#dogs in wartime

[newyorkthegoldenage]

During World War II, even dogs pitched in. Nearly 400,000 Boys Club of America members throughout the nation participated in a victory program to train themselves for the part they might have had to play in the war and in defense industries. Many of the clubs also adopted dogs and carrier pigeons. In this photo, Richard Barnes of the Madison Square Boys Club teaches his dog Hercules to hold a stick in his mouth after finding a “wounded soldier,” April 1, 1942.

Photo: Robert Wands for the AP

[cinnamoncascadian]

Is it permanent?

Posted with @lokewolf82's permission from:

https://x.com/little_wolf82/status/1614702878538752000?s=20

2023-01-15

[sugar-coated-saphic]

For a while I was in my Todd solondz period, watching welcome to the dollhouse, wiener dog, happiness and life during wartime (my favourite)

And now I'm in my Paul Thomas Anderson period watching boogie nights, magnolia, licorice pizza and punch drunk love (they're all my favourites). Mt favourite thing pta writes is relationships (Claudia and Jim, Gary and Alana etc), gay people (Donnie, Scotty and the gay couple from licorice pizza, and also characters (I like Scotty and reed, Gary, and Phil Parma= though two of those characters are played by John C reily and Philip Seymour Hoffman who are two of my favourite actors so I could be biased)

[bshocommons]

When I met Fule he said that given the way Putin had begun fighting for Ukraine—and this was before Crimea was stripped from Ukraine and a single shot fired in the east—he seemed “like a dog with its teeth clamped into a man’s neck.” A year later it seemed rather that the dog had its teeth clamped onto Ukraine’s leg. Ukraine could not shake its bleeding leg free, but the dog, unable to do more harm, still would not let go.

Tim Judah, In Wartime: Stories from Ukraine

[petnews2day]

Delightful animation retells extraordinary tale of hero WWII air force dog – The First News

New Post has been published on https://petn.ws/at3BK

Delightful animation retells extraordinary tale of hero WWII air force dog – The First News

Some 80 years after his death, Ciapek has found himself standing alongside Poland’s other hero animals after having his story immortalised courtesy of an animated film produced for the Institute of National Remembrance. IPN Boasting all the qualities necessary of a dashing wartime airman, Corporal Ciapek was flirtatious, cheeky, brave and always the first in […]

See full article at https://petn.ws/at3BK #DogNews #AirForce, #Animation, #Dog, #Dogs, #Film, #InstituteOfNationalRemembrance, #IPN, #Shoes, #TadeuszKarwowski, #Wartime, #WhatIfAnimalsCouldTalk, #Wwii

[aposematic-jessica]

it always felt right to me that rachel died in animorphs. that of all the animorphs she was the one who died. not that i wanted her to, i loved her. but because any of the other kids, there would have been a poetic nature to it. jake, the leader, the sacrificial lamb on the altar of wartime—wouldn’t his death have been a kind of mercy. cassie, the bleeding heart, the pacifist with bloody hands—her death a mercy too, a final refusal. marco, the child who would have laughed his way to the grave and who followed his commanders orders to it, too—no more back to the wall, no more dead eyes. aximili, starchild, lost child soldier still fighting his parents’ war—there’s a cruel irony in him dying without ever seeing his kinsmen again. tobias, the inhuman boy, boy with a hawk’s heart—he had no one to go home to, wouldn’t dying have cut his story neatly?

but rachel? rachel, the child soldier who was more at home on the battlefield than she ever was anyone else? rachel, one cousin’s attack dog, one cousin’s murderer? rachel with the filthy, filthy hands that no tears could wash clean? rachel who couldn’t have known what to do with herself after the war was over? there’s no poetry or irony in her dying. it just makes sense. cruel, cold, statistical sense. rachel fought and fought and killed and murdered and did things no child’s psyche could survive but hers, and she died because her violent tastes were useful. and they ended with the logical conclusion! of course rachel died. that’s the thesis of the damn series, isn’t it?

[reviews-sky-1]

New Movie Thoughts!

Sniff the Dog in Wartime (Snuf de hond in oorlogstijd, 2008)

Link

[metamatar]

Since the early days of British involvement with Zionism, Churchill sanctioned the dispossession of non-Jewish Palestinians by assuring that they have no voice in the affairs of their own land. “In the interests of the Zionist policy,” he stated in August 1921 as the government minister in charge of Britain’s colonies, “all elective institutions have so far been refused to the Arabs.”

A snapshot of Churchill’s stances on Palestine and race is found in the records of the 1937 Peel Commission hearings, convened to address a major revolt in Palestine. [...]

Horace Rumbold [...] asked whether Zionist policy is worth “the lives of our men, and so on.” And did it follow, he asked Churchill, that having “conquered Palestine we can dispose of it as we like?”

Churchill replied to that and similar questions by invoking commitments given when Britain captured Palestine toward the end of 1917. “We decided in the process of conquest of [Palestine] to make certain pledges to the Jews,” Churchill said.

Apparently skeptical, the head of the commission, William Peel, asked Churchill if it is not “a very odd self-government” when “it is only when the Jews are a majority that we can have it.”

Churchill responded with a blunt argument of might: “We have every right to strike hard in support of our authority.”

The historian Reginald Coupland nonetheless told the hearings that the “average Englishman” would wonder why the Arabs were being denied self-government, and why we had “to go on shooting the Arabs down because of keeping his promise to the Jews.”

Peel, similarly, asked Churchill if the British public “might get rather tired and rather inquisitive if every two or three years there was a sort of campaign against the Arabs and we sent out troops and shot them down? They would begin to enquire, ‘Why is it done? What is the fault of these people?… Why are you doing it? In order to get a home for the Jews?’”

“And it would mean rather brutal methods,” added Laurie Hammond, who had worked with the British colonial administration in India. “I do not say the methods of the Italians at Addis Ababa,” referring to Benito Mussolini’s Ethiopian massacre of February 1937, “but it would mean the blowing up of villages and that sort of thing?” The British, he recalled, had blown up part of the Palestinian port city of Jaffa.

Peel agreed, and added that “they blew up a lot of [Palestinian] houses all over the place in order to awe the population. I have seen photographs of these things going up in the air.”

But when Peel questioned whether “it is not only a question of being strong enough,” but of “downing” the Arabs who simply wanted to remain in their own country, Churchill lost patience.

“I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger,” he countered, “even though he may have lain there for a very long time.” He denied that “a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the Black people of Australia,” by their replacement with “a higher grade race.”

[therealslimshakespeare]

|| Sanchez ||

Requested? ☑️

Circa: October 1943

Summary: Upon being shot down on his last mission, Major Gale Cleven finds himself in the company of a female officer -and not one from the 100th. While already inclined to show solidarity, the increasing threat towards his fellow officer forces him to act. The jeopardy such action puts him in is more than he could have ever estimated, as is the fallout upon finding women he knows in the stalag

Cast: Cleven, Sanchez, Demarco, Brady, Egan, Kendeigh, Lu Smith, Ida Brady

Author’s note: the first portion of this segment is in the immediate time frame of Gale being downed. The second portion follows the events of What Took Him So Long? the mirroring of both these segments will hopefully prove enjoyable but I worry perhaps confusing

Content Warning: due to the disturbing content listed below the cut, I understand some may choose not to read this segment. If you’d like an abridged summary of the events herein to keep up with the series, I’d be happy to supply that 💋🌹

Warnings: usual universe warnings apply 18+ additionally for this chapter there are warnings for depiction of rape. This entire arc was produced on popular request, i have tried to portray the brutal events found herein in the most elevated and respectful terms I found effective. I would not call it graphic, however, it’s not vague either. And it’s rape. Male and female. Depiction of rape and discussion of past rape. Violence as well, obviously, fucking Nazis, ptsd from said assaults, choking, hints of childhood trauma, mentions of medical experiments. General cloud of dread. With light at the end of the tunnel.

Note: my blog and writings are strictly 18+, this means that we are all adults here enjoying free connection and art. The themes of this particular story are mature, at times harrowing and for some, potentially intolerable. No worries if the latter is your case, feel free to move on or block tags. On the other hand, please take responsibility for your reading, I provide warnings as a courtesy but I cannot cover them all and if something doesn’t sit right, please exercise adult autonomy and make your way to the nearest exit. Xo

When Gale extended his hand to aid the next prisoner up into the truck, he hadn't anticipated one so small or so brown. Busted knuckles that had rivulets of crimson pouring over copper flesh; he was mildly fascinated by it. His concussed mind flashed to ‘Lu Smith and her shaded face, before belatedly realizing it was indeed a woman’s lighter frame he was hauling in beside him to the shrill insistence of German threats.

The woman who flopped on the bench opposite him, legs spread wide and boots braced with a brow like a thundercloud, was not Smith. And for that Cleven was relieved.

Last he had seen of Ida and Graham’s fort, they’d been carrying on over Breman, and while he had every reason to think few had made it back, who’s to say they weren’t lucky? And Ida could fly a tin can on the fumes of an alcoholic's breath. Smith wasn’t here, Ida either, and he tried to arrange his mind to that, to not even let the doubt creep in, and instead took to studying the newcomer in between the passing of more downed airmen filling the benches.

The incessant barking of their dogs must have been half strategy, the throbbing in his back working its way into his head as the minutes went by. It had taken too long for them to be brought to Luftwaffe jurisdiction, he knew that much, even with giving them the benefit of the doubt for wartime communication failures and muddy roads. He’d been well read and prepared and braced for the outcome of being downed since before they left the states, grilled his men on procedure, on their rights, their privileges as prisoners of war, also on their duties to silence. The fact he’d never truly thought it would happen to him didn’t mean he wasn’t perfectly knowledgeable about the requirements.

So far Cleven had managed not to say a single word to anyone, the farmer with the pitchfork probably didn’t speak English and a wheezy “please don’t kill me” seemed like a flaccid bunch of last words that Gale refused to let off his tongue.

Instead he let them haul him to the nearest company of Wehrmacht soldiers and had been marched for ages by them, had seen and given Benny a nod when his column of prodded, sheepskin wearing sad bastards merged with Buck’s column of the same. Kendeigh hadn’t been there; crew get themselves killed in a hard landing as often as an exploded plane.

Cleven thought about breaking the silence now to ask the woman opposite where the hell she came from, her patches not what he was used to. But no, bad precedent, he stayed quiet and watchful as the Krauts pushed the last of the men into the overcrowded truck and snapped the tailgate shut. Someone could easily make a run for it by jumping out, but the jeep following behind at a steady few yards with a bristling assortment of machine guns suggested against it.

Once the truck began to move, Benny leaned forward beside him on their jostling journey and motioned in an ingratiating arc at the woman’s patches. “I don’t know those.” he said what Gale had been thinking, half yelling over the clamor of voices and the roar of the truck engine, “Looks half like varsity shit.”

Gale wasn’t sure his kindhearted co-Pilot meant those sorts of digs out of innocence or as a tactic to get reticent folks to defend themselves with the very information they might has previously withheld. As said, Gale didn’t know, but he knew it never failed. The woman went from scowling at Cleven -a pastime she had set herself to with such diligence that every time he tried to make discreet observance of her she already had her eyes on him- and turned to Benny.

“201st, fighters.” well that explained nothing and everything. “Sanchez.” she offered Benny after a beat, maybe knowing her name was hardly damning considering her looks.

Kinda like how Benny looked and sounded likely to have a name that started with “De-“ and a dog named meatball. “Eagle Wings, huh?” Benny nodded at the patch. “And a uh, uh triangle.” he couldn’t make it out all the way from his seat, but Buck could -the patch read ‘Mexico’ above a magnificent spread of Eagle Wings with a green triangle as the body.

They were all a long way from home.

“Aztec,” Sanchez tweaked it, “Aztec Eagles.”

“Mexican?” Benny asked, the accent wasn’t one he commonly heard in Philly but even crappy shows and movies got some things right, and Benny had seen his fair share of westerns.

“Sanchez.” she repeated instead and was back to scowling at Buck.

They seemed to drive for all day, until the light began to dim and what was a pleasant day turned into a misty chill as evening grew near.

The truck came to a halt at last, barbed wire and mud about them and the painted checkpoint arm whirled by as they drove into the dulag and came to a final stop. In the quiet that followed the cut of the engines, the rain was suddenly audible, pattering on the canvas above them. At the resumption of barked order and harsh commands the prisoners stood up, gingerly hopping out of the truck with just enough quickness not to be hit and just enough slowness not to be shot. Didn't help much anyway, muzzles were pointed quite liberally around here and you just had to hope the trigger fingers weren’t so generous.

The dulag guards turned away a good seven of those remaining after the packed truck had dispensed its human cargo. They didn't have enough room.

Go up further, to the next one, go to Frankfurt -those seemed to be the directions.

Directions their drivers and guards took poorly; it was late, it was drizzling and Buck could guess how little they enjoyed the on-edge detail of ferrying outnumbering prisoners around the countryside. They cut down on the number of guards, five to go with: a driver, two in the jeep, one more in the cab and another supposed to be with them in the truck back.

After a bit more haggling, the Dulag accepted three more prisoners. Cleven made sure to stay put, he didn’t know the foreign arguments well enough to decipher all but half the protesting seemed to be over who got Sanchez. And he sure as hell wasn’t leaving her here without a superior officer as defense. A dulag guard had hopped up into the truck and shined his flashlight at Buck’s markings, that’s when he mentioned something about Frankfurt.

Benny didn’t move without Cleven and so, when the truck took off again into the evening gloom, it was Buck and Benny and Sanchez and another hapless kid who looked all of fifteen and was, according to his over liberal offer of conversation, a scared shitless waist gunner.

“They’re arguing over you.” Cleven finally chose to speak up. It could get rough, the guards’ distinction of her. He felt it with a premonitory dread that came from too many right predictions as a child. He hated this feeling, he hated how right it usually was, he hated how it was usually met with folks telling him he worried too much. He’d taken to not saying much the older he grew, watching things play out, grieving over foreseen misfortunes all on his own. Until he met Bucky. But right now he had to speak up, this time he had to.

Yet Sanchez remained scowling, “They argued over you.” she retorted.

Gale gave her a tight smile, “I’m a major.”

“I’m a lieutenant.”

“I can see that.” he proceeded cautiously, “But they just took in a baker's dozen of lieutenants. No problem. But they didn’t take you.”

“Didn’t take him either.” she nodded to Benny.

“His captain’s ass never left the seat.” Cleven said, “You were on the ground, ready, they put you back. I’m tellin’ you, if they can’t decide who you are, where you go, I’m gonna need your assurance you’ll fight like hell with me. For recognition of it.”

-Just don’t say I worry too much, Gale thought desperately, he could almost feel Bucky’s gentle squeeze of his shoulder, like shaking out the tension in a cat as he said the same; his back was so stiff he thought it might snap if Bucky did it now but -but John wasn’t here. Thank Almighty God.

“You know you look more German than most of our guards.” Sanchez replied and Benny suddenly snapped to attention beside him at that. “I’m not assuring you of shit.”

“He’s not a damn spy!” Benny insisted, more loudly and vehemently than was maybe best with guards all around.

“You know this how?” she asked, unmoved.

“He’s my goddamn co-Pilot.”

“Pilot?”

“Ya think he just ripped his own cheek open for a part?”

Sanchez swayed with the jerk of a pothole and shook her head, “Maybe you both are.”

Smart, and a worse worrier than himself. Cleven liked her immensely and stared out the flap of the tarp, watching the rain pour down, dusk fully settling over everything outside and the trailing jeep’s headlights poured into their little haven, whiting-out his vision of the road.

“I’m not leavin’ this seat ‘till a Dulag takes you.” he told her, it was all he had to give. For her part she seemed determined to wait and see before expending any thanks. He didn’t expect it.

They weren’t in any city when the truck brakes checked them in a squeaking lurch, followed by the sound of tires turning off gravel and into squelching mud and then the echoing silence of the engine being cut once more. This wasn’t Frankfurt, and this was no engine failure. From the headlights of the following jeep, all Gale could make out was trees. So many damn trees. It had stopped raining.

“This isn’t Frankfurt.” He remarked to the guard sitting with them, the sullen fellow had not said a word for five hours and he didn’t start spilling now.

The others made an appearance when they joined them in the truck, hopping up with muddy jackboots and the clatter of what seemed to be a portable camp stove, along with rucksacks, utensils and the like. They unwound rope from the cloth neck of one sack and poured out oats, and another seemed to have been wrapping some preserved sort of meat. Gale eyed the discarded rope where it lay on the floor with the lust of a man used to working with what he was given, while Benny stared with barely concealed longing at the now simmering concoction on the tin stove.

These guards made conversation, or at least they tried. But not even the scared little gunner was in the mood to reply, and so it remained one sided. His boys hadn’t eaten since chow this morning at the crack of dawn, and Cleven didn’t blame them for their hunger but his own stomach was in loathsome, uneasy knots, and by observance of Sanchez’s wary sullenness, he figured he wasn’t alone in that. A dinner break for the Germans was one thing, he guessed, but the solitude was oppressive along with the forced proximity of all these grinning enemies stirring and chopping their porridge bits and laughing amongst themselves on the benches and floor next to them.

When they offered Demarco a hunk of whatever they had prepared, to his credit, Benny didn’t even acknowledge them. Their offer had been mocking enough, even without understanding the language.

“You must be hungry, ja?” The one with sergeant stripes cajoled, greasy teeth flashing, the muggy smells of rain and sweat and steaming food were all so noxiously trapped under the tarp, Gale had to bite his cheek to keep down the salient precursors of vomit.

The sergeant tried it on Sanchez next, insistently holding out a hunk of the meat impaled on the knife tip. She wouldn’t even look at him and that was an admirable thing until it served to anger him, and the man reached out, hand snagging in her waistband and hauling her smaller body beside him on the bench with ease. Benny was almost to his feet when Cleven fetched him back with a grip of his own, sitting him down firmly.

He managed to keep his voice perfectly neutral when interrupting the man’s flashlight lit perusal of Sanchez’s frozen features, “Hey, she doesn’t mean any harm, you let her go now.”

The sergeant looked up, less surprised to have gained a reaction from Gale but maybe at hearing his voice at last. “Only trying to be good hosts, ja? She von’t eat. Neither you?”

“Just not hungry.” Gale countered mildly.

“But ve must thank you,” the Sergeant laughed, and Sanchez stayed stiff as board in his grip, shying away from the still offered meat as much as the touch “so many parcels of gifts you drop.”

“Let her go.” Gale insisted, gently.

“She not drop zeez parcels?” The sergeant asked.

“She’s not a bomber.” Gale grit his teeth, “I do the dropping.”

The sergeant pulled her jacket apart in curiosity, thumbing at the patches, “Not’z a bomber?” Cleven felt his tongue go numb as the man tugged at her clothes, it was a curious inspection so far and yet- “Then it’s you should be given meat, ja?” The man left off his tugging and rose from his squat on the floor to approach Gale, the man was huge upon closer acquaintance, “For Hamburg,” he insisted through gritted teeth, his anger more palpable up close, and he pressed the meat to Gale’s tightly shut mouth, “and for ze little ones you turned to ash with your parcels.”

Gale kept his jaw locked and his mouth shut, eyes meeting the sergeants’, unblinking and unsorry.

“Open!”

Gale didn’t obey. The man sighed as if he were actually a host turned down. Gale could feel Benny’s eyes on him, wary, careful, his whole posture shockingly good at blending in, a damn good man to have next to you in a place like this.

“We have no beer,” the man confessed, knife and meat still pressing insistently, “or else we would offer it for such heroes. But not to fret, you have provided refreshment, ja? Full belly and beer iz ze best, full belly and a voman iz better.”

Carefully Gale turned his head away from the offered chunk, “That's a prisoner of war, not a woman.” He saw how little effect that had and added for benefit, “And your superiors are waiting for her.”

The man scoffed loudly and turned towards his men who were, Gale could now perceive past his bulk, scraping the last of their tin plates without so much as looking at the bowls -they were eying her. With intent. The kind of intent Gale wished he didn’t recognize but he did, carnival dins and race tracks after dark being hardly the best places to grow up unless you wanted to learn how often folks really would act on their worst impulses.

Not tonight, not if he could fucking help it. By Benny’s taut posture beside him, he knew he had an ally in the assumption that this would end in a fight. He eyed the rope lying on the floor.

“Eat with us.” The sergeant insisted, “She von’t be alive to tell on you, prisoners make a run for it all ze time. Must be shot. Ve’ll let you fuck her too.”

Oh Jesus- “Your superiors know-“ Cleven reminded, voice starting to shake in rage from the keyed up adrenaline he was barely keeping a lid on.

“-zey know emergencies happen.” The man snapped, almost annoyed at Gale’s persistence, as if he expected less protest from an airman at the prospect of one of his own being abused. “Zey would send more guards if zey cared as much as you ‘sink.”

The men had finished their bowls, they set them aside on the bench, pushing the stove away as well. Clearing the floor.

“Or fuck, oh fuck.” the gunner kid, who Gale had almost forgotten about on his end of the bench, began to panic, sounding like he was retching his prayers.

Gale met Benny’s eyes, then down to the rope on the floor, then back up. It was good to have a man who got it. Always got it, his Benny.

“Can I go first.” Gale asked, and held his breath.

“Vat?” The sergeant lowered the knife in surprise, the meat chunk slid and fell to the floor but neither cared.

Gale let his lips twitch, his eyes conspired, “I don’t wanna catch whatever shit you fuckers got.”

He could hear more than see Sanchez begin the thrash on her bench but she made no progress, maybe already being held. “And you von’t tell?” the sergeant asked.

Gale gave him a look that could be universally interpreted as ‘whadda ya think?’ and bent to retrieve the meat nugget from the muddy floor, right by the sergeant’s boot, the rope was just out of reach. When he straightened his back he popped the soiled peace offering in his mouth, he chewed it loudly, the rush of an imminent attempt thrumming so strongly in his body it replaced the queasiness for a moment. The sergeant clapped his hands together, once, in appreciation for the despicable deal.

Gale knew they wanted nothing more than sport of him, it was no comradely favor to allow him to go first, it was blackmail and it was likely something worse once he got his pants down. But they could all play along, he just needed to get close to her. They had her jacket off already, her boots, too.

This didn’t really have a chance in hell but if she was like Ida, or Smith or anyone else, she’d rather be shot barefoot than have this happen to her. Gale supposed dying with German ham stuck in his teeth was about a draw with being killed via pitchfork prongs through the belly.

He didn’t process much when he stood up: not beyond the two paces it took to get to her, the men holding her on the bench seat and wrestling at her clothes, the way Benny didn’t say a word. He really was thinking of Benny in those paces, hoping his co-pilot was ready -it didn’t occur to him even once that Demarco might be as fooled as these sick fucks around them, letting go of her all too quickly at the prospect of a degrading show.

Cleven had his hand around her necktie, pulling her off the bench before he’d even really registered being close enough, he’d forgotten how to hold his face for this act but maybe the mad determination passed for lust, he didn’t think of anything but yanking her up when he felt a sudden, stinging slice against his right cheek. She’d been waiting for this moment, smart thing had a penknife hidden somewhere, it was something one of the Banshees would have pulled, and the mirroring slice was disorienting enough that he wasted a good two seconds in smarting surprise as warm blood trickled down his chin and the guards began to shout.

Someone else wrested the knife from her grip, someone else held onto her wrist now, his moment of shocked pain wasted his fucking plan.

Still, he tried.

Cleven yanked her further toward the middle of the space, spun her around despite her incessant clawing -and maybe the actions seemed to the guards in accordance with his plan, plus some anger from the wound. He didn’t know what they thought, he only knew that no one halted him, they just gathered closer to see, never expecting it, just as he didn’t expect to manage it when he got her turned to the open flap of the tarp and bodily hurled her out its back, into the night.

Benny must’ve tripped the first one, a clunky helmet clattering as the guy fell flat at Cleven’s feet, right as he turned around to help. It wasn’t ever gonna be a nice fight, or a likely chance for her to have even a ten second start but it was something besides sitting on a bench and watching them violate a fellow officer. He’d have done the same for Benny. Just as Benny now looked pretty resigned to dying in this fight, getting in a couple of excellent, unapologetic punches with the next guard who manned up and realized what was what. -It’s gotta be a let down to be keyed up for a nice orgy in the woods only to end up having to play guard again. Gale wanted to manage to kill one before he got shot, that’s all he really wanted anymore.

And for the girl to get out, for all the girls to get out wherever they were.

He was grappling with the closest one, the guy nearest the flap who almost managed to give chase to her right away, when he felt something that gave him a chill of horror he never expected. Rope; he registered it slipping down his chin, making him let go of his opponent to try to slip his fingers between the twine and his collared throat -too late. He felt himself bodily yanked back, a burn in his throat all consuming and the sudden deprivation of air turning him into a desperate mess, nothing useful about his scuffing feet and clawing hands.

They were giving orders to go after her, and two men were scrambling out the back as Gale began to sag. From his new position gasping on the floor, Gale could see that they had a gun to Benny’s gut, while the gunner kid hadn’t needed such firmness, he was braced at the back of the truck in absolute terror.

Well this was over faster than desired but -to be expected. Fuck.

“Halt.” Cleven felt the sergeant’s boot kick at the side of his head, emphasizing his order to cease his struggles.

World grew fuzzy then, not at all like drowsy sleepiness in a hammock but instead like being caught in the river current when you thought you’d managed to strike the ford just right. Gale’s pulse thudded between his temples like the blows of a sledgehammer on his skull, his lungs burned, the cuts on his cheeks blared their pain like screaming infants demanding to be heard above the rest of the pain and terror and fury. He could taste the blood gushing out of them from the pressure, the cuts spurted and dribbled down into his already choking mouth.

What a way to go.

He felt cold air, he felt himself drug and a painful drop to what was likely muddy ground, felt himself dragged some more and his own finger -wedged between the rope and his throat- hurt him worst of all, that knuckle digging into his windpipe.

When some slack finally came, it was minimal, only enough for his body to heave and gag and try to force air into collapsed pipes, enough for sounds of cries and shots and clanking metal to flood into his consciousness. He was either at heaven’s gate or on the cold hard ground at eye level with the beaming jeep headlights -that would explain the blinding glow in his vision.

Or else, heaven wasn’t half what it was cracked up to be.

Someone or a few someone’s, were standing over him and he could see then that he was tied by the makeshift noose to the trailer hitch of the truck, tarp flaps widened far above him like stage drapes. Was Benny still alive in there?

“Maybe you defend her because you too are female?” One guard suggested while prodding at his crotch with a boot, and that made Gale’s frozen, sluggish, oxygen deprived blood begin to pound. “Hübsch.” they complimented him repeatedly -pretty, so very pretty. Too pretty for a man. “We should check, ja?”

He spared one single hope, that Benny wasn’t watching. He didn’t hope they wouldn’t act on their threats, and he hadn’t any hope left that he could actually save Sanchez from what they were even now wrestling her to the ground for. But it felt worsened somehow at the idea of his co-pilot seeing him this way, he yanked his head against the noose and regretted it after. The constriction made his eyes burn, and all his efforts were once again concentrated on grappling with his breathing as they tugged at his clothes and made sport of discovering he was not, in fact, lying about being male.

They laughed, they touched, they said he was some mistake. A face like that had no business owning a cock. He wished he knew less German, in fact he knew little but there are kindnesses and there are cruelties that need no articulation to be understood.

The earth beside him, the mud beneath Sanchez’s hands, was tilled up from her nails, like furrows for planting and her face was so near his when they threw her down, he could make out the spit and blood on her lips.

“Should I?” One was saying and they had their knife out, Gale’s panicked mind had a generous moment of hope that they would cut the rope, that he would soon be able to breathe again. Or else his throat, and he’d not breathe anymore. Both sounded perfect.

They cut open his flight suit instead, a hand heavy on the back of his head, turning him fully over, and then there was the feeling of a warm and sweaty body beginning to roll on top of him.

The mud was cold beneath his cheek, smooth on the forest floor, none of the rough gravel of that endless road, only mud and pine needles sticking to his face now, their knobby little ends roughing up the older wound on his cheek. Every time the guard pushed closer, it scraped him -that blade to his other cheek. The metal tip glittered in the periphery of his one good eye, shining from the headlights.

Sanchez had begun to scream.

Hoarse, wounded, fox like.

It felt very much like a demented dream, even down to the hunter’s attitude above him, the grunts, the prey-like waiting for the lethal blow. He wasn’t sure how long he had floated with only her wounded cries as a grounding agent when he felt a splatter against his lower back and consciousness came back with a heave of his chest and a revolt so strong he fought again against the noose. Predictably, it only tightened. There was cold on his skin then, when the man drew away, fresh night breezes mocking the mess he’d made of Gale, kerosene and exhaust fumes ruining the smell of soil beneath him. Then the heat was back, someone else draped over him, and Gale dug his fingers into the earth too, readying for what the other had spared him. It didn’t matter, if they tired themselves out with him, that was one less -now two less- to use her instead. There had been only five.

This one flipped him over, Gale went easily, both hands occupied straining to get even a finger between the asphyxiating pressure of the rope and his throat.

“He is easier now.” he heard the man laughing, foggy, hazy, unfairly. “The bitch has gone quiet, maybe he will make music, huh?”

Gale frantically turned his head to seek her out, desperate to find her alive -she couldn’t be dead. Not just from this, surely not, what could they do to kill her?-but his own vision was spotting and his throat spasmed in protest. They surely could kill them this way, they could do anything they wanted because they could kill them. And no one would ever hold them to account.

His poor girls. What were they doing to his poor girls?

It burned enough to jolt him awake again, both the forceful entry and the smack to his cut cheek. They wanted him awake, aware, he refused to look at them. This was reminiscent, bright lights and unwanted hands and all but the carnival music missing. He kept staring to the side at her, and at her face, at the way the headlights lit them both up like a carnival spectacle and cast the shadows of their tormentors in looming, grotesque proportions against the treeline. She had her eyes closed, face almost suffocated in the soil, balled fist growing lax beside his own, just out of reach. She didn’t even react when the next replaced the other. There were only five, Gale repeated to himself, there were only five.

No, no, no.

“Smith,” he begged her, “Smith don’t fuckin’ give up on me now.”

His poor girls.

Gale’s own voice made him cringe, how hoarse it was, how young, what a beg it sounded like, how punctuated each word was with the winding pain of a fresh thrust. But her eyes flew open at his call.

Sanchez, her name was Sanchez, he reminded himself. And Smith was with Ida, probably throwing the ball at the flack house after making it back from Breman. She had to be. He didn’t want to live in a world where Lu felt what he felt now as the man shuddered inside him, used him like a skein, a shell, a vessel, hot breath stinging at his cuts.

“Stay with me Sanchez.” he muttered, wondering if he had it in him to do the same. He didn’t have the luxury of ignoring his tormenter any longer, he felt his face gripped and turned, cuts smarting beneath calloused fingertips, cheeks being squished like Bucky used to do in play. The yeasty splatter spit landing on his own tongue was somehow more revolting than all the rest. He gagged, he struggled, his body was on fire.

Smith was screaming again.

There were only five.

He refused to remember more until there was a sudden absence of the heat and the breath and the tearing pain, and if he wasn’t so drugged on misery he might have thought everyone seemed a little rushed at the end. Not how he expected them to be with all the time in the world to wipe their pricks, close their pants, pull out a pistol and deliver a headshot. One apiece here in the mud. See ya there, Benny, he thought dismally, not bothering to open his eyes.

But then there were sounds of squealing tires and the roar of engines and the white bright glow behind his eyelids grew in intensity until he realized -in a fumbled state of what felt like being redressed- that someone else had pulled up to this horror show. There’d only been five and now- now, oh fuck, he didn’t think he could, no, no, no, he yanked at his noose, half hoping to strangle himself or at least be caught fighting this.

If he didn’t know much German when lucid and keen, he certainly wasn’t adept at deciphering the angry babble above him when half dead, half uncaring about listening for an order to flip him over for the next or to blow his brains out. No, no he was far away in the Silver Wings and Maureen’s boot was dug into his shoulder as she turned himself and Egan into scaffolding, all to smoke the club’s ceiling with testament of their survival for their 20th. No big bash like for 25 but it had been a milestone, as terrifyingly hopeful as it had been all too fortunate. He’d seen her cry for the first time that night, hands shaking, admitting she felt in her bones they’d not be lucky, that she’d never really thought about this part, not when she joined up, about getting so close and now she wanted to see it through she was sick to death of the idea of seeing it though being a fiery death. Well, Gale knew now she’d managed to jump, she’d not known fire.

But what else, oh what else?

Next time Cleven woke he was face down on the same old bench seat from hours before, burning ribs nothing compared to the lapping flames below his waist. The truck beneath him was moving and his cut face was only partially gentled by the feel of someone’s meaty thigh beneath him. Horrified, he startled up, hating the idea of being someone’s pet after-

-but it was Benny, looking busted as hell but alive and holding onto him lest he jolt off the bench with the next pothole. As far as he could feel, Gale had his clothes on, muddy and cold and it was daylight and they were moving. A guard he didn’t recognize was on the opposite bench near the flaps, watching them curiously with a rifle slung easily over his lap. He had wings on his lapel.

Sanchez was sat as far from him as possible near the front of the truck, alive and looking for all the world like she might kill the sniffling and unharmed gunner on the floor.

“Luftwaffe.” Benny informed him and Gale winced at their good fortune before giving his friend a pat and letting the sludge of insensibility take over again.

————————————————

“What was done to you: I am horrified.” Lt. Hausmann’s eyes were warm but his smile was cold, as cold as the holding cells, an odd dichotomy, opposite to most but not foreign to Gale. “I have heard they had intentions to hang you, yes? You, a prisoner of war. An officer. Horrifying, base, cowardly, I can only apologize for my countrymen’s attitude, they will be held to account. Was there anything else? I shall make a note. Are you well? Was there anything else?”

“There was a fighter pilot with me.” Cleven did not miss the eagerness in the man’s body language when he let loose his voice at last, hoarse from the rope and suppression of his cries. He’d been sat at this frigid desk with its proffered whiskey and smokes for half an hour already. “She was brutally raped, Lieutenant. And it is my understanding she is under Luftwaffe command now. Held here. I’d like you to make note of both, treat her accordingly.”

“Appalling.” Haussmann insisted, pen scritching away at his pad, “Noted, I-i will see that they are brought to account. Appalling. And you, Major, were you treated well? Besides your throat, I mean. Satisfactory? Honorably? I will make a note.”

The gnawed and broken thumbnail he’d bitten off hours ago slipped from between Gale’s molars. His teeth grated against each other for a split second. It was the only sound that filled the room. There’d been only five.

He passed Benny in the hall when they drug him back to his cell. But he never saw Sanchez again.

———————————————-

He didn’t see Sanchez again, not until a month later when she came with Smith. And all the others. Not until after a month of a John Brady biting through his lips with well placed anxiety over the absence of their female fellows. A month of Gale acting like he actually thought they were alright. As far as he knew, the boy’s sister was fine. Until she came through that gate, head shorn, cheek disfigured, half her buttons missing and a look in her eye that was half fury, half woe.

He was angry for Ida, but she didn’t belong trapped in a dog run with all these men. So Gale protested.

“If it can happen to you-“ John Brady had the gall to suggest at the gate, to suggest something Cleven had never confirmed. But Brady was like that, and Cleven had stopped his fight against the girls' inclusion all the same. Perhaps his fight had been less about the rules being broken, and more at the idea of having to see any more of their mistreatment, being witness to it, his rank proving useless once more. Never again. Not if he had to barter the golden gates for their safety.

———————————————--

“You ok?” Cleven asked Brady on the second day after their arrival as he counted out the syringes on the rough hewn table, one by one. He didn’t doubt the kid’s promise to get the supplies but instead the stalag doctor’s elusive provisions and willingness to comply. But sure enough, there was one for each of the girls, and a spare.

Brady gave him a tight lipped nod before expounding, “Sunnuvbitch wouldn’t dish on the iodine, I could see the damn relief package right there behind him but -no swabs. Dry stab. I guess.”

“It’s ok.” Cleven insisted, eyeing him still; he had his coat bundled about him even indoors but the buttons of his shirt beneath were redone, Gale knew that because they skipped one and started again wonky, wrong buttonhole, twice over. Like they’d been redone in haste. It hadn’t been that way when he left. “These are what we need.” he glanced up from his task at Hambone who was animatedly informing Benny of his visit.

Cleven had tried at subtlety, listening in with discretion but he couldn’t help it anymore, too curious himself. “You went with him, yeah?”

“Yes sir.” Hambone gestured to his newly smoothe cheek, stitches gone.

“So, what’s he like? The doc?”

Hamilton gave a signature sneer, “Weird as fuck and a little weirder than that. Wouldn’t fuckin’ shut up.”

“Yeah? What about?”

“Yeah!” Hamilton insisted, pissed off by it apparently, “On and on about psy- psycho -sam-“

“psychosomatic.” Brady rescued him boredly.

“-reflexes and shit. On and on. Just want the stitches out, ya know?”

“Yeah.” Cleven agreed. Waiting for the shoe to drop. He stared at the extra shot, his stomach curdling. “Just want some shots.” he added, eyes drifting up to land on Brady and his sightless stare at the opposite wall that bunked his motionless sister.

“Yeah, that was a whole other debacle.”

“Oh?” Cleven prodded, the picture of nonchalance as he started to divide the shots into groupings. He was seeing things, he was projecting, he was doing what Egan told him not to ever do -assume what has been is now what is. What he’s experienced is what everyone else has. He knew that deep down, but there was a brittle bravery to Jack Brady these days that reminded Gale too much of his own fraudulent brand of survival.

“Hammy it’s- how about you leave off.” Brady muttured. “Don’t bother the major with it.”

“Weird as fuck.” Hambone confirmed stubbornly.

“I’m the one who asked you if you thought he was weird.” Brady corrected, irritated enough by impression to continue.

“And it was! I said he was.”

“I’ve been telling you guys.” When Brady said it, it was without heat. “Him and his stupid little hammers.”

“Yeah what was all the hammering for?”

“Reflexes, Hammy. Psychosomatic.”

“Weird as fuck.”

Gale bit his tongue so hard he hoped it cleared his head before daring, “He make you take your shirt off for it?”

There was a pause in the slapping sounds of the card game ongoing behind him, Kendeigh and Demarco and Crank all freezing at the question.

“He keeps checking the shoulder.” Brady finally said, it was admittance enough.

“And the fuckin’ knee.” Hambone chipped in.

He shrugged, meeting Cleven’s eyes stubbornly, “He’s obsessed with reflexes.”

“You hurt your knee landing?”

Brady’s flat line of a mouth tugged up wryly, his eyes flitted over to his sister's motionless form. “A tad. Uh, the shots sir, he said they go in the hip. Didn't have the pamphlets, no instructions.

“I remember.” Gale had some knowledge of it, they’d all gotten a few vaccines in training, and he knew enough to ask for them in the first place, to help with whatever the poor girls might have contracted. His own eyes skittered to Kendeigh who sat at the table, making a poor show of holding her deck of cards. “Well, you first?” he pleaded.

She looked a little cross but she didn’t fight him, she rose from the table with stern imprecations on anyone skipping over her turn and cast about for a place. Gale put his hand on her shoulder and gently guided her to a corner by the bunks, it was really all the privacy he had to give.

“You’ll have to undo my belt, Ida had to do it up-“ she flashed her swollen hands again, “-my hands.”

“I got you.” he whispered, gently reaching around and loosening the belt so that her borrowed trousers sagged enough for him to get at the meat of her hip.

Johnny was rolling Ida over in their bunk beside him, and Gale wasn’t sure who should give Ida her shot but he supposed her brother was the best candidate. Much as he hated the boy having to. But, perhaps, it wasn’t the worst thing he had to do tonight, and that made Gale’s stomach sour. He willed his hands to steadiness and undid the cap off the needle.

“Jesus Christ.” Johnny was suddenly exclaiming, hoarse and infuriated, Gale glanced aside and saw the boy had uncovered a hip alright, with his usual meticulous precision, and still, there wasn’t a spot of skin on Ida not green or else blue or else near to black. Gale stared back at Maureen and the jagged little scratches on her hip, crescent moon ditches, the blooming bruise here and there and swore not to count his blessings.

What did he know? Nothing, he knew nothing about any of them really. Except he knew such injuries didn’t have to show to hurt like hell. He drove the shot home with merciful force, squeezed in the stinging contents and retracted it, smooth and fast as anything.

“Hell, fuck, damn! Son of a carpet wearing Methodist-“ Maureen hopped around on her one good leg in barely contained frenzy at the sting.

Gale tried not to smile, “Bad huh?”

She scowled back at him in between pained giggles, “If I could give yours just for pay back, I would. Damn!” she held her hands up up once more and Cleven kept his eyes above, “But I can’t, sorry, can’t help with the other girls either, fucking useless.”

Johnny was standing, straightened up again, syringe empty, sister still just lying there. Bucky Egan out cold beside her. Gale couldn’t even allow himself to question if those two would be alright. They had to be, he didn’t think he could make it without them, make everyone else make it along with him. “She didn’t even budge.” Jack muttered.

What was there to say to that?

“She didn’t make it all the way here just to fuckin’ die.” Kendeigh assured him while straddling her chair again, voicing her peculiar brand of kindness and her true opinion on Ida Brady, “She’d never be so wet. They had a whole day to kill her on that train and they didn’t manage to.”

A day? A train? Gale didn’t know what to make of it; he was just glad that Bucky was dead to the world for now and not getting riled again by every new tidbit so that Gale would have to talk him down and also administer shots to a bunch of traumatized women.

“We’ll help sir.” Crank offered to him as he stood over the divided piles of syringes again.

“Alright,” Gale agreed, “but some may wanna give it to each other instead, you let them. Give ‘em space. I don’t think they’ll fight it, they know they need ‘em.”

Benny sauntered up beside him, flicking at the supplies, “This one yours, Buck?” he asked casually, fiddling with the spare.

Gale glanced at Brady and found him looking back at him. “Yeah.” He told Benny. “For the cuts.”

“Here, let me-“ Benny was already at it. Gale tugged his waistband down to assist, just enough to expose a sliver of pale hip and leaned a little over the table, there were bruises on his hipbones, he knew, but they could be from anything.

It did sting like hell.

“Alright you take those, and that’s enough for, yeah-“ Gale divided the supplies to each man, lingered just a moment as they went into the hall to brush by Brady, and murmured to him him lowly, “That was real thoughtful, thanks. You need one?”

To the credit of his poker face, the boy didn’t startle a bit, except for an infinitesimal flutter of an eyelid. “No sir?” he asked as if that were an idiotic question.

It was the only way Gale knew to ask him: to ask about something more. -Tell me son, just tell me you need a shot and I’ll know I’m not imagining shit. That I’ve not become paranoid and irritable and callous, too.

But then, “No sir?” and that incredulous face that left even the strongest man feeling like a dunce.

Well, that was it.

“I’ll help you tell them.” Maureen was by his side suddenly and Gale appreciated that, Smith was the only other female Lieutenant and he could use Kendeigh’s unapologetic pragmatism. “Ida told them she’d ask for remedies. Think she meant for pregnancies but, this is a start.”

There really wasn’t much of an announcement to be made; who didn’t understand what penicillin was needed for? It was needed for the dreaded thing that was hung over every bathroom stall door at canteens and on the underground in London, warning of having too good of a time and catching something. No one needed explanations, even though Gale watched their faces as Kendeigh announced and helped distribute the shots one room after another, he was trying to detect if any were hesitant or unconvinced. He found none.

He did find Sanchez, across one identical wooden room and still in her jacket with the eagle patch. She must have washed her face with the others, the mud was gone. When they locked eyes he saw a hard and warning look harden her eyes further; it made his cheek throb. Stonefaced, she broke the stare after a moment and advanced to grab her allotment, even as her fingers dragged along his palm, even when she passed him, Gale could not get her to resume it.

In one of the last rooms he went in alone -Maureen was delayed with one of the girls doing poorly, one who was not well enough to rise from her bunk. “They about drowned her” Maureen told him casually, and that was something else he dreaded learning about.

“Drowned?” he’d repeated a bit dumbly, and he deserved her

annoyed face.

“To get info from us.”

“Us?” he repeated again, low and slow, “You too?”

She gave him another of those looks before nodding at the last parcel in his hand, “Go take care of Smith’s girls before Johnny gets to them first and helps them with all the tenderness of a mortician.”

When Gale had stepped back into the hallway, Johnny’s voice could be heard still two doors down with Benny, fighting a fine line between helping and making themselves scarce. Personally, Gale felt Johnny was a gentle fucker when he needed to be. This wasn’t one of those cases, none of the girls wanted pity from them. Or acknowledgement even, judging by Sanchez’s cautioning venom.

In the last room, Smith and Tong had the girls sorted efficiently, and it was a little thing to ask the ever obliging Graham and the other men to step out briefly. Same old script here as before, Gale felt in a numb sort of loathing for his lack of originality -he distributed a shot a piece and apologized for the lack of iodine to sterilize the injection site and they all assured him it was fine, and everyone knew he was apologizing for far more than the lack of iodine and they knew that they’re assurances were more than about it either. Gale liked these girls for how well they knuckled under, it had made them pretty great in the crews after a shaky mission. They shoved a bad thing down as well as the next man, and if they punched their bed frames at night or cried in the showers, just like how it was for his men, that wasn’t Gale’s concern.

Only Lu Smith’s face went off script when he pressed the needle and its cartridge in her hand, something besides tight lipped thanks or a nod of efficient understanding. There were questions in her eyes, dancing slow and swirly and blatant as sorghum specks in molasses. A rich dark pool of uncertainty. Some girls were already discreetly headed for corners of the room to make the stab or else rolling up a shirt sleeve and insisting to the giver that they wanted it given there. Lu glanced away from him only to watch these proceedings with something like fear and then she was looking back at him, a hesitant plea written on her face. He didn’t know she was scared of needles.

“Major, is Ida awake?” his lieutenant asked, voice scratchy and a little closed, like how it got when she tried her hand at professionality or had to present a solution in front of a crowd. “I need to ask her something.”

That was a remarkably vague sentence, not at all professional. “No, she’s not.” He told her, watching as the fear grew more pronounced around her mouth and chin, “You ask me, Lieutenant.”

“May I?”

“Course,” Gale nodded his head toward the door, “step out here.”

He strode down to the very end of the combine, by the locked double doors, just far enough away from the windows not to invite a guard to come in and give them shit about it. The bright orange lights of the camp came in from the general darkness outside, glowing through the always dusty glass and making Smith’s skin shine a pretty bronze, even with the dark spots on her chin. Those made his blood thud quicker. It was quiet down here, as private as he could get.

“What’s up Smith?” he urged.

“I’m sorry sir I-I’ve got a few questions.”

“Told you to ask, Lieutenant.” Gale reminded, “So ask.”

“Yes sir.” She’d developed a tick since he’d last seen her, an odd sort of hugging of herself, arm crossing her chest and hand gripping her opposite clavicle, fingertips curling just over her own shoulder. “It’s about the shots. Ida’s been teaching me but she never mentioned about those.”

Gale took a deep breath, only the faintest bit of mirth left at the reminder of the ‘condom balloon’ incident. Ida had needed a stiff drink after taking her engineer aside and informing ‘Little Lu’ those were rubber socks men put on their members, and not in fact balloons. And yes, Benny had lied out of niceness, and yes men’s bodies sprayed things like cattle’s did when they got excited, and yes it’s for the purpose of making babies. Gale had heard all this from Ida after three stiff shots she’d downed like medicine, she’d relayed it in a perfect montone and Gale had not asked but she told him all the same, then said she needed to hit the sack and Ida Brady was gone while Gale remained at the bar with his cider and shaking shoulders. The memory had been amusing only weeks ago, when Douglass came to loot Benny’s footlocker for more rubbers and they’d all made a joke about Smith having beat him to them -for balloons.

“Everyone else seems to know and want them and I’m the slow one again.” Smith was muttering, a petulant look of annoyance crossing her young face, angry at herself.

“It’s about the guards.” Gale murmured.

Smith looked so hurt by that he wasn’t sure where he’d misstepped, but then, “Is it for what they did? Or is it such a sure they’re gonna keep hurting us and these- how do these help, sir?”

Gale startled and laid a heavy hand on her shoulder out of pure, gut instinct to impress on her his next words, “Not a single thing is goin’ to happen to you again, not like that, you hear me, Lu?” he shook her a little and it dislodged her own hand from her chest.

“Yes sir.”

“These are for anything you might’ve caught.” he tried to explain, coming up short and he knew it. If Bucky were here he’d use all manner of crass slang and common vernacular phrases to jog the poor girl’s memory about magazine advertisements, the sorts that warned of ‘diseases’, the underground posters and the bathroom stall flyers urging chastity or safety. Gale could not manage it back then and he couldn’t now. “Diseases Lu.” he tried again, “Men who aren’t- careful, or- disciplined, they, they spread diseases to the girl they’re with. Uh, with- intimately. If they’ve been with other girls before.”

He hoped to God that Ida had used the word ‘intimate’ when educating Smith on these finer yet so utterly crude aspects of human interaction. ‘Intimate’ seemed like a word Ida Brady would use, he thought he recalled her accusing him of being intimate with Kendeigh. Maybe the accusation had been ‘fraternizing’. Or ‘getting familiar’. Gale wasn’t sure, he only recalled that it had not been complementary and he had blushed into the floor under her stare but her accusation had been vague. He knew Ida had been vague.

Was she equally vague with Smith? Did that mean Smith was as uneducated as she’d been before Ida gave her an ineffectually Catholic lesson?

“They can spread it with-“ Smith paused only a minute before deciding to trust him, “-with their bodies? Like a wound?”

Gale gave her nod, trying to stay teacherly, “With their bodies. Yeah. They don’t need wounds it comes from- well, other places. Intimate places they- look, Smith if you weren’t hurt that way, you don’t need the shots.”

Grueling as this conversation was, nerve wracking as her dense innocence could be, it fed that traitorous bit of hope he’d been harboring since he lost all hope for himself that she might’ve been alright. It wasn’t fair to Kendiegh or Ida or Sanchez or any of the others to hope for that, but none of this was fair anyway. Maybe her lack of comprehension was a kindness.

Smith’s eyes were latching onto one surrounding thing and then another, a good long beat between each new object, not darting but roving, now latched on the doorframe and now on Gale’s coat buttons and then on to the glass window panes beside them as if she could see through the bubbled glass out into the dark yard. He could tell by her change in breathing more than the light when she began to cry.

“I didn’t want the girls to think I’m stupid.” She admitted, and she was definitely crying, “I’m their officer, I should know these things.” she explained, lips going into a full tremble, all the harmless jokes of before suddenly not a bit funny, “But I don’t know at all, I didn’t know they’d-“ Gale kept his hand on her now jolting shoulder, spending a little too much time thinking how to mould his own face to some correct expression for this as she began to crumble, it was better than watching too closely as she broke apart, “When they beat us and put the bags over our faces I- I expected it. It wasn’t right, we weren’t treated like prisoners but, I expected it. Ida had told us. Then they started saying things to her, the ones that could speak English and I-i really didn’t know what they meant, not at first until they started- oh Major, they, they started touching her, like lovers in a movie.”

Lu had her eyes squeezed shut like that would get the image out somehow, one brief flash and Gale could remember everything about laying there and seeing Sanchez’s face -and he knew nothing wiped the image out. “They had her chained to a bar and they kept doing that,” she went on, “It was over her head, the bar was over her head and I could tell how much she hated it, and she couldn’t do anything and they weren’t hurting her anymore, they were- they were touching her. They stopped beating her and started touching her, sir and I- that’s when I realized that, there could be something worse. They wanted us to start giving up ranks, and they kept doing that until we did and I wanted to give up then more than any time else. Just to make them stop doing that to her.”

Gale squeezed her shoulder and she jerked under it but cried afresh, she stayed still next to him and just kept crying. “Smith, right here and now I need to know if you’re alright.” he steered her away from memories back to now, as gently as he could, “Ida is gonna be alright, and she’s proud of you, and she expects you to take care of her girls, you hear me? And I need you well for that, Lu. I need to know if you’ve been hurt.”

Smith pulled herself back into a shaky composure, her neck still trembling so badly her head made tiny little jerks from time to time. “They did hurt me.” she agreed.

“Hurt you where you need these shots?” he gently clarified, hoping she was catching on, dreading the confirmation all the same.

“They put -they kept putting themselves inside me.” she got it out, her face dazed like she still didn’t understand it even as her voice cracked from a soul deep knowledge of the wrong done, “I didn’t know they could- they could use their bodies like that. I didn’t know. They kept doing it.”

-There had been only five.- Gale felt his belly lurch, some bowel deep memory of the same torture taking over him, like a haunting he couldn’t prevent. He’d thought he had it locked far down enough, hardly thought on it these days, but maybe he’d shoved it down to where it hurt in the first place, with his belly in knots all again and Sanchez’s cold face sneering and Benny’s worried eyes making his stomach shake and salt flood his mouth. He wanted to vomit.

“Oh Lu.” he muttered ineffectually, “C’mere.” and he had her hugged and cradled to his ratty jacket before his ingrained and temperate habits could interfere. He had her turned to the doors, her sobbing eyes pressed into his sweaty layers and it was better that way. With his lips pressed to the crown of her head he watched the rest of the hallway go on without them, men going back into the rooms once the shots had been administered, Benny darting into one with a bucket in hand. Gale saw Brady as Brady saw him, only making a small pause in his stride as he watched Gale hold Smith before he turned away, face still a blank slate, the boy went back to his sister.

Maybe if Gale had been closer or the hallway brighter he might’ve seen the same hurt and tears there as he and Smith were sharing, but Brady wasn’t close and he wouldn’t say and maybe Gale was a fool to think his own experience wasn’t a fluke. But Brady just went back to Ida, and Gale still felt the damning weight of the shot in his palm even as he hugged Smith’s narrow shoulders.

His own hip still smarted from the injection, -the shot for his cuts. Just his cuts.

“I’m sorry sir.” Smith was trying to say in between sobs, no doubt finding her emotions galling in the face of her prized professionalism.

“Don’t be.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll be fine-“

“I know.”

“I’ll be fine i just, I didn’t know-“

“I know, Lu.”

“It hurt so much.”

“I know.”

She pulled her face away, he was glad to see that while it was puffy and reddened, she looked far calmer. The suddenness of her recovery should have warned him. “Do you sir?” she whispered, pained.

“What?”

“Do you know, sir?” she asked again, harmless yet intent, “Did they hurt you that way too?”

Gale felt a rush of heat, heat and numbness where his hands fell from their grip on her and shook by his sides instead, and he hated his limbs for that betrayal. Heat, like she could see it so clearly on his face, like the harmless cuts on his face really spelled it out. Everyone’s suspicion of them put him on edge, wondering what was wrong with his bearing, his walk, the way he took a seat, that somehow exposed him. With her dark, pitying, horrified little face staring up at him, he felt like he was back on the bench with Benny holding him there, knowing most likely why he had to lay on his belly and not his back.

“Smith you can’t-“ Gale sounded young again and he hated it, when he was ready he began again, and this time he sounded like Major Cleven, “-don’t ever say shit like that again, alright? You can’t say shit like that. Not about- men. Not about me.”

She looked affronted and close to tears again, but his tone couldn’t be helped, last thing this stalag needed was news their Major had been so easily overcome. “I was just asking sir-“

“Not something you ask a man.” he informed her. “Like ya said, there’s lot of things you don’t know, it’s alright. But you don’t ask that, Smith.”

Harsh but necessary, he told himself again. Except she looked less hurt now and closer to something like anger, if her kind self could be angry. He’d seen her get angry when someone kicked a dog once. He’d seen her angry after a shit mission. She looked close to it now, like some grave injustice was firing her up. “But it can happen to men.” she was suddenly wise and he picked a cuticle bloody in trance-like distress, his face was motionless, “I know because they- they can put themselves both places.”

Fury took the place of numbness in his being and he grabbed her again, pulling her close and tucking her under his chin, she made a wounded noise when their chests collided despite the layers, but she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed back. “They’re never gonna do that again, Lu, never again. I’m gonna make sure of it. Bucky’ll make sure of it.” he swore, his voice gone so low it shook. “They hurt you other places?”

Smith shook her head against his chest, “I’ll take the shot, sir.” she murmured meekly. “Would you give it? I don’t want the others to-“

“Sure, Lu.”

He waited until she pulled away, her eyes downcast but the look on her face broke no argument that she wasn’t in a humor to be less than her rank. Gale shifted the shot in his palm and bit his lip, willing away any sentiment about it.

“Goes in the hip. Mark my words, those bicep shots that Tong went for- gonna hurt for ages, you don’t need that. Lemme put it in your hip.”

Smith nodded and cast a furtive glance behind her at the empty hall, only looking down again to undo her belt when Gale moved his body to block any hapless onlooker.

There were bruises when he gently aided her in tugging the drab olive aside, some nearly as dark as the ones on Ida and welts from what looked like a belt strap, even on the high swell of her hip. Gale knew the smarting bite of a belting.

“Did you wash these?” he whispered to her, crouching to better see his work as he made a harbor of unmarried muscle between his thumb and index finger, bunching up the meat of her leg and holding it for her to relax into his touch before he jammed the shot home.

“When we showered.” Lu wasn’t crying anymore but her voice matched his in its softness, tense anticipation for the jab mellowing the longer he kept her staid under his hold.

“Good.” he commended her, voice muffled by the needles’ cap between his lips.

She only stiffened when he drove it in, pressed down on the plunger with his thumb, kept his hand gripping her hip, shaking the muscle just so, “Loosen up.” he ordered, it would hurt less that way. Cleven heard her take a breath and try.

When he stood straight again he took the cap from his mouth and clicked it back on the needle, acting like it took great concentration and focus to do so, all while she pulled her trousers back up and refastened them discreetly. Her cheeks were wet once more, either from before or she’d begun crying again.

“You ok?” he asked.

She gave him a long series of nods as she got on top of the embarrassed anger. “Yes, thanks Buck.”

“I’m right down there.” he reminded, thumbing at his own quarters. “You feel the least bit sickly or- or anything, you come get me. Same for your girls.”

“Yes sir.”

“Alright, well get in there Lu,” he patted her toward her room, “one thing the krauts are picky about here is bedtime.”

Smith sucked in a breath between her teeth, a shuddering thing, “Alright, I’ll remember. Bedtime.”

“So you’re gonna remember bedtime and what else?” Gale catchized her.

“Bedtime and that…you’re -right down there.”

“Very good, Smith.”

“Night, Buck.”

“Night, Lu.”

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[justwinginglife]

The Best Of My Life

You accidentally just had the best sleep of your entire life. And so did Hoshina. 

You honestly hadn’t even heard him enter the library.

Everyone on base had been doing their best to uncover No. 9’s schemes, you and the Vice Captain especially, and that meant late nights poring over news articles, historical reports, eyewitness testimony, scientific studies, all to figure out what 9 was capable of.

All you figured out was what you were capable of, and it was not this. If you had to spend one more night reacquainting yourself with these same four walls, you’d asphyxiate from the claustrophobia. You swore every time you entered this room, it got smaller and smaller. Eventually, the exhaustion enveloped your body, and you were encumbered by the sheer weight of this sudden enervation. Unable to will your limbs into submission, to command them to make the long journey back to your room, you passed out in the library. 

When the smell of cologne and coffee finally stirred you from your slumber, you were shocked to find the Vice Captain resting on your shoulder. And it seemed, from the position you were in, you’d slept on his head. You’d never even said more than “Goodmorning” and “Goodnight” to him before, and now, you were using him as your own personal pillow. The sudden, unexpected intimacy made you want to bolt. But he was sleeping so soundly, you couldn't help but find it so precious how much comfort and ease something as simple as your shoulder could bring him. He was sleeping as though you weren’t in wartime. As though you weren’t practically strangers to each other, your only bond forged through spilled blood on a battlefield. 

Right now, you felt the way one did when they suddenly found the space in their lap occupied by a cat or a dog- you just couldn’t move. It wasn’t right. Never mind that you might have to pee, you made a vow to yourself right then and there that you wouldn’t leave this spot, not until the Vice Captain had woken up of his own accord. You wouldn’t ruin the only moment of peace he might have for a while. 

So you stayed put, you stayed still, so still one would think you were dead. Your muscles started to ache from maintaining the same position for so long and, even worse than that, you were incredibly bored. But it was worth it. You found his breathing a soothing sound, you found his scent was quickly becoming more addicting. You found out he occasionally talked in his sleep, and that revelation also brought with it the discovery that you loved to hear him talk. Especially when his voice was dipped in drowsiness. You’d never heard him talk to you this much, ever. You thought to yourself, if you made it out of this alive, if it wasn’t automatically social suicide once he woke up and discovered the shame that had transpired, you would make a point to talk to him more. You would be his friend.

You absolutely would NOT be his friend. This became very clear to you when he suddenly shifted and snuggled closer to you, his hand brushing up against your thigh as he sighed in his sleep. As his breath caressed your skin, you hoped and prayed that he’d remain unconscious long enough for you to get your emotions under control, or at least just your face under control. You were unsure how you were going to explain away the shade of crimson seeping into your cheeks.

But it seemed you had no luck to spare today because he began to stir from his sleep. You cursed the gods. 

As he blinked the library back into his view, rubbing his eyes languidly, you thought to yourself that even the way he woke up was cute. And when he finally pulled away from you, stretching and yawning, you pondered how his absence from your shoulder felt even heavier than his head. You wondered if you could coax him back to sleep, convince him he was still laden with exhaustion. You’d never taken up much more than a minute of his time in the past, and now your ambition was suddenly desiring every second of his time. You wondered if holding your breath would freeze time, if closing your eyes again, relaxing against him, would compel him to stay here, to stay yours. Just for a moment. You could go back to being strangers in the morning. 

And then he spoke. “Was it just me… or was that the best nap ever?” 

You immediately took back your thoughts. After tonight, you’d never be satisfied just being strangers ever again. “Not just you. I feel amazing.”

He took a moment to properly examine you. It was though he was trying to figure out what exactly it was about you that made him so completely at ease. It was slightly unnerving the way his eyes roamed over you but you didn't dare look away, in case you blinked and he disappeared into some dream. He finally spoke, "You know, it's funny, I feel completely rested and ready to take on the day even though we only napped,” He checked his watch, “For about two to three hours.” 

You blinked. Had it only been that long? It felt like an eternity. You’d known nothing about him before tonight, and now you felt like you were privy to his most intimate self. 

He paused, appearing to take his next words into heavy consideration before proposing them. “Imagine…” His voice dropped to a low, hushed tone, “Imagine how good we’d sleep for a whole night.”

You swallowed, cheeks returning to their earlier rosy color. Was he proposing what he thought you were?

“Just think about it. Everyone’s been on high alert lately. Stress is high. Tension is high. Shit could hit the fan at any moment. We’re never promised a moment’s rest, let alone peaceful rest. And I’ve never slept so well in my entire life than I did when I was sleeping with you.”

You tilted your head as you processed this information, trying your best to avoid feeling honored for such high praise when you knew he was simply stating data rather than complimenting the way in which your presence set him at ease. It was an interesting suggestion, and if you were honest with yourself, you were intrigued by it. 

“So, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying, you want us to sleep together?”

He nodded, a cheeky grin curving across his face. “I won’t do anything to make you uncomfortable. It’ll be purely platonic. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be platonic, just business.”

You wanted to tell him that even if it wasn’t platonic, you wouldn’t be uncomfortable. And you certainly didn’t want to be just business. But, like an idiot, you held your hand out to him to shake on it like you were closing a contract rather than exploring a new level of intimacy together. Intimacy that no one else was allowed but you. You thanked the gods. 

He smirked and shook your hand. “Sounds like a deal to me. Shall we get started then? Because we’ve got a couple more hours until sun-up and I could use an extra boost.” He hoisted you to your feet and led the way to his bedroom, his hand still grasping yours as he navigated the halls. You wondered if he’d meant to continue holding your hand but you weren’t about to bring attention to it, the absence of his head from your shoulder was more than enough, you didn’t need to deprive yourself of his hand as well. 

As you neared your destination, you suddenly became all too aware of the tingling sensation that was slowly spreading through your body. Electricity soared through your veins as the anticipation consumed you. You imagined nestling into his bed. Inhaling the scent of detergent on his sheets. Feeling the divots in the mattress where he frequently positioned himself. You had unlocked the gateway to a whole new world, and yet still, it wasn’t enough for you. You wanted his universe. You wanted to know what he ate for breakfast, what kind of toothpaste he used, if he slept in just his underwear (you hoped he did), if he preferred boxers or briefs, if he was a morning person or a night owl, if he had any guilty pleasures, if he had a sweet tooth, you wanted to know every little thing about him. Every insignificant detail had suddenly been made significant in your eyes. 

He opened the door to his room and you entered his world. For such a rambunctious man, his room was surprisingly clean and orderly. He had shelves neatly lined with all manner of books, it seemed he wasn’t picky on the genre. He had swords on display, and you thought that was very like him. It probably served as both decor and legitimate weaponry, knowing him. His space was cozy, felt lived in, felt comfortable, but was also organized to the point that everything in view seemed to serve some sort of use, like he wouldn’t dare clutter his room with unnecessary baggage. He was an officer, his life wasn’t guaranteed, he had no time to waste on hoarding trinkets. 

It made you want to spoil him rotten. Made you want to fill up his drawers, his shelves, any empty space within sight, with gifts, with evidence of your interest in him. It honestly shocked you how quickly your interest in him had grown, from the moment it blossomed in the library to the moment you’d crossed the threshold into his room, into his life. You’d never go back, not now that you had a taste of him. 

Even the few moments he'd taken to slip into the bathroom and get changed into comfier clothes was enough to get you aching for his presence. But your sulking quickly subsided when he reemerged to toss you one of his shirts and a pair of his shorts to sleep in. He was a gentleman, he didn’t want you to be uncomfortable, especially when he was the one who had concocted this crazy idea of sleeping together. 

You quickly put his clothes on, not realizing you had been so eager to try them on that you forgot to make the trip to the bathroom and had changed in front of him. Once he realized what you were doing, he turned around to give you some privacy, but not before you saw the look on his face. It started out shocked, had a brief moment of bashfulness, before finally slipping into amusement. He chuckled and shook his head as he waited for you to finish.

“Some business partner you are, stripping in front of me so soon.” He teased.

You flushed but you retorted back, “And weren’t you the one just enjoying the show a minute ago?”

He shrugged and crawled under the covers, leaving you without a verbal response, but the smirk on his face answered plenty. 

You knew this was the part where you joined him in the bed but you hesitated.

He gestured for you to come over, so you did. 

But you positioned yourself as far away from him as you could. You weren’t sure where all your nerve from earlier went. You’d wanted to be closer to him, but now were somehow afraid to touch him. As if touching him might cement whatever feelings you were starting to have for him. As if you might not ever get up from his bed again, you might not want to. 

He laughed. “You can strip for me, but you can’t cuddle me? I seem to recall the deal was us sleeping together and I don’t think you huddling on the edge of the bed counts.” He wrapped his arms around you and pulled you as close as he physically could before snuggling against you. “God, you’re so comfy.”

You froze in his embrace. What now? What the fuck were you supposed to do now? This was the part where you went to sleep but every part of you was wide awake. Every part of you was enjoying the feeling of every part of him pressed up against you. You wondered how much you were allowed to savor this. Should you be feeling guilty for just how good this felt?

Fuck it.

You sank into his arms, allowing yourself to melt into his touch.

He sighed as you relaxed against him. “Good girl. Let’s have the best night of our lives, yeah?” 

And then he conked out.

You rolled your eyes. How the fuck were you supposed to go to bed when he said shit like that to you?

But eventually, after adjusting to his warmth, after getting drunk on his scent, you drifted off into a blissful slumber right along with him.

And he was right. It was the best night of your life.

And again and again, you continued to have the best night of your life every single night that you slept with him. On the days that you weren’t able to sneak into his room, on the days when even a small nap was out of reach, it was painfully obvious to you both how miserable you felt without the other nearby. And that craving, that desperate need for the other, it eventually made itself known in the daytime too. Soshiro -he’d made you start calling him by his first name because it didn’t feel right for someone who he’d seen in her underwear and who’d seen him in his underwear (turns out he did usually sleep in just his underwear, and you’d learned that once he’d gotten more comfortable with you) to be calling him by his last name- was startled to find that even on his most well-rested days, he still sought out your presence. At first, he thought maybe he wasn’t as rested as he’d assumed, maybe his body craved another nap, but eventually he realized he just craved your voice, need your laugh to get him through the day. And you needed him just as badly. 

You loved the way he’d read you passages from his favorite books as you snuggled in his arms and soaked in the sound of his voice. You loved the way he hoisted you up on his back and carried your dead weight back to his room when training had properly kicked your ass. You loved the way he had learned how to braid hair, just because he liked fidgeting with your hair and wanted to make himself useful while he was fidgeting. You loved every moment you stole from him in passing, every secret he whispered, claiming it was for your ears only, every act of intimacy shared between you. You loved it all. You loved him.

He loved you too. It was evident in the way that he ironed your clothes for you because he knew you hated wrinkles, even going so far as to wake up early to do it if he knew you had a meeting first thing in the morning (and he made a point of knowing your schedule everyday.) It was evident in the way that he'd started suggesting romance movies as a way to wind down at the end of a long day, because he knew they were your favorite but he also knew you were too ashamed to keep begging him to watch them with you. It was evident in the way that he made you tea every morning because he knew you weren’t a big fan of coffee. He’d even switched to drinking tea himself, though he was an avid coffee drinker before he met you, because he didn’t think you’d kiss him if he tasted like coffee. But you’d kiss him even if he tasted like sour milk. You’d do anything to kiss him and just keep kissing him.

The first time you kissed him was completely by accident. He’d been nudging your nose with his, trying to ease you into waking up. You’d jolted forward and woke to find your lips mashed into his. When he recovered from the shock, and you’d started to pull away, clearly embarrassed, he did the only thing he could think of to ease your embarrassment. He pulled you in for another kiss. And another. Until you couldn’t stop kissing each other, until you couldn’t keep your hands off one another. 

Every night with him was the best night of your life, this you knew, but every day with him quickly became the best day of your life as well. He became the best thing you’d ever had, the best thing you’d ever have. The best love you could ever or would ever know.

And it all started because of a nap.

[renmorris]

on top of generally being one of the most characters of all time Harry Du Bois' name is just (chefs kiss)

classic French pun on alcoholism

Harry Do Boys

hairy boobois

he’s named after a bird and a dog which perfectly encapsulates his personality and the animal motifs the narrative applies him

it’s a wartime name given to him by his mom to keep him safe ;_; it’s love and protection…it’s a wish

[magical-reid]

Remembering James

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Barnes!Reader (No use of Y/N, reader is referred as Mrs./Dr. Barnes)

Setting: Modern MCU timeline, Avengers Tower.

Perspective: Third Person Limited (Reader’s perspective).

Word Count: 1.2K

Hospitals were familiar, almost comforting in their routine. Between the soft hum of monitors and the sterile scent of disinfectant, you’d carved out a life here, even if you had no idea where you’d come from before it.

You woke up one day, seventy years displaced, with only a few clues to your identity: a simple wedding band, dog tags clutched in your hand, and the name James tattooed on the inside of your wrist. The world said you were a super soldier, part of a classified experiment during World War II, but your own memories didn’t agree—or, more accurately, they didn’t exist.

James Barnes. Who are you?

The hospital pager clipped to your scrubs buzzed sharply, dragging you back to the present.

“Paging Dr. Barnes,” the voice crackled over the intercom. “Stark Enterprises has a… situation. You’ve been requested to assist the Avengers immediately. Pack your things.”

You groaned softly. Tony Stark always had a flair for dramatics.

Meeting the Avengers

You spotted them the moment they entered the ER. Steve Rogers led the group, all commanding presence and tightly-wound charm. Behind him was Sam Wilson, cracking a grin at something Steve said. But it was the third man—the one with long, dark hair and intense blue eyes—that stopped you in your tracks.

You knew him. Or you thought you did.

You'd only remembered seeing his face on the news, plastered beside headlines of destruction and redemption. But here, in person, the sight of him struck a chord. Something inside you stirred. The name was on the tip of your tongue, but nothing came to you except a strange feeling in your chest: part longing, part ache.

“Dr. Barnes?” Steve’s voice broke through the haze, his hand extended for a handshake. “I’m Captain Steve Rogers. Tony asked us to escort you to the Tower.”

“Of course,” you said, plastering on a professional smile, though your gaze flickered back to the man Steve hadn’t introduced. He stood stiffly, his expression unreadable, but his eyes stayed glued to you, like he was memorizing every detail.

“And you are?” you asked, directing the question to him.

“James,” he said softly. Then, louder: “Bucky Barnes.”

You froze. Your breath hitched as the dog tags hidden beneath your scrub top suddenly felt unbearably heavy.

James Barnes. My James?

A Familiar Stranger

The ride to Avengers Tower was uneventful, though Bucky’s presence loomed in the confined space of the Quinjet. He sat across from you, his gloved hands gripping the edge of his seat. Every now and then, you caught him glancing at you before quickly looking away.

When you arrived, Tony wasted no time giving you a tour of the medbay, but your attention kept drifting back to the Winter Soldier. He hovered at the edge of your vision like a shadow. Something about him felt… familiar.

Bucky’s Plan

Bucky clenched his fists to hide their trembling.

She didn't remember him.

When Steve had first read Dr. Barnes' profile aloud the name had nearly floored Bucky. Seventy years and a broken mind hadn't dulled his memory of her: his wife. Bucky’s memories of you were sharp, even after decades of Hydra’s brainwashing. The night he’d met you—the base nurse who’d patched up his wounds with a quick wit and an even quicker smile—was etched into his soul. Marrying you, even in the chaos of wartime, had been the best decision of his life.

And yet, when he saw you today, you looked right through him, now you didn’t remember him.

The thought was unbearable. But Bucky had a plan. If you didn’t remember him, then he’d make sure you noticed him now.

Operation: Get Her Attention

Day One: The Phantom Bruise

Bucky sauntered into the medbay with a practiced limp. “Hey, Doc, think I twisted something.”

You raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “I watched you spar earlier. You didn’t limp then.”

He shrugged, his lips twitching into an almost-boyish grin. “Better safe than sorry.”

You rolled your eyes but motioned for him to sit. As you examined him, your hand brushing his leg, he couldn’t help but smirk. He caught your hand lingering on the dog tags peeking out of your shirt before you tucked them away.

Day Three: The Paper Cut Incident

“What is it this time?” you asked, folding your arms as Bucky entered the medbay again.

He held up his finger, a comically tiny paper cut visible. “Could be infected,” he said solemnly.

You sighed but grabbed some antiseptic anyway. “You’re worse than the interns.”

His smirk only grew. “I like the personal touch.”

Day Five: The Classic “Accident”

During training, Bucky deliberately let himself take a tumble—hard enough to make Steve wince.

You appeared a few minutes later, muttering under your breath about reckless super soldiers. “Did you do this on purpose?” you asked as you examined his bruised ribs.

“Would I do that?” he asked, his voice teasing.

“Absolutely.”

The Dog Tags

One day, you caught him staring at you in the gym, his focus unwavering. You were sparring with Natasha, and though you didn’t have the same bulk as Bucky or Steve, your strength and agility had Natasha on the defensive.

When you landed a sharp jab, your dog tags swung free of your shirt. You saw Bucky’s eyes narrow as they caught the light.

After the match, he approached you, his expression unreadable. “You always wear those?”

“Always.” You tucked them back into your shirt, your voice soft. “They mean something.”

“To you or to him?” His voice was almost bitter.

You blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” He turned and walked away before you could press further.

The Gala

Tony’s party was as over-the-top as expected. You didn’t often dress up, but tonight you’d chosen a sleek black gown with a high slit that revealed just a hint of leg. The dog tags hung openly around your neck, their weight grounding you.

You spotted Bucky across the room, leaning against the bar in a dark suit. He wasn’t looking at you; he was staring.

“Careful,” Natasha teased, nudging him as she joined him at the bar. “You’ll scare her off if you keep looking at her like that.”

“She’s wearing them,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion.

Natasha’s sharp eyes narrowed. “Dog tags? Thought so. What’s the story there, Barnes?”

“Long one.”

Natasha smirked. “You should tell her.”

You caught his eye, and this time, you didn’t look away. Slowly, you walked across the room, your dress swaying with every step. When you reached him, you tilted your head.

“Care to dance?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Always.”

As you danced, your hand slipped to your wrist, brushing the tattoo.

“I remember,” you whispered.

His breath hitched. “You… do?”

You nodded, a small smile tugging at your lips. “Took me long enough, huh?”

The Morning After

The smell of coffee led you to the kitchen, wearing nothing but Bucky’s shirt and your wedding band shining proudly on your finger. Your hair was a mess, your makeup smudged, and the dog tags were finally out in the open.

Natasha was the first to notice, her smirk widening as Bucky walked in behind you.

“Well,” she drawled, “looks like the happy couple had a good night.”

Steve coughed awkwardly into his hand. Sam burst into laughter.

Bucky blushed furiously and buried his face in his hands, but you just grinned, leaning into his side. For the first time in decades, everything felt right, and this time he wasn't letting go.

[starlightervarda]

Favourites of the Musical Episode

Uhura starting all this by beaming Anything Goes at the zipper fold. Nyota, you fucking NERD

Spock straight up not having a good time

Number One and Kirk dancing through the hallways

La’An trying very hard not to sing and running to her room to sing her  gut-wrenching ballad in private 😭

Pike’s general ????? reaction every time the singing happens

The acapella rendition of the opening credits theme

Chapel getting a sexy club number to say ‘lol sorry this proved much more than I can handle I’m gonna go dig up proto-surgical tools byeeeee’  I mean, it’s horrible, and it’s definitely going to fuck with his head that he took this risk and gave T’Pring very good reason to kal-i-fee him now but it’s also...relatable? Girl has serious wartime PTSD and attachment issues and was fine letting this crush just expire in its own time but got too impulsive and shit got too serious because, Vulcan, and she couldn’t ghost him while they were on the same ship.

Spock’s dark, emo pop-rock realization that he should go kolinahr now

Number One’s comforting confession song to La’An and it lifting them off their feet 🥺

Uhura getting her own ballad in Engineering and that bit at the end where she belts and we get the full-view of the section with the lights was 😩👌 babygirl still needs therapy and an emotional support dog tho

The solution to the singing problem being just more singing but a big cast number that overwhelms the zipper fold into combusting like New Years fireworks

The fucking Klingons’ getting roped in at the last second to add their aggro rap-pop boyband tantrum to the cause!!!!

this episode was a 1701 out of 10 great job everyone 

[keldabekush]

do you have any favorite fic recs that are fox/coruscant guard centered? there are a couple i've found that are really good but a lot of the fox tag is him in a more minor role with the focus on like cody or rex or jedi etc

Yeah i have a few! Here are some that i keep rereading - I'm putting them under the cut!

Politicians In My Eyes by jaigeye

Fox looks down at his armor, awash with blood. There are no identifying marks on him anymore. He's as red as Coruscant

CHTHONIC by catboydogma

Not even two days later, Fox revised his opinion. This wasn’t a disaster. This was a Grade-A, first order, fresh off the hot plate fuckfest. Fox’s day had gone something like this: lay in bed. Get up. Knock back some of the sludge in the mess masquerading as caf. Go through forms. Fill out forms. Bust open a closet in which the Senators for Uyter and Kinyen had both managed to get “stuck” in. Go through more forms. Fill out more forms. Get called up to the Senate dome to tell a Senator that no, the Guard did not address noise complaints. Find that the stack of datapads on his desk had somehow tripled over the last two hours. Despair at the state of his inbox. Etcetera, etcetera. And then.

dead dog (bye-bye baby blue) by batchmates

The way it happens is simple: at some point during your service in the Guard, you’ll lose time. The thing wiping the Guards’ memories gets sloppy and Fox remembers the order not to let Fives leave the surface alive. It changes everything and nothing at all.

Life During Wartime by chermit

Commander Fox has a lot on his plate: managing his Corries, filling out piles of forms, dealing with obnoxious Senators, and not thinking about the way he keeps waking up covered in other people's blood. All that considered, he really doesn't have time to deal with being investigated by the Captain of the 501st and the Head of the Jedi Order for two separate murders he (probably) didn't (want to) commit. But Fox is a soldier, and good soldiers follow orders, so when does he ever get what he wants?

Commander Fox's Guide to Touring Coruscant by kakashikrazy256

The painkiller he had been giving just half an hour prior is still working fine, leaving him relatively...alright. Nothing hurts particularly bad, but there’s a fuzziness layered over everything, making it hard to think too hard on anything beyond the first thoughts running through his head. Go inside. Find the rest. Sit down. Drink. Don’t say anything stupid. Don’t get caught. And...and just be there to properly enjoy the company of his brothers. Don’t forget these memories. / Fox gets injured but decides to keep it secret for the sake of his batchmates. For the prompt 'is that a bloodstain?!'

their days are darker by always_a_slut_for_hc

After the death of ARC Trooper Fives, an altercation at 79's leads Wolffe to spend his leave snooping around the Coruscant Guard. Fox assumes he'll drop it and leave the Corries to their fate; it's what everyone else has done. He is very, very wrong.

The Last Reason by meerlicht

Cody has a scar now, and it’s the only thing that differentiates him from Fox appearance-wise. For one, they both have the same circles under their eyes. Fox assumes that’s what comes with being a Commander. Their hands are the same, too, damaged and bruised at all times. But the biggest difference Fox sees when he looks at Cody isn’t the scar. It’s the rage. Cody doesn’t wear that same rage. Fox’s hands ache with the need to punch something.   Or: Fox dealing with Senators, little brothers, the terrifying ordeal of asking for help and a menace called Quinlan Vos.

[hogans-heroes]

Thoughts on postwar John and Gale

…while plotting a fic. (I tried to make the scars and lines match up but it’s hard. Remember manips?)

John

After the war he would need to stay very busy which could easily turn into running from the past. He’d fall into the category of “if you don’t think about it it’s not there” but at night or in quiet moments it’s very much there and he tries to keep that away. He seems to be better able to cope than Gale because he’s enjoys the freedom of being out of the military and able to do whatever he wants. Obviously grows his hair out and does lots of impulsive things like start a garden and get a dog and learn a random skill or take a random trip, just because he felt like it. The past haunts him and he’d get headaches. Would take to drinking again if no one was there to stop him. He’d have trouble sleeping and pace a lot, unable to drag still and prone to losing touch with reality.

Gale

He’d go a bit off the rails postwar. IMO he’s more likely to struggle than Bucky because the wartime responsibility and pressure was the only thing keeping him together. With no men to need him and no job to do, even if he stays in the military there’s no life or death urgency to drive him anymore. He’d crash hard. He never even allowed himself to process anything much less learn how to cope, and all of a sudden he’s cut loose. Would not handle the ptsd well at all and needs help. He’d isolate himself, takes to some project working himself to the bone and maybe reckless behavior. For lack of a better word, feral. He never trusted anyone before the war and now going through all this confusing and painful time, if he doesn’t have support things are going to turn out bad. Physically he’d be weak from his time as pow and struggle to gain back the weight. Unlike Bucky he sleeps like the dead and would stay in bed for days. Depression keeps him down instead of maniacal and he’ll get lost in his own mind easily.

[evidenceof]

Armed Services Editions (ASEs) WWII - paperback, pocket-sized (4 by 5 ½ inches, slim, and no more than 3/4 of an inch thick), text printed in double columns per page for better readability

“Dog-eared and moldy and limp from the humidity those books go up the line. Because they are what they are, because they can be packed in a hip pocket or snuck into a shoulder pack, men are reading where men have never read before—in this SWPAC [Southwest Pacific] theatre anyway. I’ve seen GI’s with them[...]three days after the beach head at Hollandia. The kids were hungry[...]but there they were, guarding a captured Jap plane against souvenir hunters or in their sack in the beach camp or mooning out after . . . chow, reading a book.” - Charles Rawlings correspondence taken from When Books Went to War, Molly Guptill Manning

"Dell War paperbacks, for example, carried the following message: "BOOKS ARE WEAPONS—in a free democracy everyone may read what he likes. [...] This book has been manufactured in conformity with wartime restrictions—read it and pass it on." Modern technology...enabled the mass production and circulation of of approximately 123 million ASEs made exclusively for overseas distribution to military personnel. Soldiers read them even in the landing crafts on their way to Normandy." - Soldier's Heart Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point, Elizabeth Samet

Images source: The Huntington Library