#hambone hamilton x oc
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hesbuckcompton-baby · 2 months ago
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cowboy like me -> howard 'hambone' hamilton x oc
The smell of whiskey and stale beer was already thick in the air by the time Hambone made it to the bar, shouldering his way through the crowds that filled the pub as he let his gaze wander in search of one particular - and markedly absent - face.
This never happened. Whenever they went out, they made it a habit to meet on the corner by the post office and walk in together, and yet today he had stood waiting for almost twenty minutes, and Dawn Davis had never shown. If there had ever been a reason for this ritual, it was long forgotten, but her disregard of it had left a distinctly sour taste in his mouth. It was nearly impossible for him to get mad at her. But tonight?
Tonight was the same. As irritated as he was, Howard couldn't quite manage to direct the feeling at Dawn without a pang of guilt poking at his chest.
He waited impatiently for his drink, fingers thrumming tunelessly upon the polished wood as his other friends no doubt awaited his return. Just as the pint glass was slid across to him, another body arrived at his side, letting out a sigh as her shoulder bumped against his. Dawn's shirt was even more crumpled than usual, rolled up to her elbows, half sticking out of her trousers, and her hair had almost entirely fallen out of its ponytail. "Dawn?" He raised his beer to his lips, almost choking on it as he noticed the scratches across her cheek. "Jesus, what happened?"
"Left the door open... pigeon got in the hut," She explained, nodding continuously and leaning against the bar as if about to fall over. A faint sheen of sweat covered her face, and he began to wonder if she'd ran all the way here. "Turns out I'm not a talented pigeon wrangler."
Hambone couldn't help the bubble of laughter that escaped his throat. "Well, you can't be good at everything."
"I don't see why not," She shook her head slightly, turning away from him momentarily to order herself a drink.
"So what'd you do with it?"
Dawn's expression fell flat, brow arching in that judgemental way she seemed to reserve just for him. "I took it to your hut and made it shit in your bed - what the fuck d'you think I did with it? I put it outside like a sane person."
"Well, I've just never known you to be a sane person," He shrugged with a grin, chuckling as she elbowed him in the side. "You got a little bird shit on your shoe."
"Well, the first time I met you, you were covered in Crosby puke," she noted sweetly, and Hambone let out a disgruntled yelp as she twisted her foot to wipe the stain off on his leg.
"Asshole."
"We're both assholes."
He slung his arm around her neck, pulling her closer to him. To anyone else, it surely appeared an affectionate gesture, but to Dawn, it was little more than a headlock, a surprised giggle escaping her.
"Don't go 'round tellin' people that - I got a date on Friday and I don't need the word spreading."
"A date?" She snorted, delivering a half-assed punch to his stomach as she wormed her way out of his grip. "Who'd wanna take out your ugly mug?"
"She's called Vivian, and she's a lot nicer than you."
Dawn nodded along to this, lips pursed in a teasing smile as she ignored the sudden discomfort tugging at her stomach. "Well, that sounds dull. I hope she likes your birdshit trousers."
"That was your fault!" Hambone declared, and she lifted her glass to her lips as she shrugged, free hand raised in mock surrender. As Dawn turned away from him, he began to head back towards his other friends, tugging gently at the end of her ponytail and eliciting an outraged gasp as he passed.
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The moment Hambone had disappeared from sight, Dawn's stride quickened, nipping her way gracefully through the crowd in search of her crew. A familiar flash of blonde caught her eye, and her direction swiftly changed, making a beeline towards the corner in which the pair of waist gunners were already deep in discussion. Before Sadie nor Angel had scarcely had time to register her interruption, Dawn began to speak at them, hands held out in front of her as if bracing herself for something.
"Alright, huddle up people - do we know a Vivian? I don't think I know a Vivian."
Angel's chin creased with a frown, clearly still trying to figure out what was happening. "...I don't think so?"
Sadie didn't seem to waste time questioning the sudden intrusion, instead taking a moment to think the question over. She snapped her fingers. "Nurse Corps, pretty sure. Talked to her when Kit fucked up her hand."
"Oh, of course, all nice and caring, I bet - so fucking stupid," Dawn scoffed, earning nothing but a pair of confused. "I mean who even likes the name Vivian? Dumb name."
"I think it's pretty," Angel shrugged.
"Ok, well no one asked for your opinion, actually, so maybe shut up."
Sadie's brow furrowed. "Woah."
"Sorry. Love you guys."
"Why do you look terrible?" Angel asked.
"Uh, no reason. Just - if you find some pigeon feathers in your bed later, don't worry 'bout it."
"... Okay..."
"Alright, second question," Sadie added. "Why do we care about some random nurse suddenly?"
Dawn hesitated for a moment, shrugging awkwardly. "Hambone's going out with her."
"And is this a good thing or a bad thing?" Angel nudged.
"Nah, it's just a thing - I don't care."
"Uh-huh, yeah, 'cause this just seemed like the behaviour of someone who cares."
"Or someone who's lost their fucking mind," Sadie pointed out, earning a pointed stare from the brunette beside her.
Dawn let out a forced chuckle. "You guys read into things too much."
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Hambone flashed a smile as he slipped back into his circle of friends, Douglass and Blakely pausing their conversation to note his arrival. "You get lost on the way to the bar or something?" Everett asked, brow raised.
He shrugged. "Dawn arrived."
The two men exchanged a lingering glance, and Douglass cleared his throat before he spoke up. "Hey, 's it true you got a date with that nurse?"
Lip curling in a proud smile, Howard nodded. "Sure is."
"I didn't know you and Davis were done," Blakely frowned. "Sorry, man."
His smile faded, a look of confusion furrowing his brow. "... What are you talking about?"
"Well, I just thought you guys were going pretty steady."
Hambone's jaw hung slack for a moment as he processed what the others were insinuating. A surprised bark of laughter suddenly left him as he shook his head, shrugging. "Dawn - Dawn ain't my girl, we've never... never. She's my friend."
Blakely and Douglass were staring at each other again. James was the first to crack, snorting back a chuckle. "Sure thing."
"Aw, Jesus - I'm serious."
"Hey, I believe you," He nodded, but something in his expression declared the opposite.
What could he say? That he'd never seen her that way - that he'd never even thought about it. That he could never consider her more than a friend, and that she was the last person he'd ever take out like that. Maybe that it hadn't felt even a tiny bit like a betrayal when he'd asked Vivian out and lit up like a Christmas tree at her acceptance. Or that he hadn't cared when he thought Dawn wasn't coming tonight - that he hadn't found himself worrying about all the possible reasons she could've been late.
Howard Hamilton could've said any of those things.
None of them would've been true.
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therealslimshakespeare · 7 months ago
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|| What Took him so Long?
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Summary: For a long time I’ve wanted a comfort fic dealing with Bucky’s arrival in camp and the assumption that once he got there, found his men and was relatively safe, he had a big adrenaline crash and needed a ton of loving care. So I wrote it into this world.
Note: I wrote so many of the boys for the first time this time and, well, it was fun but have mercy I’m new here
Continuity: This segment follows the events of First Night
Thanks: I owe dear @hogans-heroes a lot for helping me sort my screams about multiple different aspects of this fic and for how much depth they’ve added to my own love of these guys. Also to @ab4eva @blurredcolour and @crazymadpassionatelove
Warnings: usual universe warnings apply, 18+,additional graphic recounting of past violence and rape, descriptions of injuries from the same, angsty conversations and misplaced blame, the boys trying to give all six foot two inches of dead weight Egan a bath
“It’s Ida,” Brady’s nimble hand was deceptively strong when clutching Gale’s bicep and shaking him to wakefulness early in the morning, “she won’t fuckin’ respond but she’s bowin’ up ‘till I think her neck might snap.”
Well that got Gale tumbling out of his bunk, out from Maureen’s hold on his face, swollen thumb on his tongue. The hell had he been thinking last night? The raucous noise of his landing to his feet woke the others, Crank instantly startled at their hovering over Ida.
“What’s wrong?”
“Dunno,” Gale replied, staring down at Ida Brady who was suddenly quite still again, “when’d the jerks start?”
“About an hour ago. She didn’t move before that.” John reported and Gale was sure it was an accurate report as Brady’s eye bags suggested he’d not even slept a wink. “She’s cold but she kept seizing so I stopped holding her.”
Gale bit his lip and tried to recall how pale was deathly pale, or just, pale. He bent over her and placed his fingers against her pulse, relieved to find a strong heartbeat in her neck. Maybe too strong, but he wasn’t about to start picking apart mercies. He was trying to measure it to his watch’s third hand when she started again, neck truly so bowed beneath his fingers he understood the impression of it close to breaking. He took his hand away discomfited and by this time Crank had joined them to stare down at her but those eyelids didn’t even flutter.
“We shoulda called a doctor last night.” Crank fretted, “She wasn’t just tired, not after what she’s been through.”
What she had been through was not something that had been discussed really, and so, it had been happily tabled as a past occurrence when she came in last night and toppled into the bunk straight after showers. Now their silence on the topic seemed like the sort of lethal discretion that kills amongst “polite” societies.
“Well, let’s get one now.” Gale snapped, “Crank -find the one who sewed my cut. Vega, I think, Vargas, something like that. He’s here, in the south compound.”
“You got it major.”
As Ida quieted again, Gale tried his hand at her pulse once more. A few moments later she was writhing in her sleep again.
“Since she seizes everytime you touch her, how about ya stop touching her?” Demarco’s word of wisdom filtered in from his bunk.
Chastised, and with shared looks of alarm at their foolishness, Gale and Johnny retracted their hands to clasp behind their backs and waited in that mock parade rest until the doctor came in, dark expression on his face and a very deflated medical bag at his side.
“It’s one of the women?” he asked, shouldering between the two men.
“Yeah, our colonel.” Gale supplied before relaying in brief terms the timeline of her stay here, her symptoms, her rather obvious injuries.
“We might be dealing with a concussion,” the Doc warned upon inspecting her face, “how’d she get these?” he asked about the swollen cheek and torn temple.
Gale turned to Maureen who still sat in her bunk, quiet, oddly quiet. “I saw her get punched once, I think it was on that side. But it wasn’t so bad, the rest happened when they took her away from us.”
Doc Vega was inspecting the rest of her as he pulled the covers down, her shirt flaps up, bruises and more bruises visible and -“She’s bleeding through her pants. Is this a cycle or-?” He turned to Kendeigh expectantly and she only shook her head, making Brady turn away with a wounded noise and walk a convict’s lap around the table, breath shuttering out in rough huffs, fists shoved into his pockets. Maureen wasn’t sure how anyone expected to get on top of such emotions, much less a bother. She was sure as soon as she had energy for it, she’d start making some Germans pay, it didn’t matter which, someone needed to pay.
“With assault this severe-“ Doc Vega’s face was more than eloquent regarding his horrified assessment. “-she should be in hospital. You know that right? That’s what this is, sexual battery, and like the word suggests, it's damaging, very damaging. Not to mention infection, fever- she belongs in hospital.”
The silence was heavy except for Brady and his off kilter laps.
“If they take her, I don’t trust them to guarantee her Combatant status.” Gale’s jaw worked overtime as he stared down at the body of his friend, “German hospital might be the best thing to ever happen to her or the worst when they discharge her. She’d not want me to let them take her out of here. Not after she fought so hard to get in.”
“Then by god,” the doctor exclaimed, “take her to the camp doctor, there must be some supplies. Antibiotics at the least, aspirin perhaps. Something for the swelling, inside and out. Camp doctor has supplies, how many times do I gotta tell you guys -I don’t! Take her to him.”
“No!” John Brady spoke up urgently only to immediately appear chagrined at his slip as Gale Cleven turned a very suspicious eye on him, “I mean, sir, if we take her, the German doctor will just transfer her to hospital. He can’t see how bad she is.”
That was a valid point, Cleven had to give it to him, although he noticed Hambone’s own suspicious, cud chewing, background shuffling observation of his pilot. Every time that doctor was brought up, Brady mildly suggested that they not go to him, without fail. His mentions regarding the guy being German and illusions to his methods being foreign were wearing thin. There was a miasma of myth about the doctor that no one could actually credit for a single source and Cleven hadn’t expected Brady, sensible, steady, laconic and measured Brady, to be the one to start spinning folklore in a place like this. He had next to no patience for it.
“Brady,” he decided to have at it, “you gonna tell me why everytime I bring up medical care in this camp you act like I’m suggesting suicide?”
“Sir,” Johnny’s gentle eyes grew wide and ever more guileless, “I told you, that man isn't much good.”
“Even a trash physician who has supplies is better than a good one without.” Doc Vega pointed out as he prepared to take his leave, “I’ve done everything with what I have. There simply isn’t anything at my disposal. Packages got held up and didn’t have everything accounted for.”
“He probably takes the stuff.” Brady muttured.
“So he’s the one to go to.” Gale snapped.
“He’s not touching her.” Ida’s brother replied.
Gale pinched his nose as he watched Vega leave them, the guy’s useless little bag of nothing swinging by his side, “By not being good - do you mean a poor physician? Be clear, Damnit.”
As if sensing a penultimate conflict, the room soon cleared of everyone save Maureen who was too invested by curiosity and a healthy dose of her own suspicion.
“Sir I’ve told you, he -he operates outside his purview.”
“Son? I can’t even pretend to understand what that means.” Gale’s patience grew more lethal as it rubbed thin, “That could mean he uses leeches or he abuses his patients.”
Brady’s eyes darted back and forth from Cleven’s face to the plain beamed ceiling as if he could find his answer there. Manic and with an odd glitter easily mistaken for tears. The kid probably needed to sleep, or maybe he needed to fess up about the doctor. Either way, Gale found the whole thing more and more unsettling but also, aggravating.
“Now are you gonna tell me which is it? Or are you alright with me withholding help from dying men because Captain Brady’s too intent on staying vague?”
“He’s just odd, sir.” Brady gave a defeated huff, eyes still watery, “It’s nothing bad, I-I never said not to send them, sir. He just can’t see Ida. He can’t.”
Gale was intently watching Brady swallow hard and wrack his brain for another respectful appeal when Crack came barreling back in, the eagerness in his step reserved for only one thing these dismal days: “They’re here! There’s a new batch, bringing them in the front now, quick, there’s not a long line!”
Brady was up and darting out the room before Gale could blink, uncharacteristically excusing himself before his superior had dismissed him and leaving Ida behind, still motionless in her bunk.
“Bucky could be with them!” Brady explained as he dashed out, same old hope repeated for over a month now and Gale wondered when the guy was going to crack from one too many hits to the morale.
“Brady!” Gale called after him a beat too late, wondering who was going to stay with Ida, but after catching Maureen’s quizzical eye, Gale too bolted and left the woman in his lover’s charge, tearing out of the combine to have a word with his young Captain, fleece and cover on for a little added dignity the camp pallor had no doubt stripped him of.
The scars, too.
Brady was at the fence by the time Gale caught up, his wiry frame slipping between the surging mass of POWs come to greet and heckle the newcomers. Gale had long ago found it a dismal scene and wasn’t fond of watching after it, but Crank and Brady were too intent, and some heartsick need drove Gale to find such excuses for why he, too, always managed to be at the scene when a new batch trudged in.
And what the cat brought in today made Gale forget about everything, everything else but that tall, shuffling, bloodied mess of a man he knew was his friend. And, characterically, despite appearing half dead, Egan was asking after Cleven, like the crackers after the cheese, damn the association risks.
“John Egan! Your two o’clock!”
Like a sunbeam splintering a thundercloud, Bucky’s battered face split open in a beaming smile the second he’d registered Cleven’s own. Gale couldn’t help the effusion of bittersweet gratification at the immediate resumption of the old ways, the old sweetness between them, the nearness of a good man to help brave this hell.
“What took you so long?” he jabbed, but his friend’s face told a story Buck wasn’t sure anyone left in Stalag Luft III had the stamina to hear.
And just like that, Egan was shuffled past and into processing and it would be ages before he saw him again. When Gale turned his back and worked his way through the crowd, Brady was lingering in one of the clearings, hands clasped and a rote twirl of thumbs matching the catatonically grateful prayers on his imperceptibly moving lips. Or Gale sure hoped they were prayers, it was that or Johnny having finally cracked.
“You were right.” He gave the kid a pat on the shoulder, smiling gently at him as he seemed to come out of his relieved fog, eyes too big in that lean face and dark circles making reflective ponds below, “You were right, you said he’d make it.”
“I hoped he would.” Johnny didn’t sound like he was expecting to cash in those prayers so soon.
“I’m going to that doctor.” Gale informed him, leveling him a strong look, “I think we should get a little list for the other girls. Play it off, could be for anyone. Penicillin, sulfa, that sorta thing. Does that sorta thing cure…their sorta thing?” Cleven admittedly obfuscated towards the end, not really expecting John Brady to know what cured venereal diseases but more hoping for an opinion of solidarity, like one does when ordering a risky plate off the menu.
Major Cleven never learned whether Captain Brady thought penicillin would work or not, there was a commotion outside the main center compound’s administrative building, and then the sudden appearance of guards dragging between them a slumped figure.
A dragged body was bad in most situations, at the prison camp it was cause for more than a little ire and panic. When Gale recognized the stature of their burden, the familiar span of the shoulders, the dark mop of curls hung low, his own brisk walk turned into a full on sprint across the muddy yard, Brady at his heels full of the same enlightenment.
“The hell did you do to him?” Cleven bellowed at the reasonably perturbed guards who were already mounting a defense of their blamelessness for Egan’s unconscious state.
“Nothing!” the more fluent of the two protested, “He vas being processed, yes? And he falls over, like zat. Nothing. Did nothing. Check him, he is—“ the guard made a motion to his face signifying the battlement Gale had already noticed as Egan trudged in. Back when Egan was awake and on his own two feet. “We? Nothing!”
Gale took Egan from them like a mother being handed their child, full frontal weight of his large friend propped against him and he succeeded at little more than keeping them both from hitting the mud. He was already weaker than when he first got there and the proof was here in the staggering weight of a man he used to hold his own against. Crank and Johnny and Demarco were beside him before he can even look for assistance, expressions of compassion and anger at Egan’s plight all melding into a series of disbelieving grunts as they heaved him up between them, carrying his dead weight like a feedsack. Gale and Brady take under his arms, Crank and Benny his legs. Gale studied the completely bashed face of his friend, a seething deduction brewing as to how he came to be in such a state.
“The showers.” he directed his men as they stalled midway in the yard after having got the weight of him hoisted.
They created a stir as they went, the dire oddity of the scene drawing attention as they shuffled through camp.
“Holy moley, is that Egan?” Talullah Smith came to a sudden halt in their path.
“Move!” Gale told her. “Or get the door.”
“He even alive?” Murphy was with her, no doubt obeying Cleven’s order for no woman to be unattended around camp, and he scrambled alongside to help as they mounted the steps and passed through the door Smith held until they were in the dank and echoing, poorly tiled room. There were a few other men in here, washing clothes and dabbing at their underarms. The showers themselves were not on today, hadn’t been for days, and Gale knew the large trough sinks down the middle of the room were their best bet for a triage and an initial wash.
“Somebody get his boots off, come on.”
It was horrible, grunting, grappling work trying to keep Egan’s dead weight up as they tugged off encrusted articles of clothing one after another, cringing at the bruises each grip and pull necessarily aggravated.
“Sorry Bucky.” Demarco apologized repeatedly to the insensible man as he adjusted his grip on his ribs for Brady to pull the slate gray button up off him.
“Smith, you can go.” Cleven noticed her lingering by the door, consternation written all over her face at Egan’s state, Murphy shadowing her. It wasn’t suitable for a woman to remain for the rest of it, whatever skill she had at setting fingers was a little below the pay grade of John Egan’s injuries. “You and Murph, can go get Doc Vega. Again.”
He sent Brady a look but the boy was too busy to notice, helping pull a very discolored arm out of a Bucky’s standard issue, fleece-less jacket. “What’d the looney do with his sheepskin?” he asked.
“Gave it to, Kidd.” Brady grunted, “Right before Munster. Said you didn’t like it.”
I’ll be damned: no lucky deuce and no lucky jacket and no fighter escorts, how were they supposed to manage to stay in the sky with recklessness like that? “You sentimental sunnuvabitch,” he hissed mournfully at his friend’s flopping head as they got him stripped and the full extent of his bruises came in view, “-supposed to be the last ones up.”
If anyone else understood what he meant in his mournful rage, they didn’t heed it, and if they didn’t understand they also did not press him for his meaning.
“Let’s get him up.”
Collectively they grabbed a limb apiece again and hoisted Bucky, groaning themselves under the bare weight of him.
“What did his mother feed him?” Benny protested as they staggered, and dumped him onto the longest of the troughs, getting a weak moan of protest from their specimen at the cold and hard surface.
“Major?” Crank begged hopefully of his closed eyes as Gale worked at the pump on the faucet, the gurgle of chilled water preceding the blast.
“I’m gonna use this, lad.” Brady was informing one of the armpit washing boys down the way, swiping their washcloth with kind presumption and returning to squeeze it out under Cleven’s growing steam.
Gently as he had his sister’s scalp, Brady began to use the wet cloth to scrub and wipe at the blood dried in an ominous swirl around Bucky’s eye as Gale continued to pump.
“He’s gonna catch chill.” Demarco warned.
“Haul some buckets?” Gale asked if they were willing, the kitchen combine was not so far away with fires and tin pails.
“We’ll be back.” Benny agreed.
“Brady, go with him.” Cleven unceremoniously pried the washcloth from the boy’s hand; silent weeping was an art Gale had perfected as a child but he’d not seen it in a grown man until today, “Go.”
While they were gone Gale did his best to keep the chilled water somewhat diverted, with Crank’s help he even managed to roll Bucky on his side and probe at his blackened ribs. As is, Bucky began to shiver and when Doc Vega got there; he was none too gentle in his hurried and angry assessment.
“Fractured ribs.” he rubbed the washcloth across his face like he was sanding the deck back home, “Possible fractured orbit. Eye socket, Cleven, looks busted. Just keep him propped, hope his eye doesn’t fall back into his skull.” Gale stared back at him unblinking, there was only ever one question these days and after a beat Doc Vega answered it, “And no, don’t have anything for it.”
Brady and DeMarco had returned with their now tepid water in time to hear this. “Should we wash him?” Benny gestured hopelessly.
“Yeah, he’ll probably sleep it off. If we’re lucky. Get him clean, get him warm.”
Gale began to pump anew and Brady gently tipped his warm bucket over Egan’s clotted curls, running his fingers through to disentangle the crusted snarls. Unfortunately their irrepressible patient took the kindness for a waterboarding and began to thrash, sending a shower of cold droplets over his caregivers.
“Buck?” a wrecked voice, punctuated by chattering teeth, stalled them all. “I saw Buck, where’s Buck, I found Buck, wh-“
“Yeah, yeah Bucky, it’s me.” Gale dropped his task and crouched over him, shivering himself as the sink ledge dampened the front of his own clothes.
“Buck!” Egan begged again, arms reaching out until Gale found himself all but tipped into the sink himself, arms wound around Egan’s pale shoulders with their blooming blue mottle, “M’so goddamn cold, Buck.”
“I know, I know, I’ve got ya. I swear, I’ve got ya.” Gale squeezed him tighter, “Almost over. Gettin’ you freshened up. We’ve got ladies here now.” he joked.
John’s head rolled listlessly on Gale’s forearm and his sharp blue eyes flitted across the washroom ceiling until he caught sight of someone else dear hovering over him with another pail, “Brady, what’re you cryin’ for?” he croaked.
“You.” the kid didn’t miss a beat. “So sorry Bucky, I’m so sorry.
“Hey,” Bucky’s voice strengthened with vehemence, “s’not your fault. None of it.”
“Yeah,” Gale agreed, gently peeling a flake of blood off his ear, “that plane was going down anyway without your lucky jacket.”
Bucky somehow had the stamina and the facial expertise to look sheepish at that despite his disfigurement. “Why'd you guys put me in the sink? Animals! Get me out, too goddamn cold, get me out. Gale! Get me out.”
“Ok, ok, shh, ok.”
There was a compassionate scramble to help Bucky sit up and swing his legs over the side, the groaning and swaying of the Major a hardly promising sign for the excursion he seemed intent to make. Suddenly they were helping to prop him on his feet again, and while he was no longer the dead, unconscious weight of before, he was now six feet something of bare, slippery flesh vibrating between them all in a terrible chill. Murphy and Smith had brought blankets along with the Doc, and gratifyingly someone from their combine had proffered a t-shirt and fresh skivvies.
Crank and Brady swayed dangerously with his weight on their shoulders as Gale knelt down and made his shaking legs step into them. Bucky’s own hand arrested him standing up by placing a clumsy hand on his cheek.
“Where’d you get these?” he was thumbing at those scars Gale hadn’t managed to live down.
“Flack.” Gale maintaIned as he rose to his feet, “What the hell happened to you?“
Bucky gave him his old lopsided grin, “War, Buck.”
“Too much of this kind of war lately.” Crank pointed out unamused, wounds were one thing but what was with the abuse? It didn’t seem to stay away, even from the strongest or most esteemed of their number.
Bucky’s brow ticked in curiosity at the allusion to others but he was too drained to keep his thoughts ordered, “Marched us through a town, RAF had just paid a call. Townspeople didn’t exactly come out with flowers.”
“Holy shit.” Benny sucked his teeth in a grimace, noticing how the other men down the way paused their chores to listen in.
“They attacked you?” Cleven’s tone left little room for questioning.
Bucky gave them a wincing little smile, tilting his head in a shrug, “Yeah, guards just let them at us. I’m the only one who made it.”
“What?” Came up in a chorus, his doleful audience suddenly animated, “You mean they killed the rest?”
“One got knifed,” Bucky stared down at Brady’s work on lacing his boots, skivvies and boots, now he looked like all the other clowns here, “the others - guess they beat them, too. I heard shots. Woke up in a cart on the way to a nice, quiet little spot in the woods.”
“Jesus Christ:” Crank uttered, “Jesus Christ.”
“I’ll be ok.” Bucky muttered, scuffing his boots to see how heavy they felt, his limbs wouldn’t stop shivering and he had a sick feeling it wasn’t from cold alone.
“Yeah, you will.” Cleven’s pained eyes ordered him sternly and to swipe away that horrid crease between his brows, Egan would do anything.
“Yeah.” he agreed.
“Let’s get you a bunk.” Brady prodded, slipping back under one of his armpits, wiry shoulders having more strength in them than Bucky credited, “We’ve got a nice little sick ward going.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah; and no medical supplies.”
“Great.”
“Yeah, it’s a real well oiled machine they got here.” Benny snarked as the lot of them kept pace with Egan’s limps across to their combine -it wasn’t under discussion where he’d bunk, he would be in with them.
“What’d you name the place?” Egan asked dismally at the threshold of their combine.
“We didn’t.” Gale admitted his unimaginative oversight for the second time in twenty four hours on these same steps.
“No?” Egan slapped at the boring raw lumber and sniffed, “You let Maureen in billet in here?” he asked suddenly.
“Y-yeah.” Gale was wary and his defense at the ready, “All the women who’ve arrived so far are in this one, so we can help guard them. Yes, Maureen’s in with us.”
It was better just to say it, to head off the teasing and the suggestions and the disorder right away. Cleven smiled back at Bucky confidently, waiting for this friend to get a move on over the threshold.
“Huh, ok,” Egan made a funny little face; “then I christen you,” he went on addressing the combine itself, clearing his throat loudly to collect before spitting on the doorframe above Benny’s disgusted head, “Love Shack Number Nine.”
“Just -get your ass inside.” Gale shoved at him between his shoulders and Bucky -with Brady still tucked dutifully under a wing- entered his new home.
Gale gave him a preliminary roster of inmates in each barrack, “We’re down near the end.” and by the time they got to their own room Crank had to help support Bucky’s other side, the brief surge of energy the cold water and friendly faces had given him waning fast.
“Just so goddamn hard to breathe.” He tried to explain, wincing at the pull of his arms as they clumsily shouldered into their room.
It was empty except for Ida in her bunk and Maureen beside her who stood up fast as a lightning bolt at the sight of Egan. “Jumping Jehoshaphat, what happened to you?” She rushed him but pulled back before her usual greeting of hugs to survey the damage, suspecting a squeeze might be too cruel even by Egan’s standards.
“I’m ok, Candy.” he assured, smooth as butter as he reached for her and ran busted knuckles over the curl of her hair, “God you’re a sight for sore eyes after all these ugly bastards.”
“Really though, what happened?” she shied away from his pacifying touches, glaring at the others to start spilling the beans.
“They tried to lynch him.” Gale saw there was nothing for, she’d wheedle it out at some point and after what she’d seemingly endured, what exactly was he shielding her from? “Killed everyone else with him.”
Maureen’s worried eyes dulled sadly at this and she proceeded to hug herself, hands carefully tucked into her armpits, “Gosh, Bucky.” she mumbled.
“Hey, said I’m alright, didn’t I?” Bucky coaxed, swaying towards Maureen and laying a heavy hand on her small shoulder. It tipped him too far forward and he had to clutch at and brace himself on the bunk slat behind her head. Suddenly he was peering over her shoulder and instead of empty sheets as he expected in the lowest bunk, he found the bruised face of a superior he didn’t know had even been shot down. “What the hell happened to her?”
At the silence that followed this very simple question, Bucky swung his head round to stare the men down. It made the world rock, window blurring into the room in a nauseating sheet of white and Buck had too many eyes and all of them sad and Crank hadn’t even a face but a blob and his vision was shot to shit with spots but as no one said a word, he repeated his question in a yell that surprised even himself, “What happened to her?”
“The Gestapo kept taking them from the Dulag.” Brady’s voice was soft and thin in his ringing ears, like a child explaining the fate of a broken toy, “They even took them to a camp. A women’s prison camp.”
“Am I missing the part where any of that promises a face like that?” Bucky demanded, trying to get the goddamn window to stop whiting out his vision.
Gale’s voice was on his other side, the side without the window, he wanted to look at him but he was afraid to move his head again and for the spots to get large and everything go black one more time. “Long time before they’d recognize them as combatants, Bucky,” Gale laid a preemptively calming hand on Egan’s arm, “SS knocked them around bad.”
That’s all Gale really knew of it. Most of it had been gotten out of Smith who seemed most fit and most angry over it all. The others were skittish or tired.
“Knocked them around.” Bucky repeated bitterly, disbelieving Cleven’s moderate retelling, “Who’s them? Who else?”
“We’ve got a little over a dozen of the girls here.” Gale replied, “Brought them in a group, some downed weeks before others. Held them while figuring out what to do before they brought them here.”
“What to do?” Bucky knew he was back to yelling and the spots were getting excited from it, “Treat them like officers being a little too much to ask?”
“Like they treated you?” Demarco weighed in, if only to take the heat off his co-pilot, “Like they treated Buck?” -or maybe not.
“The fuck did they do to him?” Bucky really did try to turn his head this time and he was blindly groping for Cleven’s soft cheeks even as the spots took over his vision and his knees began to buckle. Gale grabbed him on the way down with Candy’s help, but Egan heard her exclamation of pain from it.
Steadied, with his hands back on the bunk slat, Bucky willed away the spots and stared down at Kendeigh’s supportive hands on his waist -or what shoulda been hands. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen an uglier set of paws.
“Were you with her?” he asked, gravelly and not to be ignored.
“Most of the time.” Maureen whispered back and if Gale could have cleared the room for her he would’ve.
“Then what the hell happened to her?” Bucky summoned the last bit of himself and stared down the auburn beauty of his erstwhile drinking buddy, “No really Kendeigh, answer me. I’m your superior, you don’t have recourse, you answer to me. What’re you gonna do, huh? Ask your fairy godmother colonel if you can ignore me? Huh? ‘Hey ida got a sec, Ida?’ No? Looks like her office is closed. Fucking talk to me, Candy. Start with those hands. What happened?”
“Someone stood on them.” -if Gale had to hear Maureen repeat it one more time in that monotone way he was going to start chewing through his cheek.
“Why?” Bucky always had such simple questions, it was one of his wisdoms and Maureen hated it right now, her eyes flashing and her face reddening as she ducked away from the stare of friends.
“So I’d stop fighting him.” The statement was hardly legible, her voice had gone so wispy.
“He, this ‘he’ -he knew you were an Officer?” Gale hadn’t thought to ask that, and he’d thought of so many things to ask that never made it out his throat, but Bucky did. “An army Air Force combatant?”
Maureen swallowed hard before throwing her head back, neck taut and nose flaring -Gale didn’t think he’d ever seen her more magnificent. “He knocked my cap off before it.” she answered at last, a cold hard meeting of blue eyes and Bucky stared her down, “And he laughed at the engraving on my belt buckle when he undid my pants.” There was dead silence for a beat before she went on, “They tore the wing patches off Ida’s shirt, you can see the holes there, see? Johnny’s not fixed them yet.”
Bucky slumped to a seat on Ida’s bunk, a shaky hand extending to push down the blanket and expose her shoulder, and there was a jagged tear in the standard issue, sure enough. “What’s Johnny been fixing?” he asked, voice hollow as he thumbed at Ida’s mottled skin, she was white as a ghost beneath the blue discoloration. Bucky wondered if he looked half as rough.
Johnny was then in a squat beside him, rummaging under the bunk before pulling out a pair of trousers. He tossed them into Bucky’s lap, wordlessly. Drab olive, Brady’s tidy repairs obvious due to the clashing thread, and also blood -so much goddamn blood down the inseams, meticulously scrubbed out but stained all the same and woven together by the white stitches. “You bastards let him do this?” Bucky asked the men incredulously, rage beginning to boil over and it didn’t have a single source and it certainly had no rightful outlet, “None of you can handle a fuckin’ needle? No? No, go on then, let a brother sew up this shit, let him get to think long and hard about what each fuckin’ rip means for his sister! You goddamn cowards -you haven’t even asked them! You haven’t talked about it with the girls, have you?”
“Bucky, Bucky come on now,” Gale tried reasoning with him, “they just got in. So did you. Let’s, let’s take it easy, save our mad for the ones who deserve it.”
“Oh, oh you don’t think that’s us then, Major Cleven?” Egan scoffed, “Because we didn’t do it, isn’t our fault at all?”
“It’s not!” Crank insisted behind Gale’s back, “Gonna blame Buck for your ribs, too?”
That defeated him. Bucky’s fury visibly dimmed in his eyes and Gale would have almost preferred the insulting rage over the dead helplessness that followed, it was too reminiscent of his own. “They’re safe, you’re safe.” he summarized gruffly, “Doc says sleep for both you and her.”
“Sleep.” Bucky mumbled as he looked back to Ida, trying to imagine with masochistic singleness of mind the sort of men who’d enjoy picking a strong woman like her apart -he could bring them to mind too easily. “Sure, just…sleep it off.”
“I don’t want her going to the doctor.” John Brady insisted once more like this had never been argued before in this very room.
“He no good?” was all Bucky asked.
“No sir.” Brady was emphatic and relieved to be taken at vaguest value.
“Brady’s the only one to say that,” Cleven butted in, “and he won’t specify.” Gale may have shot a glare at Ida’s brother, Bucky’s own predicament causing a double issue. “You need one, she needs one, too.”
“I-I trust my little Fox.” Bucky disagreed, although it was less impressive by both the use of a nickname and the slurring stumble that occurred right after as he attempted to get up from the bunk and pat Brady’s cheek. This small movement caused such disturbance in his fragile equilibrium that he would have nearly toppled if Cleven and Kendeigh hadn’t been at his side to catch him. “Goddamn! Goddamn, I’m dizzy as hell.” he repeated, “And cold. I don’t want a doctor, I want a blanket. And a nap.”
“Just what the doctor ordered.” Gale repeated dryly with a ghost of a grin that would have normally riled Bucky into smushing it between his fingers. He was too far away for that and Bucky was too dizzy to reach.
“M’gonna sleep for a week.” He announced.
“They’ll be in here for roll if you don’t show.” Gale begged.
“Good luck to them, moving me.” Bucky grumbled and shook a boot across the room before Brady knelt and helped with the other one. How many times had the sweet kid been shoeing him today? He should start calling him mom.
“They’ll come for her too, if she misses again.” Gale pushed, “A guard came and checked to make sure she was alive this morning.”
“They’ll just take her to the doctor.” Brady repeated hopelessly.
“No they won’t.” Bucky assured him, already fully convinced of two things Gale very much held in suspicion, and he’d been here under half an hour, “They won’t.” he repeated and, before anyone could fully credit their eyes, he appeared to use his last gasp of strength and dexterity to roll Ida Brady, none too gently, further in her bunk toward the wall before climbing in after her and sagging into the meager bedding.
“John!” Cleven had too many objections to itemize at present and all of them were tidily conveyed by use of his Christian name.
“They can’t take her from us like this, Buck.” Bucky was slurring worse than ever, now obstructed by a pillowcase and Ida’s torn head.
“She doesn’t wanna be touched.” Gale hissed urgently, side eyeing Demarco who seemed beyond caution and was now viewing this as analytically as a laboratory experiment.
“S’ok.” Bucky mumbled, “Ida always knows me.”
Gale and Johnny exchanged helpless looks, with Gale choosing to flavor his own with no small amount of accusation towards the younger man. But then, both occupants of the bunk became -and stayed- still, and no seizing episodes followed the heavy burden of Bucky’s arm over Ida’s ribs. So, with shrugs and outstretched hands of mere mortal impotency, they resigned themselves to life with Bucky in Love Shack Number Nine.
“I forgot how loud he could get.” Crank’s mutter broke the silence.
“We should get some salve at least.” Demarco observed with a nod to Bukcy’s face and Kendeigh, who had been oddly quiet and sat with legs swinging on her bunk, echoed in agreement.
“I thought maybe penicillin, too.” Gale asked the room at large.
“Why not ask for the keys to the front gate while we’re at it?” Crank snarked, “That krout sawbones never gave me shit for Murphy’s cuts, hasn’t even tended Hambone since he got out of hospital.”
“Hambone hasn’t gone to him because Brady has scared him off.” Cleven retorted, “Any of you have a better idea?”
“I could try.” Maureen spoke up, “He might -respond?- if a woman asked.”
“No.” Cleven shut that down with a sharp cut of his hand through the air, “No way in hell.”
“I’ll go sir.“ Brady’s soft assurance broke the tenseness, Gale watched the boy stoically as he rose from his place by Ida’s -and now Egan’s- bunk, and grabbed his pipe off the table, “Salve and penicillin?” he confirmed, face cocked shyly back at Cleven once more from the doorway.
“Salve and penicillin.” Cleven affirmed, “And Brady-“ he halted the boy, “-you sure about this?”
“He knows me.” Brady’s eyebrows drew together, a sudden strong expression on his face, nonplussed in a way that made Cleven feel like he was the one slow in the head, “Fixed the shoulder.” he reminded, gesticulating to the joint that had been dislocated by a poor parachute landing, no doubt caused by arguing too long and close to the ground in a spiraling plane with Major Egan. “I’ll get you the stuff, sir.”
Brady shoved his pipe in his mouth and dug his hands into his coat pockets as he walked down the drafty hallway. Conversations from the various rooms drifted to his ear, odd still to hear the high tones of female chatter amongst them. He found himself rolling his last bit of tobacco round and round in his pocket as he neared the door, he’d been saving it for a real doozy of a day; for some catastrophe that needed nicotine to wash it down, or else a holiday that deserved the special exception. Ramming his once hurt shoulder into the door to open it, Brady decided today would have to be significant enough.
The day he got salve and penicillin.
“You just chew on that thing instead of smoke it now?” The laconic humor of his bombardier startled him mid shiver, it wasn’t even that cold outside he just felt poorly and everything was getting real cold and awful as he stood rooted to their steps and eyeing the main compound.
“No, I was gettin’ ready to pack it.” He answered Hamilton, leveling him a scrutinizing look over the pipe in question, “How’ve you been keepin’ occupied?”
“This and that.” Hambone shrugged, gold teeth still glinting as he assessed Brady. “Where you headed?”
“Who says I’m headed anyplace?”
“Word is Egan’s here and half dead.” Hambone scratched at his scar, the rough sutures too late in being taken out and now causing irritation, Brady almost felt guilty for that. “And now you're out here eyeing the Pill Hut. I’d say you’re going to that doctor.”
Hambone never really got enough credit for his smarts, and Brady wished he’d stop using them only when it concerned things Johnny was already having enough trouble psyching himself up for -like radioing the tower to admit they were lost or visiting this freak in a white coat.
“They need some stuff.” He conceded.
“Gonna waste good baccy on it?” Hambone scoffed again, “Come on, I feel like a walk. Haven’t seen inside the place anyway, all your ghost stories were too spooky.” Hambone was mocking him, but he was also beginning to walk towards the hut with the plain expectation of accompanying Brady.
“Hambone-“
“With all due respect, just shut it, Captain.” Hambone gave him a look, and it was the first one today that made Brady feel seen without feeling all of two inches tall, “If I have to rub these stitches on those rough pillows one more night I’m gonna claw my face back open.”
Brady didn’t doubt he would, so in a spooked and complacent mood, pilot followed grinning bombardier down the muddy lanes to the doctor’s shack.
💋 Hope you enjoyed! Feedback is a writer’s lifeblood, please feel free to scream in comments or the inbox, I love it and wanna hear it all. Trust me, nothing is “too dumb”. Your thoughts mean the world to me.
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darkimpala1897 · 7 months ago
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The Cleven twins Masters Of Air Au headcanons.
1. Gale's twin is name Ruth Thomas Cleven, he's the youngest by ten minutes, everyone calls him Ruthy, Bucky calls him Bucket, because he's Bucky, Buck is Buck, and Ruth is Bucket.
2. His dark hair comes from his mother, well Bucks blonde hair comes from his father.
3. Ruth teases Buck anytime he brings Marge up, he goes "Marge this, Marge that, we get it."
4. Is there for Bucky when he realizes he's in love with Buck.
5. He awkwardly kissed Bucky to test a theory that maybe he's attracted to him and not Buck, but Bucky immediately reacted by going "That was like kissing my sister, no definitely in love with Buck not you" and Ruth was like "Jeez thanks."
6. Does drunk karaoke with Bucky, you would think he was Buckys twin not Bucks.
7. When Buck goes missing, he insisted his brother was still alive actually he yelled at anyone who said he was dead, "it's a twin thing" Bucky would say.
8. When they are reunited with Buck in the prison camp he straight up went "I told you so." And Bucky just glared at him.
9. Ruth is the polar opposite of Buck, he keeps Buck on his toes that's for sure.
10. Anytime anyone picks on Buck for his name being Gale, Ruth makes sure to let them know that only he can pick on Buck for being called Gale.
11. Will straight up punch someone when they ask why he's named Ruth.
12. His accent is thicker than Bucks, Bubbles one time joked he needed subtitles.
13. One of the biggest pranks Bucky pulled on the newest airmen was when they asked where Major Gale Clevens was, he'd point him in the direction of Ruth who always plays along.
14. Ham somtimes somehow gets them confused with the other, Ruth finds it hilarious and doesn't correct him, Buck does because he feels bad.
15. Major flirt and playboy Ruth is, he always says "I'll write you." With a smile and a smirk, and then Buck is like "You're aren't going to write her will you?" And then Ruth is like "Do I look like you and Marge?" And then Buck is like "Sometimes I'm ashamed that you have my face."
16. Ruth will eat anything, Buck is a peaky eater.
17. Ruth can pretty much mimic any accent, he isn't great at mimicking people but accents he's amazing at, he enjoyed scaring everyone in the prison camp by randomly yelling in a German accent, worked everytime.
18. Ruth can't ride a bike, I mean he can but not amazingly. He runs into everything.
19. Ruth does his brothers hair, he cuts it and styles it, but he refuses to let Buck touch his hair because it's already "perfect."
20. Terrible dancer, he enjoys embarrassing his twin at any chance he gets. That's why everyone jokes he's Buckys twin and not Bucks.
21. Biggest Bucky and Buck shipper ever.
Add onto this AU if you wanted! Write a fic if you wanted, do whatever!
Thanks for reading!
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trashbag-baby666 · 7 months ago
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Pilot-Firehouse au
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Summary: There’s a new probie at Casper fd, Gale is one step closer to finding out who Rosies been going on dates with, welcome to the madness.
WC: 3,385
C/W: None!
au masterlist!
MOTA Masterlist!
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John skipped through the fire department a pink box of donuts in his hand. Most people would probably ask what’s got you in a good mood? But no one batted an eye at John, because this is just how he carries himself all the time, aspiring to put a smile on all his crew's faces. Today it would be with donuts tomorrow it might be dad jokes.
“Morning, Bucky.” Curt wiped his hands on his pants and took the powdered sugar donut out of the box, “Chicks got a probie in the office. Told me to send you in when you got here.”
“Sounds good,” John nods, heading up the metal, red steps and going into Chicks office. A brown haired man sitting on the opposite side of Chick, his eyes wide with excitement. Fresh out of the academy and ready for some real action.
“Morning chief, donut?” John held the box out.
“Yes please, thank you, Captain. John, this is Captain Egan. One of the finest firefighters CFD has ever seen.”
“We’ve got another John?” He raised an eyebrow leaning over slightly to see the file on Chicks desk, “John Brady, how do you like Brady?”
“I…uh.”
“Come on, Brady, wouldn’t wanna be late for the morning stretch circle.” John called, bouncing down the steps, Brady scattering after him, “Guys this is our new probie, Brady.”
“Fresh blood, huh?” Dougie leaned on the fire truck
“This is Dougie and…” John looked around for a moment, “Where’s your Missus?”
“I ain’t anyone's missus,” the lengthy blonde came from around the front of the truck, eyeing up Brady.
“And this is Howard but everyone calls him Hambone, maple long john for you.” John plucked the donut out of the box and handed it to the blonde, “I’m putting Brady with you guys today, so please be nice to him…Brady, good luck with the hazing.”
“You’re ours now, pretty boy.” Dougie put a strong hand onto his shoulder, shaking him lightly.
“Come on stretch time, boys.” Curt clasped his hands together grabbing the attention of everyone, quickly being overshadowed by the loud siren that began to ring, “Nevermind.”
“Suit up, Brady!” John clapped him on the back, offering a small crack of a smile.
—---------
Gale’s all too familiar with the sounds of too many voices all at once on top of the constant voices on the intercom paging doctors, the occasional groan, the clacking on keyboards. The sound of the Casper, Wyoming ER became nothing but white noise for him, “good morning, doctor.” Rosie stood against the counter in the breakroom. His words okayest doctor thermos in hand, a small smile on his lips.
“Morning, doctor.” Gale opened his locker, “How’re you this morning?”
“Doing just fine.”
“So I take it the date went well?”
“Oh, how did it go?” Croz pushed open the break room door, his stuffed to the brim tote bag over his shoulder eyebrows wide with curiosity.
“It was fine guys, but I don’t kiss and tell.” Rosie put his hands up in defense. Croz and Gale had been trying to crack the code into Rosies love life since late med school when they met Croz during their residencies. But he kept it a secret from them and wasn’t budging still.
“You’re no fun, Rosie, who else are me and Gale supposed to gossip about?”
“Linda from HR. No, I’m kidding, gossip about me wouldn’t be very much fun anyways, but he did meet Freddie last night.” Rosie glanced at the two of them as he walked towards the door.
“Oooooh,” Gale snickered, getting to meet Freddy was a big deal. Rosie didn’t let just anyone meet his elderly deaf cat with separation anxiety.
“Sorry I gotta get back to it,” Rosie put his hand on the door handle shooting them a wink.
“I’m glad he’s found a guy, this was their…fourth date I think he mentioned the other day?” Gale and Rosie had met their freshman year of college since they were roommates. Then they just never separated and lived together all the way up until John asked Gale to move in with him.
“Me too,” Croz sighed, putting his bag away, “How was Delia’s game yesterday?”
“Great! She almost had a home run, but they did win, six to five!”
“Sorry, we couldn’t make it, Junie got sent home from the day camp yesterday with a fever.” Gale knew Croz and his husband Bubbles kept very busy with their four kids.
Hell, Gale only had two kids and they kept very busy.
“That’s alright, how high was the fever?”
“Hundred and one I think she sweated it out last night. She was drippin’ this morning when I woke her up.”
“Hopefully it passes fast. It makes me so sad when the girls are sick.”
“Me too, hopefully we can contain her germs to herself and we don’t have a house outbreak.” Croz rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. The last thing any of them needed was a Crosby family sick outbreak that could possibly spread.
———————
Brady squeezed the excess water out of the sponge and back into the bucket of soapy water. Pressing the sponge back into the truck. After the call John had asked Ham, Dougie, and himself to wash the truck. But the other two had long since abandoned ship , leaving him by himself.
“Dougie and Ham ditch you?”
“Jesus,” Brady put a hand out on the truck turning to see John with that same smirk from earlier on his face. Bending down he grabbed the other sponge out of the bucket.
“Curt used to do the same shit to me. I promise they’ll like you, they do this to everyone.”
“How long did Curt, y’know…? Harass you for being the new guy?” Brady scratched the back of his neck with his free hand.
“Oh I don’t know, I think a good month, till I saved his ass from a burning building.”
“Oh.”
“How old are you, kid?”
“Twenty four, sir.”
“Well you’re aging me specially with the sir, no need for this sir and captain bullshit. Just call me Bucky, everyone else does.”
“Okay, capt…Bucky.” A moment of silence passed between the two of them. Brady just hoped he was doing everything right like he had been taught in the academy.
“Got a special someone in your life?”
“Oh, uh, no. I haven’t met the right one yet…there weren't a lot of options in Sundance. Thought I’d have a better shot since I play for both teams.” Brady chuckled dryly hoping he wouldn’t be ostracized for his sexuality here.
“Amen to that one! I thought I’d be single for the rest of my life, till I met my husband.”
“How long have you guys been married?”
“We actually just celebrated our tenth anniversary last week.” John snickered.
“Well congratulations, do you have any kids?”
“Yeah, we’ve got two girls. My oldest will be 13 next week and our youngest is seven.”
Brady felt a hole of anxiety in his chest begin to fill itself back in knowing there was at least another lgbt member in the firehouse. He kept it to himself at first in the academy, he didn’t want a stigma to follow him.
Brady picked his head up at the sound of a dog barking, meeting the sight of a white and light gray husky in a service dog vest dashing towards John. “Oh hello there, Meatball!” John scratched the husky behind his ear, “This is Meatball, the hundredths mascot and staple.”
“Is this the new probie?”
“Yep,” John clasped a hand on Brady’s shoulder squeezing gently, “Brady, this is our driver engineer Benny Demarco, he’s Meatball's other half.”
“I’m not married to him, I promise.”
“Did you look into the tax benefits for it?” John asked, tilting his head and putting his hands on his hips.
“Nice meeting you, Brady.” He held out his hand for him to shake.
“Nice meeting you, I look forward to working with you.” Brady shook his hand, his grip tight and firm.
“Come on Meatball,” Demarco headed up the steps to Chicks office, the husky behind him.
“So,”
“Hm?” Brady’s eyebrow raised.
“Me and Benny are good friends, but he won’t tell us a thing about this person he’s seeing. If you can figure anything out let me and Curtie know.” John squeezed Brady’s shoulder again delivering a small shake.
So John is chronically nosy?
———————————
“Fancy seeing you here, we gotta stop running into each other like this.” Curt leaned against the open door of the ambulance.
“Hey, Curtie.” Ken looked up from where he was writing down his report, “Did you ask Bucky if we're still coming over for dinner?”
“Yes we are.”
“Awesome, I felt bad we had to leave right after the game.” Ken set his clipboard down standing up taking Curt’s hand then jumping out of the back of the ambulance.
“Yeah, the girls were all excited. I'm bringing them popsicles to Friday's practice, today we gotta lock in on fielding.” Ken smiled while watching Curt talk with his hands. He loved getting to coach Cordelia’s rec league softball team. Curt also stayed busy playing on the firehouses softball league Bucky coached. He didn’t play anymore only because he tore his ACL a few years back.
“I know I was so proud of them! You tell them I said that.” Ken placed his hand on Curt’s chest, “You’ve been working out?”
“Sure have sugar,” Curt pulled him in by the belt loops. He could stare at Curt all day and make this his full time job. Curt moved in with Ken a couple months ago and things had been going pretty well.
“Curt, what are you doing?” John furrowed his eyebrows coming around the truck.
“I was just saying hello to the wife,” Curt kissed Ken’s cheek, “See you at home, Kenny.”
“Bye Curtie, bye John.” Ken waved and shut the back doors of the ambulance.
“I saw you and Buck making out against one of the trucks the other day. So you got nothin’ on me, Johnny.” Curt shook his head walking after him.
“You know too much about me for me to become an enemy of Curtis Biddick. I was just coming to tell you we were leaving.”
It was true, when John dropped out of college halfway through his second year. He got in his car and started driving. He got to the Wisconsin/Minnesota border and decided to just keep going. Drove all the way to Casper, Wyoming in two days, decided to stop for a drink and then never looked back.
“I don’t want you as an enemy,” Curt shrugged his jacket back on as they got back to the truck.
“Good, because then I would have to kill you.” The two of them climbed back in the truck, “How’re you liking it, Brady?”
“I like it sir- uh, Bucky.” He cleared his throat and clasped his hands together looking down.
“Loosen up kid, I’m glad you like it.” John sat across from him.
“You’ve been doin’ a just fine job. I know you’ll fit right in.” Curt had seen a dozen or so of guys through their probie phases at the firehouse. He did in fact haze John after he convinced him to join the academy. John and Curt both saw Dougie and Ham through their probie period together. Brady seemed like a good kid and determined to become the best firefighter he can be.
————————
Gale: I’m on lunch, just thought I’d check in if you or Flynn needed anything from the store. If you make anything please clean it up so I don’t have to clean before making dinner. 🤗🤗
Cordelia: ok
Gale sighed, setting his phone back on the breakroom table stabbing a crispy piece of lettuce out of his salad. “I don’t like this tweenage thing.”
“Delia?” Rosie hummed through his bite of sandwich
“Yeah the other day she looked at me like I killed her cats because I asked her to help me pick up dinner.” Gale rubbed the bridge of his nose. He and John both had been coming to terms that Cordelia did not in fact hate them. She just wasn’t their little girl anymore and wanted more independence and they could respect that.
“Has the attitude started yet?” Croz could probably offer the best advice out of any of them. Their oldest was a couple years older than Cordelia, “The first time Astrid actually raised their voice at us we were so distraught.”
“A little bit,” Gale sat back in his seat rubbing at the gold band on his finger, “I’m beginning to think about bringing back timeouts for her too.”
“Sometimes it’s better to let them cool off in their room. I remember this age, hormones flying, your body changing, everything seems like the biggest deal of your life.” Croz definitely had the most confidence in his parenting out of the group. But I guess you do probably have to carry confidence with your words when you have four kids to wrangle around.
“I told my parents to shut up one time at that age…it did not go over well.” Gale could imagine a younger Rosie telling that to Mama Rosenthal. Followed by her most certainly chewing him out in Yiddish and sending him to his room.
It’s not that Gale is insecure about his parenting, it's that he doesn’t want to be like his father. He wasn’t like his father at all. It’s the one thing Gale brought up when they first talked about kids, “John, what if I turn into him?” “That’s not going to happen. You’re nothing like him, Gale.” John was right, Gale wasn’t his father. The apple didn’t even fall from that tree.
“It’s at least a little nice to hear that this is at least some right of passage event.” Gale cleared his throat. He didn’t really get a chance to have that, he grew up at far too young of an age. He had spent his entire childhood taking care of his father and avoiding the swinging hands that came at him. The rundown apartment in northern Casper, the cigarette burned couch with the cans and bottles littering any surface available. He knew his only way out and he took it and ran.
Now he had his own family, he had his firehouse family from John's side and he had Rosie and Croz from his side. He had to remind himself, he in fact is doing better than he ever thought he would.
————————
There’s a lot of things that are staples in the Cleven household. but the one that never missed was the barking every time someone was at the door. Scooby would jump up his loud howl carrying alerting Chili that maybe he needs to start barking too; although, his didn’t carry the same way Scoobys did.
“Guys!” Gale scolded the dogs from the kitchen.
“It’s us,” Ken sang as they came inside toeing off his shoes. His prized Apple pie in his hands, Curt not far behind him, “Hi Scooby.”
“Uncle Curt!” Flynn came flying out of the kitchen and jumped into his arms.
“Hey, Flynn.” Curt spun her around, “How was your ball game?”
“Good! I got a couple good hits! Papa said we could practice tomorrow.” Flynn quite literally fell from the John Egan tree though. Not only did she have the same blue eyes and dark brown curls but the same sass and humor. Oh yeah, and the lifelong passion for baseball but ‘specifically the yankees’.
“I’ll see if I have time to stop over and I can toss you some balls. Sounds good?”
“Yes! You’re the best Curt.” Flynn wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tight.
“No you’re the best, Flynn. Why don’t we go help your dads set the table?”
Flynn nodded, Curt setting her down and she took off for the dining room attached to the kitchen.
“Delia, why don’t you take Ken with you to grab some drinks.” Gale nudged her from across the kitchen island.
“Okay,” she rolled her eyes with that sharp tone in her voice.
“I don’t like that attitude,” John popped his hip out resting his hands on his hips.
“I don’t like your attitude, Pa.”
Gale looked between the two of them having their nightly ‘drama queen competition’ as Flynn called it. Cordelia let out an irritated grunt stomping to the connecting door to the garage.
“Teenagers are fun,” Curt snickered.
Ken sat on the steps next to the fridge in the garage while Cordelia dug out the last can of Arnold Palmers for Curt.
“Is everything going alright, hun?”
“Yeah, it’s just, everything feels like…I don’t even know.” She handed the can of tea to Ken and shut the fridge door sitting back on her knees.
“That’s part of growing up, unfortunately. Do you wanna talk about anything?” At those words Cordelia looked down at her hands bashfully, a small smirk that resembled Gales following.
“Well, okay but you can’t tell dad and Pa.”
“Deal,” Ken rested his head in his hands.
“There’s this girl on my team, her name is Mel.”
“Does Curt know?” Ken interrupted her momentarily.
“No, we just started talking last week. She’s staying over with some of my other friends on Saturday.”
“I hope you have fun. But make good decisions,” Ken picked up the drinks off the steps next to him.
“Don’t worry, we haven’t even held hands yet. I can’t tell if pa would be upset that I’m dating or start crying?”
Ken let out a small chuckle, there's a good chance both could happen. Curt told him that when Cordelia had taken her first steps John broke down crying. He also cried when she turned one, he wasn’t ready for his little girl to be in such a rush to grow up still.
—-----------
John let out a loud yawn stretching his arms above his head, his shirt coming up just slightly. Gale leaned over, poking his stomach softly sending John into a loud laugh falling onto the bed right on top of Gale. “Did you have a good day at work?” Gale felt his cheeks heat red him and John were nose to nose.
“Yeah, we have a new probie at the station. Seems like a good kid. How about yours, Doctor Cleven ” John smiled because he knew exactly how to get Gale all flustered.
“Well, Captain Egan, I did have a good day. Today I found out Rosie went on a fourth date with that guy and he brought him to his apartment and let him meet Freddie.” He was pleased with himself that John's cheeks were now flush and he looked down slightly, just from calling him captain.
“Ooooh, do you know his name?.” John rolled off of him climbing under the blankets. He loved some good, who's dating who gossip? Someday he could be just as bad as Cordelia.
“No, that’s all he’s told us. We should find a time to go out and tell Rosie to bring him.”
“Good god, Buck. You’re just as bad as me and Delia!” Wrapping his arms around Gale he pulled him into his chest.
“Exposure therapy,” Buck giggles, turning his head to meet John's sparkly eyes. They laid there for a moment just basking in the energy of an amazing sixteen years together.
“Can you believe we’ve been married for ten years?” John rested his chin on Gale's shoulder, “Together for 16.”
“I know it’s gone so fast.” Gale tangled his hands into John’s pressing his back into John’s warmth.
“Next thing we know it’s going to be our 60th anniversary and Delia and Flynn are going to put us in a home.”
“Don't remind me,” Gale sighed, tipping his head back against John.
“At least we’re a long way from retirement?” John kissed Gales neck, truthfully he’d work forever if that’s what it took to keep this little life. He couldn’t imagine anything better than this, he was married to the absolute love of his life, “Well, maybe we should use my sexy firefighter body to our advantage.”
Gale mentally rolled his eyes with a smile on his face, John’s cheesy flirting never getting old. “I think that’s an excellent idea.”
——————
Thanks for reading!! Hope you enjoyed! Likes and reblogs highly appreciated! <3
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sweaterkittensahoy · 28 days ago
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Thinking about Hambone and Charlotte (Nurse OC; she works under Minnie), and I'm picturing him bartering with someone on ground crew to make Charlotte an ID bracelet with scrap metal. He'd just go out and buy one, but she's a tiny thing, and he's seen her try on the ones some of the other girls have, and they slide right off.
Whoever makes it gets clever and wiseass and attaches the metal bit with Hambone's name stamped, so that it rotates. One side says Howard. The other says Hambone.
When he's shot down, and Charlotte finds out he's alive but injured, she turns it over to Hambone and leaves it there until he's back with her again. It's easier, somehow, to see the name they'll all be calling him in the POW camp.
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lestweforget5 · 5 months ago
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Black Week (Part 3 of 3)
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hesbuckcompton-baby · 2 months ago
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Howard 'Hambone' Hamilton & Dawn Davis
I wouldn't know where to start / Sweet music playing in the dark / Be still, my foolish heart / Don't ruin this on me
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hesbuckcompton-baby · 1 month ago
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about the dawn/hambone plane boning experience........
VERY REAL.
ok so-
it's literally the first time they ever sleep together. it's ALSO the last time they see each other before Hambone is shot down, which makes their reunion several months later veryyyy awkward
these two are both people who, when they go for something, they go for it HARD. this is an example of that.
they hang out in each other's planes a lot, so honestly people have probably made jokes about them hooking up in there already - it's very much already a possibility that they're aware of
the seraphim had just had a rough mission - they were lucky to make it back at all, and Howard was FREAKED OUT. he definitely realised the extent of his feeling for Dawn whilst watching her plane take fire from his spot in the chin turret, at which point he completely lost his focus and almost fucked up the mission for everyone else
safe to say, he needs to get it out of his system - quite literally for everyone's safety
these two do not talk about their feelings, point blank Ever. it doesn't happen - they're never gonna have a dramatic confession
what they are gonna do is sit in a plane, drink too much beer, and stare at each other until they both realise the other is also trying equally as hard to resist the urge to make out. and then they're gonna make out, obviously
honestly? ZERO thought goes into this whole thing. one minute they're drinking in silence, the next they're on the floor having decided it's not worth the time it takes to take their clothes off
I CANNOT EMPHASISE ENOUGH THE SPEED WITH WHICH THEY JUMP EACH OTHER'S BONES. THESE TWO ARE THE MOST IMPULSIVE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WHEN IT COMES TO EACH OTHER
Hambone's internally screaming THE. ENTIRE. TIME. this poor boy's been fending off rumours that he's dating this woman for literal MONTHS and he's finally allowed to admit that he'd Definitely Be Into That If It Was Actually True.
Dawn's lowkey just pissed that they never did it sooner. this whole thing has been agonising for all parties involved because they're DUMB!!!
lying on the floor sharing a cigarette afterwards. because of course
dawn's using howard's jacket as a blanket. which is cute but it's also mostly because her shirt's gone and she can't be asked to find it and it's October so it's coldddd
they definitely just lie there in silence for a long time afterwards and there's this mutual fear like oh godddd did we just fuck up our entire friendship
but then they catch each other's eye and they just cannot stop laughing and suddenly everything's comfortable and nice again because hey!! just slept with my best friend who I'm also super in love with and it was awesome actually???
you cannot convince me that these two aren't absolute horndogs. Bremen happened for their own good. we got shit to DO!!!
in other words uhhh
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trashbag-baby666 · 5 months ago
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The Birthday Party-Rosie/Benny
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Summary: It’s Cordelias birthday party and Rosie promised he’d bring his new boyfriend…who happens to be friends with everyone already and a certain firefighter.
WC: 3,080
C/W: None
MOTA Masterlist!
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Rosie felt a nauseating wave of anxiety run cold over his body standing outside of the Cleven house. It certainly felt like he was about to perform open heart surgery instead of going to his niece's birthday party.
“Everything alright?” Benny came around the other side of the car, Meatballs leather leash wrapped around his hand.
“Yeah,” Rosie cleared his throat pushing down the dreading pit in his stomach. He couldn’t map why he was so nervous about it, this is quite literally his family. He felt the newly familiar feeling of Benny's hand wrapping around his delivering a small squeeze. He tapped his thumb against his hand, repeating the cranial bones to himself. Fluffy puppies on every third street. Frontal, parietal, occipital, ethmoid, temporal, sphenoid. The little acronym, his own way of fighting off the rushing anxiety.
“Let's do this thing?”
“Great mantra, let's do this thing.”
Rosie opened the backgate repeating the cranial bones to himself over and over again.
“Happy birthday, sweety.” Rosie hugged Cordelia, handing her the wrapped box.
“Thanks, so you…and?” Cordelia glanced over at Benny.
“Yeah,” Rosie bowed his head, a smile falling onto his face. He wasn’t sure if this was a blow to his ego or not. Talking to his 13 year old niece about the new guy he’s been seeing that he really likes.
“Don’t worry your secret's safe with me.” Cordelia snickered, she knew just as well as everyone else. That her papa was the biggest gossiper around.
“We’re uh, what do you kids call it? Soft launching? Our relationship today?”
“Okay, okay. But for my own entertainment we should keep playing along at least just for pa. It’s funny when he starts playing spy and tries to recruit Flynn and I.”
“Well we’ve got ourselves a deal then.” Rosie stuck out his hand for the blonde. May his favorite pastimes always be causing some sort of trouble with his nieces.
“So you did bring your new date with you.” Gale chuckled dryly pulling the chair out next to him for Rosie.
“And how do you know?”
“I saw you and Benny come through the gate holding hands.”
“You sneaky little witch,”
“Can’t believe I found out before John, he’s gonna lose it.”
“Delia made me take an oath to keep playing along so she could watch Bucky play Inspector gadget with Flynn. Where is he anyways?” Rosie looked around now noticing the absence of the loudest one at the party.
“Oh he forgot to pick up hamburger buns, so he’s doing that now. But can I ask? How did you and Benny get together?”
Rosie sat back in the metal chair crossing one leg over the other thinking back to the day.
Rarely did Rosie ever go for a beer, but today was different. He sat at the bar, a glass of lukewarm beer half-empty in his right hand. His eyes gazed at a sign on the tavern wall, the mounted elk next to the sign staring back as if judging him.
“Hey, Rosie? Do you mind if I sit here?” Benny’s voice broke through his thoughts.
There Benny stood, still in his work uniform, a brown leather jacket over his dark blue shirt, the sleeves highlighting his arms. Meatballs leather leash wrapped around his hand, the husky sitting at his feet panting happily at the sight of him.
“Oh, yeah, go ahead!” Rosie motioned to the seat next to him, suddenly feeling a mix of surprise and curiosity. Benny was more than just a familiar face—he was a reminder of a harrowing day at the hospital.
“Rough shift?” Benny asked, noticing the weariness in Rosie’s eyes.
“Something like that.” Rosie took another drink, tapping the cranial bones on the bar, repeating them silently in his head to fight the rising tide of anxiety. Memories of the CPR rounds on that dreadful call filled his mind—the young boy's wailing as Rosie tried everything to resuscitate the boy's mother.
“Let me buy you a drink,” Benny offered, breaking Rosie’s spiral of thoughts. “It’s the least I can do.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure, Robert.” Benny clapped him on the shoulder playfully, a gesture that felt strangely comforting.
Before Rosie knew it, he was tipsy for the first time in a long time. They stumbled into Benny’s apartment, laughing as he fumbled with the keys. The night was a blur of conversation and connection, laying the foundation for something unexpected and wonderful.
“Well, I was out at Lasso Love and so was he, so we had a drink together.” Rosie shrugged, he could get into the details later if he really wanted them.
“Nice, Bennys a good guy, I’ll give him the stamp of approval.”
“What’re you, my Ma?”
“Maybe. But I am a dad so I know a thing or two.”
Rosie rolled his eyes, this isn’t the first time Gales pulled his mom card on him.
“But you know what that makes us now, Rosenthal?”
“What, Cleven?”
“Firehouse wives.”
“We haven’t even dtf’d yet.” Rosie ran his fingers over his mustache, he only knew what that meant because of Cordelia.
“Define your relationship?…I’m hoping and assuming.”
“Yes, define the relationship! What else would I mean? Oh.” It clicked for him, Gale side eyeing him taking a long drink of his diet coke.
“Want a drink?”
“Sure,” Rosie pushed himself up from the deck chair following Gale inside.
Benny sat on the deck steps keeping a close eye on Meatball as him and Scooby chased after each other. Sometimes Meatball got a little too rough or he’d go sticking his nose in Chilis business.
Usually, he’d go and bother John at the grill but he couldn’t seem to find him. He wasn’t exactly great at social situations, even if he was surrounded by his firehouse family and all the kids running around.
“You pussy out of bringing your date, Demarco?” He looked back as Curt bounced down the stairs with a beer in his hand. He plopped down next to him and popped the tab open.
“No, I most certainly didn’t. But he’s talking to Buck,” Benny flicked his eyes over to where Rosie sat with that big wide smile. Oh, he loved that smile and positive energy that basically radiated off of him.
“Where?”
“What do you mean?” Benny looked back at the shorter man letting that little smirk settle on his face.
“Well, I only see…you lucky bastard!” Curt whacked his shoulder shaking his head, “Youse fuckin’ son of a gun! You bagged the hunk of the Cheyanne OR?”
“Hush, Biddick, we’re just having fun.” Benny snatched the can of Bud Light out of Curt’s hand and took a few drinks.
“So it’s only hookups?”
“No!”
“Well, isn’t that what having fun means?”
“This is not the same as you banging the new EMT until he agreed to move in with you.” Benny handed the beer back, what did he want out of this? Would marriage be something Rosie wanted? Was it something he himself even wanted? Would he have to convert to Judaism if they did get married? Maybe he would have to ask Rosie if he could speak to a rabbi?
“See, Benny, us moving in together has made carpooling after sex to work and home easier. Then there's no ‘well I gotta go back to my apartment,’ bullshit. It’s like drug dealing: you cut out the middle man.” Benny rolled his eyes listening to Curts tangent about how public transport here sucks compared to New York and the comparing and contrasting of drug dealing and his and Ken's relationship.
“Back to what I'm getting at, I’m glad you’re having a good time. Even if it doesn’t involve sex.”
“Who said I’m not having sex?” He pointed to himself and smirked, feeling like some 14 year old boy who just scored his first blow job.
“C’mere, just between me and you?” Curt scooted closer their thighs touching, “Does he fuck?”
“What the hell, Curt?” he shoved the other man's shoulder, “I don’t think I wanna disclose that at our nieces birthday party.”
“Fair enough, but you better fuckin’ tell me next shift.”
“Uncle Curt!” Flynn called from somewhere.
“Duty calls,” Curt sighed, putting his hands on his knees and standing up, “But you promise you’re gonna tell me at work?”
“Shut up, Biddick.” Benny whacked his leg with Meatballs leash. Sending the other jogging towards Flynn.
Back inside, Gale had handed Rosie a can of LaCroix from the fridge when John came bursting through the door. “Is it really that fuckin’ impossible to get hamburger buns.” he grumbled to whom Rosie and Gale presumed was himself.
“What’s up, babe?” Gale noticed that John returned with just a box of Twinkies and no hamburger buns and Rosie instantly knew he maybe should dismiss himself outside before the two started bickering.
“There’s no hamburger buns, Buck! Stupid work picnic literally bought them out everywhere. But I’m gonna go stress eat a twinkie in the bathroom before facing Delia.” John pointed his thumb over his shoulder to the bathroom.
“Wait, wait, John, what if I run over to the Jewish bakery and see if they have anything?” Rosie butted in, maybe just as a supplement to his own anxiety.
“Are you sure? Isn’t that almost on the other side of the city?” He watched John’s shoulders relax and his hand begin to reach for his wallet in his back pocket.
“Yeah, yeah, for sure.” Rosie nodded as he reached his hand into his pocket for his keys but then remembered Benny had them clipped to Meatball's leash.
“Oh, uhm, Benny has my keys, give me just one second.”
“It’s alright, I’ll drive. It’s John's turn to play party supervisor.” Gale swooped in noticing the raised eyebrows on John's face wanting to say something about Benny having his keys. “Better get out there, Flynn and Curt are poking at the pinata.” Gale lightly propelled John towards the door. Grabbing Rosie by his wrist and practically yanking him out of the house.
“Slow down, Doctor.” He jogged to keep up with Gales' fast strides to the driveway.
“Well did you wanna play 40 questions with John about you and Benny?” Gale swung his keys around his finger unlocking the tan, chevy equinox.
“Why do you have Rosies keys?” John came up right behind Benny on the deck nearly scaring the ever living shit out of him.
“Bucky, jesus.” Benny jumped a bit, turning to look at him. His stupid smile wide across his face made it apparent he thought he was so funny, “But I’m just holding his keys, he gave me a ride it's the least I could do.”
“He gave you a ride here?” John furrowed his eyebrows.
“Yeah, we live by each other.” Benny shrugged nonchalantly hoping that John would just shut his mouth about it.
“No you don’t.”
“Where are the hamburger buns?” Benny motioned to his hand with the twinkie box in it.
“Dammit I gotta go put this inside before Curt and Flynn see. You’re in charge.” All the firehouse guys knew how to get John's thoughts off something. Usually they only did that when they would have a rather traumatic call and John would get his brain stuck on what he could’ve done differently. But this time it would just have to be for Rosies sake.
As Rosie tapped his fingers against the car door Frontal, parietal, occipital, ethmoid, temporal, sphenoid. Following each repetition with a deep breath. Gale's voice cut through the tension like a gentle breeze. "Rosie, take a deep breath."
His mind still whirling with worries, Rosie paused, his fingers momentarily stilling. He looked over at Gale, finding comfort in the steadiness of his friend's gaze. "Are you upset about something else that isn’t hamburger buns?" Gale's question was perceptive, hitting the mark with surprising accuracy.
Rosie sighed, feeling the weight of his anxiety pressing down on him. "Are you gonna lecture me?" he asked, half-expecting a scolding for letting his nerves spiral out of control.
Gale's expression softened, understanding glinting in his eyes. "Well, I am going to tell you that you and Benny holding hands or just mentioning you’re dating won’t ruin the party," Gale reassured him, his voice calm and reassuring. "You already told Delia, and she's the biggest critic there."
Rosie couldn't help but crack a small smile at Gale's words, a wave of relief washing over him. Despite his initial worries, he knew deep down that Gale was right.
"Yeah," Rosie admitted, a sense of gratitude flooding through him. Unfortunately, Gale was right. He was just letting his anxiety get the best of him.
Gale nodded, his expression understanding. "It's okay, Rosie. We all have those moments," he said reassuringly, reaching out to squeeze Rosie's shoulder in a gesture of support.
Feeling a weight lift off his shoulders, Rosie took another deep breath, letting Gale's words sink in. He reached into his pocket grabbing out his phone to send Benny a text.
Rosie: I think we should just mention it when I get back.
Benny: I agree, if I have to listen to John interview me like I'm under FBI investigation, I’m gonna make Meatball bite him.
Rosie: Gale manhandled me out of the house when John started his questions…
They returned back to the party with hamburger buns indeed. John clapped for them as he snatched them away to toast them up on the grill.
Rosie sat down next to Benny at the table, “Am I your knight in shining armor, now?”
“More like my knight in khaki shorts and a polo.” Benny snickered, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. Ken’s eyes going wide across the table, he immediately grabbed onto Curt’s arm.
“Oh, yeah. They made me promise not to tell anyone.” Curt snickered, putting the arm around Ken.
“Kept your big mouth shut.” Benny flicked his gum wrapper at him.
“I’m not the one with the big mouth around here!” Curt pointed behind them at John, “Captain big mouth over there…”
“Oh, Captain big mouth now?” Gale laughed sitting down on the other side of Rosie. He felt a wave of comfort wash over him, feeling Bennys hand massaging his shoulder.
“Flynn,” John called to their youngest as she came running past the deck. The brown haired girl stopped to look at him and he nodded her over.
Flynn came bouncing up the deck, Chili in her arms, he only allowed her to carry him up the steps.
“Yes, papa?” She smiled sweetly at him, John crouching down to her height.
“Did Uncle Rosie introduce you to his new boyfriend?” John was going to do whatever he could to crack the code. Because he now had the growing suspicion that Rosie and Benny have been seeing each other. That and Gale knew something and wasn’t telling him.
“I was told not to tell, uncle Ro gave me five bucks to not tell.” Flynn pointed back to where the two sat at the table. John let out a sigh reaching for his wallet hoping he had at least a ten on him so he didn’t have to hand over a 20.
“For ten will you tell me?” John plucked out the bill between his fingers. He watched her eyes get a little wide thinking about all the ice cream she could get. She hesitated a moment looking down at Chili, maybe for his opinion. She then ran off across the backyard over to Rosie. John sighed, shaking his head, giving up on it for the moment.
“Happy birthday, dear Cordelia! Happy birthday to you!” they all sang as the blonde held her long hair back and blew out her candles.
“You have two boyfriends!” Flynn pointed at the two lit candles.
“Who taught you that?” John furrowed his eyebrows looking down at her in his lap, “You better not, though Delia.”
“Don’t worry, papa.” She laughed, pulling the birthday candles from the cake and letting Flynn lick the frosting off of them.
“Speaking of boyfriends,” Rosie cleared his throat. Pretty much everyone except for John, then Ham and Dougie because of a call, knew already, “Me and Benny just wanted to say that we’ve been seeing each other.”
Everyone smiled and congratulated them, John's eyebrows furrowed, staring at them a little dumbfounded on how he didn’t figure it out.
“Don’t think too hard about it, John.” Gale kissed his cheek fist bumping Flynn.
“Oh were you in on this too?”
“Cordelia asked us to,” Gale glanced over to her where she was cutting the cake, “Said she thinks it's funny when we leave you guessing.”
“My whole family is plotting against me,” John shook his head jokingly and tickled Flynns sides, “You’re gonna have to buy me ice cream with your bribe money.”
“I told you everything would go just fine,” Benny held open the door to his apartment for Rosie.
“I know, I know. But I was just worried that it would clash weirdly for everyone.” Rosie set the container of leftover cake on the counter and let out an exhausted sigh.
“What would we do if Buck didn’t approve?” Benny snickered, feeling up Rosies biceps to his shoulders, leaning his head on the tallers shoulder. Somehow everyone simultaneously decided that Gale and John were the unofficial mom and dad of the group.
“Gale actually told me he gives you the stamp of approval.”
“Oh does he now? I’d almost expect it.” Benny wrapped his hands around Rosie’s waist and began to fidget with his belt.
“Yeah, looks like you’ll have to try really hard to get rid of me now.” Rosie’s lips pulled into a smile and he ran his fingers over his mustache, “What’cha doin’ Benny?” Rosie leaned his head back into Bennys shoulder letting him take off his belt.
“Trying really hard to get into your pants.” Benny kissed up the side of his neck then biting at his earlobe, “Gotta feed Meatball then I’ll meet you in the bedroom?” Benny slapped his ass and took a handful of it.
“Alright, baby.” He turned his head pressing his lips into Bennys for a long kiss. Then Meatball let out a bark standing by his empty dog food bowl. Benny sighed and pulled away leaving a lingering hand on his waist.
“Okay, okay, boy.” Benny picked up Meatballs dish, Rosie watched with a smile. He really had struck gold that day at the bar.
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Taglist: @coastiewife465 @austeenbootler @storysimp @executethyself35 @slowsweetlove
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sweaterkittensahoy · 15 minutes ago
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How about fake amnesia with Hambone/Charlotte?
[Brady is a terrible liar; Douglass and Blakely can't keep a straight face to save their lives]
Charlotte finishes her shift with minimum fuss and happily passes her charts to Flossie, feeling a spring in her step as she steps out of the hospital. Howard went up today, but she'd seen Brady's fort come back when they'd all stepped outside to check for injury flares as the boys had come back. It's been long enough since everyone landed that Howard should be out of interrogation, and Charlotte hopes they have time for a walk before they have to split off for dinner. 
She rounds the near corner of the hospital to start cutting closer to the main section of the base, and she comes up short when she see Brady standing with Douglass and Blakely, tapping his pipe against his knuckles. "Good evening, gentlemen," she greets. "Coming to visit someone."
Brady's eyes look pinched when he looks at Charlotte. "Came looking for you, actually. Hambone smacked his head pretty good today, and he seems to have lost his memory."
Charlotte cocks her head. "What?" she says. 
"Amnesia," Blakely says, and there's a bright sort of look in his eyes. "Not too bad. He remembers where he is, but we asked him if he was gonna see you tonight, and he said he doesn't know you."
"Seemed really confused," Douglass adds, and Charlotte notices that Brady's eyes are getting squintier. 
Charlotte looks between the three of them, then puts her hands on her hips. "Fellas, you're having fun with me," she says, tone sharp. "You can't think I'd fall for this. I read every medical book the Red Cross had in the library. You don't get amnesia from a little bump on the head."
Brady looks relieved. He opens his mouth, but then Blakely steps in front of him, eyes going wide and innocent. "Charlotte, I'm telling you, his memory's all fuzzed up. You should definitely check on him."
"Right now. Immediately," Douglass adds. "He's by the fort."
Charlotte lets out a tsk. It makes Douglass and Blakely take a step back, knowing from experience it's the first sign she's getting steamed. "If his memory was messy like you say, you'd have rushed him to Doc Smokey," she points out. "You wouldn't be running up to find me just as my shift in ending."
"Charlotte," Brady says, and he shoves between Blakely and Douglass so he can see her and she can see him. "I promise, this is nothing mean. Just kind of stupid. Could you play along?"
Charlotte bites the tip of her tongue, considering. "Whose idea started whatever this is?" she asks. 
"Hambone," Brady says.
Charlotte considers his request. He still looks pained, like he really doesn't want to be part of this. Douglass and Blakely look excited, maybe even gleeful. Charlotte knows as well as they do that Howard's ideas can range from excellent to very, very bad and that there's very little in-between. But Howard wouldn't ever do anything to hurt or embarrass her. Not on purpose. 
"Okay, fine," she says and drops her hands from her hips. "I'll go to the hardstand. Which one?"
"Three," Brady says. "Thank you."
Charlotte shakes her head and steps around them. She hears Blakely chide Brady for 'nearly giving it away,' but Charlotte disagrees. She has no idea why Howard's faking amnesia, and she can't believe Howard actually thinks she'd believe Brady and Douglass and Blakely when she is, first of all, a trained nurse, and second of all, aware of their love of pranks, and third of all, not stupid in the least.
She makes it to hardstand three. Hambone is leaned against the side of the fort, broad shoulders obvious even in his flight suit. She feels herself smiling at the sight of him. He's looking at the sky, and his hair is bright gold in the setting sun. He looks so welcoming. She wants to run to him and let him catch her against his chest like she usually greets him, but he has fake amnesia, so she approaches directly but not hurriedly. 
He catches sight of her, and for a moment, he beams like she's the best thing he's ever seen. Charlotte has to cover her mouth with her fingers when he jerks and immediately drops the smile, clearly realizing he's not supposed to recognize her. 
"Lieutenant Hamilton," she greets, walking up with her hands behind her back. Very proper. "A few of the boys came and found me and said you hit your head."
Howard looks at her for a long moment, a pretty good facsimile of confusion on his face. "I'm sorry, Miss, do I know you?"
Charlotte goes up on her toes and bites the inside of her cheek so she doesn't laugh at the way he can't help but notice her. Her uniform isn't anything special, but she's small and buxom, and she knows how much Howard likes the combination. "I'm Nurse Thorton," she says. "Charlotte," she adds. "You and I, we're…friendly."
Howard tips his head to the side. "Friendly? Can't imagine someone as pretty as you being friendly with me."
Charlotte lets her grin out. He's doing a good job playing dumb. "Oh, it was real easy," she says. "You're a very sweet man."
"I've heard I can be a bit of a hound," he says. 
Charlotte shrugs. "A bit," she admits. "A little crass, even. But you're nice and you're smart, and you've never done anything but be sweet to me."
"That so?" Howard asks, and he leans forward a little at the waist. Not close enough to be within kissing range, but closer. 
Charlotte nods and takes one step closer. "I know I look very innocent and shockable, but I'm not. Not really. And you like that we can laugh at the same sort of jokes."
"What sort of jokes?"
"All sorts." Charlotte grins wide and taps her foot against the toe of Howard's boot. "You were real surprised the first time I told a dirty one. You didn't think I could know one."
"Because you look like an angel," Howard says, then laughs softly. "Well, shoot, I blew it."
Charlotte laughs and throws her arms around his waist, tipping her head back so he'll dip down and kiss her. "Why are you playing amnesia?" she asks. "And why would you try to get John in on it? He's a worse liar than me."
"Oh, he's downright awful," Howard agrees as he wraps his arms around her back. "But I wanted to give you something, and I wanted to have a little fun with it. Make you smile before I even gave it to you."
Charlotte tips her chin down and looks up at Howard through her eyelashes. His hold tightens, and she rubs her cheek against his flight suit. He smells like the fort–metal and grease and oil–and she loves it. It means he's back again. That he made it again. 
"What do you have for me?" she asks. 
"It's um…hold on." Howard takes a step back, one hand still staying on Charlotte's waist as he reaches into the chest pocket on his flight suit. "I got it last week, but I wasn't sure when to give it to you. And then I figured, I'd rather you have it if something happened than to not know I got it."
Charlotte takes the box he holds out. She lifts the lid and gasps. "Oh, Howard!" she yelps. Nestled on a tiny puff of cotton are a set of gold flight wings with a bomb in the center and bright, well-polished stones on the edges. It's a sweetheart brooch for a bombardier's girl. 
"You like it?" Howard asks. 
Charlotte looks up to tell him yes, and she's caught by the light blush on his cheeks and the way he's got his free hand tucked behind his back like he's at parade rest. Her sweet Howard. A gentleman and a jokester. A scoundrel and a sweetheart. Who went out and got her a brooch to show she's his girl and tried to set up a silly bit of fun to really make it memorable. 
"I adore it," she says. "And you," she adds. She plucks the brooch from the box and hands the box to Howard so she can pin the brooch to her uniform. "There," she says. "Right over my heart."
Howard looks at it, then his gaze meets hers. "Might be the prettiest girl I ever saw," he says. "Even more than usual."
Charlotte grabs him by the front of his flight suit and pulls him in for a good, proper kiss. He grabs her tight at the waist and keeps her close even as they pull apart. Exactly how she likes it.
[The bombardier sweetheart wings are real. I tripped over them on etsy the other day.]
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lestweforget5 · 5 months ago
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Welcome to Stalag Luft III
Please take note of the rating change and the new tags before reading. (The different author is only because I've taken myself off of Anon on AO3).
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lestweforget5 · 6 months ago
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Interlude #4: Two Weeks in September
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