hellofanidea

[hellofanidea]

Five(ish) Sentences (S)Monday

Oak squeezes her shoulder, "Thanks for the trim, Guts. I hear it's hot in Africa." She tosses them a wink over her shoulder before striding off to the pilot's briefing.

What a piece of work, Yeva thinks, shaking her head. She turns to say as much to Addy, but the words die in her throat. There's a bright blush creeping high on her cheeks, an almost starstruck expression. It floods Yeva's mouth, the tannins from the coffee bursting anew across her tongue.

"Yer pilot's nice," Addy says, her eyes still watching Oak until she rounds the corner. "And pretty."

Yeva fights the urge to wrinkle her nose.

who told rory that it's hot in africa. where'd she hear that

Thank u @reevuhs for the tag 💜 No pressure rolling you the ball @corrosivesaints @moghraidhs

[hellofanidea]

*Walking in from No-Mans-Land, missing an arm and covered in blood* I remained silly. No matter the cost.

[hellofanidea]

researching little details like the prevalence of residential air conditioning in past decades like anyone's going to care about my stupid little fic anyway

[hellofanidea]

It's um... It's complicated. Oh, I could do complicated all day. Who's gonna start?

[hellofanidea]

[hellofanidea]

I love shipping shit nobody else has even thunk of. I’m 10k years in advance compared to these other gay people. It’s me and this one other person who wrote fics in 2010 and hasn’t posted since against the world. I’m reading this shit from the ancient scrolls and understanding it.

[hellofanidea]

“You guys, you can’t dance in here,” -Hank Thompson ❤️‍🔥

[hellofanidea]

As he begins to raise his voice You lower yours and grant him one last choice Drive until you lose the road Or break with the ones you've followed

For Week 5 of HBOWW2Rewatch (Prompts: Choices, Loss)

[hellofanidea]

List of “sweet and intimate actions which make me go feral and have me folding like a folding chair” prompts 

Character B carding their fingers through Character A’s hair and playing with the strands.

Character B peeling back the neck of Character A’s turtle neck sweater to trail gentle kisses down their neck. (This!! It is so hot, and it's everything I didn't know I needed until now, and I cannot stop thinking about it wlkfnlkwe)

Character B placing their arm around Character A’s waist while in public, resting their chin on Character A’s shoulder. “Hello,” they say in a teasing tone as Character A tries to grab ahold of their hand to keep it there but fails a few times before successfully doing so. 

Leaning against each other while in public.

Spooning and back hugs.

Character B letting Character A rest their head on their chest; lets them listen to their heart beat. 

Character B whispering sweet nothings into Character A’s ear.

Character B checking in on Character A to make sure they’re comfortable and okay with the way things are going; to make sure they’re not being too much. “You’re not,” Character A would reassure, repositioning themselves to get closer to Character B.

Just cuddles and snuggles in general.

Neck kisses.

Kisses littered all over the face. (!!! It's one thing to read about it and one thing to experience it wlejbfewljn)

Character B tucking Character A’s head under their chin while they’re cuddling.

Character B nuzzling their neck and breathing in Character A’s scent/fragrance, and commenting on how nice they smell.

Character B making sure Character A gets home safe by driving them home.

Character A telling Character B to message them when they get back home safe, and once Character B gets home, they follow through by sending a message to let Character A know they’ve gotten back home safe.

Taking naps together, from day till night, waking up every now and then to get more snuggles in. 

That soft exhalation of adoring laughter leaving Character B’s mouth after kissing Character A (this shit had me folding so fucking hard it’s not even funny. I Am Weak). 

That soft exhalation of laughter once again just because Character B is so content with having Character A in their presence, and Character A just basking in how cute that sound is and how happy it makes them. 

Character B entangling their legs with Character A’s, pressing their bodies flush against each other’s, leaving little to no space between them. (It’s almost like they can’t get enough of Character A.) 

Kissing so many times, to the point where they lose track of how many times they’ve kissed already. 

Holding hands and lacing their fingers together while they’re cuddling.

Comparing hand sizes and giggling about it together.

Character B stroking Character A’s hair while they’re asleep. (Or uh, pretends to be asleep DJSKKSKDSK but it’s so FUCKING CUTE WHEN HE DID THAT IM GONNA SCREAM, me thinking moments like these only happen in Korean dramas or some shit anfkakfksk-)

The sweet little banters in between; Character B being all cheesy and Character A playfully deflecting their comments only for Character B to playfully push back with an “Is something wrong with that?” or “But I’m not lying.”

Falling asleep in each other’s arms, both not wanting to leave the bed for the entire day and wanting to stay comfortably snuggled up against each other instead.

Character B placing their hands on Character A’s shoulders, and Character A, with a grin on their face, gently grabs Character B’s hands and wraps their arms around their neck while leaning back into them. Character B reciprocates by hugging them closer to them.

The soft noises of content Character A makes when they snuggle closer to Character B, or when they want Character B to hold them closer to them, with Character B happily obliging. 

Character B rubbing their cheek against Character A’s.

Character B trying to not wake Character A up because they look so comfortable when sleeping. (His words, not mine.) 

Soft, repeated pecks on the lips, causing Character A to laugh/smile against Character B’s lips. 

[hellofanidea]

A quick little thing for my beloved @lewis-winters, I hope this brings you a bit of comfort!

...

Perched on the back of a shitty motel bathtub in his boxer shorts, Arthur counted the knobs of Natalie’s spine down to the waterline.

Her hair was already wet, and now it was his job to lather up his hands and wash it for her. It was a tradition that had started early in their roadtrip; Natalie would run herself a bath and after a while Arthur would drift into the bathroom to sit with her. Then, as the water cooled, he would offer to wash her hair. She never said no.

"Want me to braid it for you tonight?" He offered, starting to work the soap into her scalp.

Immediately, he saw her shoulders loosen as she sighed, some of the tension that seemed permanently locked there releasing. This was Natalie at her most relaxed, her most unguarded. Arthur knew how much of a privilege that was to be allowed to witness.

"That'd be nice," Natalie hummed.

"Crazy that it's long enough to go in a braid now," Arthur said.

When they had started her hair had only just started to grow out. Now it brushed her shoulders and trailed against her back in a long, golden, wave.

"Only a little one," Natalie countered, but she was smiling slightly, eyes closed as Arthur tilted her head back to really work the soap in.

It had been a long few days of doing nothing but driving and sleeping huddled in the Jeep, and Arthur had enjoyed washing the grease from his own hair in the shower before this as well. The last few years had inured them pretty well to getting and staying dirty, but that didn't mean the ritual of getting clean again was any less welcome. Nothing felt better to Arthur than scrubbing himself until it felt like he'd reached a new layer of skin. He knew Natalie got a similar feeling out of it too.

"A pretty braid," he insisted. He worked out any tangles between his fingers. "Alright, lean forward, I'm gonna rinse it off for ya."

She bent herself over her knees, flipping her hair forward over her face. Using his hands as a cup, Arthur sluiced bathwater over her hair until it ran clear, then smoothed a hand through the length of it to make sure all the suds had been washed away. Natalie hummed happily, still curled forward, and Arthur ran his hand through her hair a few more times for good measure.

"There you go, all done."

Humming in thanks this time, Natalie slowly sat up straight, stretching her arms out in front of her until something in her back popped. Then she reached back and squeezed the excess water from her hair, wringing it out like a towel before laying it in one short coil over her shoulder. 

Arthur stood, but didn’t leave. There was something almost hesitant in Natalie’s expression now, and she was keeping her eyes fixed on the taps in front of her, like she was gearing up for something. He waited.

“Get in with me?” Natalie asked softly.

The tension hadn’t quite returned to her, but it was threatening to, and Arthur once again looked at the shift of bone beneath her skin. He had never thought of her as fragile before, but there had always been a kind of delicacy to how she held herself when she was vulnerable. A wariness. It was there every time she held out a hand to let him in. Even after three years he was still nervous about grabbing it too fast and spooking her, or spurning the chance by accident.

That being said, it was late, and the water wasn’t at its most inviting.

“The water’s gotta be gettin’ cold, Natty. You wouldn’t rather be in bed?” Arthur asked. Natalie didn’t look up, just flexed her fingers against her knees. He felt himself fold to her, and swept down to press a kiss to her cheek. “Okay, scoot up. We’ll run the hot tap again.”

After shimmying out of his boxers and tossing them aside, he stepped into the tub and gently lowered himself down behind Natalie. It was a squeeze, but they made it work in a tangle of legs and tossed arms. Natalie slid down so her head could rest on his shoulder, even as it pushed her knees up against the sides of the tub to keep her feet in. The water was cold, he had been right, but the body contact and the slow stream from the hot tap made it bearable. Natalie sighed again, that great big breath of relief. Arthur wrapped an arm around her middle to squeeze her to him.

“This better?” He asked.

“Mhm.”

“You doing good?”

“Mhm.”

“Want me to shut up?”

There wasn’t a response, and Arthur laughed, the weight of Natalie against his bare chest making the vibrations of it odd. He felt her laugh too, mostly silent but betrayed by the movement of her ribs under his hand. In the back of his mind there was half a thought that this should be too much, but he ignored it. They had grown comfortable with each other's bodies over time, probably more comfortable than they were with their own. There was very little in the way of shame between them anymore. 

Nothing was too much for Natalie, especially nothing so simple as this.

[hellofanidea]

gotchu!

"I know you ain't got a jealous bone in your body, Tab," Lieb says, with a shake of his head. "But sometimes I think you should."

Tab scoffs, and then follows Lieb's nod up to the bar, where Morse is stood hip to hip with Foster.

Not just Foster, though. It's a busy night, sure, but not so busy that there's any reason for the crush of people gathered around her. A couple of landgirls hover around her, smiling and giggling at whatever soft answers they can draw from her - usually so serious - mouth.

That doesn't bother him half as much as the way Christenson is leaning in on her other side, giving her his full, golden, attention. Or Shifty, at the closest table, giving her furtive, soft, glances when she isn't looking that turn the highest points of his cheeks pink.

[hellofanidea]

You crack me up, lmao.

First sentence:

"No, don't eat that!"

Too late. Trigger had already jumped forward and closed his jaws around the frog that had been making its way across the straw of the barn floor.

Tab winced, then realised he could still hear indignant, muffled, croaking. He dropped to his knees in front of the dog, and started trying to prise open his muzzle.

"Drop it! Drop it! Give! C'mon, you're a soldier, act like it! No eating the locals!"

[hellofanidea]

Number 8! BoB ship of your choice!

No. 8 - Loose change and headlights, Babe/Liebgott

Babe didn't know how long he'd been walking. Long enough for the last stretches of sunlight to dip and fade, the warm orange of the summer evening giving way to a vast swathe of black overhead. Long enough for the dimes in his clenched fist to go body-warm and sweaty in the pocket of his jacket.

There was no real direction to it, just a striding pace away. Away from the house, the street, the neighborhood, he grew up in. Away from all of the places he couldn't help but fear he had grown out of.

That was unfair.

That made him sound like he had gotten too big for them. In reality, he had shrunk, under the weight of an MG and a parachute harness, and three years of being steadily worn down by the worst of what humanity had to offer. Even his rosary felt heavy, bending his neck and hunching his back. He had taken his dog tags off the second he stepped foot back in his mother's kitchen, but he still thought he felt them bouncing against his chest sometimes too, the thin metal dragging him down.

There was a phone booth on the next corner his feet took him, and Babe finally stopped. It took him a moment to come back to himself, to force his body to remember him and make it open the door and step in.

Then the coins, sticky from his palm. They slid in one after the other, an almost unreasonable amount. He could have made it a collect, but that meant trusting the other end would accept it, and Babe didn't have the heart for that risk tonight. Besides, dropping the cost of a long distance call out of the blue didn't feel like the best opener.

Time stretched and condensed in the the span it took to give the operator the number and wait for the connection. A few cars passed, the beams of their headlights momentarily blinding Babe every time they turned by. He followed their paths, as if he could travel with them just by staring hard enough.

"What?"

As waspish as the answer was, as shitty the quality of the call, the voice bled all of the tension out of Babe's body instantly. He sagged forward around the receiver with what he hoped wasn't an audible sigh of relief.

"Joe?"

The line crackled sharply.

"Babe?" Liebgott hissed, incredulous and far softer than he had sounded a moment ago. "That you? Are you alright?"

Babe blew out another breath and tried to steady himself.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine, I just-" His voice caught, and he swallowed hard around the lump forming there. "I just missed you."

It shouldn't have been as hard to admit as it was. They had wound themselves together for a year, been through some of the worst things two people could experience at each other's sides. In Austria, drunk on gin and the promise of peace, Babe had grabbed Joe by his skinny hips and told him exactly what he meant to him.

Then they had come home with a continent between them and nothing but the occasional letter. A twenty minute phone call once in a blue moon. They had come home to ghosts and shadows and the lingering fear that they no longer belonged where they once called home.

Maybe that last one was just Babe projecting, but he would have bet money that Joe felt the same way all the way out in California.

More crackling static from Joe's end of the line.

"It's the middle of the night in Philly, Babe. Where are you?" He asked.

Babe closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the booth. This wasn't helping. None of this was helping. Everywhere he turned he was met with a dead end. Dead end job, dead end conversations, dead end of Bill's fucking leg that both of them refused to acknowledge long enough for them to just fucking talk-

"Still there, don't worry, I didn't do nothin' stupid," he sighed.

I wish I did, he thought, I wish I'd jumped a train like a bum and hitchhiked and actually hiked and was standing on your doorstep, good sense be damned.

The hand not holding the phone had started to cramp and lock up at his side, and he tucked it against his chest. When his hands had refused to cooperate in Bastogne, Joe had given him his gloves, rubbed his fingers between his palms to try and make sure the circulation was going until they unstuck. Babe ached for that now, snow and all, just to have Joe's hand in his, Joe soothing his pain and letting Babe shoulder some of his in return.

"I'm not callin' you stupid, I'm checking you aren't stranded in fuckin' corn country somewhere," Joe grumbled. Babe didn't say anything, just turned his cheek into the receiver like it was Joe's neck, like he could fold against him in silence for a while like they had on the ship home when it was too crowded for anyone to care. There was a long sigh, Joe pitching his voice lower. "Missed you too, kid."

It struck Babe through and through, hit him right where he was already cracking open, and he made a muffled noise of pain.

"Don't, Babe, don't," Joe begged, through what sounded like gritted teeth.

"'M sorry," Babe ground out. "'M sorry, Joe, I just can't take it. I thought I could, I thought everythin' would-"

His voice cracked. He bit the inside of his cheek to try and calm down, breathing hard through his nose and listening to Joe do the same.

"Stay where you are," came Joe's hoarse voice, just as the pips started to signal the end of the call. "It'll take me a couple of days, but I'll come. I'll come getcha. I'm coming to getcha."

[hellofanidea]

7 or 145 for the three word prompts for crankbucky?

7) "Try to eat", CrankBucky, tw for post-Stalag recovery including disordered eating and mental health issues

"Try to eat."

It comes out more like an order than Bucky intends, and Crank gives him the usual dry look he gets in response to that tone now they're not in uniform. Not full time at least; Crank an honorably discharged civilian, and Bucky on medical leave for the foreseeable future, to recover weight and muscle and sanity.

"I'm good," Crank insists, and cradles his cup of coffee like somebody's coming to steal it. He no longer takes it black, at least, gave into Bucky's cajoling to add cream and sugar for some imagined benefit.

He's not good. Last night was the roughest either of them have been for a while, which is saying something. Crank had ended up sleeping on the porch after waking up clawing at Bucky's weight on top of him.

Sleeping. Hah. As if either of them slept any more. Bucky couldn't close his eyes if he didn't know exactly where Crank was, if he wasn't directly in eye-line when he woke. Crank could sleep anywhere but woke at the slightest sound, disoriented and trapped in memories of cramped concrete rooms and barbed wire, gasping for air and the sight of the sky.

"You didn't eat dinner yesterday," Bucky reminds him.

They had gone to the diner in town, an increasingly safe bet to get food into both of them, especially since the waitress always slid them extras and a slice of whatever pie was on offer.

Since you're a friend of Charlie's, the older woman had said the first time and then, when Crank had gone to the restroom, it's nice to know he has people looking out for him after all that nastiness.

Halfway through what Bucky thought was a perfectly good chicken parm Crank had gone pale, put down his cutlery, and pushed his plate over to Bucky's side of the table. At first Bucky had ribbed him for being full from just a few bites, but then Crank was vigorously shaking his head, hands white knuckle on the table, mouth a thin, nauseated line.

Bucky had finished both of their plates to ward off the guilty fear that came from wasting food, then hustled Crank out of the door. He wasn't sick, but looked it the whole way back to the house. Any attempt to draw him into conversation failed, and Bucky filled the empty air with predictions on the next baseball season. They had turned in for bed almost as soon as they got back, Crank still not sharing what had turned his stomach (or, Bucky thought privately, his mind).

Then the disturbed night's rest, and now the kitchen, Bucky sliding a plate of toast across the table.

As if he's been asked to do the impossible, Crank sighs and picks up a slice of bread. He bites off a corner, chews, and swallows, keeping eye contact with Bucky the whole time.

"Happy?" He asks.

The familiar sharpness in his voice makes Bucky grin - there's his Charlie, rising from whatever place he sinks into when it all gets too much. There's the hidden bite that made Bucky look twice and then want those teeth in him.

"Ecstatic."

[hellofanidea]

Dealers choice 43 and 47 on the clothes prompt list 👀

A bloodstained uniform + Rolled up shirtsleeves, Arthur Foster (MOTA AU)

The second raid over Bremen kills Blue Moon's navigator.

All it takes is some well placed flak and George Hatch is knocked out of his seat and onto his ass, screaming about the holes in him. His blood gets all over the maps, and it's nothing short of a miracle that they actually make it back to Thorpe Abbotts.

His blood also gets all over Arthur, who spends the last half of their mission trying to hold his insides together. It doesn't work. Hatch is dead before Blue Moon lowers her landing gear.

They have to peel him out of Arthur’s arms.

He doesn't move after, just stays staring at the spot where he was, the holes in the side of the fort where the killing blow entered. Morse has to come back in and bodily drag him out by his harness. He slides out like a newborn foal, gets a face full of tarmac when his knees don't work, and feels himself get scruffed into the truck waiting to take them to interrogation like a disobedient dog.

Their co-pilot is being taken away in an ambulance with a fucked up leg, along with their waist gunner and radioman. None of the others can look at him. Arthur can’t blame them. He’s stained red from chin to knee. His nose had crunched when he’d fallen out of the fort, and now he can feel the blood from that slowly trickling down his face to join Hatch’s.

The Clubmobile girls, usually so unflappable, blanche when they see him. Doc Stover grabs for him, but Arthur waves him off, wiping at his nose with his sleeve despite the blinding pain it brings.

“S not mine. ‘S not mine. ‘S Georgie’s.”

Stover lets him go, but Tatty pulls him aside by the elbow, forces a glass of whiskey into his hands, and doesn’t let go until he’s knocked it back. It mixes poorly with the metallic taste in the back of his mouth, but the burn is comforting.

“Thanks,” he murmurs to her, and hopes she knows how much he means it.

Hatch's logs are, understandably, incomplete. Arthur reads out what he can of them. Stutters, and stumbles, and the pity in Red's face as he listens is worse than any frustration at his incompetence. He wants somebody to yell at him, shake him, tell him to get a grip on himself. He needs somebody to come rip him out of the hazy, distant, place he's been sunk into since Hatch had wheezed his last into his neck.

Jimmy Douglass would have done it. Would have rattled him by the shoulders until some sense had been knocked back into his fellow bombardier, and then dragged him along to the O Club to take his mind off of things. Would have cracked a shitty joke and nudged him to dance with a Red Cross girl until the pain was back to its usual dull ache.

Douglass isn’t here though, like the rest of the crew of Just-a-Snappin’, like the crew of Our Baby, like the six other forts that went down. Eighty men. Eighty one including Lieutenant George Edgar Hatch, navigator and son and husband and father.

He’d never even held Abigail. She’d been born after they shipped to England, six pounds and seven ounces and with a head full of hair, and they had drunk Norfolk dry toasting her.

Arthur doesn’t hear the dismissal, but Morse’s hand is more gentle this time when she guides him by his collar.

“C’mon,” she says. “Let's get you cleaned up.”

She leads him out of the hut, and he’s barely cognizant of his surroundings until he hears a hissed ‘Jesus Christ!’ from the group of men huddled by one of the doors. Veal and Bubbles are staring at him with open horror, Crank’s crew not looking much happier even though they’d already seen him in interrogation.

“‘S not mine,” Arthur mutters again, sniffing and swallowing a blood clot he really should have spit onto the grass.

“You feeling alright?” Crank asks cautiously.

“Peachy.” This time when he sniffs he does spit, turning away and shooting the vivid red glob between his teeth. “Fuckin’ aces, Charlie.”

“I got him, he’s fine,” Morse says firmly, taking him by the elbow and marching them away.

He needs a shower. Some more whiskey. A nap. His father to rise from the dead and be in England so he can pet his hair and tell him how to live through a man dying in his arms.

The irony of that last one isn’t lost on Arthur. Thomas Foster didn’t live through that either, it just took him a while to die.

Getting a shower at least is feasible. One bonus of walking around the base looking like something out of a nightmare is that when he steps into their block it very quickly empties out, and Morse stands a vicious guard at the door whilst he scrubs off the now dried blood and changes into his uniform. It helps him feel a little more human, even with the blossoming bruise on his nose and the black eyes that will rise any time soon.

His flight gear is pretty much ruined, especially the sheepskin, which has gone a muddy pink and looks distressingly like rotting meat. Smells it, too, and Arthur abandons it all after emptying the pockets. There’s blood on his pack of smokes, and he considers tossing them out of spite, but the craving wins out so he lights one as he waits outside for Morse to clean herself up. With his face tilted up towards the sky the last dregs of blood and mucus slip down his throat. He chainsmokes away the taste until Morse emerges, hair still damp but neatly combed. Unflappable as ever, his pilot.

“I’m gonna go to the hospital, check on the boys. You comin’?” She asks.

Normally Arthur would say yes without hesitation, but this time he actually thinks about it. Then he shakes his head.

“Naw. Give ‘em my love, though. Think I’m gonna sack out for a while.”

Morse gives him a long, searching, look, then nods.

“Course. Get some rest. I’ll swing by our racks later, make sure you get some dinner.”

Arthur isn’t sure he can stomach anything, but thanks her anyway. She splits off to medical, and Arthur makes his way back to the barracks. There's a mostly full flask slid down the side of his locker he should be able to get away with drinking until he knocks out. Maybe that way he'll be too out of it when she comes around.

Marta's already sitting on his bunk when he gets there. Not a hair out of place as usual, except for how her jacket is off and her sleeves are rolled above her elbows, even in the chill of an English October. There’s a sketchpad and pencil in her lap, with a figure Arthur can’t make out yet.

For a brief, fierce, moment he hates her. Hates her for being here, for seeing him, knowing him. Hates her even temper and pragmatism and the sad way she looks at him from behind her glasses.

“Not sure you're meant to be here,” he tells her dryly, staying by the door like that will save him from whatever conversation she might want to have.

“Not sure you're the person to make that argument,” Marta shoots back, just as flatly. Then her mouth twists uncomfortably. “Saw you get back. Heard about your navigator. Wanted to see how you are.”

“I'm fine. You can tell Esther that, too.”

“Tell her yourself. I ain't got the time to talk about you in my letters.”

That makes Arthur snort. Some of the tension he hadn't known he was carrying leaches from his shoulders.

“I ain't been good at keeping up with her recently,” he admits. Not since before Regensburg, at least. He’s found it harder and harder to carry a conversation with her, to share jokes and stories and pretend that it’s all still just a game. Frowning, he adds, “I need to write Georgie's family.”

“Thought that was Kidd's job?”

“Yeah, but…” Arthur shakes his head. “I was with him, Marta. I was… I held him. When he went. That’s… I owe him that.”

Marta doesn’t say anything, but she shuffles up his bunk a little, and he gives into the aches in his body that tell him to sit down beside her. Hatch’s rack is the one beside his, and he stares long and hard at the blanket. His footlocker is gone already, swept away to the orderly hut to be shipped back to his folks in Queens. Arthur doesn’t know everything in it, but there aren’t enough trinkets and letters in the world to make a whole picture of George Hatch, to replace him at his mother’s table and in his wife’s bed and in his little girl’s life.

They sit. Arthur smokes. Marta carries on with her sketch. Outside, the sun fades. 

Eventually, Marta breaks the silence.

“They're talking about sending you to the Flak House.”

“What? Who?”

“Major Bowman was talking to Smokey about it. Said you didn't look good in interrogation.”

Yeah, no shit. I still had my friend’s blood on my hands.

Maybe a trip to the Flak House wouldn’t be the worst thing. It was treasonous to admit it outloud, but he had been able to feel himself fraying at the edges since Algeria, since it became abundantly clear that Escape Kit wasn’t making its way over the horizon or back to base. Some time not sitting behind a bombsight might be good for him.

Then he remembers how many forts they just lost, how many crews. Their names and faces overwhelm him momentarily, one above the rest despite the way Arthur’s been steadfastly refusing to think about him between Hatch dying in his arms and hearing that Just-a-Snappin’ had bailed.

He’s not dead. Can’t be. Arthur doesn’t have that same roiling dread in the pit of his stomach that he did over Curt’s absence, and he’s willing to trust that superstition just to keep himself level. His name will appear on the next list of POWs, or he’ll vanish for weeks and then reappear after finding his way through France. Those are the only options Arthur can contemplate without clawing his own face off.

The thought of being trapped with those two scenarios (and their unspeakable third) for an unspecified time at Coombe House, where he is certain to have far too much time to dwell on them - and every other terrible thing to happen in his cursed fucking life - is completely unbearable. He’d rather shake apart here, in private, and keep himself up in the air in the meantime. They were going to have to drag him out of that fort feet first, just like Hatch.

“They won’t,” Arthur tells Marta. “Too few crews as it is, nobody will be going anywhere until the next batch of replacements make it in.”

“Yeah, well, once they do I’d say you're high on the list for sending out. Just thought I’d let you know.”

His earlier flash of hatred for her smolders shamefully in his guts. Sweet, perfect, Marta, who knows him too well. Knows his ways of running and hiding like a sick animal and lets him get away with it, like she lets him get away with so much else. He nudges her knee with his own in thanks, and she kicks him in the calf in return. For a brief moment he feels like a child again, and the bittersweetness of the sensation makes his eyes burn.

Some time later he is being shaken awake. He rolls over to knock Morse's hand off of his shoulder and buries his face more in the pillow with a groan. Marta had left him to his letter writing with a quick press of her head to his, and he had swiftly started on emptying his flask, a task only left unfinished by his falling asleep.

“C'mon, sleepyhead, I don't get a welcome back?”

It takes a moment for the voice to penetrate. Then Arthur is springing up, nearly tripping over the mattress and his own legs in his haste to get upright. Wild eyed, he fixes on Blakely, standing smiling by his rack like he hasn't just materialized from the ether.

Gagged by sleep and whiskey and confusion, Arthur surges forward to wrap his arms around him. Real. Warm. Holding him back. Arthur barely checks there's nobody around before pulling back to land a desperate, smacking, kiss against his mouth.

“Fuck, oh fuck,” he breathes. “Jesus, Ev, what the fuck-”

“Easy, there,” Ev is laughing, gentling him with a hand down his side. “I'm alright. We made it back.”

“Fuck,” Arthur spits one last time. Then he turns them and pushes him onto his bed by his shoulders. “Sit down, sit down, Jesus, are you insane? Have you been to medical?”

Without letting him answer, he kneels in front of him, starts really checking him over. Miraculously it seems like Ev’s in one piece, aside from the usual scratches and bruises they all come back with. Arthur runs his thumb over the largest graze visible, the one that has smeared a thick line of red over his nose.

Having sat patiently through the hurried examination, Ev reaches out to brush at Arthur's own face. It’s an effort to not flinch away, the puffy soreness of the skin around his eyes having settled in properly by now.

“What happened here?” Asks Ev.

“Fell outta my fort when we landed,” Arthur admits sheepishly. “Broke my nose on the runway.”

Ev tries valiantly not to laugh, but fails, and Arthur can't help but join him, dropping his forehead onto his knees. He's still in his flight suit. It smells of smoke, and sweat, and comfort. Arthur breathes deep, tries to calm his racing heart and spinning mind, tries to bottle up the screaming cocktail of feelings that wants him to pin Ev down and tell him in great, emotive, detail how deeply fucked he thought he was going to be without him. They clog his throat, jostle for dominance, pinwheel him between joy and fury and grief until a kind of numbness wins.

“Hatch is dead,” Arthur says hollowly, not raising his head.

The laughter above him stops, and a hand touches the back of his head.

“So's Saunders.”

Neither says anything for a long moment.

“I'm glad you're not,” Arthur finally adds. If he says anything else it’ll all come spilling out, and that can’t happen, not ever. For both of their sakes.

The fingers in his hair curl, then release.

“Me too.”

[hellofanidea]

curt has a crush on arthur 🎤🎤

This got away from me so badly, and it now is its own ficlet! It does get heavy during the latter part, however, so tw for alcoholism, PTSD, character death, and people being shitty to each other in the throes of those.

"Y'know Curt's got a thing for you?" Bucky grins at him one night, closer to five sheets to the wind than three, leaning into Arthur's space outside of the O Club.

There had been a few of them who wandered out initially, chasing fresh air to clear their soaked heads, but then the band had started up again and they had followed the music inside in search of dance partners. Arthur had expected Bucky to be first amongst them to go, but he had stayed when Arthur lingered under the night sky, and now he understands why.

"Not sure you're meant to say shit like that, Major," Arthur laughs, mostly out of shock at the way Bucky seems perfectly at ease with the idea. "Gonna get somebody a blue ticket home."

"Naw," Bucky scoffs, still smiling, though it's starting to look more like a leer. "Ain't runnin' to tell nobody. Just figured I'd try my hand at bein' a wingman."

He laughs at his own joke, swaying away and hiccuping drunkenly.

There's no need, Arthur wants to tell him; him and Curt have been slipping into dark corners together for a bit of stress relief for nearly two weeks now. He wonders if he pieced together Curt 'having a thing for him' from the newly charged air between them, or if Curt really had said something to him. Wonders what either of those could mean.

"You're a good friend," he tells Bucky instead, and means it. "You're also drunk as a skunk. C'mon, we should head back inside before you sober up enough to remember this in the mornin'."

Bucky makes a dismissive noise, but turns towards the door with him anyway.

"You're not gonna give me anything to take back to him? What kind of a wingman are you makin' me, Foster?" He complains.

"Well, considerin' I didn't try to punch yours or his lights out when you said somethin', a real lucky one, sir."

Several Years Later

"Y'know Curt's got a thing for you?" Bucky slurs, and Arthur feels his heart drop to his knees.

It's hot in the VA hall they've piled into for the reunion, and Bucky's been on fine form all night, to the point that some of the boys who didn't know him as Air Exec or CO or POW had been looking at him funny, and Arthur had to volunteer to take him outside for a moment. Let him cool his head in the relative privacy of the side alley. Catch his breath. Shiver off some of the burn of whiskey in his stomach.

And Arthur has been doing so well recently, but now he wants that same burn something fierce. He should go back inside, send Viv or Buck to take care of Bucky. Find Ev and get out of here before he follows Egan the way he always does eventually, and throws away three months of stone cold sobriety over the invocation of a ghost that he's never without anyway.

He doesn't go back inside. He stays next to where Bucky has his head tilted back to the sky, his eyes closed. Ignoring the tremble of his fingers, Arthur takes out a cigarette and lights it.

"Yeah, Bucky," he sighs around the filter. He doesn't have the energy to play along, or the heart to stop him.

"What, no joke about a blue ticket?" Bucky asks.

Irritation abruptly curdles in Arthur's stomach. He can't tell if Bucky's really back in Thorpe Abbotts in his mind, or if he's just trying to get a rise out of him. It reminds him, bitterly, of the Stalag. Bucky growling at him at him like a cornered animal, digging his fingers into Arthur's bruises; Arthur letting him, because at least it made him useful.

"I'm a civilian, now," he reminds Bucky. "Me 'n' Ev get caught it's jail, remember?"

The other man has the decency to look uncomfortable at the reminder, kissing his teeth unhappily. His closed eyes remain turned up to the pollution-hidden stars.

"Yeah. Forgot that." A heavy pause, and Arthur feels himself tense. Bucky's winding up for something, drawing his arm back to throw a curve ball. Definitely looking for a fight of some kind, and Arthur hasn't taken any of the bait so far, but he's come pretty close. "You 'n' Ev moved pretty fuckin' quickly. After Africa."

"Don't," Arthur snaps.

"I mean, I've heard the stories, you practically jumped him right there in the desert, right? Fucked him all the way up until you got yourself shot down. Wrote him fuckin' love letters from a Nazi prison camp, for fuck's sake." Bucky's eyes open. There's something dangerous in their piercing blue. "I bet Curt's body wasn't even cold when you jumped on his dick."

Arthur had never snapped at him in the Stalag, had taken his licks from Bucky like a good little soldier and kept on trotting after him. It had been worth it then just to feel the ache. Even more worth it for the times when Bucky wasn't at his lowest ebb and he would try to silently make it up to him.

Now, though? Arthur doesn't have that kind of patience left in him. Not even for Bucky, not when it's about Ev, about Curt, and not really about either of them at all, but about Bucky needing something he thinks he can only get by finding a sore spot and poking.

He has to know it's coming, but Bucky doesn't dodge when Arthur throws the punch. It's a good hit, or a bad one, something crunching under Arthur's fist in a way that instantly overrides the fury that had risen in him at Bucky's provocation. Bucky goes staggering, hands up at his face, and Arthur stares in horror at the aftermath of what he's done.

"Jesus, shit, Bucky, 'm sorry, 'm so sorry, are you alright?" He jabbers, frozen to the spot.

Just out of reach, Bucky sways. He's making grunts and groans as he seems to fight to stay upright. When one of his hands moves, red spills from between his fingers like wine, trickles down the backs of his hands, and drips onto his dress uniform. It's all over his tie. It'll stain, badly, and Arthur can't stop staring at it, even as Bucky straightens out and makes a throaty 'whoop' noise.

"Always knew you had a helluva swing on you, Foster," he laughs thickly.

His own blood is all over his lips, and he's still laughing, and there's too much happening at once, too many pasts layered together in Arthur's head. The smell of burning skin draws him from them, then the pain in his fist. Not just his knuckles; he had curled his hand tight around his still lit cigarette to throw the punch, and the end was now searing into his palm.

Finally, he drops it. If he lets it burn him a moment more than he needs to, that's between him and God and his ghosts.

[hellofanidea]

if I may push the agenda further: being distracted by thoughts of them for Morse & Jack >:)

Morse always ends up holding a court of her own when they go into one of the pubs off base. Nobody is too sure how she does it, just that her and Foster will pitch up at the bar and shoot the shit and slowly but surely a little crowd will form around her. A few of her own crew, yes, one or two of the boys as they pass to get a drink, but mostly the local women, the ATS and Land Army girls.

She has a way with them that isn't even necessarily flirtatious - she just opens up, loosens her posture by degrees, is coaxed to smiling more. Laughing, even, quiet as it is, and Jack can't help but watch her up there. He understands how they're drawn to her. She's beautiful, tall and golden and broad, confident in a way she shies away from on base. There's a dimple in her cheek that Jack can count on one hand the number of times he's been allowed to see. Not that she would ever agree, but Jack thinks she gives Cleven a run for his money when it comes to pilots who look like they stepped off a movie set.

"Have you heard a word I was just sayin'?" Bucky asks him, waving a hand in front of his face to finally drag his attention away from the other corner of the pub.

"No," Jack tells him candidly, which gets him a squawk from Egan and a quiet laugh from Cleven.

"If you're that wound up, just go an' talk to 'em. Sure you won't get shot down that bad," Bucky grumbles, and Jack's heart races uncomfortably until he realizes he means the land girls and not Morse.

"Go to hell, Bucky."