#Squadron Wives

[silaslich]

Choices have consequences

Simon “Ghost” Riley x gn!captain!reader

Wc - 2.8k

Summary - you’re tasked with taking your team to Germany to assist tf141, all goes well until Ghost takes a bullet.

No CWs

AN - this was wholly written for my own entertainment just so I could interject my ocs somewhere with no context but hey why not post it for the fun of it :)

Stories did little to compare to the haunting image of the man in the mask.

The Ghost.

A strong soldier with a good head on his shoulders. Perfectly curated for his field; no strings attached, no loose ends. No one waiting for him, no one that would seek him out if he were to disappear. Not one single person who would be notified of his death when that dark day came.

Ghost had cut himself away from any semblance of a normal life he had left. He took the choice out of Simon’s hands and forced it regardless, hiding his truth and burying it away. Files upon redacted files lay piled up. His name. His face. His home. His family. All buried deep down in the archives, tucked away in a dark corner where no one would see them. Where no one would know to look.

He was an anomaly. A complete stranger to these men. He couldn’t relate to them, couldn’t join in with idle conversations between deployment or while on transports. Talking about future plans; wives, kids, holidays spent around a stained oak table with chairs pulled up to each corner - filled to the brim with family and friends and pets.

He would just keep his eyes low. Listening carefully but mind somewhere else completely - disassociated. Displaced from his surroundings.

You met him years ago in Germany. Barely two words spoken between you before you were split, sent your opposite ways to divide and conquer.

Task force 141 wasn’t foreign to you, John Price had been an acquaintance of yours for some time now, conversations had in passing like ships across seas, opposing squadrons touching down onto the tarmac of the same holding barracks or tight-knit rendezvous at the higher up facilities. It came with the territory of being a Captain, Price had is men and you had yours. He’d remarked that you were young considering your rank.

“I’m older then I look, Captain” you’d said. You weren’t about to tell him how old you really were, that you were perhaps closer to his age then he thought, you’d let that conversation happen another time.

Germany had been a chance encounter. A tipping point in an otherwise routine mission; a drug ring shipping through exports across Europe, a rat had let slip of armour deals happening too, heavy duty artillery that was more then just black market trade. Warfare grade shit. By some chance, yourself and your force had been available to assist, already running through that particular area of Europe for another lead you had been following. It had come up short. After just a short phone call you were dropped by helicopter onto the outskirts of Görlitz, a rural town that would provide a great meeting point that would be more than inconspicuous. An old hay barn had been the check point. It’s decaying wood panels all chipped and splintered and rotten from the damp. The roof was half con-caved and the landscape was dull and horse sick. Grazed down right to the clay.

You and your team kept a low profile, walking along the tree lines with weapons drawn, rifles held to your chests as you scanned your surroundings. Old habits died hard. It would take some drilling out of you for you to change your ways, always on the look out, always watching and waiting for the jump.

The select few men you had brought with you were some of your finest; the big Austrian lieutenant König, Toni (Norvin) Espin the scouser sergeant, Craig (Jank) Conners the Londoner and Felix (Trap) Valenski the basket-case Canadian.

It was a team you’d hand picked yourself, comparable to TF141 in the sense that each of you came from somewhere else, some other unit or faculty, bought together by pure chance or pure luck. Freedom fighters for the greater good. Dirty job. Clean world. Clean slate for the rest of humanity to crack on with. Your hands filthy and stained, not washing off in the sink, stained deep down to the bone, bleached into your skin.

Your fist rapped against the wooden door, barely holding on at the hinges. You kept your eyes to the door, only glancing over to your men to gesture to your own eyes with two fingers, then pointing them out into the landscape, signalling for them to keep a look out. Price met you at the door, peeking through a splintering crack.

He ushered you all in with a “good to see you made it lads”.

There was a small woodworking table propped in the middle of the barn with a small flash light placed atop. A make shift desk. Littered with maps and coordinate sheets, messy scribbles dashed across and certain areas circled. It looked like they’d been here for hours. Stewing away. Plotting.

The five of you filed in, spreading out across the back portion of the barn, staying aback, not treading on the toes of the 141. You were here to assist, not to overtake. You took a step toward Price.

“So tell me Captain” you began, shifting your rifle to lay across your chest as it sat propped by its strap, “what do you need of us?”

Your eyes scanned the room, finally taking in the the rest of his force. That’s when you saw him, the Ghost, a burly masked lad with a hulking stature and dangerous air, he didn’t unsettle you in the slightest but you could see why someone on the receiving end of his barrel might think otherwise. He was set off away in the darkness, arms folded and one foot propped across his other leg as he leaned against a wooden bannister frame. To his left was a shorter man, dark hair shaved into a tasteless mohawk, a prominent scar across his chin and a slanting smile painted across his face, he had a kind eye about him, you learnt his name was Soap. Hovering close to Price was the last to be introduced, his name was Gaz, a handsome young chap with slight facial hair and shades pushed up to sit atop his head.

“He’s a big lad ain’t he” Soap chuckled, nodding his head toward your lieutenant. König said nothing in retort. You raised a brow and looked across at the Austrian, his mask covering any emotion he could possibly be showing, you turned back towards the Scotsman.

“Glad to see your eyes work well sergeant” you smiled, nodding your head, he only laughed in return. Gaz laughed too. Price cleared his throat.

“I’ll get straight to it Cap” he said, beckoning you with a finger to step even closer to his makeshift table, you rounded the wooden desk, eyes scanning quickly over the scribbled plans and route markers, committing them to memory.

“I’d like you to form our defence, cover our arses as we infiltrate” you went over the logistics quickly in your head. You kissed your teeth in thought.

“Swap a soldier for König” you said, eyeing up Prices’ boys to see who’d best fit. Price looked at you and raised a brow.

“König would be better utilised as a battering ram of sorts, better close up on the offence rather then at long distance. He can get you in and better still he can cover you from there on out” you traced your gloved finger down over the map, following the route in which Price planned to take.

He grunted in the back of his throat, acknowledging the information you’d gifted.

“Right. I’ll swap your big fella for Ghost, he can stick with you lot at long range and cover our backs incase it goes south” he sounded pleased with his plan and you nodded in response, you glanced over at Ghost, seeing he hadn’t moved even an inch since you and your team had arrived. It’s like he really was just that -

a Ghost.

You jumped the drug ring that night. Just as planned; Price took König as his defence, followed by Soap and Gaz. They powered their way through the rings holding facility that was hunkered up on a canal channel, up stream and out of sight. They worked quick and they got the job done, with the assistance of yourself and your boys securing the perimeter and having Ghost as your extra.

Ghost hadn’t said more than a few words; despite the odd movement suggestion or offer of instruction to your men, he kept his mouth shut. You’d worked with hundreds of soldiers in your time, helped train some of the best of them, you’d seen personality types like his before - more brain and brawn then most, with that added third element of reservation. He thought of each word carefully, only gave away what he needed to, and in return you didn’t pry.

By the time Price was heading back with the rest of his crew, yourself and the others started to shift too, readying yourselves to meet them half way. They aren’t too far, just down a ravine heading towards the channels that would have carried the drug rings cargo. Norvin pipes up.

“Where after this Cap? Somewhere sunny?” He smirks when he speaks and you brush him off with a roll of your eyes.

Wishful thinkin’ Norv” you retort, falling into step beside Ghost who happens to be the closest. Trap is the next to start.

Put in for somewhere properly cold, this soggy shit doesn’t count” the lanky Canadian gestures around with both hands dramatically, the motion forces you to follow his eyes.

It certainly is just a soggy and bogged up blanket of rain and sleet out here this time of year, the smell of the earthy soil and kicked up leaves fresh in your nostrils.

As you all trudged further down the brow of the steep hill you saw the rest of the boys come into view, more specifically, you saw König first. That big bastard was hard to miss, a racing thought sprung to mind, it wouldn’t be hard for the enemy to hit him.

It was slippery and muddy. Caked to your boots and splashing up to your calves, it took some time to progress and cover the land, mainly because Jank took a nasty spill and instead of helping everybody just laughed - even Ghost cracked. You supposed it was funny, there’s nothing that can bring a group of soldiers closer then laughing at the expense of one of their own men. Jank didn’t find it particularly funny, smothered in mud right up to his eyeballs, you eventually caught yourself and offered him a hand up. Much to your surprise, he didn’t pull you down into the dirt with him, given his track record - you wouldn’t have put it passed him.

As yourself and your team head down the hill, you see as Price and his boys are coming up, honourable members of each being Ghost and König of course. The captain gets closer and closer, raises his hand to wave you down when you hear and feel the air whip around you.

It’s like lightening striking. One second you’re standing up right walking beside Ghost, and the next you’re crushed beneath the entirety of his weight.

It’s hard to tell if the razor sharp pain in your chest is from the impact or from Ghost crushing your ribcage, your voice dies in your chest when you cry out in pain, but it falls to complete silence when you manage to pin your eyes between your chest and Ghosts.

Because there’s nothing but blood.

-

It’s a hard place to be. On the wrong side of the door, from the outside looking in.

Guilt is a weight you carry well. It’s something you’ve had to come to terms with, make a friend out of, because she’s a headstrong mistress - one that doesn’t allow her victims much room to breath.

You’ve watched countless men and women die, both by your hand and the enemies. It’s a way of life unfortunately, another thing you had to prepare for when ranking up. Those deaths are on your shoulders, carried on your back till the day you kick the bucket yourself. It’s your job to oversee your team, to carry them with you, deliver them back home to their friends and families at the end of it all - hopefully not all of them in caskets.

Watching on now; this man, near enough a stranger to you- listening to his chest rattle and watching as his ribcage rises and falls in shallow succession. It’s a new found sensation that cuts deeper than anything has before. The ache of the healing wound in your chest strives to remind you that you should be the one in his place.

Someway - somehow, Ghost had seen the glint of a sniper in the distance, so far away it could have been anything, a stray of light catching the stream or a trick of the eye. Yet, he shielded you, screamed for everyone else to drop to the ground, he had bellowed so loud you hadn’t even heard it over the sound of the blood rushing in your ears.

Not only had he saved you, but the rest of the team as well, Ghost had walked away as the only critical injury. Even your wound was surface deep, his body had slowed down the bullet almost indefinitely, all you had now was a gnarled scabbed up entry wound.

And Ghost still hadn’t woken up yet.

The days stretch into what feels like eternity. You don’t eat and can barely sleep, you can’t even rip yourself away from the ward.

You carry your guilt well, so you can’t justify what makes you stay, what keeps you rooted to the sticky-clean vinyl floor.

Price stays too. Eaten up by his protective instinct, much like you are with your own team, they’re more than just that - a fucked up sense of family hiding between the bloodshed and the bullets. It’s why he had allowed you to stay, given you permission on Ghost’s behalf to see his face, to watch the way his features slope gently in sleep.

On the ninth day, Ghost wakes up.

It’s an awful ordeal. You’re getting yourself and Price a coffee when you hear it - when you hear him.

Something smashes and the machines keeping him breathing must clatter to the floor, Price pulls the assistance alarm just as you make it to the door.

For the briefest of seconds, Ghost stills when he sees you, eyes wild and frantic - but they’re glazed over, he’s clearly having an episode of some sorts. You make it to the bedside just as he’s pulling the wires off his chest, grabbing hands aiming for the oxygen mask next, Price’s voice is there attempting to soothe him the entire time.

“Calm down, Simon” he breathes, lowering his face close to Simon as he braces his palms gently on his chest, ushering him to relax, “it’s okay Si” Price looks from his lieutenant and then up at you.

His eyes contradict his tone. For the first time since you’ve known him, Price looks worried, if you didn’t know any better maybe he even looked scared. Fearful for his friend. You’ve deduced plenty in the last week or so, the captain hadn’t overshared on Ghost’s behalf, but he’d let enough go unsaid that you put two and two together - Ghost hadn’t always been a Ghost.

He was once a man; with a life and a family, despite being broken down and beaten by his father he rose above it, he sought out a life that would give him the control back. But even that was short lived, betrayed and brought to his knees and buried alive - left to rot away in that casket six feet under.

Ghost wasn’t created to replace Simon, he was created to protect him. Not just his identity and his past, but to protect that little boy that never got a chance to be just that. Simon had to grow up too fast; everything innocent and sweet ripped away too young, instead he was carved out by harsh words and glass bottles - moulded to be a shell of his former self.

The nurses are quick when they arrive; they sedate him through his IV and replace everything he’d managed to rip out, he’s in and out of it. Drifting as Price said.

You sit there for the rest of the afternoon. Silent by his side as he rests. Again- you don’t know what keeps you there. Maybe it’s an obligatory sense of responsibility for this man’s life now, he’d saved yours, now you owed him the same. It makes the wound in your chest ache, the dull throb of it palpable under your palm when you rest it there.

Then you realise as your eyes scan him, hovering over the bandages that wrap around his entire torso -

You’ll both have matching scars now.

[macabr3-barbi3]

No Mercy

week 4!!! let's fucking go!!!

COME LOOK AT OUR MASTERLIST BY @synamartia IT'S GORGEOUS

SHOUT OUT TO ALL OF MY WIVES @hazelfoureyes @sugoi-writes @minkdelovely @fraugwinska (WHO MADE ALL OF MY BANNERS AND I LOVE HER AND HER LOVELY BRAIN SO MUCH)

Summary: Adam gets enough of you mouthing off during training and picks a fight. Tags: hate sex, oral sex (male receiving), fighting

You knew Adam was getting a little sick of you- but what was the point in being part of his special inner circle of angels if you couldn’t have a little fun with it?

You had mouthed off to him again, and in all honestly you felt that it was a fair question; what did he even do during the exterminations while everyone else was causing mayhem? From what you heard from the others when you joined the ranks, he usually just flitted around watching the carnage or hovered near the portal back to Heaven without contributing anything himself. So after weeks of asking during training, despite the lieutenant telling you in no uncertain terms to drop it, you finally phrased it a little differently.

“What, are you too weak to actually participate?”

You knew he wasn’t. You could see the muscles that flexed beneath his robes while he watched the girls training, the unparalleled power in his wings when he brought them out. Sometimes it just felt good to stir a reaction out of him, to have a strong emotion aimed your way from a powerful being. And yeah, maybe you were hoping a little bit that the constant questioning would eventually prompt him to give you and the rest of the girls a show- you weren’t the only one that thought your commander was sexy as sin, and a casual show of strength would send everyone through the roof.

Perhaps this was a step too far though.

Lute audibly gasped, as did the rest of your squadron. “Recruit, that is unacceptable,” she hissed, and took a step forward to reprimand you when a large hand on her shoulder stopped her in her place.

“Relax, Danger Tits. I’ll handle it. All of you- clear out.” His mask is calm, aloof, but you can see the twitch of the graphics on his eyes that betray his true emotions. He was pissed.

With no one else daring to question him, everyone including Lute was gone in seconds, leaving only you and Adam on the mats of the training room. He slowly strips his robes off, a simple white tanktop and sweatpants underneath his holy getup. You might have drooled a little at the sight of his bare skin, tendons tensing beneath the surface as he drops the clothing and stretches; he was built like a fucking bear, all compact muscle and wiry hair along his chest and arms, the hint of a stubbly shadow that peeked out beneath the edges of his mask.

You’re distracted from your observation of him when he tosses a spear your way- not one of the official, angelic spears, but the shitty ones used for training. His own hands were empty. “You think I’m weak? Alright, bitch, you fucking asked for it. Come at me.”

You stutter backwards a step, having expected some yelling; not a challenge. “What?”

“You fucking heard me. Swing the goddamn spear.”

Normally you would balk at such a demand- Lute would have your ass if she knew you had swung on Adam even in a joking manner. But Adam looked like he meant business, and he was technically a higher ranking commanding officer than Lute, so…

You swing the spear at him the way you had been taught to take down larger demons- aim for extremities to disarm first, and then go for a killing blow. He dodges with a simple turn of his heel, using his fingers in a ‘come on’ motion and urging you to swing again. But as soon as the spear is within Adam’s reach he has a hold of it, tugging hard from the tip- the force of the action drags you closer to him so he can spew bullshit at you. “You think I’m fucking weak?” He presses a finger to your shoulder and pushes, sending you tumbling back and tripping over yourself to the floor. His grip on the spear tightens with a sickening crunch before he lets it clatter to the ground looking like kindling. “Me? I’m the whole reason you’re here, bitch, and you think you have any business to fucking question me?” He squares his feet, arms lifted in front of him like a shield. “Come on! You’re tough enough to talk all this shit but you won’t actually fight? I’ll kick you off the squad right fucking now.”

You get up and charge him, managing to get one blow between his arms against his chest before he’s laughing and shoving you back again to land hard on your ass. Again, and this time you don’t even get a hit in before he pushes back and you fall. Again. Again. He shows you no mercy every time he knocks you to your ass, laughing like it’s a game and hardly even using his strength to push you around. You climb to your feet this time, and the first true whisper of anger curls around your head like smoke to combat the faint heat you feel at being the sole focus of his attention with no one else around to witness it. He hadn’t even broken a sweat, while your breath was coming hard, sweat dripping down your face from the exertion. You feel your face set into a snarl as you rush him this time, swinging a leg instead of your fist and aiming below the belt.

Bad sportsmanship maybe, but so was laughing in your face every time you failed to strike him.

It doesn’t matter- he catches your leg behind the knee like he had caught the spear, pulls you closer in a similar fashion, and wraps a hand around your throat. His wings open up behind him, and in a move so quick you’re not entirely sure how it happened, he’s managed to flip the pair of you into the air and slam you hard into the ground.

The air is knocked out of you, something not helped by the hand that rests on your airways, and the motion has dislodged Adam’s mask- he shakes his head to fling it off, and you’re greeted with his actual face, scruffy and rugged and too handsome for how close your bodies are- and you were right about how easy this was for him, not the slightest hint of moisture along his hairline. Adrenaline courses in your veins, demanding movement and action that you can’t attempt with Adam’s weight settled on top of you, still holding the leg he had caught at an uncomfortable angle hear his hip. It mixes dangerously with the arousal you’ve felt this entire time, making you want to do something stupid and telling like rubbing yourself against one of his thick thighs while he squeezed softly at your neck.

“Low blow to go for my dick,” he admonishes as he lets go of your leg and it slams back to the ground. “All that trash you talk and look how fucking easy it was to get you pinned under me. Still think I’m fucking weak?” His fingers flutter around your throat as he repositions, the action sending a blush racing to your face and spreading to your collarbone. He doesn’t miss it, a cruel smirk taking over his handsome features while he looks down at you. “So that’s the deal, huh? You just wanted a fucking excuse for me to manhandle you a little bit? You kinky bitch.”

“Fuck you,” you snap at him, trying to turn your blushing face away, and he releases a single finger from the grip around your neck to dig into your cheek and turn you back to face him. The move is such a casual show of his strength that it makes you swallow hard, unable to clench your thighs together with him between them.

“You wish,” he laughs, his eyes bright and mischievous, and he uses his free hand to grab the length of his cock through his sweatpants, a dark patch where the tip rested against the fabric. “Shit, knowing you’re getting off on this is hot as fuck- but being a mouthy brat doesn’t get you fucking rewarded, so here’s what we’re gonna do.” He finally releases your throat, allowing you to suck in a lung full of air while he stands before he offers a hand to you. He only helps you up from the mat as far as your knees before he pulls away, crossing his arms over his burly chest. “You’re either gonna leave- and stop fucking questioning me during training, or I really will kick you off the team- or you’re gonna put that fucking mouth of yours to good use for once."

Like there was any question about that. 

You settle more comfortably onto your knees and wait, but he doesn’t do anything more than pulling his waistband down below his cock and stroking it in front of you. And fuck, it was going to be a generous mouthful, the girth of him impressive even in Adam’s huge hands, if he ever got around to doing anything about it. “Are you going to do something with that,” you snark, and his eyes narrow. “Or do you have to wait for the women in your life to do everything for you-”

He takes the opportunity your open mouth presents him and thrusts his hips forward, the head of his cock hitting the back of your throat, triggering the muscles there to clench hard before he retreats until just the tip is left in your mouth. “I was hoping you’d take some fucking initiative,” he snaps, “but I guess just like with the fighting you’re all bark and no bite. If you want me to just use you like a fucking slut then that’s what I’ll do.”

He applies the slightest bit of pressure to the hinge of your jaw to get you to open up wider, and this time his entry is slow and controlled as he fills your mouth with the heavy weight of his cock, the taste of him salty and dark across your tongue. You moan around him, the sound unable to escape with how fully he takes up the space between your lips, and the vibrations make his hips jerk.

You reach a hand up to wrap around the substantial length that you don’t have in the wet cavern of your mouth yet, and he reprimands you with a harsh tug on your hair. When you glare up at him, he smirks; his golden eyes are a little glazed over, a flushed tint to his cheeks. “No fucking hands,” he tells you. “You got yourself into this with just your mouth, that’s how you’re gonna get out of it, too.” He keeps his grip on your locks to guide your head, pulling you further down onto his cock with a guttural groan tearing from his throat. Your own throat tenses at the intrusion, a blockage of your air from the inside rather than the out, and your eyes water at the strain of trying to breathe through your nose before he pulls out enough that you can breathe again.

It’s so fucking good. You don’t think he would react kindly to you slipping a hand under your training shorts so you refrain from doing so, instead simply rocking your hips against nothing while you let him use you to take out his frustrations- fair enough, since you had caused them.

Adam keeps a steady rhythm while he fucks your face, your mouth open and lax for him to use as he pleases; only occasionally does he push in a little further, letting the head of his cock dip into the wet clutch of your throat and bump against your soft palate. “That’s fucking right,” he pants as he notices the tears that stream down your cheeks- he uses the thumb of the hand still holding your mouth open to brush an errant drop away from your cheekbone. “You look good like this- fuck, I would have let you choke on my cock sooner if I knew that’s what was gonna finally shut you the fuck up.” You feel the thick vein along the bottom of his length jump with his words where it rubs against your tongue and you know he’s close, the thought of it making you whine around him.

He grunts at the feeling, hips losing their steady movements and his hand tightening in your hair, yanking your head forward and back over him- and then he pulls completely out suddenly, his fist clenched tight around the base of his cock. “Say you fucking want it,” he demands, tugging your hair so your heads tilts enough that you have nowhere to look but at him. Sweat drips down his forehead and chest, darkening the fabric of his shirt so you can see the coarse hair beneath it. “Say you want my cum and maybe I’ll give it to you, even though you don’t fucking derserve it. Come on.” He bumps the head of his cock against your lips and your tongue darts out to greet it, the shock of salt across your tongue enough to break your resolve. 

“Please,” you whisper desperately, your voice raspy and rough from how long Adam had been at it. “Fuck, please, Adam-”

“You gonna stop fucking talking back to me? Questioning me?” His hand resumes a slow stroke, the tip glistening with fluid that drips onto the mats below you when he pulls away from your eager tongue.

Fuck no. Not when this was the result it got you. “Not in front of the rest of the squad?” You offer as a compromise, and you can see him considering it before he relents. He wanted your mouth back on him more than he wanted a promise of peace- and honestly, you think he kind of likes the sass.

He parts your lips with his prick again, pushing deep with a single thrust. “I’ll take it,” he groans, and his hips are pistoning once again, not being as careful about not choking this time as he chases his release with the slick hole your mouth provides him. “Fuck, I’m gonna fucking cum- fuck, yes-”

He swells in your mouth and spills himself. There’s a couple hot pulses of spend that shoot down your throat and coat your tongue, the last couple of shots streaking across your face and lips when he pulls back, still fisting his cock to coax the last drops out and onto your lips.

The taste is thick and bitter, lingering long after you’ve swallowed. But you’ve never been so turned on in your life, the ache between your thighs transforming into an inferno at the look he gives you, still rocking your hips against the air. He drops to his knees on the mat with you, shoving his hand under the waistband of your training shorts and tracing the folds of your pussy with his thick fingers. “Fuck me, that’s hot,” he mutters. “You got like this just letting me toss you around and suck me off, huh? You want my fingers?” You nod, face flaming, and he brushes the pad of a digit across your clit, your hips jolting. “You want my cock?”

“Please,” you murmur, the sound soft, your head dropping onto his shoulder. “Please, Adam.”

His head turns, lips against your ear as he whispers- “that’s too fucking bad.” And then his hand is yanking out of your shorts and he’s standing, the movement dislodging your head against his shoulder and tipping you sideways onto the mat. From your vantage point on the floor, you see that cocky smirk of his is back in place despite the sweat that drips from his hairline, the flush of his cheeks after a damn good orgasm. “Fucking told you in the beginning that being a mouthy brat doesn’t get rewarded- you have fun taking care of that yourself.” He points finger-guns towards your shorts before bringing the hand he had dipped into your panties to his mouth, and the sputter of indignation you manage doesn’t get much farther than your throat as he sucks your slick from his digits with a mean wink. “Let’s try this again sometime when you learn how to show some respect to your fucking superiors.”

By the time you’ve managed to get yourself back into a somewhat upright position, he’s scooped his mask and robes off the floor and flown out of the training room. The slam of the door echoes in the now empty space, along with your frustrated groan as you fall onto your back.

[tip-top-cloud-surfer]

I'll Carry You - Hangman

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin / Fem!Reader (Wife!Reader)

Word Count: 0.9k

Warnings: Third Person POV Focused on Hangman; Fem!Reader - only description is that the reader is a woman; No use of Y/N

This work, all of my other works, and my entire blog are 18+ Only.

Summary: Hangman and his wife attend a naval ball. When her shoes give her blisters, Hangman ensures that she gets back to the car comfortably.

A.N. Disclaimer - I've never been to a naval ball, but it just works as the setting of the story. Sorry for any inaccuracies.

Master List

Naval balls were always long nights full of humorous fun and a lot of naval politics, which Jake both enjoyed and detested. If he wasn’t so intent upon climbing up the ladder as quickly as possible, he wouldn’t have cared for any of it.

But luckily, Jake had his wonderful wife by his side the whole night to help him keep his sanity.

Jake had no trouble selling himself—he never had that problem, as anyone who knew him would have pointed out—but his wife knew how to rein him in. She pinched him when he was supposed to simply shut up. She always managed to soften his edges and smooth out his more abrasive tendencies, which many people pointed out.

It was their first naval ball as a married couple and well, if Jake wasn’t allowed to brag about his career, he was going to brag about his wife.

Her dress drew compliments from the admiral’s wives and eyes from some of the younger men in uniform. But Jake stuck to his wife’s side like glue and he was never shy about wrapping his arm firmly around her as a metaphorical middle finger to the horny boys who seemed to think that they could just stare at her and Jake wouldn’t notice.

And as for the starers from his squadron, some of them would be doing extra pushups tomorrow.

And of course, the newlyweds had fight off several questions about when a little Seresin would be joining them like they were Olympic fencers. And his wife always seemed to be able to sense the question coming because the number of times that she pulled his drink away from his lips right before someone asked some version of it was scarily high.

Jake had to commend his wife for her composure that night. He knew that she wasn’t exactly the most social person, but she put up a calm smile and chatted politely just the same.

And even when the captain that Jake was trying to butter up mispronounced her name three times, she never dropped her wide ‘work’ smile. It wasn’t her usual smile, the smile that she shot him when they danced or he pulled her just a little closer into his side.

But Jake could see his wife’s work smile dimming and the exhaustion setting in her eyes.

Jake gently grabbed his wife’s hand and rubbed his thumb along her own. He also had a sneaking suspicion that her shoes were uncomfortable based on the weird stutter she started to walk with. And so, even though he knew that some of the other aviators gunning for the same promotion that he was were going out to the bar to sweet talk the brass, he had other priorities.

“Thank you for talking with me, sir. But I’m afraid we’ll have to excuse ourselves for the night,” Hangman stated politely.

“Of course, of course,” the captain replied with a kind. Jake felt his wife’s hand press on his back just as the captain added, “Off to relieve the babysitter?”

“No, just need to check on the dogs, sir,” Jake lied, forcing his usual work smile.

They didn’t have a dog waiting for them back home but the captain didn’t need to know that. And it was just an easier response that ended the conversation on a faster note.

“Oh, of course. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, Hangman. And it was nice meeting you, Mrs. Seresin.”

“It was nice meeting you as well, Captain,” she responded with a kind nod.

Jake squeezed his wife’s hand and led her over to the Dagger table to say goodbye to everyone. And after several hugs of goodbye, the Seresins finally walked out of the event space. Once they were out of view of the vestibule, Jake led his wife over to one of the benches.

“Sit,” Jake urged her despite her confused expression.

But when he reached down for her ankle, she quickly put the pieces together. Smiling softly, she leaned back and rested her body weight on her hands.

“How did you know?” she asked softly as he undid the strap on one of her shoes.

“You were walking funny. And leaning on me more than usual,” Jake replied, pulling off her shoe and reaching for the other. “You could have just told me.”

“I know. But it’s hardly the first pair of shoes that have given me blisters before.”

“Still,” Jake stated, placing her shoes on the bench beside her, “tell me next time when it hurts.”

“I will,” she promised softly as Jake stood up. She glanced out at the parking lot as she straightened up herself. “Should I really be walking through the parking lot barefoot, though?”

“Who said that you were walking?”

“Jake, you really don’t have to carry me,” she insisted, shaking her head. “I’m fine. I’ll just put my shoes back on in a second.”

“It’s not like it’s the first time that I’ve ever carried you,” Jake pointed out, causing his wife to sigh.

“Just don’t drop me,” she replied, standing up.

With practiced ease, she bunched up her dress a bit and climbed up onto his back. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders as Jake hooked his arms underneath her knees. Once he was sure that she was secure on his back, Jake leaned over to grab her shoes and turned for the parking lot.

His wife rested her head on top of his own and pulled off his hat so that she could press a proper kiss to the top of his head.

“You’re such a showoff, Seresin,” she murmured, running her hand through his soft hair.

“And you love it, Seresin,” he shot right back at her with a grin.

[moriaarts]

ARC Trooper Corporal Jaig

Blorbo the second, Jaig the ARC of the 343rd. In house mother and bleeding heart in disguise. With the text under the cut.

CT - 8407 “Jaig” has proven herself to be a survivor. Calm, collected and aloof, Jaig comes across as a cold and unapproachable soldier. But its a mask of a hunter observing the world for signs of danger.

The name “Jaig” was given to her early in the war when a B1 droid got in close and disarmed her. It’s not in Jaig nature to go down without a fight. It’s not in her nature to go down at all. All clones are trained in hand to hand combat, made stronger and more agile than base humans. But these are necessary against unyielding mechanical fists. Knocked off her feet by a metal backhand, she remember the raw of the wind across the sands, of the LAAT’s, of blaster fire.

She registers the B1s flooding in and going for her batchmates, her squadron, helmet forgotten she goes for the nearest one and shreds out the wires in its neck. It’s a valiant effort. It’s luck. The droid reaches back, grabbing her by the face to pull her off. It’s joints seize and all thats left as it turns on her is the command prompt to shoot and keep shooting. The fucker took her eye. Tore the skin off around it.

The scar that it left was triangular shaded, the skin too smooth for the rest of her face. A jaig eye, Jai’galaar’la sur’haii’se, a shreik-hawk eye, they said. Said her quick thinking took out a platoon of clankers when the droid she hardwired mindlessly shot a downed LAAT, blowing it, sending it crashing on top of the ones storming their trench. She just remembers being pissed because they knocked her bucket off and didn't finish the job. So she gets to trained as an ARC. It’s an honour. And she agrees but it doesn't feel real. Even assigned to the 21st Nova Corps, under the command of Commander Jet, Clone Marshal Commander Bacara, and General Ki Adi Mundi.

She never really like red. Liked the long kama though. She also had not like General Mundi. The rumour was that he had ten wives. The number changed depending on the battalion they were bunking with. It was more like four. But knowing the jedi’s no string policy she's even less of a fan. Even less in the coming months before. Jaig would be with the nova corps for few campaigns. Used to smile when Block chased her around with hair shears. How Duke would always grumbled getting dirt off his armour, and asked how she kept hers so clean and not smelling of wet bantha. But besides that she hadn't known much about herself until they had met them. Two of General Mundi’s wives met them at a medical station one a doctor the other visiting from a relief mission. Pamania. She was lovely. Covered in simple jedi cream robes all except for her eyes. Eyes of deep pools of dark purple, nebulas set in russet skin. They creased when she smiled. Lashes fluttered when she cried. They visited the medical base often. Pamania was gentle with them. Patient and kind, and fierce as a forests fire when they came back in a state. Jaig thinks she liked her. The first one to call her sister. The first to run fingers through her hair rather than playfully pull it when she gave her some self sacrificing crap. The first person to kiss her on the cheek and tell her she had a right to live in this world. War or no war.

Jaig had been younger then, Naive and unsure what to do with such gentle treatment. Who knew an innocent kiss to a clothed cheek would do such damage? Jet had scolded her and within a week she was decommissioned for improper behaviour, officially. Unofficially reassigned in shiny armour to the 343rd.  

Bonus:

Jaig loves the twins like her own. Especially Lash, whose quiet sarcasm is a family brand of deflection. She wants more with Ro, but Ro has a whole host of issues to make up with before Jaig is next in line. Doesn’t stop her having the ARF troopers back though. They both got on best, both being recon troops and with her 3rd in command and Ro in 2nd, they often share looks of exasperation and concern at the expense of Kiss.  

Here is Captain Kiss x and the rest of the company.

WIP Playlist

[karl-jensen]

THE MOST TERRIBLE NIGHT

1986 | Horror, War | Directed by Wolfgang Petersen

A mysterious infection spreads all across Europe, and the City of Copenhagen is under quarantine by British forces. The infection becomes severe as many Danish citizens succumb to it, transforming them into Zombies. Several Danish soldiers, along with one of their wives and a priest, must leave the city before it is too late.

The achievement The Most Terrible Night gave me the impression that it is the title of a movie. To make this idea come to life, I made up a concept on how the poster would look like. The end result was a poster layout similar to Starship Troopers as well as early Harry Potter films. Here is a list on what could have been, and some features seen in the poster:

- The film's title was originally going to be at the bottom of the artwork. I later added it on the bottom right of the drawing. Same with the tagline, except it is at the bottom of the poster. Also, names of the celebrities and the director were originally going to be present, but I scrapped it entirely.

- A Danish Version was also made of the poster. It even has the callout that everybody loves to spam.

- The Officer on the top left has a chipped tooth, alluding to an image of Viggo Mortensen when he received one while filming the Lord of the Rings.

- The third person on the middle is a woman, and she is the wife of the Danish Officer.

- Some masts can be seen next to the clock tower, meaning that there are other Royal Navy vessels present aside from the Brig Sloop. I may not be correct with the design of the clock tower.

- A Zombie was originally going to appear behind the clock tower, and it is based on the "Hardcore Mode" image of the game. I removed it entirely to avoid spoilers. Besides, the film's English tagline is a hint to the undead.

The Danish version of the poster. They're coming, Help us!

I also made a companion piece which also serves as a headcanon for the map "Copenhagen". Also, this is probably one of the DARKEST headcanons that I had ever cooked... Viewer discretion is advised.

The other two British Ships in the map (the First Rates) carried thousands of Marines and British Army Soldiers. The squadron was led by Admiral David Maxwell and it consisted of seven ships: HMS Victory, HMS Ville de Paris, HMS Resilient, HMS Agamemnon, HMS Interceptor (the Brig Sloop), and two other Frigates. The situation in the city began to grow worse as civillians get infected with the blight. Admiral Maxwell ordered the city to be burned and kill any escaping civillians who were trying to unmoor their boats and attempt to flee the city.

A bloody massacre took place in the harbor where HMS Victory and HMS Ville de Paris were moored, and thousands of Marines and Soldiers were ordered to kill the civillians under orders of Admiral Maxwell. However, the Victory's captain, Rowan Blackadder, intervened and ordered the troops to stop firing, but Maxwell still ordered them to open fire. It all ends with a mutiny on the HMS Victory, and the massacre was halted by Blackadder.

Captain Blackadder soon allowed the Danes to leave the city in their boats, while some chose to get on board the Victory, Ville de Paris and the other ships that were present in the harbor. Half of the ammunition and supplies were dumped on all ships to make them lighter, and to give more room for the civillians to stay. Some even deployed their lifeboats to accomodate more space.

The Danish Soldiers destroyed the HMS Interceptor and were picked up by the Razeed third rate HMS Resilient. The two sides held a truce and the entire city was evacuated. Admiral Maxwell got infected, and was shot by Captain Blackadder. His body was thrown overboard.

[wewerealwaysthere]

Both Brando and Clift have been linked to several gay partners. In 2018, music producer Quincy Jones said that Brando and Richard Pryor were lovers. And Richard Pryor’s wife confirmed it. Clift’s former lover, actor Jack Larson, has written about their relationship.

[icemavs]

wild-eyed jokers

5.1k, explicit, ao3

“Fuck, Ice,” Maverick panted. “You can’t just move like that and not expect a reaction.” A bead of sweat dripped down the side of his face. 

“Well what else was I supposed to do?” Iceman replied with a laugh. “Chipper was right on your tail, I had to get him off somehow.”

Maverick shook his head to himself and flipped a switch to listen to the air traffic control radio frequency as he maneuvered his jet back to the base. It was taking some getting used to, flying these new F/A-18s the Navy was letting them try out. Maverick, along with Iceman and a few others, were tapped to help develop new tactics with the new jets before taking what they came up with to TOPGUN and teach a brand new class. There were new instructors teaching the F-14 TOPGUN classes, but there wasn’t anyone experienced enough to teach F/A-18 pilots yet. So, the Navy pulled five pilots from their squadrons to learn what they could and be the best on a new airframe. 

It wasn’t that Maverick took what he did for granted, he knew it was important, but sometimes he forgot just how important it could be. As he felt the landing gear touch down on the tarmac, Maverick let out a breath through his nose and marveled at the way the Hornet handled compared to the giant Tomcat. Everything about it was so smooth and new, he loved to push it to its limits as much as he could. He was excited for the future of the Navy with this new piece of equipment. 

Finally back on the ground and finished with debrief, Maverick headed to the locker room to shower the day away. Everyone else had already gone for the day, electing to shower at home and have a meal probably cooked by their wives. That wasn’t really Maverick’s style. Often it was only him and Ice that stayed behind.

He was sitting on the bench with his flight suit peeled halfway down his body, revealing his old squadron’s t-shirt he wore that day, when the door to the locker room slammed open. 

“Ice, nice flying today” Maverick said dismissively without looking up from where he was untying his boots. They weren’t quite friends, but there was no more bad blood between them since the mission in the Indian Ocean. “Anyone get on your ass for that maneuver?”

When Iceman didn’t reply, Maverick finally looked behind him to where Ice’s locker was. He was just standing there with his head against the cool metal, not moving. 

“Uh, Ice?” Maverick asked. “Everything okay?” Ice was usually quiet, but after a sortie like that he was typically a little more keyed up. 

“Just got some news I wasn’t expecting, s’all.” He quickly stripped his clothes, grabbed his shower things, and walked off. Maverick sat there stunned, Ice was never that short with him. He was curious to know what he’d learned. For all Maverick’s experience in life, he still hadn’t learned to keep his nose out of other people’s business. 

Maverick slowly finished undressing himself and waited to enter the showers until he heard the water turn on. He saw Ice with his back turned toward the rest of the room and the water beating on the back of his neck. Maverick chose a shower head a few spaces down and turned on his own water. He kept sneaking glances at Ice as he stood unmoving under the spray of the shower. Maverick would never be able to get over how beautiful Iceman was. His body was perfectly sculpted by an intense workout regimen and constant G strain while flying. Not only was Ice physically perfect by Maverick’s standards, but he was also one of the most talented pilots Maverick ever had the pleasure of flying with. He was incredibly smart with a wicked sense of airmanship and always seemed to be one step ahead of anyone he was flying with. Maverick respected him immensely, but not so much that he wouldn’t objectify him. He was still a man, after all.

“Mav, I can feel you looking at me,” Iceman said suddenly. “If you want to say something just say it.”

Feeling a flush creep up his face, Maverick finally started to wash himself properly. “You know me Ice,” he said. “I just want to know what’s making you so quiet.” He paused before adding, “Only if you want to tell me, of course.” “Yes, I know how fucking nosy you are, Mav,” Ice said. “My grandmother is in the hospital, that’s all.” Ice went quiet again, but the hard look had fallen from his face, replaced by something a bit softer, but almost scared.

Maverick wasn’t really sure what to say to that, so he went back to showering. 

“She just had a fall, that’s all,” Ice said after some time. “She’ll be okay, it just wasn’t something I was expecting to hear.”

“That’s good,” Maverick said. He had gone back to stealing glances at Iceman every once in a while now that he was done washing himself. “Are you close with her?” he asked. 

“She practically raised me,” he replied with a slight wobble in his voice. “After my dad passed, she was my closest relative so that’s who they sent me to. It’s been a few months since I’ve seen her, so I’ll just have to call the hospital tonight.” He clipped the end of his sentence short and ran a hand down his face.

Ice turned off the water and grabbed his towel, flashing a look in Maverick’s direction that was more what Maverick was used to seeing from him. It was familiar and it eased the rumbling in Maverick’s gut that had started when he thought Ice had gotten in trouble for his flying. Not that it was good that his grandmother who raised him was in the hospital, but it wasn’t something Maverick could have been responsible for. Often when they flew together, Maverick would do something a bit reckless, Ice would have to save his ass, and because of whatever acrobatic thing Ice had to do to cover him, Ice would get reprimanded and Maverick would go apologize to their CO to let him know Maverick should be the one in trouble. 

When Maverick shut off his own shower and dried himself off, he went back to the locker area to find Ice was still there, clothes on and looking like he was waiting. 

“Do you want to come over to my place and we can go over some of the stuff we did today?” Ice asked him. He sounded a bit stressed, that wobbly sound from earlier was still in his voice. 

“Uh yeah, sure,” Maverick replied. He was thinking about bringing up the fact that Ice had said he was going to call the hospital, but figured maybe Ice needed a distraction for the night. “I rode my bike, so I’ll just meet you there?” Ice nodded his head but didn’t make any move to leave the locker room. 

Maverick turned to his locker to get dressed, but when he dropped his towel he could still feel Ice’s eyes on him. It took everything in him to not turn around and make a comment about it, but he knew better. It wouldn’t be the first time that something like this had happened. There was a time during their first run at TOPGUN that they figured out a way to blow off steam and keep themselves from killing each other. A few of their meetings over the years had produced the same results. They were two of just a few of their TOPGUN class and now their instructor cadre that didn’t have wives or girlfriends and neither of them really went after women the way the other single men did, but still no one acted like they knew. Don’t ask, don’t tell and all that. It only happened a few times, but Maverick hadn’t forgotten about it and based on the eyes burning holes into Maverick’s ass, Ice hadn’t forgotten either. Maverick just didn’t think that was the kind of distraction Ice wanted tonight. 

He decided against trying something while they were still on base, so Maverick dressed quickly and grabbed his helmet and jacket from where they were hanging on a peg near the door. 

“Ready?” he asked Ice while he pulled his jacket on. Ice still didn’t say anything and just nodded again. 

Maverick could feel the heat of Ice’s body where he was walking close to him and it took all his willpower not to reach out and touch him. As they approached the door, Maverick let out a groan when we saw it was raining. He hated riding his bike in the rain. It was well waterproofed, so the fact that it was sitting out there wasn’t the problem, but Maverick’s jacket was leather and there was no way in hell he would ride with it in the rain. 

“You can just ride with me and I’ll bring you back to get your bike later,” Ice said with an air of finality as if he had already made the decision for Maverick. 

“Fine by me,” Maverick replied, and they set off for Iceman’s Mercedes.

The car ride was mostly quiet, but the silence was charged with an energy Maverick hadn’t felt since the last time he and Ice had needed to let off steam and distract themselves. That time it was Bradley that was in the hospital. Carole was driving with a seven year old Bradley in the backseat when another driver ran a stop sign and t-boned Bradley’s side of the car. He ended up with only a broken leg and a few bruised ribs, but Maverick was so distraught at the thought of him being hurt that he sought out Ice and asked him to make him forget who he was for a little while. 

When they finally pulled in front of Ice’s house, the two of them sat there for a little while not saying anything and staring straight ahead. Ice cleared his throat and looked over at Maverick. 

“Well, I’m getting a bit hungry, so how about we go in and I’ll order a pizza?” he said as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “Pepperoni and mushroom, right?”

Maverick snorted. “You got it,” he said. He knew it was a bit of a different pizza order but he was tickled that Ice remembered it. 

They got inside and shed their jackets and shoes before settling in on the breakfast nook barstools. Ice pulled two beers from the fridge before picking up the phone. Maverick pulled his notes out of his bag as Ice made the call to the local pizza place for two large pizzas to be delivered. Once he was done, Ice sat down in the stool right next to Maverick and stared down at his hands. Maverick felt how stiff Ice was as he sat there, so he moved his foot over to Ice’s stool and nudged his foot. 

“Hey,” he said quietly. “Everything okay?”

“Mhmm,” Ice hummed, still not looking up from his hands. “Mav, are you trying to play footsie with me?” he asked after a moment. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Maverick replied, feigning offense. He plastered a big grin on his face as he turned to face Ice. “I’m just trying to go over my notes from today, that’s all.”

“Right,” Ice said shortly. 

Maverick figured he would let Ice take the reins tonight, given that he wasn’t exactly explicit about what he wanted from tonight. For all Maverick knew, Ice really did just want to go over their notes tonight, and Maverick was reading too much into it. 

Iceman pulled his own notes from his bag and began quietly going over them while Maverick did the same. They pointed out a few things to each other with a few mumbles as they sipped their beers and waited for pizza. 

They had a lot of similarities in their notes from the week, everything was coming together nicely for their first TOPGUN class in a few weeks. The other pilots were helping come up with a syllabus and what was going to be necessary to teach to pilots new to the F/A-18. After about twenty minutes the pizza finally came. The two of them scarfed down their respective pizzas in relative silence while talking only when necessary, most often to ask if the other wanted a napkin or another beer. 

“Wait, wait, Ice,” Maverick said around a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni. “Explain that to me, what do you mean by a split s against that system? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Ice waved his hand in the air and swallowed the bite he was chewing before he spoke. “The seeker on that missile isn’t any good against the Hornet’s radar jamming, anything more aggressive than that and you’re going to over G whatever bombs you’re carrying and not be able to drop them on the target.” He moved his hands around to show how the motion would work. “See?”

Maverick nodded. “Okay, okay, yeah that makes sense. We should try that next week with the emitters at the range.” 

Iceman clapped Maverick on the shoulder and squeezed. “I do wish you would finish chewing before you speak, though.”

Maverick took another large bite and smiled dopily at Ice. “I just wanted you to know as soon as possible that I recognize your genius as a fighter pilot,” he said sarcastically. “The pizza couldn’t wait.”

“Shut up,” Ice laughed. He got up and took the plates to the sink and the empty beer bottles to the garbage. Maverick’s shoulder still felt like it was burning from where Ice’s hand had grasped him.

Ice stared at him from across the counter without saying anything. Maverick didn’t know if there was anything he could say, this was Ice’s dance to lead. He excused himself to the bathroom instead. 

Once he got there, Maverick splashed some water on his face and stared at himself in the mirror. He was still so confused about how Ice could want him when Ice could have anyone he wanted. Maverick was attractive enough. His green eyes were a common topic people commented on when they wanted to pick him up. His hair was stark black and spiky from a day of flying and no shower could tame it. His exploits were often fans of grabbing it when they wanted to get him in a more advantageous position in bed. Maverick scrubbed his hands down his face, took a deep breath, and left the bathroom. 

When Maverick walked back to the living room, Ice was spread out on the couch and watching a black screen on the TV. His breathing was shallow and was sporting a thousand yard stare Maverick could relate to a little bit. 

“Hey,” Maverick said as he walked over to the couch. He swung his leg over Iceman’s and settled on top of his hips. Ice grunted with the sudden weight on top of him and quickly moved his hands to grab Maverick’s hips.

“Someone is a bit forward tonight,” Ice remarked as he squeezed Maverick’s hips. 

“You seemed like you needed it,” Maverick replied. “You look like you need a distraction.” He was going to let Ice kiss him first, just to make sure it was what Ice wanted. With Ice’s hands gripping his hips and the heat of him underneath, Maverick was bubbling with anticipation. It was always his favorite part, the build up to the actual moment. Not that the real thing wasn’t good, but the adrenaline rush he got would always excite him. He trailed a hand down the side of Ice’s face and slid the other under the hem of Ice’s shirt so he could feel the muscles jump under his touch. 

“Maybe a little,” Ice replied. 

Iceman lowered his gaze to pointedly rest on Maverick’s lips before flitting it back up. He looked up at Maverick through his lashes and tightened his grip. One of his hands came up to scratch at the short hairs at the back of Maverick’s neck and all at once pulled Maverick forward. 

The kiss was slow but heated, Maverick letting Ice guide him, manipulate him into whatever position he wanted. Maverick arched his back to push his hips farther into Ice’s and rest their chests together. Ice worked Maverick’s mouth open, gently taking the lead with his tongue. 

It’s not like this was the first time they had kissed, in fact it was far from it, but Maverick would never get over how good Ice was at kissing. It wasn’t unlike being in the cockpit of a fighter jet. It was smooth yet fast, with constant ups and downs that left Maverick feeling like he was pulling 8 Gs and always wanting more. 

With one hand in his hair and the other snaking around to grab a handful of Maverick’s ass, Ice was moving quickly. After one particularly hard tug, Maverick let a moan escape. Ice took the opportunity of the broken kiss to latch onto Maverick’s neck and work a mark into the skin. 

“Fuck, Ice, don’t leave a mark,” Maverick panted. 

Iceman just hummed and continued on for a short moment before working his way down to pull at Maverick’s shirt collar and bite his collarbone. 

“Fine,” Ice said into Maverick’s neck. “I won’t leave anything visible. Below the collar is fair game.”

In lieu of a reply, Maverick just groaned and ground his hips in Ice’s, earning a moan from Ice. Exactly what he was going for. Maverick was going to let Ice lead for the night, but that didn’t mean he had to be patient about it. 

Maverick continued grinding his hips and let his hands explore under Ice’s shirt. He tugged at the hem in a silent question and Ice complied quickly. After he had pulled his own shirt off he grabbed at Maverick’s to have him take it off as well. Once he was shirtless, Ice immediately moved his attention to Maverick’s nipples. Maverick threw his head back and let himself bask in the pleasure. He wasn’t holding back on the sounds, he knew Ice was a fan of them, if the growing pressure pressing on Maverick’s backside was any indication. 

“God, fuck Ice,” Maverick moaned. “Keep doing that, holy shit.” 

“Yeah? You like that, baby?” Ice was goading him, trying to get him to say more. “Tell me what you want, Mav.”

“Fuck, I want whatever you want to give to me,” Maverick replied. It was getting harder and harder to form a coherent thought with Ice playing with his nipples and a hand on his ass. 

Maverick finally let his head fall forward again and rested his nose on the top of Ice’s head. He breathed in deeply, letting the smell of Ice’s shampoo and sweat fill his nose. It was an unmistakable combination of something almost minty and something musky. Ever since the first time Maverick smelled it he hadn’t been able to get it out of his head. He was so glad to have it back for one more night. 

Ice pulled off Maverick’s chest and looked up at Maverick with a mischievous look in his eyes. He surged up to kiss Maverick quickly and deeply before fitting both his hands under Maverick thighs and standing up. 

Maverick let out a yelp of surprise at being lifted like he didn’t weigh a thing. Maverick may be short but he wasn’t exactly lightweight, he carried a lot of muscle on him, but Ice was so incredibly strong. They abandoned their shirts in the living room as Ice carried them down the hall to the bedroom. 

Once they got there, Iceman dropped Maverick unceremoniously on the bed. Maverick reached out to pull Ice in by his belt loops and got to work on the buckle. This wasn’t unfamiliar territory by any means, but for Maverick it always felt like the first time with Ice. Everything about it was just so good, it never felt like they were doing the same things. With the buckle finally undone and Ice’s pants kicked off to somewhere in the corner, Maverick leaned forward to breathe in more of Ice. He mouthed over Ice’s cock in his boxers and earned himself a loud groan.

“Jesus Mav,” he breathed. Ice snaked his fingers through Maverick’s hair and squeezed once he was satisfied he had a good grip. “Wait,” he said suddenly.

Maverick quickly sat back to look questioningly at Iceman. “What’s wrong?” he asked. 

Ice just laughed at him. “Nothing, nothing,” he said. “I just had something else in mind.”

“In mind?” Maverick asked incredulously. He could feel a blush creeping up his body. Iceman had planned this, he was thinking about Maverick. “You mean you thought about this ahead of time?”

“You’re cute when you blush,” Ice said. Maverick felt his face get hotter. “Come on, pants off,” Ice said in his officer voice. 

“Well shit, yes sir, commander sir,” Maverick said as he scrambled to pull his own pants off and situate himself on the bed. Iceman laughed at him again. 

“Boxers, too,” Ice said, and Maverick quickly complied. He was already half hard and knew it wouldn’t take long for him to be aching. Ice stripped his own without much fanfare and seemed to be in the same position as Maverick. 

Ice didn’t say anything but sat down near the head of the bed and motioned for Maverick to sit on his lap again, mimicking the same position they were in on the couch. The skin to skin contact made Maverick hiss, his cock pressing against Ice’s without hesitation. 

They sat like that for a bit, grinding against each other and kissing. Ice was still dominant with the kiss, more so than he was on the couch. He was making each kiss deeper than the last, leaning back to pull Maverick’s bottom lip with his teeth every so often. Maverick would let out a sound akin to a whimper whenever Ice would grab a handful of his ass and squeeze. 

After a bit, Ice pushed Maverick back and motioned for him to turn around. Maverick obliged and got on his hands and knees. 

“I’m going to open you up, okay?” Ice told him. Maverick nodded and waited for the click of a lube bottle and the blunt pressure of fingers prodding at his hole. He was breathing heavily but more than ready for what was to come.

Ice pulled his knees up and Maverick assumed he was reaching for the lube, but Maverick felt large hands grab his hips and a hot breath on his hole. 

“Fuck,” was all he had time to whisper before Ice licked a stripe from sweet spot behind his balls up to his hole. He sucked in a breath as Ice went to town opening him up. 

He speared his tongue and worked Maverick open quickly. Maverick’s breathing was getting quicker but he kept it under control as much as he could, his face now pressed into the mattress.. He was fully hard and aching now and nearly dripping precome onto the bedspread, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care, he had other things to worry about. 

After Ice had him sufficiently open with just his tongue, Ice started to work a finger into Maverick. It was almost too much for Maverick, he bit into the blanket underneath him and tried to keep from crying out. The feeling wasn’t unfamiliar but it had been a while and the stretch was just on the right side of hurting too much. 

“Come on, Mav,” Ice whispered from behind him. “Let me hear you.” He added another finger alongside the first one and Maverick let out a long moan. 

Ice made quick work of getting Maverick open. He worked his way up to three fingers and Maverick was panting and screaming into the bed. He was trying (and failing) to grind his hips into something, anything, but all he could find was empty air. 

“Fuck Ice, please just fuck me now,” Maverick begged. He wasn’t much for begging but for Ice he would. “Please, please, please, now.”

“Well baby, when you ask like that, how can I say no?” Ice chuckled and leaned back against the headboard. Before Maverick could turn around and situate himself, Ice grabbed a hold of the back of Maverick’s neck and pulled him backwards. 

Maverick let out a surprised sound and tried to keep his balance, but Ice caught him smoothly and let him down gently. He was hovering just over Ice’s cock, his thighs threatening to shake with the strain to hold himself up. With Ice trying to line everything up, Maverick had the upper hand for a moment. He took the time to grab Ice’s hands with one of his own and held them against his chest. 

“Mav, what,” was all Ice could get out before Maverick snaked his free hand behind him and lined up Ice’s cock with his hole. “There’s no lube,” Ice tried to protest.

“Don’t care, need you in me,” Maverick said. Ice just snorted a laugh but his humor didn’t laugh long as Maverick started to sink down. 

“Fuck, Mav,” Ice panted. “You’re so fucking tight.” Since Maverick was holding onto his hands, Ice could only sit there, leaning against the headboard, as Maverick started to move himself. 

His mouth was dropped open in a silent moan and it took everything in him to keep moving. Iceman felt so good, he was just on the right side of too big but Maverick wasn’t one to back down and he enjoyed the stretch. He let himself revel in the feeling and gripped Ice’s hands tighter to his chest. With what little room he had to move his hands, Ice wrapped his fingers around Maverick’s and let his head fall forward into Maverick’s back. Maverick could feel how sweaty Ice’s hair was, a great indicator of just how much Maverick was having an effect on him. Ice wasn’t one to be loud in bed, but Maverick made it his mission each time to get him to be loud. Even if it meant he had to stave off his own orgasm so Ice could have his first. After all, the whole goal of tonight was to distract Ice so it was only fair. 

Head still against Maverick’s back, Ice’s breath started to pick up and his grip on Maverick’s fingers tightened once again. 

“Are you close, baby?” Maverick asked him, somewhat rhetorically. “Come on, Ice, come for me.”

Maverick could feel his own orgasm coming and his thighs were starting to shake with the effort, but he kept up a steady rhythm of riding Ice. He was dripping down the front of his own cock, some of it landing on Ice’s legs, but he didn’t think he cared. 

Iceman nodded, but let his head fall back against the headboard as he started to pant louder. 

“Mav, please, please,” he nearly cried. He was trying to move his hands, but Mav had an iron grip on them for leverage. Ice’s legs tensed and he cried out while Maverick rode him through his orgasm. Maverick felt impossibly full and started to slow his pace as Iceman tried to slow his breathing. Even the slow pace was almost too much for Maverick, he could feel warmth pooling low in his gut. He had never come untouched, but it was looking like a possibility at this point. “That’s it, Ice,” Maverick cooed. He kept going ever so slowly until Ice’s body felt loose beneath him. Maverick let Ice’s hands go and they immediately landed on Maverick’s hips and worked small circles into the sides. Maverick was still ever so slightly shifting his hips back and forth and trying to chase his release. Ice, despite seeming to be entirely fucked out, was always the people pleaser and moved his hands to wrap one around Maverick’s cock. 

His rough hand moved slowly up and down at a brutal pace that left Maverick panting. There was a bead of sweat running down the side of his face with the effort to hold himself up and with the desire to come. 

“Come on, Mav,” Ice whispered into Maverick’s ear. It didn’t take long for Maverick’s small hip movements and Ice’s calloused hands to finally bring him over the edge. His head fell back on to Ice’s shoulder and Ice pressed small kisses into the side of his neck as he slowed his pace. 

Maverick slowly pulled off Ice and moved to press himself up against Ice’s side. He felt warm and fuzzy and full. He didn’t know what this whole thing with Ice was, them coming to each other for comfort or to blow off steam whenever they needed it. It was like they knew what the other needed without ever having to say it out loud. There was never any awkward moment afterward, both of them content to stay laying together until they were ready to go, each time before this having ended the next morning. 

As far as Maverick’s subconscious could tell, it wasn’t just sex, it wasn’t just a friendly rivalry with one extra way to get under each other’s skin. It definitely wasn’t something Maverick felt like talking about at the moment. He was content to just lay with his head on Ice’s chest and listen to his heartbeat steadying. 

“So, are you going to call your grandma?” Maverick asked him after a few minutes. 

With the little room he had, Ice moved his head down to look at Maverick. “Mav you are insufferable,” he said. “And tomorrow. I’ll do it tomorrow.” Before Maverick could get another word in, Ice got up to go to the bathroom. Maverick let out a small grunt and Ice turned around and laughed at him. 

He came back after a minute with a wet washcloth and maneuvered Maverick’s legs around so he could wipe him off. Maverick let his eyes close, sleep was close to overtaking him.

“Ah,” Ice chided and when Maverick opened his eyes he was extending a glass of water. “Drink. Your throat will hurt in the morning if you don’t.”

Maverick hummed but took the glass anyway. His cheeks felt warm at Ice’s mention of knowing how Maverick’s morning would go. There was something so familiar about it all. He was glad they were friends now. 

Ice finished up what he was doing to clean up the room and got back into bed. The soiled comforter was thrown to the floor, but the sheets were still intact. He pulled the top sheet over the two of them as Maverick wrapped himself around Ice’s body like he was a tree branch and Maverick was a koala. 

Maverick fell asleep that night feeling a contentment he hadn’t felt in a long time. He loved his job and he loved his friends. Maybe he even loved Iceman. 

[mads-nixon]

100th Bomber Boys: Major John 'Bucky' Egan

Here is a little bit about Major John 'Bucky' Egan (played by Callum Turner) from the prologue of Masters of the Air by Donald L. Miller (pg. 3, 7-8)!

John Egan was commander of a squadron of B-17 Flying Fortresses, one of the most fearsome killing machines in the world at that time. He was a bomber boy; destruction was his occupation. And like most other bomber crewmen, he went about his work without a quiver of conscience, convinced he was fighting for a noble cause. He also killed in order not to be killed. Egan had been flying combat missions for five months in the most dangerous air theater of the war, the "Big Leagues," the men called it; and this was his first extended leave from the fight although it hardly felt like a reprieve. That night, the German air force, the Luftwaffe, plastered the city, setting off fires all around his hotel. It was his first time under the bombs and he found it impossible to sleep, with the screaming sirens and the thundering concussions. Egan was attached to the Eighth Air Force, a bomber command formed at Savannah Army Air Base in Georgia in the month after Pearl Harbor to deliver America's first blow against the Nazi homeland. From its unpromising beginnings, it was fast becoming one of the greatest striking forces in history. Egan had arrived in England in the spring of 1943, a year after the first men and machines of the Eighth had begun occupying bases handed over to them by the RAF-the Royal Air Force-whose bombers had been hammering German cities since 1940. Each numbered Bombardment Group (BG)-his was the 100th-was made up of four squadrons of eight to twelve four-engine bombers, called "heavies," and occupied its own air station, either in East Anglia or the Midlands, directly north of London, around the town of Bedford.

pg. 7-8

As commander of the Hundredth's 418th Squadron, Johnny Egan flew with his men on all the tough missions. When his boys went into danger, he wanted to face it with them. "Anyone who flies operationally is crazy," Egan confided to Sgt. Saul Levitt, a radioman in his squadron who was later injured in a base accident and transferred to the staff of Yank magazine, an army publication. "And then," says Levitt, "he proceeded to be crazy and fly operationally. And no milk runs..." When his "boy-men," as Egan called them, went down in flaming planes, he wrote home to their wives and mothers. "These were not file letters," Levitt remembered. "It was the Major's idea they should be written in long-hand to indicate a personal touch, and there are no copies of these letters. He never said anything much about that. The letters were between him and the families involved." Major Egan was short and skinny as a stick, barely 140 pounds, with thick black hair, combed into a pompadour, black eyes, and a pencil-thin mustache. His trademarks were a white fleece-lined flying jacket and an idiomatic manner of speaking, a street-wise style borrowed from writer Damon Runyon. At twenty-seven, he was one of the "ancients" of the outfit, but "I can out-drink any of you children,'" he would tease the fresh-faced members of his squadron. On nights that he wasn't scheduled to fly the next day, he would jump into a jeep and head for his "local," where he'd gather at the bar with a gang of Irish laborers and sing ballads until the taps ran dry or the tired publican tossed them out."

In Master's of the Air, Major John Egan is sometimes called, "Bucky," "Honest John," and "Johnny." The men of his squadrons loved his leadership style, which was leading by example, as seen in the excerpt above.

John Archer, a long-time British friend of the 100th & its veterans, described Egan in his story, One Man and His Dog:

"The Major was a lean, dark young man with a wisp of moustache. He was 27, but looked older. He could turn on the charm and turn it off whenever he liked. It’s the kind of thing one experiences in foreman of construction gangs and traffic managers at airports, in jobs where contact and participation with the men is the prime factor." Major Egan was involved in the case of “Meatball vs the Pullet” a few days before he went down on a raid over Germany. Now Meatball was a half-grown husky dog which the crew of the B-17 brought over from Labrador on their way to Thorpe Abbotts during the summer of 1943. It seemed that Meatball was a bad dog, and all of a sudden turned into a chicken killer. And when did he decide to become a chicken killer? At a time when the personnel were involved in the toughest flying missions the group had yet undertaken. Deep raids as far as Danzig against desperate opposition. And in this tense atmosphere Meatball got playful one morning and mangled a chicken dead. The nearby farmer went bustling up to the orderly room to see the Major. Major Egan was sitting in with his pilots having an informal briefing with the men about new tactics in aerial combat. It was the afternoon following a raid on Emden, October 3, 1943. The farmer from down the road described “a light brown dog” that had killed a pullet. “Light brown. That’s Meatball, all right,” said the Major. “And you say he got a pullet?” asked the Major sympathetically. “Well, a pullet is pretty important, isn’t it?” “It is,” said the farmer, calming down by this time. Where did you ever hear of a Major who knew anything about pullets, and what is more, who would talk about loss sympathetically in the middle of a grim military operation? Clearly the Major was now pulling out the charm act. He could, of course, have turned the whole matter of Meatball, pullet and payment over to the Adjutant. But the affair seemed right down the Major’s alley. All the new crews who had just arrived at Thorpe Abbotts were by that time listening with amazement. “That pullet, did she look like a layer?” asked the Major. You could see by his face that he was rather tired, after all, it was only an hour or so since the raid was over. “She did, Sir, for a fact,” said the farmer.

“Well, what would you say she’s worth?” asked the Major. “Twenty bob,” said the farmer. “All right,” said the Major. “I think that’s a pretty reasonable sum for a good pullet, don’t you?” he inquired looking around at the crews who flew the big bombers. They looked at him quite dumbfounded, not quite figuring it out, and wondering who was pulling whose leg. And the Major was aware he had everyone right there in front of him. He was the actor and the rest were the audience. The farmer had departed by this time, very pleased, and the Major was rocking back and forth on his chair and looking around. And from the subject of the Germans using rockets and guns, the conversation was not on pullets. One of the young officers piped up and remarked, “A pullet, isn’t that some kind of… a rooster… like…” The Major glared at him and the officer’s face grew red. By now the class was sitting quite quietly. “A pullet,” said the Major patiently, “is a half-grown female chicken which lays a small egg with a very small yolk.” And he showed them just how big with his fingers. “Then,” continued the Major, “the machinery inside the pullet goes to work and all of a sudden – one fine day it lays an egg twice as big as the usual and it is no longer a pullet.” The briefing closed at that point. A few days later, Major Egan said goodbye for the last time to Meatball before climbing into his B-17. On October 10th, during a raid on Munster, the Major became a guest of the German forces, spending the rest of the war in a prison camp.

There was a certain pub in Dickleburgh that missed Major Egan. Sometimes he drove down in a jeep and sang songs in the bar with the locals and Irish laborers. With the affair of Meatball and the pullet, and the grim task of flying missions, Major Egan rounds out into a real example of an American who once walked the lonely lanes at Thorpe Abbotts. Egan served as Air Exec for the 100th, as Commander of the 418th Squadron, and on the Munster raid flew as Command Pilot on John Brady’s lead crew. After being shot down, all but one of Brady’s crew survived as POWs. (you can find more about this story here)

Egan was best friends with fellow 100th Bomb Group squadron commander, Maj. Gale "Buck" Cleven, whom he went to flight school with back in the States. The pair were roommates back in training, and little did they know they'd be roommates once again when they became German POWs in October of 1943. Buck after getting shot down over Bremen, and Egan in a retaliatory raid to get back at the Germans after they shot down his friend.

Egan was leaving for his first leave to London from Thorpe-Abbotts on October 8th when Buck Cleven and the rest of the 13th Combat Wing took off for Bremen. The next morning over breakfast, Egan saw the London Times headline: Eighth Air Force Loses 30 Fortresses Over Bremen," and sprang out of his chair to a phone. Due to wartime security, he had to speak in code.

Masters of the Air, pg. 10:

"How did the game go," he asked. Cleven had gone down swinging, he was told. Silence. Pulling himself together, Egan asked, "Does the team have a game scheduled for tomorrow?" "Yes," came the reply. "I want to pitch." He was back at Thorpe Abbotts that afternoon in time to "sweat out" a long mission the group flew to Marienburg, a combat strike led by the Hundredth's Commander, Col. Neil B. "Chick" Harding, a former West Point football hero. As soon as the squadrons returned, Egan got Harding's permission to lead the Hundredth's formation on the next day's mission.

This mission was set for Münster, just southwest of Bremen where Buck was shot down. Egan flew with Captain John D. Brady on the M’lle Zig Zig to Münster, and the heavy, along with all other planes but Royal Flush (Rosenthal's replacement B-17) in the 100th went down over the target. The crew of the M'lle Zig Zig bailed, parachuting through the flack-filled air. Hambone Hamilton was among the 'Zig's crew, and suffered multiple wounds from shrapnel. When found by Germans, he was taken to the hospital and stayed there recovering for a good while.

Egan, unlike the rest of the 'Zig's crew, was able to evade capture a few days before finally being taken prisoner. The aviators were first sent to Dulag Luft, the Luftwaffe's POW transit center. Egan and the other officers were kept separate from their men in cold and flea-infested solitary cells. Egan and Cleven were just a few cells apart, but neither knew the other was there. After a few weeks, Cleven and the men who were brought in with him were sent to Stalag Luft III, another POW camp just outside the town of Sagan, some 300 miles from their previous location. They were transported by train cars used for livestock, and they reported that "the smell of manure was overwhelming (Miller, 2007, pg. 23)." The trip took them three days. Three days after Cleven got to Stalag Luft III, Egan and his men arrived.

Masters of the Air, pg. 23:

Cleven watched them file into a neighboring stockade. Spotting Johnny Egan, he called out to him, "What the hell took you so long?" "Well, that's what you get for being sentimental," Egan shouted back.

Both Egan and Cleven remained POWs until the end of the war. Cleven, however, managed to escape on a march in 1945. The pair remained good friends until John's death from a sudden heart attack in 1961. Egan served as Buck's best man in his wedding when he married his sweetheart Marge in 1945 once they returned home.

John married his own sweetheart, Lt Josephine "Doty" Pitz (WASP) in late 1945. They had two beautiful daughters together.

tag list: @lena-basilone @luckynumber4

let me know if you want to be added to the tag list!!

[ussgallifrey]

Home for the Holidays | Part 1

✦ Summary: Never let it be said that you weren’t willing to do just about anything for your squadron. As you find yourself roped into an elaborate ruse to help fool Hangman’s mother for Christmas all seems to be going according to plan. But when that plan spirals out of control, the line between real and pretend begins to blur.

✦ Pairing: Jake “Hangman” Seresin x Female Reader

✦ Warnings: Anxiety, fake dating, hurt/comfort, light mentions of divorce, minor angst.

✦ Word Count: 7.5k

✦ Author's Note: Who are we blaming for this mess? Say it with me: @top-hhun ! The true enabler of all things Jake Seresin. I owe it all to you, love <3

[Master List]

The gym was nearly deserted this time of day. The USS Abraham Lincoln was a mere 48 hours away from port and the crew was anxiously anticipating their first bit of proper leave in over nine months. Your air carrier wing, however, was due to leave in the morning.

You should be packing your things and cleaning up the mess in your locker. But you felt the need to blow off some steam first. And somehow, he always knew when and where to find you.

Even with your earbuds in, you can sense his presence just before he makes himself fully known to you - hovering back by the treadmills. You let him sweat it out, finishing the final few steps of your post-workout cool down on the floor mat, your gym playlist coming to a perfect conclusion. 

If he was going to seek you out during your off time, then he would have to wait.

Wiping the sweat from your brow as you stand back up, muscles aching with a pleasant burn, you pull your earbuds out one at a time before turning to face your companion. Hangman is leaning casually against the side of the squat rack now, watching you with that ever-present smirk on his face.

“So,” he drawls in that familiar accent of his, “We doing this?”

You let your eyes trail over his features for a moment, chest still heaving from the afterburn of your workout. How dare he look so put together in his flight suit while in the presence of your sweat-soaked gym clothes.

“What? Just drop trow and do it on the floor?” 

You make a grab for your water bottle, taking a refreshingly cool swig before wiping your mouth dry. He doesn’t even have the decency to look fazed by the question. 

“At least let me lay down a towel first since I’m not being afforded the luxury of getting dragged back to your berth like one of your other lady friends.”

His eyes narrow and his smirk grows.

Some people had ship wives when they were deployed. Jake Seresin had you.

That wonderfully strange mix of teasing flirtation and sworn rivalry that you somehow balanced between the two of you.

“Don’t tempt a man,” he grins wolfishly, uncrossing his arms and taking a step forward to meet you halfway. “Just say the word, Pita. And your dreams could just become reality.”

You scoff, sidestepping him, “What, the less-than-stellar sex or this convoluted plan you came up with?”

“We - ” he quickly reiterates, waving an accusing finger between you both, “The convoluted plan that we mutually came up with, thank you. Gotta share the credit.”

There was this thing the two of you started doing, way back in the day. The savior swoop, you think he coined it.

The whole thing started with a lovely hole-in-the-wall bar in Sydney during a week-long leave. You had been happily content minding your own business with the three other women from your squadron - Rocky, Juggs, and Barb- when in came an overly smiley Hangman, who had quickly wrapped an arm around your waist and muttered, behind clenched teeth.

“You’re my girlfriend. You’re my girlfriend and I will give you all the money out of my wallet if you sell this for me.”

You had stared at him for a long moment, followed by an affronted, “Yes, hello, Pita. Nice to see you too - ”

That was when he roughly pinched your side. A young woman appeared just a moment later with a lipstick-coated smile that seemed to fall the moment she spotted you. Realization dawned and you pulled the best obnoxious girlfriend ruse you could with six shots of vodka in your system. 

At the time, it had never really crossed your mind as to why he approached you out of everyone else. Eventually, you just wrote it off as the fact that you were far more familiar with the man since you had been flying together the longest. That and you knew for a fact that any one of them would have left Hangman out to dry.

It was a thing then. A very non-recurring, once-in-a-blue-moon sort of thing. 

Hangman became your cover boyfriend when a pushy marine wouldn’t seem to take a hint. You filled in when two civilians, eager to hook up with a uniformed airhead, kept him from his pool game. It was just a mutually beneficial back-and-forth for the two of you.

No feelings required. Just the occasional dropping of a honey or babe when it was necessary to sell the point, much to the amusement of your fellow aviators who loved to egg it on even more.

This little plan, however, was taking the fucking cake.

You can’t even remember who got started talking about the upcoming homecoming and eventual leave.

The Vigilantes must have pleased the big names over in the admiralty because your air carrier wing had secured ten days of leave right over the Christmas holiday. It was virtually unheard of. But your squadron had just returned from a lengthy tour and you knew at least one or two new chest candies would be heading your way soon.

But there you were with Hangman, shooting the shit in the officer’s rec room with a few other guys from the squad. Freeze was going to propose to his girl finally, Sparky had his whole family coming up from Arizona, and Cosmo was planning some big soul-searching trip to Mount Rainier. 

Maybe someone had asked if Seresin was taking his girlfriend back home to visit his family - followed by several good-natured laughs. Maybe it was the obnoxious aviator himself who suggested it with a flash of clear amusement in his eyes.

Either way, here the two of you were, a day shy of flying back to Lemoore, with this massively stupid plan waiting in the wings.

“I’m sorry, you’re right. It’s our stupid plan. An unnecessary plan, I may add. You could just tell your family that you’re not - ”

“Too late now. I told my mom you were coming - you know, when we agreed to it a week ago,” he mimics your annoyance with a great big grin.

You stare down the corridor, wondering if you could just make a run for it and avoid the conversation - and the plan - entirely. 

There was a fundamental difference between doing the act to throw off an inebriated barfly and another thing entirely to fly across the country to play house for one of your families for the day.

Hangman crowds your space, staring you down with a knowing look in his bright sage green eyes. Fixing your own stare in return, you stand your ground - lips tight and eyes narrowed.

“You could literally just tell her we’re friends. Only friends.”

He laughs, outright laughs in your face then.

“And miss out on the fun? Where’s your sense of adventure, honey?” he smiles for a moment before finally relenting. 

His features soften, taking a quick cursory glance around to seemingly insure your current privacy from the rest of the crew. 

“Look, you’d be doing me an honest-to-God favor if you came along.”

You knew that. Hell, you had a whole conversation about it six nights ago actually. You knew Hangman’s family was a mess from the day you and him had crossed paths on the flight deck for the first time. It was just written into his very being.

“Yeah, yeah. Classic savior swoop. Pull at my heartstrings some more while you’re at it, Seresin.”

His features light up as he places a stick of gum between his lips, giving a signature smirk, “You’re gonna make a hell of an impression, Pita. I’ll give you that.”

You pat his shoulder playfully, “Thank me after I get your mother permanently off your back.”

“Will do,” he says with a sort of yes ma’am tone as he watches you walk back to officer’s country before your next debrief.

The journey back to Lemoore had been blessedly smooth flying. The raucous crowd spilled past the barrier the minute the first aviator stepped down onto the tarmac. Families and loved ones flung themselves onto their long-lost loves. Wives and girlfriends with single-stem roses, newborn babies, and weepy toddlers holding signs and tiny flags. It was a familiar, happy sight.

You watch from afar, zipping your helmet back into its carrier, and shouldering your duffle bag.

There was no point in having your family fly out just to meet you here. They were going to see you in three days anyway. Might as well save everyone on the crazy airfare for a change.

A sudden scream pulls your attention to the aviator on bended-knee, with a sobbing brunette now throwing herself into his arms.

“He almost lost the ring before we left.”

You eye Hangman as he sidles in next to you, running a hand through his helmet hair. He’s got a fond smile on his face as he watches the newly engaged couple - Freeze is walking his girl back to the hangar and she’s wrapped herself around his waist like a sloth.

“Seriously? Should start calling him Frodo,” you muse, hefting your bag higher on your shoulder.

“Think Smeagol would be more appropriate.”

You know that he can see you openly mouthing the word Nerd with an air of fake judgment. He just gives a silent head shake of a laugh and double-checks the zipper on his own helmet bag.

The two of you watch as the immediate rush of people seems to ease back, clearing the tarmac.

“So…” he grins, “We still doing this?”

Turning to get a good look at him, you take in the very teasing expression on his face. Though his eyes are too squinted from the overhead sun to get a real good take on his exact inner workings.

“Well, as fun as it would be to leave you hanging for a change - ”

He chuckles, taking a step back to grab his own duffle bag from the ground, “Admit it, Pita. You’d start to feel bad for me. With that aching heart of yours and all.”

“Hah!” you tilt your head back with a bark of laughter, “Oh, Hangman. You have no idea just how steel-coated this heart is. I would delight in seeing you hung out to dry. However, I make it a habit to hold true to my promises.”

“Good,” he nods with a surprising sureness. Plucking his signature box of toothpicks out of his pocket, twiddling with a single pick for a moment, he adds, “Because I would have hated having to chase you down and drag you back to Texas on my own.”

“Mmm, in your alpha male dreams, Hangman.”

You part ways in the parking lot with plans to catch up in three hours. It would, theoretically, be enough time to unpack the essentials, clean yourselves up, and pack a carry-on for the flight.

The on-base house has remained the same as when you left it six months prior, albeit a thin layer of dust covers parts of the room that you swear you’ll get around to cleaning before you fly back out. After your gloriously long, hot, uninterrupted shower, you manage to throw together a reasonable bag in no time flat. Rolling shirts and pants up with expert ease.

And then there’s a knock on your door, one minute before your set meet time. It makes you wonder how long Hangman was waiting around, trying to time it just right, before he came up onto the front porch.

You unceremoniously toss your bag into his arms as a way of greeting, locking the door behind you as he laughs.

“Hello to you too, darlin’.”

“Coffee,” you say by way of explanation, pushing by him. “I need coffee and food if you want to keep me from ripping your head off before we board.”

He gives a sharp nod, following after you to the waiting Chevy pickup in your driveway, “Can do. Gotta keep my girl happy.”

“Oh god,” you groan, turning to look back at him as you pull open the passenger’s door, one foot on the running board. “Are we starting that now?”

His eyes flicker with amusement as he carefully shoves your bag in behind your seat, holding the side handle as he peers up at you.

“Well, you know what they say - ” he flips the toothpick in his mouth around with the roll of his tongue, lips tugged into a smug grin around it, “Practice makes perfect.”

You blank, staring down into the all-too-confident eyes of your wingman.

“And I can still catch another flight,“ you retort with an equally Cheshire-like grin.

His smile falls in an instant, “Right, coffee for the missus.”

The howl of laughter you give is worth it as he seemingly scrambles to shut your door for you, jogging around the front of the truck, before hopping into the driver’s seat.

“I’m not a cheap date either, Seresin,” you warn, clicking your seatbelt into place. “None of that gas station stuff. I just spent months with mediocre instant brews and I deserve something to keep me awake and smiling for this little ruse.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles good-naturedly as he places his hand on the back of your seat, peering over his shoulder as he backs the truck out of the driveway. 

The awkwardness hits the minute he pulls out onto the main road, just past the east entrance gate. As though the barbed-wire fence offered a semblance of safety when you were still behind the traffic barrier. But now the cloak was pulled free and you were both fully aware of the situation you were in.

You had spent the better part of a year and a half with this man, both on and off a carrier. You knew his breakfast preferences and his anal retentiveness when it came to the upkeep of both his flight gear and his hair. His argument-worthy movie choices and his pre-flight rituals. It was just a normal part of co-existing on a carrier in the middle of the ocean, you suppose.

And yet, here you were - for seemingly the first time ever - with just him in an enclosed proxy. There was no Freeze or Sparky there to break the tension with an off-the-cuff joke. No Freud to poke fun at the tension itself - should we give you two lovebirds space or do we get a free show?

No, it was just you and Hangman, in his truck, with the genuine realization that you were actually doing this hovering in your quickly sobering thoughts.

Maybe ideas had after doing a twelve-hour, start-to-finish, mission weren’t actually the best things to be acted upon.

There’s the soft hum of a splotchy country radio station that keeps coming in and out of range to fill that voided space between you. A twangy Christmas cover croons over the speakers as you stare out at the open desert landscape that surrounds the empty stretch of road.

You want to say something, anything really to break that strange note of silence.

But for once in your long career of being a give ‘em as good as they get kind of officer, you find the words surprisingly dried up on your tongue. And that doesn’t particularly bode well for the two of you if you have to spend the next forty-two hours together.

Hangman, for all intents and purposes, appears entirely unfazed by the arrangement. As he reclines back in his seat with one hand on the wheel and the other draped against the closed window, catching a bit of direct sunlight. 

The only true difference, besides the civvies, is the tightened line of his lips. And his usually slicked-back helmet hair is surprisingly… fluffy, for lack of a better descriptor. You wonder if, like yourself, he only used product when it came to being in uniform or if he just didn’t have the time for it in the mad rush to get to the airport at a reasonable time. 

“See somethin’ you like?”

The quip is a loud, sudden intrusion into your silent introspective. He glances over at you with a teasing smirk already in place.

You huff in abhorrence, eyes flicking back to the road in front of you - refusing to fall into an obvious trap like that.

“Remind me why I agreed to this again?” you ask instead. 

He switches hands, gripping the steering wheel with his left as his right comes to rest on his inner thigh. He rubs at the denim for a moment as he seems to contemplate his answer.

“I think it might have something to do with my next month’s worth of bonuses being up for grabs.”

The smile on your face dims for a second. 

You weren’t particularly interested in prying Hangman’s money from him. If it had been anyone else in the squadron, you would have found yourself in a similar situation - you were sure of it. It’s just the fact that the two of you had the practice in hand for this one strange stunt.

But you would have done the same for Sparky, Cosmo, or Freud in an instant. It wasn’t about the money, it wasn’t that kind of favor. He knew that, right?

Turning it around, you kiddingly press on, “And the free flight, free meal, and free accommodations, right?”

He cracks another look at you as you come to the first stop sign in over six miles, “You really aren’t shaping up to be a cheap date, are ya, Pita?”

“Hey,” you hold your hands up in a way that seems to say you brought this upon yourself. “You asked me, Hangman.”

He scoffs, “Yeah, ‘cause my options were real ripe for the pickin’.”

The truck glides through the four-way; no other vehicle in sight.

“Well,” you lean back into the side of your seat, pushed against the window so you can really get a good look at him. “Did you even bother asking anyone else?” 

You can see the thick crease of his brow as he bites down on the toothpick, eyes squinting slightly against the afternoon sun.

“Did you even think to ask Captain Manning to go in on this with you? I bet if anyone could get your mom off your back, it’d be him.”

That at least makes Hangman grin, all bright and genuine as he reaches for a pair of sunglasses attached to his visor. He fiddles them on, one-handed, before peering over at you once again.

“Oh, I have no doubt good ole Zilla would win over my momma’s heart. But the man can’t lie to save his teeth. So, excuse me for bypassing him.”

“Such little fate,” you mock.

“Nah,” he taps the steering wheel with an idle finger, “We’re here now, ’s all that matters.”

You were sure it had nothing to do with the fact that out of your squadron of thirty-eight, you were only one of four female aviators currently flying with the Vigilantes. And certainly, the only one even remotely considered to be close to Seresin.

Of course, the alternative would have been trying to convince some random girl to come along with him for the holiday. And while you didn’t doubt Hangman’s ability to pull, it was a bit of a hard sell given the time of year - even for the likes of him and his classic Ken-doll appearance. And chicks loved the Ken-doll appearance.

No, the truly worst alternative would have been making him face the company of his own family alone. The horror.

Letting the now less-than-awkward silence filter back into the cab, you settle in for the rest of the short ride into the nearest city.

The actual town of Lemoore is far more lively and bustling than the base stationed just thirteen miles west of it. Hangman easily follows your directions to a coffee shop off the main drag - immediately glancing down at his watch, as if trying to mentally calculate the maximum amount of time you could deviate from his schedule. 

After parking out front, he holds the door open for you and another couple as the rich aroma of fresh brew and baked goods hits your senses. Was there ever a sweeter smell? After months at sea, with only the array of mixes in the officers’ mess to keep you going, this was like walking into paradise.

Hangman scooches in next to you in line. His sunglasses are at least clipped to the front of his t-shirt’s collar now as he peruses the colorful red and green menu with an appraising kind of look - flipping that damn toothpick of his around in his mouth as he weighs his options.

It’s still decidedly strange to be doing this with him.

While you frequently found yourself in the company of your squadron, both on and off duty, this was notably uncharted territory. 

There’s a slightly stoic demeanor that Seresin has when out in public, but the minute you’re called up to the register, he’s got the biggest grin on and good old boy charm ready to go. While he ends up ordering a breakfast sandwich and a surprisingly high-sugar content pumpkin spice frappe, you go for the turkey melt and an iced coffee. He pays for it all - out of some sense of duty to the mission, you suppose - and stuffs a twenty dollar bill in the tip jar for good measure too.

The two of you hover at the end of the counter, next to the hanging snowflake decorations, while you wait for your order to finish up. He’s got his arms crossed and a downturned look on his face as he stares at the coffee shop’s patrons - couples spread out amongst the two-seater tables. A modest indie version of “Santa Baby” and the quiet hum of chatter keep either one of you from speaking until his name is called by the barista.

But as you head back outside, he stops you at the hood of the truck - his brow pinched.

“I’m not gonna be insulted if you back out, you know.”

Scrunching your lip, you say, “Good to know - ” while making a move for the passenger door, clutching your drink and carry-out bag in one hand.

“I mean it,” his voice raises slightly as he rounds his side of the vehicle, continuing the conversation from across the open doorway as you hop in. “We get to Fresno and you take a flight back home and we’ll act like this whole plan never existed.”

You wonder, briefly, where this change of heart is coming from. But you give a little nod, slotting your condensation-heavy coffee into the cup holder - it might be December but it certainly didn’t feel like it out here. 

“I mean if you’re looking to get rid of me so easily…”

“That’s not - ”

Hangman groans, slamming his door closed with more force than probably necessary as he scrubs a hand down his face. He stares ahead for a moment before finally saying, in a much more even tone:

“It’s a lot to ask of someone. And I’ve been sitting here for the past twenty minutes wondering what the hell I was thinkin’ asking you to do this in the first place.”

You have the good grace to leave your sandwich wrapped up and on your lap as you turn to give your companion your full attention.

You’re reminded of the conversation the two of you had nearly a week ago.

He was just about staring daggers into his meal when you found him in the Wardroom, well past the dinner rush. There was a pen settled between his fingers like a damn cigarette that he kept twirling around as his gaze drifted past the food in front of him.

And you - like any good person would - asked him what the hell the plate ever did to him.

As you joined him at the empty table, he admitted that he had just gotten the third email that week from his mom going on and on about his future and how he’s getting older, and that the eligible dating pool is vanishing before his very eyes.

“What, is she dead set on having grandkids before she kicks it or something?” you had asked with a pitched tone.

He had just shaken his head, ruffling a hand through his hair - food long forgotten in front of him, “Nah, she’s got nine already. She just gets into a mood around the holidays. But it’s been getting on more and more like this lately.”

“Guess you got no choice but to get hitched the minute you get your boots dry.”

At least that had managed to pull a laugh out of him, even if it seemed hollow and lackluster compared to his usual booming tone.

“Nah, I’m being serious here, Hangman. Have a 72-hour marriage for show, break it off before we head back out. Just give her something for the holiday so she’ll get off your damn back for a while.”

And though it took a moment, his face had lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree. As though he had made the ultimate connection in his brain and had come up with the idea all on his own. As though you hadn’t been joking in the slightest.

“Someone who could pull it off. Someone who has real-time experience with yours truly, right?”

You’re not sure how, in only a matter of an hour, Hangman had convinced you to go along with it. To play the role of doting and loving girlfriend for a one-night-only performance for his mother, of all people. But, at that exact moment, it had seemed like the greatest idea known to man. Hangman, specifically.

But here you were, only hours from hopping on a commercial flight together to put on a show for the big leagues. Was it any wonder either one of you was getting cold feet?

“Seresin.”

His eyes finally drift over to yours. His face is just about as stoic as he can make it be outside of an inspection line. But his eyes, that’s where the real trouble lies.

“I’m already here. I don’t back out of promises - even the most ridiculous kind. So, get the damn ignition started, and let’s go before we get stuck in security for the next two hours.”

He takes you in for a long contemplating kind of moment as you try to be reassuring with only your earnest expression alone. Whatever he finds there, he must deem it good enough for him and his sensibilities because not a second later the truck engine purrs back to life and he’s pulling out onto the street.

He has the good sense not to bring it up for the rest of the drive. When you pull into the airport’s parking lot, he makes a vague last-chance kind of gesture, but you just yank your bag out of the backseat and head towards the terminal entrance. He rushes to grab his own gear to catch up to you.

You discover how much of an antsy flier Hangman is when it comes to flights he’s not personally manning. Constantly checking the time, mumbling about the slow-moving lines - which you remind him is attributed to the fact that you were in an international airport, traveling five days before Christmas.

He had you rushing to get to your gate a good hour before you were even required to be there. And by that point, he was on the edge of his seat, wringing his hands, just waiting for the second your boarding party was called.

His mom snagged the two of you business-class seats for the trip the minute she heard her son would be bringing home a girl this year. You want to feel guilty about it, but you’re actually grateful for the upgrade as you stretch out into the padded seat next to him. The last thing you wanted was to be packed in with the other sardines in Economy.

The flight to Dallas is about as interesting as a FOD walk. With Hangman pulling out a tablet once you’re at cruising altitude, while you pop in your earbuds and almost immediately pass out for two hours straight.

It’s his amused green eyes that you awaken to. 

The rough press of his hand against your shoulder and your last name being repeated with louder and more serious persistence. You feel a bit like a zombie as you shuffle alongside him to your next gate after disembarking. That spontaneous nap had been a bit too deep and dreamless for that short of a period, as you woke up feeling more tired than when you initially fell asleep. 

There’s a nearly two-hour layover there in Dallas. But you just inch forward through the crowds until your boarding group is called and you’re back onto another plane. The skies outside the window have faded to a vibrant amethyst color, splattered with rays of gold and amber as the bright lights of the city disappear into the distance.

This flight is short in comparison, which you’re thankful for as the grime of travel seems to hang off you now. Roughly an hour out and you would finally be able to debark and collapse face-first into a hotel room.

Hangman has his tablet out again, though he seems far less interested in picking up where he left off on his E-book now. He’s got his right leg crossed over his left at the knee, anxiously tapping his foot and therefore jostling his tablet as he peers at the headrest in front of him. 

He had traded for the aisle seat this time, so it takes you a moment to pull your attention away from the changing scenery of the landscape outside your window to properly notice his change in demeanor.

“Hmm?” you hum in question.

He shoots a glance at you - something coming to terms on his face - before he ultimately shoves his tablet against his side and turns as much as he can in the confines of the seat to face you properly.

“My favorite color is blue; dark blue, not sky blue. I hated all of my English classes in school. I track the Longhorns’ scores religiously when we’re out. I despise almonds in their entirety. Non-dairy substitutes are an absolute no-go.”

You stare at him for a long moment before saying, “Okay…?”

With a roll of his eyes, “We’ve been dating for however long. These are things you’d know about me at this point, right?”

“Ahhh, gotcha,” you settle against the armrest in between you both to really look into his eyes. “See, I didn’t realize that to enter your mom’s house I would have to pass the Seresin partner pop quiz first.”

“Oh, fuck off,” he pulls away, running his hand through his unkempt hair.

You kick your foot at his shin, just a playful tap really, to get his attention.

“You prefer sausage links over patties. You won’t shut the fuck up about Hudson Card and his current stats - which are shit, by the way. You suck at poker and any other card game we’ve ever played. You have a lucky pair of briefs that you wear every time we - ”

“Okay,” he quickly interrupts, holding up his hand to cut you off.

“Come on,” you grin. “We’re in too tight of a circle to not know the damn basics about each other at this point. How about, instead of playing twenty questions until we land, you tell me about the off-limits stuff.”

At the questioning raise of his brows, you elaborate.

“Any triggers words? Like, I have an uncle Edward who, if you mention iPhones, will go on an unhinged rant about 5G towers and radiation until he runs out of breath. Anything like that I should be made aware of?”

His features seem to relax at last as he rubs his hand along his jawline for a moment, “Best not mention my Dad at all. Avoid the name Gwen, if you can.”

“Stepmom?”

He nods, blowing out a long breath, “Stepmom.”

“Think I can manage that. Anything else?”

For the rest of the flight, you cover the basics of the trip. His mom, Patricia - but call her Patty - is a bit of a germaphobe. 

She has two guest rooms and will gladly offer to accommodate you both for the night, but she’d actually hate it if you took her up on the offer. She’s a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas dinner; none of that fusion food at her table. She’ll sneak off to the kitchen for a not-so-sneaky drink if the conversation takes a turn at all. 

But most importantly, she definitely does not want to hear about any missions he has been on, though she’s very proud of his current career.

“And where are we on the PDA scale?” you ask as Hangman grabs your bag from the trunk of the rental car.

You had been stuck at the baggage carousel for forty-five minutes, the car rental counter for another twenty, and then the drive from the southern part of Austin up to the northern part had taken over half an hour. At this point, you were done.

But, for once, you had to admit that the company wasn’t the worst to be had.

“Ehh, probably on the low side? Enough to pass as a couple but not enough to make her grab hold of the metaphorical pearls.”

You hum in understanding, noticing that he’s still got his fingers looped through the strap of your bag along with his own as you head for the side entrance of the hotel, up to your room on the third floor.

After nabbing the key card from him, you unlock the door and immediately flick on the lights - making a straight line to the double bed by the window and unceremoniously flopping down on it, face first. Your bag is dropped next to your leg, making the bed jostle slightly, but you merely grunt in acknowledgment.

You can hear his tired chuckle somewhere above you, followed by the sound of his boots being kicked off.

“Before you disappear on me again, Pita. Be a dear and take a look at that informational on the table and find us some damn food.”

Giving a lazy thumbs up in his general direction, Hangman gives a departing laugh before he heads into the bathroom - but only after securing the deadbolt on the main door first.

It takes a moment, but you finally summon the energy to pull yourself up onto your elbows. Snatching the paper brochure from the bedside table with a listing of the local attractions and restaurants. You skim the names until you find a pizza place that’s supposedly open til midnight. It was only - you glance at the radio clock - 10:46 pm, so you should be good to send in a delivery order.

“Pizza?” you call out.

You can make out the muffled what he yells back in return.

“Do you want pizza?”

Your louder query is immediately responded to with a rough I can’t fuckin’ hear you in here.

Flipping onto your side, you wait for him to emerge from the bathroom to bother communicating with him again. Pulling out your phone, you search for the restaurant and casually scroll through their menu until you hear the click of the door.

Hangman shuffles out, grabbing his abandoned hoodie from the bed and methodically folding it up, “What were you hollering about?”

“Pizza sound good?”

He grunts, nabbing his boots and moving them into a more reasonable location in front of the open closet by the door.

“Depends on the place.”

You look at the name on the webpage, “Market Street Pizzeria?”

With a nod, he pads across the room and plops down heavily on the bed opposite yours, running both hands through his hair as he seems to stifle a yawn before it can escape.

“They’re good,” lifting his hips up from the bed, he grabs his wallet out of his back pocket, rummaging for a moment before he tosses a card at your face. “Here, get whatever. I’ll just pick off anything too offensive.”

You glance down at the card before immediately slamming it down on the nightstand, “Yeah, I’ll get this one. And I hope you don’t find pepperoni and cheese too obscene for your standards.”

He stares at you for a long moment before relenting and swiping up his debit card. You eye him as he tosses his wallet down at the foot of his bed before he props the pillows up and rests back against them - grabbing hold of the TV remote.

“Should be twenty minutes,” you announce, dropping your phone down on the bed as you push yourself up into a sitting position.

He hums in acknowledgment as you unzip your bag and fish out a pair of pajama pants that you had packed near the top of your items. You disappear into the bathroom to do your business and change - staring at yourself in the mirror for a long moment. Two flights and an impromptu nap had not done you any favors and that was a fact. After splashing some water on your face, you join Hangman back in the room.

He’s got just about everything settled already. A phone charger’s meticulously looped and plugged into the bedside outlet, a toiletry bag on the left-hand side of the dresser, and his own travel bag secured away in the closet next to his boots. The efficient bastard.

When you get the notification that your delivery has arrived, he heads down to collect your food and tip the driver. He ends up sitting at the desk to eat while you sit cross-legged on the end of your bed. The news is playing on mute in the background with the closed captions turned on.

“So,” you say after taking another bite, “What’s our story, in case she asks?”

He wipes his fingers off on one of the napkins before crumbling it up into a ball and taking aim at the trash can - it lands, of course.

But then he seems to remember that you asked a question as he turns in the rolling chair, legs spread wide as he gently sways side-to-side, “Like how we met?”

You roll your eyes, licking your fingertips clean of pizza grease, “I think it’s pretty apparent how we met, Seresin. What I meant was, how long has this - ” you gesture a hand between the two of you - “been going on. I mean, you’re taking me back home for the holidays, so it’s probably pretty serious at this point.”

He gives a chuckle, tapping his fingers on his knees, “How long a period of time is considered appropriate to bring a partner home?”

“Hell if I know,” you chortle, kicking your legs down over the side of the bed as you lean back on your hands.

His brow hitches up, “What, never taken someone home before?”

You don’t like the pointedness of the question as you squint back at him, “Been a bit busy, Bagman. What about you? What’s your excuse?”

“Had a high school girlfriend, dated for three years. Had her over for Christmas our senior year.”

“No one since though?” you ask.

“Like you said,” he leans back in the desk chair, folding his hands together over his stomach, “We’ve been busy.”

You nod, letting the topic settle in front of you both.

It wasn’t unheard of for people to get together on deployment, even less so on the carrier when you were forced into a confined space with the same individuals for months at a time. Shore leave was good for an easy hook-up or two, but real relationships? Those usually only happened prior to getting your orders for the most part.

The majority of the guys you knew had gotten together with their significant others around their time at the Academy, if not even sooner. Half of them got hitched right after graduation so their girl could get a place on base before they shipped out or went to flight school. But after that? Well, there wasn’t a hell of a lot of time for regular dating.

And it wasn’t that big of a deal when your focus was on your career. People like you and Hangman were all about that life. You didn’t go through the rigors of TOPGUN just to ask to be relocated to a desk job in Pensacola so you could settle down with a nice man and have a few all-American kiddos of your own this early on in your career.

Half your squadron had someone waiting for them back home. It was just a handful of you now that were still noticeably single - happily single, you should add.

“Five months,” you finally announce.

When you’re met with a curious pair of olive green eyes, you reiterate.

“We tell her we’ve been together for five months. Long enough to be serious, but short-term enough to make it seem like we were just being cautious about announcing anything too soon to our families.”

Hangman chews on his lip, mulling over your idea before he leans forward and extends his hand for you to shake, “Sounds like a plan, sweetheart.”

You just shake your head as you grip his hand tightly, “Guess I need to get used to those cutesy little pet names, huh?”

He laughs, pulling back to scratch at his chin, “Mmm, need to start with calling me by my real name for a start.”

“What, no Jakey or Jakers?”

His eyes light up in the soft glow of the hotel room’s incandescents as he dips his head back to laugh, “I swear to god, it’ll be a miracle if we pull this off.”

“Have a little faith in my acting abilities, baby,” you bat your lashes heavily, your voice turning soft and overly sweet. It probably didn’t help that you were functioning on almost nothing but coffee and pizza at this point.

He immediately pushes up from the chair, “I’m heading to bed before you make me hurl my food into the damn sink.”

“Don’t say that, sweetie-kins!” you coo, flopping over on the bed as you watch him collect the pizza box and methodically crush it in half to fit into the small black garbage can.

“Maybe I’ll call Guy up and see if he’s still available,” he muses with an irritated tone of voice, just to spur you on further as he nabs his toiletry bag and heads into the bathroom - leaving the door ajar.

“Now that is a show I would pay money to see,” you finally relent the act, pushing back the white comforter on your bed.

It only takes him a few minutes before he emerges. Jake smirks as he makes his way back to the bed, wearing nothing but his white t-shirt and briefs. 

It must speak something to his level of exhaustion that he doesn’t even bother to make a you like what you see sort of comment. Not that you’d never seen him, or any other member of your squadron for that matter, in that level of undress before during pre-flight suit-up. But being at near eye-level in a hotel room was definitely a change in pace, though you also choose not to comment on it.

He merely rolls his comforter all the way to the end of the bed before he gets under the sheets, “You’re not an obnoxious snorer, are you, honey?”

You heft yourself up and cross the room in search of your own toiletry bag, “Guess you’ll just have to find out for yourself.”

His tone is edged with a false sense of frustration as he grunts a low, drawn-out, “Lucky me.”

When you return to the room, the TV is off and he’s lying flat on his back.

The luminous blue light of his phone casts his face in sharp brightness as he quietly scrolls through something. You let him have his silence as you deposit your shower bag on your side of the dresser and carefully place your folded bra back into your backpack.

Only once you’re under the covers of your bed, with just the single bedside light on, does Jake relinquish his phone - placing it on the charger. He meets your gaze from across the way and, for a moment, it seems like there’s something he wants to say as he worries at his bottom lip.

But he ultimately just gives you a gruff: Night, Pita. Immediately followed by a curt nod before he turns off his light and rolls over to face toward the door. 

With a shake of your head, and an accompanying: Goodnight, Hangman, you roll towards the window and try to settle in to sleep.

The sound of rustling sheets and agitated breaths fills the room for some time before the whirl of air conditioning kicks on. And then it’s only a matter of time before the darkness and the white noise soothes you into the lull of proper sleep.

Story Masterlist || Next Chapter

[eruditegeek]

Gay Glup Shitto of the Day #21

Larma D'Acy and Worbie Tyce

Lesbian resistance operatives.

You know these two.

Larma D'Acy, a military officer, and Worbie Tyce, a courier pilot, were wives from the independent planet Warlentta. D'Acy was personally recruited by Leia, and her wife happily joined with her. D'Acy became a trusted mid level officer in the resistance, and Tyce became second in command of a fighter squadron.

There is not much I can say about them because D'Acy is only in The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, and Tyce is only in the latter. Though they were the first on screen lesbian kiss in a Star Wars movie. They also kissed before the battle of Exegol in the junior novel adaptation.

Overall, they are a poor attempt at capitalizing on queer representation and claiming support. Though they are a step along the way as Disney trails behind the leaders. Disney's willingness to include queer representation has increased due, in part, to the reaction and memeing of their kiss. This was emphasized by how much of a fiasco Rise of Skywalker was.

Most annoying is how divorced on screen and on page representation has become from each other. D'Acy and Tyce were not the first queer kiss in Star Wars, having been beaten to it almost two years prior in a comic. There have been more and more queer creators being given control of Star Wars, but still much more on page than screen.

Before Disney I could count queer representation on both hands. By the time Episode IX released it was about 30, and now there is a wide range of about 300 queer characters.

The executive confidence in Star Wars has been regrowing, and we can't let them stop queer representation or become complacent, but we also can't let the shows trail behind in representation. So keep making your approval and dissatisfaction with how they handle queer representation known.

[forasecondtherewedwon]

how to cook the loch ness monster

Fandom: Masters of the Air Pairing: Harry Crosby/Joseph "Bubbles" Payne Rating: T Word Count: 2178

Summary: If there’d been one, why not two? It was a big sky. Such a big, big sky, and Crosby clamped his eyes shut and listened hard to hear another plane, or one man breathing inside it, or little bubbles of air bobbing in a snow globe.

Or, Bubbles' plane lands after Rosenthal's.

Crosby lived in a wacky reality where heroes outnumbered regular guys a hundred to one. He was one of the regular guys and didn’t mind it. They’d never forget him when they were handing out beers for a toast, but he’d never be the subject of that toast, and that was alright. He wasn’t an ace pilot or blessed with a movie-star face—or both, like Major Cleven—but he was always present, mostly punctual, and able to plot a course about as well as the next navigator. Unless that navigator was Bubbles, whom Crosby admired very much.

And it was possible to admire a man who was simultaneously quick at the chart and possessed of unorthodox beliefs and superstitions. The snow globe was only the tip of the faux-winter iceberg; Bubbles had spoken more than once about taking a leave, the two of them, to go up to Scotland and see if they couldn’t catch themselves a lake monster. Not only did Bubbles believe Nessie could be reeled in, he believed she could be barbecued. Crosby had seen his papers. Where other men wrote letters, Bubbles made calculations based on meat mass and grilling area. They were precise, and this didn’t alarm Crosby, because it was exactly the sort of thing Bubbles was best at. If they could’ve coated the bombs in seasoning, Bubbles would’ve flamed and flavoured every airbase and railyard in western Germany.

Really, Crosby never saw himself as a hero, not even as another character in that kind of story, unless it were something a little more offbeat. He did sometimes think he was a Watson type—a Watson to Bubbles’ Holmes. Bubbles always knew what was actually going on, and Crosby staked his faith on it, tripping along two steps behind but eager to see the solution revealed, and glad for the friend.

When he was promoted, he thought, Well, how the hell ’m I supposed to Watson him from here? They’d always been in two different planes, but at least they’d been off on the same adventures, facing the same risks. Crosby hadn’t signed up to be a long-distance Watson. There was nothing for it though; you didn’t just throw a promotion back in your superior’s face and insist you be allowed to get shot-up and flakked to shit with the rest. You didn’t do that to yourself, to your wife, to the rest of the men who didn’t have the luxury of an offered post on-base. You sat in your office, and thought of the jeep at your disposal, and wore a jacket instead of a parachute.

There was so much time to think while Bubbles was gone, flying to Münster. Crosby rubbed his hands together—slowly, repeatedly—and remembered coming back from the dead, as he and the rest of Blakely’s crew had been treated. It had been like getting home after a long day of work. He’d been exhausted, vaguely proud when the boys alternately praised and mocked his navigation skills. He hadn’t felt like he’d survived in any special way until he’d seen Bubbles. Then, of course, he’d realized. There might never have been another instance of Bubbles spotting him in a room and making a beeline, never another embrace with the slap of Bubbles’ hand on the back of his leather jacket. Never another Bubbles and Crosby, his name first.

Finally, the squadron was almost due back. He joined the others waiting on the tower, falling into the anxious formation of sailors’ wives looking out to sea. Crosby would’ve killed for a pair of binoculars. He wished he’d checked his office, but he hadn’t, not anticipating that this would be the hardest part of the wait: the final margin of time in which the planes could reasonably return. He crossed his arms and chewed his lip and wondered if he’d get better at this too, like he’d gotten better at coming up with coordinates.

His ears did what his eyes couldn’t, picking out an aircraft’s mechanical hum. But the fellows from the 390th reported no sign of the 100th. Crosby wasn’t a violent man—a ridiculous assessment of himself to hold on to, maybe, being at war—but he wanted to deck whatever man had said it, and deck him again for being wrong when Rosenthal came into view. Rosenthal made contact with the tower, and an ambulance was dispatched. Still, Crosby stayed aloft. He gripped the railing. If there’d been one, why not two? It was a big sky. Such a big, big sky, and Crosby clamped his eyes shut and listened hard to hear another plane, or one man breathing inside it, or little bubbles of air bobbing in a snow globe.

At last, a second, distant drone. He opened his eyes. First, he tried not to hope, then he hoped so hard he thought he’d be sick. He turned to Major Kidd and tried not to sound like he was begging.

“The nose? Can you make out the nose?”

Kidd lifted the binoculars back up to his eyes.

“Red…”

Crosby smacked his hand down on the railing in triumph and let out a wet laugh, pinched the end of his nose when he felt a prickle of emotion.

He could’ve stayed and waited to see if there would be more planes, but he remembered he had access to a jeep and tore towards the stairs.

“Where the hell’s Croz going?” Colonel Harding barked.

Crosby heard Kidd explain in just two words: “She’s Gonna.” Crosby loved those words, thought they were the best words ever invented.

He zipped the jeep out onto the hardstand with a speed and a turn that tossed him against the door. He was too oblivious to his surroundings, and realized he had to floor it because he’d pulled out in front of the ambulance headed to Bubbles’ plane. He didn’t consider that it could be for Bubbles, that Bubbles might be dead or dying after going all that way and coming back again. No. He would be fine, Crosby decided, giving a wave to Rosenthal as he raced past him without stopping. They would all be fine.

Getting as close as he could to the men straggling out onto the runway, Crosby threw the jeep into park and tumbled out. He dodged a pair helping one another towards the ambulance that had just stopped behind him and ducked under the belly of the plane. She’s Gonna looked… well, she looked like she’d been through a war. Crosby came out the other side staring up at the pointillism painting the Luftwaffe had made of the wing—medium: bullets on metal. And then there was Bubbles.

He was examining the plane, same as Crosby’d been, remarking on the damage to another crewman.

“Wing, shming,” Bubbles pronounced. “You got two a’ them, only one a’ me.”

“And the wings don’t know their east from their west,” Crosby said.

Bubbles spun ’round. If Crosby’d never gotten to see him smile like that again, it would’ve been too bad. The other airman knew to give them space.

“Hey, buddy,” Bubbles said.

They hugged hard, and when Crosby drew back, it wasn’t possible to hide that a few tears had leaked from his eyes.

“What’s this for?” Bubbles demanded. “I didn’t make you wait like you made me!”

“You’re the last plane,” Crosby pointed out.

“Yeah, outta two!”

They both sobered at that. Tentatively, Bubbles hugged him again. His head tipped gently against Crosby’s.

“It was pretty bad up there,” Crosby guessed.

“It was hell,” Bubbles answered.

They kept their hands on each other’s shoulders as they pulled apart, and Crosby inspected his friend’s face with a frown.

“You broke your nose?” he guessed, taking in the swelling at Bubbles’ bridge, the blood that seemed to have been half-wiped from his mustache, and the bruising rolling in like grey-violet thunderclouds below his eyes.

Bubbles touched his nose and winced.

“Damn flak. Blasted us off-kilter and I went down face-first. Got the blood on the charts, if you wanna see.”

“I believe you,” Crosby promised. “Why don’t you see if they can do anything for you before you go into interrogation?”

“Maybe straighten my nose up, but I gotta feeling the rest a’ my face is gonna have to stay the way it is.”

“Ah, you win some, you lose some, pal.”

Crosby couldn’t help taking another look at the beat-up plane before he clapped Bubbles on the shoulder and steered him over to the medics.

—

Everybody headed for the bar after interrogation, but Crosby hung back when Bubbles did.

“I think I just want the quiet,” Bubbles explained. “And a shower. Wash all this grime off a’ me.”

“Yeah, I understand,” Crosby assured him.

Bubbles’ gaze darted down, then sprang back up.

“Would ya stay with me?”

Crosby was more stunned by how close Bubbles’ earnest expression was to fearful than by the request, but he found himself echoing, “Stay with you?”

“Never mind.” Bubbles tried a smile that didn’t stay in place. “Why dontcha go have a drink, Croz?”

“Nah.” Crosby thought about making an excuse, even a joking one, but he didn’t. There was no appeal in falsifying a reason to stay with his best friend when the fact of Bubbles being his best friend stood alone. Might as well be clear. If something did take them away from one another—Bubbles shot down over there, Crosby killed by a bombing back here—he wouldn’t think, At least Bubbles never saw the depth of my sincerity about our friendship.

Bubbles had said he wanted quiet, and he got it in spades; the barracks were a ghost town. Rows of empty racks where the same men would never sleep again, empty cubbies for kit bags. There were only the things the men had left. Crosby noted tidy decks of playing cards, novels that had been tossed down with splayed pages to save a place that wouldn’t be returned to. There were cigarettes other men might smoke, and vacant hooks where other jackets would hang. Worst, he saw letters that would go unanswered, left on pillows or tucked between the pages of a book. He glanced continually at Bubbles as they walked to the showers, knowing he would’ve been the one to write the letter telling his family that he hadn’t made it back, just as Bubbles had done for him.

Crosby rested against a sink as water from a single nozzle pattered in the communal shower. He didn’t want to think about how quiet it was, how the shower was a thin and lonely sound, but that was impossible. The room used to ring with conversation, groan like an amphitheatre of ancient Greeks watching a tragedy when the hot water ran out. Bucky hadn’t often adopted the role of disciplinarian, but if the hot water hadn’t run out and they’d lingered too long, he’d started singing to make them leave. Crosby smiled at the ground as he remembered.

But then Bubbles made a sound. It wasn’t a loud sound, but it bounced off the tiles and reached Crosby’s attentive ears, primed by the bombers. He walked into the showers and saw Bubbles rubbing a standard bar of soap across his upper back. He’d mentioned getting thrown around during the flakking, and now Crosby saw more bruising. It wasn’t the end of the world, but Crosby winced to think how tender Bubbles’ skin must have been, and that his shoulders must’ve ached deeper than that judging by how stiffly Bubbles moved.

“Bubbles?” Crosby asked, so his friend wouldn’t be embarrassed—not by his nudity, but by Crosby standing there.

Bubbles turned his head and offered a weak smile.

“Still here?”

“You asked me to be,” Crosby said simply, softly. He nodded at Bubbles’ injuries. “Hurts?”

“Not too bad.”

“Let me,” Crosby said, shaking his head and rolling up his shirt sleeves as he advanced.

“It’s not altruism,” he added before Bubbles could say anything. “I suffer too if you stink.”

“If someone comes…”

“They’re not,” Crosby said. They stared at each other sadly. “Gimme the soap, Bubbles.”

So Bubbles hung his head under the spray, and Crosby took the soap. He ran it across the back of his friend’s shoulders as lightly as he could, and when even that made the muscles in Bubbles’ back tense up in pain, Crosby worked the bar over and over between his palms and washed Bubbles’ watercolour skin with his bare hands, touch so delicate it tickled his fingertips. Bubbles’ shoulders began to convulse. Then the sobs came, and Crosby took a step forward and rested his cheek on the back of Bubbles’ neck, slick with suds. His heart was pounding as the water soaked his hair and his shirt stuck to Bubbles’ wet skin. He didn’t try to explain his behaviour to himself, or start writing this scene out in his head as it happened, as he frequently did. Crosby wrapped his arms around Bubbles, strapped himself to his best friend like he was his parachute, and held on.

[starwarstoxicfemslash]

rogue squadron wives polycule. i mean they gotta be doing SOMETHING while having unspecified adventures offpage

ok but the mess of cheating and ethical and unethical polyamory... you know what they say about military wives

[silentmagi]

Delinquent Vigilante Izumi AU: Eri & Legion of D.O.O.M in "Without A Hitch"

From "Dearly Beloved" to "I do" it was surprising how smoothly getting hitched could be to a small squadron of wives. Well there was one purple interloper that was ejected via trebuchet, but otherwise. Not a hitch.

No, Eri, you can't ride the trebuchet...

The Stories Untold

If you want to write one of these, please just link me

[iguana-braces]

Y'all, I've been thinking about this fic all day and I finally ironed out a bit that was giving me so much trouble so--

Finally, here's a snippet of Chapter 3 of Tales from the Danger Zone!!!!

It felt like he had just fallen asleep when some kind of horn blared through the room. Just as Pete lurched awake, the room was flooded with blinding fluorescent light and he had to fight back the youthful urge to pull the covers over his head. 

"On your feet, cadets!" barked a voice from the doorway. Still partially blinded, Pete felt his way to the floor from the top bunk and stood at the end of the bed next to Nick, who looked like he was still asleep standing up. The clock at the end of the room read 0300 hours. 

Jesus, it's still the middle of the night. 

Strangely enough, slouching against a pillar in the middle of the room with a clipboard and a stern expression was– "Chuck? I thought you were one of us." 

The former veterinarian merely shrugged. "Never said I was." 

"You didn't say much of anything coherent last night."

Another man was at the other end of the room, also carrying a clipboard, who Pete vaguely recognized as having also been at the bar with them mere hours ago. Once all the men were on their feet, he scribbled something on his clipboard before he began speaking. "Good morning, gentlemen. My name is Ranger Williams, callsign Sundown. And this is my co-pilot, Ranger Piper, callsign Chipper." 

"Oh, great," Nick muttered beside him. "They have callsigns." 

So Kazansky and Kerner weren't the only Jaeger pilots in California. How many more were there? And how’d they get to be there? 

"For the next eight weeks, we will be your squadron leaders, your mentors, your brothers, your confidants. But anything we say is law. We say jump, you say how high.” Sundown circled the room, sizing up each of the cadets like a seasoned drill sergeant. Despite his resentment towards the ranger for being woken up so suddenly, Pete liked him already. “Hope you enjoyed your last taste of freedom last night, because you won't be leaving this base for a while. If you make it past the first training cut, you get a whole week off. Besides that, you get one free weekend per month. When that weekend occurs is up to you, but you have to get permission in advance."

"What about extenuating circumstances?" Nick asked, raising his hand. 

"Like what?" Sundown replied, backtracking to stand in front of the querying cadet. 

"Well, my wife's having our baby in a few months. I won't know when exactly until it, you know, starts happening. I’d like to be there if I can." 

Sundown glanced towards his copilot, who merely shrugged his response. Continuing his promenade around the room, Ranger Williams decided, "Exceptions can be made, but you better have solid evidence of those extenuating circumstances. I don't want to hear that all of a sudden, twelve of you have wives giving birth at the same exact time."

"Of course. I'll bring back the umbilical cord, sir." 

Pete, and a few others, couldn't stop a few snorts and chuckles from escaping. 

"Yeah, alright, jokers. Take it away, Chip." 

Ranger Piper straightened up, but remained rooted where he was as he addressed the room. "A kaiju attack can happen at any time, as evidenced in Cabo and Manila. These creatures do not adhere to business hours. As a Jaeger pilot, you need to be ready for action at a moment's notice. There will be more drills like this in the future and you will be graded on just how quickly you can become functional. Seeing as you’ve all managed to stay awake for the past few minutes, you’ve passed your first drill. Congratulations."

Clapping his hands together loudly, startling half the room, Sundown concluded, "That's all we have, folks. Y'all sleep tight now."

Lord knows when the actual chapter will be posted cuz I'm about to move and then I'm going to back to school 🙃, but I need all 3 members of the audience for this to know that I'm still here!!!!! Still thinking about this AU!!! Constantly!!!!

Tags for those audience members 😅 - @redfurrycat @milficeman @superioraxolotl @salemfrogtrials @film-in-my-soul @sadpetalsstuff @all-time-fanatic @worldsoldestpizzaslice @katieshook02 @oababy @goobieboobie @fantasias-creativebubble @straightforwardly @queenbbarnes @stilledimperfections @slutforfics @xofangirlthingsxo @cool-ultra-nerd @blue-aconite @joaquinwhorres

(let me know if you want to be tagged or want to be removed from the tags!! ❤️)

[kaminocasey]

My 2024 TBR List

*Ahsoka - EK Johnston *Order 66 - Karen Traviss (Along w/ 501st) *Happy Place by Emily Henry *Weyward - Emilia Hart *Shark Heart - Emily Habeck *Advika & the Hollywood Wives - Kirthana Ramisetti *What the River Knows - Isabel Ibanez *Stories of Light & Dark - Lou Anders *Into the Dark - Claudia Gray *A New Dawn - John Jackson Miller *Picking Daisies on Sundays - Liana Cincotti *Dark Disciple - Christie Golden *Black Spire - Delilah S Dawson *Alphabet Squadron - Alexander Freed

[codmw2019-2022]

Modern Warfare® Campaign: Biographies of the Story’s Major Players.

Part 3 (1 of 2): Farah Karim

October 03, 2019 by Call of Duty Staff

Farah Ahmed Karim

Leader, Urzikstan Liberation Force (ULF)

Farah Amhed Karim is the founding member and commander of the Urzikstan Liberation Force, battling foreign occupation since 2010. She is renowned not only for leading the resistance against enemy troops, but for establishing protective units to combat terror groups throughout Urzikstan. Under Farah’s leadership, civilian militias play a critical role in the fight to return their subjugated population to sovereignty. Her forces comprise male and female volunteer fighters with maximum age limit. Farah does not allow those under the age of 15 to take part in frontline fighting, but anyone and everyone is invited to undergo military training and join her reserves.

To protect her people from owing a debt to the world, Farah accepts only select funding and equipment from the international community, preferring to keep her forces reliant on their own for material support. Raising her army with little more than commandeered weapons and unofficial support from the SAS’s legendary Bravo Squadron, Farah says “Will is the most powerful weapon.” As a girl, in the opening salvos of the invasion, she and her brother Hadir were caught, spending their teens held as POWs by General Barkov’s rogue forces where captives were subjected to forced labor, routinely witnessing acts of chemical experimentation on fellow prisoners.

In 2009, Farah led an escape, fighting alongside a western aide unit. She vowed then to give her life to freeing her country from subjugation and chaos. When asked if women can be as effective as men in combat, Farah describes the question as sexist and objectifying. Farah wants to give women their rightful place, not only in combat, but in a society free from war. For Farah, war is more than the liberation of land. “We are also fighting to free our people from old-fashioned ways.”

Impressed by seeing females in combat and leadership roles, wives, mothers, and daughters fight without pay, food or medicine, to follow Farah into battle, Farah Karim’s modern beliefs have had far-reaching effects, and occupying soldiers often directly hunt and target her. Labeled a terrorist organization by the Russian government for their long-standing resistance, Russian soldiers are ordered to make no distinction between the terror group Al-Qatala and the liberation fighters under Farah’s command. AQ terrorists pursue Farah and the ULF with a mandate to kill.

Farah’s worldview draws a sharp line of demarcation between herself and the enemy. “The enemy has come where they are not welcomed and taken what is not theirs.” Farah refuses to stage counter-offensives or launch attacks beyond the borders of her country, believing with all her heart that what distinguishes her from the terrorists and the occupiers is never crossing the line from defender to aggressor. “We are a protective force, we are rescuers, not killers.”