SHAME ON THE BUNNY 2

 Part 1 of The Lies We Told Each Other

Fandoms:
Top Gun (Movies), Thunderheart (1992)

Relationships:
Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Sarah Kazansky/Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, Sarah Kazansky/Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Walter Crow Horse/Ray Levoi

Characters:
Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Carole Bradshaw, Sarah Kazansky, Jake "Hangman" Seresin, Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Ron "Slider" Kerner, Ray Levoi, Walter Crow Horse, Grandpa Samuel Reaches, Original Child Character(s)

Additional Tags:
Trans Male Character, Unplanned Pregnancy, Secret Relationship, Polyamory, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky Lives

INDEX: http://palabraspulsares.blogspot.com/p/the-lies-we-told-each-other-1-shame-on.html

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Chapter 2: 1991, March 

Summary:
"The Navy has ordered your urgent return to the mainland in response to a request from the FBI."
"Because?"
"Rachel Seresin has filed a paternity suit under her name, Mitchell. She says she is pregnant due to an encounter with you on July 10, 1990."
"What!?"
"The Oglala Sioux Tribal Council asked the FBI for the person responsible to be located and brought to tribal justice. Agent Mackey will take you to Rapid City, South Dakota, and turn you over to the tribal police."

"Lieutenant Commander Mitchell?"

The tone and expression of the captain that greets him after he gets off the plane in New York are downright hostile. Mav has no idea what he's supposed to do now, but he's used to being blamed because he's his father's son. He just controls his expression and moves closer.

"Yes, it's me."

"The Navy has ordered your urgent return to the mainland in response to a request from the FBI."
Pete nods. That was what they told her on the USS Saratoga before ordering her to pick up his things to board a transport to Germany, where she was to take another plane to New York.

"Because?" he asks the captain like he asked in the cramped Legal Services cabin on the Saratoga.
The man opens a file and looks inside. From the speed at which he slides his eyes, Pete can tell he's just rereading, but he already knows the file.

"Rachel Seresin has filed a paternity suit against you, Mitchell. She says she is pregnant due to an encounter with you on July 10, 1990."

"What!?"

Now Pete is sure that this is all a mistake or a conspiracy. He hasn't slept with a woman since Charlie in 1986. Besides, he knows where he was on July 10. The memories of that Tuesday spent in Ice's arms made the months in Iraq tolerable.

The captain gives him a glare for the interruption and continues.

"Since Ms. Seresin is a registered Indian of the Sioux Nation, residing on the Pine Ridge reservation, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council asked the FBI to have the person responsible located and brought to tribal justice. Agent Mackey will take you to Rapid City, South Dakota, and turn you over to the tribal police."

A man comes forward from the back of the office. He is tall, his blond hair is already receding from the front of his forehead, has broad shoulders and oddly small hands. He gives him a predatory smile.

"I hope you misbehave, Mitchell."

Pete sighs. He knows that this is not true, also that it is not worth resisting. Since he can't present his alibi, he'll go to the dammed Pine Ridge Reservation to set the record straight.

"Can I make a call before taking off?"

Mackey escorts him to a gallery with a dozen pay phones. Although he hasn't mentioned handcuffing him, Pete realizes he's practically under arrest. In fact, the agent stops a few meters away with the clear intention of monitoring his call. If he had considered calling Ice, the agent's attitude would have made him drop the idea immediately: he has no doubt that the FBI would recover the record of the call as part of this ridiculous process. Pete sighs, deposits five quarters, and dials Carole's number from memory.

She answers on the third ring.

"Yeah?"

"Carole, it's Mav."

"Oh, Mav! You said the Saratoga was coming back next month."

"Yeah, well, the Saratoga will return next month. I came back earlier because of a legal problem."

"Legal problem?" The fear in her voice is unmistakable.

"Yes, a woman says that I impregnated her. It seems she's well connected, and the FBI had the Navy send me back to the country."

A few moments of silence are interrupted by Brad's voice.

"Who is mom?"

"It's your Uncle Mav, honey. Come say hi."

"Hi, Uncle Mav. Will you be back soon?"

Pete hesitates a bit before formulating his answer. He has no idea how long this thing will take on Pine Ridge or whatever that Indian reservation is called.

"Not yet, Brad. You have to keep taking care of mom for a while longer. Can you do that?"

"Sure Mav, I'm your trusted ground support."

Hearing Brad's unreserved trust in the man who orphaned him always breaks Pete's heart. He tries hard so that his voice doesn't tremble.

"Excellent, Brad. I'm very proud of you. Put your mom back on the phone, please."

There is a noise, Brad's quick steps, and then Carole's voice returns.

"So, a pregnant woman?" There is a certain harshness in her tone.

"I swear I don't know where all this comes from! She says that we were together last July here in New York."

"Oh! What did you say is her name?"

"Rachel, I think..." He turns to Mackey questioningly. The man moves his lips and repeats the last name.

"Rachel Seresin." again, there is silence on the other end of the line. "Carole?"

"You don't remember?"

"To remember what? I got drunk as hell because it was too short a time to go to California but too long to stay on the ship. I don't remember anything about that day except that I was locked in a hotel and woke up stinking."

Of course, it wasn't like that: he spent the whole time locked up making love with an intensity he didn't think they were capable of, and he woke up with the smell of Ice, his unique scent, a mixture of rain and steel.  

"No, it wasn't like that." Carole denies. "You called me later and talked about how beautiful your stay in New York had been, you said that her eyes were blue like the winter sea."

Hearing "blue like the winter sea" stops the vague negative already on his tongue. Mav only uses that phrase to describe Ice's eyes. Carole wouldn't use that phrase in this conversation, which she must know is not private, if it wasn't necessary. She knows that he was with Ice in July and that the New York's leave was an extraordinary twenty-four hours because he got to spend time with Ice after eleven months of never being less than a hundred miles away from each other. However, instead of repeating the official version they agreed upon, she pretends to remember that he was with this Rachel, who has eyes like the winter sea.

He knows there's something in there: a message from Ice and Carole, but he's too tired to figure it out. He growls out of formality.

"I was drunk," he repeats with all the conviction he can. "I'll call you again when I find out everything in Pine Ridge. OK?"

"OK, Mav. I trust you. Rachel couldn't have a better father for her baby" and hangs up.

Pete is left with the receiver in his hand, surprised. This is also a coded message whose key eludes him.

"Let's go?" Agent Mackey's exasperated tone tells him it's a rhetorical question.

Mav nods, hangs up the phone, picks up the backpack, and lets himself be led. As they head out of the military airport, he realizes that the Navy's generosity to the FBI does not include providing them with transportation. They walk across the nearly empty parking lot through shallow snow in biting cold, especially in contrast to the steamy weather he left behind less than thirty hours ago.

"How long to Rapid City?" he asks as Mackey turns onto the road.

"The plane will leave in two hours, and the flight will last five more. There I will hand you over to tribal police agent Walter Crow Horse. It's two more hours by land to Allen, where your girlfriend is waiting for you."

Mav nods and thinks again about what Carole told him, but he can't understand it. This is all absurd. He hasn't touched a vagina in…

Oh!

The pieces take order in his head suddenly. In July, he penetrated the vagina of someone with eyes as blue as the winter sea, only he didn't think that…

Ice told him that it was safe and that the hormones he takes regularly would prevent any surprises. It was beautiful to feel that part of him. Even amid his euphoria, he realized the show of confidence that it represented. Mav knows that, although he finds these details of his anatomy tremendously attractive, it has been a long road for Ice to reconcile with his body. Mav lied about being drunk. In fact, they only drank water during those hours because they both wanted to be lucid to keep their memories as accurate as possible.

It just can't be.

It was almost eight months ago. Ice wouldn't have kept something like that from him for so long. Right?

Except that Tom Kazansky is a cold and calculating man. He must have considered all possible scenarios and chosen the one that would best protect his career and the baby. Because it's clear: Ice could have "dealt" with the surprise and never told Mav. Instead, he decided to continue the pregnancy and allow him to participate. Allow him to be a father.

As they cut through the morning traffic from New York to LaGuardia Airport, Mav looks down at his hands in shock and fear.

He's going to be a father.

That means this Rachel Seresin is a front to justify his trip to that Indian reservation, where legal records depend on tribal authority. A small space outside the control of the federal government. How did Ice pull off something like that? Well, Ice will explain when they meet.

He's going to be a father.

Like in a dream, Mav follows the FBI agent through the corridors of the terminal, the security check, the waiting room, and finally, inside the plane. For the first time since he became a pilot, he doesn't feel impatient with the speed or for not being in control.

He's going to be a father.

After takeoff, the exhaustion accumulated by the hours of tension finally catches up with him, and he falls asleep. The last coherent thought of his is that he is going to be a father.  

Mackey nudges him awake shortly before landing. His face maintains the same disgusted expression as when he picked him up in New York, but Pete doesn't flinch. Mav understands that in this fable that Ice invented, he is some kind of sexual degenerate since Rachel had to appeal to the Tribal Council and the FBI to locate him. Still, grinning like an idiot won't help his cause, he reasons, so he struggles to control his facial expression.

As if he were a criminal, Mackey waits for all the passengers to exit before letting him grab his luggage and get off the plane. It's colder than New York, so Mav hastily zips up the light regulation jacket and follows him across the runway and into the waiting room. A man in his thirties, stout, with black hair long to the middle of his back and a brown fedora, awaits them.

"Agent Crow Horse," says the FBI man.

"Agent Mackey." 

The tribal cop touches the brim of his hat and bows his head slightly in greeting. His eyes fix on Mav.

"Are you Mitchell?"

Before he can answer for himself, Mackey speaks.

"Yes, this is Pete Michell." His tone bleeds contempt and reinforces it by pushing Mav forward. "I picked it up at the military airport and brought it straight to you. Sorry, but I didn't feed him." Adds it as if it were a joke.

Mav lowers her eyes and swallows the desire to answer. He wants to see Ice, and going up against Mackey will only put that off.

"Thank you, agent. I'll take it from here."

Crow Horse gestures for Pete to follow him and starts walking towards the airport exit.

"Say hi to Ray for me, Crow Horse," Mackey says by way of farewell.

The tribal policeman only makes a hand gesture to show that he heard but does not stop or say whether he will give the message. They go to a well-used blue four-door pickup truck in the parking lot.

"Put your bag in the backseat Mitchell." Crow Horse says before taking the driver's seat.

They say nothing more until they leave the terminal and join the highway.

"My name is Walter Crow Horse, Tribal Police Chief of the Pine Ridge Reservation, Oglala Lakota Territory, of the Sioux Nation. Who are you?"

The tone of the question surprises Mav. Crow Horse doesn't seem antagonistic, as Mackey was during their seven hours together, but calm and somewhat curious.

"I'm Lieutenant Commander Pete Mitchell, a US Navy aviator, callsign Maverick."

"When was the last time you ate?"

"Well… I think fifteen or twenty hours ago. It's hard jumping from region to region, you know?"

Crow Horse growls, picks up his police radio and calls out to a persona named Ray. The mane is the only thing he understands since the conversation is not in English but in what he assumes is the Sioux language -probably to keep some relevant information from him. The talk ends when a mocking laugh comes over the radio, and Crow Horse hangs up the microphone, clearly annoyed.

"Scenic is forty minutes away. We will stop at the Tatanka store for you to buy something. I don't want you to faint."

"Thank you."

Encouraged by the generous gesture, Mav decides to question the policeman.

"Can you tell me who is Rachel Seresin?"

He receives a poisoned glare but also a response.

"A good person. His brother is Ray Seresin, a very important man on the reservation. What happened with Rachel is a disaster. Since the federal government now wants to pretend they are on our side, they've instructed the FBI to get you out of wherever you've been hiding."

"I wasn't hiding," he automatically defends himself, "I was fighting in the Gulf War."

"Thank you for your service," the other replies sarcastically.

Mav decides she doesn't want to talk anymore. He is exhausted, hungry, and longing to see Ice. At the same time, it seems this Rachel is a person with real problems. How does she fit into the plan? Pete has no idea, and maybe that's a good thing because Navy chiefs aren't very imaginative people. Whatever Tom planned will go right over their heads.

He leaves his mind blank, looking at the dry landscape, without trees, and with little grass.

The stop in Scenic is brief. He barely buys a bottle of water and some biscuits when Crow Horse sounds the car horn to resume the trip. Almost an hour later, they arrive at Allen.

Mav tries to hide his disappointment.

Allen is not a town but just a dusty street from which crooked paths are born. Three buildings seem to be done professionally and with quality: the clinic, the Tribal Council headquarters, and the police station. Everything else is shacks made of wood, pieces of zinc, truck doors, and other fragments. Yards are littered with abandoned cars, shapeless trash, and skinny dogs.

It's already noon, and the clinic windows are filled with curious faces as he exits Crow Horse's truck.

Without giving importance to the looks, the policeman leads him to the headquarters of the Tribal Council. He sits him down in a windowless office that's second to none in an interrogation room and leaves. The door stays open, so Mav hears him calling someone else.

"Ray, bring your mystic ass to room three, Maverick is here.

Maverick? Why did he call him that Crow Horse? Outside of the fighter pilots guild, few people give importance to callsign. Instead, this man, who supposedly barely knows him, does not refer to him by his legal name, as a police officer should, but by his callsign.

Mav wonders again when he'll see Ice when a man in a dark shirt, thick leather coat, and jeans walks in. He walks in blackguards, closes the door, and stands there momentarily.

"Hello?" Mav says tentatively.

The stranger turns, and Mav jumps back.

It is the face of Tomas Kazansky. Except this man is not Tomas Kazansky.

His hair is blonde but a shade darker than Ice's. The hair is styled in two braids that fall over his chest to below his breastbone, tied with simple leather thongs. Some short curls frame his face.

When the stranger approaches, he realizes he also walks differently: Ice is always upright, trying to impose himself through his height, while this man is slightly slouched as if he wants to make himself smaller. He is also beefier than Ice.

It's Ice, he suddenly realizes, what he might look like if he'd been born biologically male.

Frightened, Mav backs up against the wall. The stranger looks at him in surprise, then in kindness. He doesn't go any further but extends his hand in a friendly gesture.

"Welcome to Sioux Country, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell. I'm Ray Seresin, Tom's twin brother. He never told you about me?"

"The fuck?!"

CHAPTER 3: Memories, 1967 and 1973: https://palabraspulsares.blogspot.com/2023/08/shame-on-bunny-3.html