Disclaimer: I own nothing except the ton of OC's and the concept of this story. All canon characters mentioned rightfully belong to Disney.Warning: This chapter includes mild and infrequent swearing.
Lance had never been one for games.
He'd never wanted to feel the intense rush of adrenaline flowing through his system as his rambunctious squadronmates firewalled past the hangars on full afterburner, during hours of the morning so early the sun hadn't even risen over the crest of the small mountains off in the distance. Unlike them, it had never come to his attention to seek out ways of getting on the bad side of his instructors while mucking around like the adrenaline junkies many of his friends were.Call him old fashioned if you so wish, but Lance wasn't one to put himself into harms way for a few short seconds of "freedom". A stickler for the rules? Sure. At least he wasn't going to end up a grease spot on the runway in the next few months. One less trainee to worry about.
One time during the early stages of flight training at the Marine Corps Air Station located three miles from the CBD of Beaufort, a young male F-35B decided to test his courage (and the limits of his already uptight instructors) by roaring past the control tower of the large base "Top Gun style".
It had been a show of fluidity, grace and ultimately... irresponsible failure.
Needless to say, he spent the next few months grounded at the base while cleaning up after the rest of his teammates and recieved a mouthfull from the base's commanding officer. Got a few laughs though. And earned him the rather laughable callsign of "Buzzer".
His real name, as it would turn out to be, was Dexter Sherwood. A bright kid, probably no more then a year younger than Lance when he first layed a tire on the South Carolina base in early spring. Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia with the thickest accent to prove it. Rather cocky, but full of boundless enthusiasm, he quickly became the joker of the squadron and a hell of a pain in the arse for the higher ups to manage.
A lot of the new F-35B's who'd only just joined the Hornet squadrons at the base had an uncanny tendency to look very similar to each other- same eye colour, same grey metallic fuselage, and the same overly confident grin whenever they did something worth the achievement. Anyone who was a newcomer to the Air Station would instantly assume they were all somehow related in one way or another. The only oddball of the group was Dexter himself, who sported an array of odd white patches across the top of his muzzle down to the tip of his nose.
He'd brushed off any comments and said it was the messed up pigments under the layering of metal exterior that caused it. Some form of a birth defect that decreased his stealth ability. Although he still recieved a wide variety of remarks from the others on a regular basis that would be deemed inappropriate in regards to the patches of white on his face by those in positions of command.
It had been a relatively warm day in mid July when Sherwood had first spoken a word to Lance.
The jet had barrelled onto the apron after coming in for a fast vertical landing. The gale force winds were whipping up a large amount of dust particles and grit from the runway as he landed particularly roughly on the blisteringly hot tarmac. He'd just previously been training with the rest of the 19 F-35B's in his squadron when Lance had been quickly taxiing to the base's cafeteria in an attempt to reach his mornings dose of coffee before any other craft could do so before him.
While in his rushed state, Lance never even saw the other aircraft as 32 pounds of supersonic stealth fighter came careening towards him at an incoherently fast speed.
The initial impact had only been fleeting before the Lightning II was sent tumbling over his landing gear across the ramp where a few older sailers were parked, chatting away about the daily news that made its way from squadron to squadron in a matter of hours.
A short slide along the tarmac on his underside and the jet was up in an instant, face showing his slightly bewildered expression from being suddenly knocked off his wheels.
"Hey!" Hiked up on his landing gear with his flaps up to their full extent, Lance assumed his facial features took on a look of annoyance as he narrowly glared at a still baffled Dexter partially sitting on the taxiway. "Watch it!"
The F-35 in question spun around to face him before shaking off any remnants of grainy dirt from his dark grey fuselage. Gaining a few strange gazes from any onlookers as he continued to shake himself like a saturated canine.
Griffiths' face may have ended up contorting into a look of confusion somewhere along the line, because Dexter instantly took quick notice of his change in expression.
"What?"
"You gonna apologize for bumping into me or what? I have a coffee just waiting for me so if you mind..." The shit eating grin, included with the overall look of smugness, made the F-18's oil boil to the point he ended up graiting his teeth together to stop from voicing his infuriation. He never really liked the F-35's from the VMFAT-501 squadron ever since the 20 of them joined the Hornets at the base. It was something about their "I'm better than all of you, deal with it" personality that just made his jaw clench. This idiot was no exeption.
"Oh I'm sorry. Am I reading this wrong? You're the one who stupidly decided to dash across the taxiway." Trying his best to stay moderately calm, Lance quickly pulled himself together and began on his way, en-route to the cafeteria without a second look at the other fighter.
"You weren't looking where you were going."
That- that was true in a sense.
The hornet sighed exasperatedly and replied without turning. "This wouldn't have happened if you weren't taxiing around like you own everything. I thought the CO's would have taken care of your squadrons supercilious personalities by now."
The immediate pause and prolonged hold of breath told him the Lightning II had halted to analyze his response. Wheels screeching to a halt. Eyes barely moving from the jet in front of him.
"Right. Because all F-35's are conceited birds who aren't even worth the time... netoriously unreliable, broken and obsolete design, problematic. Yeah, I've heard it all. Old news." Dexter's voice was nearing a snarl and Lance knew he'd taken quite a personal hit from the previous statement.
The F-35 Strike Lightning II varients had all debuted some time in the late 2000's, and much like the Hornets in the 80's, the media instantly took hold and argued that the newer craft had a substantial amount of downfalls that would limit its operation capabilities within the DOD. Many of the strike fighters took this to heart and sought out the need to justify their place in the militaries of countries across the globe. This in turn caused much dilema between the F-35's, other 5th generation stealth aircraft, older military jets and those civilians who both agreed and disagreed with the whole ordeal on the media. Lance fell somewhere in the middle, he neither agreed nor disagreed with the information brought upon social media by other servicemen and women or civilians whom many thought they were instantly professionals in the world of military aviation.
He just didn't like the way they a majority of them acted around both their teammates, other squadrons and those of higher rankings than themselves.
Biting back the urge to wince and turn around, Griffiths didn't say a word before silently rolling off to inspect a rather interesting speck of weeds that had grown up from the cracked tarmac. Breathing out roughly through his nose in response to the swell of guilt now welling in his stomach, the atmosphere continued to stay unnaturally tense until Sherwood turned on his landing gear and hightailed out of there, probably back over to the eastern side of the large base where the F-35B's recently settled in the hangars after an intense round of flight training.
Shuffling slightly on his landing gear, Lance quietly made his way to the cafeteria without a another thought.
All of them had been up to date with the rapidly developing weather system moving across the North Atlantic Ocean, which was soon to hit the east coast where the squadrons were currently stationed, but none had been even the slighest bit prepared for the storm that hit only a few moments later.
A small breeze turned into wildly unforgiving winds that buffeted the steel hangar doors against their frames with strength that would otherwise tear them clean off. Snow littered the normally cemented ground with clumps of white still falling from the clouded skies above.
Any plans for flight and training had been postponed till atleast the next week as the snowfall was so torrential, it was impossible for even the most eagle-eyed of aircraft to see the ground right in front of them, let alone be told to fly in such a condition without the need to.
If a shit ton of snow and winds that were strong enough to buffer a fully grown C-130 Hercules around wasn't enough, almost every personnel at the Beaufort base had fallen ill in under the past week. It started off as a simple cold, affecting a few of the younger Hornets in the "Thunderbolts" squadron, three of them being forced to stay inside as the weather conditions only worsened, with sneezes that could counteract the force of their afterburners. But the more atrocious the brewing storm was becoming, the worse it spread.
Soon, the whole base was full of feverish jets trying their best to get by as temperatures dropped below 0 degrees Celsius on a rather chilly day. Dexter had been out the day the snow had finally eased off, rolling his landing gear through the centimetres of precipitated ice crystals as small groups of ground crews found their way from hangar to hanger to check up on the aircraft taking refuge inside.
The lone F-35 watched as one of the tugs trailing behind the rest moved across an area of tarmac (which was the apron under a thick layer of condensed snow) slip over on an small patch that'd melted into a thin sheet of ice.
Huffing out a small laugh under his breath, the air in front of him turning into visible condensation as he continued on his journey around the base. The small particles of snow falling onto his fuseluge melting off into droplets of water due to the heat of his engine. It had come to the attention of the medics on duty that the F-35B's inhabiting one of the hangars seemed to be immune to the contiguous sickness known as the flu spreading rapidly between the rest of the aircraft. Some came to the conclusion it was the difference in mechanics that stopped the Lightnings from getting anything more than a simple cough, others believed it had something to do with their biological make up and the fact they mingled with the rest of the jets far less than their hornet counterparts.
Leaving a trail wherever he went, Dexter glanced down at the ground to see a small, blue flower sprouting up from between a thin layer of snow. He stilled for a second, chestnut brown eyes refraining to move from the somehow captivating flower staring back at him.
Picking it from the ground delicately between his teeth, Dexter gingerly taxiied around to the western side of the South Carolina air station, intent on giving it to some plane in particular.
Emeline Ravenhall, baring the obvious call sign of "Raven", joined the Thunderbolts Squadron a couple of months prior to his own arrival. She'd been the quiet type, a wallflower, never said more than a meek hello as a greeting on most days, even to those who could be considered close enough to be a friend. Eyes a soft, pale blue, matching the colour of the sky on a sunny summers day. He'd taken notice of her after she pulled a hard g-turn in training, evaded an "enemy fighter" and landed with the grace of an elegant swan on the runway to finish it off. He'd probably swallowed a fly or two after his jaw had slacked in awe and wasn't going to cooperate with his already blank mind, scrambling to at least look a tad bit approachable.
On the days he got to talk to her, which were few and far between, their short conversations were generally about the weather, training or their other squadronmates, sometimes even all of those at the same time. Dexter soon heard through the grapevine that Emeline was relatively close step cousin of Lance after an unexplained divorce between Griffiths aunt and uncle when he was still a little pup, barely able to fly.
Pulling the hangar door open ajar with the tip of his nose, Sherwood scampered in quickly to stop the fridgid air outside from entering along with falling snow.
The hangar was almost too warm for comfort as the F-35 carefully veered around the Hornets laying in fatiqued piles on the ground. Some had taken the time to find a unoccupied spot in the corner to rest, talking quietly in the intervals of large amounts of sneezing and coughing, while others obviously didn't giving two shits, piling up on one side in a cluster of wings, tails and an assortment of landing gear. It had to be the most unhygenic thing he'd ever seen.
After a few minutes of searching while trying desperately not to get in the way of nauseous F-18's, Dexter found himself asking one of the medics where he could find Emeline. The tug and only lifted his forks up in a confused shug and went right back to helping a dehydrated Hornet shakily stand up.
"Dexter?"
His front swung around alarmingly fast at the questioning sound of his name being called.
"Yeah? I'm trying not to get puked on by a bunch of ill planes so if you could just- EMELINE!!"
Bounding across the concrete floor like a overly joyous puppy, Dexter locked up his gears as he collided with the female Thunderbolt, front instantly ducking into the crook of her left wing without a second thought.
Once finally realising what he'd done, the youngster backed up quickly with a small, sheepish grin. "Sorry."
The F-18C Hornet blinked a few times before coming to, eyes wide and nose a light shade of pink, although difficult to see under the barely lit lights above them. She smiled silently before taking notice of the flower the Lightning II had slotted between his wing slats, the vibrant blue sticking out from the mass of dark grey.
"Oh! That's- that's supposed to be for-" His awkwardly shaky voice was interupted by a loud clash of metal hitting metal, followed by an agonising sounding "OW!" of pain. A second or two of silence gave him the time needed to realise Lance had been the one to voice his distress from an area of the room opposite them.
Though he hadn't talked to the other male since their little mishap on the taxiway 5 months ago, he found himself subconsciously making his way over to where the sound had resonated from. He was met with a sickly looking Hornet, normally inquisitive blue eyes now glazed over, swaying from side to side on his quivering landing gears in the corner of the hangar. It was obvious he had it way worse than a lot of the others, probably due to a weak immune system, but what was more concerning was the fact that not a single soul besides himself had come to Griffiths aid.
Glancing back nervously at Emeline, she only answered his pleas for help with a shug of her wings. Not able to get over to them now that a large and completely unaware fighter was blocking her path. Although he could still make out the visibly grimaced look on her face until she disappeared from view.
Dexter took his time to look back at the jet situated next to the wall, slip one of his wings under the others fuselage and gently lead him towards a safer part of the hangar without shelves holding a variety of metal welding utensils to run into. Once over to the far left side of the large hangar, the F-35 let Lance slide off his wing rather ungracefully and land in a heap on the floor at his wheels.
He'd hit his canopy on one of the shelves and was currently concussed and completely out of it, Dexter realised, as the blue eyed Hornet made eye contact with him, noticed the flower, and started laughing hoarsely.
"The flower isn't for you idiot." Dexter grumbled under his breath with a slow roll of his eyes to accompany it. Inwardly wanting the latter to show he was not at all interested.
Lance let out a rumbling noise that sounded more like a content purr and tried to stand up back up to the best of his abilities, only to accidently hit the top of his canopy on Dexter's chin, nose colliding with his smooth underside. The jet let out a high pitched shriek of surprise, backing up out of shock at the sudden contact.
Lance didn't even have enough time to understand what had happened as Dexter yanked himself away from the other male's touch, looking around frantically before racing towards the sliding doors leading to the outside world. Front dropping onto the cool cement, he let out a long sigh and let his eyes fall to the cracks that zig-zagged along the floor, feeling the swell of a headache coming through as he shut his eyes and blocked out the sound of the other aircraft in the hangar.
Dexter wanted the cold of the bitter winds to numb his face, trying to rid himself of the heat that subsided there. He wanted nothing more than to dig himself into the snow and stay there for the rest of the winter... so that's what he did. Looking akin to one of those foxes trying to catch its speedy prey by diving headfirst into the snow.
Plunging his entire front half into the comforting coldness, he exhaled loudly and remained quietly in that same spot for a quite a while until he started to feel light-headed from the absence of blood reaching his brain. It wasn't until his ears apprehended the light sound of cheery laughter that he lifted his head, piles of slowly melting snow falling from his canopy and nose, eliciting a hushed sneeze from the aircraft.
"Huh?"
It took him a duration of five seconds to fully register that the laughter was coming from none other than Ravenhall, her normally innocent smile forming into a sly grin as she looked over the snow covered male.
"What are you doing?" Emeline's voice, though still soft and flowing like always, was broken with intervals of giggling almost too faint to hear.
"Nothing." He wasn't going to say anything. "I just... needed to cool off. It's pretty hot in there with all the heating turned up to the max."
He half expected to hear her bubbly laugh again until she answered him with a face full of pure concern. "What happened to Lance? Is he ok?"
Dexter stayed quiet.
"Dexter, is he ok?"
"He hit his head on a shelve, got a bit concussed. There were medics in the hangar anyway, I'm sure he'll be fine."
"One can only hope."
A comfortable silence settled between them as Emeline watched him with couious, baby blue eyes. Front tilted slightly to the side as she slowly dragged her front landing gear through the snow lying under her nose gear.
Only until she glanced not so subtly to his right did he discover the flower was still perched between the slats of his wing, blue petals glistening in the cold afternoon air.
"Oh! I forgot. The flower..." A nervous cough began to settle in the back of his dry throat. "It's supposed to be for you."
It sounded so stupidly clichè he came close passing it off with a anxious laugh- until Emeline gave him a wholehearted smile in return.
"It's really pretty."
Dexter had to force himself not to sappily reply with "not as much as you".
It was clichè. It was unbelievably sappy. It was the most awkward thing he'd probably ever done. But he couldn't help feeling like a love sick teenager all over again when he passed her the flower from between his teeth and couldn't stop a grin from plastering itself onto his face.
She'd taken it with care, a faint scarlet hue settling on her light grey cheeks as she taxiied off to get out of the cold starting to set in once again.
Alone, it seemed, as the F-35 shook off the falling flakes of snow from his fuselage and trailed after one of the ground crew, heading in the direction of his squadrons hangar. Bright grin not leaving his face, prompting a lot of invasive questions from his squadronmates even after he brushed them off and found a spot near the back of the building's interior, finally folding up his landing gear to listen to the wind blowing against the wall next to him and the sound of the others passing around ideas as to why their jokester was suddenly acting like a love sick puppy.
Deep down there was a still a guilty feeling nawring away at his insides saying he should probably go and apologise to Lance. The craft in question likely still in the same place he left him after hightailing out of there, headache only worsening as the medics tried to accomplish whatever they could, all the while having to multitask with the other 30 or so sick Hornets in the hangar.
And still, he pushed any sypathetic thought to do with the F-18C down as far as it would go. A bitter, metallic taste subsiding in his mouth when he realised he'd subconsciously bitten into his tongue while drowning in his own thoughts. It was a habit he tended picked up whenever in at the point of thinking too hard over something. It wasn't a good thing. It hurt. But didn't everything?
You're not supposed to be like that...
