#I feel like Croz would be so petty

[thatsrightice]

So it was typical for pilots to make a point to teach other crew members how to fly the B-17 in case something were to happen to both pilots. This was usually the Navigator and/or Bombardier since often times they had been in pilot training but washed out. Harry Crosby washed out 12 flying hours into his training, but he would have already passed through almost all of the ground training before reaching that point and making him a viable candidate, even if his training hadn’t been for the B-17.

I can totally imagine Blakely forcing Crosby (and Douglass) to learn how to at least fly straight and level to give the crew time to bail out. This isn’t at all unrealistic because Blakely was known for being relentless in training his B-17 crew, flying every day they didn’t have a mission and running every imaginary scenario possible. With his discipline and how rigorous he was regarding his crew’s training, I would be more shocked if he hadn’t shown Crosby how to fly.

Now I can’t stop picturing Blakely calling Crosby up to the cockpit and then gesturing to the controls like “hey can you take this for me? I need to take a leak” because he knew Crosby would adamantly refuse if Blakely were to, you know, be normal and just say that’s what they were going to work on during the practice flight. And Crosby would be terrified and also sooo unbelievably pissed off. Of course there’s no issues and Crosby more or less gets the hang of it, but that’s irrelevant in Crosby’s mind. Because all that matters is how dare he put everyone’s lives in Crosby’s hands like even proposing that it’s a possibility they need to plan for is entirely unacceptable.

[luminouslywriting]

I wonder how everyone else on the base, except Croz, Kidd, and Abe, reacts to Ruth's and Rosie's arguments. Do they find them funny? Are they surprised to see the usually very collected, encouraging, caring, and calm Rosie explode with rage every time he is with Ruth? Do they start wondering why they are even a couple if they behave like that?

Oh here's the thing Nonny!! So for the most part, they're pretty good about being a couple in public. And most people just assume that because Ruth is a cold-hearted bitch, this is the closest thing that Rosie is going to get to affection. It's not that she's making him mad all of the time, it's the subtle needling and little ways that they tend to irritate each other.

If they ARE arguing, it's most likely to do with a mission or a disagreement on how to handle the legality of a mission. It's about the men and it's about the war. It's not usually about their own petty issues—though Abe has to listen to WAY too much of that in Ruth's personal office when it's the three of them and they're safe from other wandering ears or eyes.

The other thing to keep in mind is that Rosie has been dealing with Ruth his entire life. And he knows that this is not Law School, where their banter and arguments could be encouraged and cultivated to push one another. This is the real world and as they've been fake dating, he is able to see past a lot of the walls that Ruth has put up. He actually gains a whole lot of patience and understanding for Ruth because he finally sees what she's been hiding for years.

That she doesn't think she's enough for herself and that's why she's always working. There's this self-deprecating, almost hatred, of herself. It's baffling to him because she's the smartest, wittiest, funniest, and most hard-working woman that he's ever met. No one compares to her in intelligence levels and work ethic.

So Rosie is able to exert modicums of self-control (he prays for patience on the daily with her tbh), because he sees that a lot of her anger and rage and needling and annoyances just comes from this very hurt place of not feeling loved or accepted by literally anyone. And it's hurtful to him in a lot of ways because he has to consider how he contributed to those wounds when they were teenagers and they were actively feuding and aiming to hurt feelings.

There are several people that wonder about them as a couple. Pappy is suspicious as hell. Harding is confused in the largest degree but he's not about to go asking questions. No, sir. Tatty suspects that the relationship is fake, but she's not about to go asking questions either. That's above her pay-grade.

Lemmons also has his questions about the relationship and might even get to ask Abe a few of them, but that kid is keeping a tight lid on things. The people who WOULD, in fact, ask questions (specifically to Ruth anyway), are no longer at base (see Bucky Egan, Gale Cleven, and Bernard DeMarco).

[fanforthefics]

35. Things you said at the top of your lungs, Claude/Sid

“We’ll have to leave soon,” Sid says. Claude rolls his eyes. He’s always so practical, Sid is; Claude definitely hates that about him. How he can take the romance out of anything, except maybe hockey. “Go back home.” 

“You think?” Claude asks, stretching out on his bed. He is definitely going to miss these beds, once he’s back at the dorms. The training facility the hockey camp is in did not skimp on their athlete’s beds. The dorms, on the other hand, definitely did. He wonders, offhand, if Sid’s dorm bed is as uncomfortable. Maybe that’s why they win. Maybe he wants to know for other reasons. 

“Shut up,” Sid tells him, not like he’s actually annoyed but like he knows he should. It’s not a tone Claude knew about, before this summer. Before this summer, he thought that Crosby’s only tone was the flat one he talked to cameras with, the tight one he used to chirp on the ice, and the whine he used to argue with refs with. He didn’t know Sid could laugh like he did in practice, when he hooked a shot past the goalie and crowed with sheer glee at being on the ice; he didn’t know Sid could sound fond and easygoing, like he did teasing teammates after practice; he didn’t know Sid could sound breathless and demanding and babbling, like he did when Claude lay him out in these wonderful beds and took him apart. 

A part of Claude wishes he’d never known that. That Sid was still the bitchy, whiny, petty, too good, brat of a captain of his college’s biggest rival, who Claude could hate with the single-minded distaste of someone whose face he barely knew. That would be easy. 

Instead, Claude looks over. Sid’s lying on his back on the bed next to Claude, in just his boxers because it’d been too hot to pull on anything more after they’d finished fooling around. He looks irritatingly good, all muscle and pale skin and the marks Claude had bitten into him, more vicious than was maybe healthy, but it did something to him, to know that Sid let him. To know that he could do that, to the precious star of the league, that he could bite at his skin and make him moan. 

Experimentally, he reaches out, presses at one of the bruises on Sid’s hip. Sid squirms, and Claude laughs. 

“You’re the worst,” Sid complains, and then he’s rolling onto his side to look at Claude better. There’s heat in that gaze, a hint of the focus he brings to everything including bed. Claude’s had that focus on him in a game, wanted to smash it to piece; he’s had it here, where it’s taken him to pieces. 

“No I��m not,” Claude retorts. Sid smiles crookedly. 

“No,” he agrees, more thoughtfully than seems right for someone Claude’s been hooking up with for two months. “You aren’t.” He pauses, then. “Should I pretend you are, when we get back?” 

“That’s a week away.” 

“It’s soon enough,” Sid replies, because he’s a worrier. He’s still looking at Claude, with those big hazel eyes. “Is that the plan? That we’ll just–go back to hating each other?”

Claude shrugs. “What else is there?” he asks. Their schools are rivals. Their teams are definitely rivals. They’re rivals. Once they get on the ice in orange and gold, then–he’ll just be Crosby again, and Claude will forget the ease of the power play between them, will forget how Sid bit at his lip when he was working, how they went to the pet store and played with dogs for hours, how bad Sid is at video games and how much he hates that. 

Sid’s gaze is still fixed on him, and it’s getting the look Claude’s seen a few times, when he’s outlining a play he thinks might just work. “What if we don’t.” 

“Don’t what?” 

“Don’t hate each other.” Sid sits up, which jostles Claude on the bed. Claude sits up too. He doesn’t like Sid being taller than him, looking down at him. “I mean, our schools aren’t that far away. We could keep going.” 

“What, keep hooking up?” Claude inserts, trying to sound as casual as his words. Sid ignores him. 

“What’ll they do? It might be dramatic, but no one really cares.” 

“Everyone cares what you do.” It comes out more than a little bitter. Sid flushes, ducks his head. Great, and now Claude feels bad. “Come on. You know they’ll care.” 

“Fine then. What’ll they do?” Sid asks, lifting his head again. He’s got his jaw set stubbornly. Claude’s seen that look from across a rink, and hated what too often came next. “Fire us? We’re students. They’re not going to do anything to us.” 

“They won’t do anything to you,” Claude corrects, because this is the thing he knows and hates–Sid is Sidney Crosby, and that means he can date–see–hook up with–not hate anymore–his rival. Claude doesn’t have that luxury. 

“As long as we play hard, it’ll be okay,” Sid insists. Too hard. He knows he’s lying. Claude stares him down. Sid stares back, determined. 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because–” Because Claude doesn’t know who he is in Philly, if it isn’t hating Sid. Because Claude’s not sure he can play hard and not hate him. Because they aren’t just hooking up, and neither of them have said it but Claude knows it, and if he lets it go on too much longer it’s going to turn into something more. “Because it’s not worth it, okay? What are the chances it works out? We’d be doing long distance, and there’d be hockey, and who knows what our teammates would say. We’d probably end things and be right back where we started.” 

“That’s bullshit.” 

“Is it?” Claude retorts, his back up at the condescension. “How many people do you know who made long distance work, even without all the other shit?”

“We’re not other people,” Sid snaps back, a hint of that brattiness Claude always knew was there back in his voice. “We can make it work.” He leans forward, gets a hand behind Claude’s head, and tugs him in to kiss him, long and slow, in all the ways he’s learned in the past months get right to Claude’s core. Claude’s a little dazed when Sid pulls away, he’ll admits. “We will.” 

Claude swallows. He wishes they didn’t have to do this now. It would be easier, if they could leave right away. “We can’t,” he says, and waits for Sidney to leave. 

Instead, Sid flops back down onto the bed, and crosses his arms behind his head. “You’re wrong,” he says, and closes his eyes. 

Claude stares. “Are you staying?” 

Sid opens his eyes again, confused. “Are you kicking me out?” 

“No, but–” didn’t they just break up?

“But what?” 

“But–aren’t you mad?” Sid gets mad at the weirdest things and is easy going at others, Claude’s learned, but he thought this would get some anger. 

Sid shrugs. “I’ve got a week to convince you,” he says, sure, and closes his eyes again.  

Claude stares. “You are so weird,” he tells him, because he is. 

Sid shrugs. “Are you napping, or do you want to go down to the weight room?” 

Claude laughs, but he scoots over instead, so he can lean down with a hand on either side of Sid’s head. He only gets this for a week more. He’s  not going to give it up. “This instead,” he suggests, and kisses the sleepiness out of Sid’s face. 

He bites more marks into Sid’s skin, digs his fingers into his side, drags his face across his thighs until he knows there’ll be beard burn. Sid pushes back, muscling Claude onto his back, taking his time over Claude’s skin until Claude’s aching and demanding and Sid’s being a bitch about it until Claude gets his hand on him. 

Claude barely gets to bask at all before Sid bounces back up. “I need to shower,” he says, pulling his sweats back on. Claude watches, regretfully. He wonders how weird it would be to take a picture. You probably shouldn’t have pictures of your rival’s ass on your phone, he supposes. “I’m getting dinner with Segs, then I’m calling home, and then I have some ideas I want to write out before I talk to coach about them. Are you doing anything this evening? You could come too.” 

Claude blinks at him. “I’m sleeping,” he says, because they’d just had a full day of practice and will have another one tomorrow. 

“Oh.” Sid looks surprised by that, like he hadn’t considered that possibility. He’s so weird. “Well then. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Tomorrow,” Claude agrees. Sid hesitates for a second, then he walks back to the bed, leans down, and kisses Claude again, quick and surprisingly sweet, for someone who wouldn’t know romance if it bit him in the ass. Then he walks out the door, to head back down the hall to his room, apparently. 

Claude watches the door close, with the taste of Sid still lingering on his lips. Sid has no romance in him, but he wants Claude, but he’s going out there to work on more hockey because he is single minded and obsessive and brilliant, and he’s helping the kids because he does that too, and he’s picky and whiny and gets angry over the weirdest things but he’s calm and steady and has the worst sense of humor too. 

Claude rolls onto his side, sinks into the bed. It smells like Sid. His dorm room bed won’t. Sid wants it to. Sid thinks they can do it. Sid thinks he’s brave enough to do it, and it sticks in Claude’s craw, that Sid might be braver than him. 

Fuck this, he decides, and gets up, goes to to the door. “Croz!” he calls. Sid’s at the end of the hallway, far enough away that Claude can just make out the vague impression of his face, that he has to yell. “Fine. Let’s do it, when we’re back.” 

“That took less time than I thought!” Sid yells back, his smile bright enough that Claude can see it from here, and Claude flips him off before he goes back into his room. Yeah, he thinks. They can do it.