Chapter Text
It happened on a camping trip.
It was the summer after he turned sixteen, and all signs pointed to him being solidly neutral. His mother was a beta with a heavy heart and easy smile, and according to all reports and distant memories his dad had been a true blue alpha. The combination of these classes almost never failed to produce offspring with a designation, but here he stood; post-pubescent, lingering baby fat sliding off of underlying sharp angles and still stubbornly neutral. If he hadn't inherited his father's dominant alpha gene, he at least showed signs of reaching Nick Bradshaw's lanky height. Another growth spurt seemed inevitable as he lurked around adolescence with hands and feet too big for his still awkward body.
Bradley had been waging a war at his grandparent's house all summer. It was the first year in his memory where he hadn't passed the vacation away eating popsicles and playing in a familiar yard; exploring the neighborhood he'd grown up in and being a kid on his own turf. His mom had told him at the end of the school year that it was destination old folk's home for him. When handing him his prison sentence, she cited the need to pick up extra shifts to make ends meet and a desire to not have her teenage son's summer stretch out in a total absence of supervision.
He'd never been shipped out for the long break like this before. In summers past when there was no babysitter and no Maverick, he instead spent weeks sitting with a book at the bar counter of the restaurant where she worked. Somehow during a childhood of raising him mostly alone, they had always found a way. Something was new this year.
Puberty had brought with it the paranoia of teenagerhood and part of him wondered if she had finally had someone courting her. His neutral nose couldn't detect any clues, but the possibility of a new (and probably designated) person in their lives contributed to the rising undercurrent of anxiety that had been building within him for weeks now.
The result was the same either way; Carole Bradshaw was unavailable and he was staying with his grandparents somewhere in one of the Dakotas. It didn't much matter which.
They weren't even the good grandparents, his mom's family. His favorite grandmama and granddaddy were also mysteriously unavailable this year, despite being a couple of retirees. No, his caretakers were the late Nick Bradshaw's parents and they hadn't been involved in a minor's life since their own son was a child some odd decades ago. Their clumsy exchanges were limited to asking him for the thousandth time what his plans were after high school (his answer never changed), and the ever-grating comment that he looked 'just like his father'. Gene and Anne Bradshaw went to bed at seven o'clock every night while he was left alone without a friend or even cable television, and so far it had been the driest summer of his life.
Well.
It would have been dry, if not for the dick that he couldn't keep out of his hands any moment that a geriatric gaze wasn't weighing on him.
For weeks this tension behind his navel had been building, cramping, and amping up every minute that he spent in this backcountry wasteland; nothing but masturbation and house chores to fill his time. There had been a steady buzzing in his head that censored the world, and the only time it turned off was during a good and hard pumping. The idle days were bleeding into each other, and the only difference from one to the next was how many times he had come that day. Eight was the record, but the summer was young yet.
Life was a hot blur of monotonous daily activities, bridged by one unfulfilling jerk off to the next.
He was lonely too, and it was also a lust for companionship that drove him from one masturbatory session and into the next.
Being neutral meant that he had no ever-present link to his three person pack. Being neutral, a pack was only a concept to him, and not tangible bond like to those with real designations. He had no warmth in the back of his mind, no weight of their presence.
But it didn't mean that one member wasn't always on his mind and in his fantasies.
Maverick.
Pete Mitchell hadn't been present in months, deployed somewhere dry and punishing and as far away from an offended Admiral as the Navy could manage. But it didn't mean that Maverick hadn't been the first thing he thought about every morning and the sweaty fantasy that bid him goodnight. Every day, every morning. And every shower. Every trip behind the shed, walk into the field, every too-long gopher mission into the cellar.
He was sixteen and horny and fucking his hand all day every day and thinking about his Maverick.
There wasn't an event to blame, or change in their relationship. Maverick had always been the person that he was hungriest for. He remembers being eight years old and trying to pick up Mav's signature scent on every envelope with 'Bradley Bradshaw' emblazoned on the front in neat military handwriting. He slept every night curled around a gifted baseball glove, wearing an inherited and well-worn Navy t-shirt, and not an ounce of his life went by that he didn't have a calendar countdown to the next day of Maverick's leave. Memories of his dad had faded, and it wasn't Nick Bradshaw who felt like the missing figure in his home. It was Maverick's absence that ached like a missing limb, taking with him Bradley's heart right along with his toothy smile and easy confidence.
It was as natural as breathing for his childhood heartache to churn right into a persistent lust. Maverick hadn't been home with his pack in months, but he was in Bradley's fantasies always.
It was a Tuesday in June and Bradley had come two times already before the clock struck noon.
He was wedged against a bag of soil in the gardening shed with his hips pumping his swollen cock into the tight tunnel of his left fist, and Maverick's name hissing between his teeth. It wasn't enough just to jerk off with his hands anymore; the jittery feeling inside of him only quieted when it felt like he was really fucking into something. A movie reel played behind his shut eyes.
Maverick was home in the Bradshaw pack house for a spare couple of days, and he was flitting from one broken appliance to the next. Leave didn't mean rest for Maverick; every break home was a duty mission to make up for the the conspicuous Goose-shaped hole in Carole and Bradley's lives. Home repairs stacked up in his absence, but his mom always managed to hold off on pouring precious dollars into a repair bill until Maverick's return. This time it was a leaky sink in the bathroom, and they had been brushing their teeth in the kitchen for weeks.
Maverick had been flat on his back, crooning an oldie under his breath, both feet planted on the ground and knees bent with his legs in a relaxed spread while he tinkered with a stubborn pipe. He had taken his shirt off at some point, already five chores deep into a long day of overdue housework. Bradley had walked in on him and found himself caught in the doorway, eyes going straight down the runway of legs to the inviting open welcome of Maverick's groin. The real Maverick had sensed his proximity and beckoned him into the room with a pleased omegan rumble and a happy greeting of, "Hey kid, come hold this flashlight."
But. But, the Maverick of his fantasies had a different invitation for him. The Bradley of his jerk fantasy had stepped into the bathroom and between muscular legs. Legs that spread wide open in welcome, and weren't covered in anything at all but a dark misting of a mature man's body hair.
Under the cloak of privacy in the dusty shed he drove his sore dick deeper into his sweaty hand, twisted it, and pulled dry at the sensitive skin of his head with frantic energy.
Dream Bradley fell to his hands and knees too, and pulled those thick thighs apart to cradle him on either side of his hips. He spread a naked Mav wide until all Bradley could see was a thick and rose pretty penis and underneath it a heat-swollen hole; Maverick's stupid handsome face slack and flushed with returned fervor. Maverick would be lost in lust too and wet with slick, ready for his dick, his omega biology a gift only for Bradley to sample. Neutral Bradley had never been able to smell all that Maverick's omegan nature promised to put out, but in his fantasies he could sense every molecule of it.
It was green eyes, dark hair, grinning full mouth, and a plush pussy that he fucked behind his closed eyes countless times, and today was no different.
He rutted into dream Maverick and his real flesh hand with linked synchronicity. The tightness built behind his balls until he came onto the dirty floor, with cooling jizz drying into the wooden boards beside an old shovel. He panted after, unseeing eyes locked onto his splatter. The cramping behind his navel wasn't gone, and even in the afterglow it felt like he had another gut full of come wanting to get out.
He shivered, glance dancing between his dick and the hazy sunlight peaking between old boards into the shed. Hand flexing, he bit his lip and thought about another round until a distant shout rang through from the house.
"Bradley!"
He gave his head a heavy shake like a dog clearing water, and tucked himself back into jeans that were just this side of too short after his recent few inches.
"I'm coming!", he hollered back, leaving the shed at a jog and closing his eyes in a smile at the private joke.
His granddaddy had a clenched jaw and a look that gave nothing away when he burst through the back door, and he seemed to be swallowing a sentiment when he handed Bradley the phone. Bradley shot the old man a quick look before turning his back on him to take the phone call, gripping a hand on the receiver and clearing his dry throat before he could coax any words into coming out.
"Hello?" he managed, shifting his thighs apart in a minor adjustment for his still-sensitive dick.
"Hey kid," was all it took, and his gut was molten hot again.
Five years old or sixteen-- there was no difference between then and now when it came to the look of pure pleasure that flashed across his face at the familiar greeting.
"Mav!" he burst out, closing his eyes as he felt Maverick's presence over the phone fall over him like a cloak of familiarity. He didn't realize how lonely he had been on the farm until he felt Maverick almost, but not really, connected to him through the phone. If he had a designation like he was supposed to, he might even have been able to feel a wave of contact just from Maverick's voice.
But he was neutral.
Maverick chuckled through the phone and started, "I missed you, kiddo. I heard from your mom that you were spending some time with the grandparents this summer, but I have a week to myself so I just thought," and he cleared his throat here, a little awkward for Maverick.
Bradley thought that he could sense a little rehearsal in this speech from Maverick, the man known and named for his spontaneity. For whom rehearsal was never one of his gifts. Bradley thought maybe there was something a little suspect going on, a feeling he'd been having all summer, but this was Maverick. Fishy or not, he didn't care. He was living on crumbs and he'd take whatever questionable dish Maverick was serving.
"I thought that we could do a camping trip, just you and me. Guys trip. Maybe make the summer go by a little faster?", he said, his tone sounding less carefully crafted now and decorated with his signature kind teasing and audible smile. Bradley smiled back at him through the phone, and it felt like they were sharing a secret.
It was a forgone conclusion that Bradley would say yes. The phone call was a formality, and Maverick was already on the way to come get him in the late Nick Bradshaw's Ford Bronco. Already packed up, from what Maverick was saying over the phone. A nice camping spot a half day's hike into the Badlands not too far from his grandparent's home. Bradley felt a full body pleased flush, medicine for the ache in his gut, at the thought that Maverick had already planned all of this out just for him. Fighter pilot, Naval Aviator Maverick, with the world at his wingtips-- coming to get him.
Bradley kept smiling lovesick into the phone as Maverick continued talking, back turned to a still-frowning grandfather. He was going on a trip with Maverick, just him, just the guys. No Carole in sight, or any of Maverick's sporadic and lingering romantic prospects.
He was going. No matter what. The anxious feeling had eased off of him for the first time in weeks. He could even fool himself into ignoring the remaining churning in his gut, and the persistent ache at the bottom of his dick.
A trip just for them.