#slooserole

Maverick and Carole dance on the tables or the bar. Every time.

They even get other random people in on it cause their energy is so infectious, big wide grins and shining eyes, they can get almost anyone up to dance with them.

I made a prequel to the Hangster dating podcast fic!

Summary:

For the 25th episode of their anonymous dating podcast "We put the BI in Birds" Nat and Bradley invite Bradley's parents Nick, Carole and Ron to talk about their poly relationship. It's an episode full of laughter, banter and family feels.

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or a little prequel set over a year before Jake meets Bradley in "And I'm so impatient when you're not mine".

Top Gun (1986)

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Carole shifted as she woke from a dream. The glimmers of it hung around her in the blue glaze of twilight but if she tried to think about it, it escaped her like trying to catch smoke.

Slowly, she unlocked each part of her body. Her arms unstuck from her sides, legs stretched tightly as she tried not to disturb Goose or Slider.

But to no avail.

Slider's hand rubbed her stomach underneath her t-shirt. Or rather, his t-shirt. Her's was somewhere on the floor along with the rest of her clothes, apart from her underwear, Goose's t-shirt and Slider's boxers. Apparently he didn't mind going commando underneath his pajama bottoms, something she could feel evidently behind her. He made an excellent big spoon.

Goose groaned in the darkness. He was flat out on his back, one arm around Carole, another underneath Slider. He made an excellent pillow, didn't move too much, although that was for a more morose reason.

After three months of physio, he could walk, but only with a walker. Every day in the rehab hospital had been intense, it had taken its toll on his mental health even if he tried to be positive for them all. Now he was out, he still had hours with the physio, and stretches and exercises too. The pain was immense even if he still had minimal feeling in his legs.

It starts very simple --- Carole doesn't want to move out of the house she and Goose rented in Lemoore though the military programme but she can't stay there more than three months after the funeral because she is a widow and VA can't really prolong the lease for non-military people without a military spouse. She wants Bradley to have a stable home and keep the friends from other military families Bradley already made and she quite frankly can't afford anything as good as the military housing within the same budget out privately somewhere in the area.

Mav is living in a bachelor pad that looks like the cheapest student house share one has ever seen so he says, hey, let's transfer the lease onto me and we'll just try to pay for it together. And then he moves into the spare room they were previously saving up for Baby No. 2 that will never come to be.

It makes some things easier too --- Mav can take care of Bradley while Carole looks for a part-time job that can align her hours with Bradley's future preschool hours as he's not in one yet since she was a stay-at-home mom since they moved to Lemoore. She is a qualified teacher (art/music) but there aren't many schools around and she has barely taught before b/c she finished her degree and got pregnant not long after and with them moving around different bases, she couldn't find a job as anyone but a temp teacher. It's easier to cook for three than for one and they can switch with the chores depending on who is home at the time.

This rises some eyebrows in their circle of friends and military acquaintances --- Mav moving in with his best friend's widow not long after he died and helping her with taking care of his best friend's kid --- but everyone who is closer to Mav knows he still feels guilty about Nick and that Carole and Bradley are the closest thing to family Mav has left so it's kind of brushed off.

Ice and Slider, who have kind of gradually became a family fixture too, coming to dinners and helping with Bradley when both Carole and Mav are busy, have a bit mixed feelings about this.

Mav and Carole do seem awfully close. And even with Slider knowing that it was Mav who originally introduced Goose and Carole to each other, they seem almost too synced up for it to be completely platonic or new. Mav is very natural as a parent-adjacent, too, and it might turn Ice into a gooey puddle of lovestruck idiot, but it also makes Slider a bit too aware of how fast the switch from Mav-the-fun-uncle to Mav-the-helicopter-dad was made.

If Slider was honest, he'd admit it's the jealousy speaking. He had a crush on Goose when they were in the USNA that was kind of hard to comprehend but the crush on Carole is even harder to comprehend because, well, she just lost her husband and he should not be thinking about his tragically-dead friend's widow like that, but also it's a bit weird that he had a crush on both people from one marriage. He's carefully balancing on what's appropriate and on how to make it easier for Carole and yet Maverick just slides into her life in a blink-and-you-missed-it moment. Maverick has no qualms about showing Carole affection, smothering her in hugs and cheek kisses and bringing her jumpers when they sit in the cold breeze in the porch and taking Bradley who had fallen asleep from her arms and swaying him around in his, never held back by some unspoken rules. Especially that Slider kind of sometimes sees those moments when Carole is looking at him, shyly, too, like she's battling with herself about how inappropriate it'd be if Slider had those feelings and she had those feelings back. They have the little coffee dates or he takes her and Bradley, just the three of them, shopping or to a museum, or he gives them a ride when their car doesn't start in the morning, and Carole looks at him with those huge eyes of hers all bright and bubbly and Slider---Slider can only think about how inappropriate it'd be.

Ice is, well, Ice, so he's being a bit emotionally constipated. He's in Denial, with capital D included. Maverick and Carole might be in sync but the two of them are the ones bickering like an old married couple. The locker room banter in present every day and Slider can swear that if they weren't in public, they would have fucked at least three times already after their so-called 'arguments'. He talks about Mav way too much, too, always thinking about what they can do for him and Carole, and where to take them and Bradley next. He's become addicted to Mav's surprisingly good cooking and have stopped eating spaghetti outside of Mav and Carole's house because it 'doesn't taste the same'. He takes Mav to clubs and bars to relax when he has a heavy week and it's as close to dates as Slider would put them. He's a bit weird about Carole being affectionate with Maverick, too, but in a different way --- he always looks away when she kisses Mav on the cheek or when they cuddle up on the sofa with Bradley lying across their laps. He always puts his nose in Mav's hair when they hug goodbye but barely gives Carole a pat on the shoulder. He teases Maverick every time of the day, too, but he's always smiling so softly when he does it, melting even more when Maverick grumbles in response instead of starting a fight. Whenever Maverick isn't looking, Ice looks at him like he's about to vanish from his life at the wrong word. He looks at him like that would be his life's biggest tragedy, too.

Despite all that, he still claims he 'doesn't like Mitchell like that' and that even if he did, Maverick wouldn't be interested, even though they both know Maverick is bi.

It kind of gets a bit weirder when, after almost two years since Goose's death, Bradley starts calling Mav 'dad'. It gives both Ice and Slider a heart attack, when Baby Goose says during their usual walk to the park that, Dad is taking me to the aquarium with Mom next week, maybe you can come, too. And Carole and Mav don't react aside from making the usual excuses of they might be busy, baby (like either Slider or Ice could ever say no to any of the three of them).

Mav, later, explains that Bradley was having some difficult time explaining who Maverick was in their family dynamic to his pre-school teachers and so they went with step-dad and so Bradley picked up on it and started using it sometime a week before the park trip. It was an obviously big change but he was still remembering and calling Nick 'dad' too, so they've decided whatever Bradley is most comfortable with will be what they'll go with.

It's a logical explanation, to both Ice and Slider, even if it'd sound a bit icky to anyone who didn't know Carole, Mav and Goose's dynamic well before. It also makes Slider wonder what he'd be if the step-dad title was already taken, even if the thought is shoved back deep into his mind as soon as it surfaces.

Ice is, well, still Ice, so he alternates between getting red in the face every time Baby Goose calls Mav dad while they're doing something cute and between getting incredibly quiet about it. Slider would bet that he is having an identity crisis as he's both always hated the idea of having his own kids and now he doesn't and because the person who is changing his mind is Maverick, of all people.

Then Ice and Slider get deployed for four months and when they come back, first hot rumor on base they hear is that Mav bagged his best friend's widow.

Obviously, at first they think it's a rumor but then the gossip girl of their squadron (their XO) confirms that Mav's file has been updated so he has two dependants, his wife and his now officially adopted son.

Slider feels like an idiot. Ice is sulking but he's in even bigger denial, saying he's been expecting this and that Mav and Carole were a good couple and would make each other happy and that they were already making a beautiful family with Bradley. It gets very awkward, very soon, especially that Mav and Carole don't say anything about it when they meet again.

In the meantime, Carole just had been made redundant after the school she was teaching hired a new full-time teacher who could work more hours and didn't have a kid to pick up from pre-school everyday around two. The payout she got from the Navy after Goose's death wasn't much and she could keep on being in and out of work for some time but Mav's deployment was getting closer and closer too and they had to revise all the possibilities. One being that Mav might not come back, too.

I saw this post by @aestheticsuwu and became obsessed. So, here are some of my thoughts if I were to write a fic one day.

Pete was twenty-four years old when he died. He would be forty-three now if he was alive.

He was Duke Mitchell's only son and, when he died disappeared, he went in a frenzy trying to find him and bring him back home. They were pretty wealthy and known at Miramar, but he lost everything in the search for his son - He thought Pete ran away with a widow after Duke told him he couldn't marry her.

Duke died thinking his son ran away from him after their fight and never returned, with no money and no family.

Pete and Tom's parents knew each other when they were kids and he and Mr. Kazansky didn't get along very well - Pete always made Ms. Kazansky laugh and was always very kind.

Nick, Carole and Pete only met each other after all of them were dead. Pete had been dead for years when the couple appeared at the Land of the Dead with their kid and immediately adopted them.

The Bradshaw family died in a carriage accident. They were travelling to Ron's house to start living with the man, but near the city, they suffered an accident and died.

Their deaths happened five years before the story's time and Ron always thought the Bradshaws had simply given up on him and chose to return to their old life - He later discovered that was not the case.

In my head, Tears to Shed is sung by Nick, Carole and Bradley - Yes, Bradley, because he doesn't want to see his Uncle Mav sad - and, during it, Nick threatened joked that they could take the girl out of the way and Pete threw a pillow at his head.

Pete's mother used to call him 'Maverick' or 'my little Maverick' and, after she died, Duke only called him 'Pete' or 'Mav', but never 'Maverick' like before. The first person to call him 'Maverick' after his death was Tom.

Nick got his nickname because one time he laughed so hard he sounded like a goose - Which happens almost every time he laughs, really - and Bradley said "Dad, you are a goose!" and it just stayed.

When Ice got back from the Land of the Dead, unmarried and mostly unscathed, everyone though he had gone crazy on those days he was gone because he kept crying out for someone named 'Pete' and insisting he needed to go back to him.

The only reason his parents didn't send him to the asylum was because Ron threatened them if they did so.

Ron was also the first person to whom Tom ran to after he got back from the Land of the Dead.

Bradley goes after Tom a few days after the man is gone because his Uncle Mav is sad - Chaos ensue

Charlie was the widow that Pete wanted to marry at the time.

For now, I think that's it. This AU has consumed me and I'm probably going to write something for it as soon as my semester ends.

Icemav early on in their relationship is just Ice on the edge of the bed struggling to stay on bc Maverick starfishes and hogs the bed. It’s truly impressive how such a small man can take up so much space. Eventually it turns into Maverick treating Ice as his own stuffed animal which he hugs in his sleep, Ice just deals with the human barnacle because he’s cute.

Slooserole - Nick and Carole are very tactical, their primary love language is touch so it’s not that much of a surprise that they cuddle in bed. It’s just Silder wasn’t expecting them to both sandwich him in-between them and not let him go the first time he sleeps over. They switch up how they cuddle but more often than not Carole is getting hugged on both sides by her two hunks.

Of course they aren’t all always together,

Carole and Nick hug in their sleep if it’s just the two of them, in the morning it’s always a mess of limbs because their legs get tangled together and they can’t get out of bed without waking the other and someone’s arm or leg is always numb but it’s worth it to be so close to the person they love all night.

Carole and Slider usually end up spooning but it would surprise most people to find out that Slider likes to be the little spoon. She’ll wrap her arms over his shoulders and hold him. Slider jokes she’s just like a Koala bear.

Nick and Slider are awkward when they sleep together. Mainly because they didn’t get the chance all that often. On ships they can’t exactly show any affection for each other much less sleep in the same bed, and when they’re home Carole is almost always there. But there are times that she’s not there and it’s just the two of them. It starts with Nick just kinda hugging Slider from behind like Carole does but after the first few times of this Slider starts to hold Nick instead and that’s how Carole finds them when she get home, Slider holding Nick to his chest like a raccoon holds onto shiny objects. They are adorable. (Even as adorable as they are she lets Bradley wake them up by jumping on the bed. The kid definitely lands on more than a few tender body parts.)

Hollywolf is just Leo laid on top of Rick. They got use to sleeping like this on carriers because there’s no room to cuddle in the bunks. They’ve always been affectionate and by being careful they got away with this practice until they retired from the navy to fly commercial.