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San Diego, CA, July 1993
Iceman frowned at the TV. This was not what was supposed to be happening. The President should not be trying to justify what amounted to little more than an unconditional surrender on live TV and he should not be preparing to resign himself to live the rest of his life in… silence. No. No, he should be kissing Mav drunk on the elation of just being able to be. There should be warm hands wrapping around his neck and giggles against his lips and shared regrets over not buying that bottle of bubbly on their last grocery run. And it all should be happening right there, in what somehow had become their couch, exactly in the same spot in which not even a year ago they had cheered while most of the country turned blue.
God, he had been so happy, so sure… – the SECDEF, the Republican SECDEF, had admitted that the ban on gays serving in the military might be an outdated concept; it had been one of the campaign promises and people had voted for it; there were studies showing there was no reason to believe that people like him could not serve effectively and with distinction…
It should have been enough.
It should have… but in the end, none of it had mattered. The President had taken one look at the united front of the Joint Chiefs – with their archaic concerns on unit cohesion and morale – had heard that Congress was threatening to seal the ban into federal law, and had conceded the battle before the fight could even start.
He should have seen it coming, he thought, he was usually good at spotting lost causes.
He was still staring at the TV, unsuccessfully trying to reign in the feelings of betrayal, when he felt the couch shifting next to him, and soon after, heard the door of the freezer opening and closing behind him. A minute later, Mav handed him a glass over the back of the sofa. He took a sip without even looking at it and made a face.
“I hate vodka.” He looked at the glass in his hand; it was a whisky tumbler. Vodka should have no business inside a whisky tumbler.
“There isn’t any whisky left. It’s that or nothing. Stop complaining,” came Mav's voice from somewhere over his shoulder.
He took another sip – at the end of a shitty day, alcohol was alcohol after all – and turned his head to look at Mav, precariously sitting on the back of the sofa.
“You’re not mad,” he stated. Iceman could tell by the way Mav carried himself, by the lack of tension on his shoulders and the relaxed grip of his fingers around his own glass of vodka.
“No, I guess I’m not. I just… don’t think it would have changed anything,” Mav shrugged.
“You’re joking, right?”
“Not really, no. Or what, are you really gonna tell me you would have walked up to your CO and declared you have a thing with me?”
Iceman turned around until he could fully face Mav and stared quietly at him, trying to decide if he was playing with him. “It’s not about that,” Iceman finally said, because it wasn’t. The answer to that question was and would always be no. Anything else would put an immediate end to his career, and if he was unlucky, to his life too. And Mav knew that too.
“So, what’s the point, then?” Mav asked him, sipping his vodka once again.
“What’s the point? The point is not having to live with the threat of a DD hanging over our heads. How has he put it?” he said tilting his head towards the TV, “Oh, yeah, ‘unacceptable conduct, either heterosexual or homosexual, will be unacceptable 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from the time a recruit joins the service until the day he or she is discharged.’ If we’re caught, Mav, that’s just not proof of homosexuality, that’s proof of engaging in a homosexual act and that means they still can fucking court-martial us. The point, Mav, is that our very existence within the Navy would stop being illegal.”
What he didn’t tell Mav was that the thought of even fancying guys that way had not even crossed his head until a certain punk had turned his life upside down at TOPGUN; what he didn’t tell Mav was that he had never even thought about acting on it until years later when the same punk had come crashing down into his life. What he didn’t tell Mav was that he would have never let himself explore that desire if not for the promise of it being legalized imminently. What he didn’t tell Mav was that he didn’t know if he could stay now that he knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“Maybe on paper, but it wouldn’t have stopped them from giving us a DD. Even if they had repealed the ban and changed Article 125 – which let’s face it, it was highly improbable considering what we do in the bedroom is still illegal in half of the country – they could still have easily deemed homosexual relationships between officers conduct unbecoming or fraternization.”
He was right, Iceman realized. What he wanted, what he really wanted, what he had barely allowed himself to dream with, had been impossible all along. He knocked back the rest of his vodka and kept his eyes fixed on an unassuming point of the wall.
“Anyway,” Mav continued, “it’s not over yet. They might still manage to strong-arm them into letting us alone as long as we keep the unacceptable conduct outside of the public eye.”
His eyes jumped back to Mav at that. He had his best poker face on and avoided meeting Iceman’s gaze. He was trying to appease him, he realized. Fucking hell. He might have been naive enough to dream about the possibility of something more, but he wasn’t two, he didn’t need to be mollycoddled.
“Fucking hell, Mav. You don’t need to lie to me. I can take it,” Ice spitted, almost daring Mav to just say what he really thought.
“I’m not lying. I think they’ll try.”
“You just don’t think they’ll succeed.”
Mav cocked his head, consideringly. “I don’t think they care enough to press the issue much longer. They don’t have anything to gain now, and the longer they drag this, the weaker they’ll seem,” he finally said before finishing his own drink, grabbing Iceman’s empty tumbler, and walking away.
Iceman quietly wondered if he was right. Iceman had always lived in a world of rules and honor, a world where promises were taken seriously and where leadership could be trusted to make the right call. Mav seemed to have experienced the world in a completely different way. He was starting to think that, maybe, Mav was right.
When Mav came back, two new glasses of ice-cold vodka in hand, he sat next to him on the couch, his arm and leg pressed against Iceman’s. In the suffocating heat of San Diego’s summer, the added warmth of another body beside him only made him sweat through his t-shirt faster. The thought of moving away from Mav didn’t even cross his mind.
“Ice,” Mav said letting his head fall on Iceman’s shoulder, “don’t run away. Not yet. I might be wrong.”
Ice drank his vodka and forced himself to let go of the idea of a world where they could quietly exist together. He didn’t let himself think about the fact that, although he should, he didn’t want to run away.
San Diego, CA, December 1993
“So, has he signed it?” Iceman asked as soon as the front door closed behind him.
“He has,” Mav said from his place on the couch, nursing a whisky tumbler full of amber liquid; on the table, next to the leftovers of Mav’s dinner, there was an empty tumbler and a half-empty bottle of bourbon waiting for him. It was all that was left from the bottle that Mav had brought home last month – they had used the missing half to drink themselves to oblivion while the president signed the ban into federal law.
Iceman poured himself a drink and sat down next to Mav. “Have they said anything about the actual content?”
“Not much… But it seems quite consistent with what has come out about it in the last few days.”
“So that’s it then. That’s the great step forward. Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue.”
“At least now we know the rules of engagement,” Mav shrugged.
“The rules of engage—“ Iceman echoed incredulously shaking his head. “What are you saying, Mav?”
Mav left his glass on the table and shifted closer to him on the couch. “Look, Ice, I like you. I like you quite a lot and I don’t want to let you go,” he said, tentatively reaching out and interlacing their fingers. Against his better judgment, Iceman let him. “I know you don’t like breaking the rules, but this”—he squeezed his hand—"wouldn’t really be breaking them. Not if we keep it within the agreed parameters. Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue. I think we can do it.”
Iceman had never seen such an open vulnerability in Mav’s expression – his eyes, so obviously full of affection and hope; his face, always so expressive, clearly begging him to give them a chance; his body, already partially tensed up, bracing himself for the rejection that he thought was inevitable. That should have been inevitable. Stopping this while they still could was the smart choice; it should have been the only choice, but Ice had never been as happy as in this last year with Mav – he had never had lazy mornings in bed and pancakes for breakfast every Sunday; he had never been able to talk about his nightmares knowing he would not be judged for the horrors they contained; he had never allowed himself to be so unapologetically him in front of someone else; he had never felt so seen. He didn’t understand why any of those things should be considered unacceptable conduct, but he sure as hell didn’t want to give them up, and if they were giving him a way out – a way to keep both, Mav and his career – no matter how convoluted and difficult it seemed, he was going to take it.
He cradled Mav’s face with his free hand and nodded slowly. He barely had time to register Mav’s face exploding in an uncontrollable grin before all coherent thought was snatched away by the feeling of Mav’s lips against his own and the wonderful sensation of being kissed within an inch of his life.
Norfolk, VA, March 2005
Everything but Mav was nothing but a blur on the periphery of Iceman’s vision. Right there and now, all that mattered was Mav – Mav’s strong legs at either side of Iceman’s body; Mav’s hips moving in that precise rhythm that made Iceman incapable of all rational thinking; Mav’s abs contracting in pleasure each time Iceman’s grazed his prostate; Mav’s lips opened in a silent moan; Mav’s eyes looking at him between half-closed eyelids and completely lost in pleasure.
Fuck, Iceman though, have they always been so damn green? It was always so hard to tell after so much time apart. After the first few months, Iceman’s mental catalog of Mav’s body always started to become slightly fuzzy and unreliable and he couldn’t recall the exact tone of Mav’s voice any longer; after full nine months, he had started to doubt he could pick Mav out in a crowd.
Iceman let his hands wander through Mav’s torso, re-familiarizing himself with the exact shape of the muscle under his hands and the texture of his skin – the old scars over his ribs, the three small moles perfectly lined up under his left collarbone… Once Iceman let his fingers focus their attention on his nipples, Mav let a high-pitched moan escape his mouth that sent a new wave of arousal rolling down Iceman’s body. Had Mav always moaned like that when Iceman played with his nipples in that specific way? It didn’t matter, he decided, not when the reality in front of him was so much more than anything his mind could have ever conjured.
He slipped one hand behind Mav’s neck, the other one settling to his hip, and drew him in for a kiss. No, it didn’t matter, not when he still could tell how close Mav was just from the way he kissed him. Iceman slid a hand between their bodies, and stroked him once, twice, before the feeling of Mav clenching impossibly tight around him catapulted him into the throes of his own orgasm.
He came back to reality gradually, guided by the intermingled sound of their heavy breathing and the weight of Mav’s body over his own. He wrapped his arms around Mav, holding him against his chest, unwilling to allow any space between their bodies until he had no other option. He felt Mav’s breathing slowly return to his usually calm, quiet rhythm and Mav’s lips trailing kisses across his chest, his neck, his jawline, and finally, his mouth.
God, he had missed this so much – the feeling of Mav’s lips against his own, the burn of his evening stubble against his skin, the way everything seemed to slow down when they were together… Nine months, they had never been apart for such a long time, not since they had decided to give whatever this was a chance. Fuck, they had been so lucky to be assigned to the same Air Wing during their Department Head tours – same home base, same carrier, same deployment schedule… They had never gotten so lucky again – they had served their subsequent shore tours thousands of miles away from each other, surviving on long weekends and carefully coordinated planned leave, and although their squadrons currently shared the same home base, their deployment schedules were all over the place. It wasn’t even the ban’s fault, not really – the magic of co-location was only available through marriage, after all. And not even that could have saved them from the inevitable for much longer, not when their ambitions were about to send their careers spinning in completely different directions. No, sharing a bed with Mav on a permanent basis was still only possible in his more indulgent fantasies, but at least, they could not be sent home with a DD for fucking each other anymore, and Iceman was not above celebrating small victories.
“So, what’s the verdict? Does it feel any different now that we cannot be court-martialed for it or is it still as good as ever?” he teased between kisses.
“I don’t know, Ice. I think I’m gonna need a bigger sample size if I am to give an informed opinion,” Mav grinned back before slowly sliding a hand between Iceman’s legs and slipping a finger between his ass cheeks teasingly.
Iceman’s only answer was to relax back against the pillow and open his legs invitingly.
Millington, TN, September 2011
Like every morning, Kazansky politely greeted his secretary before closing the door to his office and sitting down behind his desk. It was a nice desk, all solid wood, with enough drawers to accommodate Kazansky’s rigorous organization system, and big enough to allow him to set up a small collection of pictures featuring the 86’s crew and his sister and nieces.
Like every morning, he found a warm cup of coffee and a collection of carefully arranged newspapers waiting for him on top of his desk. He didn’t read them for the news – there were far better and more immediate ways to get those. No, what he was interested in was the interviews, the experts’ takes on specific situations, the editorials and the op-eds. He took a sip of his coffee, picked up the first one, and started to read. There wasn’t a single newspaper that didn’t feature at least one mention of the repeal that had come into effect barely twenty-four hours ago – a Lieutenant had gotten married just as the repeal came into effect; people who had been advocating for it under pseudonymous were suddenly publishing under their legal name; a retired Rear Admiral had publicly come out…
He could barely believe that it was really happening. He had known better than to just hope for change this time – he had gone to the polls and cast his vote just like he had done so many years ago, but this time he had not dared to dream, not when it didn’t seem to be any sense of urgency between the brass, not when the rumor going around was that ending the ban was not one of the President’s top priorities.
He had played his part nonetheless, he had gotten himself invited to all the right events and had carefully nudged the more neutral members of the brass towards a more progressist point of view – this is going to happen sooner or later, he would argue, and when it happens, it should be us setting the pace and not Congress, or worse, the courts. We need to get ahead of the situation, he would reason, otherwise, they’ll end up forcing our hand before we’re ready, and then, there will be chaos – and little by little he had positioned himself in their minds as the person who could help them deal with the problem.
His efforts had earned him a promotion to Rear Admiral and landed him in the middle of Nowhere, Tennessee as Commander of the Navy Personnel Command.
He hated it there; Kazansky was a Navy man at heart, and he could not be truly happy anywhere so far away from the coast. It was not the only reason for which he hated the place – no one knew how difficult it had been to give up the possibility of a post in the Pentagon, to pass up on the chance of waking up in the same bed as Mav on a daily basis after years of only seeing each other a few days at a time. But it had been worth it. When the President had declared his intention to repeal the ban in his 2010 State of the Union address, the need to gather data that would support any position the CNO were to officially take had suddenly become urgent, and Kazansky had been ready. He had not only actively worked with the CRWG to ensure that surveys were well received and promptly answered by enlisted, officers and family members alike, but he had also personally talked with most of the brass, visited as many bases as he could, and answered every single question as honestly and reassuringly as possible. At the end of it, he had submitted his own report assessing the potential effect that ending the ban could have on unit cohesion, effectivity, and morale within the Navy to the CNO, and he had made sure that the only reasonable answer anyone could give to the Senate when asked if the US Navy supported the repeal of DADT was a resounding yes.
Not all the Chiefs had shared his conclusions, but in the end, it had not mattered; the Senate had overwhelmingly voted for the repeal and Kazansky had barely had any time to celebrate before finding himself buried in work. He hadn’t minded it, guaranteeing that the implementation of the repeal would go down without a hitch in every single one of the US Navy Units had required careful planning and consideration, and Kazansky was nothing if not good at planning. He had supervised the creation and implementation of three different training programs that had prepared every single member of the Navy for the repeal of DADT, smoothing the road to an uneventful transition into a future where people like him could finally serve and love openly.
It was not perfect, not yet, he thought looking back at the picture of the smiling Lieutenant marrying who had been his partner for eleven years. The Navy was not going to recognize that marriage and neither was half of the country; Article 125 – already largely unprosecutable thanks to the 2004 ruling that the 2003 Supreme Court decision to legalize consensual sodomy applied to the military – would need to be officially repealed; thousands of discharges given under DADT would have to be revisited… No, it was not perfect, but it was a start. And he was going to exploit every single one of the new benefits available to him.
The truth was, neither he nor Mav could really go to their superior officers and inform them that they had been in a relationship since the 90s; DADT or not, that would still mean the end of their careers – the difference in ranks between them alone was enough for their relationship to be suspected of fraternization. If they were to come out, one of them would be forced to retire and neither of them was prepared to do that yet – Mav, currently playing with the new F-35C in Patuxent River, was not ready to give up flying, and he was not ready to give up his stars. And that would not even be the worst that could come out of it, not when Ice had been so personally involved in the repeal process; no, if he were to come out now, every single one of his recommendations and actions during the past few months would be brought into question, and the success of the repeal itself could be endangered. Coming out, even now, was not an option for them.
But that didn’t mean that nothing could change, he might not be introducing Mav as his life partner at the next Navy ball just yet, but he sure as hell was going to stop hiding what they were to each other like his life depended on it. Yes, he smiled to himself, there would be a picture of them – both of them smiling at the camera on a random beach in Japan; Kazansky had already chosen it – joining the small collection of photos that he kept on his desk, and if someone asked, he would tell them that those were his friends and family and let them think whatever they wanted. And soon, very soon, maybe even today, he was going to update his personal file and put Mav down as his next of kin, primary emergency contact, and the direct beneficiary of as many military benefits as he could manage.
Washington, DC, December 2015
Kazansky left a soft kiss on Mav’s bare shoulder and moved closer to him, burying his face in Mav’s hair. Mav was still asleep next to him; he could feel it in the regular and even raising and sinking of Mav’s stomach against his hand. Kazansky had not been expecting anything different – it was still early morning, not later than 0500 if Kazansky had to guess based on the light filtering through the blinds, and no one had ever accused Mav of being a morning person – but he didn’t think he could go back to sleep, not with the mixture of anxious anticipation and uncontrolled happiness currently dancing in his stomach.
He could see his new shoulder boards from there, carefully arranged on top of the table and waiting for the moment in which Mav would pin them on his shoulders later that afternoon. God, he could not believe it was finally happening.
He considered waking Mav while absentmindedly playing with the gold band adorning his ring finger – it still felt like a foreign object around it, his hand not yet used to its weight and texture; he couldn’t wait for the moment in which it would be the absence of it on his finger, and not his presence, what would feel foreign to him. He peppered the back of Mav's neck with kisses and slipped one hand under Mav’s sleeping t-shirt, slowly stroking his stomach – he still had abs, the asshole; Kazansky’s middle section had gone soft years ago, but that was what life behind a desk did to one’s body. After a minute, Mav lazily turned between his arms to hide his face against Kazansky’s chest.
“Stop it. It’s too early,” he murmured sleepily.
“No, it’s not.”
“Liar.”
“Come on, we can go have breakfast outside. What do you say about that? Coffee and lots of pancakes and bacon…” he tried to persuade him.
“Mmm. No. Sleep until late morning, then breakfast in bed and maybe sex, then lunch outside before coming back and getting ready for the ceremony. That was the plan. You like plans. Let’s follow the plan and go back to sleep. I like to sleep.”
“Okay, one more hour, then breakfast,” he offered.
“Two.”
“One and a half.”
“Deal,” Mav said repositioning himself on top of Kazansky’s chest.
Kazansky wrapped his arms around him and let his mind wander back toward what this pinning ceremony meant for them. They had made it, he thought looking towards the desk once again. Those four stars were going on his shoulders later today, and he was traveling to Hawaii for the changing of command ceremony in a couple of weeks, and after that, what the Navy thought about their relationship wouldn’t matter anymore. They were both at the end of their careers, both exactly where they wanted to be professionally – Mav testing impossible scram jets at China Lake and him commanding the Pacific Fleet – and against all odds, they still had each other. They had achieved what had seemed impossible all those years ago in their tiny apartment in San Diego – they had abided by the rules, they had played the game, and they had won.
Kazansky shifted slightly, reaccommodating Mav’s weight against his body, and let his warmth slowly lure him back to sleep.