Ramblings of the Perpetually Confused

I am once again dragging Mav into my self-indulgent bullshit uwu

Out in the Mojave, Mav, alone for long stretches of time, befriends a gopher snake. Or, they exist in each other's space and Mav gradually stops being creeped out, but after finding it cold and lethargic during a frigid night he impulsively picks it up (hoping he did his due diligence identifying it with Google's help). The snake appreciates the expanse of toasty skin it encounters and burrows in to warm up. After some time it gets restless and Mav quickly puts it back down. It disappears, but keeps showing up around the hangar. In the year after Mav mostly leaves it alone, but picks it up a few times more and keeps being surprised at how unconcerned the snake is with it.

Ice, when he visits, most definitely IS NOT. And that's before he learns Mav NAMED it.

Ice was wearing shorts. It was the first thing Mav noticed when he arrived at Slider's barbecue, a six-pack in one hand and a bag of paper plates in the other. His habit of arriving late had made him the de-facto "call him to grab what we're missing on his way over," which endlessly benefited the other flyboys, but put a dent in his pocket he was too kind to fill.

Back to Ice. He stood by Slider at the grill, beer already in hand, chatting up his RIO as if no time has passed. Mav set his load down on a nearby table, trying to not get distracted by Ice's calves and the gorgeous way his skin had tanned into a beautiful golden.

His intense staring brought him eye-to-knee with a smudge of black script above his scapula as Ice turned to greet the newcomer.

Mav squinted, trying to parse out the letters. Ad astra per aspera. He had seen that before, on Sli—

"Hey Mav,"

"You have the same tattoo as Slider," Mav blurted out over Ice's greeting.

Ice flushed, Slider descending into crackling laughter, the taller slinging his arm over Ice's shoulders, pulling the blushing man into his side.

"I lost a bet," Ice muttered.

"A very stupid one," Slider added. "But now the world knows he's my friend forever."

The tips of Ice's ears bloomed red like the rest of him.