SHAME ON THE BUNNY 3

 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 3: Memories, 1967 and 1973

 Summary:
1967: Tom and his father
"I have few happy memories of my biological father, but what I'm going to tell you helped me. I must have five or six years old. I think that day he knew, you know?"
"That you weren't a girl?"
"Yeah."
1973: Ray and Tom
"Yes, he was a bastard. I was expecting another lash, but it didn't come. Tommy had jumped to cover my body with his. It was one of the few circumstances in which she saw his girlish body as an asset."

1967: Tom and his father

They lie facing each other under the blankets (spring is cold on the Dakota plains). Mav rubs the belly, and Ice lets out a grunt of relief.

"It is not born yet and already pays you more attention."

Mav stops the movement, but Ice urges him on with a gesture.

"Don't stop. It will be your fault if they kick me in the guts again."

Mav can't help but laugh, but it doesn't last long.

"I wonder if my father ever did this with my mother."

He doubts it. He is not even sure his father was present during his mother's pregnancy. After all, Duke Mitchell was an aviator. Mav remembers his affection, yes, but he is no longer sure how much of it is real and how much his imagination trying to ease the loneliness of early orphanhood.

"We have promised not to die," Ice reminds him, and he nods.

They said their vows in a ceremony officiated by Sam Reaches, the oldest person on the reservation, responsible for community memory. Ray, Walter, and Sarah were witnesses. It has no legal value, but it is all they can hope for. Mav would have wanted to do it near the sea, with Carole as his witness and Brad as ring carrier. He knows it is a corny and impossible dream, but it's a dream. It doesn't have to be realistic.

One of their promises was to support each other and take care of their baby, in the light (as Mav will) or from the shadows (as Ice will have to), but always available. They are both orphans. They know what it's like to lack stable and reliable figures while growing up. Ice has planned, Mav will execute the most serious maneuver of her life: to be a father.

Still, he can't avoid melancholy: he will only have these two months with Ice. After the birth, they will have to separate again, pretend to be friends, and lie to their offspring to not lose their careers for being who they are and loving who they love.

Tom must realize that his mood is turning sour because he caresses his cheek and starts whispering.  

"I have few happy memories of my biological father, but what I am going to tell you helped me when the colonel almost made me believe that nobody would love me for being... Well, I am not going to repeat the things that the colonel told me. 

"I must have been five or six years old, we were in the park, and Dad called us to return home. It was one of those days when Ray and I had managed to dress identically and even ended up with similar stains on our clothes. We were at opposite ends of the park. First, Dad said, "Ray, come here," but I immediately raised my head. He was turning towards me, so I ran in his direction before he called my name out loud. It bothered me a lot that they said that name in public places. We reached his side at the same time, and he stared at me. I think that at that moment he knew, you know?"

"That you weren't a girl?"

"Yeah. He looked at me, really looked, and asked something that seemed to me at the time" he stops trying to find the correct adjectives. "I found it surprising and logical at the same time:

"I see," he said. "Then how should I call you? "

"Ray," I answered right away.

In those years, until I was around eleven, I just wanted what Ray had: his boy's privileges. But Dad knelt down before me and looked into my eyes very seriously.

"No. Ray is your brother. You are you. You have to choose your own name." He never called me Rachel again but waši.

 

1973: Ray and Tom

"One moment, I was looking at the blue sky over a semi-desert plain, the plane was moving away, and I was saying goodbye. The next, I was lying on the floor, cowering and trying to cover my face with my arms. Likewise, the blows from the belt on my back were painful. I tried to keep quiet because he would get even more upset when I made noise. He said that a real man endures punishment in silence."

"Bastard," Walter whispers, his breath tickling his nape.

"Yes, he was a bastard. He was expecting another hit, but he didn't come. Tommy had jumped to cover my body with his. It was one of the few circumstances in which he saw his girlish body as an asset."

"Don't  you dare! " he yelled at the colonel.

"Rachel! " my mother's voice reached me from afar.

Everyone always said it was admirable how soft her voice was, but after she married the colonel, I couldn't help but think that coward was the best adjective.

"Don't  disrespect your father! He sure disciplines Ray with good reason. " Discipline me, that's what they called it.

"My father is dead, " my brother replied without missing a beat. "You have no right to hit Ray ."

"You have my surname," replied the incredulous colonel.

"But not your blood. If you want, make another baby with my mom so you can use your belt."

"Did he say that?" Walter's voice reflects evident admiration.

"Yeah. We were only eleven years old, but we knew that for the colonel making babies was a sensitive point. Not that we knew how…well, we had no idea about the mechanics of it, but we did understand that the colonel married Mama because he was barren, and wanted to pass us off as his. That's why they changed our last name, and they forced us to call him Father. He felt shame, and my brother exploited that shame.

"Tommy stood up and tugged at my hand. I got up but kept my shoulders hunched and my eyes on the ground. Since then, my brother has been the brave one."

"You are brave, my wakíŋyaŋ čhaŋté (Thunderheart)," Walter assures him, and his arm tightens around Ray's waist.

Ray sighs.

"Now I'm brave, maybe… then I was just… I don't know. The fact is, Tommy got me out of most trouble with his ability to plan and his ability to learn other people's secrets."

"The spirits were training him for when he met Maverick," Walter proposes to lighten the atmosphere.

"It could be. Well, I got up and whimpered. I could still feel the mark of his hand on my cheek."

"Come on, Ray, I'll put something on your face, so they won't notice anything at school tomorrow. " he left the threat hanging in the air as we escaped.  

"In the bedroom, he put a wet towel on my face, and the moment I feared the most arrived."

"What did you see? " He clearly read my fear because his eyes widened, and his face grimaced. "You know you can tell me. I won't think that… I know you're not crazy. "

"Crazy? Is that what he told you?"

"What else was I to think of my visions? In the environment where we grew up, visions were divine messages for devout people or symptoms of madness. I didn't consider myself a devotee, Mom dragged us to church every week, but it was a weekly dose of torture. Instead, I had flashes of light, distorted color sequences, and the presence of familiar people talking nonsense. It was easy to think I was simply hallucinating and would soon lose my mind, like my father. Because he had Indian blood, sick blood. Tommy was the one who rationalized my visions and made use of them. That's why he repeat it again and again: "You are not crazy."

"But you didn't want to share that specific vision with him," Walter says thoughtfully.

Ray waits for his lover to connect the dots. After all, he is an excellent detective.

"Oh!" Walter says and presses him a little more against his chest. "It was the first time that you saw him leave."

"Yeah. I saw us running. I was pulling his hand and running with all my strength. Little by little, Tommy lifted his feet off the ground, and suddenly he was floating after me like a kite. His laugh was intense, free. I tossed him forward, and he went flying away.

"Tommy, come back," I yelled, but he didn't look back. He was going higher in the sky and had turned into a small plane. I was looking at the blue sky over a semi-desert plain, the plane was moving away, and I was saying goodbye."

"What did you think it meant?"

"That I had to help him go to heaven. That the only way he would be happy was if I helped him die."

Walter shakes Ray's hand and kisses the back of his neck. It is a soft, chaste kiss, a kiss of support.

"Did you tell him?"

"Of course not! Luckily Tommy understood that sometimes he couldn't explain what I saw, so he accepted my silence."

They stay still for a while. Ray tries to wipe the bitter taste of the memory from his mouth. Walter tries to fit this new anecdote about his partner's childhood into the puzzle that is Ray Seresin, wakíŋyaŋ čhaŋté reborn.

"There is something that I do not understand. If you've had visions before, why did you get so scared when Grandpa Sam talked about his own visions, and when they came back to you?"

"Precisely because I knew they were true. The visions stopped when Tommy ran away from home. A pact of silence was made in the family as if I had been an only child. I convinced myself that that part of my life was over. Now I could be normal, be white."

He can't help but laugh bitterly. 

"For eight years I suppressed all memory of my twin. It was too painful. When Grandpa Sam told me that he was waiting for me… The visions had only served to separate me from the person he loved most in the world. I had come here to investigate a murder. It couldn't be anything good."

"Yes, yes, of course."

Ray realizes that Walter now remembers how he reacted in the car when he confessed about seeing himself as one of the victims of the Wounded Knee Massacre as if the visions were a prize given to someone who didn't deserve them.

"Hey, don't blame yourself. You couldn't know."

"No," Walter admits, "but at least I could be considered. I was educated here, I knew that visions are an honor and a burden. But at that moment, I only felt envy."

"I think you should make it up to me," Ray says.

"Really?" Walter replies mockingly. "How can I?"

Ray takes Walter's hand from his waist to his crotch.

"I have some ideas."

CHAPTER 4: 1991, April: https://palabraspulsares.blogspot.com/2023/08/shame-on-bunny-4.html