Jude

(Bradley has ALWAYS been a loving, touchy child. He was always hugging Ice and Mav, and he never seemed to reach that teenage boy stage where physical contact with your parents was uncool.

With Bradley back in his life, Mav's enjoying getting to touch his son again. He refuses to admit he's jealous when Bradley snuggles up to Ice, but Ice didn't get deprived of Bradley cuddles for over ten years, so STOP LAUGHING AT ME, ICE.)

So they're at the store and Mav's holding Bradley's hand the way he did when Bradley was a little kid, and Bradley's letting it happen. When Bradley grabs the same brand of cookies he's loved since he was four, Mav can't help himself — he drags Bradley in and smooshes a kiss to his forehead.

This is the point Javy and Jake walk past. They see: Maverick and Bradley holding hands, Maverick having pulled Bradley down for a kiss. Their minds see 2 + 2 and get 69.

Javy takes a photo and sends it to the Daggers group chat. Everyone's demanding an explanation, but Bradley definitely has the chat muted, partly because he only believes in messages via carrier pigeon but also because he's a sap who would Never let anything interrupt his time with his parents.

Jake is in turmoil. He Knew Bradley was a catch, but he'd also known Bradley never let himself be caught. He thought he had time to pull all his best moves. Now his competition is Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, and Jake respects the old man enough to admit they're neck and neck in a few categories Rooster likely finds Very important.

obsessed with the idea of grace and rocky being so undefinable there's actually a cultural concept for it in eridian culture: one soul across two bodies…. insert convenient folk tale here (because this is fanon and i can do what i want)

adrian has their husband return from so many years away, and his soul has expanded to bridge two bodies; it's both terrifying and an honour. it's happened a handful of times in eridian culture: where at least two individuals---sometimes more---thrum so intensely that they enmesh, and become one person

it's sparsely recorded because it's so rare and simultaneously so sanctified and also considered so aggressively rude to speak about that it's kind of this knowable-unknowable concept all at once. like referring to rocky or grace with their prior individual names is the height of rudeness. they have a shared name now

legally and socially rocky and grace are considered one individual. speaking to one part of them means you have also spoken to the other. to honour one means honouring them both. their preferences are united, something that grace, with his human lean to individualism and agency, genuinely can't grasp. but because this is a form of individuality to eridians. it's just wider than the human conception

and by needing to be close to rocky, by refusing to be parted from him, by needing him to feel settled, he has apparently been consenting to this all along, to the point where the eridians see their codependence---not as strict romance or strict friendship, but as their need for one another---and are like "oh we know what this is. cool."

grace has been thinking of it as just. something. their relationship. just guys being dudes. but there's a legal precedent and social structure for it on erid, and he has already consented to it over and over again