not enough

epilogue - confession

It was a couple of months after graduating, after starting as an instructor at Top Gun, after becoming slightly closer with Maverick, that Iceman's waves of grief about Goose gradually ebb enough that he wasn't so sure that he'd even felt any different in the first place.
However he knew that that was not the case. He knew he was affected by it, no matter how hard he tried to hide it, from his superiors, from the other instructors, from Maverick – even from himself.
Unfortunately, this night was not an ebb or even a drawback of a wave. No, this was a tsunami that sucked away feelings and left him hollow and empty as it crashed through what was left of his defences like a hot knife through butter.

Iceman sits there, on the edge of his twin bed, staring without emotion at the clock reading one am on his bedside table. It would go off in six hours, because it was a Saturday, and he allowed himself an extra hour of sleep.
He swallows, blinking and dragging his gaze from the clock to his hands in his lap, not blinking, because his eyes stung. And that only meant they were filled with tears.
It was stupid, it was childish to feel like this six months after it had happened. He was embarrassed, even alone, even with nobody around to witness The Iceman thaw. It felt strange, he didn't know how to handle even the slightest touch of negative emotion. He'd never been able to, and he wasn't sure that he'd ever be able to.
A glare appears on his face, his vision suddenly blurred, and he sniffs.

He hated himself. He hated everything about himself, this situation, his own emotions, everything.
The tears were one thing, stinging and salty as they fell down his cheeks, reddening his eyes and cheeks and making his nose run. It was humiliating to think of himself in such a state, even though there was no mirror in sight, the thought was utterly mortifying. He was still sitting up, swiping at his nose with the back of his hand – disgusting, he knew that, but at the same time, he wasn't sure he could make it to the bathroom and get a length of toilet roll. He didn't think he could face the mirror, either.

The helplessness and the guilt he was feeling were another two things altogether.
He wasn't just feeling them either, this was a drawback of the wave, the tsunami he knew it would evolve into. The part of the disaster where the ocean disappears from view, leaving the ocean floor free for all eyes to see, where it's empty and hollow.
It felt easier to think of the feelings as something natural, to devise them into metaphors and similes than to face them raw. He considered himself to be a bookworm, preferring fiction over facts, so acquiring the vocabulary to voice it was almost soothing.
It didn't make any sort of difference to how he was feeling them, though.

Ice sits up, sliding his legs off the side of the bed and pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes enough so he could see what he was doing. From there, he stands up, fishes out his navy gold and blue sweater from one of the drawers at the end of the bed, and pulls it over his head. He sniffs, exhaling as the salty tears continue to roll down his cheeks.
Then he stuffs his feet into his boots, doing up the laces with shaking hands, grabs his keys, and leaves.
Stumbling to Maverick's house in the dead of the night was not perhaps the best idea he'd ever had, but it was the only coherent thought that he'd had all night, so he decided he'd follow through.
Maverick was an insomniac, yes, but this late? On the threshold between Friday and Saturday? The chances were low.

Low, but not nothing, because there was a light shining through the drawn curtains that Ice could see when he got close to his house. Compared with the other blacked out houses, the warm light was oddly familiar – he hadn't been around to his house that many times, only to swap teaching notes or something like that, but even so, it carried with it a sense of nostalgia, it was like a beacon, guiding him there deliberately.
He runs his hands down his face then through his hair, pushing the fluffy mess into something kind of hopefully presentable. He didn't want Maverick to think that he was completely in such an awful state that he had to go and see someone else. Even though he was.
That done, he stares at the door, sniffs, swallows, and knocks.
But what would he think? Would he ask why he'd come around at half one or whatever it was? Would he think him infantile if he revealed the truth? Would he say it wasn't his place to be grieving Goose like this?
Ice stares at the decking of the porch, heart pounding in his ears, filling him with anxiety, and he's a second away from leaving, but then Maverick comes to the door, opening it and looking at him round it, bathing Ice in a soft yellow light.