Work Text:
“You always went looking for an easy way out
Leave the pain you can't solve with the folks you let down
Like the world just restarts, like the clock just resets
Like we all just move on, like we all just forget
And you tell yourself lies, and disguise them as facts
It'll hurt half as much if you drive twice as fast…”
Dennis doesn't even know whose backpack it started as — his old JanSport backpack, once black but now faded to a dingy gray, and absolutely covered in patches: TOPGUN, crooked and half-peeled at one corner; American flag with the thread coming loose along the stripes. Dad and Goose’s old squadron, VF-1, the patch worn so smooth that Dennis has to run his thumb over it to make out the details. Pop and Uncle Sli’s VF-213, a couple of Broncos, two airshow patches: the Blues and the Thunderbirds. Even Bradley’s squadron, VFA-87, sewn on before he got his special dispensation to make a squad with Dad out in Miramar last year.
He only heard about that over text a month ago; he’s… not as close with them as he should be, as he used to be.
They aren’t bad people, he loves his family, he swears he does. It’s just — they’re bootstrap people.
Tug yourself up by your bootstraps, Snowflake, you’ll be fine. He can still hear it in Dad’s voice.
It’s probably leftover from Dad’s years of being in foster care, but he has always genuinely believed that being loved means being taught how to survive without needing anybody. He’d hand Dennis a wrench, show him how to fix whatever was broken, clap him on the shoulder, and tell him he was smart enough to figure the rest out.
So Dennis learned: he learned how to live in his car. He learned how to make twenty dollars last a week. He learned how to sleep sitting up. He learned which parts of Pittsburgh stayed reasonably quiet after midnight and which parking lots had security guards who would bang on his window at three in the morning. He learned how to study pharmacology with his knees jammed against the steering wheel and how to brush his teeth in a gas-station bathroom.
He’s also a late-in-life kid, by the time he was old enough to head off to college, his Pop was only happy enough to let him go and be grown up somewhere else. Pop had spent years raising a boy who came along after everybody else was already grown: Bradley, his nieces and nephews; he was probably tired of putting his life on hold. So when Dennis left, the calls got infrequent. His calls with Dad had always been infrequent. Dad was always deployed, or flying somewhere, or chasing some new adventure halfway across the world, forever moving fast enough that he never quite had to stop and look at the things he’d left behind; probably running from the fact that Bradley never answered his calls. Pop rose through the ranks instead. If he was rising before, then he took off like a rocket after Dennis left. He’s the Commander of the whole Pacific Fleet now.
It’s no wonder they both got too busy for him. He wasn’t exactly reaching out either. He only found out about his Pop’s cancer when he was in remission, a footnote. They only figured out he had dropped out of his religious studies program because of an email. Months after he’d already switched to pre-med at Pitt. They didn’t know about the scholarships. They didn’t know he'd lost most of them when he changed programs. They didn't know he was counting quarters. They didn't know there were mornings when Dennis would stand in the student union staring at the food court because he was trying to decide whether he could justify buying breakfast. He usually couldn’t.
He never told them. He couldn't. He couldn't bear the thought of Pop reading the words I can't afford to eat and seeing Dennis’ constant failure in them.
So, by the time he got into medical school, he was used to living in his car. He knows he could have called them up in an instant, called any of his uncles, fuck, he could have called Bradley. Instead, he just spent five Pittsburgh winters in his car until it finally crapped out. He remembers those winters with a strange, detached sort of fondness now, spent with his JanSport tucked under his head and his coat pulled up over his chin — frost feathering the inside of the windshield, his breath fogging the glass, and his heater running for only ten minutes at a time because he couldn’t afford the gas to let it run all night. Then he had to spend another frigid winter sleeping rough on benches and under bridges, before he started rotations at PTMC. He doesn’t like thinking about that time of his life.
He still uses the JanSport as a pillow sometimes — even though he has a bed and a home with Trinity — the way he did then. It’s not just horrible memories, the backpack smells like Miramar and Pearl and home; like jet fuel and sunscreen and old canvas and whatever laundry detergent Pop used when Dennis was little. He hugs it against his chest, fingers curling around the frayed strap where KAZANSKY is still written in white Sharpie.
The letters are long-faded now, but still legible to him.
“Kid, this thing looks like it’s about to disintegrate.”
Dennis looks up from the chart he is supposed to be working on. He’s been staring at the same medication list for long enough that the words have started swimming together like alphabet soup. Then he sees Dr. Abbot holding his backpack up between two fingers. Dennis had dropped it on the floor ten minutes ago, where it had promptly puddled against the leg of his chair. That’s what it does now in its old age, it simply collapses into itself, a sad gray heap of ancient canvas and fraying straps. Dennis grunts in lieu of an answer. “‘S old.”
Dr. Abbot gives him a look and then goes back to staring at the backpack. “No shit.” Dennis can’t help but feel a little self-conscious of the way the bottom is rubbed almost white and the fabric around one strap is held on by most of a roll of black electrical tape. “TOPGUN?” Dr. Abbot seems genuinely surprised as he takes a sip of the coffee in his hand, spinning Dennis’ backpack by the more secure strap to see the patches. “Naval shit? You Navy?”
Dennis shakes his head and rubs a hand over his face. “No.” He yawns so hard his jaw cracks. “My family is, though.” He reaches for the backpack, but Dr. Abbot doesn't hand it over. “My Pop won Top Gun in ’86.”
Dr. Abbot chokes on the swallow he was attempting to get down. “Kazansky?!”
Dennis is half-sure the older man is some sort of mind-reader for a sleep-deprived instant, before he remembers the strap. “Yeah, my Pop.”
“The Iceman Kazansky?!” Dr. Abbot looks like someone just punched him in the gut. “Commander of the Pacific Fleet Kazansky?!”
Dennis lets his forehead drop onto the desk, right next to his keyboard, hard enough to hurt. He remembers when all of this was simple: he remembers sitting on the floor of their little house in Miramar with his chubby legs sticking straight out in front of him, trying to peel the Velcro off Pop's flight bag because he wanted to see what was underneath. Back when Bradley had music booming from his stereo upstairs and Dad was tinkering with something in the garage. He remembers being small enough that Pop's old pilot helmet swallowed his entire head. It had rocked around on his shoulders like a bobblehead because he was so tiny, the visor slipping down over his nose. He'd giggled and clapped his hands. Pop had laughed until he wheezed. God, he misses them so much. He wants to go home. But that home is back in Miramar and he’s not sure if it even includes him anymore.
“Yup.”
“All your new friends look a lot like your last
(I wonder why)
Took all those loose ends, made 'em sandalwood beads 'round your neck.”