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"Hey, Baby Goose."
Rooster turned toward the door and returned Mav's smile, leaning against the doorframe with folded arms.
The snow outside the window was reassuring, just like that loving expression that lit up his second father's face - funny how he had been lucky enough to have two dads but risked losing the second one to his idiocy as well.
"I hate to admit it but I missed hearing you say it." Rooster huddled under the plaid, coughing and cursing from spasms and aching joints. "Have you taken the prescription?"
"Do you think I'm so unreliable, baby Goose? Of course. What did the doctor say?"
Maverick lifted the paper bag dotted with snowflakes with a satisfied smile, and Rooster felt that warm feeling on his face that he had forgotten, forsaken in his younger years, the same feeling that only the fool he loved like few other people in the world caused him.
"Are you worried? About me?"
"I would say. You fell into my arms like a sack of potatoes when we got off the aircraft. I had to carry you on my back to the infirmary and keep the other chicks from following us. I was afraid you would have to spend the holidays in the infirmary or, worse, in the hospital."
Rooster lowered his gaze and looked at his own hands clasped around one flap of the blanket: they were pale and trembling, yet he could hardly distinguish them with his vision blurred by fever.
"Just a bad flu going around the base. But it will take some time to pass." Maverick moved a step-though unsteadily-forward, and Rooster stiffened, not so much from his proximity as from the realization that...
"Stop thinking, baby Goose." the older man's voice jolted him out of his thoughts.
"Huh?" he murmured, his eyes wide.
"I can see your brain mulling from here. There's no need for that."
"What should I do?" Rooster turned a testy gesture to the decorations hanging on the wall, to the lit Christmas tree covered with balls in the middle of the living room "Ignoring that it's my fault if you have to spend the Christmas vacations with me because I can't stand up?"
"No, baby Goose. What I want you to understand is-"
"If you're going to tell me that it's a sacrifice you're willing to make, I'm going to headbutt you. You had plans, Mav. We had plans."
"No, Roo, I couldn't." Maverick knelt beside the sofa, placed his hands on his shoulders, and Bradley relaxed; he looked into his eyes, warm and full of affection, as the other smiled reassuringly at him.
"I love you too much to think of you as a burden, and I'm not going to leave you here alone without doing everything in my power to help you recover."
"You always did it, Mav," Bradley murmured as his eyes began to sting suspiciously. "You've always sacrificed yourself for everyone, but especially for me, even when I didn't deserve it. I hated you so much when all you wanted was to keep me safe."
"Baby Goose, calm down."
Roo felt Mav's hands slide over his cheeks and he surrendered with his eyes closed to that familiar feeling he'd always clung to when life was too harsh.
That warmth he had always jealously guarded in his memories had kept him going against everything and everyone.
"It's not just the fever talking, kid. We had already talked about it but it is clear that there is still something nagging at you. I'll tell you one more time: Brad, you're my godson, you're my baby Goose, and I'd do anything for you."
"Even give up Christmas?"
The crackling fire in the fireplace, the lights… The first Christmas they would spend together as a family again, and he had ruined it by taking that sickness.
"There's no need to give up Christmas, why do you think that?"
"Because it's true and-"
"All I care about is that you're there, the rest is an extra."
Rooster snuggled into Mav's arms like when he was a child and rested his head against his chest.
Despite the height difference between them, Bradley made himself small, managing to squeeze into his shoulders just enough to try to disappear into his mentor's embrace.
He was tired, he just wanted to sleep for a night without the headache and his stuffed nose preventing him from breathing, he wanted to go out and drag the other Daggers to meet the uncles of the Class of ‘86: he wanted to enjoy that time with the same lightness and cheerfulness as in the past, was that too much to ask?
Mav tipped his head back and burst out laughing, the vibration in his chest was reassuring and comforting, soothing to the younger man's frayed nerves.
Rooster chuckled and rubbed his forehead against the leather of the man's jacket; when Mav suggested that he lie down a bit and rest, Rooster shook his head and did not let go of his grip on him.
"I missed you, old man," Bradley confessed in a hushed voice. "More than I care to admit."
"I'm not leaving, kid. Now that I've found you again, I'm not going to let you go. We'll have many more Christmases together, I promise."
Whether from warmth or fever, Bradley couldn't keep his eyes open as the adrenaline levels in his body plummeted.
"Breathe, baby Goose. Breathe and listen to my heartbeat. I am here and I am alive."
His mentor's voice made its way through the cacophony of buzzing in his ears, and Bradley had only then the lucidity to understand what was happening.
"Panic attack, kid. But it's okay, I'm here. I'm not leaving."
Rooster took a breath, deep and calming, before shaking his head.
"I'm fine." he tried to say but his voice wouldn't come out and he felt Mav's hands squeeze his shoulders; then he felt him kiss him in the hair and he let himself be cuddled.
"That's not true, but it's normal. The fever plays these tricks."
Mav was able to understand him even without words, and once more in those months, guilt bit his heart.
"Don't worry, kid, I'm here and I'll always run to you, even when you don't call me, even when you're mad at me and we're far apart, physically and mentally."
"I'll take your word for it."
"I won't let you down."
"You never have, Mav. Not now, not ever."