#no time

I did a Lilia Version :D

Just a boy living out his cowboy fantasies.

here's what I worked on in the Outer Wilds Block Party today!

the theme was "elderly", so I decided to attempt my take on Escall, who was presumably one of the eldest in his Clan to be Clan Leader; unfortunately I didn't get around to finishing him and I don't think I will finish him, but it was a fun design challenge - so . . . here he is!

Imagine the funeral scene from the movie. Bradley stands in the row with other Navy personnel - Hondo on his right, aware he is, or was Maverick and Iceman's kid in all but blood; Phoenix on his left, wordlessly wondering why he looks like his world has just fallen apart.

And Jake, glancing at him over Phoenix's head, looking and seeing something, again, just like ten years ago, right before the bad arguments started and they broke up.

Mav stands there, close to the casket, with the rest of Ice's family, glancing at Bradley when the missing man formation flies over, like he's asking him to step away from the faceless personnel and join him there, at the casket of a man who was like a father to him in all his teenage years.

And Bradley doesn't step away. He stays still, not able to breathe, because he doesn't deserve to step away. He made that choice, over and over again, the past fifteen years.

He avoids Mav's gaze when he pins his wings to Ice's casket. Avoids the desire to take off his own wings and give them all back, all away, just for the chance of turning the time back, just to try and fix all they weren't worth, in the end.

The ceremony finishes and people who aren't invited to the private wake make their move. Bradley stays in place, watching the small group of admirals, retired personnel and other family and friends gather around Mav, until he disappears behind the heads and uniforms.

Bradley stays put, until the tears come, slowly as he blinks and blinks.

Jake looks back, stops a few feet away, and looks back.

"Are you--" he doesn't finish, because there's no point. Are you crying. He can see it on Bradley's face, still so confused about why. He takes a step back, closer toward Bradley, and asks, "What's going on?"

And Bradley can't say anything -- this is the part of himself he's never let Jake know anything about. The part he's never been able to tell Jake, the part that made Bradley a broken man that couldn't open up all those years ago, when Jake was so desperate for him to try, try for them.

Bradley couldn't tell him, not now, when he missed all the chances in his life. Not when he's made all the wrong choices already.

So Bradley doesn't say anything. Doesn't acknowledge the tears, just... Walks away from all of it.

He doesn't want to sit in an empty apartment beating himself for something he can't undo. So he gets into the Bronco, still in his dress blues, and drives.

Just drives. Drives until he's too tired to see anything, until he needs to park on the side off the road and take a little nap.

When he wakes up, it's in the familiar bed --- the one from the standard housing he rented when he was still in flight school.

There is a familiar date on the calendar on the night stand --- 3 weeks before he gets his wings and 3 months before he ruins everything with Jake.

See, in flight school, on the Advance Strike training, Bradley and Jake were something. Bradley'd never been brave enough to give it a name. It started as flirting, then turned into something casual and kept burning faster and higher, until they entered a point where they couldn't be kept far away from each other for long. Despite renting two apartments, they spend most nights at Jake's place, sleep in the same bed, eat breakfast together and go to work and training together, on the same schedule.

3 weeks before they finished training and got their wings, that's when things started going downhill.

The phone calls started --- and the life Bradley had buried started to catch up to him. And so have Jake's questions --- and every single question about his life that Bradley avoided put another barrier between them.

It was Ice. Calling Bradley, two to three times a day, just to show up without a warning at the winging ceremony, like that would change anything.

(Bradley never connected the dots, but that must have been a month or two before Ice's cancer showed up for the first time. Maybe Ice had known already and tried to make amends, maybe he had known already and tried to fix what Mav had broken, even if Bradley was far beyond fixable, now.)

Bradley remembered that day - exactly 3 weeks before the winging ceremony, the first phone calls came in in the morning. Jake was in bed with him, cuddled into Bradley's side, sleep-mused hair sticking out, his big green eyes looking at Bradley expectantly, Bradley's Nokia vibrating on the nightstand, again and again, a familiar number not saved in Bradley's contact flashing on the screen again and again.

"This is the third time it's ringing already. Why don't you pick up and find out who is that and what they want?"

Bradley reaches for the phone and clicks the red button. Puts the phone down on the table and puts his arm back around Jake.

"Didn't want to find out who that was?" Jake asks.

Bradley remembers this as the first time he directly lied to Jake about his life, about his past. Directly denied Jake the truth. Directly started their end.

"I know who that was," he says, this time.

"Who would call you at 6.30 in the morning?"

"It was my pops," Bradley says.

Jake stills in his arm, the tension soaking through onto Bradley. "Your pops? I thought..."

"Not the biological one, just, the one that raised me later on," Bradley explains. "But you might know him as someone else already."

"I know him?"