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Despite Maverick’s well-earned reputation for being a risk-taker (if he's being charitable) and a reckless, narcissistic little shit (if he's not), Pete Mitchell is also a closet control-freak fit to rival the Iceman himself. He'll never admit to it, either, even if they'd brokered some tenuous, occasionally tense, indestructible sort of friendship after the dogfight. Like the time they'd attempted to fly to Denver stuffed between a couple of sweaty tourists on a 757, and Pete had been white-knuckling his armrests the whole goddamn way because he can’t bear to be in the air if he’s not in the cockpit.
It would be damn hilarious if Ice hadn't been distracted by doing the exact same thing.
See also:
the way Maverick seems to feel that doctors' orders for himself are more like ‘guidelines’ than actual rules, but if Tom Kazansky is involved, suddenly those guidelines are immutable; non-negotiable inevitabilities, possibly engraved in ancient sanskrit or some shit.
It drives Tom Kazansky up the friggen wall.
“Ice, you have to take the pain meds. Every six hours-”
“Or as needed,”
“You can’t move without moaning like a wounded animal and you haven’t slept in-” he checked his watch “Sixteen hours now.”
“Then I won’t move.” he insisted, annoyed at how his voice sounded, all weak and mewling, “-Wait. The fuck Mitchell? You’ve been watching me sleep?”
“You haven’t been sleeping.”
“Not the point.” he wheezed, and tried to continue, but broken ribs were a bitch and a half. Especially in the plural.
“Shut up. You’re taking them. Remember what she said? Without adequate pain relief, your ribs won’t heal ‘cuz you can’t breathe deep and shit. Your ribs don’t heal, you can't move. You can't move, you don’t fly.”
Ice mustered up the only rebellion he could manage at the moment. He pressed his lips together and shook his head.
“I will fucking sit on you and force you to take the goddamn things, Tom. Open your damn mouth.”
“I can-” he paused to take a shallow breath, “-see why you didn’t go into medicine, Mav. Sitting on the guy with-” another breath “-broken ribs. Not gonna be real helpful.”
Maverick rubbed the bridge of his nose, looking tired. “Just take them, Ice.”
“No.” he responded, quieter this time. “I don’t like how-” this time the pause was to wrangle his thoughts through the thin, hazy film of pain that was starting to edge at his vision more than to breathe, “I don’t like how they make me feel, Pete.”
The man in question blinked, then sat down on the edge of the coffee table in front of Ice’s little nest of blankets on the couch. “Whaddya mean? That’s some quality shit, right there. You could probably sell them on the street for…” Maverick paused, presumably trying to pull some plausible sum out of his ass because he didn’t know the street price for prescription drugs any better than Ice did and they both knew it, “…Some unbelievable amount of money.”
Ice just looked at him.
“Fuck.” he muttered, one hand moving automatically to check Ice’s forehead, despite the fact that he was not ten years old and didn’t have the flu. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t like-” his mouth worked for a second but no sound came out, “I don’t like not being able- to remember. Blacking out and shit. I don’t like being out of-” he trailed off, because it was such a cliche, so damn stupid and stubborn and he knew it. Because part of him was afraid of getting dependent, because he already bottled his feelings some, and he didn’t want even the opportunity to use a crutch. Because his daddy had been a drinker.
But Maverick wasn’t rolling his eyes or calling him a control freak; they actually looked… He couldn’t find the word.
“I’ll keep an eye on you, Tom. I swear it.” he murmured quietly, laying his hand on his shoulder. ‘Like you did after Goose,’ he didn't have to say it for the meaning to be clear.
He swallowed past the dryness in his throat.
“Can’t you at least coat them in chocolate first or something?”
Maverick laughed, loud and relieved sounding, tension breaking like prop glass, and handed him a pill.
“Water’s gonna have to do. Pansy.”
"Sweet-talker."