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He'd done duty in the Gulf, he'd flown skirmishes at the edges of disputed airspace, and he'd engaged in risky behaviors too numerous to count his whole life - but the thing that finally landed Mav in the hospital was swerving to avoid coyotes on a desert road during a late-night ride. His bike went one way, he went the other, and that was all she wrote.
When he blinked awake in a hospital room, his CO was there, waiting to give him the bad news.
"Totaled," Cavanaugh said sadly. The man pinched nervously at his pack of cigarettes like he was thinking of lighting up despite hospital rules, one eye on the wide-open doorway. "Going to take a real good mechanic to put your bike back together. Fortunately you didn't break into as many pieces as the machine did, but you're out of commission for a few weeks."
"New class doesn't start for three weeks," Mav said, squinting at him with one functioning eye. "Good as new by then."
"Right." Cavanaugh looked highly dubious, as any man might when faced with the sheer footage of bandages and gauze covering Mav's body. Not to mention the eye; the eye was concerning. He'd need two good ones, or at least two correctable ones, to fly. "Just...get back on your feet, and then we can talk about what comes next."
What came next would be another round of training a crop of pilots who thought their shit didn't stink. It would be a familiar process of proving that their shit did, in fact, reek of inexperience and overconfidence, preferably without any of them dying. Mav didn't kid himself about why he taught, or why he continued on at TOPGUN between combat stints and special TADs. Goose was always in the back of his mind, providing helpful commentary in case he tried to forget -- like the moment he'd known he was going to put the bike down on the highway before the crash. He could practically hear Goose shouting at him -- For fuck's sake Mav, it's you or the coyote! - before he swerved anyway. He never was that great at listening to his RIO, and that lesson still went down hard.
Goose was the space beside him - inside him - that was always empty. No amount of keeping in touch with Goose's family, or sponsoring his kid, or any other willing obligation could make that better. But he could teach the young pilots, and try to keep them from making those kinds of mistakes.
The base hospital reluctantly coughed him up two days later, because Mav was not about to convalesce in a gown that didn't cover his ass when he could be at his own place. He caught a ride from a friendly nurse - the nurses of both genders were always friendly, in his experience. In fact, some of them were friendly all the way into the house, and stuck around to be sure he was properly put to bed with as few clothes on as possible. This time, he was home with a stash of painkillers and extra gauze an hour later.
Fallon did not have the beautiful ocean sunsets he'd loved at Miramar, but it did have a lot of surrounding empty land, which was soothing to Mav's soul. That was why he'd picked an out-of-the-way place to rent, with acres of scrub and dirt to spare. He heaved a long sigh as soon as he was in the front door.
The light on his answering machine was blinking, so he mashed it without thinking as he twisted the cap off a beer.
"Hello Mav. I hear you tried to kill yourself again and did your usual shit job of it. Hope the coyote survived." Ice's familiar voice made Mav chuckle. "Coincidentally I will be at Fallon this weekend, so I'll be stopping by. I'll bring food, I get cranky when I'm not fed."
Mav saved the message, rather than erasing it. He and Ice had been friends, or what passed for friends among pilots, for years now. It wasn't antagonistic between them anymore like it was in those early days. Competitive, sure, but the circle of shit-hot pilots had shrunk quite a bit after they'd come back from the Gulf. Retirements, separations. Injuries that kept men out of the air, both the visible kind, and the kind you could only see if you were close enough to look inside someone's heart.
Ice's brand of friendship was to buy him a beer or two when they saw each other, and to send random postcards with one-sentence messages on them every so often. It had become a kind of running commentary on the trajectory of the disasters and triumphs of their lives.
Good job screwing the pooch, time for mid-career change to truck driver?
Commendations are overrated but keep trying, I still have more than you.
Divorce sucks even more than marriage.
Mav kept them all in his locker. They amounted to a years-long conversation, and it was more real than most of the ass-kissing interactions he had with other pilots. More real than just about any other relationship in his life.
Too bad Ice had decided to fly barely-bolted experimental buckets in between gallivanting around the world, rather than come back to TOPGUN. They rarely saw each other. He was stationed at Pax River now managing idiot test pilots, some of whom had graduated from Mav's program to Ice's, or vice versa. Sometimes Mav missed the days when they'd been in each other's orbits constantly, flirting with each other by way of sharp words and beautiful flying. It had given Mav a constant hard-on that even a string of beautiful women, starting with Charlie, couldn't cure.
Nowadays they saw each other at duty stations, or awards ceremonies. Or funerals, which kept happening with increasing regularity.
This time Ice was coming in person to deliver his smart-ass postcard remarks. The thought shouldn't have made Mav as happy as it did. He took his beer to the back deck and watched the distant blue hills turn pink at sunset, and then he went inside and contemplated jerking off to the memory of Ice's grin and his jaw muscles twitching in irritation. But the beer and the painkillers knocked him out before he could really even get his pants down. Getting a little bit broken was hell on his imaginary sex life.
~~~
A cloud of dirt-road dust announced Ice's arrival long before his car actually came into view. Mav had sufficient time to get out to the front porch and slouch against the deck rail, so he was in Ice's sightline when he got out of the rental car.
He looked good. Same perfect blond hair, same aviator glasses. Same smirk, the mirror to which was spreading over Mav's face.
Ice slammed the car door and turned his face right, then left, taking an exaggerated look around the property, before he said, "If you even think about making an Iceman cometh joke, I'm flushing your pain meds down the toilet."
"Good to see you, too." Mav gestured to the open desert around them. "Welcome to the party."
"Christ Maverick, did you have to pick a place so far off the beaten track? My foot was fused to the gas pedal by the time I found the turnoff."
"It has its charms."
Ice peeled his shades off and looked at Mav, and the smirk grew just a tiny bit. "You've got a little something on your face." He gestured to his own face, the side of which was perfect and unbruised, unlike Mav's. He knew this from a long, wincing examination in the mirror that morning. But at least his eye was open and working now, and he could roll it at Ice, so small mercies.
"Did you bring the promised food? Because unless you want to eat a cactus dipped in beer sauce, you're shit out of luck otherwise."
"I'm a naval aviator, I'm always prepared." Ice lifted a duffel and a bag of groceries out of the trunk. "I'd ask for a hand with this, but first I need to recon the situation. Make sure you have two good ones left."
"Keep it up, asshole," Mav said, and turned his back to limp into the house in a completely dignified way.
Ice followed him into the cool, dim interior. The place was mostly empty, but the owner had taken obvious care to make the furniture comfortable - big, soft couches, and low tables. It struck Mav then that he hadn't brought anything of his own into that space, other than clothing, books, and a few mementos from his service. He'd never lived in a house that was really his own; they were all just duty stations he passed through. It made him weirdly sad for a moment, until Ice tossed his duffel in the corner with a thump.
"Tasteful decor," he said. "Guessing you had nothing to do with that."
"Are there steaks in that bag?" Mav asked, drawing closer, hands up in surrender. Ice handed it over with a slow, lazy smile and tailed him into the kitchen.
"Steaks, potatoes, bread, bacon, and a dozen eggs. Because I will still be here for breakfast, which you are cooking."
Mav shoved the meat and eggs in the fridge and turned to find Ice in the doorway, looking him over - an unmistakable cataloging of injuries. He met Ice's eyes. "So...you really want me to cook?"
Ice sniffed. "Don't make it sound like you've never cracked an egg before. I will barbecue those steaks, by the way. I know my way around a grill."
"Well, that's a comfort."
Over the next several hours, Ice managed to scorch some extremely strong coffee (as per Navy tradition), competently barbecue those two steaks and some vegetables, and drink his fair share of Mav's beer hoard. They sat on the small deck and fell easily into familiar patterns of one-upmanship and bragging rights, talking about old friends and changing ways in the Navy.
"So, test pilots," Mav said, turning his head so he could see Ice's profile. It only took a moment to sketch down the lines of Ice's body with his eyes. He had always been handsome, but the last few years had given him a settled confidence which looked good on him.
"It's the only thing that really brings it all back," Ice said, face tilted up toward the darkening sky. "The way we used to fly, you know? Balls to the wall, all risks encouraged. No barrier too extreme." He paused. "Never did get why you didn't want to try it."
"Probably the same reason you didn't want to teach at TOPGUN," Mav answered. "You always did need a different kind of thrill than I did."
Ice turned his head, caught Mav looking; he looked back, serious. "Did I?"
"Seemed like it." Mav held his gaze a moment more, and then shifted back to staring out at the sky, because they definitely weren't talking about flying anymore.
Silence fell between them, but it was a comfortable kind of quiet. When the light began to fade over the desert, it was magical; sunset painted the sky, and then bled over onto the hills and the land beyond, pink and deep blue. He'd always loved the sunsets at Miramar, the way the sun sank into the ocean like a gold coin melting into the water, but in the desert the end of the day felt like a sigh, exhaled.
Nighttime also brought a chill with it, but neither of them moved to grab a jacket. They were down to one beer, so they shared it as they watched the stars twinkle to life in the darkness overhead.
"You ever think about the astronaut program anymore?" Ice asked.
"Hell no. Too old. Too many cracks in the infrastructure." Mav chuckled and took a swig of beer, then offered the bottle to Ice.
"Not too late. They're taking assholes way older and less qualified than you." Ice took the bottle from his hand, his long fingers lingering against Mav's, and took a long swallow of beer before handing the bottle back.
"Space jockeys don't get to fly, anyway. They go up, they come down. I could get a commercial route job at Delta doing the same thing, but it pays better. The shuttle's just flipping switches and math, and I hate math."
"Nobody likes math," Ice agreed. "Especially people who suck at it, like you."
Mav started to try to muster up a cute retort, but instead he cracked up because it was true, and then they were both laughing, a little bit drunk and pretty happy, all things considered.
"Chilly out here." Ice stretched, then stood up from the Adirondack chair in one smooth motion. He held out a hand to Mav, who took it, and when Ice hauled him up they were chest to chest, inside each other's space. Closer than they'd been in years.
"I should give you some time to heal," Ice said, reaching up to draw his fingertips down the bruised side of Mav's face. So gently, he could barely feel them there, but it made Mav shiver anyway. "Don't want you flying apart if I touch you." He tilted his head, and his breath ghosted across Mav's lips as he said, "You feeling fragile, Mav?"
"Not in the least," Mav said steadily. It was partly true. He wanted whatever was about to happen between them, but there was a familiar brittleness inside him, like the slightest pressure might break something in ways it couldn't be mended again. It wasn't anything to be careful of. He'd never been, before. This felt important. It had been a long time since anything was important at all, except flying.
Ice stepped back and turned away without another word, disappearing into the shadows inside the house. Mav followed, a little unsteady. When he pulled the curtains across the patio doors, Ice was waiting for him at the door to his bedroom, polo shirt already off, shoes off, working on his buckle. He was beautiful, in that casual way he had of inhabiting himself completely. Mav had always wanted him, if he was being honest, and that low hum of desire was filling up his body now. He'd known what might happen if Ice actually showed up on his doorstep. He'd wanted it, and wanting it made him a little clumsy. His usual swagger seemed to have deserted him.
He took a deep breath, and pushed the envelope.
"Think my view is better than yours is about to be," Mav said, his fingers going automatically to the collar of his T-shirt. He grimaced as he lifted his arms to tug the shirt off.
"Maybe don't waste time telling me what I'm missing out on," Ice said. His hands were gentle when he pushed Mav's away, when he maneuvered Mav's arms out of the shirt. Those hands were gentle on his bruised back when he pulled Mav flush with his body, and then they were kissing. Not the way Mav had expected, maybe; they were the kind of kisses you earned with someone you'd known always and had fought with, bled with once or twice. Real and messy.
They staggered back into the bedroom, tripping over each other because they were unwilling to stop kissing each other. It was the good kind of freefall. It shouldn't have mattered that Ice was being so careful, not gripping him where the bruises were the worst, but it did. It took Mav's breath away.
Ice frowned. "Did I hurt-"
"Shut the hell up," Mav said, curling one hand around the back of Ice's head, fingers sliding roughly through his hair to pull him closer.
When Mav's back hit the bed, he barely felt it, and he sure didn't stop to think about it; he got the rest of his clothes off while Ice was shedding his pants, his gaze never breaking away from Mav's body. A moment later they were skin to skin like it had been going on for years, a perfect fit to each other, and Mav said: "There's condoms in the drawer."
"Well shit, Mav," Ice said, drawling it out, but then he stopped, looking to the drawer, and then to Mav. It was the first time Mav had ever seen him look unsure, so Mav twisted sideways and pawed open the drawer. He grabbed out a condom and held it up between two fingers.
"Let me ride," he said, and for good measure, he took a deep breath and got his hand around Ice's dick, and yeah. There it was; Ice's eyes slammed closed and he took a shuddering breath.
"Okay," he said. He tipped to the side and let go, and it was easy from there - they fit together like it had always been this way.
He'd been with men before - carefully, and making sure they weren't relationships he cared about - but he'd never had anyone's intense focus on him this way. Ice touched him without holding back; he manhandled Mav into position, held him there when Mav leaned down for kisses. Mav watched him through slitted eyes, enjoying the way he arched off the bed when Mav took him inside his body. It felt good not to go slow, to ride hard and feel Ice's belly tense beneath him. He wanted it to last forever, but then Ice started stroking him, and he threw his head back and came, cursing a blue streak.
Ice's hands moved to his hips and gripped, hard, and Mav watched him come still buried inside, greedy for the way Ice's lips parted and his eyes drifted closed. Better than he'd imagined. Worth the wait.
After, they didn't talk. Mav fell asleep with his face mashed into Ice's stomach, and he was pretty sure Ice's fingers were stroking through his hair. He woke late at night to find Ice watching him, and they didn't talk then, either. They had better things to do.
He vaguely heard the shower in the morning, and Ice moving around, but he didn't budge until he smelled coffee. That was enough to motivate him into the bathroom, and then the shower, where he hissed every time the water hit a half-healed bruise. He could have used more of those great endorphins that made the sex so good, and the bruises seem so not-important while they'd been...while they were...
...wow, he and Ice had really done that. Had sex. Fucked. He stood in the shower and waited for the morning-after regrets to slam into him, and they...didn't. He hurt everywhere; his ass was sore, his body was screaming at him, and he didn't mind one damn bit.
Mav frowned at the tiled shower wall in confusion. The cap to his shampoo was off, because Ice had obviously used it; the soap was sitting on the shower ledge instead of in the soap dish. It should have been irritating, all that evidence that of somebody in his space. He just couldn't muster up any annoyance. It was nice, knowing someone had been there. Someone he cared about.
He winced, because one-night stands with buddies were supposed to be awkward, not comfortable. He could feel a tiny panic rising up inside him because of his lack of panic.
When the water started to run cold, he took a deep breath and turned the water off, then toweled off and limped out to find some sweats and a clean T-shirt. By the time he got to the kitchen, Ice was sitting there in a sunbeam, impeccable, his dog tags gleaming against his white T-shirt.
"Better get a move on," he said, sipping his coffee calmly. "I'm hungry as hell and those eggs aren't cooking themselves."
"Okay," Mav said slowly, taking in the pan on the stove, the butter and spatula beside it, the open package of bacon and carton of eggs on the counter. Ice got up and poured Mav a cup of coffee, and handed it to him - black, no sugar.
The strangest thing was that none of it was strange - not even the slow, easy kiss Ice laid on him before he sat back down at the table, smiling.
He was still smiling an hour later when he got in the car and drove away, well-fed and well-kissed. Mav stood at the end of the driveway and stared after him, and made a quiet resolution that this would be the one and only time they would ever - ever -- do this.
If only he could get the smile off his own damn face, he might have been a little more convinced.
~~
Life went on, and as one-night stands went, his night with Ice should have been just about perfect. It was a one-off; a reassurance that Mav could have what he wanted and nothing about his life or their friendship would change. It was all, that, sure. Trouble was, Mav couldn't stop himself from thinking about Ice, or that night in bed, or the way Ice had looked at him so thoughtfully in those moments before he got back into his car and drove away. Fun and games. No big deal.
All true, and yet he couldn't get the notion that he should fly to Pax River out of his head. Why not? Fly over, spend a weekend, and...do what? It was confusing to think about, because there wasn't a relationship there to fly to. Everything else in his life was normal. A new class of hotshots that stunk of competitiveness and ego, who were determined to beat Maverick at what had literally become his own game. It made him nostalgic for who he used to be, for the pilot he'd been before winning had stopped mattering to him.
Was he really different, now? Still taking chances, racing his bike at 100 mph down a dark deserted highway, or buzzing enemy aircraft in neutral zones.
Or riding Ice's cock, kissing him deep and dirty while Ice whispered Mav, Mav, with his hand cupped at the back of Mav's neck - that had felt riskier than any skirmish he'd been in for the last decade.
Five weeks went by, and then six, and he forced himself not to call - not that it was an issue; Ice wasn't exactly ringing his phone off the hook, either - up until he was in a briefing one afternoon and heard two of his over-eager hotshots discussing an accident at PAX in hushed tones. Instrument failure, they said. Pilot had to eject, but he'd lived through it. Experimental plane was a total loss.
He wasn't prepared for the sudden nausea at the idea that it might be Ice. Or the way he zoned out in the elevator trying not to picture it, because none of them were indestructible. Their job description required high skill and equally high tolerance for the possibility of fiery death. Even now, even so long after Goose's death, it was hard to think of where anyone he cared about was concerned.
Even after that, he waited another day before he picked up the phone. Ice answered on the second ring.
"Shit, you're alive," Mav said, and pressed the receiver against his forehead, right between his eyes, because the wave of relief at the sound of Ice's voice was a full-body shiver.
"Fuck you," Ice said amicably. "How'd you hear, anyway?"
"Put two and two together from gossip." You could have told me yourself, he wanted to say, but what the hell claim did he have on Ice that he could say that and get away with it? They'd fucked. Once. Okay, three times. Four, maybe, if Ice blowing him after breakfast counted.
"You going to be in Maryland this weekend?"
"Looks like it," Mav said.
"What a coincidence." Ice paused. "I don't have a guest room."
"Am I supposed to say I'm good sleeping on the couch? Because...I'm not sleeping on the couch."
"No. You're not." Ice hung up, and Mav threw the handset in the cradle and got busy thinking of an excuse to fly to PAX for two days.
~~
His plane was on the ground and he was in a taxi on the way to Ice's place before the doubt set in. He'd always followed his intuition in the cockpit - not so much seat-of-the-pants flying, like so many had accused him of, but more a sureness about the right course of action. It was experience combined with readiness, and being open to whatever might happen next.
That intuition sometimes went spectacularly wrong when he had both feet planted on solid ground. Usually in relationships. Planes were easy, people were impossible. He stared out the window and reached for that intuition now. Instead of warning bells, all he felt was a deep sense of rightness - like he'd made the correct decision to come, and he should have made it sooner.
Whatever this thing was between him and Ice, it wasn't complicated or weird at all...which was what worried Mav the most.
The cab pulled into the long driveway of a colonial-style house half hidden behind a stand of old, lush trees, their leaves just beginning to turn with the fall weather. Mav handed over the fare and climbed out, pulling his duffel with them. This time it was Ice waiting there on the long porch in black slacks and a red polo, not a hair out of place and not a visible scratch on him, the bastard.
"Hello," Ice said. "Want to make small talk?"
Mav walked up the steps and stopped beside him, facing the house, so that Ice had to turn his head to look at Mav. "I think we should stick to what we're good at, don't you?" he asked.
"That leaves so many possibilities," Ice said, squinting as though he was thinking that over. "Where I'm concerned, anyway."
Mav laughed a little, and then he proceeded in through the front door and set his duffel down. Ice came in behind him, along with a few wind-swept leaves from the porch. Unlike Mav's rented temporary digs, Ice's house looked like a real home. Classy furniture, paintings and photos on the walls. It made sense; he'd been married. That tended to come with expectations of permanency.
"In case you're wondering, I bought it after the divorce."
It was creepy, the way Ice seemed to read his mind. Mav gave him a look. "I wasn't wondering, I was thinking about what a pain in the ass it would be to move all this stuff to a new assignment."
"Roots are inconvenient that way." Ice picked up Mav's duffel and headed down the hallway. "Kitchen's over there. Everything else is down here."
'Everything else' turned out to be a bedroom, a linen closet, some kind of office, and a bathroom. Ice set Mav's duffel down carefully beside the bed and then put his hand on the corner of the dresser, like he was bracing himself to speak. Suddenly Mav didn't want to hear it, whether it was a 'what are we doing' speech or a 'we should be careful' or whatever the hell other cautionary thing Ice was going to say.
"Don't," he said. And then he stopped, because he had no idea what he didn't want Ice to do, other than start talking and fuck everything up.
But Ice being Ice, there wasn't any stopping him. He turned to face Mav and leaned a hip against the dresser. "We both know the risk we're taking," he said slowly. "DADT doesn't hold water, not for what we do. Who we fly with."
"And yet, here I am," Mav said. There didn't seem to be much else to say that mattered.
Ice nodded, but didn't answer. Mav was starting to develop an appreciation for Ice's smart mouth, because his silences were unnerving. After a moment, Ice stepped closer, and began undoing the buttons of Mav's shirt, one by one, his eyes locked to Mav's. When he had he shirt open, he fished for Mav's dog tags, and traced his fingers over them.
"Still right here," Mav said, raising an eyebrow.
Ice reached beneath Mav's undershirt, and as soon as his warm hands hit Mav's skin, shivers spread through Mav's body. He leaned up to meet Ice halfway, taking more of those addictive kisses.
The second time (fifth time, who were they kidding) wasn't like the weekend at Fallon. They took their time, going over each other, marking scars and mapping what had come before, but without asking questions. Mav dropped a few placeholder kisses - on freckles, on crooked joints, on what might have been bruises from the crash Ice clearly wasn't going to tell him anything about - and waited each time to hear Ice make those soft, breathy sounds of pleasure.
He spent a couple hours wringing all kinds of new sounds out of Ice, and then took his own turn under the scrutiny. When Ice put him on his belly and began working his way down Mav's spine to his ass, Mav tried to muffle his moans into a pillow. Ice gently moved it out of the way and whispered against his ear, "Keep running that mouth, Mav, I like it," and it was all he could do not to come without so much as a hand on his dick.
He liked the way Ice wanted him. Maybe because he didn't want to be out there on his own, wanting too much from Ice.
At some point, they both dozed off, and woke to a darkened room. Twilight seeped in around the edges of the closed blinds, turning the room's deepening shadows blue-black. They curled together, wasting no time getting skin against skin again.
"This is..." Mav paused; Ice's hand stopped its gentle stroking of his shoulder for a second or two, then went on like Mav hadn't spoken. When Mav didn't go on, Ice suggested,
"Strange? Weird?"
"Actually, no. It's anything but weird." Mav sighed. "I keep going over it in my mind, and it just...won't go in the boxes."
"The box hasn't been built yet that can hold this." Ice shifted in the bed, turning on his side so he could look at Mav's face.
"Where's the Iceman of old? The guy who never made mistakes? The guy who told me I was dangerous?"
Ice rested one hand on Mav's belly and propped his head up with the other. "You're still dangerous," he said quietly. "You didn't answer me, before. Do you think this is a mistake?"
"No," Mav said quickly. "No, I..." He paused, thinking of flying inverted, far from home, and the feeling of total peace that came with forgetting the rules.
This felt the same.
"That way I used to gamble with my aircraft...the way I failed to retire, as Viper would say. Expensive lessons." Mav turned on his side and rested his hand against the curve of Ice's bare hip. "This feels potentially more expensive. If we fuck it up. If we...there's a lot to lose, Tom."
"The way I see it, taking chances is the only way you ever learned anything about yourself," Ice said. He leaned forward and captured a kiss, thorough, decimating, and pulled back, his eyes glittering in the dark. "Fire or clear, Mav."
Either way, it would be fine. They were friends. Too much had already happened, and that would never change. But for Mav, the options were simple. It might go sideways. They might fuck for a while and then give it up. Or maybe, this could be something worth having. Maybe even worth putting down roots for, if that was even something he could do. No way of telling, until he tried.
He looked at the ceiling for a while, at the cobweb shining faint grey in the far corner, and the empty hook screwed into the ceiling, which had probably once held some kind of plant. He had no idea what to do with houseplants. He'd never wanted to take a chance on killing them. They seemed difficult. Always needing something.
Then he turned to look at Ice, whose expression had grown serious.
"Okay, then," Mav said. "If you really want to talk in metaphors. I'm taking the shot." Then he turned onto his back and frowned at that damned empty hook, and the lumps in the popcorn ceiling, until Ice swung over him and straddled his hips. The sheet was bunched around him in an unfairly sexy way, and his dog tags swung into place against his chest.
"Good call," Ice said. "Now let's stop talking. Nothing good ever comes of it."
Mav could tell he was going to be doing a lot more thinking in the days to come, and some talking too -- about duty stations and change of assignment, and whose job it was to wash the sheets, and why Maverick didn't like material things weighing him down. But that could wait until Ice was done having his way with him.
It could probably wait until after breakfast, too - breakfast that he was definitely not going to cook, because he was going to go buy a hanging plant instead.