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For a second after waking up, Bradley couldn’t quite place where he was. Thanks to years in the Navy he was used to cramped spaces, but he was still getting used to waking up in the bed of Maverick’s Airstream.
A week after medical had cleared them, he had driven the Bronco out to Maverick’s hideaway in the desert to reconnect. But what had seemed only natural in the aftermath of their successful mission and adrenaline-fueled escape out of enemy territory, reverted back to what seemed like a walk on eggshells.
That’s also how Bradley begrudgingly ended up sleeping in Maverick’s bed. Of course, Bradley had insisted that he couldn’t take Maverick’s bed from him and would gladly sleep on the couch, but Maverick had none of it.
“As your Captain, you’re gonna sleep where I tell you,” he had said with only the slightest bit of hesitation followed by a confident smile that was supposed to sell the jovial nature of the order.
Bradley hated it.
It broke his heart to see how much Maverick put into making him feel like they were okay. Not like they used to be but… better.
This had been a couple of days ago and they had finally found their way into a sort of rhythm. Once Bradley had reoriented himself he wasn’t confused to wake up to silence, Maverick being an early riser and most likely out for a run before the sun made any sort of exercise unbearable. Bradley on the other hand was the complete opposite and saw being on leave and Maverick being away as a great opportunity to sleep in a little longer.
He nuzzled back into the pillow and let out a relieved sigh. The surrounding smell of Maverick had finally all but disappeared and been replaced by his own now. Which he welcomed for several reasons.
The bedding had been freshly cleaned of course but the Airstream had absorbed enough of that pure Maverick smell that it transported Bradley right back to memories of the past. To when he was still little enough to climb into Maverick’s bed after a nightmare, Maverick holding him close, putting his head to the crook of his neck and telling him everything was alright. He was here, he was here, he was safe.
That was the first night and Bradley felt like a fool with tears in his eyes. He had felt even more like a fool in the morning when he woke up with a hard-on between his legs and the smell of Maverick all around him, giving him some new ideas to indulge in.
So, one could say it was touch and go for now.
After another 20 minutes of snoozing, Bradley finally got up and stepped out of the Airstream. Maverick was nowhere to be seen.
“Mav?”
Only a slight echo answered him. With a shrug, he stepped back into the Airstream and took a shower. Freshly shaved and dressed for the day he took a trip around the hangar. He has already had a couple of opportunities to look around but each day he found new things to admire. Maverick didn’t just collect for the sake of collecting, so most everything had a story attached to it. Some more obvious and some Maverick had only talked about after a couple of beers in the evening.
When his stomach grumbled, he checked the time on the watch. Almost 11. Where was he?
Concerned he stepped out of the big hangar doors and chanced a peek at the sun. It was almost high noon and Maverick was nowhere in sight.
Bradley went back inside to check his phone
No new messages.
Where could he have gone? He hadn’t found a note during his stroll through the hangar and the Kawasaki was still here, so was his own car. He also assumed that he would have woken up if Maverick had driven off on some noise-making motorized vehicle. But this is his home, he wouldn’t get lost in the desert now, would he?
Hey Mav, where are you?
Bradley looked at the draft of his text message and paused for a moment. Was he being clingy? Would Maverick interpret the message as Bradley trying to take control of his life?
No, it’s been hours. He was worried. He just wanted to know what was going on.
Beep.
Bradley’s attention snapped to the little table next to the couch.
There it was. Maverick’s phone.
“Oh no.”
He walked to the table, picked up the phone, and sat down next to Maverick’s leather jacket.
Hey Mav, where are you?
With a groan, he laid his head back to rest on the couch’s backrest.
What was he supposed to do now? No way to contact Maverick, no way to track him down, no idea where he could have gone.
Then he saw something move out of the corner of his eye.
“Wha–”
“Meow.”
He grabbed the jacket and lifted it up to unveil – a cat?
“What the fuck?”
Maverick had never mentioned anything about a pet and with the lifestyle and dwelling he enjoyed that wasn’t surprising.
And yet, there was a cat.
The animal repeatedly blinked at him, apparently just having woken up from a nap under the jacket before swiftly moving off the couch and sauntering towards the other side of the hangar.
Bradley was about to follow the cat before reconsidering. There are too many hiding places and where was a cat supposed to run off to? Into the scorching California sun? No matter where the cat came from, it must have enough of a sense of self-preservation to stay within the hangar. Even with the unwelcome presence of Bradley.
The sudden appearance of the cat had pushed Bradley’s worry about Maverick far enough into the back of his mind to let his body make itself known again. If there’s nothing else he could do about the situation right now, at least he could feed himself.
He disappeared into the Airstream to use the small kitchen and fix himself some breakfast. Never mind that it was close to noon. After a while he found himself sitting back next to the jacket, a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon and hashbrowns in front of him.
To distract himself from the worry that threatened to ruin his appetite, he kept his eyes on the cat that had slowly reappeared from the shadows of the Mustang. Bradley had to chuckle when he realized it was probably the food that brought the cat out of its hiding place. Slowly he took more bites from the eggs and hashbrowns and only glanced at the cat from time to time to see whether hunger would bring the animal closer to him.
After a couple of minutes, the cat arrived just below the chair opposite Bradley.
“Well?” He lifted his eyebrows and held up a piece of bacon he had saved for this moment.
He could hear a low rumble coming from the animal that must have had decided he didn’t pose enough of a threat to lose out on some crispy bacon. Finally, it made the jump back onto the couch and stepped onto the leather jacket next to Bradley.
“Here you go,” he offered the bacon to the cat and it quickly tore the entire piece from his loose grip and began eating it after having stepped off the jacket onto the armrest.
“What? You don’t wanna get any grease on it?” Bradley joked and moved the jacket over his lap to the other side of the couch. When he returned his eyes the animal, it had stopped tearing into the meat and instead focused on him. Then to the jacket. Then him again.
Bradley shook his head in disbelief when, just for a second, he considered that the animal had understood him and confirmed his suspicion about the grease.
When the cat continued with its very own breakfast, Bradley had finally time to take in the animal from a much closer distance. It had very attentive mostly green hazel eyes and a brownish-gray coat with a pattern of darker lines. It didn’t look much different compared to a regular domestic short hair but for some reason it looked rather distinguished to Bradley.
He mimicked the animal and chewed on a piece of bacon when it slowly approached him again, done with its own piece.
“You want some more?”
“Meow.”
“Thought so.”
He also noticed that the cat didn’t wear any type of collar.
“Are you just a stray? Out in the desert…?” he wondered, while sharing his last piece of bacon.
Maybe it had crossed from some other building during the night or morning, when the sun wasn’t as punishing yet. The temperature in the hangar had also noticeably increased over the last hour and Bradley’s thoughts turned to Maverick again.
For a second, he considered getting into the Bronco and going to look for him, but the desert was big and Mav was small… And he didn’t want to think about not being here when Maverick returned and possibly needed his help.
“Mav, where are you?”
“Meow.”
Huh.
“Do you… know?”
Why did he even ask? It’s not like the cat could answer, anyway. And it didn’t. Instead it jumped off the couch and made its way toward the photo wall. Intrigued, Bradley set down the plate and followed suit.
The wall had exacted its pull on him several times since he had arrived. Being confronted with all these snippets of Maverick’s life had made him consider their relationship more than he had ever let himself these past 15 years. Not just their relationship, but also Maverick’s past in particular and how it had shaped the man that he cared for so much; how it had led him to make the decisions that he had.
“Meow,” the cat demanded his attention again, while walking along the ledge and sitting down right next to the photo of Maverick and himself after the mission. The photo that let Bradley see past their past and towards a future together. If they managed to not fuck it up. If he managed to not fuck it up.
“Yeah, that’s us,” Bradley confirmed for the cat as if it had posed a question and smiled to himself, while the animal closed its eyes and bumped its head lightly to Bradley’s chest.
Feeling like they shared a moment, he decided to pet its head and keep stroking down its back. The cat leaned into the caress and began to purr with contentment.
“Are you a little snuggly one?” he chuckled while continuing to pet and scratch under its chin.
He wasn’t sure whether it was the heat, the worry, the lack of hydration, or a combination of it all that made him think that the pattern around the cat’s eyes resembled Maverick’s laugh lines a whole lot.
“Mav…?”
“Meow ?”
He took a quick step back, as if he’d been bitten.
“Meow ?”
“No. No, no no. This is ridiculous. No.” Bradley held up his hands as if to push away the mere idea of this cat being Maverick.
Instead of shying away from his erratic behavior, the cat jumped down the ledge and followed him, while Bradley took another several steps backwards.
“This is… why am I even…” he stopped in his tracks and bent down to the cat, deftly scooping it up into his arms and slightly manhandling it.
“You’re probably not even a boy cat,” he murmured to himself while checking the genitals.
As soon as those words left his lips the cat – the boy cat, Bradley now knew – twisted out of his arms and let out the highest-pitched screech he’d heard it make so far.
“Okay, okay, god. I’m sorry,” Bradley tried to appease the cat, while the animal made its way back to the couch and onto, of course, the jacket.
Giving the cat the distance it deserved, he moved back to the photo wall and took a deep breath. This was just too much. You’d think one of the Navy’s best aviators could handle the disappearance of their… friend and the appearance of a stray cat in the middle of the desert. But considering what he just recently went through, he should maybe cut himself some slack.
He went back into the airstream and took two bottles of water out of the fridge. Then he looked for a bowl, filled it with water from one of them, and brought it out to the cat. The cat, however, only graced him with a side-eye glance and made no further movement toward him or the bowl.
Well, at least it would be there when it got thirsty.
Since Bradley didn’t want to stretch the cat’s patience any further, he decided to look for distraction elsewhere. Maverick had mentioned wanting to do some maintenance on the Airstream’s heat pump today, so he decided to take a stab at it himself. Once Maverick (hopefully) returned it would be one thing less for him to worry about. At least that’s what Bradley told himself.
***
Hours later, Bradley was satisfied with his work and decided to try and get back into the cat’s good graces. He made himself a tuna sandwich and put some extra on the side. Together with another bottle of water, he made his way to the couch and sat down next to the currently unoccupied jacket and started eating.
The cat had dozed on the couch for a while and then even checked on Bradley and what he was doing, before disappearing between Maverick’s knick-knacks and collectibles. But going by what happened during breakfast, Bradley was optimistic that it was only going to be a matter of time until the stray would show up again.
He had finished the first half of the sandwich when the cat appeared on the armrest and looked at him with expecting eyes.
“Hey Mav,” Bradley greeted and felt only slightly ridiculous. But his foray into the absurd did make the cat perk up and tilt its head. “I got you some, too,” he motioned to the extra bits of tuna laid out on the plate.
With a low rumble, the cat advanced toward him while he took a piece of tuna and offered it. And so they sat together on the couch, only the sound of them chewing cutting through the silence. When the sandwich and the rest of the tuna were gone the cat moved on to licking at Bradley’s fingers.
“I guess you’ve forgiven me for my transgression earlier,” Bradley noted mirthfully while grabbing a napkin and cleaning his fingers. The cat didn’t seem amused to have the last bit of tuna taste taken away, but Bradley decided to distract it by using his hand to stroke over its fur.
The way the cat kept eye contact with Bradley made him feel like the animal didn’t quite know what to do with this turn of events. Leave now that the food was gone? Or stay and enjoy the care and attention?
“It’s all good, Mav. I want you to stay.” Calling the cat Mav still felt weird, but the reaction he got once again stumped him. The cat’s gaze shifted slightly almost as if trying to raise its eyebrows. Then it settled closer next to him and bumped its forehead lightly against his thigh. For a second he wondered whether he really did wake up in some kind of parallel world in which Maverick turned into a cat.
Bradley also had to admit that he was relieved to be able to say what he felt and had still been too cowardly to voice in the presence of the other man.
Because it was true. He wanted Maverick to stay. With him. In his life. Which was kind of a big request after all this time and the lengths he had gone to to ensure Maverick stayed out of it.
“You know, the last couple days felt almost like that phase in the beginning of a new relationship,” he said, slightly blushing at the comparison, “you are on your best behavior and still kind of sussing out where the other person’s boundaries are. You want to impress them, want to make them like you. But that means you always keep a part of yourself away, fearing your true self could be too much and put an end to something that’s just begun.”
The cat meowed in slight confusion, turned on its back, and looked up at Bradley.
“But that’s not us. You know me, Mav. I’m still the same. And I know you. All of you. Or… at least I did.”
Now the cat had made its way entirely into Bradley’s lap, where it softly purred as Bradley tried not to spiral.
“Anyway, I just want you to know that you don’t have to worry so much. I want you to be yourself around me. That’s the Mav I… I want in my life.”
***
The cat had just moved off of him when Bradley woke up from his after-meal nap. Still, his bleary-eyed gaze followed the animal as it made its way toward the hangar doors with increasing speed. Suddenly alert, Bradley decided to catch up to it.
When the cat disappeared through the gap between the doors, he called out: “Mav, where are you going?”
“What do you mean, where am I going? I just got back.”
And there he was. His Maverick, in the flesh.
“Oh my god, Mav!” He wanted to say so much more but all he could do was throw himself at Maverick until he felt him tightly pressed against his chest, inhaling his sweat and confirming for himself that he was indeed real and back.
“Oh, okay,” Maverick huffed while slightly stumbling backward, clearly not expecting this kind of welcome. “I’m sorry I couldn’t call. I had some trouble with the bike and forgot my phone. It took a while until someone could help me fix it up again.”
“What do you mean, bike trouble? The Kawasaki’s here,” Bradley mumbled into Maverick’s neck, still unwilling to let go.
“I took the other one,” Mav said with a laugh. “You still sleep like a rock, you know that? I guess some things just don’t change,” he explained further while rubbing soothingly over Bradley’s back.
“Meow.”
The cat had made its way back inside and walked in loops around their feet, cozying up to Maverick’s legs as it did so.
“I see you’ve met Cat.”
This was what made Bradley finally loosen his grip on Maverick.
“Cat? You got a cat and called him Cat?”
“Hey now,” Maverick held up his hands as if accused of some crime. “First of all, that’s not my cat. He just shows up like once a week and demands part of my breakfast. And secondly– wait, why did you call the cat Mav?”
Bradley could literally feel the blush spreading down his neck under Maverick’s questioning gaze. It was bad enough when he had to admit to himself that he considered the possibility of Maverick turning into a cat but being confronted by Maverick like this?
“In my defense, you do kinda look alike.”
“Did you think I turned into a cat?”
Bullseye.
Feeling exposed, Bradley avoided Maverick’s eyes and nervously rubbed his neck.
“Maybe?”
The guttural laugh Maverick let out at that let Bradley breathe a sigh of relief and smile.
They would get back to how they used to be. He was sure of it.