, babbling into the fabric of his flight suit. Whatever brief reprieve his anger gave him from the drugs is gone, long gone.

Most of it is unintelligible, but disparate words make it through. “Meant to” and “locker” and “phone” and “forgot, I forgot,” the last one nearly rising to a wail.

The monitor grabs his attention again, Mav’s heart-rate skyrocketing with his grief.

It’s only been a few hours since he last felt this helpless, since the last time it felt like he was losing Maverick right before his eyes. Bradley feels his own pulse in his neck trying to get him to panic, too, but he keeps a tight grip on it. Breathes in carefully, with thought, to try and slow it, and his chest pushes against Maverick’s with gentle pressure until he releases it.

The sobbing in his shoulder stutters as he does it, so he does it again, keeping hold of that odd awareness of every breath so he can use them to tether his dad to him. In for four, hold, out for seven, hold. In, and out, and in, and out, until Maverick settles back into hiccuping breaths instead of gasping ones.

He doesn’t say a damn word. What is there to say? Don’t be angry at a dead man? Don’t mourn him so loudly, either?

No. Bradley just holds him, instead, and breathes, and threads his fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. He tips his head to the side, pressing his temple against Maverick’s, and closes his eyes, and breathes.

And Maverick breathes with him.

As he goes slack in Bradley’s arms, as he eases Maverick back down against the pillows and pulls his shitty sickbay blankets up to his chin, as he slowly settles back into his shitty bedside chair like a mountain, like he’s a thousand years old and aching with it, he hopes his dad's sleep is restful.

He hopes Maverick doesn’t have to dream about missing Iceman; hopes that living with it is enough.

#top gun #top gun fic #bradley rooster bradshaw #pete maverick mitchell #no ocs this time just the canon characters #these poor bastards #lots of crying and emotions #mostly because maverick is in fact on soooo many drugs #my fic #grief #reconciliation

12 notes · View notes

anthurak · 10 months ago

Text

Something I was always a little concerned about in the lead-up to Hazbin Hotel was that Charlie was going to be a bit too passive of a character, ie; leaning only into the ‘kind, optimistic Disney-Princess-in-Hell who just wants to help everyone’ vibe and not really have much else going on as a character. Which in turn would make her feel kind of bland next to the big, over-the-top or dramatic personalities like Angel Dust and Alastor.

But thankfully, that is not what happened and there’s actually a lot that I like about what the writers are doing with Charlie, particularly in the potential future development and reveals they seem to be setting up.

First off, I like how Charlie generally comes off more like an over-the-top caricature of that ‘Disney-Princess-in-Hell’ vibe, ie; SUPER energized, enthusiastic, affectionate and emotional, often to overbearing degrees that get on everyone’s nerves. It’s generally funny, or at least amusing, and lets Charlie stand out alongside the other big personalities in the cast. Funny enough, she’s actually a lot like Blitzo in this regard, minus the seesawing into extreme abrasiveness.

And more importantly, we’ve already gotten major hints all but confirming that this over-the-top personality is largely a façade, and that Charlie actually has some very clear issues and baggage that she’s working VERY hard to keep buried beneath the surface. Again, much like Blitzo.

Like how in the trust-fall exercise in episode three, despite asking everyone to reveal something personal, Charlie actually bullshits just as hard as Angel Dust and Sir Pentious with her whole ‘I love you all!’ bit. Sure, it’s not like she was lying or being insincere, but it’s clear that was NOT something truly personal for Charlie. And in episode 4 we have Husk straight-up calls out Charlie as ‘wanting to solve everyone’s problems but her own’.

Then of course we have the brief glimpses we’ve seen of Charlie getting angry. Both the times we’ve seen Charlie dealing with some truly despicable and horrendous characters, we’ve seen that rather than lacking the ability to get angry, Charlie is often working to hold herself back. In both her encounters with Adam and Valentino we see points where Charlie is clearly NOT intimidated or afraid of them at all and seems fully prepared to throw down, only being stopped by reigning herself in or by someone else (in this case Angel) stopping her.

Again, it all paints Charlie’s big, bubbly, hyperactive exuberance as something of a front, a way for her to bury a lot of thoughts, feelings and general baggage she doesn’t want to face. Just like what the show has already explored with Angel and Husk.

It actually raises some interesting questions as to what’s REALLY driving Charlie in running the hotel and trying to help Sinners. For one, Husk has already pegged Charlie as ‘wanting to solve everyone’s problems but her own’. And going back to thematic crossover with Helluva Boss, I can’t help but see some potential parallels between Charlie creating the Hazbin Hotel, and Blitzo creating Immediate Murder Professionals.

I think it’s pretty clear at this point that half the reason for creating I.M.P. was as a coping mechanism for Blitzo, or rather the assassination business in general. Something that we’ve gotten hints to as early as the second episode in Blitzo’s back and forth with the Robo-Fizz (“Does anyone love you, Blitzo?”/“No. But I’m really good with guns now!”). With the other half of the reason Blitzo created I.M.P. clearly seems to be to create a surrogate family, as seen with how much he tries to insert himself in the M&M’s lives. Possibly even a specific attempt to replace the family he unwittingly destroyed fifteen years ago.

So I really have to wonder if we’re going to find out that Charlie creating the hotel and her goal of redeeming sinners is in part likewise a coping mechanism and escape for her own baggage.

It’s actually really interesting how episode two first introduced the idea of people opening up with Sir Pentious, then episode four dived further into the concept of the walls and fake personas people put up to hide from their pain and trauma with Angel Dust and Husk. With those two opening up and starting to let their walls down to each other, and by extension we the audience, I think it makes Charlie’s own façade all the more noticeable. It’ll be pretty interesting if Charlie actually winds up being the toughest nut to crack when it comes to opening up about their real issues and baggage. Yet another interesting trait she shares with Blitzo.

All in all, I’m really liking what the show has been doing with Charlie as a protagonist. And I’m REALLY interested to see where the story is going to take her.

Particularly what’s going to happen when she reaches a breaking point…

#hazbin hotel #helluva boss #hazbin analysis #hazbin theory #charlie morningstar #helluva blitzo #character parallels #character analysis #charlie has a LOT more going on than she's showing #blitzo hitting his breaking point had him crying himself to sleep into a pillow #what if charlie hitting HER breaking point has her raining LITERAL ARMAGEDDON down on some poor bastards?

846 notes · View notes