Work Text:
When Ron landed in San Diego, he felt as if he wasn't there in body. As if his soul was watching his body move throughout the plane, gathering his carry-on and walking through the isles while in a fog. He felt as if his life currently wasn’t real, and considering the current circumstances, he didn’t want his life to be real.
The pain in his chest was so great that it didn’t allow him to fly his own plane into the city on the sunny coast. Everything from the lump in his throat, the pound to his skull, and the ache of his heart, it all robbed him of the only sense of control he obtained. The feelings were so overwhelming that they didn’t even allow him to be in the cockpit, to see the skies from above without being in the navy, and for the first time in many years, he was the passenger in a commercial flight. Flying into the city he recognized as home.
Ron walked throughout the terminal, feeling as if his feet weren't touching solid ground, as if he was walking on air, the air that could shift at any given moment and let him fall. The weight of his carry one strolling beside him felt heavy, even if there were only two outfits in there. The aviators that were firmly in place, hid the bloodshot eyes that still stung from the days of endless crying, But most of all, the dog tags attached to his keys were burning holes through his pants and searing his skin.
Every step the set of keys jingled within the depths of fabric and every sound remind him of what he was here for. What he came for and what he lost.
He was in his service blues, having changed on the plane, and while being retired he still paid his dues. It was only fair to show up to a navy funeral in his navy attire.
But for fucks sake did Ron want to rip the threads and set his skin free.
He shouldn’t be wearing a uniform that has long meant nothing to him, he shouldn’t be flying in, he shouldn’t be experiencing the feelings he is, for the meaning behind it all was too much for Ron to handle.
In the coldness of the airport, in the stickiness of his skin, Ron wanted to be anywhere but here.
He wanted to rewind to when times were simple, when time meant nothing to them. When flying into San Diego meant lunch while catching up, and not catching up over a grave. When San Diego held nothing but memories. But instead, it was plagued with the death of one of their own.
Ron’s steps echoed in his ears, his heal clacking against the tile, and he couldnt help but think, how was he supposed to see all of them without the leader of the pack?
How was he supposed to stand under the warm sun of San Diego in the place he hoped he would never be for the person he never wanted to bury?
How was he supposed to continue daily life without the one person who made him want to see the next day?
Maybe it was the cloud hanging over him, or the haze that encircled his mind, but Ron didn’t fucking know the answers, and that’s what he feared.
Time had run out, and a new timer had started, and it was almost time.
Almost time for Ron to say goodbye.
The skin was warm on his skin. San Diego always treated its occupants right. Allowing them to bask in the warmth that was given off by the rays.
Warmth is what he felt on the outside, coldness is what swallowed him on the inside.
Ron is trying, it’s taking all his fucking might to stay calm, to stay composed under the hot sun, when his heart is breaking into a million pieces.
The trumpet rings in his ears.
The silence rings even louder.
But when Mav pounds his wings into the casket of their fallen comrade, does Ron lose it.
All his composure, all his cold indifference, all of it, breaks .
His heart which had been breaking since the phone call is nothing just dust at this point, and he lets out a sob.
He slaps a hand over his mouth, trying to keep more from escaping, but the missing man formation flown overhead doesn’t let him even think about keeping anything in.
It takes everything in him to not fall to his knees, to now call out to the skies above him to “ bring him back”.
He feels an arm wrap around him, it’s Wolfman’s, and he allows the old friend to embrace him. He allows Wolf to run his hand down Ron’s back while he sobs into the lapels of his dress blues. Murmuring why why why .
Because why.
Why did the skies take him?
Why was he the first out of all of them?
Why was his suffering ended in the way that took him away?
Why was Ron fucking here watching his best friend be lowered into the ground?
Why.
Why.
Why.
The whys would never be answered and Ron couldn’t fucking take it.
The metals on his chest have never felt so heavy before.
The attire never weighed heavier on his frame.
Maybe it was because of the position he was in crying on Wolf’s shoulders, causing his body to ache.
But he knew that wasn’t what this was.
The keys in his pocket weighed him down. The dog tags attached to them sunk him below anything physical.
He removed his face from Wolfman’s suit jacket. Pretending not to notice the tears streaming down his cheeks, pretending not to hear the shaky breaths of Hollywood beside him, the quiet sobs of Chipper and Sundown behind him, and trying to pretend to not see Mav’s face in the darkness of it all.
He raised his arm, saluting a legend, an old comrade, an old friend, the person his heart belonged to, and to the man that was forever his pilot.
Tom would probably yell at him for how terrible his form was, but he had to cut Ron some slack.
He had just lost his best friend, the one his heart beats for, so it’s not his fault that he feels lifeless in the green fields of the cemetery.
Ron didn't plan on staying in San Diego.
The memories that lurked on certain street corners, the memories attached to certain bars, and the look of the clear sky were all too much for him to take.
He couldn’t look up and see the clear blues when everything around him is cloudy.
But yet he still stayed.
Out of his own safety because he’s shit-faced and in no state to fly.
So after declining his old friends' offer to drink together, he found a home in a shitty bar, drinking his sorrows away, and buying a hotel room he now sits on the floor with his back to the door.
Something was poking his ass and he almost let it be but the discomfort got too great.
He reached under, the complimentary whiskey bottle from the mini fridge in his hand, and he pulls out his keys from his back pocket.
Ron was about to throw them further into the room when the glint of metal shined in the dim lighting he found himself in.
His hold on the bottle gave, and it tipped sideways and he couldn’t care for he brought both hands to cup to the keychain in his hand.
The source of the shine was a certain pair of dog tags.
KAZANSKY, TOM
'ICEMAN'
U.S NAVY
343 36 8894
USS ENTERPRISE
Ron held the pieces of metal in his hand as if they were the most precious thing on the planet. And at that moment they were.
Ron just stared at the metals in his hand, refusing to believe that this was the last thing of his best friend.
Despite the blurry ness of his vision, he saw something on the tags. Something that resembled scratches and knicks. Most likely from spending years next to the keys Ron has on the circle keychain.
In the openness of his palms, he feels wetness drop onto the furnace that is his skin. Ron soon realizes the wetness of his own tears.
Ron wants to scream, he thought he was done crying.
But seeing those scratches because of the carelessness he put into the precious tags, sent the dam flowing.
His fist close around the metal and he sobs.
Finally allowing himself to cry the loudest he’s ever cried.
The pain in his chest is so overbearing that he believes he is dying.
And maybe he is because he can’t find a reason to live that isn’t Tom Iceman Kazansky.
The metal in his palm digs into the softened flesh, and Ron’s mind circles back to the time when Tom gave them to him.
“Here”
Something landed in his lap as his head was thrown back against the couch.
It was a week after the rescue of Layton and they were on their “hero leave”. But they would soon be going back to a ship and back to their planes.
Ron lifted his head and found the object Ice threw into his lap.
When he saw what his hand beheld, he was stunned silent.
In his hand was the second pair of dog tags that every soldier got. But these weren’t his own, they were Tom’s.
Ron lifted his eyes to look at him in shock, refusing to believe that Tom just handed these off with nonchalance.
The look on his face must’ve asked all the questions that needed to be said for Tom spoke again, “I don’t want anybody else to have them but you. My backseater in the plane and life, only if you’ll have me as your pilot of course.”
Before Tom had finished his thought, Ron was up and pulling the man into his arms. Stuffing his face into the soft strands of the other and squeezing hard.
Tom giving Ron his second pair of tags meant more than anything in the world. Tom believed Ron to be more important than his family, more important than future lovers, more important than his wingman, and more important than himself.
Ron held on for dear life and he relaxed when he felt arms wrap around his waist and squeeze, a quiet “thank you for being here since we were kids” whispered in the no space between them.
That day Tom Kazansky had become the most important person in Ron’s life, even though that was the case many years beforehand. But with the dog tags in his hand, it became real.
But as he sits on the cold floor of a hotel room, alone, sobbing into his fists, the damage done to Tom’s tags taking place in his mind, he realizes that life is unfair.
Unfair because time runs out.
Unfair because the skies reclaimed Tom.
Unfair because Tom was taken away from Ron.
A scream rips out from his throat as he clutches the metal in his hand until he knows it leaves marks.
Because it’s the only thing he has left and it’s damaged.
A day later he walks out of the hotel room, luggage in tow, in regular clothes and his neck slightly heavier.
The chain that never left his neck, even though he’s long retired, weighed more.
But Ron couldn’t care less, for there were now two sets of tags on that chain.
His own and Tom’s.
Where they should’ve been from the very beginning.